Clergyman's

We left the nursery in silence, Ma smoking a roll-up, looking like she hadn’t 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: “Will you speak to Janie about swearing? Fuckin’ busybody!”I laughed and swung our linked hands.“Aye, fuckin’ busybody.”Pleas of laughter escaped us and spiraled up into the hot, blue Scottish sky. We laughed all the way home
— Kerry Hudson