Goodnight Sweetheart (6 page)

Thinking of her sister made Molly wish all over again that June had agreed to come with her. It would help keep her mind off worrying about her Frank. She knew June was a kind person, deep down, but she came across as abrasive to many, especially those who didn’t know her well. Maybe she would be able to persuade her to change her mind when she told her all she had learned, she decided hopefully.

The men were still working their allotments as she cut down the footpath alongside them, the scent of freshly watered earth mingling with that of their Woodbine cigarettes. Molly looked to see if she could see her father, but didn’t stop walking. She was mentally rehearsing what she was going to say to June to persuade her to change her mind about the WVS.

When she got in there was no sign of her sister downstairs; even the radio had been turned off, and the table had been laid for breakfast, a task the girls always did last thing before they went to bed.

‘June?’ she called uncertainly from the bottom of the stairs, and then when there was no reply she hurried up, her initial surprise at finding her sister already in bed giving way to anxiety.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘What’s it to you?’ June demanded truculently. ‘Hours, you’ve been gone, and me here on me own. And me monthlies are giving me a right pain in me belly.’

‘Oh, June, I’m sorry,’ Molly sympathised. Of the two of them, June had always been the one who had suffered more each month. ‘Would you like a hot-water bottle?’

June shook her head, thawing slightly. ‘I’m feeling a bit better now. I’ll come down and ’ave a cuppa, I think. It sounds like Dad’s just come in – you’d better go down otherwise he’ll want to know what’s up.’

Her father was standing in the kitchen, holding a large cardboard box, which he placed almost tenderly on the kitchen floor.

‘What’s in there?’ Molly asked curiously.

‘Tek the lid off and have a look.’

Molly exclaimed in astonishment, as the moment she lifted the lid the kitchen was filled with the sound of cheeping.

‘Day-old chicks, a gross of them, and our Joe’s got another gross as well, and there’s a gross for Pete – seeing as how he’s promised to let us have his horse muck for the allotments. They’re from your aunt’s farm.’

‘What are?’ June asked, coming into the kitchen, her eyes widening as she saw the answer to her question.

‘We’ve clubbed together at the allotments to buy
them. With a hundred and forty-four of them we should get a fair few fresh eggs. Only thing is, we need to keep them warm and properly fed for the next few days. I’ve got some mash, to start ’em off, like.’

‘But where will you keep them?’ Molly asked him.

‘We’re going to build a coop for them – I’ve got a bit of wood put by down at the railway yard.’ He winked meaningfully at them and then added, ‘Pete is going to pick it up for us, and once the chicks have grown they can scratch around down the allotments.’ He picked the lid up and placed it over the boxful of chicks, immediately silencing them. ‘And that’s not all,’ he told the girls enthusiastically. ‘We’ve put in to have a pig as well.’

‘A pig?’

‘Aye, it’s a scheme the Government is doing – them as keeps a pig gets ter keep a fair bit of the meat from it, so mek sure you don’t go throwing away any scraps. Oh, and by the way, your Aunt Violet has sent a message to say they’ve got plenty of work down at the farm, if you fancy leaving that factory after all.’

June shuddered. ‘Not likely – remember that time Dad took us there on the train, Molly, and them blinkin’ cows? No, ta! You can keep the country. I’m staying here, even with that Miss Jenner at my throat.’

It was only later, when she was finally in bed
and almost asleep, that Molly realised that she hadn’t talked to June about joining the WVS. Oh well, there was always tomorrow, she decided as she closed her eyes.

The bright morning sun blazed down from a cloud-lessly blue sky. It was far too hot to wear winter clothes but, nevertheless, the three of them had put on their darkest things and their father was even wearing a collar and tie. People looked curiously at them when they got on the bus but they ignored their sideways looks. They had made this journey five times a year since Rosie’s death: on Mothering Sunday, on the anniversaries of her birth, her marriage and her death, and at Christmas. Now their coming here had gathered its own small rituals: the flowers they brought – daffodils on Mothering Sunday, the roses that bore her name and which she had carried in her wedding bouquet on her birthday and the anniversary of her marriage, violets in February, when she had died, and at Christmas a home-made wreath of holly and ivy to lay on the cold stone – their visit to their own church before they left; their silence like the silence of the cemetery where their wife
and mother was buried close to her parents and to her parents-in-law.

This morning, though, the cemetery wasn’t silent. Instead, a group of men were moving and extending its boundary, whilst others were excavating the hard-packed earth.

Molly looked questioningly at her father. ‘Are they going to turn it into allotments, do you think, Dad?’

‘I don’t think so, love. More like they’re getting ready for a different kind of crop,’ he told her heavily. ‘Just in case, like …’

All the colour left her face as she realised what he meant. She looked from him to the bare stretch of land and then at the cemetery, visually measuring the grave-covered earth to the land that lay beyond it – land she now realised was being set aside for new graves.

A mixture of shock, fear and pain filled her insides. It was something she had not allowed to think of – the human cost of war. Tales of the Great War seemed from a different age.

‘Surely there won’t be so many,’ she whispered.

Her father’s mouth twisted. ‘This is nowt to them as died last time.’ His haunted expression aged his face. He had never told his daughters of the horrors he had witnessed in the trenches of France: of how he’d had to drink filthy, muddy water just to stay alive; of how he’d had to strip a dead soldier of his ammunition while he was still warm; of how he’d seen his best friend blown
to pieces right beside him. ‘A load of cardboard coffins we had shipped in on one of t’trains this week. There was talk as how the ice rink is going to be used as a morgue, if’n Hitler drops his bombs on us. Lorra rubbish. If’n he does it won’t be whole bodies as they’ll be buryin’.’

Molly shivered, her eyes widening in fear. ‘Don’t talk like that, Dad,’ she begged him.

When he looked at her Molly realised that he had momentarily forgotten her and that he had been back in the past and his dreadful experiences of the last war. He squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head, just like he had done when she was a child and had fallen over and scraped her knee.

‘Don’t you worry, love. With lads like Frank and Johnny to look out for us, we’ll be just fine,’ he assured her, although in his heart he felt mounting anxiety.

Sombrely the three of them made their way along the familiar footpath until they came to Rosie’s grave. For once, even June was silent. The grave was marked with just a simple headstone, but at least she was with those she had loved and who had loved her, and as a child Molly had taken comfort from that knowledge.

One by one they kneeled down and offered up their flowers and their prayers. Molly could see that their father was trying not to cry.

Afterwards, though, when they made their way home, it was the sight of that empty land waiting
to receive the bodies of those who were still alive that occupied Molly’s thoughts and tore at her heart. For the first time she knew properly what it was to be afraid of war and death. So many graves; so many people who were going to die. She looked at her father and her sister, anguish inside her. It wasn’t just the men abroad. What if one of them …?

She could taste dust in the August heat when they got off the bus and walked up the cul-de-sac.

‘I thought we’d make a start on turning out the attic tonight,’ she heard June telling her once they were back home, briskly back to business.

Numbly Molly looked at her.

‘What’s up with you?’ June asked her.

‘All those graves, June, so many of them …’ Molly’s voice shook.

Immediately June’s expression softened. ‘Aye … I thought like that meself when I knew that my Frank would be joining up, but we’ve got to keep our chins up, Molly. Don’t you worry about Johnny – he’s a tough one.’

The two sisters looked at one another, both fighting against tears. Molly felt guilty that she was not thinking of Johnny but of every man fighting.

The door opened to admit their father, who had been upstairs to remove his collar. His shoulders were bowed, his expression drawn and sad.

Giving Molly a warning look, June said briskly, ‘I expect you’ll be off down the allotment, won’t
you, Dad, after you’ve checked on them blummin’ chickens of yours. All over the kitchen, they are.’

June was so strong, Molly thought admiringly, as she watched their father respond visibly to her goading.

The chickens had escaped from their box and greeted their owners’ return home with excited cheeps as they hopped and jumped all over the place. Their antics broke the sombre mood, and Molly couldn’t help but laugh at them as she gave them their feed.

‘Come on,’ June instructed Molly, once their father had gone out. ‘We’d better go up and make a start on that ruddy attic. Otherwise we’ll be having that fusspot Alf Davies round.’

Molly nodded her head, determinedly putting her earlier despair firmly behind her.

‘I could do with getting meself some new stockings before tonight, seeing as how Irene’s set us all up to go dancing at the Grafton,’ June commented. She and Molly clambered into the loft space and stood looking at the dusty boxes, illuminated by the bare bulb. ‘Gawd, look at all this stuff! Just how long is it since we last came up here? We’ll never get it all sorted out.’

But Molly wasn’t listening. Instead, she was on her knees, examining the contents of a box she had found behind the pile of cardboard boxes stacked one on top of the other, labelled ‘Christmas Decorations’.

‘June, come and look at this,’ she begged her
sister. ‘This box has got all my exercise books from Neville Road Junior School, right back to me first year, in Miss Brown’s class, and here’s yours next to it.’

Molly could feel tears prickling her eyes as she saw the careful way their father had written their names on the boxes.

‘Well, they can’t stay up here. Everything that might catch fire has got to be got rid of – that’s what the Government has said – and any glass taped up or removed in case we get hit by a bomb. Mind you, Jerry would have to be daft to be bombing us instead of aiming for the docks,’ June added prosaically.

Reluctantly abandoning her school books, Molly started to help her sister go through the other boxes.

An hour later, Molly sat back on her heels and pushed her hair off her hot forehead with a dusty hand.

‘We’re nearly done,’ June told her. ‘There’s just this box here that some fool has wedged right at the back.’ Panting, she tugged it free, and then started to open it. ‘Gawd knows what’s in it … Oh …’

As June’s voice changed and she suddenly went still, Molly stopped what she was doing and crawled over to her side, demanding, ‘June, what is it?’ And then her own eyes widened as she saw the crumpled, slightly yellowing lace that June was holding close to her cheek.

‘It’s Mam’s wedding dress,’ June said to her in a small choked voice.

The two sisters looked at one another. There were tears in June’s eyes and Molly’s own gaze was blurred with the same emotion.

‘Let’s take it downstairs so that we can look at it properly,’ she suggested quietly.

As carefully and reverently as if they were carrying the body of their mother herself, between them they took the dress down to the bedroom they shared and then slowly unpacked it.

‘Look how tiny her waist was,’ Molly whispered, as she smoothed the lace gently with her fingertips. The dress smelled of mothballs and dust, but also of their mother – the scent of lily of the valley, which she always used to wear.

‘Mam must have put it away up there when she and Dad moved here.’ June’s voice was husky, and Molly was startled at how much finding the dress had affected her normally so assured and controlled sister. It was at times like these that she realised June had a soft centre underneath her hard shell.

‘It’s too small for you to wear but maybe we could use some of the lace to trim your wedding dress,’ Molly suggested.

June smiled with shining eyes. ‘Oh, Molly, could we? I’d feel like I’d got Mum with me.’

 ‘Does this lipstick look all right with this frock?’ June demanded later that evening, as she scrutinised
her appearance in the bedroom mirror. Molly, who had been applying pale pink lipstick to her own mouth, stopped what she was doing and put her head on one side to study her sister.

‘It looks fine,’ she assured her. ‘What time are we supposed to meet up with the others?’

‘Seven o’clock, outside the dance hall. Have you seen my shoes?’

‘They’re over there, by your bed,’ Molly told her, watching as June slipped her feet into her silver dancing shoes and fastened the strap round her ankle.

The two sisters were wearing dresses cut from the same pattern, bought in Lewis’s in the spring and carefully sewn by Molly. But whereas her own dress had a white cotton background printed with flowers in varying shades of pink and red, June had opted for a cotton with blue and yellow flowers, and whilst Molly’s dress had a neat sweetheart neckline and puff sleeves, June’s was a more daring halter-neck style. Both dresses showed off the sisters’ neat waistlines and pretty ankles, though.

It was gone six o’clock before they were finally ready to leave, June complaining that she wasn’t going to hurry anywhere because she didn’t want her face to go all shiny, despite the powder she’d applied.

‘At last,’ Irene greeted them impatiently when they reached the dance hall ten minutes late. ‘We was just beginning to think you weren’t coming.’

‘It was our Molly’s fault,’ June fibbed unrepentantly, as they all hurried inside in a flurry of brightly coloured cottons and excited giggles.

‘It feels like I haven’t bin dancing in ever such a long time,’ June sighed, as they queued up to buy their tickets, even though the factory girls got together to go dancing every month or so.

‘Here, look over there at them lads in their uniforms,’ Ruby giggled happily, nudging Molly.

‘Give over staring at them, will you, Ruby?’ Irene chastised her. ‘Otherwise they’ll be thinking that we’re sommat as we’re not.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ruby demanded, oblivious to the looks the others were exchanging.

Several groups of young men, clustered round the dance floor, looked eagerly at the girls as they walked past, but Irene led them firmly to a table where they could sit down and then said sternly, ‘Just remember that some of us here have husbands and fiancés, and we don’t want to be embarrassed by the behaviour of those of you who haven’t.’

‘Well, if we’re just going ter sit here all night, what have we come for?’ May objected, eyeing up one of the young men.

‘I didn’t say as we wouldn’t dance, only that I don’t want to see none of you behaving like that lot over there,’ Irene told them, nodding in the direction of another group of young women standing by the entrance, boldly eyeing up the men coming in and exchanging banter with them.

To her discomfort, Molly realised that two of the girls were Johnny’s sisters, and when she told June as discreetly as she could, June looked past her to where they were standing and then warned her quickly, ‘Well, don’t say anything to the others. We don’t want to be shown up. You’d best act as though you haven’t seen them.’

The young soldiers the Hardings girls had seen on the way in had come to stand close to them and were quite plainly watching them.

Molly turned away whilst Irene raised an eyebrow as she lit a Woodbine and then told June drily, ‘They’re just a bunch of kids. My Alan would make mincemeat of them.’

‘And my Frank,’ June agreed, taking one of the cigarettes Irene was offering her.

Molly looked disapprovingly at her sister but kept quiet. She wanted them to have a good time – they all needed to release some tension after such an emotional day.

‘June, Molly, I thought it was you two,’ a male voice announced, and Molly’s frown changed to a wide smile of delight as she recognised Eddie. ‘Auntie Elsie said she thought you were coming down here tonight.’

‘Are you on your own?’ June asked him after they had introduced him to the others.

‘I came down with our Jim, but I’ve met up with a gang of other lads off the ship. If you girls fancy dancing with us, I can vouch for them.’

‘Oh, yeah? As if we’d believe that,’ Irene teased
him, but Molly could see that she wasn’t averse to the suggestion.

‘Well, just you remember before you go introducing us to anyone that we’re respectable girls and dancing is
all
we shall be doing,’ June told him sternly.

‘Auntie Elsie would have me hide if I was to say anything else. She thinks of you and Molly as part of the family,’ Eddie assured her, before he disappeared into the crowd of young people now filling the dance hall.

Within five minutes he was back, along with half a dozen other young men, all slightly bashful but very eager to be introduced to the girls.

‘How about you and me being the first up on the floor, Molly?’ Eddie asked her with a big grin.

Molly laughed back at him. It had been Eddie, years ago, when they had all been children, who had been her partner at the dancing lessons they had had at the church hall in preparation for the annual Christmas party.

‘Just so long as you don’t tread on my toes,’ she agreed.

‘Well, I can’t pull the ribbons out of your hair any more, can I?’ Eddie laughed as he led her onto the floor, adding, ‘But I promise I won’t let anyone put any worms down your back.’