I’d only ever spoken to one other black person in my life, and it had been a most uncomfortable conversation. But I was going to have to live under the same roof with this one. I swallowed hard and reminded myself she was just hired help and I was an ATS volunteer. She wasn’t going to start by calling me a dirty tinker, and I’d better not start by making her feel like a British Colonies outcast.

“I’m Volunteer Ellen McEwen,” I said, taking great care with it. “I’m the ATS driver for RAF Windyedge. I also stay at the Limehouse.”

“I’m Louisa Adair,” said the lassie, sharply holding out her hand, like a challenge to fight.

I shook hands with her. Her grip was very firm for somebody so slight and so polite. I made an effort. “What a bonny coat!” I told her.

“The furs belong to Mrs. Warner,” Louisa said, waving the other hand toward the old woman. “The only way we could get them here was to wear them!”

“How do you do, Mrs. Warner?” I said.

“You may call me Jane,” said the old woman, with a look at Louisa that made Louisa smile, as if they were leaving me out of a joke between them.

“Jane it is, then,” I said.

I took a breath and went round the back of the Tilly to drop the tailboard so I could load up the pile of cases. It could have gone worse. Ah well!

“Och, a gramophone!” I sang out when I found it.

Piled on top of the biggest leather valise, to keep it off the damp ground, was a portable wind-up record player—a very good one, too, with its own loudspeaker built into a beautiful wooden case. Louisa helped me to lift it into the Tilly.

“That’ll liven things up at Mrs. Campbell’s,” I said. “You’ll be popular with the airmen when the next squadron gets here!”

I was most curious about Louisa’s dark skin, but I didn’t like to ask. I didn’t let people poke their nebs into my business, and I wasn’t going to poke into hers. What must it be like, I wondered, never to be able to hide?

I tossed all our gas masks, my one as well, and Louisa’s satchel and flute and her own two cardboard suitcases, on top of the luggage in the back, and slammed the door. God pity her, how had Louisa ever managed that lot on her own? She must have had hidden pools of strength. I could guess where the fed-up look came from.