Molly's War

by Maggie Hope

  Chapter Two

  HARRY MARCHED SMARTLY out of the Adjutant’s office and stopped abruptly on the edge of the verandah. He stared out over the dusty parade ground, the officer’s voice still echoing in his ears, though the words hadn’t sunk in, not yet.

  ‘It’s ruddy hot,’ he observed to no one in particular. Even though it was barely eight o’clock in the morning, the air shimmered with heat. The sky glared white above the roof of the barracks on the opposite side of the square. Suddenly Harry’s shoulders slumped and he looked at the paper in his hand, an official communication from headquarters.

  No matter how often he read the few typewritten words, they told him only the bare fact that Dad was dead, killed in the pit. He stared in front of him, seeing not the parade ground but the pithead buildings at Eden Hope; smelling not the heat and dust and multifarious smells of India but soot and engine oil and damp coal.

  The day when he was thirteen and had first gone down in the cage with his dad returned vividly to Harry’s mind. The steep drop, and the feeling of having left his stomach somewhere up there in the light. Then trembling dread as he had followed his dad to the coalface, ducking when his father said duck, too late once or twice so that he had banged his head on low-slung battens; a dread he had tried valiantly to hide because that day he was finally a man, a miner like his dad.

  Not that he had worked in the pit for long. Six months after that day he had been laid off, never to go down the mine again as the depression of the thirties bit deep into the coalfield. He remembered the day he’d joined the army as a boy soldier at sixteen, along with Jackson Morley, his mate at school and his marra in the pit. At least it was employment and money in his pocket.

  All those years Dad had fretted to get back down the pit. And now the pit had got him. Harry couldn’t believe it. He wiped his brow with a khaki handkerchief, adjusted his hat and started out over the parade ground. He was halfway across it before he thought about young Molly. She was on her own now. God, and she was just a kid! There were no relatives left at home; his mother had been an orphan, and Gran, his father’s mother, had died before Mam. Harry halted, thinking about going back in to see the Adjutant. He had to get home, he realised desperately.

  Then he saw Jackson come to the door of the barracks, lifting his hand to shade his eyes as he looked over towards Harry. He’d talk it over with Jackson, the only one who would understand exactly because he came from Eden Hope too. There was still time before he had to go on guard duty at the main gate.

  ‘Your old fella? No! Are you sure?’

  Jackson Morley stopped buttoning his tunic and stared at Harry. Shocked, he thought of Bill Mason, his cheeky, lopsided grin so like Harry’s and wavy black hair only just touched with grey. A man so full of life couldn’t be dead, it had to be a mistake.

  ‘Here, read it,’ said Harry and thrust the piece of paper into Jackson’s hand. He studied the few words written there. No ambiguity, no room for doubt. Bill Mason was gone, poor beggar.

  ‘But what about Molly? What will she do?’ Little Molly, only fifteen when they had left England. Bonny little Molly. Jackson was going to marry her when she grew up – that was what he’d always told her, jokingly of course.

  ‘I’ll have to try for home leave,’ said Harry. ‘The Company won’t let her stay in the house on her own, there’s nowt so sure.’

  ‘No,’ Jackson agreed. ‘But she’ll be taken in by somebody in Hope, you know she will. Folks’ll rally round.’

  ‘It’s up to me, she’s my sister,’ said Harry. ‘I must try to get home. I’m off to see the Adjutant again.’

  ‘I’ll walk over there with you.’ Jackson bit his lip. ‘Oh, man,’ he said, ‘I’m right sorry.’

  ‘Aye.’

  The Adjutant, Lieutenant Carey, was just coming out of the office.

  ‘Private Morley,’ he said, ‘I was about to send for you.’ He had a paper in his hand similar to the one he’d given Harry and Jackson’s heart sank to his boots. He cast a quick glance at Harry.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ said his friend.

  Five minutes later, Jackson came out of the office. ‘Dad was injured,’ he said, ‘he’s in hospital. Come on, I’ve asked to see the Colonel, we can ask for home leave together.’

  They waited around the verandah for ten minutes before being summoned into the office only to be told that home leave was unlikely to be granted.

  ‘I’m sorry, men,’ said the Colonel, a dapper little man with steel-grey hair who, in spite of the heat, looked as though he had never sweated in his life. ‘With the situation as it stands at the moment – well, you have my sympathy, I’m sure, especially you, Private Mason, for the loss of your father. But after all your sister is an adult, she is not dependent on you, is she?’

  ‘She’s sixteen, sir,’ said Harry. ‘And we have no other relatives.’

  ‘Sixteen? Well, there you are. Earning her own living, I presume?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Despair ate into Harry. Outside a Sergeant-Major began to bark orders; there was the sound of marching feet. Harry opened his mouth to ask what the Colonel would do in his position but the habit of deferring to a superior officer was too strong. He merely stood to attention and stared straight ahead.

  ‘Well then, request for compassionate leave denied.’ The Colonel turned to Jackson. ‘I hope your father recovers, Private Morley. However, your request is denied also, for the same reasons. You men have to realise these are troubled times. We have to be constantly on the alert. A number of our men have problems at home but this is the army. We must all do our duty.’ He nodded a dismissal and the two men from Eden Hope marched smartly out of the office.

  ‘I’ll put in for a transfer to the Durham Light Infantry,’ said Harry as they walked over the parade ground.

  Jackson glanced at his friend; Harry’s face was set, his eyes steely. ‘We both will,’ he agreed. ‘I’m fairly sure war is coming, no matter what Chamberlain says. The Durhams will have us, I don’t think the Colonel can stop that.’

  ‘It’s my bedroom, Mam, and I’m not sharing it! Especially not with that toffee-nosed Molly Mason. Let her find somewhere else to live.’

  ‘But, Joan, in simple Christian charity … You know her mother was my friend.’

  ‘Aye, well, Molly isn’t mine and I want nothing to do with her. Or her good-for-nothing brother!’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? It’s because Harry jilted you?’

  ‘He did not! I didn’t want him!’ shouted Joan. ‘Don’t you go saying he jilted me …’

  Molly, just about to turn into the back gate of the Pendles’ house, paused, clearly hearing the raised voices. She flushed, hesitated for a moment, backed away from the gate and leaned against the coalhouse wall. The sun shone brightly, low on the horizon this December day, blinding her. She closed her eyes tightly.

  ‘Are you all right, pet?’

  The concerned voice was that of old Tom Bailey who worked in the lamp cabin at the mine and lived in one of the older, single-storey cottages on the end of the rows.

  Molly did her best to summon a smile. ‘I’m fine, Tom,’ she mumbled.

  He leaned on his stick and gazed at her with faded but shrewd blue eyes.

  ‘Aye, well, you don’t look fine to me,’ he pronounced. ‘Still … I was right sorry about your dad, Molly. A grand man.’ He coughed and she looked away quickly, her eyes filling. ‘Aye,’ he said and went on, his stick tap-tapping and his pit boots ringing on the cobbles.

  ‘Pull yourself together!’ Molly said fiercely, her words loud in the empty house. She had run back into her own kitchen and closed the door, wiped her eyes and blown her nose. She had to plan her next move. She could ask Mrs Morley, she supposed, but though Jackson was Harry’s friend she didn’t know his mother all that well. Mrs Morley was a woman who kept herself to herself. No doubt one of the other families would take her in but she couldn’t offer much for her board, her usual wage was only 12/6 even with bonuses. Now the pit was
working there were single miners coming in and they took up most of the spare rooms in the village. The mining folk had been poverty-stricken during the long slump and were struggling to pay back debts even now.

  Taking a pencil and piece of paper from the press drawer, she wrote a ‘room wanted’ sign. She could ask the paper shop to put it in the window, she thought. In the end she left it lying on the table while she put on her coat and hat and, picking up her bag, went out for the bus into Bishop Auckland.

  She met Mrs Pendle at the door. ‘Look, Molly,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea to get a place near the factory? Think of the bus fare you’d save. The thing is, pet, I don’t think I can take you in. I’ve thought about it and it’s not fair to ask Joan to share her room …’

  Mrs Pendle was the picture of embarrassment. Molly decided to take pity on her.

  ‘Just what I was thinking myself,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m going there now. Do you want anything brought from Bishop? I’ll be going through.’

  The relief showed on Ann Pendle’s face. ‘Eeh, no, I don’t think so, ta, not today.’ She put out a hand and laid it on Molly’s arm. ‘I think you’re doing the right thing, I really do. Get away … that’s best.’

  ‘Ta-ra,’ said Molly, walking off for the bus. Ann Pendle looked after her as she strode purposefully up the street. Waiting at the bus stop at the end of the rows, she calmed the butterflies of panic in her stomach by counting the number of people who crossed over the street rather than walk by her, averting their faces, pretending they hadn’t seen her.

  Molly sighed. Oh, she knew they weren’t unfeeling, the trouble was they were too feeling, just didn’t know what to say to her. But most of them had been to the funeral, had paid their respects. The trouble was there were so many bereaved in Eden Hope just now, misery was all pervasive. They wanted to get back to normal. And everyone wasn’t the same, she thought, remembering old Mr Bailey.

  In Auckland the wind blew down Newgate Street, built on the line of the old Roman road and providing no corners for shelter. In Hardisty’s, the greengrocer’s and florist’s, there was a Christmas tree in the window, strung with coloured lanterns and tinsel. Christmas? When was that? she thought vaguely. Not that it mattered. Christmas was nothing to her now.

  Lockey’s bus for West Auckland and St Helen’s Auckland was standing waiting, only a few passengers already aboard. Molly sat at the back on her own and stared fixedly at her hands so that no one getting on the bus could catch her eye and talk to her.

  ‘Where are you going, love?’ asked the conductor after waiting patiently for her to look up.

  ‘Oh, St Helen’s.’

  ‘Tuppence ha’penny return.’

  He took a ticket from his board and handed it to her, and went off whistling to the front of the bus. Molly looked out of the window, seeing nothing until the line of new factories came into view, built on the site of an old colliery. The bus stopped right beside the clothing factory. She got off and walked in.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, the wages aren’t made up until four,’ said the girl behind the desk. She looked uncomfortable. Of course she had heard about the disaster and Bill Mason being one of the dead. Molly felt like telling her not to worry, she was fine, everything was fine. And everything would have been if it wasn’t for the leaden feeling somewhere inside her.

  ‘I’ll come back,’ she said instead, and went to look in the newsagent’s window to see if there were any single rooms to let at a price she could afford. Or even some live-in digs, with a family.

  The newsagent’s was closed for dinner, which surprised Molly, she hadn’t realised it was after twelve. But there were cards in the window. She took her indelible pencil out of her bag and jotted addresses down on the back of the envelope she had received from the mine manager. Peering through the window, she saw it was twelve-twenty-five. She didn’t have a watch, that was what her dad had been going to get her for Christmas, he’d promised her.

  Molly walked along to the fish and chip shop. She should eat, she told herself. But the line of girls from the factory made her shrink inside herself and the smell of the grease took away any appetite she had. Instead she turned and walked down a side street.

  Adelaide Street – that was the first address on the envelope. It was cheap too, only 8/6 a week, and she’d have no bus fares to pay. Cheaper than any of the others. When Molly saw the house she was heartened. The lace at the windows was clean and white and the front door step scrubbed and sand-stoned. She lifted a hand to the shining brass knocker. The door was opened by a girl who looked to be about twelve, wearing a green gym slip and cream-coloured blouse and over them a pinafore that was much too big for her. Her hair was tied back severely with a length of green tape.

  She stared at Molly through thick-lensed glasses with large, nervous eyes.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked baldly.

  ‘I’ve come about the room,’ said Molly, and smiled to show she was friendly and harmless.

  ‘My dad’s at work,’ said the girl. ‘And I have to go back to school in ten minutes.’

  ‘Well, can I come in? When does your dad get in from work? Where’s your mother?’

  ‘I haven’t got a mother and Dad doesn’t get in until four o’clock.’

  Molly looked at her and after a moment the girl opened the door wide, revealing a passage with brown linoleum polished to a gleaming finish. There was even a length of carpet in the middle and a side table. Oh, yes, Molly liked the look of this house.

  ‘I’ll leave my name, shall I? I can come later. Four o’clock, did you say?’

  The girl looked even more nervous and glanced about her hesitantly. ‘Er, I haven’t got a pencil,’ she murmured.

  ‘I have, I’ve got one here,’ said Molly. Taking charge, she walked past the girl and wrote her name swiftly on a piece of paper torn from the envelope, laying it on the table. She looked around her. The door to the living room was open, there was a smell of beeswax. ‘I’ll be back tonight,’ she said. ‘By the way, what’s your name?’

  ‘Betty. Betty Jones.’

  ‘I’ll see you later, Betty.’

  By, thought Molly as she walked off, that girl’s as timid as a mouse. But she felt some fellow feeling with the poor kid. After all, she hadn’t been much older when she had lost her own mother.

  The line outside the fish shop had disappeared, the factory only allowed thirty minutes for dinner. Molly went in and bought a penny bag of chips and walked along to where the Gaunless stream ran alongside the road. She sat on a low wall by the water and ate the chips. Already she was feeling slightly better. With luck she would get the lodgings at a shilling or two less than she had expected to pay. Nice, clean lodgings an’ all.

  Chapter Three

  ‘I’LL BE BACK at work on Monday, I promise, Mr Bolton,’ said Molly.

  ‘Yes, well,’ he answered, standing up to show that the interview was ended, ‘I hope you are. You understand I have every sympathy with your position, my dear, but I can’t keep your place open any longer. We have a lot of orders to fill and there is a national emergency.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bolton.’

  Molly left the factory, her wage packet safely tucked away in her bag. He hadn’t looked very sympathetic, she thought to herself, but as though he wanted rid of her so that he could get on with his work. She took deep breaths of the clean cold air as she walked outside. The atmosphere in the office had been hot and stuffy despite the winter weather.

  She would have liked to have told Mr Bolton where to put his job, she thought rebelliously. She’d had every intention of starting on Monday anyway but he’d implied, by his tone at least, that she was slacking, the tone of a manager who knew there were plenty more where she came from. But Molly’s innate caution had stopped her from rising to the bait. During the long depression she had seen what being out of work did to people. Too many friends and neighbours had been broken by it.

  Molly turned her col
lar up against the bitter wind and walked over the road towards the streets on the other side. She would pass the time until four by looking at the other houses with rooms to let.

  It was half-past four when she stood once more outside the door of number 44 Adelaide Street and knocked. Her feet ached and her stomach felt empty, reminding her that a bag of chips was all she had eaten since breakfast. This time the door was opened by a thin little man in a suit, his meagre hair smoothed flat against his skull and shining with Brylcreem.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Molly began, ‘I’ve come about the room, I –’

  ‘Aye, I know, our Betty told me a lass had been looking. Come on in then,’ the man said impatiently. ‘Don’t stand there on the step for all the neighbours to gawp at. I won’t have them gossiping about me and my doings.’

  A bit surprised, Molly glanced about. The street was deserted, not a soul in sight, but she stepped inside the passageway obediently. He opened a door to the left and went in, motioning her to follow. There was electric light. When he switched it on the harsh glare showed her a square room with an empty grate, a brown leather three-piece suite shining with polish, and a side board with nothing on it except for a picture of him with a woman holding a bouquet of flowers. The Joneses’ wedding picture she presumed. There was a faint smell of damp; obviously the room was not lived in.

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said, and Molly sat on the edge of the sofa, knees together, handbag clutched nervously in her hands. I’ve nothing to be nervous about, she told herself firmly and lifted her chin. Mr Jones took up a stance, legs apart, hands on hips, before the tireless grate and stared at her over the top of rimless spectacles.

  ‘Now then, young lady,’ he said, rather in the tone her old headmistress had used when confronting a recalcitrant pupil. ‘I haven’t much time, my tea’s nearly ready. You want to rent the room, do you?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Molly, though she was beginning to wonder if she did. But only one of the other houses on her list had been as clean as this one and it had been 1/6 extra per week.