Molly's War

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Aye, I think you should see the doctor all right,’ Maggie sighed as she turned away and flopped into her chair.

  Next morning Molly waited her turn to see the doctor in a waiting room full of women with pale children. Though the cold weather had seen off the diphtheria epidemic, the children who had survived it were debilitated and prone to other infections. In the yard leading to the waiting room a few men clustered, some sitting on their hunkers, wheezing and coughing. Cigarette smoke curled up into the damp air.

  ‘You haven’t been doing something you shouldn’t, young lady?’ was the first question Doctor Hardy put to Molly when it was her turn to go in and she’d stammered out her symptoms. His gaze was penetrating and she lowered her eyes as she replied.

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  The examination was brisk and brief and when she came out she knew her worst fears were realised.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  MOLLY FELT NUMB with shock as she left the surgery, stumbling blindly through the waiting room. Outside she leaned against the wall for a few minutes with her eyes closed until she heard a woman’s voice.

  ‘Are you all right, hinny?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, just dizzy for a minute,’ Molly managed to reply and hurried off down the street and along past the pit to the open country beyond. What she was going to tell Maggie she had no idea. She shrank inwardly from saying anything at all to Jackson’s parents. In the end she walked all the way to Shildon and went into a cafe in Church Street and bought a cup of tea and sat with it in a dark corner, not even drinking it, just moving the spoon round and round in it, hardly knowing what she was doing.

  The day wore on. The woman behind the counter kept looking at her. In the end she walked over to where Molly sat.

  ‘Do you want anything else?’ she asked. ‘Because I’ll be closing in a few minutes.’

  It was four o’clock, Molly suddenly realised, and she had to go to work on the night shift. She left the cafe and caught the bus back to Eden Hope.

  ‘Where the heck have you been?’ Maggie demanded in an injured tone as she walked through the door. ‘Here I’ve been, worried to death about you!’

  ‘Sorry, I went for a walk … to see a friend in Shildon,’ said Molly.

  ‘You didn’t think about me and Frank, did you? Of course, I’m just your landlady …’

  ‘Oh, Maggie, of course you’re not, you know I’m fond of you both. It wasn’t like that, really. Only the doctor said I need to get more fresh air so I thought I’d take the opportunity, that’s all,’ Molly protested.

  ‘Hmmm. Well, what else did he say?’

  Maggie stood with her hands on her hips, her expression showing only too plainly her suspicions, and Molly quailed before her.

  ‘He said I was anaemic,’ she lied on a quick inspiration. One lie begat another, she thought miserably, that was what her mother used to say. ‘He gave me an iron tonic.’ He had. She took it out of her bag now, showing the bottle of dark brown fluid to Maggie.

  ‘He gives that to all them as has fallen wrong.’

  ‘Does he? Well, that’s what he said to me anyway,’ Molly replied, and escaped upstairs to change for work.

  ‘I’m doing some tatie hash for the tea. Only you’d best look sharp. It’s nearly ready,’ Maggie called after her.

  ‘No, thanks, I’m not hungry. I had a bite in Shildon, at … my friend’s.’

  ‘Well, I’ll keep it to warm up for you the morrow,’ said Maggie. ‘We can’t afford to waste food. There’s a war on, you know.’

  Even the thought of warmed-up hash made Molly feel nauseous. She could feel the bile rising in her throat and made a desperate effort to keep it down. She sat on the bed and closed her eyes and after a minute or two felt better, able to finish changing her clothes. She stayed upstairs until it was almost time to go for the bus then went down, drank a cup of tea with Frank, asked about the day’s news and escaped thankfully as soon as she could.

  ‘You’re going to be early for the bus,’ Maggie observed, her face grim and expressionless, implying she hadn’t been fooled one little bit.

  ‘Well, sometimes it comes early,’ Molly replied. She hated the atmosphere in the house now but didn’t know what to do about it.

  She stood at the bus stop, the only one there until a queue began to form behind her. The line chatted and laughed behind her but Molly heard nothing. Being first in the queue she got a seat and sat still and quiet though her thoughts were still whirling. She knew she had to tell Gary Dowson. He would surely offer to marry her, that’s what always happened in this situation, but her mind shied away from the thought in horror. How could she possibly marry Gary? After all her hopes, her love for Jackson, all their plans. Oh, Jackson, she cried inside herself, why did it have to happen?

  ‘I’m only sitting here because it’s the last seat left on the bus.’ Joan Pendle sat down beside her.

  Molly jumped. Dear God, she thought, what did I do? What did I do to deserve this? She barely looked at Joan but stared out of the window instead.

  ‘By, you’re a stuck-up madam, you,’ said Joan. ‘I don’t know why I bother to talk to you.’

  ‘Well, don’t then,’ Molly was stung into replying.

  Joan ignored that. ‘But I wanted to ask you if you’d heard from Harry?’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘That’s what I said, Harry. Your brother, remember him?’

  Molly was so surprised by the question that Joan’s attempt at sarcasm went over her head. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I’m interested, that’s all.’

  Molly’s attention was diverted. For a few seconds she forgot about her own trouble. ‘I haven’t as it happens, not since he went back last time. But I didn’t really expect to. He said he was going on some sort of special duty.’

  Joan sat quietly as the bus drew into Bishop Auckland, got off it with Molly and walked beside her to the station platform where the train was standing. They had joined the queue of workers before she spoke again.

  ‘I could make it pretty hard for you at work. If I told them about you being in prison, and why.’

  Molly waited for her to go on. Obviously Joan had more to say. Molly had been worrying about her past getting out ever since she’d come to the factory but her present trouble loomed even larger, more threatening. She felt quite detached as she waited. In a few months she would have to leave work anyway.

  ‘You could write to Harry, you must have his address.’

  ‘Come on, Joan, just say what you mean,’ said Molly, though she was beginning to get the idea.

  ‘You could tell him about me, say how we’re friends now that we’re working together.’

  ‘Friends?’ Molly’s eyebrows rose. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  ‘Yes. Say how I didn’t tell on you, how I admitted I was wrong about you. Maybe say I was asking after him?’

  Molly started to laugh. She couldn’t help herself, the laughter bubbled up inside her. She laughed as she climbed on to the train so that people turned to gaze at her in astonishment; laughed until tears came to her eyes and she had to fish out a handkerchief to wipe them away. The compartments were full so she walked on, not looking behind to see if Joan had followed her. When she did stop at the end of the carriage she leaned against the window, blew her nose and smiled at those around her.

  ‘Sorry, just a fit of the giggles,’ she said. There was no sign of Joan. She must have found a seat. Joan was the sort who usually did, Molly told herself. She couldn’t believe the girl. Oh, she had known that Joan still had feelings for Harry even though she went the wrong way about expressing them. But after all that had happened … Yes, Molly would write to Harry, through the regiment, tell him about it. He would have a good laugh and no doubt he could do with one. Especially now that Jackson wasn’t there with him as he’d always been, ever since their schooldays. But for the minute Molly had other things on her mind.

  When the dinner break came she
sought out Gary at the table where he was sitting with a few of the other men.

  ‘Can I have a word with you, Mr Dowson?’ she asked. The other men looked at one another with knowing amusement. They obviously thought she was chasing the foreman. Had he said anything to them? she wondered.

  Gary Dowson had finished his meal. He paused to light a cigarette, making a show of keeping her waiting. The men smirked. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said at last. ‘Come on, we’ll take a walk outside.’

  They walked between the buildings, along the road to Admin, round the corner and back in a circle. They walked in the dark, no flashlights allowed in the grounds in case they attracted the attention of a stray bomber. Molly glanced sideways at Gary; there was nothing to see but the dark shape of him. Now they were out on their own she couldn’t get the words out. This was the wrong time anyway, she thought.

  ‘Can I see you when the shift is over?’ she asked at last.

  ‘I don’t think I have anything to say to you,’ he said carefully. She could feel the change in him and was bewildered. She stopped walking and peered at him in the dark, trying to make out what he meant. A shaft of moonlight caught his face. His eyes glinted coldly in it.

  ‘Why? What’s the matter?’

  For answer he pulled her round the corner of a building and slammed her against the wall, holding her there with his body.

  ‘Here, is this what you want?’ he asked roughly, grasping her breast in his hand and pushing his knee hard between her legs so that she cried out at the sudden pain of it.

  ‘Don’t! Gary, don’t!’ she cried.

  ‘Oh, come on, don’t act the innocent with me, I know you better than that. You were panting after it the other week and then you pretended to hold me off. What do you take me for, a neddy?’

  ‘No, no! What do you mean? I haven’t done anything!’ Molly cried.

  ‘No, not lately you haven’t. Though you thought you could string me along, didn’t you? Well, I’ve been hearing a thing or two about you from that lass what used to work with you at West Auckland. You never told me about what you did there, did you? About taking that poor fella for his dead wife’s jewellery and landing up in prison.’

  Too late, Molly realised what a fool she had been. She remembered Joan’s venomous expression when she had laughed so uncontrollably on the train. Already she was spreading her poison around the factory.

  ‘Whatever she’s told you, it wasn’t true,’ Molly said at last.

  ‘No? Then you haven’t been in prison for leading your landlord on and robbing him?’

  ‘No! Yes, I was, but I didn’t do it! I didn’t, really I didn’t.’

  ‘No. Well, they all say that, don’t they?’

  The buzzer went for the return to work. Automatically they turned and began to walk back. The words to tell him were in her mind, on her tongue, but somehow Molly had trouble uttering them. It wasn’t until they were practically at the door of her building that she said them aloud and even then she wasn’t sure whether she had or not.

  ‘I’m expecting.’

  Gary halted and caught hold of her arm, pulled her into the building and whirled her round to face him. The entrance was deserted, they were the only two who had gone out into the night.

  ‘Say that again?’

  ‘I’m expecting. Fallen wrong. Pregnant.’

  ‘All right, all right, I know what it means. Are you trying to say it’s mine?’ His tone was hard, his pale eyes narrow.

  ‘Of course it’s yours. You’re the only one …’

  ‘Oh, aye? You’d say that any road, wouldn’t you?’

  Molly wrenched her arm away from his grasp and walked rapidly away to her own section, the sewing room. As she turned into the doorway she caught a glimpse of him still standing where she had left him.

  Molly felt numb and just for the minute nothing else. This was a day for surprises all right, she thought as she took her seat at the machine, switched on the power, placed the bag she was sewing under the needle and began sewing. It was indeed … All of a sudden she had an urgent need to throw up. She left her work and rushed for the toilets, knocking over a basket of material as she went.

  Afterwards she wiped her mouth with a piece of hard toilet tissue and leaned against the wall. There was a strong smell of Lysol so after a moment she went out into the corridor before she started gagging again. One or two people walked past and looked curiously at her but Molly hardly noticed.

  It was no longer a question of whether she could bring herself to marry Gary Dowson, she thought. He didn’t want to marry her. The idea that this might happen had simply not occurred to her. So much for that. She wasn’t good enough for Gary Dowson. Well, at least that made her decision easier. Molly stood up straight and went back into the rest room, washed her face in cold water at the basin and dried it on a clean bit of the roller towel hanging in the corner. Then she went back to her machine and bent her head over her work, not lifting it until the buzzer went for home time.

  ‘Were you not well earlier on?’ asked Jenny, coming to walk by her side out of the gate before crossing towards the buses which took girls back to the eastern end of the county.

  ‘Something I ate, I think,’ said Molly. ‘But I’m all right now.’

  ‘You’re not talking to her, are you?’ Joan was close by, a hard grin of contempt fixed on her face as she glanced at Molly. ‘Did you not know she’s a gaolbird, a convicted thief? Oh, aye, I could tell you a few things about that one there,’ she went on to Jenny, who looked bewildered.

  ‘What’s she talking about, Molly?’

  ‘You may well ask,’ said Joan. She drew closer to Molly and took hold of her arm, pinching. ‘I’ll show you, you bitch!’ she said in an undertone. ‘You won’t laugh at me again in a hurry.’ She smiled and nodded to emphasise her words then went on ahead to the station platform.

  ‘Molly?’

  Jenny was gazing at her, waiting for an explanation. ‘It’s true. I was in prison but it was a mistake, I didn’t do anything,’ said Molly. It sounded lame even in her own ears.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ‘I AM LOOKING for my friend, Captain. His name is Sergeant Morley. Sergeant Jackson Morley, I understand he may be a patient here, sir?’

  The middle-aged Captain pushed his chair a little way back from the desk and crossed his left leg over the right, swinging it once or twice. He put his hand up to his moustache and studied the soldier standing before him, a tall, upright man, obviously regular rather than enlisted.

  ‘Ask my Sergeant to look through the lists,’ he drawled. Why had the man been allowed to come in here pestering him? It had been a long hard day and it wasn’t finished yet. Though no longer crammed with wounded from the Dunkirk evacuation as it once had been, the hospital was still full.

  ‘He’s not on the lists, sir, but still …’

  ‘What are you talking about, man?’

  ‘I think he may be the unidentified man brought in by the French a few weeks back. My friend was seconded to a French unit, sir, we both were.’

  The Captain sighed. ‘Evidently a few men were. How did you find out about him?’ he demanded. ‘Hell’s bells, I’m sick to death of being pestered by people who think they might know who he is! I won’t have him disturbed again –’

  The Captain stopped, got to his feet and turned his back on Harry to stare out of the window.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Did your friend have any identifying mark?’ The officer turned back to him.

  ‘Like a birthmark?’ He had been asked this question before. There were lists of unidentified men, both living and dead, and most had a mark – a mole, a birthmark, even a bad vaccination mark – somewhere on their bodies. ‘Sergeant Morley had a mole on the back of his calf, sir.’

  The Captain picked up a paper from his desk, scanned it quickly. He sighed again. ‘OK, Sergeant.’ He took a chit, scrawled something on it and handed it to Harry. ‘My Sergeant will show you where to go.’
/>   Fired with hope, he went out to the wards. This time perhaps it would be Jackson. He was in a fever of excitement. Had been ever since he had heard about the French fishermen who had rowed across the Channel in a tiny fishing boat which had never been out of French coastal waters before. They’d brought with them a wounded Englishman whom they insisted was a hero, nominated for the Croix de Guerre. A man who had held off a German attack with a French machine gun while its crew escaped over the border from Belgium.

  There were three men in the side ward, two of them sitting in armchairs facing the windows which looked out on to sodden grass and dripping trees. They glanced up when Harry entered the room with little interest, then turned back to their contemplation of the landscape. Another man was lying in bed, his face white in startling contrast to his bright red hair.

  None of them was Jackson. The disappointment was crushing. Harry stared at them each in turn in disbelief. He had been so sure Jackson would be there.

  ‘You looking for someone, mate?’

  The voice was of the North Country, and not just North Country but definitely County Durham. Harry whirled around and there he was, standing by the door.

  ‘Jackson!’

  Harry covered the few yards between them in two strides. His arms went out and he grasped his friend by the shoulders as though to embrace him, then saw something in the eyes and changed the gesture. He took hold of Jackson’s hand and pumped it up and down in a fervour of recognition and joy.