Soldier Girl (41 page)

‘Well, she was in a rush,’ Em muttered.

Something about the face disturbed her. It took a few seconds before it came to her.

‘Hang on—’ She said it out loud, stopping in the road. ‘That was Katie O’Neill!’

Walking on again, she tried to make sense of it. Of course she hadn’t realized who it was at first. Why should she? And the woman had seemed in such a tearing hurry. She had been carrying a child – hadn’t she? Surely she hadn’t imagined that?
She must be married then
, Em thought, with a pang of regret. If the two of them had stayed friends they could be spending time together, their children growing up together. Still, no good crying over spilt milk. She hadn’t heard anything about Katie in ages. Had she moved back to the area?

But the more the brief incident came back to her, the more Em realized how odd it had been. If it was her she’d have wanted to stop and show Robbie off to anyone she knew – even Katie. And even stranger had been the hunted look in her eyes.

Reaching home, Em went gratefully inside and straight over to greet Robbie. But over her tea she told Cynthia about her strange encounter.

‘They always were a peculiar family,’ Cynthia said. ‘I never got to know her mom at all – she could be pleasant enough but she was never what you’d call friendly. Never really talked to anyone much. She always seemed to think she was a cut above everyone round here. I’ve not seen her for quite a while though, not round here. I thought they’d moved on.’

‘So did I,’ Em said. ‘It was just, the way she was just now – I mean, I know we’re not friends any more. But even so – it just wasn’t normal.’

Cynthia gave a laugh, pushing back her chair. ‘Whatever that is! Well – perhaps we’ll hear more, sooner or later.’

February 1944 – St Margaret’s Bay

‘Hey you two!’ Jen’s grinning face appeared round the door of Molly and Cath’s room. ‘Want a cuppa tea?’

‘You offering to make it?’ Cath asked, surprised.

‘Why aye!’ There was a glint in her eye.

‘Mine’s two sugars,’ Molly called, adding, ‘Ow – bugger it!’ as the needle she was using to darn her stocking plunged into her thumb. Again.

‘Mine’s three!’ Cath lay back on the bed, boots kicked off. ‘This is the life. What’s got into her?’ she giggled as Jen disappeared downstairs.

‘God knows.’ Molly sucked at her thumb, squinting at her dreadful sewing. ‘But we might as well make the most of it.’

When the girls had first arrived in Dover, they were appalled at the state of it. The town had been bombed, and shelled from across the channel since the summer of 1940, and the wreckage was terrible. Almost every building they drove past in the city seemed to be damaged to a greater or lesser degree. So they had scarcely been able to believe it when the truck pulled up outside a graceful house on the edge of town, high on the chalk cliffs, and they were told that this was their new billet. They had run round inside, excited as children, bagging beds again in the rooms with a choice of views, across the blue expanse of the Channel, or looking westward along the cliff to the South Foreland lighthouse. There were other service personnel along the road – general duties staff and, as they realized soon after they arrived, a group of Kinnys.

‘I’ve just seen Ruth!’ Cath reported on the second day, imitating Ruth’s voice with a comical face. ‘Oh, hullo girls!’

‘What,
again
? Oh, super-dooper!’ Molly grinned back.

It felt like a holiday at first. The town was swarming with smartly dressed GIs, with their currency of gum, nylons and sheer novelty. And there were free tours for service people round Dover Castle. But it was not to be a holiday at all. At the end of January, another intense round of bombing on London had begun again, and what soon became known as the ‘Little Blitz’ also affected Hull, Bristol and South Wales. London, as ever, took the brunt of it, and the batteries all around the east coast were kept busy.

This particular day was an off-duty lull for the girls after intense periods of activity. The previous night there’d been a very heavy raid and they were recovering. Jen, though, seemed to be full of beans.

‘She’s got some new fella in tow,’ Cath said of the surprisingly effervescent Jen, idly waving one leg in the air. ‘Some Yank, I bet. God, I wish it’d warm up and we could get out on those cliffs and sunbathe.’

‘I’ve had quite enough of the sodding cliffs,’ Molly said. ‘I’m surprised the wind hasn’t blown our flaming heads off out there.’

‘Here we are!’ Jen breezed in bearing cups of tea, a tattered-looking newspaper and the post tucked under one arm.

‘OK – who is he?’ Molly asked. If Jen was treating them to waitress service, there was obviously some new bloke to tell them about.

Jen clanked the cups down on the dressing table. ‘Well – his name’s Frank . . .’

Cath sat up rolling her eyes. ‘I knew it – is he one of them black ones? Oh, letters!’

‘No, he’s not, he’s got hair the colour of corn, for your information.’

‘Ooh!’ Cath drawled, teasing. ‘Ah, hair the colour of corn – how poetic! Has he got eyes the colour of emeralds and muscles like the ripples on the sandy strand?’

‘
What?
No! Just shut it, you. His eyes are grey, and he’s just nice, if you want to know. And no – no letters for you. One for Molly and a card for Nora. Sorry.’

‘S’all right – I’m not expecting any. And ta for the tea, Jen. You’re a darlin’.’ Cath sat up, tousle-headed, and reached for her cup. They knew she felt very alone in the world, despite her large family back in Ireland, but it was moments like this that seemed to bring it home. There was never any post for her. ‘Ooh Molly – is that another begging letter from
himself
?’ she asked.

After weeks of silence, Molly had recently received a letter from Len, imploring her to reconsider and go back to him. ‘Everything was so hasty. You just panicked and ran away, Molly, and I wonder if you’re too proud to admit it. I know I love you like no one else . . . There’s only you for me . . .’ Hearing from him had been a shock. Not knowing what else to do, she had ignored it, pretending it had not affected her, but of course this was not entirely true.

‘No—’ Molly peered at the writing. ‘It’s from Em – my friend from home.’ She said this rather proudly. Even now, it seemed astonishing to her that she had friends. She opened it and began to read, then exclaimed. ‘Blimey!’

Cath and Jen were on each side of her instantly. ‘What? Tell us!’

‘It’s just – this girl, both of us were at school with her – proper stuck-up little cow she was . . .’ Molly read on incredulously. ‘I mean we ain’t seen her for
years
– she got some office job and thought she was far too grand for the likes of us . . . She’s gone and turned up – with a babby!’

‘So what? Jen sounded disappointed. ‘People do have them you know.’

‘No, but . . .’ Molly’s eyes were racing down the paper, covered with Em’s childish writing. ‘
Blimey
. . .’

‘
What?
’ Jen said, exasperated. ‘Come on – spill the beans!’

So Molly read out some of what Em had written:

‘Sounds like our plaster saint Katie O’Neill has gone and had a babby out of wedlock!’ Molly crowed.

‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ Cath breathed.

Molly was immediately ashamed of her glee.

‘Sorry, Cath – only this is a hell of a surprise – she was always little miss perfect. Thought she was above everyone.’

‘Maybe she was taken advantage of,’ Cath said gently.

‘Well maybe – but even so –
Katie O’Neill!
You don’t know what she was like!’

They moved on to other things: Jen bursting to tell them all about Frank; chores to catch up on; the paper to read. Once they’d finished their tea, Jen went off amid a wave of thank yous and Cath said she was going to coax the plumbing into letting her wash.

Molly sat on her bed, her mind spinning, completely oblivious of the rain banging against the window. Em’s news was astonishing and she was very curious about what had happened. She found herself longing to see all the Browns. It was nice the way Em kept in touch. But suppose that had been another letter from Len instead, begging her to see him again, to reconsider? The thought filled her with terribly mixed feelings. She knew that now he was gone, she didn’t miss Len, except for the feeling of being flattered that he wanted her, and that he had felt like a safe haven. And she missed having a man to be close to. Being wanted – preferably by someone nice like Len – oh yes, that felt lovely. There was nothing like it. So many of the blokes just bothered her for her looks and assumed, or hoped, she was ‘easy’. What she mainly felt now was guilty. Len had broken off his engagement to Sheila, who sounded like a superior person in every way. What he should do was eat humble pie and go back to her! The thought of Len and all that had happened just left her feeling a fool, ashamed of it all and glad to put it behind her. She told herself he was the last thing she wanted to think about. But she still found herself wondering, hoping even . . .

To distract herself she leaned over and reached for the tatty newspaper that Jen had picked up somewhere. It was a two-day-old
Daily Telegraph
.

She laid the paper on her pillow and settled down on her front, shoes off and legs bent up behind her, idly turning the pages as headlines flashed by. News from Russia, the Allies were bombarding a monastery at Cassino, bombs over London. Drowsy again, now she had time to relax, she didn’t read the full stories.

It was the name that leapt out of the page, even before the headline, which her eyes raced to next:
STRANGLED WOMAN’S BODY FOUND IN BIRMINGHAM CANAL
. Then her own surname – her brother’s name: ‘The suspect, Albert Fox, 24, a local man, appeared at Birmingham Magistrate’s Court this morning.’

‘Oh my . . .’ Her blood was pumping. She sat up, gasping for breath, thankful that no one else was in the room, so that she could try to take this in on her own. ‘Oh my God . . . my God!’ She got up and moved in agitation about the room. Everything seemed to swim and she had to sit down again, panting. It felt as if something was pressing in on her chest. She had tried to shut Bert, and home, and everything about it out of her mind. He was somewhere else, as if he didn’t exist. But now all she could see was her brother’s loathsome face and slicked-back hair, feel the cold, metallic barrel of a gun pressed against her neck.

Molly leaned forward, pushing her head down between her knees as bright lights flashed at the corner of her eyes. She should have told somebody about him before, shouldn’t she? What should she have done, knowing that her brother was capable of . . . of what? Of lying, cheating, stealing, assaulting – of pulling the trigger on his own sister in cold blood? She should have turned him in months ago. But to grass someone up, turn in your own brother – you just didn’t do that . . . She had reasoned herself out of denying the real horror of it all, not wanting to face up to just what a monstrous freak Bert had become.

But now, seeing it here in black newsprint, the terrible message of his actions, it didn’t cross her mind for a second that Bert might be innocent. Innocent was something none of them in the Fox family had ever been.

Over the next two days this appalling knowledge burned in Molly’s mind.

How can I tell anyone? What am I supposed to do?
her thoughts whirled round.
My brother – could he really have done it? Is that monster really my brother . . . ?

She was in turmoil. Her skin, mostly clear since she had been in the army, erupted now into itchy sores, but nothing would have persuaded her to tell any of the other ATS what had happened. Even with Cath, she had avoided talking about her family, except to dismiss them. As far as she was concerned, she had joined the army to get right away from them, to a place they couldn’t reach. She didn’t want them invading it. Here she could be someone else and believe better of herself.

But now she was infected by dark, disturbing thoughts. She may have thought she’d got away, but she was fooling herself! The family would always be strung round her like dead rats on a poacher’s belt. They were part of who she was, she with her shameful past and frigid relationships. She wasn’t a real woman, was she? Not like Em or Cath. Did she really think she was better than Iris and Bert? Wasn’t she just another of them, another of the Fox family – dirty and vile?

A hasty note arrived from Em:

Her work suffered, concentration becoming almost impossible. As she sat through the long, cold nights staring at the location screen, her eyes kept blurring over and she had to wrench her mind back to the job over and over again, a bag of nerves in case she made a serious mistake. Her eczema flared up and she tried to resist the burning itching on her inner arms, her back, behind her knees. She even had patches of dermatitis on her face – something that hadn’t happened since she was a child. On the nights when she wasn’t on duty, she lay awake for hours, scratching, her eyes open, only dozing a little before dawn and waking pale and irritable, her pyjamas spotted with blood.