Molly

by Molly (retail) (epub)

  But he found Nancy. He had written to tell her when he had first got his posting and they were to meet first, a couple of weeks after his arrival, at an estaminet in a village a couple of miles west of Ypres, where the possibility of their reunion being interrupted by a stray shell was at least a little reduced. Christopher reached the rendezvous first, took a seat by the window, certain that she would not come. But ten minutes later he spotted her striding down the cratered, icy street, trench coat collar turned up around her ears, hands in pockets, her boyish shoulders hunched against the cold. He saw her pause in the doorway, looking round the smoke-filled steamy room. When her eyes found Christopher, the old, brilliant smile lit them and she pushed her way through the crowds towards him.

  He stood up.

  “Chris!” She extended both gloved hands.

  He took them in his own, looking into a face that, behind her smile, was lined and tired. She had grown thinner than ever; she looked, if anything, older than her thirty-seven years, yet still in her dark eyes and in her quick movements was life, vigour, humour. To some this thin, untidy woman in her unflattering masculine outfit might have appeared plain. To Christopher she was nothing short of beautiful. He loved her still, he knew it with certainty. Very swiftly he bent and kissed her cold cheek.

  She held him at arm’s length, and studied him – the spare, hardened face, the mud-stained uniform. “My, my,” she said at last, softly, “Christopher Edmonton, all grown up.”

  Over a bottle of harsh local wine she told him, simply and steadily, of Jack’s death.

  He spread his hands. “I’m sorry. Terribly sorry.”

  She nodded. “It’s strange to think of our Jack gone. Of all people, strangely, I never thought it would be him. Stupid, I suppose.”

  “How’s Mrs Benton – Molly?”

  “Oh,” Nancy fiddled with her wine glass, twirling it between her fingers, “as well as can be expected is the phrase, isn’t it?”

  In the quiet moment that followed the words the laughter around them sounded very loud, drowning the distant sound of the guns.

  He reached across the table and, absolutely naturally, took her hand. “Nancy. I am so very glad to see you.”

  Her hardened fingers closed about his. “And I you.”

  * * *

  On the day in March that the letter arrived at The Larches telling of this meeting, Molly arrived at her office at Jefferson-Benton late in the morning to find Adam waiting for her.

  “Working lady’s hours, are we?” He shut the door behind her, helped her from her coat and, very lightly, kissed the top of her head. He did not miss the way that she moved away from him.

  “What is it?”

  “Danny,” she said bleakly.

  He waited.

  “We had yet another blazing row yesterday. Which finished when he walked out. And started again when he walked back in – a soldier.”

  “But he isn’t old enough, is he?”

  “Since when did that matter? He lied. They don’t count their teeth, you know. He told the recruiting sergeant that he wasn’t going to sit at home, waiting to be conscripted… How many of Kitchener’s New Army are lads who’ve had a row with their mothers, do you think?”

  “You could get him back. If you told them.”

  She turned away. “Certainly I could. And then he’d go off and join somewhere else, under an assumed name. He’d never forgive me. And I’d never know if—” She could not go on. She moved round the desk and sat down. “I’m sorry. It isn’t your problem. You were waiting to see me?”

  He nodded. “The North Sea convoys.”

  “It’s bad?”

  “Very. The Channel’s infested with U-boats. They’re hunting in packs outside the estuary.”

  “You think the government’s going to divert the convoys?”

  “It’s on the cards. I’ll be surprised if they don’t.”

  “But that’ll mean absolute havoc. The western ports don’t have the facilities, and they’re already overloaded. And what about the railways? They’ll be chaotic—”

  “You know that and I know that. Unfortunately the little men in peaked caps in the Admiralty don’t appear to know it. If they divert the convoys then the people in the south are really going to discover what a food shortage means.”

  “And for the first time in your life you might find yourself with no profit?”

  “I might at that.”

  The words were not idle. As the ruthless German U-boat campaign built up and many thousands of tons of British and neutral shipping were lost, there was an outcry against using the besieged Port of London to import the nation’s food. Once again, pressure was brought to bear to divert the convoys. A committee was appointed, to report to the Admiralty. It reported that such a diversion was only practicable to a very limited extent. The west coast ports were already working to capacity. In any case, their facilities were specialized – frozen meat could not be unloaded with equipment designed to handle coal, nor wheat with cranes that normally hoisted steel.

  “Thank God for that, anyway,” Molly said. “It’s about time someone showed some sense.”

  Adam shook his head. “Advice is one thing. Taking it, quite another. There’s a lot of pressure being brought to bear. More and more convoys are being diverted still, report or no report. The problem isn’t over yet.”

  For the man in the street the question was simple. Where were the navy? Why didn’t they just do the job they were supposed to do and protect the merchantmen? And, often, the question was asked in tandem with another: never mind about the navy, where were the RFC? Where were those who were supposed to protect the skies of Britain? For as the year moved from spring to summer, the raiders came again. They struck at the south coast, the east coast and then, inevitably, at London. But this time it was not the slow-moving airships that terrorized the sky, for the explosive tracer bullets that had brought down that first Zeppelin the September before had made an airship mission over England nothing short of suicidal. By this summer of 1917 new words were on everyone’s lips: Gothas, Giants. They came in bright clouds from the sun, the Gothas, small and manoeuvrable, the Giants, as their name suggested, big and ugly. It had been just seven years since the first, to most people incredible, cross-Channel flight. Now they came in pairs, in tens, in twenties, attacking docks, railways, arsenals, caring little that these objectives were sometimes impossible to pinpoint in densely populated areas and that, inevitably, most of the casualties were civilian. People slept in the streets, in the parks, in the underground stations. Squadrons that had been diverted to the Western Front were brought back hastily to face this new attack; and with them came Edward Benton. He turned up unexpectedly at The Larches one evening, to find Molly gingerly cutting Meghan’s fair hair while Kitty and Effie looked on.

  “Oh, go on, Mum. Do it shorter than that. I want it – Edward!” At considerable risk to her ear Meg leapt from beneath the scissors that her mother was wielding and threw herself on her uncle. Edward grinned widely.

  “Hello, everyone. Why, hello, Effie – I thought you’d gone?”

  “She did,” Meg interrupted, still hanging around his neck, “but she got scared and came back.”

  Effie was not in the least put out by the bluntness. “So would you, young Meg, if the blessed factory blew up around your ears. You won’t catch me near Silvertown again in a hurry, I can tell you.”

  “Edward, come in. I didn’t know you were home. Effie, put the kettle on—”

  “Well, actually,” the young man said, blushing a little as he extricated himself from Meg’s embrace and smoothed down already immaculate hair, “I can’t stay. I don’t have much time. And – well, I rather hoped that I might see Chantale?”

  Molly smiled. “Of course. She’s upstairs. Call in and see us before you go, though, won’t you?”

  In the event he did more than that. He appeared in the doorway of the parlour looking confusedly proud and happy, the slight, dark Belgian girl of whom
Molly had become very fond clinging to his arm.

  “We wanted you to be the first to know—” Edward began shyly and was almost smothered by Meg, who was across the room in a second.

  “You’ve popped the question! I knew you would! I said, didn’t I?” she demanded of the room at large. “I said that was what he’d come for! A wedding! How lovely! When’s it to be?”

  “As soon as we can make it. There’s no point in hanging around, is there? I mean – in the circumstances—” Molly saw a shadow pass across Chantale’s happy face. “I don’t know how long it will be before they send us back. Chantale agrees. We’ll get a licence, or whatever it is you do – What’s the matter, Molly? Aren’t you pleased?”

  Molly smiled warmly. “Why, of course I am. I was just thinking – couldn’t you wait just a couple of weeks? Perhaps Nancy will be able to make it home for the occasion?”

  Edward shook his head. “It would have been nice, of course, but it’s no good, we can’t afford to wait on the off-chance. She probably wouldn’t be able to get home anyway. A brother’s wedding isn’t exactly a priority event, is it?” He pulled Chantale close to him. “I’ll write and tell her of course, but by the time she gets the letter there’ll likely be a new Mrs Benton.”

  * * *

  As Edward had surmised, the letter telling Nancy of her son’s proposed marriage did indeed arrive a day or so after the event. She read the letter several times over before tucking it into her pocket and bending again to the task of folding a light summer dress and packing it into the small case that lay on her bed.

  “News?” asked the plump girl who was sitting on the next bed watching her.

  “Yes.”

  “Good or bad?” asked the other, unabashed by the shortness of the monosyllable.

  “Good.”

  “Makes a change.” The girl lay back on the bed and stared gloomily at the stained and peeling ceiling. ‘‘Lucky you, eh? Five days’ leave and good news too. I should be so lucky. Touch me before you go, Will you? It might rub off.”

  Nancy did not reply, but continued her packing with her neat, swift movements.

  “You’re very quiet,” the girl said, eyeing Nancy slyly. “Are you sure you aren’t off somewhere with that good-looking young Captain What’s-his-name that’s always hanging around?”

  There was a faint tremor in Nancy’s hands as she snapped the case shut. “Don’t be daft.”

  “Well I—”

  “I have to go. See you Friday.”

  * * *

  At the busy railhead Nancy stood waiting to join the train and watching the activity. Long lines of khaki-clad men, cheerful in the sunshine, were queueing for everything – for the trains, for the latrines, for a cup of tea. After the taking of the Messines Ridge a month or so before the pressure on the men in the Salient had thankfully eased a little. The weather, too, was better, and had been for a couple of months, though the warmth did little for the mud except to change it into a quaking, stinking bog. Nancy had been stationed at a Casualty Clearing Station just behind the reserve trenches on that hot June night when they had blown the Ridge. The waiting had seemed endless. She had sat on the running board of her ambulance, wreathed in cigarette smoke, tense as a spring, waiting as it had seemed that the whole world had been waiting, while beyond the shaded lamps a host of men had scrambled through wreckage-littered darkness to their appointed places. At two in the morning the British guns had suddenly ceased their roar. The silence had been uncanny as, suspicious but perhaps also thankful, the German artillery, too, had fallen silent. And in that silence a bird had sung, the most beautiful crescendo of sound that Nancy had ever heard. With thousands of others she had stilled, and listened. Then she had reached for another cigarette, and as she had struck the match the world had lit and turned as the mines that had been planted beneath the Ridge blew and seemed to split the world apart. Within minutes the guns had started up again, and through the familiar thunder Nancy had heard the whistles and the shouts as the infantry had gone in.

  It had been more than two days before she had learnt that Christopher had gone over with the second wave – more important that he had survived those two days comparatively unscathed. For her they had been days of ceaseless activity in which she had found herself, sleepless, juddering over all-but-impassable roads in the warmth of the summer’s night or in the blazing heat of the sun, wrestling with a vehicle that sometimes seemed to have acquired a malicious life of its own, and praying through gritted teeth that she was not doing more harm than good to the men that she was carrying.

  When, finally, Christopher had managed to find her, having been sent back from the lines to have a flesh wound in his arm dressed, she had unashamedly flung her arms about him, burying her face in the foul-smelling rough cloth of his uniform jacket. He had been very pale, a trickle of blood had shown at the roots of his straight brown hair and his arm had been bandaged. It had been in that moment that she had known that she would go away with him. He had asked her, often, and each time she had refused. But in the horrors of that June day she had realized that she had been wrong.

  Now, as she boarded the train that was to take her to Calais, where Christopher, for the sake of discretion, had arranged to meet her, that certainty, not surprisingly, had somewhat dissipated. They were going to a villa on the coast of Brittany, owned by some friends of the Edmontons and shut up for the duration of the war. When Christopher had written asking if he and a friend might use it for a few days the owners had written to say they would be only too pleased to do anything to help the “lads at the front”. As she watched the embattled countryside roll past, even nervous as she was, she had to smile again at that. The letter in her pocket crackled. She turned her mind from a wedding she had missed and settled herself for the journey to Calais and to Christopher.

  * * *

  Beyond the open verandah where they sat, the sea, far below, creamed at the foot of the cliffs and sparkled blindingly in the evening sunshine. On the table between them was the remains of a simple meal – bread, cheese, and a half-empty bottle of wine.

  “Best meal I’ve ever eaten,” Christopher said.

  Nancy nodded sleepily. As seagulls wheeled and called and the red sun dipped low a faint breeze stirred her short hair. “Have you ever seen anything so peaceful?”

  “I’d forgotten anything could be.”

  Silence settled around them, a silence enhanced rather than disturbed by the mournful crying of the birds and the shifting sound of the sea. They had not, Nancy realized, actually spoken much since Christopher had picked her up in a borrowed car full of black market petrol and they had set off into the green and miraculously normal countryside. It had hardly seemed necessary to speak. It had been enough to savour the fact that the sound of the guns was fading behind them, to see sunshine on fields undamaged and peaceful, to see houses and villages standing safe and snug, their roofs whole, the unbroken glass in their windows reflecting the light.

  Behind them now the handsome villa with its quiet, dust-sheeted rooms waited for the night. The sea was molten gold in the sunset.

  Christopher stretched his long frame lazily. “Cigarette?”

  “Please.”

  He lit two, handed her one. She laughed suddenly.

  “What is it?” he looked at her quizzically.

  “Well, just look at me. At us. Think back a few years.” She lifted the cigarette and let the smoke wreath upwards in the still air. “Not so very long ago this alone would be enough to brand me a scarlet woman, let alone—” She stopped again. “You pick up some bad habits in the army.”

  Christopher reached for the wine bottle. “Let’s finish this off.”

  They sipped the wine in silence until the sun finally slipped away and dusk washed around them. The evening air was warm and very soft. Nancy became aware that Christopher had turned his head and was watching her. She moved a little, lying back in the deep wicker chair, a sudden and unmistakable stirring of excitement deep in her bod
y. She stretched, languidly.

  “I suppose we ought to clear these things away?”

  He shook his head. “Not now. Tomorrow will do.”

  She looked out to where the swelling ocean still lapped, unseen. “I had forgotten that we had tomorrow,” she said softly.

  “Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”

  He came to her, knelt beside her. In the gathering darkness she studied the lines of his face, lifted a hand towards him, but then did not touch him.

  “I’ve a present for you,” he said after a moment.

  She watched as he fished in his jacket pocket.

  “It’s a bit battered I’m afraid. The mud’s got to it.” He handed her a small, leather-bound book.

  “What is it?” The cover was soft, the pages fine, much-worn beneath her fingers. She could not see to read it.

  “Byron. Remember? Tomorrow you shall sit all day in the sun and read to me.”

  She ran her fingers over the cover, sensed the warmth of much loving use. “But it’s yours.”

  “I want you to have it. Please, don’t say you won’t.”

  Her fingers laced with his. “Thank you.”

  They stayed so for a long time, then Christopher, without releasing her hand, sat on the floor at her feet, leaning back against her legs. The sea whispered in the darkness.

  “We really should go in,” she said at last, regretfully.

  He stirred. “I suppose so.”

  Neither of them moved.

  “Nancy?”

  “Yes?”

  He rested his head on her knees. She could not see him in the darkness. “I want you. I want to make love to you.”

  She said nothing.

  “Please,” he said.

  “You don’t have to ask.”

  She felt him shiver, then saw the dark shape of him above her, felt his mouth on hers, uncertain and soft at first, then harder, more urgent. His fingers found the buttons of her shirt. Her breasts were tiny, the nipples small and hard. He brushed them with his warm tongue. She cradled his head, her fingers brushing through the fine hair. “Shall we go inside?”