I have a sense of what will come so I dance – as if I won’t be shot at one night while walking home from an explosion that was laid by my own bare hands. I will think the bullet only grazed my head but it will in fact be lodged in there – without me even knowing – for years. I dance – as if when I am caught and repeatedly drowned to almost the point of death, when they ask my name again, I still refuse to give them it. I dance – as if I don’t already know that they will give no recognition to a woman like me. I am not rich, or middle class, or educated. I don’t need that anyway. All I need is to keep seeing my brother’s face and that one day he walked into a camp and never came back out again. I am doing what I can for my girlfriend, for my family. I dance – as if I don’t know that no matter what I do – when I utter my last words in French, as an old, old lady and when they celebrate so many of the British spies, many, many, many years in the future – the name Ivy Proudfoot will not be mentioned at all. I dance – like when I die, the other Night Witches will come for me in a wooden biplane – and fly me out in formations of three.

1956

Flat 5F5

Agnes Campbell (63) the devil’s daughter, her lover and the child

THUNDER RUMBLES across the Firth of Forth. The sea is black. Whorls throw up seaweed and driftwood. Waves slap off Granton harbour. Masts rattle and shake. There is a whistling sound from boats funnelling wind. All the pubs in the city are closing. Bar staff hunker down for a lock-in. Those still on the streets hurry. Coats over their heads. Umbrellas’ torn-back spikes exposed and useless, abandoned on streets and bridges and bus stops. The trams have stopped. Soon they will be stopped for good. No trains will run tonight. Buses swerve on slick wet streets. The Water of Leith has burst its banks. The colonies in Stockbridge are flooded. Residents evacuate lower levels. Fire services are on high alert. The hospital emergency room at the Infirmary is overwhelmed. A man mops the floor continuously so wet shoes don’t make someone else slip on it. Under the city the catacombs are still. Down in the belly of the city there is scratching. Rats scurry out of tunnels. From down the street, golden lights at No. 10 Luckenbooth Close go out one by one.

It is the third time in ten minutes that this side of the city has blacked out.

Archie finds his wife’s massive box of candles.

His hands shake.

So does the flame.