Would she mind? Would it be worse than the camp—would she feel she was being guarded all the time, with not even any privacy?

“I could sleep in the chair,” I said, hesitating to set Mummy’s Bakelite alarm clock next to the bed in case Jane didn’t want me to sleep with her.

“Nonsense, what a ridiculous idea,” said Jane. “The bed is large enough for a family of four. You will have to sleep by the window, as I often get up in the night.”

I hesitated. “Won’t you want me to help you?” That would be the worst thing about always being watched.

“I can manage the toilet perfectly well on my own, as you know,” Jane answered.

In London I’d got used to sharing a bed with Mummy, except when Daddy was home, when I would gladly move to the settee for two nights or a fortnight or whatever it was. All through the last horrid weeks of 1940 I’d felt very alone in Mummy’s bed all by myself. I was glad Jane didn’t mind.

She wanted me to see to her gramophone downstairs.

After we unpacked we went down to the public bar, where Mrs. Campbell said it would be warmer, and where I was hopeful of toast. Sure enough, the peat fire in the big hearth was alight, and there was a small table and a comfortable chair pulled close to it. Mrs. Campbell didn’t say it was meant for her old aunt, but I thought it probably was. Jane hovered near my shoulder, leaning on her sticks as I found a place for the gramophone on top of the piano.

“The loudspeaker needs to face the room,” she directed.

Of course it did, silly me. I shifted the case around.

“And the records over here…” There was a low, narrow cupboard beside the piano with a mostly empty shelf holding a few glossy magazines.

Jane was particular about how she wanted the records arranged. I didn’t mind—it gave me a chance to look through them. There was a lot of jazz from the early 1930s, a bit of classical. A few pieces made my throat close up, thinking of Mummy playing them: Mozart’s 21st Piano Concerto in C, Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”

At last Jane settled into the chair by the fire. After I’d tucked her woolly blanket in around her legs and laid her sticks out of the way, I stood back and got my first good look at the old fireplace.