by Annie Groves
Her chores now finished, she hurried upstairs to get washed and changed, and then quickly drank a cup of tea before grabbing her cap and cramming it down on her curls, ready to leave the house.
She had just stepped out through the front gate when she saw the telegraph boy cycling up the cul-de-sac.
Daisy Cartwright from across at number 77, who was obviously on her way to the shops and marshalling her two small exuberant sons in front of her, waved at Molly, and called out to her, ‘Wonder where he’s goin’. Makes me go cold all over, it does, whenever I see ’im.’
Molly was just about to agree with her, when the boy drew level with her and called out, ‘You from number 78?’
Quickly she nodded, her heart pounding as she took the telegram from him. It was addressed to her. Everyone knew that the buff envelopes brought bad news of loved ones being injured or killed.
‘’Ere, Molly, let me go and get your dad.’
She looked blankly at Daisy, numbly aware of the shocked pity she could see in her eyes. She hadn’t even seen or heard Daisy cross the road.
Whilst she stood gripping the telegram, Daisy put her arm round her shoulders and instructed her sons, ‘Run round and knock on the back door of number 78 and tell whoever answers the door to come quickly.
‘Come on, Molly lass, let’s get you back inside before the whole of the cul-de-sac comes out nosying. Not that anyone’d mean any harm, but at times like this yer wants yer bit of privacy …’
‘What’s going on?’ June asked sharply as they walked into the front room.
Daisy answered quickly, ‘There’s bin a telegram delivered, June, for your Molly.’
Molly was distantly aware of June taking the telegram from her and opening it, and then exclaiming crossly, ‘Well, of all the daft things… Molly, it’s all right. It’s from your Eddie, to say that they’ve docked but that he won’t get no shore leave this time because he’s being transferred to another ship that’s going out today.’
‘What? Let me see,’ Molly demanded. When June passed the telegram to her, her hands were shaking so much she could hardly hold it.
At the bottom Eddie had written, ‘See you in church.’ And he had signed it with a kiss.
‘Daft bugger,’ Daisy said bluntly. ‘Fancy sending her a telegram. Half scared her to death, he has. Men! I’d best be on me way otherwise the queue at Hodsons will be all the way up Edge Hill and back again.’
‘Are you all right?’ June asked Molly after Daisy had gone.
‘When he gave me the telegram and I saw me name on it, I thought …’ Tears of relief welled in Molly’s eyes.
‘Like Daisy said, your Eddie is a daft bugger,’ June declared, putting her arm round her comfortingly. ‘You’d better come back inside and have a cup of tea.’
‘I can’t. I’m going to be late for the WVS as it is, and they’re relying on us down at the railway station. Some of the families have come from miles out to see their men off. You know yourself what it’s like.’
‘Well, get yourself a cuppa there and have a couple of extra sugars – it’ll help you calm down.’
‘I’m all right, June, honest.’ Suddenly Molly started to laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ June demanded, puzzled.
‘I was just picturing meself, standing there, thinking that Eddie was dead when he wasn’t.’
‘Well, I can’t see owt much to laugh about in that,’ June grumbled. ‘If it had been my Frank that’d given me a shock like that, I’d have boxed his ears good and proper the next time I saw him.’
‘Have you told your Frank about the baby yet?’ Molly asked her.
‘No, he’d only start worrying, and since I’m not three months I don’t see the point. Time enough to tell him once it’s for sure. With any luck he’ll be getting some home leave soon anyway.’
‘It would be nice if he were here for the wedding. Eddie would like that, an’ all. He and Frank really get on.
‘June, do you ever wake up in the morning and can’t believe how much has changed?’ Molly asked her sister impulsively. ‘Dad was telling me the other day as how he and our mam were walking out for two years before they got married, and yet this time last year you were only just walking out with Frank, and I was with Johnny and now …’
‘Aye, well, it were different in Dad’s time and war makes people act a bit quicker – you can’t take time for granted. You’ve got the church booked, and the church hall so you’re all sorted. Of course, Elsie will be giving us a hand.’
Molly smiled happily. So what if she had to have a pretend cardboard wedding cake? She didn’t care. All she cared about was that in three weeks’ time she and Eddie would be getting married.
SEVEN
‘And you could have knocked me over with a feather when I got a letter from my Frank yesterday, saying as how he would be home before Easter. Molly, how do you think it will look if I put a bit of trimming on me straw hat for the wedding, so that it matches up with me blue frock, and then pin a few flowers to me jacket?’ June demanded, breaking off from telling Sally about her good news, and then continuing without waiting for an answer, ‘I could do with some of that Cyclax leg cream as well. I’m clean out of stockings and my legs need some colour.’
‘You want to have a word with Pearl. She told me the other day that if I ever wanted any stockings to have a word with ’er as her George has a contact,’ Sally said. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t get a chance to have a word with your Eddie before he left, Molly. I reckon it would be easy enough for ’im to bring us both in a few pairs of stockings, what with him toing and froing across to America all the time. Did he say exactly when he’d be back when he wrote you that telegram?’
Molly shook her head, using her teeth to snap off the thread from the hem she was sewing. ‘He’s only bin gone just over a week, so I reckon he won’t be back until a couple of days before the wedding.’
‘It’s a pity he’s going to miss your birthday, tomorrow,’ June commented.
‘He can miss that, just so long as he doesn’t miss our wedding,’ Molly answered stoutly. Of course she would have loved it if Eddie could have been with her tomorrow to celebrate her eighteenth birthday, but what did a birthday matter compared with a marriage? ‘I went round to see Elsie last night. Eddie had left a parcel with her to give me on me birthday if he wasn’t back. She was asking me if he was going to wear his uniform or if she ought to sort him out a suit.’
The three young women were spending Sunday afternoon together, discussing the wedding, and listening to the wireless, June and Molly’s father having gone down to the allotment, whilst Sally and Ronnie’s little boy slept in his pram.
‘Well, we’re certainly going to celebrate your birthday, even if Eddie isn’t going to be here to share in the fun,’ Sally announced determinedly, ‘and not just with Elsie’s elderberry wine. You’re only eighteen the once, and tomorrow night we’ll mek sure you have a good time.’
Molly, June, Sally and some of the girls from Hardings were all going to Lewis’s after work for a bit of tea, before going on to the pictures. ‘Not that goin’ to the pictures wi’ us can compare wi’ going with Eddie,’ Sally teased, laughing when Molly blushed and then laughed herself.
She was disappointed that Eddie wouldn’t be home to share in her birthday celebrations but she was still looking forward to them, and to going out and having fun with her friends. After all, it wouldn’t be long before he was home and then she would have their wedding to look forward to. Just thinking about becoming Eddie’s wife made her feel giddy with happiness and excitement.
‘So what’s the present he left for you, then, Molly?’ Sally asked.
‘I haven’t opened it yet.’
‘Oh, go on, get it open. Eddie won’t mind,’ Sally urged her.
Molly shook her head, but the other two insisted that she satisfy their curiosity and in the end she gave in, going upstairs to collect the neatly wrapped square box.
‘It doesn’t look
like stockings,’ June commented, obviously disappointed.
Molly wasn’t listening to her. Instead she was staring at the contents of the small box she had just opened, her lips parted in a shocked ‘Oh’ of delighted disbelief.
‘What is it, then, Molly?’ Sally demanded, peering over her shoulder.
‘It’s a watch,’ Molly told Sally and June breathlessly, her face flushing with pleasure, as she continued to stare at the pretty dainty watch with its neat leather straps. ‘Eddie’s bought me a watch.’
‘Let me have a look,’ June demanded. ‘Well, I never. That must have cost him a pretty penny, Molly,’ she teased, breaking off to complain, ‘Who’s that knocking at the front door on a Sunday afternoon? You go, our Molly. Don’t worry, we’ll mind your watch.’
Laughing, Molly put down her birthday gift and went to see who was there.
A young man stood on the path. He was dressed in the everyday uniform of the merchant navy, a smear of oil on his cheek.
‘Are you Molly Dearden?’ he asked her.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve come about your Eddie.’
‘You’re a friend of Eddie’s?’ Molly opened the door properly, smiling warmly at him.
But he stayed where he was, twisting his cap in his hands as he looked down at the ground and muttered, ‘I’ve come wi’ a bit of bad news for you.’
Even then she didn’t have any kind of premonition or sense of warning, her first thought being that he had come to tell her that Eddie’s ship was going to be delayed.
‘It’s Eddie’s ship, see,’ the young sailor told her desperately. ‘Torpedoed, it was, three days out of Liverpool. Our ship was on our way back, see, and so we was able to pick up them as had survived …’
Molly stared at him, unable to take in what he was trying to tell her. It couldn’t possibly be true. She wasn’t going to let it be true.
‘Where’s Eddie?’ she demanded, repeating frantically when she saw his face, ‘Where is he? Where …?’
‘He was a goner when we pulled him out of the water – anyone could see that – but he still grabbed hold of me arm and said how he wanted me to come and see you and … tell you how much he loves … loved you. Them were his last words: “Tell Molly that I love her.”’
Molly opened her mouth to scream that it couldn’t possibly be true; that he couldn’t possibly be standing there and telling her that Eddie, her Eddie, who was to marry her in two weeks’ time was dead. But no sound emerged. She felt as though a giant hand had seized hold of her, squeezing the breath from her throat and the life from her heart.
Eddie couldn’t be dead. He mustn’t be. Not Eddie.
‘Molly, who is it?’ June demanded, coming to the door to find out what was keeping her, her impatience changing to concern as she saw the way Molly was standing there like a statue, whilst a young man June didn’t know stood on the front path, twisting his cap and stammering, ‘I’m sorry, missus, it’s her Eddie … Bought it, he has. His ship were shot out of the water by Jerry. Poor sods didn’t have a chance…’
‘Are you saying that Eddie is dead?’ June asked shakily.
‘Yes. I’m off of the Aegeus – we picked up the men from his ship, and his last words to me were to come here and tell his girl.’
Suddenly Molly came to life. ‘But if he spoke to you he can’t be dead. Tell him, June,’ she pleaded, turning to her sister. ‘Tell him that Eddie can’t be dead.’ Molly’s voice had started to rise and the young sailor was looking increasingly uncomfortable, whilst June whispered to Sally in an urgent undertone to go round to Elsie’s and tell her what had happened.
‘He got it in the gut, missus,’ he told June in a gruff voice. ‘It teks longer ter die that way, but he knew as he got it. Said so himself … when the medic was pumping him full of morphine. I’ve got ter go and get back ter me ship. You’ll be hearing official, like, of course …’
June had her hand on Molly’s arm and she could feel her trembling.
‘Thanks for your trouble,’ she told the sailor, adding to Molly, ‘Come on, let’s get you inside.’
‘I don’t want to go inside. I want to go to Eddie,’ Molly told her. ‘He needs me, June. He needs me…’
EIGHT
Four days ago she had been eighteen, but she might as well have been eighty. That was how old she felt, how empty of any desire to go on living. There was no point to life for her any more without Eddie, and she wished passionately that instead of standing here in the bright sunlight of this cold March morning she was in that dreadful wooden coffin with Eddie. At least that way they would be together, she would be in his arms, lying heart to heart with him, even if their cold lifeless flesh couldn’t register the joy of that shared intimacy.
She looked dry-eyed at the coffin up ahead of her, borne aloft on the shoulders of his shipmates. John Fowler, dressed in funereal black, walked immediately behind them. Elsie had been too distraught to attend the funeral of the young nephew she had brought up almost as though he were her own child. Molly too had been gently advised not to come, in case it was too much for her, but how could she let Eddie be locked away in that box and buried in the black coldness of the earth without her being there? Eddie, whose last words had been for her, whose last thoughts had been of her; Eddie who had loved her as no one else ever could.
The whole cul-de-sac had turned out to walk him to his grave, along with many of his shipmates and officers from the merchant navy.
‘Why did he have to sail on that ship?’ Molly had asked brokenly when June had led her into their front room, the raw agony of her loss permeating her numbness. ‘Why did it have to be him, my Eddie? Why …?’
It had been Frank’s mother – reluctantly summoned by June when she had realised that the fits of shivering that gripped Molly, alternated with hot sweats, needed more experienced help than she could give her – who had finally answered her terrible question.
Doris Brookes had taken hold of Molly’s hot and sweaty hand, clasping it in the firm coolness of her own as she told her calmly, ‘When there is no reason or explanation, we have to accept that some things are God’s will. Eddie has gone, Molly, but if he was here do you think he would want to see you like this? Do you think you are the only young woman to lose the man she loves?’ The sympathy in her voice took June by surprise. She’d forgotten that Doris was not much older than she was herself when she lost her husband.
Her words had made Molly turn towards her, remembering that she had been widowed in the Great War.
‘Eddie wouldn’t want to see you upsetting yourself like this. He’d want to be able to be proud of you, just as you should be proud of him.’
‘Proud of him? For dying?’ Molly had challenged her bitterly. ‘For leaving me here without him?’
Huge sobs racked her body. She had never dreamed she could feel like this, or that she would have to. Her pain was shot through blood red with anger. Anger because Eddie had had to change ships; anger against the Germans; anger against the authorities; anger against other people whose men were not dead; but, most of all, anger against Eddie himself for leaving her here alone without him.
She had tried to drag her hand free of Doris Brookes’s but she had refused to release it, saying with firm authority, ‘It will get better, Molly, I promise you, but you have to help it. You have to be strong and brave, and think about what Eddie would have wanted you to do.’
Molly had tried to take comfort from her words but she couldn’t. How could it be God’s will that Eddie had to die so young and so cruelly?
But he was dead, and now she was walking slowly behind his coffin, four days after her eighteenth birthday, her head bowed beneath the brim of her borrowed black hat to conceal her tears. She ought to be wearing a bridal gown, not mourning clothes. Her father and her sister were on either side to support her, whilst Frank, newly returned on leave, walked up ahead of them in his uniform.
Inside the church, dust motes danced on beams of sunlight. But despite the
sunshine outside the church, here inside it was bitterly cold. As cold as the grave. The thought tormented her and she had to force back an anguished sob. She had promised herself that today at least she would be brave for Eddie, not disgrace him.
June was standing next to her in the pew with their father on her other side. June, who was carrying a new life inside her, a child who would never see the man who would have been his uncle. Molly pressed her hand flat to her belly as a steel-sharp pain twisted it, taunting her for the emptiness of her own womb. She should have pressed Eddie harder that last time they were together. Then at least she might have had something of him to fill the emptiness inside her and take some of the pain from her loss. Eddie’s child would have been a blessing, a ray of hope at this bleakest of times.
Tears filled her eyes and spilled down onto her cheeks. At her side June reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly, whilst on her other side, Molly could see out of the corner of her eye how her sister also reached for the comfort of her own husband’s hand. An unfamiliar bitterness gripped her. Eddie hadn’t even been in the forces. He had been a merchant seaman, a soft target for Hitler’s torpedoes. She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from crying aloud.
‘Why don’t we go home now, Molly?’
She turned her head to look at Frank, staring at him as though his quiet compassionate words had been spoken in a language she didn’t understand. His hand was on her arm, his eyes filled with sadness and pity for her. They were outside the church now, waiting for Eddie’s body to be conveyed to its final resting place.
