by Joan Jonker
Nellie cast her eyes up to the sky. Why did her mate have a mind as pure as the driven snow? ‘Okay, girl, I’ll keep me mouth shut the whole time I’m in there, then I can’t get into trouble. But I must say I think it’s bloody awful if I’ve got to watch every word what comes out of me mouth.’ She took her arm from Molly’s, a sign that she’d taken the huff. Then, with her bosom standing to attention, she rose to her full four feet ten inches. ‘I just think it’s a pity there’s them what don’t know what a sense of humour is. I don’t half feel sorry for them, they must lead miserable bloody lives.’
‘Nellie, most people do have a sense of humour, but not everyone appreciates the same things. I mean, you might not find their jokes funny, and they may not be amused by yours.’ Molly smiled down into her friend’s chubby face. ‘After all, sunshine, it would be a dull world if we were all made the same.’
‘You’re telling me! I’d hate to be one of those miserable buggers what think it is funny when they see someone trip over and fall flat on their face.’
Molly clamped her lips together, and closing her eyes she could see Elsie Flanaghan flat out on the pavement. And she hadn’t tripped, she’d been pushed. Oh dear, oh dear, she thought, my mate’s got a terrible memory. But now wasn’t the time to tell her, or they’d be here all day. ‘Come on, sunshine, let’s get in and see our grandchild. That should cheer yer up and put a smile back on yer face.’
Lizzie Corkhill beamed when she opened the door and saw who her visitors were. ‘Come in, come in. It’s good to see yer.’
Molly was the first to walk into an empty room. ‘Where’s our Jill and the baby?’
Nellie put on a fierce expression as she pressed her face close to Lizzie’s. ‘Yeah, what have yer done with her daughter and my grandchild?’
Lizzie grinned. ‘Oh, it’s quite a performance here when Jill washes the baby. She’s terrified of hurting her, and takes ages just washing her down. I’ve offered to help, but no, she must learn, so she tells me. The most she’ll let me do is bring the bowl of water in and take it out again when she’s finished.’ She waved them to the couch. ‘Anyway, it all went smoothly, even though it took an hour, and the baby’s dressed and smelling like a rose garden. Jill is in the bedroom feeding her now. She won’t do it in front of me.’ Lizzie smiled at Molly. ‘Your daughter is the kindest, most gentle person I have ever met. She never raises her voice and never speaks ill of anyone. You brought her up well, Molly, she’s a credit to yer.’
‘She’s always been the same, Lizzie, from the day she first learned to smile and crawl. I love all me kids, but they will agree with me that Jill is the most caring and gentle of the lot.’
Nellie’s mind was working overtime, trying to find a way to get noticed. Then she grinned. ‘Our Steve was the first one to know that. He’s known from the age of two that Jill was the girl for him. It shows that good taste runs in our family, doesn’t it, eh, girl?’
But Molly was ready for her. ‘I would say it was good taste all round, sunshine, ’cos Jill chose Steve from a very early age as well.’ She began to chuckle. ‘Don’t yer remember, Nellie? The kids were barely walking when you and me used to sit at the table having a cuppa and saying wouldn’t it be nice if one of my kids fell for one of yours? We had Steve and Jill married off before they started school.’
‘Yeah, I remember that, girl, and it’s hard to believe it’s nearly twenty years ago. The years go by real quick, don’t they? If yer blinked, yer’d miss them.’
‘I don’t know, sunshine. Those far-off days weren’t all milk and honey. The days when we hadn’t a penny to our name, they didn’t go quick, they used to drag. But they’re gone now, and we’ve come through them with flying colours. No more times when our tummies rumble with hunger, thank God.’
Lizzie nodded in agreement. ‘Some people these days don’t know they’re born. They don’t have to scrimp and scrape, counting every farthing. But then, we can’t begrudge them anything, because most of the fellers fought in the war, and without them God alone knows where we’d be.’ She stopped her rocking chair and pushed herself to her feet. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Jill shouldn’t be much longer now.’
When Lizzie went into the kitchen, Molly stood at the bottom of the stairs. ‘D’yer need any help, sunshine, or are yer managing?’
Jill’s voice came back. ‘I’m doing all right, Mam, after a fashion. It’ll take me a few weeks to get into the routine, but I’ll get there. Another five minutes and I’ll be down.’
‘I’m going to sit at the table, Lizzie,’ Nellie called. ‘I’m more comfortable sitting on a chair than the couch, ’cos it takes me ages to get meself up from here.’ She shuffled her bottom to the edge of the couch and, making fists of her hands, tried to push herself up. But after three attempts at raising her bottom, only to fall back again, she was puffing like mad and still sitting on the couch. ‘They’re a bleeding death-trap, these couches.’ She glared at Molly as though it was her fault. ‘Why couldn’t they put proper legs on them, so they’d be higher and I could get off easy?’
‘Don’t look at me, sunshine, I didn’t make the ruddy things! Anyway, if they did put legs on, they wouldn’t last long, not the way you plonk yerself down.’ Molly stood in front of her and held her hands out. ‘Take hold of these and I’ll pull yer up.’
‘It took yer long enough to think of that, girl, sitting there watching me puffing and blowing like an old carthorse.’
‘You said that, sunshine, not me! Now take my hands and I’ll pull.’ After two attempts, when Molly thought her arms were being yanked out of their sockets, Nellie was still sitting on the couch. ‘Unless yer help yerself, Nellie, yer’ll still be sitting there when Steve comes in from work. Now, when I pull, you try and help by pushing yerself up, sunshine, ’cos I don’t want to be here all ruddy day.’
When Lizzie came through from the kitchen carrying a tray, Nellie was standing, but her face said she wasn’t in the best of moods. ‘Don’t ever ask me to sit on that contraption again, Lizzie. It’s bloody torture.’ Then her eyes lighted on a plate of biscuits on the tray, and this brought about a miraculous recovery. ‘Ooh, fig biscuits. How did yer know they were me favourites, Lizzie?’ Nellie pulled a chair out from the table and like Lady Muck she plonked her bottom down and pointed to the chair next to her. ‘Come on, girl, park yer bottom on that and we’ll have a nice cuppa and a fig biscuit.’
Molly sat down and her eyes met Lizzie’s. ‘D’yer know what my mate reminds me of sometimes, Lizzie? Have yer ever had a day when yer wash yer hair and yer can’t do a thing with it? Well, that’s how I feel sometimes.’
Nellie looked sideways. ‘Ah, do yer, girl? Yer should have decent hair like me. I never have to worry about it. Run the comb through it every morning and it stays nice all day.’
Lizzie looked from one to the other. Molly had blond hair, which her daughters had all inherited, although while the girls were still shining blondes, Molly’s hair was now well peppered with white. But with a fine healthy complexion, and a neat figure, she was a good-looking woman. Nellie had dark mousycoloured hair, and she never spent any time on it. It only saw the comb in the morning and spent the rest of the day being untidy. And with her eighteen-stone body on her four-foot-ten frame, she was almost as round as she was tall. But Nellie’s redeeming feature was her chubby face, with rosy cheeks that shone like polished apples, and a smile to melt the hardest heart. She wasn’t a tidy person, and certainly wasn’t fussy about how she looked, or what she said, but her friends saw beyond her looks to a heart that was as big as her body. But only her friends and family saw that side of her; strangers often just saw her as a loud-mouth.
‘Here’s Jill now,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ll wait until she’s down before pouring, ’cos I know yer’ll both be fussing over the baby and the tea would get cold.’
The two women scrambled from the table, each wanting to reach Jill and the baby first. But Jill anticipated this and turned her back on them. ‘Take it e
asy, Mam, or yer’ll frighten her. Wait until I sit down, then yer can both have a turn at nursing her. She’s only tiny, and seeing and hearing a lot of people she’d be frightened.’
‘Ye’re right, sunshine, of course yer are,’ Molly said, backing away and taking Nellie with her. ‘We forgot the baby isn’t two weeks old yet, and that’s ’cos we’re used to Bobby. But we’ll sit down and have our tea, then have a little nurse of her.’ She gave Nellie a dig. ‘And we’ll keep our voices nice and quiet, won’t we, sunshine, so we don’t frighten her.’
Nellie looked from Jill, who was holding the baby close to her chest, to the plate of biscuits. ‘Yeah, we’ll have our tea and biscuits first, and give the baby time to settle down. And I’ve got to say, girl, it’s going to be awkward having Molly the baby, and Molly the grandma. Yer must admit it is a bit confusing. Why don’t yer call her by her second name?’
‘Oh, you’re not soft, are yer, sunshine?’ Molly was up in arms. ‘She was christened Molly Helen McDonough, that’s two of your names, but ye’re still not satisfied.’
Jill the peacemaker stopped what could have turned into a spat … friendly, but still a spat. ‘Me and Steve have thought about that, and we’re calling the baby Moll, so we’ll know who we’re talking about. She’ll get Molly when she’s a bit older and we won’t get so confused.’
Molly turned to her mate. ‘Now, does that satisfy yer?’
Nellie stuck her nose in the air and said, ‘Will yer pass the biscuits, Lizzie, please?’
Molly winked behind her friend’s back. ‘Watch her hands, Lizzie, ’cos they’re like lightning and she’ll empty the plate.’
With a fig biscuit between her teeth, Nellie sighed with contentment, blissfully happy. And when Lizzie passed the plate for her to have a second one, she was filled with goodwill. ‘Ay, Lizzie, d’yer know what Tony in the butcher’s called me when me and Molly were in there before? He called me Mrs No Knickers.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard from Steve and Jill about yer shenanigans at the wedding reception.’ Lizzie chuckled. ‘From the sound of things everyone had a marvellous time, and you had the place up, Nellie.’ She leaned towards the little woman. ‘Did yer really go to the wedding with no bloomers on?’
‘Ah,’ Nellie said, happy to be the centre of attention, ‘that’s for me and my feller to know, and for you to find out.’
‘Nellie, don’t make out things were worse than they were. It was bad enough seeing you hanging over George’s back, without you saying yer had no knickers on.’
‘Oh, did yer see them, girl? What colour were they?’
Molly was stumped, for she hadn’t actually glimpsed any knickers, she’d been too busy laughing. But if Lily was wearing her mate’s blue fleecy-lined drawers under her wedding dress, which was a joke that nearly brought the rafters down, then Nellie must have been wearing her pink ones. ‘Yer had yer pink ones on, sunshine.’
When Nellie shook her head, her chins weren’t very happy with her. For they had to shake as well, and they could easily miss her answer. And they’d been on pins since Saturday, waiting for someone to say whether she was knickerless or not. They could see most things that Nellie got up to, but there was so much of her it was impossible to know everything she did. ‘Ye’re wrong, girl! And that secret will go with me to me grave … or until the News of the World offers me a hundred pound for me story.’
Molly pushed her chair back. ‘I think ye’re telling fibs, Nellie, but if ye’re not, then I’m ashamed of yer. I’m going to nurse the baby now, and while I am, I want yer to rid yer head of all these bad, stupid thoughts. Yer don’t get yer hands on yer granddaughter until ye’re as pure in heart as she is. Do you understand?’
‘Not really, girl, yer lost me along the way. But while you’re having a nurse of the baby, I’ll get Lizzie to explain to me.’
Molly picked the baby up and felt a rush of love. She was so tiny, and so beautiful, just like her mother twenty-two years ago. Holding her gently, she whispered, ‘I love the bones of yer, sunshine, and if yer grow up like yer mam, yer won’t go far wrong in life.’
Nellie had been keeping her eyes on the clock, and how her mate was handling the baby so gently. She was more heavy-handed than Molly, she couldn’t help it, she was born that way. But there was one thing she had that her mate didn’t, and it was huge, soft-as-a-feather breasts. When her own children had been babies, she’d had no trouble getting them off to sleep by rocking them in the warmth and softness. And she wanted to do the same with her son’s baby. ‘Yer time’s up now, girl,’ Nellie said, leaving her chair. ‘It’s yer Grandma McDonough’s shift now.’
Molly gave the baby a last kiss before handing her over. ‘Here’s yer other grandma, sunshine. Ye’re a lucky girl having two grandmothers, aren’t yer?’
Nellie looked down into the baby’s face, and said, ‘Why didn’t yer answer her, girl? She’d have laid a duck egg with fright.’
Molly sat at the table with Lizzie and Jill. ‘Did yer want anything from the shops, sunshine, ’cos me and Nellie will go for yer.’
Jill shook her head. ‘I’m doing what you used to do on a Monday, Mam. I’m doing a fry-up of the leftovers from yesterday’s dinner. But I’d be grateful if yer would do some shopping for me tomorrow. I don’t want to take the baby to the shops yet. I couldn’t bear to leave her outside in her pram in case someone ran off with her, or the noise frightened her.’
‘You do everything at yer own speed, sunshine, there’s no need to rush. Just take it easy until yer’ve got the hang of things, then washing and feeding the baby will be a doddle.’ Molly had something on her mind and had to get it off. ‘Look, I may as well be honest with yer. I don’t like calling the baby Moll. It doesn’t sound right, not for a tiny baby anyway. The only time I’ve heard it used is in films when they have a gangster’s moll. Why not say Molly one and two? Or even little and big Molly?’
‘I agree with yer, Molly,’ Lizzie said. ‘I don’t like calling the baby Moll. I wouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t, ’cos I didn’t think it was my place, but I may as well put me oar in as well. I’d stick to baby Molly while she’s so tiny, then sort something out when she’s a bit bigger.’
Molly nodded. ‘It’s up to you and Steve, though, sunshine, she’s your baby. Have a talk about it tonight, eh? Me and Nellie will come up in the morning before we go to the shops, and if yer have a list ready we’ll get yer messages for yer.’ She looked over to where Nellie was standing, her eyes fixed on the baby’s face. ‘She’s like a little doll, isn’t she, sunshine?’
‘She is that. Our Steve’s a clever lad.’
Molly winked at her daughter. ‘Nellie’s miles away so I won’t disturb her, but we’ll be here at half ten in the morning, sunshine, so have yer list ready for us.’
Chapter Three
‘Mam.’ Ruthie set her knife and fork down as she caught her mother’s attention. ‘Can I go to the first house pictures tomorrow, with Bella?’ And before Molly had time to think of a reason why she couldn’t, Ruthie went on, ‘The nights aren’t dark now, and we’d be home by half past eight.’
‘You’re only fourteen, sunshine, too young to be going to the pictures without an adult. And they wouldn’t let you in, anyway.’
‘Yes, they would, ’cos I don’t look fourteen. I could easy pass for sixteen.’
‘Don’t be putting years on yerself,’ Jack said. ‘Time goes over too quick as it is, so don’t try and be older than yer are.’
‘Dad, me and Bella only want to go to the first house pictures, that’s all. It’s better than staying in every night playing snakes and ladders. We’re too old for those games now.’
Molly’s mind went back to when she was fourteen, and how she’d begged her mother to let her go to the pictures. Talking pictures were still a novelty then. She’d got her way in the end, by promising her mother that she’d come straight home from the cinema, with her friend Mary, and they wouldn’t talk to a soul. ‘Has Bella asked her mam
yet? I can’t see Mary agreeing – yer know what she’s like with Bella. But if she says yes, then me and yer dad will probably agree. But only on condition that Mary says it’s all right. I don’t want her thinking ye’re leading her daughter astray.’
‘Mam, ye’re old fashioned. Things have changed in the last fifty years, since you were my age.’ Ruthie lifted her arm as though shielding herself from a blow. ‘Only kidding, Mam. Don’t hit me, please.’
Jack was smiling as he popped a piece of potato into his mouth. He could have told Molly that it was a foregone conclusion that their daughter would be sitting in the stalls at the picture house the following night. The last of their children left at home, she was going to be spoilt far more than any of the others had been. And, anyway, going to the first house pictures with her friend wasn’t asking for too much. But he wouldn’t interfere; it was up to Molly.
‘I’ll tell yer what I will do, sunshine. When we’ve finished our dinner and the dishes are washed and put away, with your help, then I’ll go to Bella’s with yer, and see what Mary thinks.’
‘Yer will speak up for us, though, won’t yer?’ Ruthie knew only her mother could talk Bella’s mother into agreeing. ‘Auntie Mary won’t even listen unless you’re there. She thinks someone is going to run away with her daughter, or she’ll get knocked down. Honest, I’m glad you’re not like that, Mam, otherwise I’d still be wearing long black stockings.’
‘Yer must remember that Bella is an only child, and it’s natural that Mary will worry about her. I’ve had practice with yer sisters and brother, that’s why I don’t worry as much as Mary. Mind you, even if she says you and Bella can go to the pictures, what’s to say she won’t be sitting between yer with a bag of sweets on her knee?’
Ruthie was smiling as she swung her legs under the chair. ‘If it was a box of Cadbury’s chocolates, she’d be very welcome. That’s as long as she let me have the Turkish delight one. That’s me favourite.’
