Goodnight Sweetheart

by Annie Groves

  ‘You don’t need to come any further with us, Molly,’ Anne told her as they stood together under the Picton Clock where they had met so many times in the past. ‘We’ll be fine from here. It’s all downhill. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Giving her friend a quick hug, Molly stood and watched them until they were safely across the road, before turning to make her own way home.

  She was tired and hungry. ‘It’s corned beef hash tonight, like it or not,’ she warned her grumbling tummy. Feeling hungry was just one of the things they were all having to get used to now, but what was a bit of hunger when you looked at men like Philip, Molly asked herself grimly.

  As she turned into the close, on a sudden impulse she hurried over to Sally’s house, making her way up the alleyway between it and the next pair of semis, and then going in through the gate to the small back garden so that she could knock on the back door.

  ‘Molly!’ Sally exclaimed as she opened the door. ‘Now there’s a surprise! Don’t stand on the doorstep. Come on in.’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb you if you’re busy,’ Molly protested.

  ‘No, I’ve given the kiddies their bath down here in the kitchen. It saves on water, like the Government says we have to, and it’s warmer here than in the bathroom. They’re in bed now.’

  ‘It’s about our June,’ Molly began.

  It made her feel disloyal to be standing here, in Sally’s kitchen, discussing her sister with her behind her back, but it was for June’s own sake that she was doing this, she comforted herself.

  ‘I’m worried about her, Sally. She’s not bin herself just recently.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Sally agreed vehemently. ‘Nearly snapped me head off, she did, when I told her she was being too hard on her Frank. I thought that her and me was good friends, but the way she’s bin behaving, I don’t know now as she’s someone I want for a friend.’

  ‘Oh, Sally, please don’t fall out with her,’ Molly begged.

  ‘Me fall out with her? It’s her as is doing the falling out,’ Sally told Molly sharply. ‘Allus going on about that bloomin’ Dr Truby and that ruddy book. And then for her to go and treat her Frank the way she did when he came home … I know she’s your sister, Molly, and o’ course you want to help her, but if you want my opinion, your June needs to get herself sorted out. We’re all in this war together, and she’s not the only one with a little ’un to worry about. I’ve got two of me own, and no family to help out. I don’t know what I’d have done without Frank’s mam showing me how to go on. Your June ought to be thankful she’s got such a good ma-in-law instead of being the way she is wi’ her. Aw, don’t look like that, Molly,’ Sally sighed when she saw Molly’s face fall, crossing the small kitchen to give her a hug.

  ‘It will all come out in the wash, you see if it doesn’t. Your June needs to come to her senses, that’s all. Look,’ Sally proffered after a small pause, ‘I’ll call round and see her tomorrow – how does that suit you?’

  ‘Oh, Sally, would you? Thank you!’ Molly beamed with relief.

  ‘I hope we don’t get Jerry coming over again tonight,’ Molly heard one of the other WVS women saying tiredly as they all hurried into the hall. ‘Three times this week already we’ve had to spend the night in the air-raid shelter. My youngest was falling asleep over his breakfast this morning – what there was of it.’ She sniffed disparagingly.

  ‘Aye, so were my two,’ another woman joined in, ‘and you’ll never guess what one of the little buggers did the other day. He only came home with a ruddy great piece of shrapnel he’d found. Said he was collecting it to exchange at school and that some lad had told the others he’d found a bomb and that he’d only tell them where it was if they gave him a penny each. Things they get up to! If I’ve told my lot once I’ve told ’em a dozen times to keep away from bomb sites in case they have an accident.’

  Molly was just starting to inch past the chatting women when she saw Anne coming in through the door. She hurried to make her way towards her, hugging her warmly and exclaiming happily, ‘Anne, how lovely! I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.’

  ‘No. It was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision, really. Mum and Dad have been getting on so well with Philip; after I’d worried myself sick about them still resenting the fact that he’s alive and Richard is dead. You could have knocked me down with a feather when my father started talking to him about Richard.’

  ‘I expect at first they were too shocked and upset by Richard’s death to think straight. You don’t when it first happens,’ Molly answered.

  Anne reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I haven’t had a chance yet to ask how you are. I know how lucky I am to have Philip, Molly, and how hard it must be for you.’

  ‘I’ll never forget Eddie. I think about him every day, but it isn’t as bad as it was,’ Molly said matter-of-factly.

  ‘I have missed you, Molly, and I’ve missed all of this as well.’ Anne glanced round the busy room. ‘That’s why I telephoned Mrs Wesley and asked if I might come along.’

  Molly privately suspected that Anne needed some precious time away from Philip and his erratic moods, but didn’t want to upset her friend by saying so.

  ‘I’d better get over to the tea wagon,’ Molly said. ‘Come with me so that we can chat.’

  Anne’s smart khaki ATS uniform stood out sharply against the more old-fashioned dullness of the WVS uniforms, and Molly could see the sideways looks she was attracting.

  ‘I reckon that every woman in here who isn’t married is envying you your uniform,’ she teased Anne.

  Anne pulled a small face. ‘You should hear the comments we get – “All those soldiers …” is just about the most polite of them. We have an important role to play in this war, but to listen to some people you’d think the only reason we joined up was to have fun,’ she complained as they reached the tea wagon, continuing ruefully whilst Molly took off her jacket and pulled on an overall, ‘Of course, there are those girls who have joined because they think it’s going to be a bit of a lark, living away from home amongst thousands of soldiers. But I can tell you, Molly, they soon get to realise that what they’re in for isn’t a good time but really hard work.’

  ‘You’re enjoying it, though?’ Molly smiled. Her friend seemed tired and drawn but also more grown up and confident – yet another of the contradictions war had brought with it. While the bombs fell and people suffered, girls like her and Anne were discovering whole new aspects of themselves.

  ‘I’m enjoying being so close to Philip,’ Anne corrected her firmly. Her smile disappeared as she added, ‘But like I told you, he won’t be able to stay where he is in the army hospital for very much longer. They want to move him to St Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton. That’s where he’ll be fitted with his new legs and be taught how to use them. It’s about thirty miles from Aldershot. That’s one of the reasons we want to get married as quickly as we can,’ she reminded Molly, ‘so that I can apply to live out and we can be together.’

  ‘At least things are looking up with your parents.’ Molly knew they must be worrying about their daughter, living away from home for the very first time, especially as she was their only surviving child.

  ‘Oh, yes. They’ll never get over losing Richard – none of us will – but they want me to be happy. They couldn’t ask Philip enough about the time he and Richard were in Nantes together.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘After all the worrying I’d been doing that Dad would refuse to even speak to Philip. That’s another of the reasons I’ve come here: I could see that both of them, but especially Dad, wanted to get Philip to themselves, to talk about Richard. They were together right until the last. Philip feels guilty because he survived and Richard didn’t but I’ve told him that he mustn’t. He isn’t to blame for what happened. He gets such low moods sometimes, Molly. But they’ve told me at the hospital that that happens to a lot of the men.’

  Molly touched Anne’s arm sympathetically. ‘Our brave b
oys see such dreadful things, Anne. All we can do is help them as much as we can.’

  ‘Call this tea?’ a stout woman in a grubby-looking coat complained as she took the cup Molly handed to her. A clawlike hand with dirty nails curled round it. ‘Cat’s pee, more like.’

  ‘Go on with you, Mrs T.,’ Molly smiled. ‘You won’t get a better cuppa anywhere.

  ‘She’s one of our regulars,’ she whispered to Anne as the elderly woman turned her back on them to slurp her tea noisily. ‘You watch, she’ll be back at the end of the queue just as soon as she’s finished that one.’

  ‘Is she one of those trekkers?’ Anne asked.

  ‘No, poor soul was bombed out of her house down on Pilcher Street. According to her neighbours she lived alone with her son, and he’s disappeared. The council have offered her alternative accommodation but she won’t take it. Says she’s not going to let Jerry bomb her out a second time so she spends all her time walking round Liverpool. But tell me about the ATS and Aldershot – is it exciting?’ Molly demanded, changing the subject.

  Anne laughed and teased, ‘Why? Are you thinking of joining up?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t leave our dad and June.’ Molly’s eyes momentarily clouded at the thought of her sister.

  ‘Mmm, and what about that chap who was chasing you around? Johnny?’

  Molly blushed and laughed, then admitted, ‘He keeps asking me out but June doesn’t approve.’

  Leaning closer to her so that she couldn’t be overheard, Anne told her fiercely, ‘Well, never mind your June, Molly. We only get one shot at life, and as you and me both know some folks don’t get much of a shot at it at all, so we’ve got to make the best of things whilst we’re still here. Leastways, that’s what I think now. That’s why me and Philip are getting married as quick as we can. Besides,’ she fiddled with her engagement ring and then confided in a rush, ‘I wouldn’t say this to anyone else but you, Molly, it’s important we get married just as soon as we can now, just in case, like … if you take my meaning. Not that we’ve done anything that lots of other unwed couples aren’t doing,’ she defended herself hastily when she saw Molly’s eyes widen slightly.

  Anne and Philip were sharing the intimacies of a married couple? Molly knew she ought to be more shocked than she actually was, but the truth was that a part of her still mourned the fact that she and Eddie had not shared those intimacies. She was happy that Anne and Philip could still enjoy intimacy with Philip’s terrible injuries. And they wouldn’t be the first couple to be pushed by this war into the kind of behaviour that they would once have shunned, Molly knew. Lying in bed at night not knowing if you would live to see another morning made a person anxious to take what happiness they could find, instead of putting off the opportunity to enjoy it for a future they might not have.

  * * *

  ‘Phew, I’m glad that’s over,’ Anne sighed when Molly had finished her stint at the tea wagon and the two young women were free to leave. ‘I’d forgotten what hard work WVS is.’

  ‘The queues get longer every night,’ Molly told her soberly. Because she was working at the factory, Molly didn’t work all through the night unless she was on emergency duty, but it was still gone midnight when she and Anne left the shabby hall and started to make their way home. The long days were taking their toll and only this morning Molly had had to use some of her precious Cyclax on the circles under her eyes, which seemed to be a permanent fixture of her face these days.

  ‘No bomber’s moon tonight, thank heavens,’ Molly said tiredly as they linked arms and set off through the rundown streets.

  ‘I’m glad we’ve got a bit of time to ourselves, Molly,’ Anne began awkwardly. ‘The thing is that if things had been different, you would have been the first one I would have wanted to be my bridesmaid, but me and Philip have decided to get married down in Aldershot, not knowing how fit he’ll be to travel up here, and it being easier to get everything sorted out down there. My parents will travel down to see us married, but I’m not asking anyone else, what with it being so close to Christmas and everything.’ She paused and then said in a low voice Molly had to strain to hear, ‘I had no real idea what it was going to be like when I decided to leave Liverpool so that I could be nearer to Philip. It was such a shock when I first went to visit him.’

  ‘It must have been,’ Molly agreed gently ‘Seeing him so badly wounded when—’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that.’ Anne shook her head impatiently. ‘It was what he told me about how he came to lose his legs and how our Richard was killed. Lost in action was what we’d been told, as you know, but according to Philip …’ She paused and then said chokily, ‘You heard all that he was saying about the Lancastria. It preys on his mind all the time. The Government lied about Richard being lost in action. It was no such thing. Bombed, they were, like sitting ducks, trapped in this ship. The Lancastria that was supposed to be bringing them home to safety when the Germans invaded France. Everyone knows about Dunkirk. The papers were full of it and how all those men were rescued from Jerry, but no one has said a word about this St- Nazaire and what happened there; how men like Richard died. Thousands of them, Philip said there were, bombed and killed and drowned, and not a word of what happened told to anyone.’

  Tears were pouring down Anne’s face. Molly turned to her and gave her a fierce hug. ‘Yes, I know. We heard what had happened from Sally. Her husband was in hospital down south when some of the survivors were being brought in and he told her about it, and how the Government was putting a D-notice on it so that it was all to be kept a secret. Frank said he reckoned it was because Mr Churchill thought the country had enough bad news to cope with with Dunkirk, without there being any more.’

  ‘What?’

  Molly could hear the shocked anger in Anne’s voice as she pushed her away. ‘You knew and you never said a word to me, even though you must have known our Richard …?’ Anne couldn’t go on.

  Her friend’s reaction was so unexpected that Molly didn’t know what to say. Feeling guilty and wishing she hadn’t said anything, she groped for the words to explain, and put things right.

  ‘When we heard the news I didn’t know what to do, Anne. We’d been told not to talk about it. I only knew that some of the men involved were from the RAF base at Nantes. Sally said that Ronnie had told her that some of the men had been taken off by other ships. I didn’t want to upset you when Richard could have been saved.’

  Anne had turned towards her and Molly could see the anger in her eyes. ‘But he wasn’t and you knew what had likely happened to him, and yet you never said a word, not even when I told you we’d had that telegram saying he was presumed lost, and we were hoping and praying …’

  Tears were running down Anne’s face and Molly longed to comfort her but the moment she stepped towards her, Anne stepped back.

  ‘Anne …’

  ‘I thought you and me were friends, Molly Dearden, but some friend you are when you didn’t even tell me about what happened to my own brother.’

  ‘I just wanted to spare you,’ Molly began, but Anne was having none of it.

  ‘Spare me what? Spare me from knowing the truth that I had a right to know?’

  ‘Anne, there’d been a D-notice …’

  Anne ignored her. ‘How would you have felt if Richard had been your brother? Wouldn’t you have wanted to know the truth? Wouldn’t you have felt you had a right to know the truth? Didn’t you want to know every last bit about your Eddie?’

  Molly was filled with guilt and shame. Anne was right, she should have told her the truth. Frank had meant well when he had advised her to say nothing, but Frank was a soldier, and a man. She was a woman and Anne was her dearest friend. They had shared special confidences and supported one another. She only had to think how she would have felt if Anne had withheld such information from her to recognise her own guilt.

  ‘You’ve spared me nothing, Molly,’ cos I know it all now. I know what happened to our Richard and I know what a bad friend you’
ve been. I’d thought better of you than that.’

  She was already turning away, and Molly had to run after her and catch hold of her arm. The thick, stiff fabric of Anne’s greatcoat slipped through her fingers as she pulled away from her.

  ‘Anne, please don’t be like this. Please don’t let’s fall out.’

  ‘Fall out! I’m not falling out with you, Molly. I just don’t want to see you again, that’s all. I thought I could trust you and that you and I were friends. But I can see now that you’re not my friend – you’re anything but! And to think I was upsetting myself because I couldn’t ask you to be my bridesmaid.’

  She had gone before Molly could stop her.

  The speed with which the whole thing had happened left Molly feeling too shocked and upset to do anything other than blink away her tears.

  She had never meant to deceive Anne. All she had wanted to do was to spare her the pain of worrying that Richard had been on the Lancastria before her family received official notification of his whereabouts. And then afterwards, once Anne had told her they had received news of his death, it hadn’t seemed right to tell her what she herself already knew.

  But it was too late now, though, to wish she had acted differently.

  ‘I want a word with you,’ June announced ominously.

  She was standing in the kitchen with her hands on her hips whilst Molly removed her outdoor coat. She had been working for the WVS all evening and her fingers felt so numb from the freezing cold that she could scarcely manage to push the buttons through the buttonholes. It had been that kind of raw coldness that seemed to get right into your bones, and she shivered in the meagre heat of the kitchen. Everyone had been told to cut down on the amount of fuel they burned, and much as she wanted to do her bit, Molly longed for the warmth of a roaring fire so that she could toast her cold hands and feet. Now what had she done, Molly wondered tiredly as she heard the harsh note in her sister’s voice. She didn’t have to wait long to find out.