Molly's War (15 page)

‘Oh, can I? Are you sure? I mean, I know you have a lot on –’

‘It’s settled. You bring your things tomorrow, pet. It’ll make me feel a bit better an’ all, I know I should have looked for you before.’

‘I can help you when I’m home from work,’ Molly said
eagerly
. ‘An‘ I’ll pay for my board, of course. I’ve got a good job now, I can afford to.’

‘We’ll talk about that later,’ Maggie said comfortably. ‘You can stay here tonight, go get your things the morn. I’ll lend you a nightie.’

Molly could hardly believe it. How could so much happen in one day? As she lay in Jackson’s bed, a double bed for it had once held his brother Harold too, long since emigrated to New Zealand, she felt that at last her luck had changed. She snuggled down under the patchwork quilt, wrapped in Maggie’s voluminous flannelette nightie, her feet on the warm oven shelf wrapped in an old sheet. Oh, her mam had done that always, put the solid oven shelf in the bed to air it. The pillow slip smelled of Sunlight soap, just as the pillow slips had always smelled at home. But there was also a faint something else there, a male smell, the smell of Jackson.

Oh dear, Jackson. How selfish she was. She had actually forgotten the trouble he was in, she had been so happy to be here, in his house, with his family. And they’d actually believed her when she’d said she wasn’t a thief. By, she was so grateful to them, she was. Molly closed her eyes tightly and prayed as she hadn’t prayed in months. That Jackson wouldn’t be in too much trouble. That he would be all right. And most of all that if the war came – and there was nothing so certain but that war was coming, everyone knew it, it was just a matter of how soon – please God, let nothing happen to Jackson. Or
Harry
. ‘Look after them both, God, I beg you,’ she cried in her heart, her whole being concentrating on the prayer. And then, as suddenly as walking off a cliff in the dark, she was asleep.

Chapter Fourteen

MOLLY WAS HAPPY
for the first time since her father had died. Even though the war had finally begun, and even though she was working in a room by herself filling trench mortar bombs with explosives. Her hair was tied up in a turban, her face smothered in face cream to protect it and her slim body wrapped in an enveloping overall. Yet still the all-pervasive yellow powder dyed the roots of her hair at the front, got under her finger nails, put a mustard-coloured ‘V in the neck of the thin jumper she wore underneath the overall. She couldn’t wear a hair grip or slide to hold her hair back in case friction caused the powder to ignite so wisps escaped and yellowed too. But she was happy.

Today, 1st December, 1939, was a red-letter day. Today was going to be Christmas and New Year and all her birthdays rolled into one, for today, when she went home from the day shift, or back shift as her dad would have called it, Harry and Jackson would be home. They were coming for a week, a whole week! Maggie and Frank were beside themselves with joy, had been talking of nothing
else
since the letter came. Jackson had only been away a few months this time but the dangers of war made them deeply anxious for him. Now they were going to have him home and that anxiety was eased for a short while at least.

‘We can have Christmas early,’ Maggie had said to Molly. ‘By, isn’t it a good job I have the cake and pudding all ready? ’Cause I don’t suppose they’ll get home for proper Christmas, not this year.’

‘No, nobody thinks it’ll be over by Christmas this time,’ said Frank. ‘Only silly buggers thought so last.’

‘Less o’ that swearing, Frank Morley,’ said Maggie automatically. But he had made her wonder how long it
was
going to go on. She thought of the carnage of the last war and shuddered. Please God, not that again, not four years of it.

Molly was going to have their bedroom while Maggie slept in the front room beside Frank. Harry was to share with Jackson. They were going to be a proper family, almost like it had been at home, Molly thought happily as she stopped the stream of powder going into the bomb and sent it on its way into the next room to be fused.

Music came over the radio: ‘
We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
’. Molly sang along with it under her breath. It wasn’t so bad working here, even though she was on her own. No one knew much about her past. Thousands of girls worked here, bussed in from all parts of the county, and those in her group were friendly to her. She’d even joined the fledgling concert party.
Someone
had heard her singing to herself in a sweet soprano she hadn’t even realised was good before, no one had ever commented on it. But then she hadn’t had much occasion to sing for a year or two, she thought, without self-pity.

The buzzer went and the belt slowed to a halt. It was four o’clock already, Molly realised with a tiny surge of elation. Were the boys home now? Sitting at the kitchen table eating parkin made yesterday with Golden Syrup and some of Maggie’s precious hoard of powdered ginger?

By, she hoped they were. It would be grand having a natter tonight, all of them round the fire in the kitchen. Maybe the lads would go out for a drink at the club but they would be coming back for supper and she and Maggie would have it ready for them, they would do it together. There was tomorrow, of course, and Saturday morning too when she had to come to work, but she had the evenings and the whole of Saturday afternoon and Sunday with them.

Dreamily Molly went through to the changing rooms, took off her overall and turban, shook her hair out and washed her face and hands in the basins provided. Her street clothes were in her locker. She changed quickly and rummaged around in her bag for her comb and the slide which held back her thick brown hair from her forehead. She combed it before the mirror on the wall, turned her head this way and that to get a better view of it. It was all right, she supposed. She’d washed it last night with green
soft
soap and rinsed it with vinegar water to make it shine.

‘Got a date, Molly? You’re not usually so particular.’ Mona, the girl with the locker next to hers, gave her a friendly grin. She was a small blonde girl, no more than five feet, with plump, round breasts and hips. She worked in the fusing room next to Molly, and told comic monologues with the concert party.
Me Mother’s Duck Eggs
was Molly’s favourite, Mona was a scream telling that one. They rehearsed for the Christmas show in the dinner hour.

‘My brother’s home on leave,’ said Molly. ‘Just back today.’

‘Eeh, I thought it must be your lad and it’s just a brother! I wouldn’t bother just for a
brother
,’ teased Mona. ‘Got a sweetheart have you, Molly?’

Most of the girls talked all the time about their boyfriends, about the boys they would like to be their boyfriends, or, failing that, about Clarke Gable or Ronald Colman or whichever heart throb was on at the pictures that week.

Molly felt the heat rise in her cheeks but said nothing as she turned for the door.

‘You’re blushing! Hey, girls, Molly has a sweetheart!’ called Mona.

‘No, I haven’t!’ said Molly as she turned for the door.

‘Ooh, is it a secret?’ Mona kept pace with her then relented as she saw Molly’s face. ‘Oh, go on, I was only kidding,’ she said. ‘Take no notice of me, pet.’

‘I don’t, you daft ha’porth!’ Molly smiled and ran for the gates, taking out her pass to hold aloft as she joined the inevitable crush to get through. The train was already standing at the station. She pushed her way through the crowds of girls and men queueing to get on the buses which would take them home. Luckily the railway line went to Shildon and Bishop Auckland. It was faster and easier to get a bus from there to Eden Hope. Or sometimes she walked from Shildon.

Tonight she would have to go all the way to Bishop, it was too cold and wet to get off at Shildon and take the footpath home. The train was crowded too, as it always was. And they had to stand in the station as a troop train went through. All the girls cheered as the soldiers went past though truth to tell there was little to see of them through the blacked-out windows. Molly wondered if Harry and Jackson were on the troop train. She felt thrilled to think they might be. Well, Harry was her brother, wasn’t he? She kept telling herself it was because of him. But the picture in her mind was of Jackson: that lopsided grin on his face, the dark wave of hair falling over his forehead when he took off his cap, the way his left eyebrow lifted sometimes. She smiled secretly and stared out at the dark countryside, relieved only by the blue lantern of the station master as he waved it and their train chuntered slowly out of the station, following the troop train. And the tiny wink of the green light up the line.

The bus from Bishop was full too. It halted at every stop
until
Molly could alight at Eden Hope and run along the row and up the back yard. And at last she could open the back door, closing it quickly behind her in case the air raid warden saw the light. And then she was overcome by sudden shyness so that she stood rooted there, just inside the door, smiling foolishly as the two tall figures in khaki got to their feet and came towards her. Harry got there first and, taking hold of her under the arms, whirled her off her feet so that her gas mask fell to the floor unheeded then put her down, dizzy and laughing, before planting a kiss on her cheek.

‘Mind, our Molly, you’ve gone and grown up while I had my back turned,’ he cried. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, pet.’

Then it was Jackson’s turn and he held her tight, her head against his chest so that she could feel the imprint of a brass button against her cheek. He turned his broad back to the others and she was hidden from their gaze as he kissed her, swiftly, but not at all as her brother had kissed her.

‘Molly!’ he whispered. ‘Molly, my love.’ At least that was what she thought he said but it was so low a whisper it might only have been wishful thinking on her part.

‘Put her down, Jackson,’ said his mother. ‘Let the lass get in. She must be fair clamming for her tea and half frozen an’ all.’

The table was set with Maggie’s second best table-cloth which had unlikely-looking roses embroidered round the
edges
. The best one was reserved for Christmas Day. There was smoked haddock, poached in milk in the oven, and mashed potatoes and cabbage. For afters there were fairy cakes with the wings stuck on with real butter icing.

‘It looks grand, Mrs Morley,’ said Molly. ‘An’ you’re right, I am starving.’ She was too, she realised. It was a long time since pie and chips in the canteen.

‘I’ll just mash the tea, pet. We were waiting for you.’ Happiness lit Maggie’s face, spilled over and softened her voice and movements. She kept looking at Jackson then smiling at Frank as he lay against his pillows and smiled back, his carriage drawn up to one side of the big square table.

‘What happened to your other stripe?’ he asked suddenly, his brow knitting. Jackson looked up quickly, a forkful of haddock halfway to his mouth, but before he could say anything Harry butted in.

‘He got lost on his way back to camp, didn’t he? No sense of direction your Jackson, man. I’m sure if I wasn’t going with him he’d never find a German to fight.’

‘You lost a stripe for being late back?’ Frank asked, incredulous. ‘You hadn’t been drinking, had you, lad?’

‘No, no, I never had a drink,’ said Jackson, ‘it was nothing really.’ He concentrated on eating his meal. Molly stole a glance at him but his expression betrayed no emotion. He chewed on. She had a vivid picture in her mind of him with a military policeman to either side of him as they pushed him into the van.

‘He’ll soon get it back, man,’ Harry was saying. ‘Good sergeants like Jackson are hard to find. An’ this lot coming into the regiment now – by, they’re keen but green as grass! They need someone like Jackson and me to knock them into shape, look after them, wipe their …’ Hurriedly he changed what he had been going to say. ‘Tuck them up in bed at night an’ all.’

Molly kept her own head bent but the awkward moment soon passed and Maggie was telling the boys about the number of young miners who had joined up the minute the war had broken out, even some of the girls.

‘I had a letter from Lancashire an’ all,’ she said. ‘After all these years! That woman I went to work for when I was but a lass of fourteen wanted to know could I recommend anybody?’ Maggie shrugged and pulled down the corners of her mouth. ‘As if I would if I could, the stuck-up bitch! Won’t hurt her to get her own hands dirty. Any road, the lasses are all off to the factories, nobody has to skivvy nowadays.’ She nodded in satisfaction. It might have been a while ago but she remembered it well. ‘That woman thought she was better than honest Durham folk, she did.’

‘Now then, lass, Christian charity,’ Frank admonished.

‘What about the Pendles?’ asked Harry, remembering the time he had gone to see them on his last leave. ‘Did they not help you at all, Molly?’

‘Ann wasn’t too bad,’ she said. ‘But …’ Her voice trailed off as she remembered Joan’s bitter dislike, the way
she’d
seemed to delight in Molly’s troubles. It still hurt after all this time.

‘Aye, I know,’ Harry said quickly. He couldn’t understand how he had once thought Joan attractive, even gone out with her. Spiteful, that was what she was.

‘Never mind, everything’s all right now,’ said Frank, thinking it high time the subject was changed before anyone mentioned prison. He couldn’t bear to see the haunted look in Molly’s eyes if the talk ever went anywhere near
that
.

‘Molly’s fine with us, isn’t she, Mother? The past’s best forgotten. When are you expecting to go to France then, Jackson? Chase the Hun back to his own country?’

‘We can’t tell you that,’ he said solemnly. ‘Walls have ears, you know.’

‘Fifth columnists all over the place,’ said Harry. He lifted the table-cloth and bent to look underneath.

‘Aw, go on, you daft ha’porth!’ Molly exclaimed.

‘No, we mean it,’ Jackson protested.

‘Aye, well. I’ll make a fresh brew to have with the fairy cakes.’ Maggie put her knuckles on the table and heaved herself to her feet. ‘You get them, Molly.’