Chapter Five

      The next day I take Lori for our Christmas Eve lunch. As it’s her mum’s turn to spend the big day with her, this is our festive treat together. My daughter chose the sushi restaurant – because naturally, what you really want in Glasgow in December is chilled rice and raw fish, shunting towards you on a conveyor belt. ‘Shivery food,’ her mother calls it, but in fact, I’m quite happy to be here. Although Lori usually spends a couple of weeknights at mine – plus every second weekend – it still feels kind of special as we perch on our stools and tuck in.

      ‘So, did you go to the school dance?’ I ask as she swipes her third plate from the belt.

      She shakes her head. ‘Decided not to.’

      ‘Oh, why was that?’

      Lori twirls a noodle around her chopstick. ‘You know what they’re like.’

      I can’t help smiling. ‘Not really, Lor. I mean, our school dances had Scottish music, and this awful situation of the boys all lined up on one side of the hall, and the girls on the other, and you were expected to walk over and pick someone …’

      ‘You mean the boys always picked? How is that fair?’

      ‘It’s not fair. It’s just the way it was …’

      ‘The girls never picked?’

      I laugh and shake my head. ‘I wasn’t responsible for the system, Lor. That was a long time ago …’ I break off, realising she’s dodging my question. ‘Anyway, why didn’t you go?’

      She shrugs. ‘I wasn’t allowed.’

      ‘By who? By Mum?’ I frown at her. It’s unlike Elaine to lay down the law about anything. She let Lori have her ears pierced at ten years old, which I wasn’t delighted about. But what could I have done when I only found out after the event?

      ‘Mr Fletcher said I couldn’t go,’ Lori says airily, referring to her form teacher. She flicks back her fine light brown hair and studies the conveyor belt. ‘I wish there were those little pancake things. You know the ones with the duck?’

      ‘Lor, why weren’t you allowed to go?’ I prompt her.

      ‘Just stupid stuff …’

      ‘Okay, but what exactly? It seems a bit severe—’

      ‘I didn’t want to go anyway,’ she says firmly, wrinkling her lightly freckled upturned nose.

      She snatches a dish of tuna sushi and spears it with her chopsticks. At fourteen, she wears her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, virtually lives in jeans, T-shirts and baggy sweaters, and shows zero interest in make-up. All of this makes her look, if not younger than she really is, like a girl of her actual age. It’s a relief, frankly. Her best friend Shannon has spray tans and wears terrifyingly thick false eyelashes, like fluttering canopies. She is well into boyfriend territory – livid love bites have been spotted on her neck – whereas, thankfully, Lori still seems to regard boys as mates.

      ‘It’s not really anything,’ she adds firmly.

      ‘C’mon, just tell me. I promise not to go on at you, okay?’

      She sniffs. ‘Just behaviour and things.’

      ‘Right. So what kind of—’

      ‘Dad,’ she says impatiently, ‘just being late for lessons, stuff like that.’ She sighs, and I decide to let it go for now as we tuck into our lunch. ‘So, where are we off to next?’

      ‘Fancy seeing a film?’

      ‘Yeah! What’s on?’

      Consulting my phone, I run through the list. It’s a madcap comedy we go for, and as Lori and I snigger our way through it – at one point a piece of popcorn shoots from her mouth – I sense my worries about her ebbing away. Never mind her lateness, the school dance, or whatever might be going on in her mother’s life (‘Everything’s fine, Jack! Why wouldn’t it be?’). I have friends whose teenagers would never deign to go to the cinema with them, and it’s one of my greatest joys that Lori doesn’t yet find my company repulsive.

      Back at her mother’s pebble-dashed terrace on the Southside, Elaine oohs and ahhs over the presents I’ve bought Lori, which she insisted on opening immediately, littering the living room with torn paper.

      ‘All that Lush stuff!’ Elaine marvels, arms folded across her dark green sweater. ‘You’re a lucky girl. It’s not cheap in there, you know.’ Behind her, a miniature fake Christmas tree is sitting a little askew on a side table. ‘Get me some henna next time you’re in, will you?’ she adds. I smile; Elaine is the only woman I know who still hennas her hair. Sometimes it’s a startling orangey colour, at other times a deep shade of rust; as a colouring agent it seems rather hit and miss.

      Now Lori is enthusing over further gifts of new jeans, a top (incredibly, she still allows me to choose clothes for her), a voucher for trainers and a small wad of cash.

      Lori hugs me goodbye, and disappears back into the living room as Elaine sees me out. ‘You’re so good to her,’ she says. ‘Thanks, Jack. So, are you off out tonight?’

      ‘Maybe. No plans as yet. How about you?’

      ‘Nope, just a quiet night in for us two.’ She pauses, and as I glance across the garden I can’t help noticing that one of her wheelie bins – the one for glass – is crammed to the point where its lid won’t shut.

      ‘Look at the state of that,’ she retorts, catching my gaze.

      ‘It’s pretty full,’ I concede.

      She steps further out into the garden, her breath forming white puffs in the chilly air. ‘That’s people dumping stuff in as they walk past.’

      I look at her incredulously. If Elaine wanted to lie, couldn’t she have blamed the bin men for failing to empty it? ‘You mean passers-by lean over your wall, open your bin and drop their empties into it?’ I almost laugh.

      ‘Yeah,’ she exclaims. ‘Can you believe it?’

      ‘Not really. Not when there’s a perfectly good council bottle bin down the road …’

      Elaine purses her lips. Her partying days are long over, she’s always keen to assert; now, it’s just a glass or two of wine in the evenings, and what’s wrong with that?

      ‘I’ve told you about this before,’ she adds, frowning, although she hasn’t; last time it appeared to be overflowing, she insisted it was ‘mainly olive oil bottles and pickle jars’ (Christ, it sounds as if I’ve created a hobby of monitoring the fullness of Elaine’s bin!).

      ‘Maybe you should put a lock on it?’ I suggest, at which she regards me coolly.

      ‘Jack,