They had tickets that evening for a concert, where they’d be able to watch the results come in. Clio Campbell and Friends. Adele had wanted so much to see her again on this day of all days, feel everything coming back full circle, that she’d hustled to organize tickets for a group of seventeen friends, take deposits, make sure the transport routes were sorted out. Onstage, introducing other musicians, talking to the crowd, Cliodhna seemed smooth and certain – what other result could there be? she said. You’ve seen it out there, on the streets. Glasgow is saying Yes! Adele whooped and clapped with the rest of them, amazed again that this poised, elegant woman could have grown up in the same sooty space as her. Had they, really? Adele tried to place the girl on the adult and only succeeded some of the time.

There was a big screen behind the stage and it would flicker into life every now and again, showing live BBC and STV coverage of the referendum, at a command from Cliodhna to what Adele presumed was her stage manager or something. The faces in the studio Adele had only learned recently, after years of their having been an irritation, one of Dougie’s things; the crowd whooped for their favourites and booed and hissed the Better Together spokespeople as though they were at a panto. Cliodhna’s set was full of in-jokes that the crowd were drunkenly, happily lapping up; at one point she came onstage eating a bowl of cereal, in reference to an infamous sexist campaign advert, and all the women in the audience burst out laughing and cheering, started calling her name. ‘Go on yourself, Clio!’

Ash had bought two little plastic bottles of Prosecco from the bar for the first result coming in. Adele agreed to drink one glass – she was on shift the next morning – and the two of them popped and poured, ready to toast. The first region to announce was Clackmannanshire, a former mining area. Working class. Exactly the sort of place, everyone had said, that would vote Yes by a landslide. Adele had thought back to her unsuccessful coffee mornings, the scowling faces in her own village, and hadn’t been so sure, but everyone else had told her no, no, the pollsters know what they’re doing.