A Sister's Promise (21 page)

Molly had inadvertently arrived in Birmingham at the start of the worst raid that the city had suffered so far, though none was aware of that yet, of course. Inside the shelter, people talked and smoked and played cards, and some sang while others prayed. However, as the raid went on hour after hour, the crashes, bangs and booms becoming relentless, accompanied by the ringing of the bells of the emergency services, Molly wasn’t the only one giving small yelps of terror or shaking like a leaf. The heart-rending screams and cries from the frightened babies and small children rose above everything.

The air grew muggy and stale, and Molly wasn’t sure how long they had been entombed when just above them there was one terrific explosion. Even the seasoned Brummies, well used to raids, began to wail and whimper in fear. The wardens played their torches around the roof and walls and Molly saw that the walls were bulging in an alarming way, while the roof was creaking ominously. She suddenly felt her eyes gritty and tasted brick dust in her mouth, and by the light of the warden’s torch she saw the mortar seeding from between the bricks holding up the roof trickling down on those below.

Suddenly the shelter door was opened and a warden popped his head through. ‘Get everyone out,’ he cried, ‘and quick. This place is in danger of collapse.’

There was pandemonium and panic. People were shouting and shrieking as they fought to get out first, elbowing others out of the way. Ray, however, took hold of Molly’s arms and pushed his way through the fear-driven crowd until they were out on the street, where the air smelled of smoke and gas, and scarlet flames licked the night sky. It was no safer, of course, and the warden was trying to direct the distressed people to the nearest alternative shelter. Molly stood a little way from the sinking, collapsing shelter and
saw nearby buildings that seemed to crumple to the ground in a mass of rubble and masonry. The tramlines were lifted and buckled, and there were great craters in the road.

Above, the planes were all around her like menacing black beetles, flying in formation, droning like thunder, and the barking of guns, which she presumed were trying to bring them down, was incessant. She actually saw the bomb doors of the first planes open, saw the black harbingers of death toppling from them before Ray took one arm and Charlie the other as they hurried her through the streets after the warden trying to lead them to a place of safety.

Molly noted with some surprise the devastation around her as they leaped over masonry that had spilled onto the pavements, and avoided potholes, dribbling hosepipes and bleeding sandbags. By the time they reached the nearest shelter, which was in a cellar, Molly felt rigid with fear and quite surprised that she was alive and in one piece. She felt she would always be grateful to Ray and Charlie because she knew she wouldn’t have managed half so well without them.

Throughout the rest of that raid, Molly trembled and shivered in abject fear, jumping with any louder than usual bangs, and she bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood. In the end Ray put his arms around her. In fact she snuggled in further, seeking comfort, and Ray held her shaking form and encouraged her to tell him what she was doing in Birmingham.

‘It might help,’ he said. ‘Take your mind off things.’

Ray had another reason for asking. Molly had all the hallmarks of a runaway – there had certainly been no one waiting for her with arms outstretched at the station – and yet there was something about that theory that didn’t quite gel. He had to be sure there would be no marauding father after him, no policeman feeling his collar.

‘I doubt there is anything that I can say or do that would take my mind off what is going on,’ Molly said, flinching
at the noise of an eruption too close for comfort, ‘but I will tell you if you like.’ She intended to tell him a diluted version of what had happened to her, but Ray was too skilful at asking questions for her to do that unless she had been downright rude, and how could she be to someone who had been so kind to her? When she began it just spilled out of her, particularly the concern she had for her little brother and how important it was to find him as quickly as possible.

‘Don’t worry,’ Ray said. ‘I will help you do that, if you like. Though you were born and bred in Birmingham you were a child when you left it five years ago and the place is so different now.’

‘I think you are one of the kindest men I have ever met,’ Molly said sincerely. ‘And I thank God I met up with you this night. And I would be grateful for any help you can give me.’

Ray smiled to himself, but he had noticed the slur in Molly’s voice and how her eyes were glazed with fatigue. He said, ‘You look all in, if you don’t mind me saying so. Why don’t you lie against me and try to sleep?’

Molly didn’t argue. She was very tired, though she doubted she would sleep, but it was a relief just to lean against Ray and close her heavy eyes, and quite soon afterwards the exhausting events of that very long day overcame her and she fell into a deep sleep, despite the noise of the continued bombardment.

Ray, watching her sleep, told himself he was on to a winner this time. This Molly had no mother, nor father either, in fact no one but a young boy to miss her at all. It was just perfect, especially when he found out where the boy was and ensured that he wouldn’t pose any sort of problem to them.

Molly was woken with a jerk by another ear-splitting siren and, seeing her alarm, Ray gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘That’s the all clear, sweetheart,’ he told her. ‘It’s all over, at least till the next time.’

Molly hadn’t been the only one who had fallen asleep.
Around her, others were waking stiff and cold, and began making their way to the door. Molly felt sorry for the mothers trying to rouse still drowsy children, or soothing fractious ones while they gathered their belongings around them.

And then, she suddenly realised, apart from the bag that she had hung from her shoulder, she had nothing with her at all. After a cursory look around she said, ‘Where’s my case?’

Though it had always been part of the plan to dispose of the case, like they always did, Charlie looked contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Molly. When they told us to get out of that shelter and fast, the case just went out of my head.’

Molly could quite see how that would be. She had been frightened witless herself, but everything she owned was in that case. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Really, I do understand, it’s just …’

‘We’ll go back that way,’ Ray promised, ‘and see if we can salvage anything, if you like, but just now I could murder a bacon sandwich.’

‘So could I,’ Molly said. ‘But where will you get one of those?’

‘WVS van,’ Ray said. ‘Course, they don’t always have bacon, but toast and tea would fill a corner, I bet.’

‘You bet right. Lead me to it,’ Molly said.

She found it just as Ray said. Only a street away was a van where two motherly, smiling women dispensed sympathy and humour with the tea. They were doing quite a trade, both with the weary homeless and the rescue workers. The orange sky lit up the early morning like daylight and Molly could see that almost all were covered with a film of dust, on their faces and in their hair. She guessed she was the same, and that her hat was probably ingrained with the stuff. They did have bacon butties, quite the nicest Molly had ever tasted, and these were washed down with hot, sweet tea. After, Molly, who had been feeling quite frightened and tearful, was more in control.

That was until she surveyed the mound that had been
where they had taken shelter earlier that night and knew she would have been killed if they hadn’t got out. What was her life in comparison to a caseful of clothes? Nothing, of course, but what was she to wear – and in fact where was she to sleep off what was left of the night?

Ray surveyed the mound with satisfaction, knowing the case would be crushed beyond recognition. And he knew the site would remain untouched: there wasn’t the manpower to clear mounds of rubbish that were no danger to anyone. It was all they could do to rescue those trapped, and so this time Ray didn’t even have the bother of throwing the case in the cut, like he’d had to do a couple of times.

He said to Molly, ‘So, what are your plans now?’

‘I haven’t any,’ Molly said. ‘Not now, I mean. I had intended looking for lodgings just for a few days while I found out a few things and, I hoped, located Kevin, but then there was the raid and all, and now I don’t really know.’

‘Well, you can’t go looking for lodgings at this time of night – or morning, I should say,’ Ray said, ‘because it isn’t yet five o’clock.’

‘I know,’ Molly said. ‘Maybe I should go to the police station. They could probably direct me to a rescue centre, or something.’

That was the very last thing Ray wanted her to do, but he showed no alarm. Instead, he draped an arm around Molly’s shoulder and said softly, ‘Look, around you, Molly. This sea of rubble used to be streets and streets of houses, and the people that once lived in them are filling the rescue centres. They are bursting at the seams. The raid you witnessed tonight was one of many. The city has been pounded since August.’

‘What, then?’ Molly asked helplessly.

‘Well,’ Ray said, ‘I am looking after a flat for a friend who can’t live in it at the moment. It’s the first floor of a house not far away and the place is completely empty. It would be somewhere to lay your head down for tonight, at least.’

How Molly longed to do just that, but maybe it wasn’t wise – not that the men had said or done anything remotely suggestive or improper, and Ray in particular had been kindness itself.

‘Neither of us has designs on you, so don’t think that,’ Ray said, and he spoke the truth for he was not attracted to women, men and boys being more his scene. And as for Charlie, though he would sample both, he liked his woman older, far more experienced and willing to indulge in fairly kinky sex. Girls like Molly did not interest him in the slightest.

When Ray said, ‘We won’t even be there; we both have our own places,’ the last of Molly’s reservations fled.

‘All right then,’ she said. ‘I would like to have the use of the flat for tonight at least.’

The house Ray took her to was on the end of a terraced row, and next to it was a wide entry bordered on the other side by a high wall that had once been part of a factory, until it had been decimated by the bombing. The house had been converted into two flats very skilfully, and both were completely self-contained.

Beyond the front door, stairs led to the flat on the first floor while the door underneath the stairs led to the ground-floor flat. In the flat itself, just inside the door, was a hallway. Charlie helped Molly off with her coat, and she took off her dusty hat and scarf too. As she pulled her money belt over her head, she said, ‘I had all my money in there. I was advised that it was the safest way to carry it.’

‘Quite right too,’ Ray said, putting it in the drawer of the cupboard next to the coat stand. ‘There are all sorts of strange people about today. Come on in and see the place.’

Molly was amazed when she saw the opulence of the flat, which even the blackout curtains couldn’t entirely spoil. The floor of the very large living room was carpeted and lit with two glittering chandeliers. And if that wasn’t luxurious enough, two maroon settees and an armchair, which
Molly was sure were leather, were grouped around the gas fire with a shining brass fender. Two bureaus of dark wood were in the chimney alcoves, on top of one a fancy wireless, which it bore little resemblance to the one Tom had bought in Buncrana. Against the far wall was a shining, dark wooden dining table, and tucked beneath it were six chairs, again upholstered in maroon leather. And the whole place was heated by radiators.

‘It is absolutely marvellous,’ Molly said. ‘But, Ray, won’t your friend mind me just moving in like this?’

‘No, Molly, he’ll be pleased,’ Ray said. ‘And that is the honest truth. You wouldn’t know the way your old city is now. Empty properties are either occupied by squatters, who have been bombed out, or commandeered by the military. My friend has only got away with it so far because this is on the first floor. Anyway, it’s only for a few days.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Molly said. ‘He must have a fine job, this friend of yours.’

‘I wouldn’t know what he does,’ Ray said vaguely. ‘A bit of this and a bit of that.’

Molly thought it a funny sort of job, but she reminded herself that he was Ray’s friend and it really was none of her business. She contented herself with exploring the rest of the flat. There were two doors from the living room. One led to a sparkling kitchen that Molly knew it would be a pleasure to work in. At the other side of the room a door opened on to a small corridor with two further doors leading off that. The first was a bathroom and it had all manner of beauty products left there: body creams and lotions, even some cosmetics, as well as shampoos and soaps such as Molly had never seen in her life before. She wondered at the manner of woman, for it must have been a woman, who would leave all this behind, as if she had left in one hell of a hurry.

She shrugged. That wasn’t her problem and she was more than glad the things were available when she caught sight
of herself, for her face was coated with dust and dirt, which was even gilding her eyelashes. Feeling a little daring, she filled the basin with water, which was piping hot, washed her hands and face with the delicious-smelling soap and dried them with the soft, fluffy towels left behind the door. Then she tidied her hair with the comb that she found in the little glass-fronted cabinet on the wall.

Feeling better and more refreshed, she went from there to the bedroom. The bed was very large and she noted the sheets were silk. The fact that they were black with cream edging was unnerving enough, but what really threw her were the mirrors on the ceiling and down the length of one wall. Then she knew that however lavish this place was, she would breath easier when she was away from it.

Back in the main room, the men had opened a bottle of brandy that they said they had found in the cabinet part of the bureau and they had a glass filled for her too, diluted with lemonade. There was something else added to Molly’s glass, which would make her sleep like the dead, for Ray said he didn’t want to come back and find the bird had flown, though he would take the precaution of locking the door.