Molly's War

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Watch it, Sergeant!’ a voice protested as he pushed his way out, bumping into a sailor and knocking the kitbag from his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jackson muttered and jumped down from the train.

  ‘Jackson!’ Harry was shouting through the open window of the carriage.

  ‘You go on, Harry,’ he shouted back. ‘I’ll be there in a couple of days. Nothing will happen before then but there’s no need for two of us to get into bother. With a bit of luck, I’ll find her.’

  His last words were lost as the whistle blew and the London train chugged out of the station. Jackson ran over to the opposite platform and jumped on the train standing there, this one half empty. He couldn’t just go away like that, war or no war. He had to have another try at finding her.

  Molly woke in black darkness. For a moment she thought herself back in prison and fear of the morning overwhelmed her before her mind cleared of nightmares and she sat up in bed. There was the sound of water. Rain was drumming against the small window at the top of the basement wall. There was more, though, not just raindrops. Water was lapping against something, it sounded close. She got out of bed, putting her feet directly into her shoes for the floor was of stone slabs and bitterly cold even at this time of the year. Groping her way over to the light switch, she slipped and almost fell. She was treading in water!

  The light came on briefly and went off with a crackle. She had to find the mantelshelf and the candle and matches she kept there, for the electricity here was always going off. The hem of her nightie was wet, she realised, it flapped coldly about her legs. Something else brushed against her legs, something furry. She felt a scream rise up from her throat and forced it down again.

  Her fingers closed around the box of matches. She fumbled to open it, almost dropped it, managed at last to take out a match and strike it to light the candle. Lifting it high, she gazed around the room: the dank walls, the steps leading up to the ground floor of the old house, the door with the bottom rotted away and a hole as big as a fist. Water was running down towards her.

  Molly jumped on to the bed in a panic as she saw two, no, four, rats thrashing in the water, one of them actually swimming. For a moment she stood on the bed, frozen into stillness, then her brain began working again. She jumped down and grabbed her coat from the hook on the back of the door, lifting the latch.

  The door swung open with the force of the water; the passage outside was completely covered. There was no sound but for the rushing of the water, the drumming of the rain, and from a room upstairs a man snoring, oblivious to it all.

  ‘Get up! Get up! The place is flooded!’ Molly shouted at the top of her voice. No one answered. She climbed up the stairs and shouted again, ‘There’s a flood! Wake up – wake up, all of you!’

  ‘What the hell’s all that noise?’ a man’s voice shouted, the landlord’s voice it was. ‘Has Hitler invaded or what?’

  ‘There’s a flood,’ cried Molly, ‘the river must be up!’

  ‘Aye, well, it does that now an’ again down here,’ the voice said. ‘I’m going back to bed. It won’t reach me up here. We’ll deal with it in the morning.’

  ‘But what about me?’ she screamed.

  ‘Oh, aye, you’re in the basement, aren’t you? Well, you’ll just have to sit it out at the top of the stairs. I’m away back to bed, I have work the morn.’

  Molly stared after him as he went back into his bedroom. She heard the springs creak as he got back into bed. Then she ran up and knocked on his door in total disbelief.

  ‘What about me, I said? What about me? I pay my rent!’

  ‘Aye, well, there’s nowt to be done about the Wear. I’m not Moses, I can’t hold back the waters,’ he replied. The bedsprings creaked again, the door opened and he threw out a blanket and pillow. ‘I told you, bed down on the landing, will you? And don’t disturb me again.’

  Someone shouted from the floor above. ‘It’s all right, go back to sleep!’ the landlord shouted back, and closed his door.

  Molly stared at the blanket and pillow, neither of them too clean. Then she rushed back down the stairs. The water in the basement was up to the level of her mattress. She waded in and grabbed her underclothes and skirt and jumper, wet though they were. Her teeth clenched against screams as more furry bodies brushed against her. She waded to the chest of drawers and took out her spare underclothes, all wet, and took them up the stairs to the dry landing. As an afterthought she went back for the marble clock which had come from Eden Hope.

  Shivering, she lay down on a strip of carpet on the landing, pulling the blanket over her. Her mind was numb. She was past worrying about anything, even managed to doze a little. When she awoke, the light of morning was creeping on to the landing from an open bedroom door. The rain had stopped. Someone was moving about downstairs. Molly stood up, pulling the blanket round her.

  ‘You can give us a hand here, if you like,’ said the landlord. He had a yardbroom in his hand. As she watched he opened the front door and began sweeping water out. It cascaded over the steps, brown river water, dark with peat and full of debris. The rats had disappeared or perhaps were still in the basement.

  The grass in front of the house was bedraggled and sodden, bits of debris caught in patches of nettles and ground elder.

  ‘We get flash floods like that every time it rains up the dale,’ the landlord said, making conversation. ‘It soon goes down, though. But mebbe you should look somewhere else for lodging. The basement will be flooded for days now. I knew I shouldn’t have let it.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘JUST GET OUT of here, will you?’ Mr Bolton said. Molly gazed at him. His face was as hard as nails, she realised. He obviously wasn’t going to change his mind.

  ‘But it wasn’t my fault! I’ve told you, we had a flood,’ she protested. What was she going to do? She had had to spend the last of her reserve money to buy a second-hand dress and jacket on the market, she’d had nothing dry. She had got to the factory as soon as she possibly could and only to be given the sack. And at the back of her mind was the ever-present fear that she would not find any place to stay tonight, and she couldn’t stay out on the street, could she?

  ‘Aye. You’ll tell me anything but your prayers, won’t you?’ Mr Bolton said. He picked up some papers from his desk and flipped through them. ‘Go on now. I told you, I don’t want you back. I’ll say nothing about it, that’s fair enough, isn’t it? I’ll even give you a reference if that’ll get rid of you.’

  Molly gave up. She might as well save her breath, he wasn’t going to believe anything she said anyway. She felt utterly defeated. ‘All right, I’ll go,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Mr Bolton. He picked up a piece of headed notepaper and wrote on it, slipped it in an envelope and handed it to her. ‘Mind, you’re lucky I’m doing this, do you realise? I told you, didn’t I? Just one slip and you’re out.’ It was a pity, he thought, she was a tasty piece. Maybe if he’d kept her on … No, it was tempting but better leave it alone, that way only trouble lay. Molly Mason was bad news. Look at that fellow in Adelaide Street …

  Outside Molly took the sheet of paper from the envelope.

  ‘Miss Mason proved to be a good and efficient worker,’ it said. What good was that? Any prospective employer would wonder why, if she was so good at her job, she had lost it. Putting the reference away in her bag she walked out on to the street, hesitating over which way to turn. She was drawn towards West Auckland where the only woman to give her a kind word in recent months lived. She wondered whether Cathy’s attic bedroom was still for rent. No, it would have been snapped up months ago. Sadly Molly turned in the opposite direction.

  The Eden bus passed her, making her think of Eden Hope. She felt a sharp longing for her home village, the rows, the Chapel, the colliery winding wheel and chimney towering over everything. Even the slag heap where, in the depression, miners who were out of work had searched for small coal. The bad old days had turned out to be the good old d
ays for her.

  She had to stop thinking about it, she told herself, setting her face for Bishop Auckland and the Labour Exchange. She would walk the couple of miles, it was a nice day and anyway she couldn’t afford the bus fare.

  In spite of her troubles her spirits lifted a little. The sun was shining. A group of pit ponies galloped about in the field by the side of the road. Their pit must be on holiday, she thought. They jumped and kicked up their sturdy hind legs in play, charged playfully then stood and blew gently on each other’s necks. Little ponies, Shetlands, for the seams in the South-West Durham coal field were small.

  Molly thought sadly of the contrast between their lives in the pits and what they would have been on the islands. She tried to rub the nose of one who came close but it backed away, no doubt fearful it would be caught and taken back down under the ground.

  Fanciful, she thought, that was what she was, too fanciful. Her dad had always said so. Molly walked on, to the old road which had first been built by the Romans and led straight as a die to the centre of the town.

  ‘They want girls at the Royal Ordnance Factory,’ the man behind the counter at the Labour Exchange said. He gazed disapprovingly at her. ‘I don’t know, you don’t seem to be capable of keeping a job, do you?’ he commented.

  Molly lifted her chin and stared back at him. Little tin gods, her dad had called the men at the dole office. Thought they were better than most just because they had good jobs.

  ‘Was it my fault there was a flash flood on the Wear? I’m supposed to go to work in wet clothes, am I?’

  Something about her direct gaze, the glint of defiance in her eyes, made him smile in spite of himself. Here was a lass who had been through the mill. He knew her history, it was all down on her file. And even if she had done wrong, she had had an awful lot of provocation it was true. He struggled but couldn’t help softening his tone.

  ‘Well, we’ll say no more about the past,’ he said. ‘Now, about this job at the Royal Ordnance Factory.’

  Molly fairly danced down the stairs of the Labour Exchange, the precious paper which she was to present to the manager of the factory clutched in her hand. Workers at the munitions factory were well paid. She could make thirty shillings a week, maybe more. She would be able to afford a nice room somewhere fresh. It was a new beginning for her, she knew it in her bones, the bad times were past. Hope sprang up in her, she fairly bubbled with it, smiling brightly and standing aside to let a bent old miner go past. The factory would take her on, she thought. They must be going full pelt now, what with the war coming and everything. Not that she wanted the war to come, not when Harry and Jackson were in the army …

  ‘Jackson!’

  As if by magic, as if he had been conjured up by her thoughts, there, in the bright sunlight, was Jackson Morley, just turning into the entrance of the Labour Exchange.

  They both stopped dead in their tracks. Molly blinked. After the comparative darkness of the stairs and entrance the sunlight was blinding. Perhaps it wasn’t him, maybe she was fooled because she’d wanted it to be so much. She closed her eyes and wished.

  ‘Molly.’

  Jackson sighed, stepped forward, took her in his arms. He was hungry for the feel of her, couldn’t believe that after all their efforts in the last few days he had actually found her by accident. He was filled with a profound sense of thankfulness. They stood quietly in the doorway, holding each other. Molly was drowning in the sweetness of the moment. After all that had happened, all the longing, here was Jackson. She clung to him as though he might disappear into thin air if she let go of him.

  ‘Howay then, put her down, man, there’s a time and a place for that sort of thing,’ a man’s gruff voice said. ‘Come on, let a bloke in. You’re blocking the doorway, man!’

  ‘Sorry, mate.’

  Jackson drew Molly outside. They stood to one side, her face radiant, eyes glazed with happiness. She looked about her eagerly.

  ‘Where’s Harry? He’s not hiding, is he?’

  Harry had often teased her when they were small. He would hide behind a bush or the furniture, jumping out at her when she least expected it.

  ‘He’s not here, he … he had to go back to barracks,’ said Jackson, a shadow falling across his face. So the welcome hadn’t all been for him, he thought with a sense of loss as he saw the disappointment on her face.

  ‘Without coming to see me? You mean, he was here and he didn’t come to see me?’

  Molly couldn’t believe it, Harry had been here and she had missed him. She looked up at Jackson, her brown eyes wide, waiting for him to tell her why.

  ‘We didn’t know where you were. We were looking for you, we only had a few days.’

  ‘But I wrote to him – I wrote twice.’

  That had been an age ago, before she went into that place. As usual she couldn’t even think of prison, her mind shied away from it. She hadn’t written since, she’d been too ashamed.

  ‘Look, come into Rossi’s, we’ll have a cup of tea and talk about it.’

  They walked down to South Church Road, turned the corner back into Newgate Street and went into Rossi’s ice-cream and coffee shop. It was practically empty at that time of day. They took the booth furthest away from the counter so that they could talk in peace. Of course Molly was disappointed because her brother wasn’t here, Jackson chided himself, she hadn’t seen him for years and in the meantime she had lost her father in the pit. She was only a child when they went away, of course she was, she couldn’t have been so excited just to see her brother’s friend. That was it, he was her brother’s friend. He’d been a fool to believe she thought any more of him. Still, now she was older … and so bonny, he mused as he stirred sugar into his tea.

  ‘I’m that glad to see you,’ Molly said simply, and his spirits lifted. She smiled at him. His face was lit up by a beam of light coming in from the high window. By, he was like Harry, yet different too. The same colouring, the same dark eyes, but Jackson had a look of his dad, that was it. But the two lads could have been brothers, she mused.

  ‘Seen enough?’ he asked softly, and Molly blushed and looked down at her tea. She took a sip. Ugh! You could tell Mr Rossi was Italian, his tea tasted funny.

  ‘Tell me what happened, Molly?’ said Jackson, and her heart dropped into her shoes. She didn’t want to have to tell him, not Jackson, it was so humiliating. Maybe he wouldn’t believe her.

  ‘You can tell me, Molly. I already know some of it. We asked about in St Helens and West Auckland. You poor kid, what was it like in that place?’

  He meant prison, she realised, and her mind closed up as it always did when she thought about it. Oh, she would never tell anyone what it had been like! No, she would not.

  He put a hand across the table and took hers. She stared down at their two hands, his so brown, hers white.

  ‘Tell me, Molly?’

  ‘I got a place in St Helens when I had to leave the house,’ Molly began, her tone expressionless. ‘It was cheap at Bart Jones’s and I couldn’t afford any more.’ She paused and he waited quietly. ‘It was all right when his daughter was there. Betty was a nice kid, we got on. But she had to go to the sanatorium, she got TB. And then he began to pester me.’

  ‘Don’t go on if you don’t want to, I can imagine the rest.’ Jackson’s grip on her hand tightened. It was firm and comforting. ‘Why didn’t you go to my mother’s when you had to leave your place? She would have taken you in, I know.’

  ‘I didn’t like to ask. Not when she had your dad the way he is.’

  ‘But you should have gone back. The folk at Eden Hope would have helped you. Anyone who had known you all your life would know you couldn’t have stolen anything.’

  Molly thought about Joan Pendle. She would have told the tale her way, poison dripping from every word, oh, yes, Molly was sure of that. She stared at Jackson and sighed. ‘I was ashamed,’ she said simply. She drained her cup and got to her feet. ‘Now I have to go after this job, I can’t affor
d not to.’

  ‘But Harry was arranging to make you an allowance out of his pay, if he’d only had your address … Come home with me, I’m sure Mam will welcome you with open arms. She’s been worried about you an’ all.’

  ‘No, I can’t do that. Not yet. Not until I have a job and can make something of myself.’

  ‘Well then, come on, I’ll go with you. You’ll get that job and I’ll help you find a room. Where is it you’re going?’

  ‘The munitions factory.’

  ‘The train then, that’ll be the fastest way.’

  They walked up to the station, caught the Darlington train and settled into a shabby compartment. Jackson held her hand like a lover and it felt so good to have someone with her, someone on her side. He meant no more than that, oh, she knew he didn’t, but she could pretend, couldn’t she? At Shildon other passengers got on. A couple looked into the compartment, saw the soldier and his girl, and went further down the train. That pair would have to part soon enough, they told each other, the way the news was going on the wireless.

  They alighted at Aycliffe. The factory was easy to find it was so big. The gatekeeper wouldn’t let Jackson in.

  ‘I’ll wait here, don’t worry. Then, when you’ve got the job, we’ll go looking for lodgings.’

  He strolled backwards and forwards along the perimeter wall. Pulled a packet of Players from his top pocket, took out a cigarette and lit it with the flat lighter his mother had given him for Christmas. As soon as he had Molly settled he would catch the next train from Darlington, he thought. It was only forty-eight hours he had been AWOL. Surely he wouldn’t be in too much trouble? Probably lose a stripe but it was worth it. He was so relieved to have found Molly, he felt relaxed for the first time in ages. Leaning against the wall, he crossed his feet at the ankles, blew out a cloud of smoke into the air which was already tinged with a touch of autumn though it was still August. Autumn came early in the North East. He wasn’t complaining, though, not after the torrid heat of India.