Brighter Days Ahead

by Mary Wood

  ‘Ha, a lot of good you’d be in the firing line.’

  ‘I’d be fine. It’s just the thought of them Germans dropping bombs on us. It makes me feel that I’ll have no chance. But if I were in the voluntary service, or the Wrens, I’d feel as though I was doing something about it all.’

  As they descended the magnificent staircase of the Regal, Molly was still chuckling over the scene in the film His Girl Friday that had made her laugh the most. Cary Grant had played the boss of a newspaper who was trying to convince his ex-wife to return to him and, more importantly, return as his best reporter. When the telephone rang while he was pleading with her, he acted as if the caller was one of his reporters who had to go off work on sick-leave – and the interaction with the poor man on the other end, who had no idea what was going on, was hilarious. At that point, Hettie had nudged her and whispered, ‘You don’t ’alf look like that actress, yer know.’ This enhanced the temporary illusion that she was the leading lady, an illusion that Molly was always left with after seeing a film.

  The stairs of the Regal perpetuated this, as they added glamour to her usually dull life. She swept down them in the manner Rosalind Russell – the actress Hettie had referred to – would have done.

  It was still light as they left the cinema. Always a stark reality moment. She wasn’t Rosalind Russell any more, but plain old Molly Winters. Oh well . . .

  The nearby church clock boomed out its count of the hour. It had only reached four of the five chimes she was expecting when the moaning wail of the siren drowned it out. For a split-second, she and Hettie and all of the emerging film-goers stood stock-still, their reaction different from the complacency they’d always felt previously. The reality of what had happened, the last time they’d heard that wail, had changed all that.

  People began to gather family and friends close, and to mutter and shout in frightened tones. Then, as if all propelled into action at the same moment, they began to run. Hettie grabbed Molly’s hand. ‘Hurry, Molly, come on – the nearest shelter is that one in Pymmes Park that you told me about. Quick: run!’

  Panic set in around them. The crowd of forty or more people surged forward. Someone fell in front of them. Molly tried to stop to help, but the force of bodies pushed her onwards. How she and others missed trampling the poor lady to death, she didn’t know.

  As they turned the corner into Silver Street an elbow dug into Molly’s side. Winded for a moment, she stopped. Gasping for breath, she leaned against the railings of the park. Hettie hadn’t noticed that she’d dropped back and was now a hundred yards or so ahead.

  She wanted to shout after Hettie, but could only keep her head down to ease the pain in her side.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Despite the need to speak loudly, the velvety tone of the man’s voice was still discernible and very familiar to Molly. The sound overrode the pain in her ribs and sent her heart racing.

  She looked up into David’s face. The usual feeling, whenever she was near him, zinged through her. He had the handsomest face she’d ever seen. She wanted to reach out and touch the lock of hair that fell from each side of the bowler-type hat he wore.

  Looking down and breaking the hypnotic aura, she raised her voice to thank him and told him how she’d been punched out of the way.

  ‘I have my car. I was just passing when I saw you. Come with me. There’s a shelter in our garden, which a barrage of bombs wouldn’t be able to—’

  The drone that spoke of many aircraft bombers coming closer and closer drowned him out and had her shouting, ‘Oh God, they’re here!’ Looking in the direction in which Hettie had run, Molly saw her lone figure hurrying back towards her. ‘That’s me mate ahead – will yer pick her up too?’

  Before David could answer, terror ripped through her as the shadow of Luftwaffe planes turned the blue sky grey. Looking up, she felt she could almost touch them and shake the hands of the pilots in their cockpits. Only she wouldn’t; she’d sooner slap their faces.

  As this thought died in her, her whole body froze. The bellies of the planes opened and what looked like a hundred or more bombs descended towards them. She felt David’s body huddle up close to her, and tasted his fear as it mingled with her own.

  Seconds ticked by in slow motion, then her eardrums felt as though they would burst, as explosion after explosion wrapped her in a cocoon of screams and thrust her body into the road, brutally ripping her clothes from her and scraping her skin on its rough surface.

  A hand grasped hers and a voice cut through her ringing ears. Though it was muffled, she could detect its terrified, desperate tone: ‘Help me, help me!’

  Trying to clear the dust from her eyes and to cough away the smoke that clogged her throat, Molly clung to the hand, feeling its pull. ‘David! David . . .’

  The ripped surface of the road scraped her skin as she crawled towards him on her belly, using his hand to help her get closer to him. What she saw, when she did so, tightened the grip of fear that enclosed her, until she could hardly breathe. Part of David’s tangled car had him trapped. The blast had whipped it onto its side and at any minute the car could fall either way – if towards him, it would crush him.

  Where she found the strength from, Molly didn’t know, but she managed to stand, put her back to the swaying car and force it to fall towards the pavement.

  Still the bombs kept coming, but the sound of them exploding diminished as they flew over towards Wapping and the docks. Shaking her head, Molly tried to clear her ears. David’s moans of pain merged with the sound of a house collapsing across the road, and the piercing screams that split the air. The world was on fire. Flames turned the normally tranquil scene of a parkside road into an inferno from hell.

  The light that blazed in the trail of the fires showed figures running from building to building. Air-raid wardens! Determined to get their attention, Molly took a deep breath. Her throat stung and a fit of coughing seized her, but somehow she forced the words out: ‘Here. Over here.’ But the clanging of the fire brigade’s bells and the crashing sound of bomb after bomb exploding in the distance made her cries sound like whispers.

  ‘David, lie still. I have to fetch help.’

  He moaned. Her heart tempted her to stay with him, hold him, protect him, but she forced herself to move.

  On legs that wanted to collapse under her, she made it to where some figures were digging out the rubble. She tugged at the arm of one.

  ‘What the devil? Here, come on, Miss – you should be in a shelter.’

  The reprimand felt so normal. Many a time she and Hettie had been told off by one of the wardens, if they’d caught them riding their bikes with a light on as they made their way home from the Alcazar Picture House. The cinema that was no more. Oh God, Hettie . . . Hettie! Where is she? Please, God, don’t let her be hurt.

  ‘Please come. Me boss’s son – h-he’s hurt and – and I don’t know where me mate is.’

  ‘You look injured yourself, Miss. Make your way to that ambulance over there; they will help you. We’ll see that the young man is taken care of. And you say there’s another one over there?’

  ‘Yes, me mate, Hettie. I don’t know where she is. Sh-she was running towards me when the bombs started to fall. I – I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’ Taking his jacket off, he wrapped her in it, then shouted over to his colleague and ordered him to take her to the ambulance. Molly could do nothing but obey, although she desperately wanted to go to David and find Hettie.

  The shaking of her body from head to toe was a different feeling from any that Molly had ever experienced. She couldn’t control any part of herself, nor could she speak. Her sore, grit-filled eyes could only stare, unblinking, into space.

  ‘She’s in shock. Shirl, get her wrapped up warm. There’s some sweet tea in me flask – see if you can get some of it into her. They’re bringing the young man over, but the other one’s copped it, poor girl. She’s impaled on the railings.’

  Molly opened her
mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The interior of the ambulance began to spin around her. Vomit rose in her throat and projected out of her mouth. Then a blackness closed in on her, leaving her isolated and unable to hear anything, before a nothingness shrouded her and she went into a deep faint.

  When she came round, it was to feel her body jolting from side to side and her hand being held. She opened her eyes and saw that she was inside the ambulance, and that David lay beside her. Realizing it was his hand in hers, she tightened her grip and clung on to it as if somehow the comfort it gave would take away the pain of what she knew. She tried to speak, but her mouth seemed full of dust.

  ‘Here, lav, have a sip of this. Come on, it’ll help yer.’

  ‘Hettie? Where’s Hettie?’

  ‘Was that the name of the other girl?’

  Molly could only nod. Her mind screamed against them confirming what she dreaded to hear, but at the same time she had to know.

  ‘Sorry, lav. Was she a mate of yours?’

  ‘Y-yes . . . Is she—?’

  ‘There was a fatality. A young woman about the same age as you, but we can’t say if it was your mate until we have identification.’

  Molly sank back. In her desperate heart, she knew it was Hettie.

  Sensing a movement next to her, she looked towards David. He lay on a stretcher on the floor by her side. His face was a mass of dirty-looking scrapes and bloodied, gaping wounds. In a voice that spoke of a parched throat, he said her name. She said his back to him. His smile wasn’t a real smile, just a tight attempt at one, but he squeezed her hand a little harder.

  The calmness this brought cleared her mind a little. With this clarity, the enormity of what had happened hit her with full force. Hettie can’t be dead. She can’t. ‘No . . . No, nooo!’

  ‘Now, now, young lady, we know you’ve had a massive shock, but there’s some really badly injured people on board, and they don’t want to listen to you shouting. They’re scared out of their wits as it is.’

  She wanted to say she was sorry to the man who’d spoken, but couldn’t. She clamped her lips together to stop them doing as they pleased and letting out her despair. At that moment, someone above her groaned. A hand flopped from the side of the upper stretcher. Looking around her, she saw there were four stretchers – two of them suspended above where she and David lay on the floor of the ambulance.

  The sound of one of the nurses saying, ‘He’s gone, poor soul,’ had Molly wanting to scream once more, but she remained with her mouth clamped tightly shut. No living nightmare had ever given her the terror and shock she was going through at this moment.

  Suddenly her anguish increased as she thought of her dad. ‘D-does anyone know if there’s been any damage on Sebastopol Road?’

  ‘We don’t know, lav. It’s all over the area, and it ain’t finished yet. We—’

  Another blast took away whatever he said next. Oh God, the planes are circling back towards us!

  ‘Hold on, everyone, we have to stop.’

  With this instruction, the ambulance came to a halt. The doors opened and what looked like a raging inferno met their eyes. ‘Come on, lav. You have to get out. These wardens will take care of you. We may not be able to fit you back in.’

  ‘What about David?’

  ‘He has to stay, but we need you out of the way, as you appear to have only minor injuries. Here, give me yer hand.’

  ‘Molly, come and find me . . . Please f-find me.’

  ‘I will. I promise. Hang on. You’ll get help soon.’

  Once outside, Molly pulled the blanket around her more tightly as she watched the crew remove the dead man. She heard them tell the wardens who must have flagged them down to keep the body covered, and they would see that a van came to pick him up.

  ‘How many injured have yer, then?’ the female nurse asked the warden.

  ‘We only have one. There’s more inside, but it’ll take us a while to get them out, so if you could come back.’

  Once this was decided upon, and the injured person was put on the stretcher the dead one had vacated, Molly was told to get back into the ambulance, as there was still room for her.

  David’s hand immediately sought hers again. It felt right. To her, it was as if he’d always done this, and she never wanted him to stop.

  The doors slammed, shutting out the blazing world. The ambulance trundled away once more, shaking her body. Lulling her.

  Trying to block out the moans of the new patient, she shyly asked David if he felt all right.

  ‘I’ve been better.’ She could see this was a throwaway answer and didn’t reveal what he was really going through. Then he shocked her as he said, ‘You’re beautiful, Molly. You saved my life. The first-aid man thinks my leg is broken. The pain is bad, but I am alive, so am thanking God – and you – for that.’

  Feeling flustered under his gaze, Molly just smiled. He called me beautiful! And he spoke of God, too. Do the Jews believe in the same God that we Christians do?

  David’s small laugh surprised her and interrupted her thoughts. ‘You know, even Hitler can’t take away your beauty, though he’s had a good try. You have a black eye coming, and your lips look bright red, poking through your mucky face.’

  She laughed with him, though to do so hurt her bruised stomach. He can’t have noticed her swollen face when he stopped to help her. Funny that they could still laugh, despite the fear, the pain of loss and the worry about family and friends. Not to mention seeing their beloved London crumbling and burning around them. But that was Londoners for you. No matter what creed or persuasion they were born into, they always found something to be cheerful about.

  As they became serious again, she looked into David’s eyes. In their dark-chocolate depths she saw something that jolted her, just as it had the first time she’d looked at him. And she knew what he meant about Hitler not being able to block out beauty, because he was beautiful too, despite the injuries to his face and it weeping blood.

  To her, he was the most beautiful person she’d ever looked on.

  A week later, Molly called at David’s house. She hadn’t seen him since the air raid. It had been a time of hell visiting the earth night after night. Mostly the Germans were concentrating on dropping their bombs around the docks, but a few found their way to the roads near her street.

  The destruction was something Molly thought she could never get used to. Always she felt as though dust clung to her. It cut her throat, and everything she ate or drank tasted of it, as buildings had their hearts ripped out of them. Displaced people walked the pavements, carrying what was left of their belongings. The WRVS and the Salvation Army had set up soup kitchens in vans, and had taken over halls and churches to provide stations where people could go for help. Many people were beginning to take up residence on the platforms of the underground rail network. But despite it all, there was a prevailing spirit of ‘They won’t beat us.’

  Molly didn’t feel like that herself today. She felt beaten on all fronts. This morning she’d attended Hettie’s funeral, such as it was. Already there was a shortage of decent coffins, and Hettie had been lain to rest in what looked like one of the crates that were always arriving at her dad’s shop.

  David opened the door to her. Molly wanted to rush forward and be held by him, but he was struggling with his crutches. Shyness overcame her as she looked into his pale, drawn, bruised and patched-up face.

  ‘Molly! Come in. I’m glad you came. I didn’t know how to get hold of you.’

  Stepping inside caused her a moment of doubt as to whether she should have come. The hall spoke of wealth, and almost shouted at her that she didn’t belong there. A thick red carpet accepted her tread as if it would swallow her into its deep pile. Rich, dark-wood occasional furniture and a hat stand lent it an air of elegance, and a grandfather clock gave a peaceful feel as it steadfastly clicked off the seconds.

  Molly followed David’s slow and unsteady progress through to a beautiful room furnished in b
lue and gold. The legs of the embossed-gold velvet-covered sofas sank into a deep-pile royal-blue carpet. Her breath caught in her lungs.

  ‘My mother’s taste, not mine. She comes from regal stock. Her parents are related to royalty, though I doubt anyone of that blue blood would recognize my mother’s status now. She is a Jew and is tainted with Hitler’s brush.’

  ‘Oh no, surely . . . I mean – well, that ain’t here, is it? Not that I know a lot about what’s going on, but there has been some news on at the flicks about Germany, Poland and Belgium, and how the Germans are stopping the Jews having any rights and are taking their businesses.’

  ‘I believe there is a lot more than that going on. Anyway, we won’t talk politics or war. How are you? I’ve been so worried about you. And your friend – please say it wasn’t her that—’

  A tear found its way down Molly’s cheek. Others, unshed, stung her sore eyes.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. Poor girl.’

  ‘Me and Hettie grew up together. We lived opposite each other all our lives. As kids, we had a big falling-out over a doll that I had. Hettie never had anything like that and she took mine home with her, then didn’t want to give it back. Me mam said she could keep it. I loved that doll, so I wouldn’t give it up. I was a selfish thing, being an only child, and didn’t know how to share.’ By now the tears were wetting Molly’s face.

  ‘It’s funny how something little comes back to haunt you at these times. Look, just a moment, I have a daily helper. I’ll shout to her and get some tea brought to us. I know you like tea – you and Hettie came all the way around the park to ask me if the kiosk was open.’ He smiled and his face lit up.

  Molly couldn’t help but respond and a little giggle escaped her. But then she laughed out loud at his next joke.

  ‘I imagine you got lost; it’s easy to do so around the park. You only have to turn the wrong way and, well, it’s a maze.’

  Drying her eyes, she responded in the same light-hearted way: ‘All right, the game’s up. No, we didn’t get lost. I made Hettie come this way because I knew you lived here.’