“Ah,” she sighed. “This is almost what I missed the most in That Place.” She closed her eyes with a blissful smile. “Except it is really the BBC Home Service on the radio I missed the most.”

I spent the evening on edge. Every old man who came into the Limehouse eyed me curiously, and I leaped to my feet every time the door opened, as if this would somehow show people that I was there on business and not as a paying customer. It made me feel doubly out of place that not a single woman came in that night. But perhaps that was because it wasn’t very busy. When the last two customers from the village said goodnight, it was only half past nine—half an hour before closing—but Mrs. Campbell began to stack chairs on tables anyway. I suppose it didn’t seem likely anyone else would come in so late on a weekday.

“Shall I lend a hand?” I offered.

Mrs. Campbell looked at me with suspicion again. I felt my face beginning to burn and braced myself. I hoped hard she too wasn’t going to make some nasty remark about the Caribbean sun making people lazy.

Instead she said, “What age are you?”

I hadn’t even thought about that. Was I old enough to be in the bar? I knew Scotland’s laws were different from England’s, but I didn’t know how that affected me.

Rules are made to be broken.

“I am just about sixteen,” I told her.

She sniffed and raised her eyebrows.

“‘Just about’! Well, you’re willing, I’ll give you that,” she said in her grudging way. “Come on behind the bar then, you can do the washing up. There’s a girl from the village who helps me, Morag Torrie, but she’s part-time since the squadron is away. I’m just going to sweep under these tables and then I’ll lock the door.”

“What about Ellen?” I asked her.

“She has her own key,” grunted Mrs. Campbell.

Of course she has her own key, I thought jealously. Important.

“They keep odd hours at RAF Windyedge,” Mrs. Campbell added. “The squadron that was here before mostly flew at night. Ellen’s got to be on hand if someone needs her.”

When the fire was low and the chairs were hung upside down, it didn’t feel as cozy. But Jane was still bright-eyed and wide awake—I don’t know how, after two nights and a day and a half of travelling. There weren’t many glasses to wash up, and when I finished my little job I hung about at Jane’s shoulder, staying on my feet to encourage her onto hers. Mrs. Campbell went into the entryway to lock the outside door.

As she opened the inner door leading into the vestibule, we heard the harsh noise of a motor engine straining up the steep hill past the limekilns.