I must look like I am just standing next to a tourist who is looking at St Giles’ Cathedral. Morag waves. I wave back. I remember once I left her in a bar at the bottom of Leith Walk because I had to take my brother home. When I walked past on the way to work the next morning she was still there. She had out-drank everyone and was having a bacon butty and doing a crossword with the cleaner. I turn and Violet is already gone. The night is clear now. I can even see a few faint stars. I touch the cold Luckenbooth ring and get a horrible feeling. Morag opens the red phone-box door. A police car pulls down the street. All things slow. Time is not going to be the same any more. Already it is different. Morag looks left and right. Crosses the cobbles. Presses her cold hand to mine. Takes my arm. She always puts hers inside mine. Same with her hand. Her side of the bed is right, we think in opposite orders to each other.

I must think of ordinary things.

It will keep me calm.

– Look, Ivy, there’s Mr Udnam with the Lord Provost.

– I see!

Mr Udnam holds a booklet. Edinburgh – War Time Guide. He brandishes it in the air. The men laugh loudly at something. A car waits beside them with its engine running. They are no doubt going out for dinner somewhere fancy.

– You know it was the Lady Provost’s Comfort Fund paid for that, Ivy?

– No, I did not.

– Aye, I used it tae find the address ay the Citizens Advice place. It’s got a guide to sleeping accommodation for men in the forces. They can go tae the American Red Cross on Princes Street, the YMCA, the Gunner Club, the Royal Scots Club, lots ay other places, and they can get fed at Church ay Scotland canteens, or the Granton R. N. Trawlers Club. The soldier I went out with last week took me there.

I swallow a fleeting moment of jealousy.

– What else does this fine publication recommend?

Mr Udnam and the Lord Provost show two women into the car. They wear glittery dresses. Faces over-powdered. Mr Udnam makes a great point of his own dignified exit off the street. He slips down into a plush leather interior.

– They have addresses fir cinemas – Garrison Theatre on Clerk Street, New Picture House on Princes Street, the Usher Hall fir music. It mentions the polar bear pool at the Zoological Park. There’s a quote fae Walter Scott in it next tae the Scott’s Monument, it says – (He) stood for his country’s glory fast, and nailed her colours to the mast. It recommends the public baths on Infirmary Street, golf courses, Central Library, Fountainbridge library – all the usual.

We walk quickly through the city. Entirely in our bubble, inured from cold. Approaching the Palais, we can see there is no queue.