Always in My Heart by Ellie Dean

checked the blackout curtains were closed before she switched on the light. ‘If you could hold Daisy a minute, I’ll stoke the fire and warm up the room,’ she said.
    Mrs Finch frowned as she took Daisy into her arms. ‘You’ll leave the broom where it is,’ she said firmly. ‘I only swept in here this morning.’
    Peggy grinned. The hearing aid was obviously not working again. She cheerfully stoked the fire, filled the kettle and put it on the hob. The air raid hadn’t affected the water or the electricity, which was a blessing – but it was better to put the evening meal together while she could, for there were constant power and water cuts now, and one never knew when they were going to happen, or for how long.
    Shedding her overcoat, she looked in the big vegetable basket on the larder floor and found two cauliflowers, a couple of sprouting onions, a rather wrinkled pair of parsnips, a small turnip and several large, but whiskery potatoes. Taking her wrap-round pinny from the hook on the back of the door, she set about enthusiastically preparing a vegetable stew. Astock cube and a dash of Lea & Perrins would give it a kick and make up for the lack of meat.
    Peggy was quite enjoying herself – it was good to be doing something useful again, and her kitchen was warming up nicely. She had just finished putting all the vegetables in the big pot when Daisy decided she was hungry and began to squirm and whimper.
    ‘I won’t be a minute,’ Peggy murmured as she hastily thickened the stock cube gravy with the smallest teaspoon of flour, and added it to the vegetables. Once the heavy pot was in the range’s slow oven, she wiped her hands on her apron, tossed it aside, and reached for Daisy.
    ‘I’ll feed and change her in the other room,’ she said.
    Cordelia clucked with impatience. ‘You can do all that in here, in the warm,’ she said. ‘We’re both women, for heaven’s sake.’
    Peggy giggled, but she had to silently admit to feeling a bit embarrassed about breastfeeding Daisy in front of the older woman. So, after she’d changed Daisy’s sodden nappy, she draped one of the baby blankets over her shoulder, thereby covering her exposed breast as Daisy latched onto her nipple.
    Cordelia bumbled about making a pot of tea, and once they both had a cup by their elbow, started to rummage through her enormous knitting bag. ‘I thought I’d make Ron a new jumper from the ones you threw out in the summer,’ she said. ‘He’s looking decidedly ragged these days – more like an old tramp than a respectable family man.’
    Peggy smiled at the memory of Cordelia’s previous disastrous attempts. ‘He scrubs up well, though,’ she reminded her. ‘When he’s in his suit, and he’s had his hair cut and eyebrows trimmed, he still looks quite handsome.’
    Cordelia giggled. ‘It’s getting him to sit still long enough so that Fran can trim his brows that’s the problem, but I suspect he quite likes a fuss being made of him – and I’m sure Rosie appreciates it too.’
    They lapsed into companionable silence as the fire crackled in the range and the aroma of stewing vegetables began to seep into the room. Daisy finished feeding and fell asleep in Peggy’s arms, and she was content to keep her there and enjoy these precious moments of quiet before everyone came home. There would be ructions, she knew, for she’d been under strict instructions to stay in bed at least ten days after Daisy’s birth. No doubt Fran and Suzy would get into a huddle with Alison and she’d be for the high jump – but, she decided, she would do things her way.
    The front door was suddenly opened to let a howling gale into the house before it was slammed shut again. Peggy looked up as she heard Ron and Jim’s voices in the hall and waited in some trepidation for them to enter the kitchen.
    Ron and Harvey sauntered in as if they didn’t have a care in the world. While Harvey sniffed the baby – he liked babies – and then