‘Bear with me Mary. I really appreciate all this by the way, but we are failing due to cultural and translation issues. To snub means to ignore which means to dinghy in my Scotland. It’s what you do when someone’s a cunt, but you don’t want to stab them yet. What do you do’ – he lifted his arms to indicate the neat hedges of Pollokshields – ‘in your Scotland?’

‘I breach them.’

Recalling the precariousness of his freedom, John Paul steadied himself.

‘Tell me everything I have asked you to do,’ said Mary.

John Paul liked the challenge. He drew a breath before doing the opposite of summarising: ‘So … I will take this piece of paper and read it at my leisure, but well before 2.00 a.m., and then eat it.’

Although there was no need for him to eat it, she nodded. So far so good.

‘Then I shall make my way to the digested address in a highly nonsuspicious manner.’

‘What is it?’ Mary asked.

‘What?’

‘The address.’

‘I haven’t eaten it yet!’

‘Okay. Then what?’

John Paul thought very hard. ‘Then I shall…’ He looked for the answers in Mary’s eyes, but she wasn’t giving him any.

‘Shit, I don’t know what I’m doing,’ she said.

‘Ha! Me either. I thought you did!’

25

Mary had to go over the plan with John Paul seven times. Her rage and resolve did not erode with the repetition.

When she arrived home, Jack had left a note and a saucepan of chicken soup on her doorstep, both of which jarred with her state of mind.

Where are you? Been trying to ring. Geez Mum, you even managed to get the feminists to hate your guts. Holly wants you to know she didn’t say those things to Derek. (You’ll never be her fave person, mind – small steps .) Holly and I both agree the guy’s a nutter. Everything’s gonna be okay, Mother-Figure, we’ll work this out. Like you always say, Ma, this too shall pass.

See you in court tomorrow to #savedad

Love you,

J xx

PS: I also think you’re a nutter BTW, but the good kind.

Good tingles doused the bad ones for a moment. She’d been feeling these waves since Jack was a minute old and his dark eyes chiselled into hers. It was more overwhelming that the falling-in-love swells she had in the early days with Roddie, and they were pretty intense – kept her under nine stone for three years.

What a relief. Jack was on her side. Mary put the soup on the stove.

Jack had talked to her nonstop as a toddler: ‘Boigyboigyboigy,’ he’d say, using aggressive hand gestures. She’d listen and reply in Boigy-ish, and her effort delighted him. They found other languages over the next decade, including Thomas the Tank Engine, Wi, and slingshots, briefly (Mary maimed the neighbour’s cat. Jack cried for days).