‘I thought I’d try. Not sure I’m not going to burst into tears on the train, though.’

‘Fuck that, doll. Let’s stay in and drink.’

‘I need to go, Clio. I need to get out there and do something. At least just see what it’s like.’

‘I’ve been out there. I’ve been.’ The words smeared together on the roof of her mouth. ‘I’ll save you the bother: s’shite out there. S’a dreich bloody day in a country full of fearful idiots who’ve jus condemned ussall. It’s exactly the bloody same. Everything out there is exactly bloody the same as it ever was.’

As she stepped over the threshold and into the light, Ruth could see her eyes were red, swollen from a night of it.

‘Clio, have you even been to bed?’

‘Yes. I went to bed. I was supposed to be playing a gig an they were screening the live results on the telly in between acts. Then they went to fucking – fucking Clackanmannannanshire. Fucking mining country, babe. I’m from mining country. I’ll tell you this, they’ve got a warped bloody idea of solidarity, is what they do. Turn on their own in a heartbeat if thass what the bloody Labour Party tells them to do, I’ll tell you. And he was all over there with his big face, fucking voice of doom, wassn’ he? Gordon Brown. Bomp bomp bomp – thass his theme song. Big sad tuba or something. Bomp bomp bomp—’

She began marching around Ruth’s hallway, playing an imaginary trombone.

‘Clio. Clio, come on. Let’s get you sitting down.’

Ruth steered her into the kitchen.

‘Anyway, I was supposed to be playing this big big triumphant set, right, all the hits, ending up with “Rise Up” backed by a fucking choir – I mean, a community choir, but still. An I just sat there thinking how did we not see this. Because I knew. We all knew. Whole fucking auditorium knew just because of that one wee village. It got quiet, and people started to leave. How did we not see this? How did we fucking dare to hope that this wee shithole country could just – for once – for once, zat was all I’d asked, eh, overcome its inner fucking nyaff and actually try for something good and pure and positive? I mean, we planned a fucking choir. How fucking stupid are we? And see them all, all these men, all these men men men who’ve been dragging me through their shitey newspapers since I dared to come back to Scotland and be a woman with an opinion, they’ll all just be so smug. They’ll be sitting there, taking their celebratory dumps on their mahogany toilet seats someone cut down a rainforest and sent to B&Q to warm their arses with, tweeting each other their congratulations after they all write their one article again.’