Home Is Where the Heart Is by Freda Lightfoot Page A

better, which is hard for ex-servicemen, for all of us. Peace is not bringing the end to the misery that everyone hoped it would. There’s a feeling of anticlimax, as if the bright blue, sun-filled sky has clouded over again, leaving a feeling of uncertainty about the future. A grey chill seems to hang over everything.’
    ‘Oh, you’re so right,’ Cathie said, pausing to haggle over the price of a rather poor selection of fruit and vegetableson one of the stalls. She finally added two tomatoes, a small turnip and a few potatoes to her bag. ‘There are still too many shortages, queues are even longer as rationing continues and austerity beckons. We barely have enough money to buy coal to keep a paltry little fire burning in the grate, assuming we can find any to buy. We’ve burned all sorts of stuff over the years, including stools and old chairs in order to keep warm.’
    Brenda chuckled. ‘I burned the clothes prop once, feeding it in an inch or two at a time.’
    ‘But no longer can anyone say: “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”’
    Both girls were laughing now as they recalled the number of times this mantra had been repeated over the years. ‘Making ends meet is not easy, and bartering still very evident, if you have something to barter with,’ Brenda agreed. ‘I reckon only black marketeers are making any money.’
    ‘So what happens now? How can I convince Alex that I’m innocent of this charge of having an affair?’ Cathie asked, bleakness descending upon her once more. She valued Brenda’s friendship greatly, but when suffering traumas in the past Sal had been the one she’d turned to for comfort. Sadly, having lost her lovely sister, to now lose Alex made Cathie feel more alone than ever, and everything so much harder to deal with. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘How do I face life without him?’
    ‘With courage, darling, a skill you’ve never been shortof, so have faith in yourself and the future you can create for this little one.’
    Cathie smiled through her tears as she watched little Heather happily bobbing up and down in her pram, gazing about her with bright-eyed interest. ‘Thanks, but being a little jealous is one thing, accusing me of sleeping with another man, quite another.’
    ‘He is fond of you though. Steve, I mean. He always has been.’
    ‘Don’t talk daft. The pair of us were for ever at odds, and the number of tricks he’s played on me over the years doesn’t bear thinking of. He’d hide my favourite doll, set off bangers and crackers to scare me on bonfire night, and make me run round and round a gravestone then put my ear to it to listen to the dead talking. Which was no doubt his own voice speaking to me, which I didn’t realise, idiot that I was. There’s nothing Steve Allenby likes more than to stir up trouble, but we’ve done nothing wrong. I simply gave him a peck on the cheek to thank him for his charity work. Nothing more than that, I swear it. But yes, I should have come clean from the start about wanting to keep Sal’s baby.’
    ‘That would have been difficult while Alex was away fighting, and whenever you chose to tell him could easily have brought forth this same reaction. But you need to consider if he’ll also take his anger out on Steve.’
    ‘Oh, my goodness, I never thought of that. Alex is a bit reckless and unstable in his thinking at the moment,probably because of this dratted war, and poor Steve has enough problems to deal with.’ She’d done her best, as a friend, despite their constant disputes, to help him to deal with his traumas. Cathie really had no wish for her old friend to suffer even more as a result of some stupid assumption on Alex’s part. ‘Sorry, but I must go and warn him, right away.’
    Quickly saying her goodbyes, Cathie dashed off, intending to call in upon Steve at the Co-op.
    ‘You’ve done the right thing, in dropping that silly girl,’ Alex’s mother assured her son, patting his cheek as if he were a