Goodnight Sweetheart

by Annie Groves

  On Sundays they used the front door, and their father beamed proudly as he walked up the cul-de-sac with a daughter on either arm.

  ‘How’s them chicks of yours?’ one of their neighbours, Gordon Sinclair, called out to him, crossing the road with his wife to walk along with them, shaking his head and telling Albert, ‘It would have saved youse a lorra messin’ if’n you’d got point-of-lay pullets.’

  ‘Chicks is best,’ the girls’ father insisted, the two men arguing good-naturedly as the small group made its way to the church.

  ‘By, but it’s quiet without the kiddies,’ Gordon’s wife, Nellie, commented, adding, ‘You was at the school helping, wasn’t you, Molly? I heard as how Sally Walker didn’t go. Mind you, I don’t blame her, what with her due any week now. Oh Gawd,’ Nellie continued without pausing to take a breath, ‘there’s Alf Davies. Up and down the cul-de-sac all the time, he is, sticking his nose into other people’s business.’

  The Sinclairs were Scottish Liverpudlians and had family connections down in the tenements by the docks. It was no secret that Gordon was the person to ask if you wanted to get hold of something, no questions asked. Some inhabitants of the cul-de-sac looked down on the Sinclairs and considered them to be rough, but for all her outspokenness Molly knew that Nellie Sinclair had a kind heart, and she knew too that, despite conceiving several children, Nellie had miscarried them all and lamented the fact that they had no family. Every child in the street knew that if you went round to number 39, like as not Nellie’s face would crease into a smile and she would reach into the special jar she kept in her kitchen and give you a bit of Spanish or a humbug.

  ‘Oh dear, I thought we was going to be late,’ Elsie puffed as she and John caught up with them.

  ‘Your Eddie gorn back to his ship then,’ as he, Elsie?’ Nellie asked, whilst Molly and June shared eloquent glances. Not for nothing was Nellie known as the cul-de-sac’s most enthusiastic gossip.

  ‘Last week,’ Elsie confirmed, ‘and our Jim won’t be coming to church this mornin’ either. He’s doing a Sunday shift on the gridiron.’

  ‘I was just sayin’ to my Gordon last night that I don’t envy them who’s got fellas working on the railways when this war does come. Bound to try to bomb the railways, that Hitler is,’ Nellie announced tactlessly.

  ‘Why don’t we try and catch up with Frank’s mam?’ Molly suggested hurriedly to June. ‘Then you could ask her how she’s going on.’

  ‘What’s to stop her asking how I’m going on?’

  June challenged Molly, before adding miserably, ‘Oh, our Molly, I’m missing him that much. I never thought it’d be like this.’

  Molly squeezed her hand sympathetically.

  They had reached the church now and instead of going straight inside as usual, people were gathering outside to talk in angry and anxious voices.

  ‘It seems so quiet without the children,’ Molly murmured, echoing Nellie’s earlier sentiments. She loved hearing the little ones sing every Sunday.

  Almost as soon as she had finished speaking she saw Pearl Lawson hurrying towards the church, defiantly holding the hands of her two children, the expression on her face both mutinous and challenging as she came over to Molly, whilst her husband, George, hung back slightly.

  ‘I heard as you was down at the school yesterday ’elping with the evacuation,’ she announced to Molly. ‘Sally Walker told me. No way was I letting my two go, not once I’d heard as how they would be mixing with that lot from down the docks,’ she sniffed disparagingly. ‘My kiddies have been brought up to mind their manners. They know how to behave proper, like.’ Ere, Georgie, get that finger out of yer nose,’ she commanded the younger of her two sons crossly, before turning back to Molly and continuing, ‘It’s not right, sending decent respectable kiddies off wi’ the likes of them – Gawd knows what they might pick up. You should be ashamed of yourself, helping to send them away. Mine is staying right here wi’ me.

  ’Ere, Sally, are you all right?’ she demanded as Sally Walker walked slowly towards them, one hand pressed into the small of her back.

  ‘Just a bit of backache, that’s all.’

  ‘How long now before you’re due?’ Pearl asked her sympathetically, deliberately keeping her back turned towards Molly to emphasise her disapproval of Molly’s role in the evacuation.

  ‘Another two weeks.’

  She looked pale and tired, and Molly’s heart went out to her. It must be so hard for her with her husband so far away, and no family of her own to speak of.

  The vicar gave a longer than normal sermon, and when his sonorous voice began to read ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’, audible sobs could be heard from the mothers amongst the congregation.

  ‘Fancy choosing to read that out,’ Nellie Sinclair complained to Molly once they were all outside again, adding forthrightly, ‘Daft bugger. He should have known it would set all the mams off crying. Did I tell you I saw old Bert this morning? Getting himself in a real state, he is, on account of Alf Davies telling him that he’ll have to have that dog of his put down, dogs not being allowed in air-raid shelters in case they goes wild and bites folks. Thinks the world of it, he does, and who can blame him, since it’s all he’s got? Here …’ She broke off in mid-breath to frown at the sound of a bicycle bell being rung loudly and continuously as a young lad pedalled frantically towards the church, skidding to a halt.

  ‘It’s war,’ he yelled breathlessly. ‘It’s just bin on the news.’

  Immediately Alf grabbed hold of him to question him, whilst the rest of the congregation turned to one another in uncertainty and fear.

  Several of the women were crying, including Elsie, Molly saw, whilst the men looked anxious and uncertain what to do. Out of the corner of her eye Molly noticed that Frank’s mother was standing on her own, her face white and set. This was a time for families to be together and automatically Molly started to go over to her.

  She had just reached her side, when Sally Walker suddenly collapsed.

  ‘Oh my Gawd, it’s the shock, it’s gorn and killed her,’ someone said dramatically, whilst one of the other women snorted derisively and said, ‘Don’t talk so daft.’

  ‘Let me have a look at her,’ Frank’s mother said sharply, and Molly discovered that she was somehow holding Frank’s mother’s handbag and gloves, as the older woman crouched down beside Sally, who was now groaning and moaning and clutching her belly.

  The men had stepped back, allowing the women to take over, and were standing together looking slightly embarrassed.

  ‘Looks like she’s gorn into labour,’ Pearl announced knowledgeably. ‘We’d better get ’er to the hospital.’

  ‘Her labour’s too far advanced for that,’ Frank’s mother responded, standing up. ‘We’ll have to get the men to carry her to my house.’

  ‘Well, she did say as how she’d bin having pains,’ Pearl added, ‘but the little ’un isn’t due for another two weeks.’

  Molly saw Frank’s mother’s mouth compress. She certainly looked every inch the fearsome hospital ward sister she was known to have been as she instructed some of the men to carry Sally to her house.

  ‘I’ll need some help …’ Doris Brookes announced.

  ‘You’ve been havin’ some first-aid lessons, haven’t you, Molly?’ Elsie offered.

  Apprehensively Molly started to shake her head. It was true that all the new WVS were being taught first-aiding skills and that she now had her basic first-aiding certificate. She could clean and dress minor wounds, splint broken limbs, and she knew what to do in the case of gas poisoning or minor burns, along with shock and lack of consciousness, but childbirth was not something that had been included in the course.

  But before she could say so, Frank’s mother was commanding her sharply, ‘Very well, you’d better come with me then.’

  Molly looked imploringly at June but her sister shook her head, her mouth set. Even for Sally, June wasn’t prepared to come to Molly’s assistance and wi
llingly spend time with her future mother-in-law.

  Reluctantly Molly followed the small procession being marshalled by Frank’s mother, who was walking alongside Sally whilst the men carried her.

  ‘You’d best take her up to my Frank’s room but don’t put her on the bed until I’ve covered it with a rubber sheet,’ she warned them. ‘And you – Molly, isn’t it? – you’d better come up as well.’

  Obediently Molly followed the men upstairs, into a spick-and-span room with a good-sized bed and gleaming furniture.

  ‘All right, you can put her down now,’ Doris instructed the men, quickly stripping off the jacket of her suit and then rolling up the sleeves of her blouse.

  Sally was lying on the bed with her eyes closed, moaning and whimpering. The men were just straightening up when the sound of an air-raid siren filled the room.

  For a few seconds all of them were too shocked to move, and then one of the men said urgently, ‘’Ere, isn’t that that air-raid siren Alf’s been blethering on about? The one he said as meant we had ter get into them ruddy Anderson shelters?’

  The men looked at one another and then at Doris.

  ‘Best get her downstairs again,’ one of them said uneasily.

  Sally suddenly screamed loudly.

  ‘You lot best go,’ Doris told the men calmly, her attention focused on Sally as she bent over her.

  The siren was still wailing and Molly longed to clap her hands over her ears to blot out the terrifying sound. The men looked at her but she shook her head.

  In the silence that followed the men’s departure, Molly could hear the sound of them running down the street. Terror and panic engulfed her. What if one of the bombs landed right here on Frank’s mother’s house? Cold sweat ran in beads down her face whilst she shivered in fear.

  ‘Still here, are you?’ Doris demanded as she turned round and saw Molly cowering. ‘Hmm, different kettle of fish it would be if that sister of yours was here.’ She sniffed disparagingly.

  ‘You’ve got no call to say that about June,’ Molly defended her sister.

  ‘Mmm, well, since you are here you might as well make yourself useful,’ Doris told Molly grimly. ‘Not that you’re likely to be much use. Wait here a minute.’

  She was gone only a few seconds, returning with a white starched overall. ‘Go downstairs, and give your hands a good scrubbing with carbolic soap right up to your armpits, then put this on and come back.’

  Molly marvelled that Frank’s mother could remain so calm in the face of the danger they might be in, and then winced as Sally suddenly screamed loudly again.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Doris chivvied her. ‘I need to examine her and I can’t do that until I’ve scrubbed up meself.’

  Molly did as she had been told as quickly as she could, leaving her jacket and blouse downstairs and hurrying back to the bedroom dressed in the voluminous overall she had been given.

  ‘Scrubbed yourself properly, have you, like I told you?’ Frank’s mother demanded.

  Molly nodded her head. Her hands were red and stinging slightly from the carbolic.

  ‘Good,’ cos we don’t want no dirty germs getting everywhere. You stay here whilst I go and get scrubbed up.’

  Sally, who Doris had by now undressed, was moaning and panting, pushing the sheet down off the white dome of her belly.

  When Doris came back she was wearing an overall like the one she had given Molly, her hair forced back off her face by the starched cap she was wearing, her arms glowing pinkly from their scrubbing.

  Sally’s screams were getting louder, interspersed with sobs and pleas to God to spare her any more pain, but unlike Molly, Doris was unmoved by Sally’s travail. All the while the siren continued and Molly could hear people running and shouting in the street below.

  ‘She’ll forget all about this once her baby’s been born,’ Doris told Molly confidently as she lifted the sheet and proceeded to examine her patient.

  ‘By the looks of you, you’ve been in labour a good while,’ she announced disapprovingly to Sally when she had finished.

  ‘I was havin’ a lot of twinges all day yesterday,’ Sally panted. ‘And then me waters broke just before I left for church.’

  ‘Well, you are very foolish for not saying so,’ Doris rebuked her sharply.

  ‘Oh. Oh … oh Gawd, it hurts,’ Sally yelled, grabbing hold of Molly’s hand and holding on so tightly that it felt as though her nails were cutting into her flesh.

  Somewhere outside Molly heard a sound she guessed must be the all clear, but between them, Sally and Doris were keeping her too busy to pay any attention to it – Sally with her groans and protests, and Doris with her sharp instructions.

  ‘Eee. But I’m never gonna let that bugger near me again,’ Sally moaned, gasping for breath. ‘It’s fair killing me, this is.’

  ‘Push,’ Doris commanded her, ignoring her complaints.

  And then, so quickly that Molly could hardly believe it had happened, Sally’s baby slithered into the world and gave his first mewling cry.

  As soon as she had cut the birth cord, Doris handed the baby to Molly and told her crisply, ‘Wash him and then give him to Sally,’ before turning back to Sally and cleaning her up.

  The baby was so tiny and yet so vigorous, so full of life. Tears blurred Molly’s sight as she washed him carefully in the warm water Doris had told her to bring up earlier. He was bawling, his eyes screwed up and his little legs drawn up towards his distended belly, but then as she washed him he stopped crying and seemed to be trying to focus on her.

  A feeling like none she had ever experienced before gripped her. Her emotions were so intense that she wanted to both laugh and cry at the same time.

  ‘Give him to me, Molly,’ Sally demanded huskily.

  Molly looked at Doris, who nodded her head. Very gently she carried the baby over to his mother.

  An expression of intense joy flooded Sally’s face as she took hold of him and instinctively put him to her breast.

  ‘You’re lucky you’re the kind that can give birth as easy as shelling peas,’ Doris told Sally unemotionally, ‘otherwise you might not be smiling right now.’

  ‘I was frightened I’d be sent away, and I wanted to be here in case my Ronnie gets some leave,’ Sally protested.

  Someone was knocking on the door. Nodding to Molly, Doris told her, ‘Take these things down to the back kitchen for me, will you, whilst I go and answer the door.’

  The caller turned out to be Doris’s neighbour, come to see how Sally was and to explain that they’d heard that the air-raid siren had simply been a test.

  ‘Over an hour we was in that Anderson shelter,’ she complained after she had admired the baby, and accepted the offer of a cup of tea.

  After that the visitors came thick and fast, and Molly was kept busy making tea and washing up until, at five o’clock, Frank’s mother told her that she could go.

  ‘You’re not a nurse but at least you’ve got a bit of gumption about you, not like that sister of yours,’ she told Molly grudgingly. ‘What my lad sees in her I’ll never know.’

  ‘Frank loves our June and she loves him,’ Molly defended her sister heatedly. ‘She’s missing him so much,’ she added.

  Was that a small softening she could see in Doris Brookes’s eyes? Molly hoped so.

  ‘When will Sally be able to go home, only I thought when she does I could go round and give her a bit of a hand?’ she asked quietly, changing the subject.

  ‘She’ll be back in her own bed tomorrow night,’ Doris answered her.

  Why should she be feeling so tired, Molly wondered wearily as she walked home. It was Sally who had had the baby, not her.

  ‘You’re back, are you?’ June greeted her as she walked into the kitchen. ‘What took you so long? Elsie was round here hours back, saying as how Sally had had a little boy.’

  ‘People kept coming round to see them and I was making them cups of tea,’ Molly told her tiredly.

  ‘I don’t k
now why you wanted to go putting yourself forward like that anyway, offering to help. What do you know about nursing? You’ve changed since you got involved with that WVS lot,’ she accused Molly sharply. ‘Become a bloody do-gooder and helping others rather than your own.’

  Molly suddenly realised that June felt threatened by her voluntary work, scared she wouldn’t be there for her, especially now she was so lonely with Frank being away. It made her heart go out to her sister.

  ‘I didn’t offer; it was someone else who said—’

  ‘Mebbe not, but you didn’t refuse, did you? A lot of use you must have bin.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything really, only fetch and carry. Oh, June, the baby is so gorgeous.’ Molly burst into tears. ‘I wish you could have seen him.’

  ‘Aye, well, I shall have to wait until Sally goes back to her own place. I’m not going knocking on Frank’s mam’s door and begging to be let in.’

  ‘Why don’t you, June?’ Molly suggested impulsively, adding before June could say anything, ‘She must be feeling lonely without Frank, and worried about him too, just like you are. I know she always seems a bit standoffish, but I’m sure if you let her see how much Frank means to you and sort of, well, talked to her a bit about the wedding and things, make her feel involved—’

  ‘What?’ June put her hands on her hips and glowered. ‘Me go round there making up to her?

  Don’t make me laugh. I’m not going round there to be shown up and told how she wants Frank to marry someone else.’

  Molly sighed. She wanted to urge her sister to adopt a less antagonistic attitude towards Frank’s mother, but she could see she was in no mood for such talk.

  ‘I don’t notice you going round to Johnny’s mam’s, making up to her,’ June accused.

  ‘That’s different,’ Molly protested. ‘Me and Johnny have only just got engaged, and his mam’s not living on her own.’

  ‘It seems to me that you aren’t that bothered about poor Johnny. You hardly ever talk about him,’ June sniffed disparagingly.

  ‘I write to him every day,’ Molly defended herself. It was true, after all, even if Johnny’s letters back to her didn’t arrive with the fatness and frequency of Frank’s to June. She wondered, though, if her regular letter-writing was more down to guilt than anything else. She certainly didn’t look forward to receiving Johnny’s letters, not like June did her Frank’s.