Jess snaps, swoops down, yanks the cat from Izzy and tosses the toy at the display stand. The toy misses, bounces off a shelf and hits the floor.

Izzy’s face reddens and crumples. From a sniffle she’s soon crying hard.

Jess closes her tired eyes. Opens them only to stare at, or through, the floor. Having now gone through her overdraft of patience, sympathy and compassion, she wrestles with anger and is aquiver as she strains to hold herself together. When she looks again upon her sobbing daughter, her eyes drift to Izzy’s old school shoes, relentlessly polished and mended at home. Eyes creasing and on the verge of tears, she gently touches her forehead as if in pain.

As if she’s mad or cruel, a passing shopper, an elderly woman, peers at her and the judgemental scrutiny forces Jess to conceal her distress, before striding towards the till. Still crying, Izzy rises from the floor and races after her mum.

Tony has vanished from the other side of the window.

* * *

Jess strides away from the supermarket. Izzy scampers after her mother, still sniffling. ‘Mummy. Mummy. You’re just leaving me!’

‘Not in the mood, Izz.’

‘Daddy!’

Instantly alert, Jess spins about, her expression transformed from stifled anger to caution, and sees Tony lower himself to one knee and scoop up his daughter. ‘Christ.’

Izzy wraps herself around her father, laughing. Over her shoulder, Tony looks at Jess and smiles.

‘What you doing here, Dad?’ Muffled, from Izzy.

‘Just passing through and I seen this little girl bouncing away and I thought, I know them pigtails. That’s my kitten. And who is this? Stowaway. Jumped in me pocket as I tried to leave the shop.’ Tony offers up the Doctor Fizzle soft toy that Izzy has just been coveting. Izzy shrieks with delight. Tony rises to his feet, holding Izzy’s hand, still smiling and mock-bemused by the coincidence of happening across his ex and daughter in the street. ‘Where you been, kiddo?’

‘We went to look at—’

‘Izzy!’

Izzy stops talking and guiltily peers at her mother.

Jess refuses to look at Tony and becomes nervy, her voice losing its edge. ‘It’s not a Daddy day, Izz. Say hello but we gotta get on.’

Izzy looks up at Tony to see what he thinks about that. ‘Soon, Daddy, when you’re not angry any more, I’ll be coming to see you every weekend.’

Tony’s expression hitches on a rictus more than a smile. He glares at Jess. ‘Not soon enough for me, Kid. I miss you so much it hurts your old dad right here.’ Tony taps his heart then leans over and kisses Izzy on top of her head. Izzy hugs her father’s waist.

Jess turns away, her jaw clenched as the conversation continues behind her back.

‘Every day I don’t see you, bit of me heart chips off an’ all.’

‘Where does it go?’ Izzy asks.