Thankfully, Priya Patel had just opened the front door of the next house and had obviously heard the last part of the conversation.
‘On you go, Tammy, I’ll keep the weans. Don’t you worry about a thing.’
She held out her arms and Tammy handed the baby over. ‘Priya, you’re a saint. Let me just get my bag.’
With that, she disappeared inside, then reappeared again just as Kiki had ushered Ford and Victor into Priya’s house, both of them too focused on their huge tubs of ice cream to register their mum’s urgency.
‘Can I give you a lift, Kiki?’ Tammy asked, as she darted down the path towards the car that was parked outside the gate.
Kiki thought about it. Glasgow Central was in the opposite direction of the Academy, and she didn’t want to take Tammy out of her way.
‘It’s fine, thanks – I’m happy to walk.’
‘Okay, well, thank you so much for coming to tell me. You’re a gem, you really are.’
‘Let me know how he is.’
‘Aye, I will do,’ Tammy promised as she jumped into her Kia Picanto and took off.
‘Do you want to come in for a cuppa?’ Priya asked, but Kiki shook her head.
‘Thanks, Priya, but I’ve got somewhere I need to be.’
As she headed down the path and out of the gate, Kiki weighed up her options.
Before Ava had stormed out, she’d shouted that she wasn’t going to go to the Academy tonight, but Kiki was pretty sure that she knew her daughter, and if she was right, Ava wouldn’t miss it. It meant far too much to her for that. She quickly checked Ava’s location on their family app. Yep, she was at the Academy. That meant there was only one place that Kiki wanted to be too.
They’d been explicit on the tickets that if you weren’t there for the show starting at 8p.m., then there would be no entry after that. Something to do with the documentary team filming the screening.
She checked the bus app, but even before she saw the confirmation of the schedule, she knew it wouldn’t get her there on time.
It was going to have to be a taxi. She opened her taxi app on her phone. Not a single vehicle within two miles. Not a surprise. The schools had broken up two weeks ago, so this was prime holiday time. Plus, it was too hot to be stuck in a car all day, so she didn’t blame the drivers for taking advantage of one of the few days of Scottish summer. She put the address in anyway and was informed it would be a twenty-five-minute wait.
No good.
She checked the maps app on her phone.
Thirty minutes’ walk.
She only had twenty-two minutes to get there. And no, there would be no time to pop home and change into the outfit she’d planned to wear tonight. Or fix her face. Or do something with her hair.
Should she just go home, make herself presentable and then go along to the Academy in time for the show ending? Hopefully, there would still be time to see him then, to speak to him, to tell him exactly what she needed from him.
But… the truth was that, right now, the far more important issue was finding Ava and checking she was okay. Making things right with her girl. Sharing her daughter’s experience of watching the show, cheering her on if she got some screen time and cheering her up if she was disappointed because she didn’t.
That was all that mattered now.
In fact, Ava was all that mattered every day.
And that’s why Kiki pulled the strap of her handbag over her head, so that it was across her body and her hands were free, tucked the hem of her dress up into her knickers and began to run.
24
GINNY
Ginny slumped back in her chair in the corner of the Academy canteen and decided that if a camera had been following her today it would make a cracking episode of a drama series.
What. A. Fricking. Day. And the worst thing was, she couldn’t even share all the details of her woes with the lovely Netta, because Ollie and Stevie’s situation was, of course, top secret.
