A Mother’s Blessing
The kettle had started to boil. Molly got up and went to make the tea.
‘Would you believe it?’ June complained. ‘Frank’s put in his letter that he’s worried about his mam being on her own. What about me?’
‘He knows that you’ve got me and Dad,’ Molly reminded her.
‘Yoo-hoo …’
Elsie Fowler edged her way through the convenient gap in the hedge that divided their small back gardens.
‘Seein’ as how I haven’t seen much of either of youse just lately, I thought as how I’d call round, like, with these,’ she told them, handing Molly a bunch of sweetpeas. ‘For yer mam for tomorrow,’ she explained gently.
Emotionally, Molly hugged her and thanked her. She had to remind herself that Elsie must miss her old friend too.
‘How are the boys?’
‘They’re fine, and you’ll never guess what? Remember our Eddie, our nephew what used to come and stay wi’ us when he were a kiddie, before his dad passed away and his mam took him back wi’ her to Morecambe to her family? Well, his mam died last winter, and he called round here last night to ask if he can lodge wi’ us. Took us right by surprise, he did. Not that we wasn’t glad to see him. He’s in the merchant navy now, I think I told you, and with both his mam and dad gone, it makes sense for him to be here in Liverpool wi’ us.’
‘Of course I remember him,’ Molly smiled. ‘He used to protect me when the others tried to put worms down my back. I’m sorry to hear he’s lost his mam, Elsie.’
‘Aye, well, it’s a mercy, if you ask me. She never got over losing our Jack, and she’d bin poorly for a good while, from what I heard. Not that she bothered to keep in touch wi’ us much once she went back to her own folk. Eddie now, well, I’ve allus had a soft spot for him. The spittin’ image of me own dad, he is,’ she added with a fond smile. ‘I told him he could bring his kitbag round here as soon as he liked, just as long as he doesn’t mind sleeping in our boxroom. Have you heard from Frank and Johnny yet?’
‘We got letters today,’ Molly told her, ‘but we don’t know yet when they’ll get any leave.’
‘I dare say they won’t be able to send word right away, but from what Sally Walker was saying, they should get some as soon as their training’s finished, so you’d best hurry and get that wedding dress made, young June.’
‘Well, we won’t be doing that tonight,’ June informed her, giving Molly a black look. ‘Our Molly’s off to join the WVS.’
‘Good for you, love! There’s two or three from the cul-de-sac joined up to it already, and I was thinking of doing the same meself, only with John and Jim working shifts on the gridiron an’ all, it’s a bit difficult.’
Molly looked quickly at her sister, hoping that Elsie’s endorsement might make June change her mind, but she could see from her set expression that she was not going to allow herself to be coaxed into that.
‘I won’t be there very long, June,’ Molly told her. ‘We can have a look at the pattern when I get back, if you like.’
‘There’s no need for you to go putting yourself out on my account. Anyway, I’ve changed me mind and I’m going to spend the evening writing back to me fiancé,’ she added pointedly, going back into the house.
‘Perhaps she’s right, and I shouldn’t join the WVS.’ Molly looked at Elsie unhappily.
Elsie snorted. ‘Tek no notice of your June. If you want my opinion she’s just feeling a bit put out, like, because you’re doing sommat wi’out her having told you to do it. She’ll come round. You wait and see.’
Molly reminded herself of Elsie’s comforting words later that evening in the church hall whilst her head buzzed with all the information she had just been given.
According to Mrs Wesley, who was in charge of their local WVS group, the basic training members of the WVS would have to undergo, and the list of duties they could expect to be called upon to provide, included co-operating with ARP wardens and local authority services; organising and undergoing lectures for women in first aid; anti-gas and fire-fighting skills; manning of incident enquiry posts; co-operating in invasion defence schemes; staffing ARP canteens; feeding civil defence workers after raids; being trained to drive emergency vehicles; assisting in staffing NFS and police canteens; making and sewing sandbags; and all aspects of evacuation, including escorting, sick-bay duties, running communal feeding centres, hotels and social centres. They were to provide staff for mobile office units and train as volunteers for emergency work, and a whole list of other duties so long that Molly was afraid she wouldn’t be able to remember them all. Following the example of the girl standing next to her, she had put her name down for as many of the training programmes as she thought she would be able to do.
‘Molly!’
She turned round, smiling as she saw a girl hurrying towards her in her uniform.
‘So you came then? I’m so glad. I’m Anne – we met at the gas mask collection, remember?’
Molly nodded. ‘I’m never going to be able to remember all that we’re supposed to learn to do.’
‘Yes, you will. I’ll help you,’ Anne told her stoutly. ‘I’m going to go and put my name down for the driving lessons – why don’t you do the same?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ Molly protested. She hadn’t even been in a car, never mind thought of learning to drive.
‘Yes, you can,’ Anne overruled her. ‘Besides, it’s our duty to do as much as we can.’ She added more seriously, ‘It’s like Mrs Wesley just said: we’ve all got to remember that our help could make the difference between life and death.’
Molly looked at her uncertainly, uncomfortably aware of how June was likely to react to the news that she was planning to learn to drive.
‘I won’t take no for an answer,’ Anne warned her. ‘It would be marvellous if both of us could drive, and much more fun than unravelling old jumpers and making sandbags.’ Anne pulled a face, and suddenly Molly found herself relaxing and laughing whilst her new friend dragged her over to sign up for driving lessons.
‘I’m dreading this evacuation business we’ve got to help out with,’ she admitted to Anne later.
‘It will be a bit like jumping into one of the docks at the deep end,’ Anne agreed, ‘but it’s got to be done. We can’t have all those little ones at risk of being bombed, can we?’
The meeting had gone on longer than Molly had expected, and she hurried past the scout hut and across the main road after saying goodbye to Anne, who had explained that she lived in Wavertree. The garden suburb was considered ‘posher’ than Edge Hill, and it was obvious to Molly that Anne came from a better-off family than her own, and that she had had more experience of life. Anne’s father, Anne had told her, had an office job at the town hall, and her mother did not go out to work. Her family home was semidetached, and she had mentioned that she was a member of Wavertree’s tennis club. Molly knew that June would have said she was too pushy, but although she felt slightly awed by Anne, Molly couldn’t help but like her open friendly manner.
Thinking of her sister made Molly wish all over again that June had agreed to come with her. It would help keep her mind off worrying about her Frank. She knew June was a kind person, deep down, but she came across as abrasive to many, especially those who didn’t know her well. Maybe she would be able to persuade her to change her mind when she told her all she had learned, she decided hopefully.
The men were still working their allotments as she cut down the footpath alongside them, the scent of freshly watered earth mingling with that of their Woodbine cigarettes. Molly looked to see if she could see her father, but didn’t stop walking. She was mentally rehearsing what she was going to say to June to persuade her to change her mind about the WVS.
When she got in there was no sign of her sister downstairs; even the radio had been turned off, and the table had been laid for breakfast, a task the girls always did last thing before they went to bed.
‘June?’ she called uncertainly from the bottom of the stairs, and then when there was no reply she hurried up, her initial surprise at finding her sister already in bed giving way to anxiety.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘What’s it to you?’ June demanded truculently. ‘Hours, you’ve been gone, and me here on me own. And me monthlies are giving me a right pain in me belly.’
‘Oh, June, I’m sorry,’ Molly sympathised. Of the two of them, June had always been the one who had suffered more each month. ‘Would you like a hot-water bottle?’
June shook her head, thawing slightly. ‘I’m feeling a bit better now. I’ll come down and ’ave a cuppa, I think. It sounds like Dad’s just come in – you’d better go down otherwise he’ll want to know what’s up.’
Her father was standing in the kitchen, holding a large cardboard box, which he placed almost tenderly on the kitchen floor.
‘What’s in there?’ Molly asked curiously.
‘Tek the lid off and have a look.’
Molly exclaimed in astonishment, as the moment she lifted the lid the kitchen was filled with the sound of cheeping.
‘Day-old chicks, a gross of them, and our Joe’s got another gross as well, and there’s a gross for Pete – seeing as how he’s promised to let us have his horse muck for the allotments. They’re from your aunt’s farm.’
‘What are?’ June asked, coming into the kitchen, her eyes widening as she saw the answer to her question.
‘We’ve clubbed together at the allotments to buy them. With a hundred and forty-four of them we should get a fair few fresh eggs. Only thing is, we need to keep them warm and properly fed for the next few days. I’ve got some mash, to start ’em off, like.’
‘But where will you keep them?’ Molly asked him.
‘We’re going to build a coop for them – I’ve got a bit of wood put by down at the railway yard.’ He winked meaningfully at them and then added, ‘Pete is going to pick it up for us, and once the chicks have grown they can scratch around down the allotments.’ He picked the lid up and placed it over the boxful of chicks, immediately silencing them. ‘And that’s not all,’ he told the girls enthusiastically. ‘We’ve put in to have a pig as well.’
‘A pig?’
‘Aye, it’s a scheme the Government is doing – them as keeps a pig gets ter keep a fair bit of the meat from it, so mek sure you don’t go throwing away any scraps. Oh, and by the way, your Aunt Violet has sent a message to say they’ve got plenty of work down at the farm, if you fancy leaving that factory after all.’
June shuddered. ‘Not likely – remember that time Dad took us there on the train, Molly, and them blinkin’ cows? No, ta! You can keep the country. I’m staying here, even with that Miss Jenner at my throat.’
It was only later, when she was finally in bed and almost asleep, that Molly realised that she hadn’t talked to June about joining the WVS. Oh, well, there was always tomorrow, she decided as she closed her eyes.
FIVE
The bright morning sun blazed down from a cloudlessly blue sky. It was far too hot to wear winter clothes but, nevertheless, the three of them had put on their darkest things and their father was even wearing a collar and tie. People looked curiously at them when they got on the bus but they ignored their sideways looks. They had made this journey five times a year since Rosie’s death: on Mothering Sunday, on the anniversaries of her birth, her marriage and her death, and at Christmas. Now their coming here had gathered its own small rituals: the flowers they brought – daffodils on Mothering Sunday, the roses that bore her name and which she had carried in her wedding bouquet on her birthday and the anniversary of her marriage, violets in February, when she had died, and at Christmas a home-made wreath of holly and ivy to lay on the cold stone – their visit to their own church before they left; their silence like the silence of the cemetery where their wife and mother was buried close to her parents and to her parents-in-law.
This morning, though, the cemetery wasn’t silent. Instead, a group of men were moving and extending its boundary, whilst others were excavating the hard-packed earth.
Molly looked questioningly at her father. ‘Are they going to turn it into allotments, do you think, Dad?’
‘I don’t think so, love. More like they’re getting ready for a different kind of crop,’ he told her heavily. ‘Just in case, like …’
All the colour left her face as she realised what he meant. She looked from him to the bare stretch of land and then at the cemetery, visually measuring the grave-covered earth to the land that lay beyond it – land she now realised was being set aside for new graves.
A mixture of shock, fear and pain filled her insides. It was something she had not allowed herself to think of – the human cost of war. Tales of the Great War seemed from a different age.
‘Surely there won’t be so many,’ she whispered.
Her father’s mouth twisted. ‘This is nowt to them as died last time.’ His haunted expression aged his face. He had never told his daughters of the horrors he had witnessed in the trenches of France: of how he’d had to drink filthy, muddy water just to stay alive; of how he’d had to strip a dead soldier of his ammunition while he was still warm; of how he’d seen his best friend blown to pieces right beside him. ‘A load of cardboard coffins we had shipped in on one of t’trains this week. There was talk as how the ice rink is going to be used as a morgue, if’n Hitler drops his bombs on us. Lorra rubbish. If’n he does it won’t be whole bodies as they’ll be buryin’.’
Molly shivered, her eyes widening in fear. ‘Don’t talk like that, Dad,’ she begged him.
When he looked at her Molly realised that he had momentarily forgotten her and that he had been back in the past and his dreadful experiences of the last war. He squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head, just like he had done when she was a child and had fallen over and scraped her knee.
‘Don’t you worry, love. With lads like Frank and Johnny to look out for us, we’ll be just fine,’ he assured her, although in his heart he felt mounting anxiety.
Sombrely the three of them made their way along the familiar footpath until they came to Rosie’s grave. For once, even June was silent. The grave was marked with just a simple headstone, but at least she was with those she had loved and who had loved her, and as a child Molly had taken comfort from that knowledge.
One by one they kneeled down and offered up their flowers and their prayers. Molly could see that their father was trying not to cry.
Afterwards, though, when they made their way home, it was the sight of that empty land waiting to receive the bodies of those who were still alive that occupied Molly’s thoughts and tore at her heart. For the first time she knew properly what it was to be afraid of war and death. So many graves; so many people who were going to die. She looked at her father and her sister, anguish inside her. It wasn’t just the men abroad. What if one of them …?
She could taste dust in the August heat when they got off the bus and walked up the cul-de-sac.
‘I thought we’d make a start on turning out the attic tonight,’ she heard June telling her once they were back home, briskly back to business.
Numbly Molly looked at her.
‘What’s up with you?’ June asked her.
‘All those graves, June, so many of them …’ Molly’s voice shook.
Immediately June’s expression softened. ‘Aye … I thought like that meself when I knew that my Frank would be joining up, but we’ve got to keep our chins up, Molly. Don’t you worry about Johnny – he’s a tough one.’
The two sisters looked at one another, both fighting against tears. Molly felt guilty that she was not thinking of Johnny but of every man fighting.
The door opened to admit their father, who had been upstairs to remove his collar. His shoulders were bowed, his expression drawn and sad.
Giving Molly a warning look, June said briskly, ‘I expect you’ll be off down the allotment, won’t you, Dad, after you’ve checked on them blummin’ chickens of yours. All over the kitchen, they are.’
June was so strong, Molly thought admiringly, as she watched their father respond visibly to her goading.
The chickens had escaped from their box and greeted their owners’ return home with excited cheeps as they hopped and jumped all over the place. Their antics broke the sombre mood, and Molly couldn’t help but laugh at them as she gave them their feed.
‘Come on,’ June instructed Molly, once their father had gone out. ‘We’d better go up and make a start on that ruddy attic. Otherwise we’ll be having that fusspot Alf Davies round.’
Molly nodded her head, determinedly putting her earlier despair firmly behind her.
‘I could do with getting meself some new stockings before tonight, seeing as how Irene’s set us all up to go dancing at the Grafton,’ June commented. She and Molly clambered into the loft space and stood looking at the dusty boxes, illuminated by the bare bulb. ‘Gawd, look at all this stuff! Just how long is it since we last came up here? We’ll never get it all sorted out.’
But Molly wasn’t listening. Instead, she was on her knees, examining the contents of a box she had found behind the pile of cardboard boxes stacked one on top of the other, labelled ‘Christmas Decorations’.
‘June, come and look at this,’ she begged her sister. ‘This box has got all my exercise books from Neville Road Junior School, right back to me first year, in Miss Brown’s class, and here’s yours next to it.’
Molly could feel tears prickling her eyes as she saw the careful way their father had written their names on the boxes.
‘Well, they can’t stay up here. Everything that might catch fire has got to be got rid of – that’s what the Government has said – and any glass taped up or removed in case we get hit by a bomb. Mind you, Jerry would have to be daft to be bombing us instead of aiming for the docks,’ June added prosaically.
Reluctantly abandoning her school books, Molly started to help her sister go through the other boxes.
An hour later, Molly sat back on her heels and pushed her hair off her hot forehead with a dusty hand.
‘We’re nearly done,’ June told her. ‘There’s just this box here that some fool has wedged right at the back.’ Panting, she tugged it free, and then started to open it. ‘Gawd knows what’s in it … Oh …’
As June’s voice changed and she suddenly went still, Molly stopped what she was doing and crawled over to her side, demanding, ‘June, what is it?’ And then her own eyes widened as she saw the crumpled, slightly yellowing lace that June was holding close to her cheek.
‘It’s Mam’s wedding dress,’ June said to her in a small choked voice.
The two sisters looked at one another. There were tears in June’s eyes and Molly’s own gaze was blurred with the same emotion.
‘Let’s take it downstairs so that we can look at it properly,’ she suggested quietly.
As carefully and reverently as if they were carrying the body of their mother herself, between them they took the dress down to the bedroom they shared and then slowly unpacked it.
‘Look how tiny her waist was,’ Molly whispered, as she smoothed the lace gently with her fingertips. The dress smelled of mothballs and dust, but also of their mother – the scent of lily of the valley, which she always used to wear.
‘Mam must have put it away up there when she and Dad moved here.’ June’s voice was husky, and Molly was startled at how much finding the dress had affected her normally so assured and controlled sister. It was at times like these that she realised June had a soft centre underneath her hard shell.
‘It’s too small for you to wear but maybe we could use some of the lace to trim your wedding dress,’ Molly suggested.
June smiled with shining eyes. ‘Oh, Molly, could we? I’d feel like I’d got Mum with me.’
‘Does this lipstick look all right with this frock?’ June demanded later that evening, as she scrutinised her appearance in the bedroom mirror. Molly, who had been applying pale pink lipstick to her own mouth, stopped what she was doing and put her head on one side to study her sister.
‘It looks fine,’ she assured her. ‘What time are we supposed to meet up with the others?’
‘Seven o’clock, outside the dance hall. Have you seen my shoes?’
‘They’re over there, by your bed,’ Molly told her, watching as June slipped her feet into her silver dancing shoes and fastened the strap round her ankle.
The two sisters were wearing dresses cut from the same pattern, bought in Lewis’s in the spring and carefully sewn by Molly. But whereas her own dress had a white cotton background printed with flowers in varying shades of pink and red, June had opted for a cotton with blue and yellow flowers, and whilst Molly’s dress had a neat sweetheart neckline and puff sleeves, June’s was a more daring halter-neck style. Both dresses showed off the sisters’ neat waistlines and pretty ankles, though.
It was gone six o’clock before they were finally ready to leave, June complaining that she wasn’t going to hurry anywhere because she didn’t want her face to go all shiny, despite the powder she’d applied.
‘At last,’ Irene greeted them impatiently when they reached the dance hall ten minutes late. ‘We was just beginning to think you weren’t coming.’
‘It was our Molly’s fault,’ June fibbed unrepentantly, as they all hurried inside in a flurry of brightly coloured cottons and excited giggles.
‘It feels like I haven’t bin dancing in ever such a long time,’ June sighed, as they queued up to buy their tickets, even though the factory girls got together to go dancing every month or so.
‘Here, look over there at them lads in their uniforms,’ Ruby giggled happily, nudging Molly.
‘Give over staring at them, will you, Ruby?’ Irene chastised her. ‘Otherwise they’ll be thinking that we’re sommat as we’re not.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ruby demanded, oblivious to the looks the others were exchanging.
Several groups of young men, clustered round the dance floor, looked eagerly at the girls as they walked past, but Irene led them firmly to a table where they could sit down and then said sternly, ‘Just remember that some of us here have husbands and fiancés, and we don’t want to be embarrassed by the behaviour of those of you who haven’t.’
‘Well, if we’re just going ter sit here all night, what have we come for?’ May objected, eyeing up one of the young men.
‘I didn’t say as we wouldn’t dance, only that I don’t want to see none of you behaving like that lot over there,’ Irene told them, nodding in the direction of another group of young women standing by the entrance, boldly eyeing up the men coming in and exchanging banter with them.
To her discomfort, Molly realised that two of the girls were Johnny’s sisters, and when she told June as discreetly as she could, June looked past her to where they were standing and then warned her quickly, ‘Well, don’t say anything to the others. We don’t want to be shown up. You’d best act as though you haven’t seen them.’
The young soldiers the Hardings girls had seen on the way in had come to stand close to them and were quite plainly watching them.
Molly turned away whilst Irene raised an eyebrow as she lit a Woodbine and then told June drily, ‘They’re just a bunch of kids. My Alan would make mincemeat of them.’
‘And my Frank,’ June agreed, taking one of the cigarettes Irene was offering her.
Molly looked disapprovingly at her sister but kept quiet. She wanted them to have a good time – they all needed to release some tension after such an emotional day.
‘June, Molly, I thought it was you two,’ a male voice announced, and Molly’s frown changed to a wide smile of delight as she recognised Eddie. ‘Auntie Elsie said she thought you were coming down here tonight.’
‘Are you on your own?’ June asked him after they had introduced him to the others.
‘I came down with our Jim, but I’ve met up with a gang of other lads off the ship. If you girls fancy dancing with us, I can vouch for them.’