‘Now get home and have something to eat. You’re looking dreadful these days. All pale and thin. Positively scraggy, in fact. So go … eat. I don’t want my child to have a scraggy auntie.’ Mary laughed. ‘You’re only saying that because you’re getting fat.’ Her smile faded as soon as she walked away. Jean’s words had brought an instant image of Ellen, now almost eight months pregnant. Her weekly letters home were full of chitchat about the regimental routine of the home and how she and the other girls enjoyed breaking the rules, but Mary sensed her misery beneath the jokes. She wished Ellen would let her visit her but she wouldn’t. She often wondered if Ellen thought she would try to persuade her to keep her baby. She hurried along the alleyway, for once relieved to be home. It had been a difficult day but at least Peter’s fever had broken and he had slept most of the time, much to the chagrin of the official waiting to speak to him. She reached over the top of the gate and unlocked it hoping Mam had lit the fire; mostly she didn’t and by the time Mary got home it was usually too late in the day to make it worth bothering.
