Port Brokeferry's Doctor

DOCTOR KERR’S GLADSTONE BAG

He is old now. Grey in his hair more than not. He makes noises when he gets up from a chair, like it is a great and greater effort. He catches himself sometimes, a small complaint in his sighs and his groans, a sound made at the back of his throat as he stretches for a pen on his desk or a book from a shelf above his head.

Between patients he closes his eyes. Marjory knows. She has caught him out enough times, entering the consulting room to find him asleep or suddenly startled awake and not immediately knowing where he is. Now she moves on quieter feet. Gives him time to catch his breath. Bids those waiting to be a little more patient. ‘Doctor Kerr will be with you directly,’ she assures them, smiling all the while.

He forgets things too: the pen behind his ear, where he has put his glasses, the cup of tea that turns to cold on the edge of his desk. That is another sign, he thinks. Of his age.

There is a joke that he makes. About his bag. It is leather with a brass lock on the front. The brass key has long been lost. It is the same bag he has always had. A brown Gladstone bag. The joke is that it is an original. ‘The original,’ he laughs. ‘Once owned by Gladstone himself.’ He laughs to himself more and more, and that, he thinks, is something to do with his age too.

Behind his chair, on the wall, are pictures of all the Port Brokeferry babies he has ever delivered. Mostly they go to the hospital forty miles away. But some don’t make it. He has delivered thirty-eight. He has their names written on the front of the photographs. Some of them still send him letters to tell him what they are doing now, or postcards from far off places. On another wall he has wedding photographs of the same babies grown to men and women. It is a game matching up the babies to the brides and the grooms. There are small wedding favours pinned to the same wall.

Doctor Kerr walks with a stick these days. And even in summer he wears a coat and a scarf. He has removed the books from his Gladstone bag. Not because the Medical dictionary and the hospital directory are not useful on the housecalls he still makes, but because they are too heavy for him to be carrying from place to place.

He had planned to retire three years back, but does not know what else he would do to fill his days. So he continues, taking longer than before to make his rounds. Cutting back on his hours. Taking more short breaks. Patients now ask if he is in when they call, and if he isn’t they put off their appointments until he returns.

Doctor Kerr, pronounced like ‘care’.  The only doctor at the Port Brokeferry Surgery for longer than anyone remembers.

Nice News and More from Port Brokeferry

(Nice news - Someone called Donald from Derby read my children's book, 'The Chess Piece Magician', to his two boys. The boys both thought it was brilliant. And Donald thought it was brilliant, too... took the time to post his thoughts on a review page somewhere... in fact Donald thought it was 'brilliant, brilliant, brilliant'. I can remember reading it to my own boys as I was writing it... oh years and years back...  and it feels good that another father has done the same... I can picture them... the boys tucked up in their beds and the father seated on the floor with the book before him... and they enjoyed doing it.)

MAGNUS WRITES EVERYTHING COPPERPLATE

Magnus has been here for four years almost. Works in the bank. The only bank in Port Brokeferry. A sandstone building with tall windows and a brass plate on the wall with his name on it: Magnus Wood. ‘Branch Manager’, it says underneath his name. Makes him feel important every time he sees it. Says the same thing on his business card, though he has little reason for the five hundred cards that were printed by the bank. Slips them unnecessarily into the letters he has to write. Includes them with Christmas cards to his friends.

Magnus runs the place by himself. Opens four and a half days a week. The books balance with a precision that has twice in his four years earned him the title of ‘Branch Manger of the Month’. His name printed then on yellow paper embossed with the Bank’s logo and mounted in wooden frames. He has these certificates hanging where everyone can see. Keeps the glass in the frames clean.

He is not from here. Not from Port Brokeferry or anywhere near. He did not intend to stay beyond the first year. That’s normal. One year here and then Magnus was meant to return to the city with his prospects for promotion improved by the work he had done. He had his bags already packed at the end of his twelvemonths. Then something changed. So he stayed.

It’s quieter in the winter of course. Takings from the small businesses are not substantial then. Some of the shops still turn over a fair amount and ‘The Ship’ does a good trade all through the year. But in the summer there is more life. Still, Magnus fills his time keeping the books for Mhairi and her giftshop, for Edwin and ‘The Silver Herring’, and Callum and his Bakery. Everything written in a neat copperplate hand. Old fashioned is how his books look. Like they belong to another time altogether. The figures stacked in regular columns and every little thing recorded and accounted for. He even offers small advice on the improving of turnover.

In the evenings Magnus plays chess with Guthrie. They have a table in The Ship. Sometimes they have an audience. Filling in the time between moves, they talk over the events of their separate days, Guthrie never suspecting that hearing what he has to say about Eileen and her being late and sneaking off to the toilet to put her make up on when the café is quiet, is what keeps Magnus there in Port Brokeferry.

Magnus spoke to her once, Eileen from The Bobbing Boat Cafe. Quite recently. He had a drink in him. She did too. They laughed a lot, at nothing really, and he walked her home at the end of the evening. They held hands and kissed under the streetlights. He isn’t sure she remembers. They smile at each other when they pass in the street. Magnus says her hello and uses her name. She uses his back.

In his wallet he has ‘Eileen’ written in the neatest copperplate script on a piece of paper, the paper tucked in beside his own business card.

To Celebrate!

(a thousand views registered here on my blog... so I am posting this a day earlier than I intended... by way of celebration... another Port Brokeferry piece of writing. 

And what is Port Brokeferry? 

It is a place. On the coast of Scotland. Once a fishing town, when fishing could sustain a community. Now it is a quieter place. A little known haven for tourists looking for ‘small’ and ‘still’. The young mostly leave when they can. If they’ve any sense they do. But they come back sometimes, when they have lived. Just to see, if it’s still there.

I have chosen to write about a week in Port Brokeferry. Seven Days. At that point in the year when the quiet of winter tips into the start of the summer season and the visitors, such as there are, begin to arrive. It is a week of change in Brokeferry, and a time of interruption.)

EDWIN AND THE LEARNING FROM FINN

The sea is calm. Not glassy or still, for it is never that. But not chopped or rough and so the boat moves easy through the water and does not judder underfoot. Edwin steers it in to port. Can do it blind if he has to. Knows every turn of the wheel he must make. Has done it so often. First as a fisherman, though he was a boy at the start. Took his learning from an old man who was steadier on the water than he was on the land. More patient than Job, that man. Name of Finn, like in the stories of the great adventurer. And he had stories to tell too. 

Old man Finn once worked as a whaler in places where the ice screamed and howled and the sea ran red with the blood of those harvested whales. On good days it did. Finn saw men lose their fingers and toes to the weather. Turned black as meat when it is rotten, then snapped as easy as a dry dead twig; saw boats crushed by the flexing and stiffening of the water; saw the sea rise up as high as a green hill and almost crush them when it fell. Then Finn came home again. Back to Port Brokeferry, with his pockets weighed down with silver enough to buy himself a small fishing boat: ‘The Silver Herring’. Kept him in beer and meat and tobacco for the rest of his days. And at the end Finn passed everything on to Edwin, just as he had passed on all that he knew.

Edwin keeps the memory of Finn alive in the stories he tells his passengers. Two families from the hotel today. And a lady from the cottages for rent. And a handful of day-trippers. Kerry came as well. To see the seals out at The Snag. She has names for them all. They look up when she calls them. Like they could be pets.

‘And Finn came home sometimes, when other boats were empty, and ‘The Silver Herring’ weighed so far down in the water with the fish he’d caught, that it took three days to unload the catch. ‘The sea owes me,’ Finn said in explanation.’

Edwin’s voice alive with the telling and the remembering. His eyes always a little wet at the end of a trip. Even when trips these days took him only as far as The Snag and back. No basking sharks today or whales. Just the seals coming to the edge of the boat to see what was what. And for the fish that Edwin dropped and that they knew he would. It’s good for the visitors seeing the seals up close. Makes them feel like it was worth something, the trip out.

Edwin brings the boat in easy. Blows the whistle just for show. Martin runs up and down the jetty, waiting for the new lad on the water, Bran, to throw the ropes ashore. Martin laughing like it is a game and he is a child again and he calls Edwin, Finn, like he’s living in another time.

MIDDAY MONDAY IN PORT BROKEFERRY

(The children's novel I am writing is over 32,ooo words long... so I am pleased with the progress... lots of surprises there... and so many dead bees. 

And Port Brokeferry grows, too - and characters begin to reappear and interact... and it's still only Monday... the first day of our week there. Here's Blair again... the postman... and a wee sneaked glimpse into the secrets he knows. If you like any of these, you can let me know.)

MIDDAY MONDAY

Blair stops at ‘The Bobbing Boat’ for coffee and a bacon roll. They know him there. He is expected. Same time every morning. Same time for each of the six days they are open, give or take ten minutes. He sets the mail down on the counter. Circulars mostly and bills in brown envelopes. Then he takes a seat. His usual seat. Eileen brings his coffee and his roll – the bacon cooked until it is crisp enough it makes a noise when it breaks. A small sachet of brown sauce on the side of his plate. No words are exchanged.

Blair sits facing the window. He does not unstrap the bag of letters he still has to deliver. He takes his responsibilities very seriously. It’s a job he has done for years. Has a pride in doing it well. That’s why he keeps quiet too. He knows if he starts then there’ll be no stopping. All the secrets he has will spill out if once he starts talking. He sees things, you see. Doesn’t mean to. On his rounds. Small things mostly, but sometimes not so small. Like today. Like every day.

At ‘Christine Cuts Hair’, the shop closed, and Christine there. Cutting the hair of Lachlan Davie. Doesn’t mean much, except the lights were out. And they were laughing and touching each other. Christine in her underwear. Lachlan with his shirt off. That’s what Blair saw through the glass. Wouldn’t do to tell others any of what he saw them at.

He clears his throat as if about to say something. But he doesn’t. He checks his roll. Three slices of bacon. He tests the bacon. Snaps crisp. He tears open the sachet of sauce with his teeth and squeezes the contents over the top of the bacon. Eileen watches him from behind the counter. Guthrie watches Eileen. They still aren’t speaking.

Earlier Blair saw Mr Struan Courtald slip into the home of Mrs Alison McAllister. Not the first time he has seen that. About eleven o’clock. Sharon McAllister would be at her work in the Victoria Hotel. As he pressed the mail through the letterbox Blair saw Mr Struan Courtald kiss Mrs Alison McAllister on the cheek. At least he thought he did. On the cheek, but a kiss nevertheless.

Blair stirs his coffee and lifts the cup to his lips. He blows into the cup before drinking. Lips pursed like kissing is what Eileen thinks and turns away at the thought.

At number 42 he heard Kyle Downs having words with Susan Downs. A husband and wife thing. She was crying and he called her bitch and slammed a door. Blair didn’t mean to hear. He left the mail on the mat just inside the house and crept away, shutting the gate behind him without making a sound, without looking back.

He finishes his roll. Leaves money on the plate. Enough to pay for his breakfast and a little extra for the service. He departs the shop without a word.

Eileen keeps the money she collects in a jar behind the counter till the end of the week. Tips. Guthrie sometimes adds a wee bit silver from his own pocket, quietly, so Eileen doesn’t know, just enough to make it amount to something. Blair saw him do it once. There’s secrets there too. 

The Post Office in Port Brokeferry

(an e-mail to tell me that someone likes my story 'Poking Wasps with Sticks' which is up at JBWB... someone thinks it as good as any published story he has read and that it has a quality that reminds him of Ian McEwan... it's always encouraging to hear someone likes what one has done)

THE SHOP THAT SELLS EVERYTHING

Years back it was the post office. Just stamps and postal orders then and the air smelling of dry paper and dust, and Mrs Campbell’s cologne. It came in small clear bottles, that cologne, all the way from Germany, with a silver and blue label on the front and numbers for a name. Came in a small brown paper wrapped parcel three times a year. Some said it was a soldier from the war who sent it. There was always a letter tucked in with the bottle. And Mrs Campbell might have written back.

Mr Campbell was always old. That’s what it seemed. Old when he shouldn’t have been. Took over the post office from his father and there’s some that never noticed the difference. Except that slowly the post office began to change. Sold postcards first and birthday cards and some that said ‘Get Well Soon’. Then small gifts with ‘Port Brokeferry’ written on them. For the tourists. Snowglobes in summer and sticks of rock and toffees in tins with a picture of the post office on the front.

When the girl, Izzy, was born the villagers bought more and more stamps. Bought them in one’s and two’s so they could make daily trips to the post office counter. There to see the baby in her basket, sleeping, its small pink face all crumpled and new. And Mrs Campbell stamping the postal orders more gently on those days so as not to wake her.

‘Good Morning, Mrs McAllister,’ might well have been the first words that the post office baby-girl spoke. The sounds she made maybe not shaped into words quite, but the rise and fall of what she said something very like.

And the post office sold small provisions then. Gingernut biscuits and malt loaf. Tea bags and sugar. Became ‘The Post Office and General Store’ and a big window was put in at the front, and it was Izzy’s job to make the window pretty with the new things that they sold.

Always a queue, backed up to the door, and the sprung bell above the door making a small bright music every time someone came in or left. Mrs Campbell passed the time of day with her neighbours. Taking an interest in what was in their lives. She knew things after all. The postcards and parcels and letters all came through her and she could tell things from what was to deliver and what was afterwards sent.

One day, selling newspapers and magazines and children’s comics. Izzy read the comics before she put them out on the shelf. And nails they sold, scooped from brown boxes and weighed in white paper bags, and batteries in all sizes, and bamboo stick nets for catching small green crabs on the beech. And plastic cars or Matchbox or Corgi. And milk in glass bottles and orange juice too, with green tin foil caps, and eggs and cheese.

Came the day when Mr Campbell hung up his postbag and they employed Blair. Never says much, the new postman, but no complaints from the villagers. And not so new really, been doing the job for some years. Does his rounds well enough that you can mark the clock by him, pretty much. Some in the village do.

Izzy grown to woman now and she stands behind the counter when her mam is too tired to leave her bed upstairs. Smiles like her mam, Izzy does, like her dad, too, only he is gone and not often remembered. And like her mam, Izzy talks to everyone coming into the shop. And she watches Blair sort through the mail before packing it into his bag, expecting that today will be the day that he talks, and she does not want to miss that.

And the bottles of cologne have stopped coming.

Port Brokeferry - still Monday

(Competition news: Another success - Cinnamon Press will publish a story of mine in an anthology next year. 

As for Port Brokeferry - a piece called 'Christine Cuts Hair' should be next but I hung that up here back in May... so skipping onto the one below which was online somewhere else, but the man had a slightly different name there. Now he is 'Dodie' and that feels more Scottish. Other small things changed, too, to fit this new place and the new people here.)

DODIE BREDWELL IS LOVED

Dodie Bredwell has a scarf as red as rust, or a sunset. Wears it knotted to his chin. Looks like a beard. Dodie like one of the patriarchs in the minister’s bible, full of beard. He has spiders in his ears too, and a glint in his green eyes. And he is always laughing. You hear him before you see him, laughing at nothing it seems. Laughing at the thoughts in his own head.

I’d like to know, says Lillian. I’d like to know what he thinks, to be always laughing.

Dodie Bredwell has nonsense in his head, and mischief, mixed in with all the learning. There’s some as think a teacher’s thoughts should not be so arranged. That Dodie ought to be more serious. A man of books shouldn’t be so lighthearted, that’s what they say.

He rides a squeak-squeak bicycle from his house to the school, a crooked line drawn the length of the sea-front road, a bag of books strapped to his back, his scarf flying behind him, and his laughter too.

Evelyn shakes her head when she sees him, and she can’t help smiling. And Edwin smiles, his tax return forgotten in hearing the squeak-squeak of Dodie’s bicycle. Magnus smiling, and Eileen at the open café door, and the baby that Grace carries in her arms, and Guthrie and Sinnie. All smiling. And Huntly in his window notices the smiling. Even Martin, his hands raised to the seagull-sky, or bent to pick Callum’s cigarette stub from the gutter, turns his head and smiles at Dodie Bredwell’s red-beard-scarf flapping, and his laughter trailing after him.

Dodie Bredwell, ‘Mr’ or ‘sir’, stands in front of his class all mornings, hands folded behind his back, his university gown over his jacket. He laughs then too, calling the children by names he has invented, close to the real names, but far from them also. Jellybean for Geraldine. Headboard for Edward. And the names stick, some of them, carried through all the days thereafter, and laughter following all the children he teaches, laughter warm and fond.

And on a Saturday early-night, Dodie Bredwell is the best of company at the bar in the Ship, and full of stories to turn heads, and the whole pub laughing then, it feels like. He has his own chair, sits like a king holding court, empty beer glasses collecting on the table in front of him like trophies easily won.

Yes, Dodie Bredwell’s the laughing king of the Saturday night Ship. Just as long as he is not crossed. For it’s never wise to cross a king. No, not for anything, not gold or silver, and not for anything so cheap as a dare. For Dodie Bredwell, though slow to anger, has a temper that makes the air around him fizz like electricity, and he growls making his own thunder, and others turn white and shrink back from his bullish advance, and with good reason. Dodie Bredwell is a big man, so big he ducks his head under doorways.

And Corinne loves him, thinks she does, though she is only fifteen.

ANOTHER POSTCARD FROM PORT BROKEFERRY

(News first - 'Chesspiece' is book of the month with Books From Scotland.com - have no idea what this means, but it feels good.

Below another piece from Port Brokeferry... this links back to the one about Alice and her framed photograph... an unrequited love story - and never to be requited.)

HUNTLY SMILING ALL DAYS

She thinks she is unobserved. But I see her. Every morning the same. She stands by the window. Just back a little. In the dark behind her curtains. But I can still see her, if I crane my neck a little. She is a picture, too. I laugh sometimes. Not cruelly. It’s just that, seeing her in her bra and pants is something years back I’d have given anything for. I’m talking years and years. I sometimes wonder where they’ve gone all those waiting years. Waiting for Alice Greyling to notice me. To drop a smile in my outstretched palm, just one. But then Alice doesn’t smile no more, not for nobody. Not for time upon time. There’s no one left but me remembers her smile, that’s what I think. I bet she’s even forgotten herself, what it is for Alice Greyling to smile.

I see her every morning, her breasts sagging now, and the folds of her stomach over the waistband of her pants. Her hair is grey and her eyes grey too, but she is still the most beautiful woman in all of Port Brokeferry, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I see her every morning looking to the far end of the street, or out to sea sometimes. And she touches her neck. Keeps her hand there. I can see she is lost in thought. The same serious thought every new day. And I wonder what it could be. What it is that could so occupy the thoughts of the most beautiful woman in Brokeferry.

Of course not everyone thinks her beautiful. But I remember her as she was. I swear she brightened the day when she was in it. I think of her even when she is not there, at the window in her bra and pants. I think of Alice later in the day, when she is gone from the dark beyond the window, when she is dressed and about her business in the street, and not smiling to anyone. I think of her and I write her letters sometimes, imagining that she is my sweetheart and my lover. I call her ‘dear’ and tell her things to make her smile. I tell her how Mad Martin chases seagulls every day from one end of the beach to the other and back again. I tell her that Edwin’s tax return is late and that Magnus the book-keeper waits and waits for Edwin to call. I tell her that Dodie Bredwell, the school teacher, was seen drunk with his pants down and leaning against the sea wall one Saturday night, and he had to be helped home by the girl from the café and Athol Stuart, the policeman. And I imagine Alice Greyling smiling at some of these things, and writing back to me, calling me ‘dear’ then, and inviting me for tea on a Saturday afternoon.

I afterwards burn those letters I write, so my wife doesn’t see. And that makes me smile all the long days that are left to me. They’re just letters.

THE CHESS PIECE MAGICIAN - some recognition!

Just been informed that my children's novel, 'The Chess Piece Magician' is 'Children's Book of The month' with the Scottish Book Trust. Described as a 'fantastic debut novel'. All of this is very positive.

All very encouraging. 

Next year there will be a tour of the Lewis chess pieces around Scotland. How serendipitous is that? The book was originally inspired by an exhibition of the Lewis chess pieces in Scotland. Feels like the completion of a circle... which is very apt considering the book and its themes.

Surely worth a look!

PUSHCART NOMINATION FOR 2009

Last year Blood Orange Review nominated my flash 'A Pebble From The River For Annie' for a Pushcart Prize. This year the staff at Vestal Review have nominated 'Folding Shackleton into a Matchbox' for the same. That's some neat news. This flash is so special because it came out of a memory about my dad... not that it was all true, but it found its inspiration in the truth.

Port Brokeferry Policeman

ATHOL – NOT MUCH TO DO IN A DAY

Likes his tea strong enough you can almost stand the spoon up in the mug. He squeezes the tea bag, drops it into a metal bin half full of torn paper and empty envelopes. Sweet, too, his tea. Three sugars. Just a little milk.

Athol marks the days off on the calendar. He checks the book diary for Monday’s appointments. Checks ahead just in case. Looking at what the week holds in store. Helen will be in later. She keeps him mostly right. Till she comes, he mans the desk. He takes any calls and writes up reports or reads police bulletins that don’t really have much to do with Port Brokeferry.

Not a lot for him to do in the winter months. Town’s quiet then. Saturday nights there’s the street to watch. Outside ‘The Ship’ especially. Around closing time. Never much in the way of trouble, but he has to be there in case. Just to remind them all to keep it down a bit. Lachlan Davie has a loud voice when he’s a drink in him. Dodie Bredwell too, laughing fit to wake up the street. Singing sometimes. Athol smiles at them. Like they’re family. Tells them there’s kids sleeping in their beds and they should think on that with their singing. He herds them along the street to their homes. Sees their doors shut. Everything quiet again by midnight.

Then in the summer there’s the visitors. Families more often than not. Some staying in the Victoria. Some renting cottages at the front. Never any real problems with them either. They ask for directions mostly. Or for information on the sailing of ‘The Silver Herring’. Or when Mhairi’s Brokeferry Giftshop opens. Like he’s the tourist board. Not like he’s the policeman for Port Brokeferry. He smiles and hopes they’ll have a nice stay.

He keeps an eye on Martin too. He is family. His cousin on his mother’s side. Played together as boys. Close as close. Him and Martin and Colin Donaldson. The three musketeers. Sword fighting with sticks on the beach. He remembers that. Yes, he keeps an eye on Martin. Makes sure he’s eating proper food. Washing himself. Martin’s clothes he collects in a black bag and Athol gets them clean again and returns them on hangers.

And Athol sits and has a drink with him some evenings. Martin calls him ‘Mr’. Never remembers who he is. Talks about Col all the time. How things were when they were boys. Just Col and Martin. As if Athol wasn’t there. As if he had never been. Martin tells the same stories over and over. Athol listens. Like listening to music.

At the end of the day Helen’s girl, Grace, comes in and does a bit of cleaning at the station and a wee bit filing. Makes Athol tea the way he likes it. Strong with three sugars and a little milk. Washes the mugs afterwards. Never says much.

Alice in Port Brokeferry

(This originally appeared on another site, has since been removed and so finds its way here as part of the Port Brokeferry place)

ALICE HAS A FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH BY HER BED

She stands looking out of the window, dressed only in her underwear, but standing in the shadows. The sea shifts, green under a blue sky. There’s always been the sea, she thinks. Always there, shifting, and shushing, bidding the people of Port Brokeferry hush. Only Alice will not be told, will not hold her tongue. She calls out a name, loud enough that heads turn on the street outside the café, but no-one knowing where to look.

Alice, unseen, touches her own neck, like he did once. Lays her palm flat against her skin, just under her hair that is loose, and grey now. If she closes her eyes, keeps them closed, she thinks it is something the same, her hand like his hand on her neck.

But it isn’t the same.

And if she listens hard, she can hear his voice, believes she can, his voice at her ear, giving her back her name, slow and whispering. ‘Alice. Alice. Alice.’ Like he used to do.

But today it is just the sea she hears, shushing and shushing.

‘Bastard!’ she calls, and lets her hand fall to her side.

Blue over green, and far out on the water something like flames, burning, burning, sunlight tip-toe dancing in gold slippers on the surface of the sea.

‘Bastard,’ she says, quiet now.

Alice keeps a picture of him close to her bed. In a gilt silver frame, dust behind the glass and the photograph black and white, the paper yellow with age. He smiles out at her, a boy in a fisherman’s jersey, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a mending net on his lap.

He had it taken specially. And on the back he wrote his name, just his first name, in letters like a child. She does not know why he did that, as if it was something she could forget.

Alice lifts her hand to her mouth, presses the tips of her fingers to her lips, and it is something he did, her fingers to his lips when he left her bed, in the dark of not-yet-morning. She watched him walk the length of the street to his mam’s house at the far end, five mornings in a row. And the last day, there was a spring in his step, she thought, and he hummed a snatch of song. It annoys her that she can’t remember the music.

Shush, shush.

‘I’ll tell her today,’ he’d said. ‘I promise. And then…’

Only, there was no end to what he said. And Alice never saw him again, doesn’t know if he did tell her, his mam.

‘Bastard,’ she says. No sound this time, just her mouth giving shape to the word. ‘Bastard,’ and ‘bastard,’ and ‘bastard.’

Alice stands looking out of the window, dressed in her underwear, standing in the shadows, and she cries over a boy she once knew who wrote his name on the back of a photograph in case she ever forgot.