Without a Trace (26 page)

‘I expect they felt bad that someone else had been able to give you things they couldn’t,’ she said, in sympathy with them.

He gave a snort of disbelief. ‘Not them – just put out ’cos I’d learned a thing or two while I’d been away, and one of them was that they both liked the booze more than they did any of us kids. They knew right away that when I got a job I wasn’t going to meekly hand my wages over to them. Why would I, when it would only make them drink more?’

He paused to ruffle Molly’s hair, and smiled at her. ‘That makes me sound hard but, if you ever meet them, you’ll understand. Anyway, I found some digs and got some demolition work while I waited to see if I’d be called up for National Service. I was well past the age then, but the family I was evacuated with didn’t want to lose me, because I was so useful to them. They pulled some strings so I could stay with them, but once I left there and got back to London I knew I was likely to be summoned again. Sure enough, I was. But being called up was the second best thing to being evacuated. I learned to drive and maintain not just cars and trucks but cranes and other machines, too. When I got out I was taken on straight away by Wates.’

Molly knew that Wates was one of the biggest building companies in London. They had contracts for clearing bomb sites all over the East End and then building flats and houses. One of Charley’s workmates had told her that he’d worked his way up and been made foreman. She’d also observed from the attitude of all the men who worked under his supervision that they respected him and admired his desire to get on in life.

Part of Charley’s long-term plan was to become a civil engineer and, to that end, he attended night school twice a week. His ambition and tenacity must have come from the influence of the people he was billeted with during the war; few other local men who worked as hard as he did by day
would think of going back to school in the evenings when they could be in the pub with their mates.

To Molly, all this was very laudable, and she liked the fact that Charley seemed to be very serious about her, too. Yet men always expected their women to mould their lives around them, so he wasn’t going to like it when she told him later today that, tomorrow, she was taking the day off to go down to Rye for a job interview.

She expected him to ask why she’d want to move away from Whitechapel and Constance when she already had a job she liked. As ambitious as he was himself, he wouldn’t think any normal woman would want a career.

Molly had to go to the interview, or Constance would be offended after she’d gone to all that trouble to arrange it. And unless there was some serious drawback to the job, Molly had to take it. Not just to please Constance, but because she wanted far more out of life than cooking bacon and eggs in Pat’s Café.

Yet how could she leave Charley when he made her legs turn to jelly and her heart almost burst when she saw him. And leaving him is what it would amount to, as she couldn’t imagine him promising to come down once a week to see her.

Later that morning, as Molly made her way to the café, the misery of the icy wind and a few inches of snow was compounded by her falling over. She went down so heavily she thought she must have broken her leg and the pain made her cry. A man passing by helped her to her feet and offered some sympathy and, to her relief, her knee was just bloodied, and her stockings ripped.

Pat was less than sympathetic. She was a hard-faced woman
in her sixties, with iron-grey hair always covered by a turban-style scarf. Several of her teeth were missing, those remaining were like dirty gravestones and she always had a cigarette dangling from her lips. On quite a few occasions Molly had seen her drop ash into a cooked breakfast.

‘’Ow many times ’ave I told you to put socks over your shoes when there’s ice!’ she snapped at Molly. ‘It ain’t no good crying to me now ’cos you’ve fallen over.’

Molly gritted her teeth, tempted to tell the woman she’d soon have to run the café herself if she got the job in Rye, but to do so would be a mistake, as Pat could be spiteful.

It seemed to Molly a very long day. Her knee throbbed, people complained about everything and the air in the café was thick with cigarette smoke. When it finally got to three o’clock, Pat told her she wasn’t going to pay her for the next day.

Molly hadn’t expected to be paid but, remembering all the times she’d stayed an extra hour when the café was busy without pay, she was hurt.

She bit back tears and hurried out, disappointed that Charley hadn’t come in and concerned that he’d be worried if he didn’t see her in the café tomorrow.

Making her way very cautiously down Myrdle Street, avoiding icy patches, she noticed an ambulance up ahead. Instinctively, she knew it was there for Constance.

Throwing caution to the winds, she ran the rest of the way, her sore knee and the ice forgotten. She reached the house just as the ambulance men carried Constance out on a stretcher.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked frantically.

Iris from upstairs put her hand on Molly’s shoulder. ‘They
think she’s ’ad a stroke, ducks. I ’eard a thump and I went into ’er place and found ’er out cold on the floor.’

‘Are you a relative?’ one of the ambulance men asked.

‘No, but I live with her,’ Molly said. ‘Can I come with her in the ambulance?’

‘ ’Course you can,’ he said. ‘Hop in alongside her.’

It made no difference that the ambulance man in the back with Molly said he thought it was only a minor stroke, the kind from which people recovered completely. Constance was chalk white, her mouth was twisted grotesquely and, although she had regained consciousness, she didn’t appear to be aware of Molly or her surroundings.

The London Hospital was only minutes away, in Whitechapel Road, but it seemed to take for ever to get there. Molly held Constance’s hand between both of hers and talked to her, hoping her voice would bring her friend back to normal.

But there was no response and, once the ambulance men had transferred Constance on to a hospital trolley and wheeled her inside, nursing staff took over and Molly was told to sit down and wait until her friend had been examined.

They had arrived at the hospital around four in the afternoon, but at eight thirty that evening Molly was still waiting. Each time she’d asked how Constance was she was merely told she was ‘stable’ and that she would be told when the patient was fit to receive visitors.

Molly could see how busy the hospital was: every few minutes either an ambulance arrived with a new patient, or people staggered through the doors with anything from a head wound to a sick child in their arms. For much of the time it was bedlam: people shouting for attention, children and
babies screaming, and some of the adults getting angry that they were being pushed aside in favour of someone else.

Molly had lost count of how many times she’d heard a nurse explain that they examined the most urgent cases first, but that didn’t satisfy everyone. One man who appeared very drunk and who, judging by the blood pouring down his face, had been in a vicious fight, smashed a chair against the wall because he was left unseen too long. He was taken away by the police, and Molly wondered if there was a doctor at the police station who would patch him up.

She heard the young parents of a small boy rushed in by ambulance wailing; they clung to each other and her heart went out to them, but she couldn’t manage even a few words of sympathy, because all she could think about was that Constance might die. Even if she did survive, she might be paralysed, or unable to speak, and that was just as bad in Molly’s opinion. The prospect of death set her thinking once again about Cassie’s death, and how she still hadn’t done enough to try to find Petal.

It had just turned nine when, to her surprise, Charley turned up. He had a sprinkling of snow on his coat, and the frantic way he was looking around said it was her he was looking for. She rushed over to him, and he hugged her tightly. ‘I only just found out about your friend,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get to the café till five, and Pat said you hadn’t been your usual cheery self. But I couldn’t call round at Myrdle Street straight away, as I had to go to night school. So I popped round the moment I got out, and the woman upstairs told me what had happened. How is Constance?’

Molly explained that she was still waiting for news. ‘I keep thinking that the longer I wait the better the news will be,’ she
said. ‘But I’m not sure it works like that. Did Pat really say I wasn’t my usual cheery self?’

‘No, she actually said you were a bleedin’ misery all day, but then she’s not the kindest or most sympathetic of women. But you’ve been here for hours – have you had anything to eat?’ he asked.

Molly shook her head glumly. ‘I didn’t like to leave her,’ she said.

‘There’s a fish-and-chip shop just over the road. I’ll tell one of the nurses we’re popping out and that we’ll be right back.’

Molly felt more optimistic when they came back to the hospital. She wasn’t sure whether it was because Charley had listened to her fears about Constance, or just that she’d eaten and had a cup of tea. They sat down again to wait for news, and Molly blurted out about her interview the next day. ‘I can’t possibly go now, but Constance will be disappointed in me if she gets better and finds out I didn’t.’

Charley didn’t respond immediately. He looked like he was deep in thought.

‘If you don’t go tomorrow, they’ll give the job to someone else,’ he said. ‘And you’ll always think that you might have missed the best opportunity of your life.’

She hadn’t expected him to say that, and she didn’t know how to reply.

He took her hand in his, lifted it to his lips and gently kissed it. ‘If I’m to be totally honest, I’d like you to stay right around the corner from me, where you are now. But you’re worth far more than a job in Pat’s Café, and you don’t belong in Whitechapel at all.’

She glowed at that, and was just about to ask when she’d
see him if she went away when a young nurse came towards them. ‘Sister asked me to come and get you,’ she said.

‘She’s on the mend, then?’ Molly asked.

The nurse acted like she hadn’t heard. Molly looked at Charley questioningly. ‘Is it okay for me to come, too?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ the nurse replied, proving there was nothing wrong with her hearing. ‘Sister wants a word with you before you go in, though.’

Alarm bells began to ring in Molly’s head, and she hurried after the nurse, with Charley coming on behind.

The nurse led them to the ward sister’s small office, which had a window looking on to the ward, but most of the cubicles’ curtains were drawn, so they couldn’t see Constance.

This was a different ward sister to the one who had been on duty when Molly first got to the hospital. Sister Jenner was older, perhaps mid-fifties, and stout, but with a round, soft face that seemed to radiate compassion.

‘Sister Constance has rallied a little,’ she said. ‘We are cautiously hopeful, as she knows where she is now and she’s managed to ask for you, Miss Heywood.’

Molly beamed at the sister. ‘That’s wonderful. I don’t think she knew me when I came in with her.’

‘It’s progress, but you’ll find her speech is badly affected by the stroke. Now, is this your young man?’ she asked, looking at Charley.

Molly introduced Charley.

‘Sister Constance is clearly very fond of Miss Heywood,’ she said to him, ‘so it will help to reassure her that her young friend is not entirely alone while she’s in hospital, which I’m afraid might be for some time. Don’t be shocked by her
appearance, or too concerned if she suddenly falls asleep, and I would ask that you only stay for ten minutes at most, because she needs rest.’

She led them to the last cubicle in the ward. As she drew back the curtain Molly had to bite her lips not to cry out because Constance looked so dreadful. The pallor, she had expected, but not the way her face appeared to have caved in, leaving her jaw and cheekbones sticking out like a skeleton’s.

‘Molly,’ Constance murmured. ‘Come closer. Don’t be afraid.’

‘I couldn’t be afraid of you,’ Molly said, going right up to her and taking her hand. ‘But you gave me quite a turn today. This is Charley, the man I told you about. He’s come to see you, too.’

The ward sister’s words had made Molly feel hopeful again. All the time she’d been waiting, she couldn’t help but think how awful it would be to lose Constance. She was the one who’d helped her when she was at her most desperate; she’d shared her home, her food, become her friend, and made Molly feel loved.

She hoped she could soon find a way to express her gratitude.

Charley went to the other side of the bed and took Constance’s other hand.

‘I’d have liked to have met you for the first time under better circumstances,’ he said. ‘But I hope when you get home again I can call on you. Molly speaks of you so highly.’

It looked as if Constance was trying to smile at Charley, but it was more like a grimace. ‘It’s good to put a face to the man Molly talks about,’ she managed to get out, pausing after each word as if struggling to form each one. ‘She tells me you are a gentleman, so I hope you’ll look out for her for me?’

‘You don’t need to ask me, Sister Constance,’ he said, bending to kiss her hand. ‘I’ll do that willingly. But you must tell her she has to go to the interview tomorrow and take the job if she likes it. You know Whitechapel isn’t right for her, don’t you?’

Constance’s pale-blue eyes fixed on to his face. ‘Yes, Charley, I do. But she’s got a habit of thinking too much about what other people want. We have to set her free from that.’

‘You hear that?’ Charley looked across the bed at Molly. ‘Sister Constance wants you to go.’

The old lady turned her head towards Molly. ‘I do. I’m going to miss you, but I want you to have a good life.’

Her eyelids drooped down suddenly and Molly was so alarmed she rang the bell for the nurse. She came scurrying in but smiled when she saw Constance.

‘She’s only dropped off.’ The nurse turned to Molly and Charley. ‘Talking will tire her, but she’ll remember that you visited. Her friend Reverend Adams is waiting to see her, so you should go home now and come again tomorrow.’