by Annie Groves
A huge wave of raw pain tore at her, savaging her, as she shook off Frank’s hand and went to join the other mourners making their way to the graveside.
‘Molly lass.’ Her father was standing in front of her, blocking her way. ‘Come on home now. You don’t need to see this.’ He knew from experience that seeing your loved one being put into the ground for ever was the worst thing imaginable, and he feared for his younger daughter.
Stubbornly Molly looked away from him. Couldn’t he, of all people, understand?
‘Molly …’ her father urged.
‘I can’t leave, Dad, not yet. I’ve got to stay with him until … until it’s over.’ Tears she wasn’t going to let herself cry burned the back of her eyes and her throat felt like there was something lodged within it. She should have been there with him to share his last moment and hear his last words, to send him from her with her love and the touch of her hand in his. His flesh was cold now and far beyond feeling her touch but she still felt a need to be with him at the very last.
‘I’m taking June home,’ she heard Frank saying quietly to her father.
Had she really once dreamed foolish girlish dreams of Frank? How distant and unreal all that seemed now when she was suffering the adult pain of loving and losing Eddie. Of course, Frank would be concerned for June, and all the more so now that he knew she was to have their child.
She would never have a child now, never love another man, never stand in church with Eddie at her side, whilst they exchanged their marriage vows.
A narrow grassy pathway led to the place where the grave was discreetly covered, but nothing could truly conceal the yawning pit of dark earth.
Her father tried to screen her from it by standing in front of her, but Molly pushed her way past him. The other mourners averted their faces when they saw.
Only the vicar looked directly at her, his watery blue eyes kind behind his spectacles.
There was a movement at the edge of Molly’s line of vision and then the men were lifting the coffin. Suddenly, as they started to lower it, one of them let go of a rope just a bit too fast and the box lurched towards her as though inside it some life force was pleading to be set free. Molly reached forward towards it, crying out Eddie’s name, struggling against the arms that held her back. Through her tears she saw the coffin being lowered into the earth.
‘It’s all right, Molly. Eddie is being laid to rest now.’
Laid to rest! He was twenty-one – he hadn’t wanted to rest. He had wanted to live and to love.
The vicar was speaking, each word stabbing Molly’s heart: ‘“Earth to earth …”’
Her father leaned forward and picked up a handful of the rich black soil, letting it crumble through his rough and calloused hand onto the coffin.
Soon others were doing the same, but Molly couldn’t. How could she throw the heavy black choking earth that would entomb him onto her beloved Eddie?
Eddie, please don’t, please come back … The pleading words filled her head, but what was the use of speaking them? How could Eddie hear her when the sound of the earth being thrown down on top of him was drowning out her voice?
Most of the other mourners had left number 78 now. Only Elsie was still here, her homely face shadowed with abject sadness. Momentarily Molly felt guilty – Elsie had loved Eddie too, as much as she loved her own son, and Molly hadn’t tried to comfort her in any way since they’d heard the news. But at least Elsie had Jim and John left. Working down at the gridiron was back-breaking, low-paid work, but at least there they were safe, since Jerry had miraculously not dropped the bombs they had all been told to expect. God willing, Elsie would see the end of this war with both her husband and her son still alive, and probably a grandchild on the way as well if her Jim got wed, Molly reflected, gripped by her own pain.
Elsie watched Molly. She had loved Molly and June since they were born and she had helped Rosie out with both babies. But there had always been an extra special place in her heart for Molly. She couldn’t have been happier, knowing that her much-loved nephew was going to marry the girl she had always loved as much as though she were her own daughter. Now she was grieving not just for Eddie but for Molly as well.
Thank God Frank was here now for June, Elsie thought, his arm wrapped comfortingly and protectively around her, but there was no saying what might happen to him once his leave was over and he went back to France. They were a lovely family, the Deardens, but they had not had much luck, what with Albert losing Rosie so young, and now Molly losing Eddie before they had even had time to wed.
Fresh tears filled Elsie’s eyes and she welcomed the warmth of her John’s sturdy arm to lean on. Poor, poor Molly. What a terrible thing to have happened.
Numbly Molly watched as Frank looked down at June, giving her a little hug and smiling gently before bending his head to whisper something to her that brought a smile to her sister’s lips.
The emptiness inside Molly became a huge roaring burn of pain. Once that would have been her, with Eddie holding her. But she would never have that love again. Not now. Eddie would never look at her like that, nor hold her like that. She would never be able to put her hand on her still flat belly as June was now doing and look up at the man she loved, filled with love and happiness at the knowledge that between them they were bringing a new little life into the world to love and cherish. Never …
The sun was just coming up, lifting thin mist from the graveyard. Somewhere close at hand Molly could hear the early morning twitter of waking birds.
This was the day she should have been marrying Eddie, instead of visiting his grave.
In another week it would be Easter; the Church’s celebration of the resurrection and the triumph of life over death. She was walking faster now, almost slipping on the wet grass in her haste.
The kind cloaking cloths of Eddie’s burial had gone now, leaving the raw scar of the disturbed earth. There was no headstone as yet, just a small cross with Eddie’s name written on it. Very carefully Molly kneeled down beside it. Her skirt would be muddied but what did that matter now? She put down the basket she was carrying and started to scratch at the earth with her bare fingers, and then dug more fiercely into it. Tears ran down her face to drip onto the soil as she tore at it, panting and sobbing. It was so newly dug that it fell back into the hole as soon as she had made it. She stopped to push her hair out of her eyes, leaving a smear of dirt on her forehead, and sat back on her heels, trying to catch her breath.
The sun was coming up, throwing long early morning shadows across the graveyard. One of them moved slowly towards her but she was oblivious to it as she went back to her self-imposed task.
‘You should have brought a trowel with you instead of getting your hands all muddy like that. Here, give them to me and let’s see if I can clean you up a bit.’
She turned obediently at the gentle familiarity of her father’s voice, holding out her hands to him in the same way that a young child might have done.
Very slowly and carefully he wiped the soil from them with his handkerchief.
‘How did you know I would be here?’ she asked him.
‘I heard you get up so I got up too.’
‘I decided about the flowers the day we buried him. I bought the plants off Mr Thomson at the nursery.’
‘Yes. He told me.’
‘Heartsease,’ she told him, giving the tiny purple and yellow violas their popular name. ‘And there’s rosemary for remembrance, and lavender for later in the summer.’ Her father took out his trowel and within minutes he was tucking the small plants into the little pockets he had dug for them.
‘You put them in nice and square, with plenty of room for their roots so as they can breathe, and then you mek sure that when you put the soil back it’s holding them in good and firmly. Good sturdy plants, these are, as deserve a proper planting.’
They worked together for nearly an hour, Albert Dearden tenderly cherishing the plants Molly had bought, and equally tenderly cherish
ing his daughter, unable to find the words to tell her how much he grieved for her and for the fine young man who had died.
‘I can remember as clear as though it were yesterday the day we buried my Rosie,’ he told her quietly. ‘A black day that was for me, Molly.’
‘At least you and Mam were married, Dad. At least you’d been together,’ Molly burst out.
Her father sighed, guessing what she was feeling. ‘Aye, lass, and you’ve bin cruelly denied that, and that’s hard to bear.’
‘I don’t know how I can bear it,’ Molly told him. ‘I don’t want to bear it … Oh, Dad, Dad …’
He took her in his arms, comforting her as best he could.
NINE
March was dying into April, the days turning with agonising emptiness. Molly had grown accustomed to the uncertain sideways glances of the other girls at the factory, the guilty indrawn breaths whenever they forgot and talked in her earshot about their own loves and lives. But the truth was that she could feel barely anything through the numbness of her grief. It filled every hour of her life, her days and her nights, with its cold relentless ache that somehow had become so familiar that she was now afraid to be without it.
June’s pregnancy had already begun to show, and she was spending more and more time with Sally. The two of them had more in common now than she and June did. They were both married, both carrying, both waiting impatiently for the war to end and their husbands to come home to them, in between talking excitedly about the long-awaited arrival of the film Gone with the Wind.
Sometimes Molly felt that she couldn’t bear to be anywhere near them, their futures contrasted so sharply with her own, and yet she knew that they were doing their best to comfort her and she didn’t want to hurt their feelings.
She was alone in the house, June and Sally having taken advantage of the sunny Saturday morning to go shopping. They had invited Molly to join them but she had refused. Her father was down at his allotment and when the doorbell rang she tensed, hesitating before reluctantly going to answer it.
The sight of Anne standing on the front doorstep brought a fresh shadow to cloud her thoughts, although she wasn’t really surprised to see her friend, the fresh spring breeze tangling Anne’s honey-blonde curls.
‘I’ve just come from the church hall,’ Anne informed Molly, determinedly stepping into the hallway without waiting for an invitation. ‘Mrs Wesley keeps asking where you are.’
Molly made no reply, turning her face away.
‘Molly, I know how you must feel,’ Anne told her gently, closing the front door.
‘No, you don’t. How can you? Your Philip isn’t dead. He’s still alive.’
‘Oh, Molly.’ Dropping her handbag, Anne put her arms round Molly and hugged her tightly. ‘I’m so very, very sorry. It must hurt dreadfully badly. I know how much you loved Eddie, and I can imagine how I would feel if I lost Philip. I can’t bring Eddie back for you, Molly, but please don’t shut me out. I thought you and me were friends, but when I came round to see you earlier, June told me that you didn’t want to see me.’
The tears Molly had been holding back overwhelmed her. She hadn’t wanted to see Anne because she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of Anne talking about Philip and their love, and their plans for their future together.
‘You can’t go on like this, Molly, shutting yourself away from everyone.’
‘Why not?’ Molly demanded, pushing her friend away and digging in her pocket for her handkerchief so that she could dry her tears.
‘Because when you and me joined the WVS, Molly, we made a commitment to do our bit, just like your Eddie and my Philip, that’s why not. I never took you for the kind of girl who would go and let others down, Molly, and that’s what you will be doing if you stop coming to WVS. And what about your driving? You were so proud after Christmas when Mrs Wesley said that she was going to put you forward for special emergency vehicle driving training on account of you being so good.’
‘That was before I lost Eddie.’ Molly felt a small pang of guilt. It was true that she had been thrilled by Mrs Wesley’s decision. ‘Anyway, it’s too late for that now.’
‘No, it isn’t. Mrs Wesley said to tell you that there’s an Air Raid Precautions ambulance driver course starting the week after next and that you’re to report to the ARP headquarters on Monday night to enrol for it. She said to tell you as well that she’s spoken to Mr Harding and he’s agreed that you can have time off to go on it.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Oh, Molly, how can you say that? It’s such an honour. I wish I’d been chosen but my driving isn’t good enough. Just think how proud your Eddie would have been.’
Fresh tears prickled Molly’s eyes. She didn’t want Eddie to be proud of her. She wanted him to be here with her.
‘I’m not leaving this house until you promise me that you’ll go. I’ll come with you, if you like,’ Anne offered coaxingly.
Molly felt too tired to argue with her any longer. What was the point? ‘Very well, I’ll go,’ she gave in dully.
‘Oh, Molly.’ Anne smiled in relief, giving her another hug. ‘Just wait until I write and tell Philip. He will—’ Anne’s face went pink and she bit her lip, suddenly aware of how much it must be hurting Molly to hear her talk about Philip when Eddie was dead.
‘Why don’t we go and see a matinée, Molly? It’s only just gone dinner time, and the main film doesn’t start until two.’
‘I’d just as soon not do, thanks all the same, Anne.’ The thought of having to sit through newsreels that could include scenes of merchant shipping putting safely into England’s ports was more than Molly could bear.
Under normal circumstances the thought of what lay ahead of her would have had her shaking in her shoes, feeling both proud and a little bit scared, Molly admitted as she stood with the other women who had been selected to train as voluntary emergency services drivers, in the yard of the ARP headquarters at the Police Training School in Mather Avenue. But Eddie’s death had left her feeling as though nothing really mattered to her any more. The only reason she was even here was because of the fuss Mr Harding had made when he had insisted on telling everyone how proud he was that one of his employees had been selected for such important work.
‘And you never said so much as a word to me,’ June had complained when they had walked home together.
‘It didn’t seem that important,’ Molly had defended herself, tempted to add that nothing could be important to her any more.
But then when they had got home, June had insisted on going round to Elsie’s and telling her all about it, and then Elsie had burst into tears and told Molly how proud she was of her and how proud Eddie would have been, and after that Molly hadn’t been able to bring herself to say she didn’t want to do the training.
So now here she was, feeling slightly sick as a very stern-looking uniformed policeman strode up and down in front of them.
Several feet away, on the other side of the yard, a row of ambulances and lorries was drawn up facing them, a driver standing beside each one.
‘We’ve been told that all of you have the makings of first-class drivers, but first-class drivers and first-class emergency drivers are two very different things,’ the fierce-looking police officer announced warningly. ‘Those of you that succeed in completing this course will be first-class emergency drivers, and your responsibility will be a heavy one. People’s lives will depend on your driving skills, and on your knowledge of this city. If a bomb drops in the street ahead of you when you’re on your way to hospital or driving one of the rescue detail lorries, then you need to know how best to divert to make sure you get there safely and speedily. Therefore part of your course will involve learning by heart the road map of the city of Liverpool. There’s no place for slackers or time-wasters on this course. Anyone missing a lesson will be dismissed. Those of you who complete the course successfully will be given official recognition as trained emergency services drivers and your names
will be placed on a rota of available drivers.’
Molly could feel a tremor of uncertainty and dismay running through her, and it was obvious the other women felt the same. But oddly, instead of leaving her daunted, for the first time since Eddie’s death she felt a small prickle of interest and an unexpected surge of determination.
Two hours later, having driven one of the ambulances under the watchful eye of its regular driver, and won his approval of her neat three-point turns, as well as having collected the city map she had to learn and listened to a lecture detailing an imaginary emergency situation, she returned home feeling both exhausted and yet more alive than she had felt since she had received the news of Eddie’s death.
‘So how did it go then?’ June asked her when she got home.
‘There’s so much to learn, June. We’ve got to know every street in Liverpool off by heart, for a start, and not just their names, but where they are, where they go and if they’re wide enough to drive down or turn round in. It’s like the inspector told us – us knowing the quickest way to the nearest hospital could mean the difference between life and death for those we’ve got in an ambulance.’
‘So it’s ambulances you’re going to be driving then, is it?’
‘Maybe, but we’ve got to practise on lorries as well because they’ll be used for transporting men and equipment to bomb sites.’
‘I’d have thought they’d be using men for dangerous work like that,’ June protested.
‘There aren’t enough men who can drive,’ Molly told her, ‘and a lot of the older ones want to do their bit but they don’t want to learn to drive. Mrs Wesley says that she’ll be putting my name down to drive the WVS mobile canteen vans as well, when I’m not on duty for emergency services driving.’
June shook her head but didn’t say anything. She didn’t entirely approve of what Molly was doing but at least it seemed to be bringing her back to life again.