Soldier Girl (3 page)

‘I bet the fire won’t even be lit,’ she muttered resentfully, ‘let alone anything on for tea.’

Practically everything in the house was now left to her. Iris could hardly bestir herself to get down to the shops for groceries these days. It was rationing that had finished her off.

‘I can’t do with all them stupid coupons and that,’ she complained as soon as the system was introduced. ‘You and Bert’ll have to do it, Molly. You’re the clever ones.’

Molly was enraged by this. Clever ones? Since when had Mom ever taken any notice of whether she was clever or not? It was just a marvellous excuse for Iris to sit on her backside and do even less than she did already except devote herself to her dearest friend, the bottle.

Molly could predict exactly how she’d find them tonight, Iris and Joe. (Never again would she call them Mom and Dad. When had either of them been a mother or father to her?) They’d be either side of the cold range, he half asleep, muttering to himself. Iris would be tanked up and aggressive, ready to pick a fight with the very draught under the door. Not a thing would have been done in the house, no shopping or cleaning up. As for Bert, they never knew from one day to the next whether he’d be there or not. Molly pulled her old brown-and-white-weave coat round her as if to shield herself from this squalid sight. She’d be so ashamed for anyone to come to the house. They never had callers: Iris had long ago frightened off anyone who might have set foot in there and no one knew what to say to Joe. His old cronies who had come years back to visit out of pity had long ago melted away. Fair enough, the number of moonlight flits the family had done to evade the rent meant it was hard for anyone to keep up. But now they were back in the district and settled, and still no one came.
What a shower,
Molly thought furiously. Why had she ended up in such a rotten, useless family? No wonder her older brother Tom had got out as soon as he could. It had been more than four years now since anyone had heard from him.

At least the house they were in now was a bit better. During the worst years, before she and Bert started work, they had lived in squalid, bug-ridden places, sometimes having the chance to move their few sticks of furniture with a handcart, sometimes, nothing. The worst time, they’d rented two rooms on the ground floor of a house, sleeping on straw mattresses on the floor, waking up a mass of flea bites. Since then things had come on a bit. With her and Bert out at work there were two lots of wages, and lately Bert had extra money about him, though she wasn’t sure how he came by it. Probably they only saw a tiny fraction of it too, knowing him. But he had got hold of a wireless from somewhere, which graced the downstairs room, even though Iris mostly snored in front of it.

The front door was closed against the cold, but she could see the light was on inside. At least the street had electric lighting now, even though they still cooked on the old coal-fired range. She pushed the door open, letting out the usual odours of must and booze.

‘ ’Bout time you got ’ere.’ Iris’s voice assailed her before she was even inside the door. ‘Where the ’ell’ve yer been?’

‘Had to work over.’ Molly shut the door, thankfully slipped off her shoes from her freezing feet and rubbed her sore left heel. ‘There’s a war on, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Don’t you be lippy with me,’ Iris snarled. ‘Bert’s been in an hour and ’e brought some pigs’ liver. You need to get on and get the tea.’

She never knew exactly what it was that had set Iris off that night, why then and not some other time. She was already spoiling for a fight though, that was clear. As Molly straightened up, she took a few moments to absorb the strange sight in front of her. Iris and Joe were, as expected, ensconced by the fire – nothing unusual in that – except that it was alight for once. The reason for this was also obvious: standing by the table in the crowded little room with his back to her was Bert, and Bert felt the cold.

He had not even turned to look at her. His skinny back, always slightly bowed – he never stood quite straight – was bent over the table. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and Molly noticed the sharp points of his elbows.

In front of him, covering the whole table, was a selection of objects which made the house look like a pawn shop.

‘What’s all this?’

Looking more closely, she saw a strange collection of things. There were ornaments, a china sheep, two clocks – one in a wooden case, one brass – a silver hand mirror, pretty and valuable looking (‘What’s this doing here? Where on earth did you get that?’), a hessian bag, wooden shoe trees, a rusty old biscuit tin and even a set of false teeth.

As she rifled through the things on the table, Bert’s head turned sharply towards her, eyes narrowed. She thought how mean he looked, how unhealthy and cruel, with his mousy hair slicked back, his pasty face and extreme thinness which made him look sharp and pinched. There were angry pink spots on his chin and he smelt pungently of stale sweat.

Molly picked up the old biscuit tin, surprised by its weight. ‘What’s in here?’

Bert watched as she struggled to pull off the lid, a smug, calculating expression on his face.

‘Ooh, see – she’s interested now,’ Iris said nastily.

A horrible suspicion was already forming in Molly’s mind, confirmed when she managed to yank the lid off the tin, to find it more than half full of money. It was a mixture of change, mostly coppers, bitter smelling and green with age, shillings, and half crowns, but there were ten-bob notes in there too, and sitting crisply on the top, two pound notes. Molly gasped.

‘What’s this, Bert? Who the hell’s is it?’

Iris raised her voice. ‘Why don’t you get the kettle on, and bloody hurry up. We want our tea!’

Molly knew there was something about this that was all wrong. Bombed-out houses made for rich pickings.

‘This is someone’s savings, isn’t it?’ she kept on. ‘And this, I’ll bet—’ She picked up the old hessian bag, which gave off a sound of clinking coins. ‘Where d’you get all this stuff?’

‘Where d’yer think?’ Bert sneered. He said most things with a sneer.

Molly looked wildly across the collection of possessions. ‘You’ve never . . . Not . . . You
wouldn’t
. . .’

‘Wouldn’t I? Why not? This stuff ain’t gunna be any good to them where they’ve gone is it?’

Molly didn’t notice Iris struggling to get out of her chair.

‘You mean—’ She tried to take this in. ‘You’ve been sneaking into people’s houses after they’ve been bombed out – pinching their things? How could you? What if – I mean, they could still have been in there, injured or anything, and you’d just go in and steal off them!’

‘Hard cheese!’ Bert gave his snickering laugh. ‘Should’ve gone down the shelter then, shouldn’t they?’ he went on gleefully. ‘It’s all out there waiting. You go out, same night or the night after. Couple of sacks. Go somewhere where there’s a bit of lolly about. Keep out the way of the fuzz, and those nosy bloody wardens. Early morning’s the best – four or five. You can get more of a scout round without someone bothering yer. The dead ’uns don’t take no notice!’

Molly was so appalled that it was a few seconds before she could say, ‘I can’t believe
you
could do anything so
wicked . . .
Even
you . .
.’

Iris shuffled over and stood holding the back of one of the chairs. She was wearing a big purple frock, her belly pushing it out at the front, with stains all down it. There was a strange, leering expression on her face.

‘You’re
vile,
Bert.’ Molly felt like spitting, as if to get rid of the taste of him, far more bitter than the smell of old pennies. This was the worst yet. There was his bullying, sadistic nature, and then the gross maulings she’d suffered from him which he’d learned first-hand from their late grandfather, Old Man Rathbone, Iris’s father. William Rathbone, who died when Molly was ten, had taken out his filthy masturbatory desires on her up until his final illness, and Bert had then set out to do the same – would have done worse in fact, had Molly not fought him off. Things had changed then. Jenny Button had taken her to see that doctor, and that had made Molly stronger. But she had hated Bert nearly all of her life, and at this moment she felt more contempt and loathing for him than ever before.

‘You’re just muck, you are, you’re lower than a worm. I’m ashamed to be anywhere near you. I can’t stand the fact that you’re my brother.’

Iris, seeming excited by their fight, let out a blaring laugh. ‘Oh, ’e’s yer brother all right – make no mistake.’ She leaned her hip against the chair, her weight on one foot, the other knee bent, in an oddly seductive pose. ‘There’s summat you’ve got in common at least. All three of us ’ave, come to think of it . . . You both ’ad the same father, anyroad. Only shame was ’e ain’t been alive to see the two of yer grow up.’

Molly and Bert were momentarily united then, if only in staring at her.

‘What d’yer mean by that?’ Bert snarled.

Iris laid her hand coquettishly on her thick waist. She spoke with relish, as if delivering a juicy morsel of gossip.

‘You didn’t think you were the first one ’e ever messed with, did yer, Molly?’

Hearing her words felt like a blow. Molly could scarcely breathe. It was as if her body had shut down, was paralysed. To hear her shame tripped out so casually, and to realize Iris had known of it all that time, when she had never said a word about it before and never raised a finger to stop him, hadn’t cared a jot in fact! But Iris hadn’t finished. Swaying, she pointed towards Joe, who was sitting dumbly. It was hard to tell if he was listening.

‘You don’t think that wreck of a man could sire a child do yer? Didn’t you ever wonder about that? The old man had been at me for years, even before my mother passed on. That’s what ’e was like, see?’ She made a sinuous movement with her hips that made Molly’s lips curl in revulsion. ‘’E liked young girls, daint ’e, see?’

Neither Molly nor Bert could speak. But at last Bert said, choking, ‘What – me an’ all?’

‘You an’ all, Bertie. The old man was your father as well as your grandfather.’ She delivered the words harshly, almost with pride. ‘That makes us all brothers and sisters then, don’t it?’

Molly leaned on the table. Her father – no, not her father!
– Joe
was making coughing noises as if trying to speak. ‘I – I – I don’t . . . don’t . . .’ he began. No one took any notice.

‘But
why
. . .’ In her outrage the words were hard to form. ‘Why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you keep him off me? You made me share a room with him even though I begged you . . .’ Her voice rose, but she swallowed, determined not to weep. What sympathy would she ever get? ‘You knew – you knew he was my
father.
’

‘Well, there was no stopping ’im, that was the point.’ Iris sounded indifferent now. This casualness was worst of all. ‘And anyroad, it gave me a rest from ’im. I told yer – ’e liked young girls. And you ’ad it easy. By then he was beginning to get a bit past it – not like when he was young. ’E never gave you a bun in the oven, did ’e? You just had the fag end of it, that’s all . . .’

Bert turned away suddenly, but as he did so, Molly caught a glimpse of his face. His movements were taut with revulsion, but she realized he was very close to tears, that her brother, for the first time since infancy, was showing signs of vulnerable emotion. He snatched up the hessian bag and pushed past Iris.

‘Well, you ’ad to know sometime,’ she yelled at him as the front door closed behind him. She tutted. ‘What the ’ell’s the matter with ’im? And look at all this junk. How’re we s’posed to eat our tea? You get on with it, Molly.’

Molly seized the set of teeth from the table and hurled them as hard as she could at Iris.

‘You can cook your own liver, you filthy old cow!’

Forcing her feet into the shoes again and seizing her coat, she slammed out into the street. In the distance she could just make out the shape of Bert, disappearing round the corner.

‘Molly –
Molly Fox!
We’re going on our break – you coming or what?’

Molly was still stacking the tin helmets, lifting them down from the rack on which they’d been sprayed and piling them one upon another.

‘Oh – sorry!’ She looked up, dazed. ‘I was miles away!’

‘Yeah – we could see . . . Come on. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’

Molly followed the other two girls out for a cup of tea. Even now, though years had passed since a childhood of being singled out for exclusion, she was still surprised to be included, that the other girls seemed to like her. All her young life she had got used to being left out, being the butt of jokes and name-calling, smelly little Molly Fox with her raw eczema skin, her strange clothes and whiff of wee. It had got a bit better as she got older, and she and Em had stayed friends after all their childhood troubles. Once she got out to work in the factory she found they accepted her, with her pretty looks and obliging nature. She had learned not to fawn on others to gain their affection, and she found she had a sense of humour – it worked especially well if directed against herself. None of them knew anything about her home, her life outside the factory, and she kept it that way.

The girls took their mugs of tea and went and stood in the yard outside, where they could smoke as well, all of them dressed in thick navy dungarees, hair taken back in snoods. They all lit up, except Gladys, who patted her pockets, frowning.