All the Days of Our Lives (23 page)

They all sat round the table. The rest of the family were out at work. Molly tried to adjust to being here, to the thought that she would not be going back tonight or tomorrow to an ack-ack battery somewhere. It was a dismal thought, even though she was pleased to see them and to have a chance to catch up.

‘See your mother?’ Cynthia asked, a careful tone in her voice. Molly saw her exchange glances with Em.

‘No, and I’m not going to,’ Molly said firmly. ‘It never does either of us any good. Is she still in the same place?’

‘I think so,’ Cynthia said. ‘Down Lupin Street, though I’ve not seen her in a few weeks.’

‘She’ll have taken it hard over Bert,’ Molly said. ‘He was always her favourite. I s’pose he sort of looked after her, in his twisted way.’ She looked at Em. ‘Thanks for letting me know about it all – you know, for going along.’

Em had written after Bert was hanged, telling Molly that she had been to Winson Green, that the deed was done. There was nothing much to relate, except that she had run into Katie O’Neill again. Molly had greeted that news with a shrug. She had never liked Katie, whom she thought stuck up and spiteful.

‘That’s all right,’ Em said. ‘I just thought someone ought to pay their respects. Whatever he was, he was your brother.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Molly sighed. She knew Bert had never stood a chance really. His life had been sad and unpleasant, and his response had been to become vile to everyone.

‘I think your mother’s all right, in her way,’ Cynthia said. She hesitated as if not sure whether to go on, but then added, ‘There’s someone living with her.’

Molly looked up. ‘A bloke?’

Cynthia nodded. ‘I don’t know who he is – a great big fella, and dark . . .’

Molly thought of the last time she had seen Iris, sleeping it off in bed at four in the afternoon, beside a huge, stubbly, pot-bellied man. Was it the same one? It might be, might not. It hardly mattered.

‘She’ll survive, I expect,’ she said drily.

They sat catching up on news of everyone. Em’s brother Sid had recently married his girl, Connie, and they were living in one cramped room in Saltley.

‘It’s the devil trying to find anywhere to live,’ Cynthia said. ‘They wanted to move out on their own, but since Hitler’s done for so many of the houses, there’s not much going. They were lucky to find anything.’

‘That’s two weddings since the end of the war,’ Em said. ‘Sid’s was nice, we had a lovely day, didn’t we? And then there was the wedding of Carolina, Dot’s stepdaughter and Lou’s daughter. Well, I say girl, but she was over thirty: she’d left it ever so late! Anyway that was a real Italian do – hundreds of ’em – it was lovely, though, wasn’t it, Mom?’

Cynthia laughed. ‘Yes, it was a good day. Dot looked happy – she and Lou suit each other, they really do.’

‘Our Joyce’ll be next,’ Em said. ‘She’s a proper one for the boys, but she’s been knocking around with Larry for a long time now . . . Hang on’ – she cocked her head – ‘that’s Robbie calling me, isn’t it? Back in a sec.’

She reappeared with a very feverish-looking little lad in her arms. Hot and half asleep, he cuddled up against her, hardly seeming to notice that Molly was there. Em stroked his head.

‘Hello, Robbie,’ Molly said. ‘Oh, he does look poorly. His hair’s lighter than I remember, Em – more like yours?’

‘Yes, I think it is a bit,’ Em said, attentive to every tiny detail about her son. ‘Course Norm and I are about the same, colour-wise. Come on, Robbie – have a sip of water before you go off to sleep again.’ She looked up at Molly. ‘He starts school in a few months – you wouldn’t believe it, would you?’

‘Where’s Norm now?’ Molly asked. ‘Any sign of him coming home?’

Em shrugged. ‘I hope so. But I don’t know – they don’t tell you, do they?’

‘D’you need a bed tonight, Molly?’ Cynthia asked.

‘Yes, please – if that’s all right,’ Molly said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t warn you I was coming.’

‘Well, you couldn’t have done, could you? Don’t be daft – it’s nice to see you.’ Cynthia looked concerned. ‘Are you going to look for a job then, Molly? Settle down?’

‘I don’t know,’ Molly said bleakly. ‘To tell you the honest truth, I’ve got no idea.’

It was nice to be there, she thought, lying in Sid’s old bed that night. Good to see them all. Joyce was really grown-up now, at nineteen, quite sassy and full of it, and Violet, the babby who was fifteen, had grown into a very pretty girl, sweet like Em and quite studious, with more confidence than her older sister.

She had had some time to talk alone with Em, and Em had poured out her heart over Norm, how she knew he had been in Italy, how much she had longed to have him back, but that now the time was growing nearer – and she blushed confessing this, with a frankness that surprised Molly – she was also frightened of it, dreading it almost.

‘Sometimes I just long for him to be here and take me in his arms, and for us to be a proper married couple again. But then I worry that we shan’t have anything to say to each other and everything’ll have to change. I suppose we’ve got quite settled here now, into a routine, just Mom and me and Robbie. We’re all used to it. And Norm’s been away for so long – he might be quite different.’ She looked across at Molly helplessly. ‘All I can do is wait and see, isn’t it?’

Molly lay in the dark, unable to sleep, even though it had been such a long day and the night before so bad. She felt keyed up, worried about everything. Now she was alone, lying there, she allowed herself to think. She cast her mind back over the war, both the good times and the bad. There’d been her first Corporal, Phoebe Morrison, who had in her brusque way, encouraged Molly to carry on, to succeed in the army. Phoebe Morrison had also been Molly’s Subaltern in Belgium for the first months, and it had been with great regret that she had parted from her when the war finished.

In the spring of 1945 the ack-ack batteries stationed in Belgium were definitely no longer required and were to be stood down. Some of the staff were sent home. Molly, even while celebrating Victory in Europe with everyone else, was desolate that she would have to go home. However, Phoebe Morrison gave her to understand that this need not be the end: Molly, along with Cath, took the aptitude tests to remain in the force, which was to become the 21 Army Group HQ in Brussels. They were both sent on to the Headquarters of the British Army on the Rhine at Bad Oeynhausen.

It was clear that most of the roles were to be taken by men. The appointing officer seized on the fact that Molly had experience in cooking and told her that she could cook for one of the messes. Cath came to work on the telephone exchange. While Molly had hoped for a more challenging job, by this stage she was just happy to be allowed to stay, and she and Cath and the others had some happy times in the gracious surroundings of Bad Oeynhausen barracks. She had never seen Phoebe Morrison since, but she knew she would never forget her for her encouragement, for the fact that in the end she seemed to have a special place for Molly in her toughly guarded heart.

Amid all the rest of it, of course there had been Tony, the lovely times they’d had together on the cliffs in Wales, and in London. But then came the agony of his death. Any place she had been with Tony was associated with sadness.

After that though, after some other postings, during her greatest time of sadness, she had been sent to Clacton. Lying there that night, Molly’s heart began to beat faster. Now that was one place where she felt she could go and see it in a positive light. She thought of her friends there – Cath and Nora and Ann and, strangely, Ruth, a studious girl who had fallen out mightily with Molly in their early days of training together, before they became unlikely friends. None of them would be there, of course: it was no good looking back. But maybe she could find work, away from here, by the sea. A fresh start in a place where at least the memories were good? In her mind she walked the long parade at Clacton, remembering how the guns had fired continually from the practice camp along the coast. She remembered the Viennese Ballroom at Butlin’s where they had danced. She fell asleep thinking of it, a smile turning up her lips.

Molly flung her case down on the attic-room bed and went straight to the window. The casement was fastened with a rusting catch, but the window opened readily enough, and she leaned against the rotten sill, which was level with her chest, the window being set in the gable. She was pleased to realize that the room faced south, so that although it was dingy and the ceiling low, it would not always be dark. She lit a cigarette and let the smoke stream out through the window.

The Laurels guesthouse was in a side street off the main coast road. Turning to look as far as she could to the left, Molly could just see the sea with the last rays of the afternoon sun on it. She took a long, deep breath. Ahhh – that smell, all that billowing air, the smell of sea water and the wide-open view! Clacton was much quieter and more knocked about than she remembered, but just being here made her feel happier and full of expectation, like a child on holiday.

It had all been easier than she expected, even finding a job almost as soon as she arrived. She had not been walking all that long after coming out of the railway station, with her faithful old case collected from Euston, when she headed straight for Marine Parade, along the sea front. She could see that most of the guesthouses that had been requisitioned during the war were back in business, even though some were in poor repair. Many had signs in the window saying ‘Vacancies’, but turning up Vista Road, she had not gone very far when she saw a house part-shrouded with dark bushes and a sign saying, ‘Housekeeper-cook wanted’.

Cooking, Molly thought. Why did she always seem to end up flaming cooking, however hard she tried to get away from it? Still, there was nothing for it.

A small, neat lady answered the door of The Laurels, saying rather faintly, ‘Yes?’

Molly put on her best-spoken voice. ‘I’ve come about the notice – for a housekeeper and cook.’

The lady looked immediately anxious, her brow furrowing. Molly saw that despite the fact that she was dressed like someone rather older, in a floral frock that reached halfway down her shins, and wore her mousy hair in a bun, she was only in her early forties.

‘Well,’ she said, in a flustered way, flapping the door a little as if she wasn’t sure whether to open or close it. ‘You’d better . . . I mean, good, that’s very good. Yes . . .’ She gathered herself. ‘You’d better come in, dear.’

She showed Molly into the room immediately inside, which seemed to be a sitting room, though not a very comfortable one, with a large number of hard wooden chairs arranged in a circle as if they were waiting for a meeting. The walls were the colour of milky coffee and the floor was covered by a thin brown carpet. As a concession to cautious gaiety, there was a vase of faded paper flowers on a stand by the window.

‘My name is Mrs Lester.’ The lady indicated one of the chairs. ‘You’d better sit down.’ She sank thankfully onto another one herself. ‘I run this establishment with my husband, Mr Lester,’ she explained. Molly thought she had seldom seen anyone look so pale. The blue of Mrs Lester’s veins showed through at her temples and her skin looked clammy. ‘Unfortunately I am not always in the best of health, since those dreadful days of the war, and I am finding it all too much for me. The mornings are especially bad.’ She seemed to suppress a sob.

Molly began to feel as if the walls were closing in, though she did not feel dislike for the woman.

‘So my husband suggested that I should enlist some help. You see, some days I’m perfectly all right, and then on others . . . And today is not a good day – I find that I can scarcely get around. You look a good, strong girl,’ she commented, looking Molly up and down. She had a nervous way of blinking her eyes.

‘I s’pose I am, yes,’ Molly said. She had her hair up today, thick and blonde and piled up in a way that suited her, and she felt energetic and ready for anything.

‘Can you cook?’ This seemed to be the greatest source of anxiety. ‘I need help with generally running the house, of course – changing the beds is really too much for me, and now the summer is coming, there’ll be more visitors. People are so longing to get back on the sands, aren’t they?’ She smiled faintly. ‘Such a blessing, all that clean fresh air. But you see, it’s the cooking. We provide breakfast and an evening meal, and I do find it so hard to keep up. Breakfast is a struggle.’

‘I trained as an army cook,’ Molly said. ‘I know it’s not quite the same, but I’m sure I could manage.’

Mrs Lester’s eyes widened. ‘You were in the army? The ATS? How
brave
of you.’

‘I was on an ack-ack battery.’ Molly was anxious for her to know that she had not just done cooking. ‘In fact we were stationed here for a bit of the time. But I did start off as a cook.’

‘Well, that sounds suitable. I’m so pleased.’ To Molly’s astonishment, Mrs Lester suddenly reached out and grasped Molly’s hand. Hers felt very cold and froggy, as if her circulation was poor. Molly felt very large and robust in contrast to her. ‘Could you start straight away? You’d live in and have your board – I can’t pay you a great deal, but there’s a nice little room at the top of the house.’

‘Yes,’ Molly said, her spirits soaring. Fancy her getting a job so quickly!

‘Until my husband gets back later, I can’t give you the final say-so. He is the head of the household at The Laurels, after all. But I have a strong feeling it will be all right. May I ask you one thing?’