Now the War Is Over (48 page)

It was easier to feel more like other people when he was sitting in his little car. And it came to him suddenly; a moment of amazed realization, that he was a man now. Of course he knew this
really. His own father had been away at war at his age. But now something had happened that he had never dared to expect: he could feel like any other man, a man hurrying home with a girl on his
mind, dying to hear from her.

That Sunday morning after they had announced their engagement, Melly walked with Gladys to the church.

‘Come on, Auntie,’ she’d coaxed her. ‘Let’s go together. It’ll do you good to get out – sing a few hymns. And it’s lovely out.’

Melly knew her next task was to coax Gladys back to the Rag Market. At the moment she was running her stall for her every Saturday. Mom was at her wits’ end having Gladys – of all
people – in this state.

Gladys agreed almost wordlessly. Very slowly, she dressed herself and came downstairs, putting on her big brown coat.

‘It’s quite warm, you know,’ Melly said. But Gladys took no notice. She looked heavier and bowed down.

Melly kept having to slow her pace so as not to stride on ahead. It wrung her heart to see Gladys like this. With her faded hair and stiff gait she really did seem like an old lady, when until
now she had always been full of vigour, always been the boss of the family.

In the ancient parish church, Gladys stared ahead at the mellow-coloured windows behind the altar. But she did not join in the service or sing the hymns. Melly quite enjoyed singing and wished
Gladys would join in as she had always done in Aston. It bucked you up, a good singsong. While the vicar was talking Melly sat thinking about Reggie. Soon, she would stand beside him and make her
marriage vows. It seemed very distant at the moment and not quite real.

Once the service was over and the organ playing them out, they shuffled along amid the congregation.

No wonder no one speaks to Auntie, Melly thought. She just sticks her head down and never looks at anyone. She, instead, looked round, smiling, saying good morning. She knew a few people vaguely
and they greeted her.

‘I say,’ a voice said behind her. Melly turned, to see a middle-aged, toothy woman in a white straw hat and pale green suit, her hand held up tentatively. ‘Yes – you,
dear. Sorry – can’t quite remember the name?’

‘Melanie.’

‘Ah, yes, that’s right.’ Appearing to think that Melly should remember hers she did not disclose it, but drew her aside at the back of the church. Gladys showed no sign of
hearing all this and continued on outside.

‘I just wanted a word, dear – you being the age you are. I’m worried about Mrs Hughes.’

Melly waited and gave what she hoped was an obliging smile. She hadn’t the remotest idea who Mrs Hughes was.

‘She attends here usually – off and on. A young mother – little boy called Peter?’

Melly vaguely recalled a lady of about thirty, with a solemn, brown-haired little boy, so she nodded.

‘Well, of course she’s not been here lately because of having the second one – a girl, I believe. The thing is, dear . . .’ She seized the top of Melly’s arm and
pulled her even further into the side aisle to whisper to her. ‘She’s not very well. By that I mean . . . You know, some women, after the baby . . .’

‘A bit low in herself?’ Melly suggested, thankful once again for the nursing conversations she had heard.

‘Exactly, dear, yes. She’s looking to employ someone and I did wonder . . . Someone said you had done some nursing – or perhaps you might know somebody? She really is in
desperate need of help with the children.’

Gladys was waiting for her in the churchyard, near the gravestones with their slanting shadows. She had closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sun. Sensing that someone
was standing close to her, she opened them again.

‘What did that one want?’ she asked.

‘I
think
,’ Melly said, starting to walk, ‘she’s just offered me a job.’

Mrs Hughes was a sallow-skinned lady with bushy brown hair, cropped startlingly short in a bob round her ears. She opened the door to Melly, the baby in her arms, looking out
with anxious, grey eyes. She was wearing a straight, shapeless, steel grey dress.

She conducted a brief interview in the front parlour, holding the restless baby on her lap, wrapped in a gauzy thin blanket. Even that, Melly thought, looked too warm for the weather. The room,
shrouded by net curtains, was furnished with solid, boxy armchairs upholstered in sage green. There was a black-and-white patterned rug by the fender and a leaded fireplace. Against the back wall
was a piano, the lid open and music on the stand.

‘This is Ann,’ Mrs Hughes told her, nodding down at the baby. ‘I can’t seem to get her to settle very well . . .’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, dear . . .
I just . . . It wasn’t too bad with Peter. He’s two and a half now – he’s with my friend at the moment. I thought it would be easier . . . He was a placid child . . . I just
seem to let things get on top of me.’

The baby squawked and Mrs Hughes hefted her up against her shoulder. ‘Oh dear . . . I should be asking you questions.’ She got up and jiggled the baby. ‘Why don’t you
tell me about yourself – Melanie?’

‘Melly, usually.’ She decided she might as well be honest. After all, she already had a job. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Mrs Hughes did not want her. ‘The
thing is, I’m not a children’s nanny or anything. I was training as a nurse – at Selly Oak. I was . . .’ She hesitated. ‘I was ill. So I had to stop. I’ve been
getting over that. But I’m the eldest of six – I’m used to little ones. I could help you for a time, if you like.’

Her words seemed to catch Mrs Hughes’s interest. ‘You were nursing? I see.’ She paced back and forth, which seemed to settle the baby a little. ‘Are you not going
back?’

‘I . . .’ Melly hesitated again. ‘No. Well, I can’t really. I’m getting married.’

‘Really? Goodness, I see.’ Mrs Hughes seemed to see her with new eyes. ‘You look so young! How old are you, if you don’t mind?’

‘I’m about to turn twenty – in a couple of weeks. D’you think,’ she dared to suggest, as the baby’s wailing took off again, ‘she might be a bit
hot?’

‘Oh – is that what it is?’ She peered down at the child in consternation. ‘I expect you’re right. Look – why don’t you hold her for a moment and get to
know each other?’

She thrust the moist, squeaking bundle at Melly. The baby was pink with whatever annoyance she was feeling but had a sweet, round face. Melly lay her on the chair, unwrapped the blanket and
picked her up, looking into her eyes.

‘Hello, little Ann,’ she said.

Baby Ann seemed to find this turn of events so astonishing that she stopped crying immediately.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ Mrs Hughes said, slumping on to another chair opposite. ‘How soon can you start?’

‘I thought I might as well,’ Melly told Reggie the next weekend as they walked round the park. ‘I’ve told her I won’t be here forever. She’s
just a bit mithered at the moment – but she only wants help in the week anyway so I can do the market with Auntie on a Saturday. And the boy, Peter, is all right – quite quiet really
and sweet. It’s better than standing in that sweet shop all day long. I can bring them here for walks – get out of the house.’

It felt, in fact, more what she was made for – looking after people – though she didn’t say that to Reggie. They were walking hand in hand. It was a dry, sleepy August day.

‘Good practice for when we have our own,’ he teased, drawing her close to kiss her.

Melly looked back at him, trying not to show her alarm. Children – already? God, she hardly felt more than a child herself, as Mrs Hughes had said. She was startled to realize that the
thought of having her own children had hardly crossed her mind.

‘What – straight away?’ she said. ‘Reggie – you haven’t even finished at college yet.’

‘Well – it’ll be all right. That’s what married people usually do, isn’t it? And you’ll be living with Mom and Dad. Mom’ll love it – you know what
she’s like. Can’t get enough of babbies.’

‘Oh, flipping heck, Reggie!’ She took his arm, trying not to show that she felt as if the walls were closing in, that he was asking her to end her life before it had really begun. It
was all part of the dream that Reggie had led her into. But it was one that would mean the end of her other dreams. Having a baby would surely mean she could never, ever be a nurse –
didn’t it? She hardly dared think about whether she had fully closed the door on that. But she didn’t mention these misgivings to Reggie.

‘One thing at a time,’ she said, laughing. We haven’t even got married yet!’

‘There’s another letter for Tommy.’ Rachel frowned at the handwriting and felt the good-quality envelope. ‘Nice. He’s the only one ever gets any
letters in this house.’

Melly was on her way out to work with Mrs Hughes and Tommy had already left.

‘Know who it’s from?’ her mother asked.

‘No. Unless it’s the people about the three-wheeler. He had a few letters about that.’ She opened the front door. She knew perfectly well who it was from.

‘This is different writing,’ Rachel mused, squinting down at it.

‘See you later,’ Melly called.

Melly set off to Mrs Hughes’s neat terraced house. It was almost the end of her second week there and life felt good. Reggie had taken her out last Saturday for another
curry to celebrate her birthday, and the days with Mrs Hughes were already taking on a rhythm. She was enjoying the job, especially as it was the summer and that meant she could take the children
outside.

Mrs Hughes insisted that Melly call her by her first name, Dorothy.

‘It makes me feel so old being called Mrs Hughes all the time,’ she said. ‘I can’t get used to it.’

Sometimes when she arrived, she found Dorothy Hughes playing the piano. It helped to lull baby Ann back to sleep after her morning feed, she said, and she wanted her children to grow up with the
piano as one of their earliest memories. Peter would be playing on the floor behind her with his tin fire engine or a row of soldiers. Melly saw that Mrs Hughes adored playing the piano. She rushed
to it whenever she had the chance. Whenever Melly took the children out, Ann in the pram and Peter walking along holding on at the side, she would come back into the house to the sound of
music.

Melly had quickly come to the conclusion that there was not much wrong with Dorothy Hughes that a bit of company and time to herself would not cure. She soon came to like her very much. Dorothy
told Melly that before she married her Victor – who worked in technical drawing and was
very busy – s
he had trained in secretarial skills. ‘Shorthand and typing and all
that,’ she added. Melly wasn’t sure what ‘all that’ meant except that it was to do with offices. She worked in the offices of the LMS Railways. Her real passion, though, was
for music.

‘I should have liked to be so much better at it,’ she sighed. ‘Then I could have been a teacher.’

‘You sound very good to me,’ Melly said.

‘Well, that’s nice of you. But I’m very run-of-the-mill. And Victor doesn’t like me playing in the evenings. It gets on his nerves. But it’s such bliss to have time
to play in the day now you’re here. I was beginning to think I would go mad. One child is difficult enough . . . No one ever really tells you what it’s like.’

Melly did not find the two Hughes children difficult. They were just like any other children so far as she could see and she became fond of them. Her week was spent moving to the beat of their
routines. On Saturdays she was at the Rag Market and on Sundays, Reggie was always there. The summer was rushing past.

Everyone was excited and full of plans about the wedding, for which Melly and Reggie still needed to set a date. On Sundays when they went round to see Dolly and Mo, as they
almost always did, Gladys and Rachel often with them as well, it was all everyone wanted to talk about. Sometimes Freddie was there too with his new girlfriend, Sal, a plump, cheerful girl with
waves of blonde hair round her cheeks, and the four of them got along well. Despite the fact that they had been engaged for months they had still not set a date.

‘Seems like you’re gonna get there first, Reg,’ Freddie said. ‘Still – it’s only right, you being older than me, I s’pose!’

Melly and Reggie had decided to get married at St Mary’s in Moseley.

‘It’s ever so pretty,’ Dolly said one afternoon as they were all sitting round with cups of tea and fruit cake. ‘I mean, I know there’s some in my family’ll
have summat to say about it.’ Dolly’s family were all Catholics. She eyed Gladys.

‘I don’t recall you ever taking your lot to church,’ Gladys said. ‘Except for . . .’ She trailed to a halt. Everyone knew what she meant. Going to Mass had meant
mostly bad times: her mother’s funeral, Wally’s funeral. Though there had been her sisters’ weddings.

‘Well, Melly’s not a Catholic,’ Dolly said. ‘And Reggie’s hardly . . . You don’t go to Mass, do you, Reg?’ She looked round at him. Reggie shook his
head.

‘Filthy little heathen,’ Dolly said fondly. ‘Anyway – Melly does go to church with you, Glad, so it only seems right. Don’t you think, Melly?’

Melly nodded. It all just felt unreal to her still, as if she was at the pictures, watching herself. In a few months she’d be married. In a year she might be like Mrs Hughes, if Reggie had
his way. At home with a baby. Here in fact, most likely, with Dolly, in this lovely big house.

‘She’d have to move over here for a bit, Doll,’ Gladys said. ‘A month or so before. So they can read the banns.’

‘Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?’ Dolly said happily. ‘You can come and stop with us before the wedding. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Donna? We can
get you all ready – do your hair and . . .’ She stopped, suddenly realizing she was taking over. ‘I mean – Rach, you could come over here whenever you like as well. We could
all do it together.’

Melly saw her mother smile. Rachel didn’t seem resentful. Melly felt a pang of hurt at this. But then she looked at Donna and Dolly and thought, Donna’s going to be my sister-in-law.
She was so sweet and beautiful, and Mo and Dolly were so kind, she felt a swell of excitement. How lucky she was! She reached for Reggie’s hand and squeezed it. Their eyes met.