Charlie was dressed and ready for his first day at his new grammar school. Ron had taken him to the barber’s yesterday for a proper haircut, and she suspected it wouldn’t be long before he started shaving, for there was a definite dark shadow on his top lip and jaw.

‘Charlie’s going to school,’ announced Daisy. ‘I go to school too. He come with me?’

‘No, darling. He’s going to big people’s school,’ said Cordelia. ‘But when you’re five, you’ll be going to school down the road.’

Daisy gave a dramatic sigh. ‘That’s a long time,’ she said. ‘Why can’t I go now?’

Peggy closed her ears to Daisy’s endless questions and left Cordelia to answer them as she turned to Charlie. ‘Now, have you got everything?’ she asked as he picked up the over-stuffed satchel.

‘Bar the kitchen sink,’ he replied with a grin.

‘Do you want me to walk with you to the bus stop?’

‘Mum,’ he protested. ‘I’m fifteen. I don’t need walking anywhere.’

She smiled lovingly at this man-child who’d come home in place of the small, eight-year-old boy she’d sent away all those years ago. ‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’ She handed him the cap and gave his perfectly knotted tie a tweak. ‘Have a good day, son, and I’ll see you at teatime,’ she murmured, longing to kiss his cheek but knowing it wouldn’t really be appreciated now he was so grown-up.

‘Yeah, bye, Mum. See you all later.’

Peggy gave a sigh as he slammed the back door behind him. The guilt of having sent him and his brother away would always be with her. Had they any inkling of how very hard it had been for her to let them go – or understood that she’d done it to keep them safe?

She turned her thoughts to more pleasant things. ‘Has the post come yet?’ she asked Cordelia who was now cleaning Daisy’s face of jam.

‘It has, but there was only a paper bill and a letter for me from Canada.’ She eyed Peggy over her half-moon glasses as Daisy ran off to play with her toys. ‘How did it go at the station?’

‘They got off on time, and of course I couldn’t help crying as usual,’ she replied, pouring out a cup of tea. ‘I’ll pop in and see Jack on my way to work and ask him to come to supper tonight. He’ll find it very hard being on his own.’

‘It was kind of him to find a car for Danuta,’ Cordelia commented, clearing away the dirty plates. ‘And at such a good price too.’

‘Yes. I wondered about that,’ murmured Peggy. ‘Where is she, by the way?’

‘Sleeping in. It’s her day off, remember?’

Peggy lit a cigarette. ‘I have so many things on my mind at the moment that I barely know what day it is, let alone remember Danuta’s duty roster,’ she said on a sigh.

‘I suppose you’ve noticed there’s something going on between her and that baron,’ said Cordelia with a twinkle in her eye.