Molly's War (16 page)

‘Nice and strong, mind,’ said Frank. ‘I daresay we’ll be drinking it like dishwater soon when it has to come all the way from India. Blooming rationing! We saw enough of that in the last war.’

Later Maggie took her husband away to ready him for the night. Molly brought out the enamel washing-up dish
and
tray and washed the dishes while the two men dried. Later still they sat around the fire, listening to Tommy Handley on the wireless. When the programme was ended, Jackson got to his feet.

‘I think I’ll take a walk,’ he said. ‘I feel like some fresh air. Anyone coming?’

‘Going to the club?’ asked Harry.

Jackson looked at Molly. She couldn’t go to the club. ‘No, I don’t think so. Just along the lane, around the village, like.’

‘Well, I think I’ll have a quick one at the club,’ said Harry. He glanced from his little sister to his best mate. It was plain to see what was happening there. Well, he couldn’t wish a better lad for her. And not so little now, he reminded himself. Molly was growing up.

‘I won’t be long, just a quick half, see if any of our old mates are in.’

Outside the wind was rising but it had stopped raining. Molly didn’t feel the cold. She walked between the men, each holding one of her arms, huddling in together, laughing and joking. At the club Harry left them and Molly and Jackson went on up the lane, away from the houses and the colliery, dodging the dark street lamps, the only lights their flashlights, the dimmed beams bobbing along in front of them. At the top of the bank Jackson stopped. They were in the lea of the old engine house which had once housed the standing engine which hauled the corves of coal up the hill and down the other side to the railway.

‘We’ll stand a minute,’ he said. ‘Come here, Molly, we’ll keep each other warm.’ He opened his greatcoat and pulled it round her so that they were both enveloped by it. She could feel the beat of his heart as he held her and for a minute felt panicky. She wasn’t ready for this, no, she wasn’t.

But he was sensitive to her feelings and said quickly, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not trying anything on. I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want me to, petal.’

‘Oh, Jackson, I do love you.’

Surely she hadn’t said that? Overcome, she hid her face in the rough serge of his tunic. Mam had always said never to tell a man you liked him, not until he’d said it first. Had he said it in the house or had she imagined it? Any road, here she was standing in the dark with a man, even if it was Jackson and she’d known him all her life. But not like this. Not standing breast to breast, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, making her feel warm and safe. Eeh, what would he think of her? She tried to move back, away from him, but his hold was unyielding, he wouldn’t let her.

‘Say it again,’ he whispered, his lips against the nape of her neck, just below the brown beret she had pulled over her hair.

‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Oh, Molly!’ He laughed softly, caught her tighter in his arms and lifted her off the ground until her face was on a level with his. He kissed her lightly on her cheeks,
her
chin, her lips last of all, and small tremors of delight ran through her body. A new and strange excitement began somewhere deep inside her and rose up, threatening to engulf her. It was so dark she couldn’t even see his eyes but she knew he was smiling. He moved his hand. His thumb brushed against her breast and her nipple sprang erect in response. She closed her eyes and leaned further into him, completely bewitched. But the next kiss never came. Instead she found herself back on her feet, he took a step back away from her, she knew he was no longer smiling.

‘Come on,’ he said, his voice suddenly rough. ‘I’ll get you back home. It’s going to rain. And anyway, you have to go to work in the morning.’

The shock was like a slap in the face. She’d been too forward. Oh, aye, she could almost hear her mother’s voice: ‘A man won’t respect a lass as is too free with her favours, you mark my words!’ She had been talking about a girl from the other side of the village at the time. Molly had only been twelve and had puzzled about what was meant by ‘being free with favours’. Now she knew. Her face burned. She had offered herself and Jackson had backed away. Not altogether, though. As she stood deep in misery a bus went past and in its dim lights he saw her downcast face. She saw his expression change from a frown to a grin. He stepped forward and pulled her beret on straight, her collar up around her neck.

‘Howay, our Molly,’ he cried, grasping her hand and
pulling
her after him in a run down the lane. ‘We’ll dodge the drops, eh?’ As he had cried so often when they were children and she’d trailed after Harry and him, ‘making a proper pest of herself’, as Harry would tell her.

They arrived at Eden Hope, breathless and laughing, running past the pit yard to the rows of houses thrown up by the mine-owners at the smallest cost possible to house the workers for their new mine.

Harry was already back from the club as they went in. There was a faint smell of Federation Ale in the air. He looked from one to the other knowingly.

‘Where’ve you two been then?’ he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘There’s tea in the pot if you want a cup. Your mam’s gone to bed, Jackson.’

‘No, thanks, I’d best get up. I’ve to be out by six in the morning,’ said Molly. She could hardly look at her brother. Suppose they’d done more, her and Jackson? ‘Gone all the way’ as folk said. Would Harry have known and despised her for it?

Long after she’d gone to bed she could hear the soft murmur of the men’s voices downstairs. Molly tossed and turned on the deep feather mattress which had been a wedding present to Maggie and Frank. Eventually she dropped off and dreamed confused dreams of Jackson and her going into Bishop Auckland to buy a ring. They stood before the counter in the jeweller’s and she was ecstatically happy, so brimful of joy she couldn’t contain herself. And then she looked down through the glass top and there,
among
others, was the bangle. The one which had put her in prison.

‘You brought that bangle in,’ the jeweller said accusingly. ‘I’m going for the bobbies.’

‘No, I didn’t!’ Molly shouted. ‘I didn’t, Jackson!’

But he was stepping away from her, looking at her with accusing eyes, hard as nails. ‘The man should know,’ he said. ‘Oh, Molly, how could you do it?’

She woke in a sweat, still murmuring denials. Her head ached, her heart pounded with fear. There was a terrible noise. Molly turned on her back and took a deep breath. She reached over to the bedside table and pushed down the button on the cheap tin alarm clock she had bought in Woolworth’s. The horrible noise stopped and after a moment or two the pain in her head lessened. It was morning, time to go to work.

Molly climbed out of bed and lit the gas jet on the wall above the fireplace. These dark mornings were a bane. She put on her overcoat in case one of the lads should wake and get up. Then, gathering her clothes together, crept downstairs.

The privy was across the yard. Slipping out of the back door and running across with her shoes unlaced on her bare feet, she shivered in the nagging, bitter cold. Back in the kitchen, still warm as the fire had been banked up the night before, she washed in a ladle of water from the boiler in the range and dressed hurriedly. She hadn’t time to make a cup of tea. The fire was sluggish, reluctant to come back
to
life. Never mind, she’d get one in the canteen during her break.

Soon she was speeding down the road to where the bus was just pulling up at the stop on the end of the rows. Jackson would be there when she got back tonight, she thought, a warm glow suffusing her so that she hardly felt the cold. And Harry too, of course.

Chapter Fifteen

SATURDAY MORNING WENT
on and on until Molly thought it would never come to an end. She was filling cordite bags for the navy, bag after boring bag, except that she couldn’t be too bored, couldn’t let her mind wander much. This stuff was dangerous.

George Formby was on the wireless singing ‘Mr Woo’ and Molly sang along with him softly, her voice sounding hollow in the small room on her own.

This afternoon she was going only as far as Bishop and Jackson was coming into town to meet her. The whole lovely afternoon stretched before her. They were going to have something to eat at the King’s Hall cafe. Then, if the weather was cold or wet, and she couldn’t really tell where she was working, they would go to the matinee at the King’s Hall picture house. Or, if it was nice, they would walk in the Bishop’s park. She didn’t care which, she was going to be with him. There was happiness bubbling inside of her at the thought of it.

They could do exactly as they liked because Harry had
a
date. He was going out with a girl – was being evasive about who she was exactly.

‘Fast work that, mind,’ Jackson had said last night when her brother told them he had a date. ‘You haven’t been home two days yet.’

‘Can I help it if I’m irresistible to women?’ Harry had grinned and put on what he called his Clarke Gable look. He’d taken out his comb and combed back his dark hair with exagerated care, pushing it back slightly at the front to make a quiff.

Molly smiled at the memory. Tonight they would worm out of him who the girl was. So far all they’d got was his hands describing curves in the air and a long wolf whistle.

For the thousandth time she wondered what time it was. Surely it must be twelve o’clock by now? She started on another bag but at last the buzzer went, George Formby was cut off in the middle of asking Mr Woo what he could do, and Molly was free to go.

They ate pie and peas and chips at the King’s Hall. Jackson had half a beer and Molly had a shandy, pale amber and sweet from the added lemonade. It tasted like nectar.

‘Now what?’ asked Jackson as they finished their meal and the waitress brought the bill. ‘You choose, I’ll do whatever you want to do.’ He delved into his pocket and brought out a pound note and gave it to the waitress. ‘Sixpence for yourself,’ he said and smiled at her. She
blushed
and walked away hurriedly to get change at the desk. ‘Some girls have all the luck,’ she commented to the cashier, who followed her glance to the dashing soldier and his girl.

‘I see what you mean,’ she replied. ‘It makes your heart flutter to look at him, doesn’t it?’ She held a hand dramatically over where she thought her heart to be and they both giggled.

‘The sun’s shining, we’ll go for a walk,’ Molly decided.

‘Walking in December? Folks’ll think we’re off our chumps.’ Jackson raised an eyebrow but she knew he was joking. He took hold of her hand and drew her out and down the stairs to Newgate Street, busy with Saturday shoppers.

‘The park it is then.’

They walked slowly down the street, looking in shop windows, not exactly hand in hand but close enough to be touching each other sort of accidentally all the time. Jackson paused by the jeweller’s window. ‘Look, Molly, what sort of ring would you like? Always supposing, of course, that we were going to get engaged, you’d like a ring, wouldn’t you? Or if you don’t want to get engaged, we can pretend, can’t we?’ He was laughing but his eyes were serious, watching her.

Suddenly she was short of breath. Her hands fluttered in front of her, she couldn’t keep them still. She bit her lip. Was this a real proposal? No, she told herself, he’s joking, he doesn’t mean it. If I said yes and picked out a ring he
would
run a mile, of course he would. She stared up at him.

‘Oh, Molly, if you’re not ready we’ll wait,’ he said, the smile gone from his face. They stood close together in the middle of the pavement as people pushed past them on their way to the market.

‘You’re having me on,’ she said, forcing herself to look away. ‘Come on, let’s walk, it’s too cold to stand about.’ She made to walk on but he caught hold of her shoulders, his firm grip holding her still.

‘No, Molly, I’ve never been so serious in my life,’ he said, and suddenly a great elation filled her, shining out of her eyes.

‘You’re asking?’ she said, for all the world as though they were at the church hall hop and he had come over for a dance.

‘I’m asking,’ he said. And it didn’t matter at all (or just a little bit) that they had to come down to earth when they saw the prices in the window. Seven pounds ten shillings for a ring with three minuscule diamonds set on the slant on a golden band!

‘You like it, don’t you? I can’t buy it today,’ he said regretfully. ‘But I will, now I know what you want, I promise you, my love.’

‘Are you going to stop blocking the blooming pavement or have I to batter me way through with this pram?’

A strident voice cut into their dream. A tired-looking woman with dull untidy hair was trying to get by, pushing
an
enormous old pram with two toddlers hanging on to the handle on either side. They sprang into the shop doorway to clear the pavement.

‘Love’s young dream, eh?’ the woman said as she passed.

One of the toddlers started to wail, ‘Can I have a ride, Mam? Me legs’re tired. Howay, Mam, lift us up, I won’t sit on the babby’s legs.’

She stopped and lifted him on to the bottom of the pram, glancing again at Molly and Jackson. ‘Aye, well, just you wait a year or two an’ see what happens,’ she said to Molly. ‘I’d think twice if I was you.’ But Molly wasn’t looking at her any more, she was gazing through the window at the glass counter just inside the jeweller’s with a sense of
déjà vu
. It was just like in her dream, the nightmare she’d had the other night when the jeweller had accused her of bringing in the bracelet. Oh, dear God! Suddenly all her old terrors rose to the surface.

‘Molly?’ Jackson took her arm, pulled her to him. ‘What’s the matter, Molly? You’re not that upset because I haven’t got the money with me to pay for a ring now, are you?’

She shook her head, shaking away the terrors. It had just been a nightmare, she told herself firmly.

‘Nothing. Nothing’s the matter,’ she said, and smiled brightly up at him. She tucked her hand in his arm, feeling the warmth and strength of him beneath the rough khaki
cloth
. ‘Come on, let’s go to the park or it’ll be dark before we get there.’