Donald closed the van door, turned and ran down the street, Malcolm’s muffled swearing still ringing out, lights in the flats around flicking on. They didn’t talk for a month. Donald went to work, went back to the boarding house, tried to find new routes to and fro that avoided Malcolm and Eileen’s street, until their next gig, a wedding, both of them just turning up at the venue and avoiding each other’s eyes through the sound check. They stood at opposite ends of the bar while they waited for the party to come in from the church, until Malcolm broke it, walked over.

‘Last time. I spoke out of turn. Pals?’

Donald took the proffered hand, shook it, said ‘Aye’ and nothing more, because it seemed right.

The woman, when she came, was an American. Of course she was. She called the flat in Inverness, long distance at nine in the morning, got Eileen. Fraser would chuckle when he heard, said Malcolm was getting sloppy, but Donald suspected it had all been meticulously planned.

Malcolm arrived at Donald’s boarding house with a black eye and a cut cheek from where Eileen had thrown shards of smashed plate at him, peeled a red-eyed Cliodhna in only her vest and tights off his shoulder and handed her to Donald.

‘I’m going back there to talk sense into that idiot woman. She’ll not take my girl away from me, especially not right now. She’s not fit to be a mother right now. A child shouldn’t have to see that,’ he concluded, self-righteous and tall. ‘You keep her here, Donald. Don’t let anyone take her.’

Cliodhna sat up on the kitchen counter as Mrs McKenzie, Donald’s landlady, made soup for the tenants’ lunch. He watched the girl watching the action – knives flicking through onions, water sluicing dry lentils, the lid over the huge pot of bones clacking at the boil. She hadn’t said a word or moved herself since her father left, and he’d had to carry her downstairs.

‘She’ll need to go back to her mother, Donald. There’s nowhere for her to sleep here tonight.’

‘I thought maybe she could bunk in with you?’

‘No, I don’t see that happening. Do I, lamb?’ Gentle and final, handing Cliodhna a slice of cooked potato that she took and held.

‘Eat it, lamb. You need to eat.’

‘What if I just bed down in the van for the night?’

‘And leave an unsupervised child in my house? No, that won’t do either.’

Cliodhna sleeping in the same room as her ‘Uncle’ Donald was not even an option to be considered, so neither of them mentioned it. Donald left her with Mrs McKenzie while he went upstairs to get his things, came back down to find her curled on the floor and howling out a single low note.