Kerry Hudson

Tony smothered the life that me and Ma had built, a furry mould growing over a sweating slab of cheese.

We left the nursery in silence, Ma smoking a roll-up, looking like she hadn__ slept in a week or maybe like she had slept for a whole week. When the nursery was just a grubby finger smudge behind us Ma looked down at me and said in her poshed-up telephone voice: __ill you speak to Janie about swearing? Fuckin_ busybody!__ laughed and swung our linked hands.__ye, fuckin_ busybody.__leas of laughter escaped us and spiraled up into the hot, blue Scottish sky. We laughed all the way home