We moved there from Ayrshire, where my father worked as a farm labourer in places where his reputation did not precede him. He was known as the angry bantam, for his scrawny build and sudden temper. Others simply called him Mad Murdo. He was disruptive and unreliable: prone to fury and drunkenness. When we left for Glasgow, he claimed it was because he had bested the farmer in a brawl and been dismissed, although the truth was less palatable.

On this stage, in my mind’s eye, he was not present. He had secured employment at a mill, where he worked long hours, though he should have been home by now.

My mother stood at the sink, scrubbing clothes. She had little to her name but took pride in the appearance of her two girls.

Her belly was round, swelling with another child. She had borne two who did not survive infancy, both sons.

I was practising my letters upon a slate. My younger sister was playing at our mother’s feet. I was eight years old, my sister six.

There was a pot upon the stove, cabbage and potatoes simmering within. It was beginning to smell, the odour provoking a feeling of unease, though it was not the taste that concerned me. I was hungry, we were all three of us hungry, but it was not yet time to eat. Or rather, it was past time to eat, but we had to wait for my father’s return before the frugal meal could be served.

Mother was looking wan and tired. She wiped sweat from her brow with a hand reddened by scrubbing in the cold water. Then she spoke the words that I had been dreading.

‘Go and look for your father, would you?’

There was no curiosity or concern in her tone, only a beaten resignation.

Upon the stage, there is now an outside scene, a street.

I walked along it, my dragging feet a measure of my reluctance to reach my destination. There was no mystery to this quest. He had finished at the mill more than two hours before.

On this occasion I did not find him in the tavern, but barrelling out through its door as I approached, propelled by a bigger man at his back. I recognised the fellow from being sent on this sorry errand before. A few others followed him through the door, sensing the sport to come.

My father was short and wiry, his gait unsteady. The man at his back was tall, brawny and calm.

‘Go home, Murdo. You have already drunk more than your fill. See, here is your daughter come to fetch you home. Go while you still have a little money in your pocket so that you might be spared the wrath of your wife.’

The others laughed. There was a wildness in Murdo’s eyes owing to more than drink. The bigger man saw it.