Now the War Is Over (50 page)

Gladys had paid the Toby Man and was doing a brisk trade. Melly looked around her. It was all so familiar. A rush of fondness came over her. Maybe, once she was married to Reggie, this really
could be her life. She could take over from Gladys. After all, she knew the trade back to front. And Dad was branching out – selling furs as well now. She could do a lot worse, she told
herself.

Once the Rag Market was cleared and they had stowed away their remaining stock, Danny drove them the short distance up Bradford Street.

‘No Reggie today?’ he said, as they parked near the pub.

‘I’m seeing him later,’ Melly said. Sometimes Reggie came to help on the market, but not always. ‘So I’ll not stop long.’

‘All right . . .’ The three of them pushed their way into the heaving pub, the air full of smoke and ale and loud talk and laughter. ‘Dubonnet for you, Melly?’

She nodded. ‘You want to learn to drink pints, wench,’ he grumbled. ‘Auntie – your usual?’

Gladys, without fail, had a glass of stout. She looked round to see if there was anywhere to sit but the place was so full they could barely move.

As they were sipping their drinks, Melly enjoying the sweet, heady taste of hers, she saw a face through the crowd – Freddie Morrison. She pushed through and went to talk to him.

‘All right, Melly?’ he greeted her. ‘How’s the family? What about Cissy?’

He grinned, as if remembering his flirtations with Cissy.

‘Oh, you know Ciss,’ Melly laughed. They had to talk very loudly, heads close together, to hear each other over the racket. ‘Always falls on her feet. Living the life of Riley
out near Coventry. She’s got a little boy – Andrew. Dear little lad – we hardly ever see her, though.’

Freddie laughed. ‘Good old Cissy. And you and Reggie – eh? You’ll soon be my sister-in-law.’

‘So I will!’ Melly laughed. ‘Who’d have thought, eh?’

‘Got a date yet?’

‘Not for sure. April probably. How’s your . . . Sal, isn’t it?’

A happy smile came over Freddie’s face. ‘Yeah. She’s all right.’

They chatted about the family a bit more, Jonny with his teaching job and Freddie at one of the foundries nearby. He downed the last of his pint. ‘Wait there. I’m going back for
another – get you one?’

‘I’m all right, ta, Freddie.’ Her glass was still half full.

She was enjoying talking to him, especially with the added thought that they were to be family. Freddie had always been all right. All the Morrisons were all right, she thought, a warmth
spreading through her. She was very lucky. It was as if family was wrapping itself around her in a safe cocoon that she need never leave.

Freddie came back, shouldering through the crowd with his pint.

‘Who’s that Auntie’s talking to?’

Melly turned. ‘Where?’

‘She’s there – behind that big bloke.’ Since she left Gladys, she had moved further towards the bar. ‘Talking to the tall one. He’s a size – must be six
foot four!’

Melly could make out a man who was at least a half-head taller than most people in the room and a whole head taller than some. He had very short, grizzled hair and a strong, comical-looking face
which, as she watched, she saw break into a smile. She presumed he was smiling at Gladys, though she could not see her.

‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘Never seen him before. He’s a wopper.’

‘Straight as a ramrod an’ all – look at him. Must be a soldier.’

They carried on with their chat until Melly had finished her drink.

‘Got to go, Fred,’ she said. ‘I’m meeting Reggie.’

Freddie grinned. ‘Nice seeing yer, Melly. Ta-ra.’

She noticed then that Gladys was still with the very tall man. Working her way to her father, who was talking in a gaggle of men, she touched his arm and said, ‘I’m off now, Dad.
Meeting Reggie in town.’

Danny blew out a whorl of smoke. ‘All right. See ya later, wench.’

‘Who’s that Auntie’s with?’ she asked.

‘I dunno.’ Danny turned, found Gladys with his eyes and narrowed them, suddenly attentive. ‘I dunno who he is – but whoever he is, he’s put her in a good
mood.’

Melly moved her head so that she could see Gladys. It took her a moment to recognize her. Her face was alight, smiling, like a new, suddenly younger woman.

‘What’s this about Auntie and some guardsman?’ Rachel said the next morning.

She was standing resting against the stove, clad in her pink nylon dressing gown, a cup of tea held close to her face. Sandra and Alan were already downstairs, rattling about in the passage.
Melly poured herself a cup and pulled out a chair at the table.

‘Guardsman?’ She had got home quite late last night, after her evening with Reggie. Her head was full of him. He was so keen on her, so amorous and in need of affection that she
wondered how she was going to keep him at bay until they were married. In fact, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to resist for much longer. But she’d missed any follow-up on
what happened in the Adam and Eve.

‘That tall feller, you mean?’

‘Your dad said he nigh-on had to prise them apart!’

Melly laughed. ‘What –
Auntie
?’ But she had seen Gladys’s face, all lit up. ‘I s’pose they were talking for quite a bit. I didn’t see
’til I left – I was talking to Freddie.’

‘What – Dolly’s Freddie?’

‘Yeah. He’s doing all right. I reckon he’ll be getting wed to that Sal girl he’s with.’

‘He’ll be your brother-in-law soon.’ Rachel lit the gas and reached for the frying pan.

Her words sent another thrill through Melly – of both excitement and misgiving.

‘Melly! Are you there? I said, d’you fancy an egg butty?’

‘Take the lads out of here, for heaven’s sake,’ Rachel said later to Danny. ‘They’re driving me round the bend. Kev’s got a face as long as
Livery Street and the other two are like bloody ants.’

‘C’mon –’ Danny hustled Kev, Ricky and Alan along – ‘we’ll go and have a kick-about – bring your ball, Kev.’

‘Can I come?’ Sandra whined.

‘No!’ they all said in chorus.

‘You can help me,’ Rachel told her. ‘You can shell me some peas for a start.’

‘I don’t wanna stay in the house and help you!’ Sandra roared.

Under cover of this, Tommy said, ‘Sis – come – outside – a tick . . .’

Melly could see he was in a state, pale, and as if he had not got much sleep. They went into the garden and both perched on the low wall.

‘Can – we ask – if – we can – visit?’ he said with no preamble. ‘Mom – maybe?’

‘Mom?’ Melly rolled her eyes. ‘Heaven help us!’

‘But can’t – we – ask?’ Tommy pleaded. His speech was more laboured because he was worked up. ‘How’re – we – gonna – g-go?’

‘If we ask Mom she’ll have a fit,’ Melly said. ‘Can’t you imagine the state she’d be in if she had to drive to Wolverhampton? She’s never even been
there and her driving’s . . . Well, anyway. She’d say “over my dead body” – I can hear her saying it. But –’ She held a hand out to stop Tommy
interrupting. ‘There’s Dad – but even better, what about Reggie? He can drive anywhere. We could go – the three of us. Why don’t you write to her and see if we could
go next Sunday?’

A look of utter joy filled Tommy’s face.

‘Would he?’ He was squirming with delight. ‘Would – Reggie – do that – for me?’

‘Course he would.’

Their eyes met, full of fond, happy light. It was like old times, Melly thought. Her helping Tommy and him not minding, actually wanting her.

‘I’ll ask him,’ she said. ‘Later.’

Melly spent most of the day with Reggie, who of course happily agreed to drive them to Wolverhampton.

They went for a walk round the park in Kings Heath. The trees were lit by mellow, late-summer light. Reggie held her hand, his stick in the other. Melly felt bubbly. Everything in her life was
so happy these days. Even Gladys was suddenly lit up like a beacon.

‘I think Auntie’s in love,’ she told Reggie.

‘No!’ He laughed. ‘Auntie? You’re having me on!’

‘I didn’t take much notice – I saw Freddie, in the Adam and Eve last night.’

‘How is the little bugger? He’s hardly ever at home.’

‘He’s all right. Anyway, Auntie was nattering away to this bloke – he’s ever so tall. I could barely see her there was such a crush but you could see him. This big . .
.’ She stretched her arm up. ‘Mom says he was a guardsman, Welsh Guards – in the first war.’

‘They’ve taken a shine to each other, have they?’

‘Dad says they never stopped talking all evening. And she looks like a cat with the cream.’

Reggie stopped in order to laugh thoroughly. ‘God – never say die. How old is she?’

‘She must be – sixty-six – nearly.’

They walked on, chatting and laughing. Every so often, Reggie stopped and drew her close to kiss her.

‘Oh, Mel,’ he said, after drawing back from a long kiss, under a spreading beech tree, ‘I know it’s the right thing to wait ’til we’re wed and all . . . But I
don’t know as I can.’

She looked into his eyes, her own desire meeting his. She knew she was supposed to prefer to wait – but she didn’t. She loved the way he wanted her and she desired him back with a
force that surprised her. It wasn’t difficult to find time to be alone in Mo and Dolly’s house. Unlike the cramped dwellings of their childhoods, the Moseley house sprawled upwards
– seven bedrooms, including an attic, like an eyrie looking out over the garden. Since only Donna and Freddie were still living at home, not all of the rooms had occupants.

They had a cup of tea with Dolly and Mo. All the time, desire hummed between them in the sultry afternoon, a sound that only they could hear. Sometimes their eyes met, as if making a date for
later, as they talked about mutual friends and the day-to-day things of Dolly and Mo’s lives.

Afterwards, almost as if under a spell, they climbed the stairs hand in hand. Dolly was cooking, Mo outside. The house was quiet, a region they could explore in almost guaranteed peace.

Reggie’s room was not in the attic but on the first floor, looking out over the road. As Melly followed him upstairs, his warm hand in hers, she did not question or resist. She wanted
Reggie as much as he wanted her. She had felt his desire for her, his body pressed against hers so often now that she no longer knew how to resist. Did not want to resist.

As soon as they closed the door, they were kissing, half frantic for each other, removing clothes with their mouths locked on each other’s.

His bed was under the window and he led her, laid her down and she felt the soft pillow under her head, and Reggie’s weight, the salt sprinkle of his blonde stubble. Reggie, her Reggie
now, so close, in her arms.

Afterwards, she explored him with her fingertips: the white scar worms on his body, the long mauve zip-fastener from the operation down his right thigh. All the smashing up and
rearrangement had left that leg at odds with itself and a fraction shorter than the other.

‘Not pretty, is it?’ he said. He seemed bashful at her seeing it.

‘No – but it’s all right. It works.’ She thought of the hospital, all that it had taken to restore him to life and mobility. None of that possible for Wally. She kissed
him. ‘And it doesn’t matter. I love you. And you’re here.’

They both knew what she was talking about. She saw a shadow cross Reggie’s face. They lay back together, cuddled close. After a silence, Reggie seemed to think of something. He moved to
look into her face.

‘It won’t . . . Mean anything – will it?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘You won’t have a baby?’

She stared at him. She knew the facts, sort of. In a vague way.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Course not. Not from just one time. People try to have babies for ages, don’t they?’

That’s what Mrs Hughes had said. She and her husband had taken a good while to have Peter. But she felt foolish. In the heat of it she had not given it a thought. Why was she so ignorant?
She had been training as a nurse but she still didn’t know much. She left before they got to ‘Human Reproduction’. She promised herself that in the week, sometime, she would go
into Harborne Library and look it up.

‘If you did,’ he said, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself, ‘it wouldn’t be the end of the world. It’d be . . . Lovely. It would.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet. I don’t think that would be right. We need to be married at least.’

He rolled over and cuddled her tight. ‘We’d best get up in a tick. Don’t want Mom coming in, do we?’

‘
The human race has been kept within reasonable limits in the past by famine, pestilence and war.
’

Melly sat in a corner of Harborne Library a couple of days later, looking up often to see if anyone was near her because she felt so self-conscious about the medical book she was reading. Even
though there were not many people in the library, her cheeks were hot with blushes. She had managed to get away from Mrs Hughes’s house early and slipped into the library.

‘
Pregnancy is the state of being with child . . .
’

She kept looking for new headings that might help. If you were already expecting a child it was rather too late for famine, pestilence or war to remedy the situation. The book said that the
first sign that you were having a baby was the stoppage of monthly periods.

‘. . .
the child’s birth may be expected nine months and a fortnight from the first day of the last period.
’

The next symptom that would apparently show itself was ‘
morning sickness
’. She remembered this from when her mother was having Sandra and Alan. Immediately she started to
feel queasy. Now she was not in Reggie’s arms she was worried sick. This book was all very well but how were you supposed to know how likely it might be that
you
had caught for a
baby?

Earlier, when Mrs Hughes had passed a comment about the time when she was carrying Ann, Melly had jumped in with, ‘How did you know – at first, I mean?’

‘Oh,’ Dorothy Hughes said, taking Ann from her to give her a feed. ‘You don’t know to start with. You just have to wait and see. Some women catch a lot more easily than
others.’