‘I doubt he’ll ever really get over that aspect of it, but once he recovered from the shock, he managed somehow to pull himself together and return to his old routine. Ruby and April are looking after him wonderfully well, and so I have every hope he’ll soon be our old Stan again.’

‘Oh, that poor, poor man,’ sighed Peggy. ‘We all tried to warn him she was no good. I so wish we’d been proved wrong.’

‘Love is blind, Peg. It makes fools of all of us.’

‘It’s bound to get out,’ Peggy fretted. ‘You know what this town’s like for gossip. Stan will have a hard time keeping his head up after this.’

Ron explained what Bert Williams had arranged to keep Stan’s good reputation intact. ‘Stan, Ruby, April and I decided that if questioned over Ethel’s whereabouts, they’d say she’d walked out on Stan and returned to London where she felt more at home. Once the flurry of gossip over that has died down, she’ll be forgotten and life will go on.’

‘It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?’ Peggy threw the cigarette butt into the fire, kissed his cheek and then got to her feet. ‘As long as Stan’s all right, and you’re all right, nothing much else matters,’ she murmured. ‘Goodnight, Ron. Thanks for being so loving and sweet to me. I shall sleep well tonight, and I hope you do too now you know where Rosie is.’

Ron saw to dampening down the fire for the night and filled the kettle for the morning, then checked the air-raid box was fully stocked before turning out the kitchen light.

He went down the steps, and although he was bone-weary after the long and traumatic day, he didn’t go to his room, but went outside and looked up at the stars he could just see twinkling amongst the scudding clouds.

It would be dawn in Burma now, but did his son look up at that same moon and think of his home and family? He suspected he did, but it couldn’t ease the constant ache of worry that weighed heavily on his heart. Peggy was not alone in her fears, but he would never admit it to her. It was his responsibility to look after her properly from now on – to see when she was feeling low and be there to lean on when she needed support – for his silly old tender heart couldn’t withstand seeing her so vulnerable to all her fears and cares again.

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