I am about 4 or 5
It is evening in Winter
My sister and I are in the kitchen of my uncle’s student flat in Partick (Glasgow)
It must have been a holiday break as no one was there but us

I am covered in earthenware clay dust
In lieu of nothing else to do I have been making a garage and cars out of clay

We have been alone in here for hours
It has been like this for days

The door opens
Our father is back from the pub

He tells us to get ready
I get as far as my shoes.

I ask him if he could do my laces
He calls me a fucking idiot for not knowing how to do it and mocks me

He tells me to tie them
I say I can’t

He shouts the order
I cry and fumble trying

I am waiting for the violence to start

My sister intervenes
She can get away with it because he doesn’t hate her

My father concedes but insist that she SHOW me how to do it for myself
He mocks me again for being a mummy’s boy
Eventually I get the hang of it

My father takes us down to the phone box at the end of Sauchiehall Street
He phones my mother

He tells her that he has the kids
He tells her she is a slut but she is being watched
He says that he is taking us and she will never her children ever again
I don’t understand either what is going on or being said
He gives the phone to my sister speak to her
I don’t care about the potential violence and bleat that I want to speak to my mother
I am lifted up and sat on top of the telephone directories
My mother is crying
So much she is hard to understand
I tell her that she shouldn’t cry that we will be back soon
My father takes the phone
He tells my mother again that he is leaving for good and she will never see us ever again
That she stand no chance to get her children back because she is an unfit mother.

We leave the phone box and walk up Kelvinhaugh
Me and my sister return to the kitchen
My father to the pub

My mother gathered all the medication she could find in the house and washed it down with vodka.