Simon grasped the thick candy-twist pole from which the horse was suspended and clambered on behind her.
They rode around and around, their hair blowing back from their faces, concentrating on nothing but the speed, and the motion, and the closeness of each other’s bodies.
Molly insisted they had another two goes before she was prepared to move on to see what other pleasures were on offer.
They did it all: they whirled high above the ground on the chairoplanes; gasped for breath as they sailed back and forth on the swingboats; took pot shots at the coconut shy and the hoopla; tried their luck aiming at apparently dart-proof playing cards. Then, when they both needed a breather, they went in to see an exotically attired fortune-teller, who rather spoilt the effect of what could have been a romantic, if slightly delicate moment when her prediction of five children – two dark, three redheads – and a long and happy life of non-stop enjoyment for them both, was interspersed by her puffing continuously on a corn-cob pipe and swigging from a quart bottle of brown ale.
‘If we’re gonna have this houseful of nippers,’ spluttered Molly, as they left the dimly lit tent, each of them aching with the effort of keeping a straight face, ‘I reckon yer’d better win ’em some cuddly toys. It’ll be nice for ’em, having something to play with while we’re busy spending all our time enjoying ourselves.’
Stopping only to buy two lurid pink puffs of candyfloss, they giggled their way over to the shooting range, where, amidst much sticky laughter, they still seemed doomed to win none of the tawdry tat displayed so proudly by the stall holders on their prize winners’ shelves.
‘If you don’t win me them armfuls of prizes what yer promised me, and if yer don’t do it very soon, mate,’ Molly warned Simon with a little prod in the chest, ‘know what I’m gonna do?’ She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘I’m gonna lug yer over there to that little stage and make yer dance with me, in front of everyone. That’ll give ’em all a good laugh. Two left feet, I remember yer telling me that day.’
Simon visualised the moment, as he so often did, when he had held Molly in his arms in the middle of the freezing cold street and had kissed her. He lowered the cork-loaded rifle from his shoulder and laid it in front of him on the counter. ‘If that’s what you really want, Molly, I’ll learn to dance. At one of those schools.’
‘Daft ’apporth,’ she said, nudging him playfully. ‘What’d be the point? Anyway, I bet it’d take more’n a few lessons to get you dancing!’ Molly held her candyfloss to one side, leant forward and touched her sugary lips to his cheek.
‘Now look what I’ve done,’ she said, seeing the sticky mark her mouth had left on his skin. ‘I’ve got a hankie in here somewhere.’
She opened her bag and began to search through all the bits and pieces she habitually carried around with her. When she found her handkerchief, she looked up at him. ‘Aw, Simon,’ she said, seeing from his expression that something was wrong. ‘I’ve done it again. I’ve opened me big gob and insulted yer about not being able to dance, ain’t I?’
Simon shook his head; he was signalling to her urgently with his eyes that it was something behind her that was wrong, very wrong.
Molly twisted round to see what it was.
Coming towards her, no, it couldn’t be – it was, it was Danny and Liz.
‘Hello,’ Molly said feebly, springing away from Simon as though he was emitting an electrical charge. ‘Didn’t expect to see you two here.’
Simon nodded, warily polite. ‘Hello.’
Danny said nothing.
‘Yer losing yer candy floss,’ said Liz, stepping forward and lifting Molly’s hand to prevent the drooping confection from slipping off the end of its stick.
‘Ta.’
They stood there in edgy silence: Danny and Simon staring at each other; Liz grinning like an idiot at each of them in turn; and Molly, her eyes fixed on the discarded paper targets from the rifle range strewn about their feet by unsuccessful punters, praying that an earthquake, or at the very least a thunderstorm, would interrupt her agony.
‘You wanted to go to that fortune-teller, didn’t yer?’ Danny said suddenly.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Liz, slipping her arm back through his. ‘D’yer wanna go then?’
‘Yeah.’ Danny strode away, trailing Liz behind him like a reluctant puppy new to the lead.
‘See yer,’ she called, with a hesitant little wave, grimacing over her shoulder at Molly.
‘Blimey,’ Molly groaned, leaning back against the rifle stall. ‘That’s done it.’
‘Are you all right?’
She shook her head. ‘No. It was all just a dream, wasn’t it, thinking we wouldn’t worry about who sees us?’
‘I’ve told you, Molly, you’re too important to me to let that get in our way. I’ll think of something.’ He took the rifle from the counter. ‘Right,’ he said, doing his best to recapture the mood. ‘I’ve got four corks left. Let’s see about winning one of those ugly-looking dolls up there.’
Simon had just taken aim, when Molly snatched at his sleeve. ‘Can we go, Simon? Now. Please?’ Her voice was urgent.
‘If that’s what you want.’ Simon handed his rifle to one of the young boys who were standing around watching the older lads shooting.
‘Cor, ta, mister!’ the child gasped.
‘It’s not what you think,’ Molly said, shepherding him down an alley between two of the tents. ‘I thought I just saw someone else coming towards us; someone who I definitely don’t wanna see.’
In the dark shadows between the canvas walls, Molly couldn’t see the strain on Simon’s face, but she could hear it in his voice. ‘It’s time we started home anyway.’
‘Yeah,’ she answered dully, ‘maybe it is.’
Simon stood back while she went ahead. ‘I wouldn’t want you to be embarrassed.’
Molly went to say something, but changed her mind.
They walked back in the direction of Greenwich Park, both of them tight-lipped and tense. The further they got from the jangling music and bright lights of the fair, the uneasier things became between them.
They finally reached the edge of the heath, and paused, side by side, but slightly apart, at the roadside, waiting for a gap in the busy Bank Holiday traffic making its way back to London from the Kent coast.
The stream of tired yet happy faces of the passengers flashing past in cars, carts and charabancs was relentless; the day-trippers’ pleasure mocking Molly and Simon in their misery.
‘Molly,’ he said suddenly, ‘why don’t you just admit it? You’re ashamed of me, aren’t you?’
‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ She waved her arms angrily about her, trying to get an imaginary audience on her side. ‘Here he is, a bloke what’s kept me a secret from his family for a year and he has the cheek to say that I’m ashamed of him.’
‘Now you’re talking rubbish.’
That was it; with her face flaming, Molly stepped from the pavement to get away from him. What sounded like a hundred hooters and horns screeched at her as Simon lunged forward, seized hold of her dress and yanked her back to the safety of the kerbside.
They stood staring at each other, both all too aware of just how close Molly had come to being crushed.
‘You can say and do what you like, Molly,’ Simon said slowly, trying to calm himself, ‘but, please, don’t be stupid.’
‘I must be stupid putting up with this,’ she sniffed.
‘Right. If you’re so fed up with everything, maybe we should break up.’
‘Good. That’s suits me just fine. Just fine!’
‘Molly.’ Simon pulled her towards him, and held her head close against his chest. ‘Please,’ he breathed into her hair, ‘don’t cry. Please.’
With the traffic roaring past, Molly and Simon never heard the steps running along the path towards them.
‘Oi! You! Jew boy. Get yer dirty stinking hands off her.’
Simon blinked, confused as to who it was
saying those things.
‘I said, get yer hands off her.’
But Molly knew immediately who it was – Bob Jarvis. She had been right, it was him she had seen back at the fairground. Struggling to free herself from Simon’s arms, Molly turned on their tormentor. ‘You leave us alone, you no-good bastard.’ She spat the words out at him, leaning forward, challenging him to defy her. ‘And if yer don’t make yerself scarce, yer gonna get nicked.’
For just a moment, the cocky expression almost slipped from Jarvis’s face. ‘What, Jew boy here gonna run off and tell the rozzers I’ve upset him, is he? Or is he gonna get you to go for him, ’cos he’s pissed his pants?’
‘Come on, Molly, let’s go. Don’t waste your breath on him.’ Simon tried to pull her away. But she wouldn’t budge.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her arm free. ‘No one’s going for the rozzers. They don’t have to ’cos they’re already looking for yer. I had a word with ’em, see.’ She looked him up and down with a disdainful sneer. ‘I told ’em what you done yesterday.’
‘You what?’ Jarvis’s face twisted into a hideous mask of pure hatred.
It immediately dawned on Molly what she had just done: she had told Bob Jarvis she had grassed him. She stepped back.
He threw his head forward and spat at her feet; flashed a look of scornful hatred at them and then ran off, disappearing back into the crowded fairground.
‘That was him, wasn’t it? The one who killed the old man. And it was him you saw just now in the fairground.’
‘I ain’t gonna talk about it. I just wanna get home,’ she began calmly, but, unable to bear it any longer, she collapsed into Simon’s arms and sobbed into his jacket. ‘What are we gonna do, Simon? What are we gonna do?’
Molly wasn’t the only Mehan who was feeling at her wits’ end; back in Plumley Street, in the kitchen of number twelve, Katie was feeling just as desperate as her daughter, and she was sure that if she didn’t talk to someone soon, she would go mad with the strain of it all. So, with all her children out, supposedly enjoying the Bank Holiday, and Stephen over at the Queen’s with Bill and Joe, Katie had asked her mum in to have a quiet cup of tea, and to take the opportunity to have a talk with her.
That had been the plan, but Katie hadn’t been able to bring herself to actually say what it was that was on her mind, and was instead fussing around, filling up the kettle yet again.
‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph, whatever’s the matter with yer, girl? I like a cuppa tea as much as the rest o’ them, but if I have to drink one more mouthful of the stuff while I wait for you to tell me that you want me to go round and fetch Pat home for yer – at last, and not before time, I might add – I swear yer’ll have to pour me into me bed tonight.’
Katie turned off the tap and said bluntly, ‘It ain’t that. I’m expecting.’
Nora rushed over to the sink and wrapped her arms around her daughter. ‘God love yer.’
Katie twisted away from Nora and fiddled around with her apron, retying the strings and straightening the shoulder straps. ‘Me nerves have been that bad lately, I’ve not known where to turn.’
‘Will yer just stop yer fretting and sit yerself down at that table?’ Nora steered her daughter over to her chair and settled down opposite her.
‘I love him, see, Mum,’ Katie told the table, ‘and I want him back.’
‘Course yer do, darling, course yer do. And he’ll be back now, you see. Soon as he hears the news!’
Katie wasn’t listening. ‘I couldn’t keep pushing him away, could I, just ’cos I was scared I might fall again? And then it happened. I fell. And I’m that worried about how I’m gonna manage.’ Katie wiped her eyes on the hem of her apron. ‘He’ll never wanna come back now. I should have gone to that Married Women’s Clinic.’
‘Katie, sure yer don’t mean that! It’s a blessing, a new baby in the house.’
‘But it’s bad enough as it is, what with the boys all upstairs in your’n and you having to sleep down in the parlour.’
‘We’ll get by. Sure one more won’t even make any difference till the little love’s a year old or so. And then, if we’re blessed with another girl it can sleep in here with Molly, and if it’s a boy we’ll have to budge up a bit next door. You see, it’ll be all right.’
‘I don’t want Pat knowing. Not yet,’ she sniffed.
Nora leant back in her chair and flapped her hand at her daughter. ‘Why ever not? He’ll be as chuffed as a dog with two tails.’
‘I want him to come back because of me, not because of the baby.’
‘Katie, surely yer—’
‘And I’m scared he’ll make me give me job up.’
‘I should think so.’
‘No, Mum, I can’t. It ain’t gonna be easy as it is.’ She hesitated. ‘That’s the reason I got the rotten job in the first place – so’s I’d have a few bob to put by.’
‘Yer mean yer’ve not just found out?’
‘No. I’ve known about it for a while now.’ Katie stood up and finished filling the kettle. ‘I’m over three months gone.’ She set the kettle on the stove and lit the gas.
Nora started counting on her fingers. ‘It must have been about the time yer dad was going over to cheer up poor old Bert Johnson, God rest his soul.’
‘It don’t matter when it was, I just don’t want yer going round and telling Pat, all right?’ She reached up and put the matches back on the shelf. ‘I mean it. I’ve gotta stay at that laundry as long as I can. It’s the only way.’
‘No it’s not. We’ll manage. Sure the kids can give yer a bit extra.’
‘Danny already gives me what he can, and yer know how hard he’s trying to save for him and Liz. I couldn’t ask him for no more. They’re gonna have to wait long enough as it is. And as for Molly, hard as she works, her wages’re hardly worth counting. And Sean . . . well, you know as much as I do about what he’s up to and what he’s got in his pocket.’
‘Come on, sit down. I’ll finish making the tea.’
‘No, yer all right, Mum.’
‘I could try and get some work, cleaning, like I used to when you was little.’
Katie poured the boiling water into the teapot and set it down on the table. ‘You know there’s girls out there a quarter o’ your age fighting for every job what comes up.’
‘But, surely—’
‘But nothing, Mum. Just drink yer tea, and let’s forget it for now, eh? You ain’t going to work, and that’s it. We’ve always kept yer, and nothing’s gonna change now.’ Katie looked up at the clock on the mantel shelf. ‘The kids’ll all be home soon, and I don’t think I could stand another scene.’
Less than a month had gone by since the Bank Holiday when Katie and Molly had both been so unhappy, but now, early on a grey, showery, September Saturday morning, the contrast between Molly’s and Katie’s moods couldn’t have been more marked.
Molly was still upstairs in bed, exhausted after another bad night. Over the past weeks she had become withdrawn and morose. She was still seeing Simon, but for briefer and briefer snatches of time on a Sunday afternoon. They would meet up okay, but within minutes the strain would begin to tell and they would start sniping and picking at one another. Molly would burst into tears and swear she would never, ever see him again, and Simon would say that was fine by him. Then, come the next Sunday he would be waiting for her, not caring that he would have to go through the whole miserable process again.
Katie, on the other hand, had been up and about for hours, humming tunelessly to herself, as she pottered about the kitchen, scouring the already gleaming butler sink and scrubbing down the spotless wooden draining board. She was feeling so much better, not happy exactly – how could she be with her husband gone from the house for nearly ten weeks and the kids missing him so desperately? – but there was an optimism about her that made her feel that everything really might sort itself out after all, just as her mum had said it would. And, best of all, she had started to feel the stirrings de
ep inside her that reminded her so intensely of the joys of holding a newborn baby in her arms.
Maybe, just maybe, she thought, as she shook more scouring powder on to her dishcloth, the time had come for her to go and see Pat and to tell him the good news.
‘Lord love us,’ said Nora, throwing off her damp coat and putting down the bacon that Stephen now regularly, if rather mysteriously, provided for the family’s weekend breakfasts, ‘I thought it was a songbird trapped in here.’
Katie looked over her shoulder at her. ‘Still got it in me, eh, Mum?’ She pushed back a stray curl from her forehead with the back of her damp hand.
‘So’s Pat from the look of it,’ Nora laughed, nodding at Katie’s gently curving belly.
‘Sssh!’ Katie pinched at her apron with her finger and thumb, pulling it forward to make it hang more loosely over her middle. ‘Keep yer voice down, will yer? There’s Molly’s door just opened.’
Nora rolled her eyes. ‘Yer not gonna be able to keep that little darling a secret for much longer,’ she said, taking a plate down from the dresser to put the bacon on.
They heard Molly come stumping along the passage.
‘Hello, Nanna,’ she said, brushing Nora’s cheek with her lips, then going over to Katie. ‘Morning, Mum.’
Katie frowned. ‘Yer look whacked out.’
‘I’m all right. I just didn’t sleep too good.’
‘Again?’ Katie dried her hands on her apron, reached out and felt her daughter’s forehead with the flat of her palm. ‘Yer not hot or anything.’
‘Don’t fuss, Mum,’ she moaned, dragging her cardigan round her.
‘She needs a bit o’ fresh air to liven herself up, that’s all,’ pronounced Nora wisely. ‘It’s being stuck in that factory all week.’ She put her arm round her granddaughter’s shoulders and led her over to the table. ‘Made any plans for tomorrow afternoon, have yer, love? I know how yer like to get out of a Sunday.’
Just Around the Corner Page 33