Where’s your home, hen? Is it far from here? Is it bonny? My home’s no bonny. I don’t know that I’ll ever see it again, anyway. Not unless my girl takes me away. She might be all right, to go back there noo. Those wans she was at school with, they might still remember though, aye, maybe we should just leave it. It’s better if she doesny exist, so it is. No, no, you need to stay here till I mind of it, what it is, the thing. I’ll need to get my nails done, I know that much. I’ll maybe need the hairdresser in. I’ve got the money, you just ask sister. It’s a big thing, hen, a big thing I’ve got coming up. Did you see I had a visitor earlier? She knows all aboot it. She had something she had to tell me, but it couldny be right. She’s going to come and pick me up, though – that was it, hen, I’ve minded now. She’s going to come and pick me up in a week. We’re goingty go out then for the funeral and it’ll be fine, so I’ll need my hair done. I’ll need my hair done for that.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A novel is a group effort, as one of my favourite people always says. This one wouldn’t have been possible without the effort of a pretty wonderful group, all of whom deserve thanks:

• Bekah Dey, Caitrin Armstrong and Ellie Shaw, for decades of friendship in general and support and encouragement on this book in particular

• Simon Sylvester, Rachel McCrum and Lisa Brideau, for very useful early feedback

• Catriona Duffy, for politicizing Clio’s lipstick

• Jen Dolan, for organizing Adele’s ward

• Gemma Cossins and Rhiannon Handslip, who found a home for Hamza

• Gillian Steel and Rowena Goalby, for lending me space to write in

• Charlene Boyd, Kate Robertson, Outi Smith, Irene Bissett and Bridget Innes, for childcare, without which writing would and could not have happened

• Sarah-Jane Forder, for a thorough and thoughtful copy-edit

• Jordan Mulligan at 4th Estate, for being the most passionate advocate a long and unwieldy political novel with multiple narrators could ever hope for

• Charlie Brotherstone, for continuing to believe in me over many years

• and Alan Bissett, for understanding, loving, fact-checking my knowledge of 1980s blue-eyed soul, letting me bounce ideas off him, and working so very, very hard to earn money for both of us so that I could finish this book in time before our second baby was born. This one’s always for you, fella.

About the Author

KIRSTIN INNES is an award-winning writer and journalist living in the west of Scotland. Her first novel Fishnet won the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize in 2015.

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

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Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

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