Molly's War (6 page)

Molly smiled at it, touched each tiny black and white face with her finger tip. They had always been together like that, the two lads, all through school and starting work together down the pit. The grins were wiped off their faces on the day they were both turned off in the depression. Molly had ached for their despair that day,
hoped
with them every time they went after jobs, shared their disappointment when work failed to materialise. Cried when they decided to go into the army as boy soldiers.

Molly put the photograph back on the mantelshelf. Dear Lord, she was getting maudlin. She glanced at the marble clock. Five o’clock. It was time to go downstairs and start her meal, Mr Jones should be out of the kitchen by now.

But was not. He was hovering around the sink, doing something with the tap.

‘Oh, you’re not finished, Mr Jones. I’ll come back,’ said Molly.

‘No, no, lass, come on in, I’m just putting a washer on this dripping tap. But I filled the kettle for you before I turned off the water.’

‘Oh … er, thanks.’ Molly was surprised at this consideration. Even more so when he turned to her, a spanner in his hand, and took a step or two forward.

‘Why don’t you call me Bart? Here we are, living in this house together, just the two of us. Mr Jones is a bit formal, isn’t it?’ His smile was unctuous.

‘Er … yes,’ she mumbled, and turned her back to rummage in the cupboard where she kept her few groceries. What was he up to? She felt decidedly uncomfortable now, her face burning as she moved a packet of dried peas aside, looking for the tin of beans which she had decided to have on toast. There it was, she had been looking at it all the time. Grabbing it, feeling all fingers and thumbs
with
embarrassment, she nearly dropped it as she looked round and found he was still standing by the sink, watching her. She looked down at the tin, pretending to read the label.

‘I’ll take this up to my room, I can easily make toast by the fire up there.’

The half smile which had been playing round his lips disappeared. ‘No, you won’t, young lady,’ he snapped. ‘I won’t have the smell of food in the bedrooms.’ For a second or two he was back to his old self.

‘Sorry, you’re right,’ said Molly, not sure why she was apologising. She took a small pan from the rack and put the beans to heat on the gas ring by the range. Sticking a slice of bread on the toasting fork, she held it before the bars, glad of a reason to keep her back to him. Formless fears crowded coherent thought from her mind so that the toast was smoking by the time she snatched it away from the fire and the beans were bubbling furiously. She turned off the gas and went to look over her shoulder at him.

‘Mr Jones,’ she began but he had gone. Relief flooded through her. She scraped the burned bits off the toast and ate her scanty meal quickly, washed up and practically scuttled upstairs. This time she locked the door and put a chair under the door handle too though she smiled wryly to herself as she did so. Nothing has changed, she told herself. It was all in your imagination.

The next day there was no chance of looking for
somewhere
else to live, the girls’ dinner hour was reduced by half as a rush order came in.

‘We’re changing over to uniforms, girls,’ said Mr Bolton, sounding eager. ‘There’ll be no slacking, we have to get the order out as soon as possible. Now, anyone who can stay back and work overtime tonight, put your name down on the list I’ve pinned on the notice board.’

There was a buzz of conversation among the others on the line. Molly heard Joan Pendle’s jubilant voice above the rest. ‘Now I’ll be able to buy that dance dress in Doggart’s window. By, it’s lovely, an’ only five shillings down and a shilling a week. Are you going to the station dance on Saturday night, Enid?’

There was a dance hall next to the station in Auckland, a five-piece band regularly playing there. Molly had never been but she had heard a lot about it from the other girls. For a moment she wondered what it was like to go to a dance like that then dismissed it from her mind. She had more important things to do with her money. Maybe she could even afford different lodgings.

Enid had moved on down the line and the girls were quiet as the wireless started to play and they bent over their humming sewing machines. Molly’s thoughts were with the boys, Harry and Jackson. She still hadn’t had a reply to her Christmas card or a thank you for the tie pin she had sent Harry. Nine-carat gold it was, with a minuscule red stone in the middle which the shop keeper had assured her was a ruby. Nice and light too, it hadn’t cost much to post.
Soon
it would be time to find him a birthday present, get it off in good time for his birthday in July.

It was not until six-thirty that evening when she came out of the factory to face a bitter cold wind which seemed to blow in her face no matter which way she turned, that Molly realised she had missed her hour in the kitchen. Cold and hungry, she paused in the lea of the gable end of the house. She could ask Mr Jones if she could use the kitchen now, though she knew he couldn’t abide the smell of food in the house in the evening.

Molly was reluctant to ask any favours of him but she was so hungry her stomach felt like a great empty hole. She’d had only had a tomato sandwich and an apple at dinner time. Pausing at the door, she changed her mind about going in and made her way back to the fish shop where the smell of frying fish made her feel dizzy. She spent half her overtime on a piece of fish and a bag of chips. Putting the newspaper-wrapped parcel inside her coat and buttoning it up, she sped back to the house. As she let herself in she prayed Mr Jones wouldn’t smell the fish. Luckily there was no sign of him and she hurried up the stairs and into her room, locking the door after her as usual.

She sat on the clippie mat she had brought from home and ate the fish and chips out of the paper, leaning forward to let the smell go up the chimney as far as possible. The fish was piping hot and flaky, the batter crisp and light, the chips done to a turn. Molly enjoyed
them
more than she had enjoyed any meal since before her father was killed.

The newly lit fire flamed and crackled, started as it was by the outer layers of the newspaper parcel. Warmth crept through her bones. Though it was late spring already according to the calendar, the north-easter still swept down the Wear valley and drew the flames upwards.

Replete, Molly screwed the inner paper into a ball and added it to the flames. She sat back against the chair and gazed at the fire, rubbing her neck which was aching after bending over the sewing machine for such long hours. She was tired. When she had drunk her Tizer she would wash and go to bed early with her book.

Relaxed now, her mind wandered off. She was back in another time, years before, when she and Harry were children and had pinched pea pods from the row in Dad’s garden, ducking down out of view of the house to eat sweet, not yet fully grown peas from the pod. She smiled now as she pictured it, the two of them giggling and laughing, thinking they were safe from detection, out of sight of the windows of the house. And there Dad had been, standing at the end of the row, trying to look stern. He had been out and come in by the garden gate.

‘But … why have you come this way?’ Harry had stammered, jumping to his feet, scattering pea pods. ‘You always use the back gate.’

‘I didn’t today, though, did I?’ Dad had asked, and the corners of his mouth had twitched. He hadn’t really been
mad
, thought Molly now. Not like Mr Jones would be if he found out about tonight’s meal.

‘Oh, what the heck!’ she said aloud. She had enjoyed it. Jumping to her feet, she began to prepare for bed.

Chapter Six

‘HITLER AND MUSSOLINI
sign pact of steel.’ The headlines were on the board outside the newsagent’s window. Molly saw it as she rounded the corner from Adelaide Street and waited for the bus to go by before crossing the road to the factory. She was heavy-eyed this morning, had slept badly after last night’s greasy supper. Mr Jones had knocked on her door again after she had gone to bed and she had been startled out of her first sleep. Standing by the closed door she had asked what he wanted. Could he smell the faint aroma of fish which hung in the air?

‘Let me in a minute, Molly, I just want to talk to you,’ he had said.

‘I can’t, Mr Jones, I’m not dressed,’ she’d replied.

‘Aw, come on, do you think I haven’t seen a lass in her pyjamas before?’

Molly had stood there, shivering with cold. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Mr Jones.’

‘Why can’t you call me Bart? It’s only friendly like.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Jones,’ Molly had said firmly and went back to bed. She pulled the covers up over her ears,
determined
not to let him bother her, but despite that her heart beat fast and she was trembling. Was that the door handle turning?

‘I’ll speak to you in the morning then,’ he called.

‘Yes.’ It was a few minutes before she heard him shuffling away and another hour before she was relaxed enough to sleep after getting up and checking that the door was locked.

This morning she had been late in waking and had had to rush to work without her breakfast. Her landlord had already gone, thank goodness. But, oh, she knew she had to find somewhere else to live very soon.

There was a parcel by her sewing machine postmarked India. Molly forgot all her troubles when she saw it. She didn’t even wonder how it had got there, just sat and stared at it, her happiness intensified by her previous misery until she thought she might burst.

The parcel was still there unopened when the power was switched on and the wireless started churning out ‘Whistle While You Work’ from Disney’s
Snow White
.

‘Howay now, girls,’ Enid shouted, and the line settled down to work, heads bent over machines, khaki cloth whizzing under needles. For the minute it was enough for Molly to keep glancing at the parcel. Its brown paper covering was scuffed and torn in places after its journey halfway round the world. She was eager to open it when the morning break arrived at last. Some of the girls crowded round, curious about it.

‘Your birthday, is it, Molly?’ asked Enid.

‘No.’

Someone offered her a pen knife and she carefully split the paper and opened the cardboard box inside. On top there was a card with a picture of Father Christmas, mopping his brow as he staggered beneath a sackful of goodies under a blazing sun. ‘Merry Christmas’ was written in Harry’s handwriting.

‘Blimey!’ one of the girls said. ‘It’s a Christmas present. Nearly six months late an’ all.’

‘You brought it, didn’t you, Joan?’ asked Enid. ‘Where did you get it?’

She sniffed and didn’t reply for a moment.

‘Well?’ asked Molly.

‘It came to your old house a while ago. I just forgot to bring it.’ In fact her mother had been on at her over and over to take the parcel for Molly and Joan had only pretended to forget. This morning there had been a shouting match in the Pendle household about it.

‘You’ll take that parcel to the lass or I’ll come with you and take it myself!’ Ann had said.

‘Aw, why should I have to run about after her?’ Joan had retorted. ‘If she wants it, she can come over and get it!’

‘You’ll take it!’ Ann had lost her temper thoroughly and thrust the parcel into Joan’s arms. ‘Get along with you now, and you give it to her, do you understand me? I’m ashamed it’s been here so long.’

‘All right, all right,’ Joan had said in martyred tones. ‘I’ll take it.’

Now the other girls were looking at her strangely and she didn’t like it. It was all that stuck-up Molly’s fault. Joan glared at her. She was so like Harry. Her hair and eyes were lighter but she had the same straight nose and firm chin. Joan felt a pang of misery and turned sharply away.

‘Oh, get on with it,’ she said crossly. ‘I’m going to have my tea. I’ve got better things to do. It’ll only be rubbish any road.’ And she walked away, not wanting to think about Harry any more.

Joan looked over her shoulder, however, as there was a gasp from the girls. Molly had lifted out a shawl of palest blue silk, edged with a wide fringe. There was another gasp as a matching dolly bag emerged with a picture of the Taj Mahal embroidered in silver on the side.

‘Eeh … it’s lovely!’ one of the girls breathed. ‘By, you are lucky, Molly.’

Lucky? For a minute Molly’s happiness dimmed. Was she lucky after all that had happened to her? She shook her head. No, she mustn’t be bitter. It was a happy day, she was lucky to get such beautiful things. Surely such a lovely shawl had never been seen before in Eden Hope or West Auckland?

‘Now then, girls,’ said Enid, brisk again. ‘Get your tea or you won’t have time before the break is over.’

The girls moved away and Molly pulled out a letter from Harry. She would save it for the dinner hour, take it
back
to Adelaide Street and stow the beautiful shawl and dolly bag safely in her bedroom. She was packing it in the box carefully when she noticed there was something else: a letter from Jackson. Her happiness intensified. He hadn’t forgotten her. She was so happy she even smiled at Joan.

‘Thanks for fetching it in,’ she said. ‘How is your mother, by the way?’ She well knew it would be Ann who had insisted on Joan’s bringing it. But in her present mood she could even forgive the long delay.

The second half of the morning seemed interminable but at last Molly was free to pick up the parcel and run over the road and round the corner into Adelaide Street. She was panting as she opened the door and raced up the stairs to her bedroom. Leaving the door ajar, for she knew her landlord wouldn’t be in from work for hours yet, she sat on the bed and unpacked the box again, laying the presents carefully on the bedspread. Then she took the letters and went over to her chair by the fireplace and settled down to read Harry’s first.

I’m worried about you, petal. I don’t like to think of you alone in the house. Travelling to work too. You should watch out for yourself, there are some funny folk about. And can you afford it? You can’t be making much money. I’ve enclosed a money order for five pounds, it’s not much but it will help. Let me know if you need any more. I can let you have an
allowance
from my pay if you can’t manage, as I told you in my letter.