Goodnight Sweetheart (30 page)

‘I’m enjoying being so close to Philip,’ Anne corrected her firmly. Her smile disappeared as she added, ‘But like I told you, he won’t be able to stay where he is in the army hospital for very much
longer. They want to move him to St Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton. That’s where he’ll be fitted with his new legs and be taught how to use them. It’s about thirty miles from Aldershot. That’s one of the reasons we want to get married as quickly as we can,’ she reminded Molly, ‘so that I can apply to live out and we can be together.’

‘At least things are looking up with your parents.’ Molly knew they must be worrying about their daughter, living away from home for the very first time, especially as she was their only surviving child.

‘Oh, yes. They’ll never get over losing Richard – none of us will – but they want me to be happy. They couldn’t ask Philip enough about the time he and Richard were in Nantes together.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘After all the worrying I’d been doing that Dad would refuse to even speak to Philip. That’s another of the reasons I’ve come here: I could see that both of them, but especially Dad, wanted to get Philip to themselves, to talk about Richard. They were together right until the last. Philip feels guilty because he survived and Richard didn’t but I’ve told him that he mustn’t. He isn’t to blame for what happened. He gets such low moods sometimes, Molly. But they’ve told me at the hospital that that happens to a lot of the men.’

Molly touched Anne’s arm sympathetically. ‘Our brave boys see such dreadful things, Anne. All we can do is help them as much as we can.’

‘Call this tea?’ a stout woman in a grubby-looking coat complained as she took the cup Molly handed to her. A clawlike hand with dirty nails curled round it. ‘Cat’s pee, more like.’

‘Go on with you, Mrs T.,’ Molly smiled. ‘You won’t get a better cuppa anywhere.

‘She’s one of our regulars,’ she whispered to Anne as the elderly woman turned her back on them to slurp her tea noisily. ‘You watch, she’ll be back at the end of the queue just as soon as she’s finished that one.’

‘Is she one of those trekkers?’ Anne asked.

‘No, poor soul was bombed out of her house down on Pilcher Street. According to her neighbours she lived alone with her son, and he’s disappeared. The council have offered her alternative accommodation but she won’t take it. Says she’s not going to let Jerry bomb her out a second time so she spends all her time walking round Liverpool. But tell me about the ATS and Aldershot – is it exciting?’ Molly demanded, changing the subject.

Anne laughed and teased, ‘Why? Are you thinking of joining up?’

‘No, I couldn’t leave our dad and June.’ Molly’s eyes momentarily clouded at the thought of her sister.

‘Mmm, and what about that chap who was chasing you around? Johnny?’

Molly blushed and laughed, then admitted, ‘He keeps asking me out but June doesn’t approve.’

Leaning closer to her so that she couldn’t be overheard, Anne told her fiercely, ‘Well, never mind your June, Molly. We only get one shot at life, and as you and me both know some folks don’t get much of a shot at it at all, so we’ve got to make the best of things whilst we’re still here. Leastways, that’s what I think now. That’s why me and Philip are getting married as quick as we can. Besides,’ she fiddled with her engagement ring and then confided in a rush, ‘I wouldn’t say this to anyone else but you, Molly, it’s important we get married just as soon as we can now, just in case, like … if you take my meaning. Not that we’ve done anything that lots of other unwed couples aren’t doing,’ she defended herself hastily when she saw Molly’s eyes widen slightly.

Anne and Philip were sharing the intimacies of a married couple? Molly knew she ought to be more shocked than she actually was, but the truth was that a part of her still mourned the fact that she and Eddie had not shared those intimacies. She was happy that Anne and Philip could still enjoy intimacy with Philip’s terrible injuries. And they wouldn’t be the first couple to be pushed by this war into the kind of behaviour that they would once have shunned, Molly knew. Lying in bed at night not knowing if you would live to see another morning made a person anxious to take what happiness they could find, instead of putting off the opportunity to enjoy it for a future they might not have.

‘Phew, I’m glad that’s over,’ Anne sighed when Molly had finished her stint at the tea wagon and the two young women were free to leave. ‘I’d forgotten what hard work WVS is.’

‘The queues get longer every night,’ Molly told her soberly. Because she was working at the factory, Molly didn’t work all through the night unless she was on emergency duty, but it was still gone midnight when she and Anne left the shabby hall and started to make their way home. The long days were taking their toll and only this morning Molly had had to use some of her precious Cyclax on the circles under her eyes, which seemed to be a permanent fixture of her face these days.

‘No bomber’s moon tonight, thank heavens,’ Molly said tiredly as they linked arms and set off through the rundown streets.

‘I’m glad we’ve got a bit of time to ourselves, Molly,’ Anne began awkwardly. ‘The thing is that if things had been different, you would have been the first one I would have wanted to be my bridesmaid, but me and Philip have decided to get married down in Aldershot, not knowing how fit he’ll be to travel up here, and it being easier to get everything sorted out down there. My parents will travel down to see us married, but I’m not asking anyone else, what with it being so close to Christmas and everything.’ She paused and then said in a low voice Molly had to strain to hear, ‘I had no real idea what it was going to be like when I decided to leave Liverpool so that I could be
nearer to Philip. It was such a shock when I first went to visit him.’

‘It must have been,’ Molly agreed gently ‘Seeing him so badly wounded when—’

‘No, it wasn’t that.’ Anne shook her head impatiently. ‘It was what he told me about how he came to lose his legs and how our Richard was killed. Lost in action was what we’d been told, as you know, but according to Philip …’ She paused and then said chokily, ‘You heard all that he was saying about the
Lancastria
. It preys on his mind all the time. The Government lied about Richard being lost in action. It was no such thing. Bombed, they were, like sitting ducks, trapped in this ship. The
Lancastria
that was supposed to be bringing them home to safety when the Germans invaded France. Everyone knows about Dunkirk. The papers were full of it and how all those men were rescued from Jerry, but no one has said a word about this St- Nazaire and what happened there; how men like Richard died. Thousands of them, Philip said there were, bombed and killed and drowned, and not a word of what happened told to anyone.’

Tears were pouring down Anne’s face. Molly turned to her and gave her a fierce hug. ‘Yes, I know. We heard what had happened from Sally. Her husband was in hospital down south when some of the survivors were being brought in and he told her about it, and how the Government was putting a D-notice on it so that it was all to be kept a secret. Frank said he reckoned it was
because Mr Churchill thought the country had enough bad news to cope with with Dunkirk, without there being any more.’

‘What?’

Molly could hear the shocked anger in Anne’s voice as she pushed her away. ‘You knew and you never said a word to me, even though you must have known our Richard …?’ Anne couldn’t go on.

Her friend’s reaction was so unexpected that Molly didn’t know what to say. Feeling guilty and wishing she hadn’t said anything, she groped for the words to explain, and put things right.

‘When we heard the news I didn’t know what to do, Anne. We’d been told not to talk about it. I only knew that some of the men involved were from the RAF base at Nantes. Sally said that Ronnie had told her that some of the men had been taken off by other ships. I didn’t want to upset you when Richard could have been saved.’

Anne had turned towards her and Molly could see the anger in her eyes. ‘But he wasn’t and you knew what had likely happened to him, and yet you never said a word, not even when I told you we’d had that telegram saying he was presumed lost, and we were hoping and praying …’

Tears were running down Anne’s face and Molly longed to comfort her but the moment she stepped towards her, Anne stepped back.

‘Anne …’

‘I thought you and me were friends, Molly
Dearden, but some friend you are when you didn’t even tell me about what happened to my own brother.’

‘I just wanted to spare you,’ Molly began, but Anne was having none of it.

‘Spare me what? Spare me from knowing the truth that I had a right to know?’

‘Anne, there’d been a D-notice …’

Anne ignored her. ‘How would you have felt if Richard had been your brother? Wouldn’t you have wanted to know the truth? Wouldn’t you have felt you had a right to know the truth? Didn’t you want to know every last bit about your Eddie?’

Molly was filled with guilt and shame. Anne was right, she should have told her the truth. Frank had meant well when he had advised her to say nothing, but Frank was a soldier, and a man. She was a woman and Anne was her dearest friend. They had shared special confidences and supported one another. She only had to think how she would have felt if Anne had withheld such information from her to recognise her own guilt.

‘You’ve spared me nothing, Molly,’ cos I know it all now. I know what happened to our Richard and I know what a bad friend you’ve been. I’d thought better of you than that.’

She was already turning away, and Molly had to run after her and catch hold of her arm. The thick, stiff fabric of Anne’s greatcoat slipped through her fingers as she pulled away from her.

‘Anne, please don’t be like this. Please don’t let’s fall out.’

‘Fall out! I’m not falling out with you, Molly. I just don’t want to see you again, that’s all. I thought I could trust you and that you and I were friends. But I can see now that you’re not my friend – you’re anything but! And to think I was upsetting myself because I couldn’t ask you to be my bridesmaid.’

She had gone before Molly could stop her.

The speed with which the whole thing had happened left Molly feeling too shocked and upset to do anything other than blink away her tears.

She had never meant to deceive Anne. All she had wanted to do was to spare her the pain of worrying that Richard had been on the
Lancastria
before her family received official notification of his whereabouts. And then afterwards, once Anne had told her they had received news of his death, it hadn’t seemed right to tell her what she herself already knew.

But it was too late now, though, to wish she had acted differently.

‘I want a word with you,’ June announced ominously.

She was standing in the kitchen with her hands on her hips whilst Molly removed her outdoor coat. She had been working for the WVS all evening and her fingers felt so numb from the freezing cold that she could scarcely manage to
push the buttons through the buttonholes. It had been that kind of raw coldness that seemed to get right into your bones, and she shivered in the meagre heat of the kitchen. Everyone had been told to cut down on the amount of fuel they burned, and much as she wanted to do her bit, Molly longed for the warmth of a roaring fire so that she could toast her cold hands and feet. Now what had she done, Molly wondered tiredly as she heard the harsh note in her sister’s voice. She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

‘Sally were round here tonight,’ June informed her.

Molly had finally managed to unfasten her coat. She blew on her cold fingers, wincing as the blood returned to them and they started to sting with pain.

‘She said as how she’d come because you’d been round there begging her to see me and saying how you was worried about me and Frank.’

Molly’s heart sank. ‘June, I just wanted the two of you to be friends again,’ Molly told her.

‘Friends? Some sister you are, Molly, going round there after what she’s done. I’ll thank you to mind your own business from now on, and not go round telling folks about me and my Frank’s private business.’

Molly felt more miserable with every word June said. What was happening to everyone? First Anne and now June was having a go at her, and all she had done was try to act for the best. A lump of
misery rose up in her throat and tears weren’t very far away.

‘June …’ she began, but before she could say anything the rising wail of the air-raid siren interrupted her.

‘Quick, June,’ she instructed her sister, reaching for her coat again, not wanting to waste time going upstairs to get the thick warm men’s dressing gowns that she and June had found at a jumble sale and pounced on with delight. It might have taken three washes to get rid of the smells of hair pomade and tobacco smoke, but there was no doubt that they were proving their worth now on the freezing winter nights.

Her coat already on, Molly snatched Lillibet up out of her pram, covers and all.

‘I’ve got the baby and I’ll get the bag. You get your coat on and hurry,’ she urged her sister.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ June told her fiercely. ‘I’m …’

The heavy drone of the bombers almost directly overhead drowned out the rest of what she was saying.

‘Well, we are.’

‘You can’t take her,’ June objected. ‘She’s mine! Leave her here with me.’

Ignoring her demand, Molly headed for the hall where the bags they were all supposed to keep packed for the air-raid shelter were waiting, trying to comfort Lillibet above the noise of the AA guns.

‘Molly, you’re not to take her,’ June was screaming, but Molly stoutly ignored her.

‘We can’t stay here. It’s not safe.’ She flung open the front door, shuddering at the noise outside the house. The windows were rattling with the gunfire, and above her head Molly could hear the steady throb of German engines. Down towards the docks, shells exploded, briefly illuminating the night sky. Holding Lillibet tightly, Molly ran for the air-raid shelter, praying that June would follow her.

As the door to the shelter opened and willing hands pulled her in, she looked over her shoulder and saw to her relief that her sister was only a few yards behind her.