I realized I hadn’t taken my flute out of its case since Mummy’s death.

“I’m rubbish,” I said. “I’ve had to do exams, and perform in school, but really I only like to play for fun. I only play for me. Same with the piano. Or singing. I’ll never be a professional like my mother—or you! I don’t like to practice. My favorite thing is just to copy tunes I hear on the radio.”

“Play what you like, then,” Jane said.

Despite the sudden wallop of grief, I was still jitterbugging with excitement—playing my flute would be a good way to get rid of the nerves, I knew, before I had to face Nan Campbell again.

But I wanted to play well for Jane—a thing I’d never thought about much before. I didn’t mind being a mediocre piano player. But I suddenly wished I was better at the flute. How wonderful if she would sing with me! I imagined a new record album: The Ballads of Jane and Louisa…

“Jane and Louisa”… Perfect! It was another game we sang under the Bombay mango tree at my first school in Jamaica, and with my cousins under the breadfruit and ackee trees on Granny Adair’s land in St. Andrew Parish. And the first time we’d met, Jane and I had sung a singing-game tune to each other.

All right, I’d play my flute for her.

I switched off the radio. Then I screwed the pieces of my flute together, ran up and down an F-major scale, and began to play.

The easy, lilting, cheerful tune was the sound of before the war. It was so short that I played it again, adding trills. In my head, I sang the verses along with the flute, and it warmed up with me. The music reminded me again of Mummy, who was always humming whatever piece she was working on, and of Daddy, who whistled when he wasn’t singing, and my heart was full of pain and love.

“What is that?” Jane asked, when I’d finished.

I swallowed the ache in my throat and sang it for her. Because it wasn’t about Mummy and Daddy. It was about us.

“Jane and Louisa will soon come home,

They will soon come home,

They will soon come home;

Jane and Louisa will soon come home,

Into this beautiful garden.”

She laughed softly. “This beautiful garden indeed! I wonder if anything but heather grows out there in the gloom. I suppose Scotland must be beautiful in the summer.”

She hummed the tune. It was wonderful how fast she could learn a song.

“Have you brought any sheet music with you?” she asked. “We could play duets. We’ll have to pass time somehow. Surely it’s not going to be German spies every day.”

And of course it wasn’t. The next day it was 648 Squadron, B-Flight.

Jamie: