by Annie Groves
‘Come on, let me give you a hand finishing up wi’ this lot first,’ Frank insisted, rolling up his sleeves.
‘There’s no call for you to do that,’ Molly said. ‘I’m finished now anyway. At least it doesn’t look as though we’re going to have Hitler’s bombers coming over tonight. They’re normally here by now. Mind you, I wasn’t really expecting them tonight. They seem to come every other night. Not that it’s a good idea to rely on that. Jerry likes to try to catch us out, if he can.’
Frank gave her a thoughtful look and Molly knew that he wasn’t deceived by her pretence at needing to stay up to tidy up, and that he understood she was still downstairs in case she was called out to help with an emergency.
‘You’re as bad as me mam, you are – allus worrying about other folk more than you do yourself,’ Frank chided her gently.
‘Well, if they had come over, I’d have been able to help June get into the shelter, with Libby.’
‘I was hoping June might come back down. I wanted to talk to her,’ Frank told her.
‘She’s probably asleep now, but you can go up and see,’ Molly offered, feeling sorry for him. Far from recuperating at home after his ordeal at the front, he looked even more broken and defeated than when he’d first come back.
‘I’d better not do that. I’d probably wake the baby up and then I’d be in worse trouble than I am already.’
‘You know June only worries about keeping her to her routine on account of this book she’s been reading. She’s trying to be the perfect mother and it’s taking its toll on her, especially at such a time.’ Molly felt honour-bound to defend her sister.
‘Aye, I know. Showed it to me, she did, and said as how I were making her do things all wrong, what with wanting to pick up our Libby. By, but she’s a bonny baby, Molly,’ Frank beamed proudly. ‘Pretty as a picture wi’ them dark curls.’
Molly couldn’t help but smile in agreement. Her niece was the most beautiful baby she’d ever seen – she was happy to admit it. ‘Dad says that she’s got a real look of our mam,’ she told him.
‘That’s funny, my mam says she’s got me dad’s curls,’ Frank told her straight-faced, but when Molly looked at him she could see the laughter gleaming in his eyes. He had always had a good sense of humour, had Frank. ‘Not that I’m getting to see much of her,’ Frank added, his smile fading. ‘Every time I go near her June complains about sommat or other.’
‘She doesn’t mean anything by it, Frank,’ Molly tried to comfort him. ‘It’s just that she worries, what with the war, an’ all.’
‘Aye … she’s said, and she’s said too about her giving birth to Libby in the air-raid shelter. It really upset her, that did.’
‘Yes,’ Molly agreed. ‘Look,’ she suggested quietly, ‘why don’t you go up to her, Frank? And … and stay the night? I can sleep down here tonight, and if it helps …’
‘There you go again, thinking of others and not yourself,’ Frank told her gruffly. ‘It’s a kind thought, Molly, but I don’t see as how it would do any good. Your June agreed last time I was home that when I was on leave the two of us would stay at me mam’s. Now she says that she can’t stay there on account of Libby’s routine.’
Anger, confusion, defeat – Molly could hear them all in his voice and her heart ached for him. She reached out across the table and put her hand over his. ‘You and June are married, Frank. You need to spend time together. She’s your wife.’
‘You’d never think it from the way she’s behaving,’ Frank retorted grimly. ‘Not that I’m wanting to press her to do sommat as she doesn’t want,’ he added awkwardly, blushing slightly, before emphasising, ‘What I was meaning is that I wouldn’t want to be forcing meself on her or anything like that. But when a man’s bin away living wi’ other men, when he comes home he wants … well, I don’t want to get personal, like, Molly, but there’s some nights as I’d give a lot to have someone to hold.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Molly assured him in a low voice. And it was true she did. ‘I know it’s not sommat as I should say, but I can’t help wishing that me and Eddie had … It would have given me something to remember if we’d bin together properly, like.’ Her colour was high but what she had said was the truth, even if Frank was the first person she had felt able to admit it to. ‘I suppose you think badly of me now for saying I feel like that, me and Eddie not being married, an’ all.’
‘I could never think badly of you, Molly,’ Frank told her thickly, lifting his hand from beneath hers and giving hers a small squeeze.
‘We didn’t do anything as we shouldn’t have done,’ Molly said, adding proudly, ‘My Eddie wasn’t like that. But sometimes I wish …’ They both looked up towards the ceiling as they heard a door opening upstairs.
‘That will be June getting up to come down and do Libby’s feed,’ Molly told him. ‘Why don’t you have another word with her, Frank,’ she coaxed, ‘and try—’
It shocked her to see him shaking his head. ‘It’s no use, Molly. She’s changed,’ he told her helplessly. ‘She’s not the June I married any more, and that’s a fact.’
FIVE
‘There’s a letter come for you, Molly,’ June announced when Molly came in from work. ‘I’ve put it on the mantelpiece.’
‘It’s from Anne,’ Molly told her. The two friends had been writing regularly to one another, exchanging news, and although Molly had worried about her friend at first, as well as missing her, she had been reassured by the cheerful optimistic tone of Anne’s letters. She could, of course, fully understand that Anne wanted to be with Philip. She would have felt just the same in her shoes. She opened the letter, quickly scanning it, her face breaking into a wide smile.
‘Listen to this, June,’ she announced excitedly. ‘Anne says she’s bin given leave so she’s coming home for Christmas, and she’s bringing Philip with her.’
Making herself a cup of tea, Molly went to sit down and read Anne’s letter more thoroughly.
‘Philip is so very, very brave, Molly,’ Anne had written.
He has so much to bear, but as he says, there are others who are worse off than him. He has been told that he will be fitted with artificial legs just as soon as he is strong enough, and although he has told me that he doesn’t want to hold me to the promises we made to one another before he left for France, I know he is the one for me and that no one could ever take his place. Besides, I’ve told him that he can’t refuse to marry me now, since my parents say that I’ve totally disgraced myself by moving down to Aldershot to be with him. Not that I would ever hold him to a promise he didn’t want to keep, but I know he is simply being honourable in offering to release me from our ‘unofficial’ engagement.
It was a surprise and a relief when my mother wrote to suggest we should come up for Christmas. I was afraid that they would never be able to forgive Philip for being alive when Richard is dead. I am so looking forward to seeing you. I have missed you so much. I have told Philip what a tower of strength you were for me when I first heard that he was so badly wounded.
Molly sighed as she finished reading Anne’s letter. Life wasn’t going to be easy for Anne if she and Philip did marry, but at least they would have one another. She folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. It was her turn on night duty with the emergency services team and she had to be down at the depot in half an hour.
The heavy bombardment Liverpool had been suffering might have eased off a little but the results of it could be seen everywhere. The streets of Liverpool now looked like the mouth of a very elderly person, Molly reflected, with cavities and gaps where healthy teeth had once been, or in Liverpool’s case where buildings had once stood. In the centre of the city hardly a street remained without a gaping hole in it, and the closer one got to the docks the worse the devastation was, with literally whole streets flattened by Hitler’s bombers. One of the new girls at the factory had arrived at work one morning to say that their house had been destroyed the previous night and that she and her parents had
had to move in with her father’s cousin. At least they were alive. One of the other girls had reported that half the street next to her own had gone, taking the lives of three families who had lived there. Now at night there was an eerie silence in the worst affected areas, deserted by those who had once lived there, either because their homes had been destroyed, or out of fear that theirs would be next.
Files of trekkers left the city every night, and in Knotty Ash and Aintree, and the villages closest to the city, the local inhabitants were complaining that the trekkers coming in every night and occupying what shelter there was were depriving them of shelter space, should they need it.
Like all the other WVS volunteers, Molly had done her bit helping to hand out hot drinks and food to those bombed out of their homes.
It was pitiful to see elderly folk frightened and confused, crying over their smashed treasures as they stared at the wreckage, but what was even worse was those times when the volunteers had to try to comfort those whose loved ones lay beneath the rubble of beams and bricks.
Molly had almost reached her destination when she heard a sound that made her whole body stiffen in dreaded recognition. Everyone in Liverpool now knew the differing engine sounds of the enemy planes coming in: the droning heaviness when they were still laden with bombs, and then the screaming whine of the bombs themselves, followed by silence just before they exploded.
This plane was different, though. Its engine sounded lighter somehow – and faster. Up ahead of her in the darkness, she could just about make out the shape of a corporation bus crawling along the road, its windows blacked out in accordance with the law. Although she didn’t have much further to walk, suddenly she didn’t want to be alone. If she ran she might be able to catch the bus.
The noise from the plane was growing louder. Instinctively she ducked into the shelter of a doorway and then looked up cautiously. To her shock the plane was even lower than she had thought – not a bomber surely, but a small fighter plane that was almost touching the chimneypots. The bus driver had obviously already seen it too because he had put his foot down and was driving at full pelt as he tried to escape from it. But he hadn’t got a chance; Molly could see that. As she watched, helpless to do anything, the fighter opened fire on the bus, raking it with a staccato burst of gunfire that briefly illuminated both the bus and the road.
As the noise died away and the plane disappeared, Molly could hear the wounded and dying screaming, trapped inside the bus. In front of her horrified gaze, people were staggering off the bus, their clothes on fire, but as she started to run towards them the bus itself exploded with a dull boom.
The auxiliary fire service was on the scene almost as fast as she was, but there was nothing they could do.
‘You’re late,’ Mrs Wesley told Molly sharply half an hour later when she walked into the hall where they were on duty to hand out tea and blankets.
‘There was this plane,’ Molly told her slowly, still gripped by the shock of what she had seen. ‘Not a bomber, a fighter. It got a bus. I think it was a number 83. I went to help but there was nothing …’ She swallowed hard. For the rest of her life she knew that she would remember the smell of burning flesh and the sound of the screams of those who had not been lucky enough to be killed in the initial blast. ‘I’m sorry I’m late …’
To her surprise Mrs Wesley had taken hold of her arm and was leading her towards a chair, calling over her shoulder as she did so, ‘Aileen, bring Molly a cup of tea, will you?’
‘It’s all right. I’m all right,’ Molly tried to say, but to her own astonishment the words just wouldn’t come, her lips were trembling so much. In fact, she was shaking all over.
‘It’s all right, Molly. You’re in shock, dear. Now come on and drink this tea. It will help you feel better.’
Molly stared at her. Could this really be Mrs Wesley talking to her so gently? That thought alone was enough to make Molly take a deep breath and insist firmly, ‘I’m all right now, Mrs Wesley,’ before determinedly standing up.
Mrs Wesley gave her an approving smile. For good reason was Molly one of her star girls. Underneath her sweet, innocent demeanour lay a tough and resilient woman. Mrs Wesley knew she had suffered so badly when her young man had died and for weeks had seemed upset and angry at the world, but she had pulled through admirably. Mrs Wesley prayed that once this awful war was over she would find happiness again. Not that she could ever tell Molly that, of course – it wouldn’t do for Mrs Wesley’s no-nonsense attitude to be seen to be crumbling.
‘Now, you go and help Aileen tonight, Molly. We’re expecting a lot to be coming in and we’re running short of blankets.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘It would help, of course, if people handed them back in the morning instead of going off with them.’
Shelters such as the church hall, provided by the council and manned by the voluntary services, were only supposed to be for overnight emergency accommodation for those who had nowhere else to go, but increasingly Molly and the others were recognising regulars.
‘Well, it’s so much better here, duck, than down them dirty shelters,’ one elderly lady had confided to Molly when Molly had tried to point out to her that she wasn’t really supposed to come to the hall every night. ‘If you go in them shelters you’ve got to use them nasty lavvies and you don’t get no nice cuppa like you do here. Pity there’s no sugar, though.’
Molly thought about this lady now and asked Aileen ruefully, ‘Where’s Mrs Marshall? She’s normally here by now.’
‘Haven’t you heard? She got bombed out the other night. The whole street’s gone. Just like that. Oh Gawd, look at this little lot,’ Aileen protested glumly, as several people came in, their faces and clothes black with chimney soot. Molly and the others were familiar now with the sight of soot- blackened victims of Hitler’s bombing campaign.
‘Two sugars, please, and I’ll have a Mars bar, an’ all, if you’ve got one.’
‘Johnny,’ Molly laughed, as she looked up from filling cups with tea to see him grinning down at her. ‘What are you doing here? You’ll be in trouble if Mrs W. sees you.’
‘That’s all you know, Molly Dearden. Glad to see me, she was, I can tell you.’
Molly gave him a suspicious look. ‘If this is one of your jokes …’
‘No. Cross me heart and hope to die.’ Johnny clasped his hand to his chest. ‘I’ve just brung a load of blankets in for her,’ he explained, ‘and I thought that whilst I was here I might as well do the gentlemanly thing and wait for you so that I can see you home safely.’
‘Since when did you want to see any lass home safely?’ Molly challenged him, but secretly she knew she would be only too glad to have his company on the long walk back home after what had happened earlier. One thing she had to admit about Johnny was that, somehow or other, he always managed to make her smile. She felt so much better about sharing a laugh and a joke with him now that she had spoken to Elsie. Her neighbour’s kind words had removed the burden of guilt she had been carrying. It was as Elsie had said: she would never ever forget her dearest Eddie, and no one could ever take the place in her heart and her memories that was his alone.
‘Made any plans for Christmas yet?’ Johnny asked half an hour later as they stepped out of the hall into the cold dampness of the December night. ‘Only if you was free one night, how about coming dancing wi’ me?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she replied automatically, and then wondered if she had gone mad. What on earth had made her say that? ‘But I’m only thinking about it, mind,’ she warned him, just in case he got the wrong idea. ‘I’m not saying that I will.’
‘Come on, quick, there’s a bus. If we run we can catch it.’
‘No!’ Molly stood stock-still in the street.
‘What? Aw, it’s gone now; we’ve missed it. What’s to do with yer?’ he demanded, as he turned round to see her trembling violently.
Molly shook her head; she couldn’t speak – not even to tell Johnny to let go of her when, q
uick as anything, he took her in his arms, holding her tightly.
Something about the warmth of his strong male body against the softness of her own seemed to calm her down.
‘That’s better,’ he told her. ‘What’s to do?’
He was still holding her, and her voice was muffled by his coat as she told him what had happened earlier. ‘I saw them, Johnny. Them that wasn’t killed came staggering off the bus screaming and in flames. I could smell their flesh.’ She buried her face further into his coat and let him comfort her as she wept for the death and destruction, and her own horror at the sight of it.
‘When is it all going to end, Johnny? And how many of us will still be alive when it does?’
‘I don’t know,’ he told her truthfully, ‘but what I do know is that I’m damn well going to live whilst I can. Life’s too precious to waste. Fancy doing some living wi’ me, Molly?’
He was the eternal flirt, she decided ruefully, always ready to try it on, and yet she could not help smiling as she listened to him say all the things he wanted to do and how he wouldn’t let something so trifling as war stop him.
He had only partially released her from his arms, so that as they walked along the pavement he had an arm around her shoulders still, keeping her close to him. Not that it really mattered. There was no one about to see them, even though the all clear had gone over an hour ago.
‘You know sommat, Molly?’
‘What?’ she asked him unsuspectingly.
‘I really do think I’m going to have to kiss you.’
They had stopped walking. Indignantly Molly looked up at him. ‘What? You …’ she began to protest, her words softening to a dizzy ‘Mmmm’, followed by silence as he kissed her tenderly and achingly slowly.
Molly opened her eyes and blinked. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she said gravely. But there was more softness than accusation in her voice and she didn’t object when he gave her a hug and deposited a swift kiss on the tip of her nose.
