The troupe had led the floor in a short display of reels and Netta’s white dress, boned and scooped out at the neck, with layers of rustling underskirts made from net curtain lace and offcuts, had been much admired. White was the purest, harshest of hues on a redhead so she had softened the fabric with a soaking in tea. Working with pale shades was soothing. Was it because it was a safe and female colour? Did it make up for so much that was murky grey in her own life? Why was she pondering such gloomy thoughts when she was safe among her fellow exiles, listening to the chink of raised glasses?

For the first time in many months she could relax, away from the strains of the dress shop and her shabby rooms. One day she would be one of the Scotia club when she was Jeanette Hunter, dress designer, with her own little business on the High Street. How she envied the Texas Rangers the comfortable security of solid homes and local connections, all that noisy exuberance. They belonged because of who they were. Ginnie didn’t have to budget and scrimp, stay up all night to finish her dress or worry about a secret child so far away. They must be about the same age but Netta felt so old and staid in comparison. The sparkle had gone out of her life. She sometimes felt almost invisible amongst them and it hurt to be ignored.

There’re other exiles here besides you, though, thought Netta. The soldiers in their dress kilts, the butchers, builders, teachers, policemen, wives and nurses, doctors, shopkeepers and landowners. Exiles who found nostalgic comfort every now and then in recalling the homeland with its bagpipes and folk songs, mountains, lochs, tenements, tram cars and pawky humour. What was it that really made a Scot? What a mixed bunch the members were with only their birthplace in common. Yet this St Andrew’s Night was going to be an evening to savour when she was back hemming miles of tulle under Miss Venables’s hawkish eye.

Then Ginnie Mackeever swept across the floor in her white lace dress and tartan sash, flouncing across the ballroom with her fiancé on her arm. ‘Come and meet the natives, darling. This is our own Moira Shearer… such red hair it makes me go out of step just looking at it. Is it really that colour,’ she whispered,’ or are we looking at some quality henna? Love the dress… Who’s your dressmaker? A little bird told me you’re the star stitching up Dorelle’s. Poor girl, however do you suffer Maudie Venables?’ Ginnie’s accent sounded as if it had never crossed the border in its life.

Netta averted her eyes, feeling Ginnie’s sharp eyes roaming over her dress with reluctant admiration. ‘Quite the little Schiaparelli! Not bad, is it, my sweet? Meet Dr Andrew Stirling, my fiancé… Darling, meet the crowd.’