If they could never be comfortable in this lashed-up Rest Centre, at least, with all their efforts, they had made it into a kind of home, efficient and clean. She’d become unreasonably proud of Jack, the way he’d coped with the disruption to his life and settled down to work here. After the first few days informal schooling had started up, but Jack and the other children had still been expected to help with the adult work. Doing his bit.

But he shouldn’t have to “do his bit’, she thought bitterly. He should be able to grow up untroubled, like every other British kid since 1945. She ought to have been able to protect him.

But that wasn’t possible. It never had been.

Maybe she had been lucky to have had this interval of peace. But now, it was all starting again.

She opened her eyes. The last of her peace was gone, her warmth disturbed. She pushed back the sheets.

She shook Jack awake, silenced him with a fingertip to his lips. He nodded and reached for his shoes.

They’d talked about this. Slipping out into the dark. Getting a lead on everybody else, the unfortunates who didn’t have boyfriends in NASA.

Betraying them, maybe even leaving them to die.

We discussed this. We’ve done all we can here. Now things are going to get worse, a lot worse. Now’s the time to think of ourselves. The family. That’s what counts now.

With their bags, they slipped out to the theatre car park.

To the west, over the heart of Scotland, the sky was glowing red. There was a distant sound, like thunder.

And it was raining: a thick, sticky black rain Henry had called tophra, laden with soot and ash.

They hurried to the car. She had been careful to leave it close to the exit. Jane let Jack into the back, loaded the bags into the boot, and put the key into the ignition.

“We’re going,” said Jack, ten years old.

“Yes.”

Go east, Ted had said, the last time she saw him. Follow the coast. Get past Dunbar and you’ll be out of the Midland Valley, and you ought to be home free.

For a time, anyhow.

There was the sound of a siren somewhere. Lights were coming on in the theatre.

And then there were two, she thought.

They climbed into the car. Being here, her hands on the wheel again, was strangely comforting. The car was a piece of home, of the old life. A haven.

She started the car, pulled out of the car park, and headed east.