Goodnight Sweetheart (14 page)

The two girls then disappeared into the dark recesses of the house, leaving June and Molly standing in the hallway.

It seemed to take for ever for Johnny’s mother finally to appear, looking even more pale and worn
than when Molly had last seen her. Wiping her hands on her apron, she pushed open the warped door to the front room, ushering them both inside.

‘I’m right sorry to have to do this, but I couldn’t think of what else to do. We only heard about what’s bin going on yesterday, and a real old shock it’s given me, I can tell you. What our Johnny’s going to say when he’s told I don’t know, and he will have to be told, that’s for sure. The whole street’s talking about it already.’

Molly couldn’t bring herself to look at June. She knew all too well what her sister would be thinking.

‘Eeh, Molly, I just don’t know what ter say to yer, lass. I know yer a decent, well-brought-up lass and I’m hopin’ that yer will do wot’s right … aye, and I’m hopin’ that our Johnny will do wot’s right an’ all, because if’n he doesn’t—’

‘Have yer told her yet, Mam?’ Jennifer interrupted her mother, putting her head round the door. ‘Only they’ve come back …’

There was a commotion in the hallway and then a man strode into the room, almost dragging a young and very pregnant girl with him.

‘She’s no daughter o’ mine no more,’ he announced belligerently. ‘She can stay here with you from now on, seein’ as it’s your Johnny that’s got her like this,’ cos she ain’t staying under my roof.’

The girl had started to cry, whilst Johnny’s mother looked on helplessly.

‘Stop that racket, will yer?’ the man demanded, cuffing the side of the girl’s head angrily. ‘You should have had more sense than ter let ’im get into yer knickers in the first place. If I’d bin at home ter see what was goin’ on instead of in bleedin’ prison, I’d ’ave soon sorted ’im out. He’d have had a kick up his backside that would have sent him into the middle of next year, and no mistake. No one messes wi’ my daughter and leaves her in the family way and unwed, and just as soon as he gets off that train next week, he’s going into church to make a respectable woman of my lass.’

‘Are you trying to say that Johnny is the father of your daughter’s child?’ June demanded fiercely, squaring her shoulders and taking charge.

‘And ’oo might you be?’

‘Johnny is engaged to my sister,’ June announced.

‘Oh ho, he is, is he? And is she in the family way, an’ all, then?’

‘Certainly not,’ said June.

‘Aye, well, in that case my Doreen is gonna be the one he weds, because there’s no way she’s gonna be making me the grandfather of a bastard. Shut up your noise, yer silly cow,’ he commanded the sobbing girl.

‘Oh, Molly, I’m that sorry,’ Johnny’s mother was saying pitifully.

‘Not ’alf as sorry as that bleedin’ son of yours is gonna be. I’m warning yer that he’d better do the right thing by my Doreen ’cos if he doesn’t
he’s gonna know about it, even if it gets me back in bleedin’ prison.’

‘Of course Johnny must do the right thing by your daughter,’ Molly agreed, unable to believe what was happening.

‘Eeh, lass, but that’s right generous of you, ter be so understandin’,’ Johnny’s mother smiled in relief. ‘I know how you must be feelin’.’

‘Aye, and so do I,’ June agreed meaningfully as she looked at Molly.

‘Well!’ June announced half an hour later after they had left Johnny’s mother’s house. ‘Aren’t you the lucky one, an’ all?’

‘I wouldn’t have been very lucky if I had loved Johnny, though, would I?’ Molly couldn’t resist pointing out sturdily. ‘That girl was nearly eight months pregnant, according to what Johnny’s sisters were saying, and that means—’

‘I know what it means, thank you very much,’ June stopped her hastily, before adding, ‘I can tell you, I’m going to have a thing or two to say to my Frank when he gets home.’

‘It isn’t Frank’s fault,’ Molly objected, easing the ache out of her arm from carrying her shopping basket.

‘Mebbe not, but he must have known what Johnny were up to wi’ that other lass, and he never said anything to me about it when I told him to bring a friend along with him to make up a foursome with you.’

Molly hid a small smile. It was typical of her sister that now that the truth about Johnny’s reprehensible behaviour had come out, she was blaming someone else for introducing him to Molly. But right now the unexpected turn of events was making Molly feel so light-hearted and filled with relief that all she could think about was her eagerness for Eddie to come home so that she could tell him that she was free of her engagement. If there were such things as guardian angels, hers had most certainly been looking down on her and had heard her prayers, Molly decided gratefully.

‘Your sister looks so happy, Molly,’ Anne whispered as the two girls sat together watching Frank whirling June round in his arms to the sound of the lively music coming from Brian Leadbetter’s accordion.

‘It was a lovely wedding,’ Anne added warmly, ‘and your dress is so pretty. The colour matches your eyes perfectly.’

Molly smiled, gently smoothing the blue fabric. She had been so determined to make up the fabric that had been Eddie’s gift to her into a new bridesmaid’s dress that she had sat up virtually all night in order to get it finished. Her fingers had ached painfully most of the next day but it had been worth it. She just wished Eddie could see her in it.

Deprived of his intended best man on account of Johnny’s furiously angry future father-in-law practically dragging Johnny from the train the moment it drew into Lime Street station, Frank
had asked Ronnie Walker – who, as luck would have it, had also been granted Christmas leave – to take his place.

Because of that, Molly had cheerfully given up her official ‘right’ to claim Ronnie as a dance partner, insisting instead that he and Sally enjoyed some fun.

The news in November that butter rationing was to be introduced a week before the wedding had thrown June into a panic, but the neighbours had rallied round and provided enough food for the wedding breakfast.

Watching her new brother-in-law looking so proudly at June now as they danced together brought tears to Molly’s eyes. She was desperately disappointed that Eddie couldn’t be here, but he had told her that he hoped to be home for Christmas. Happily she hugged to her the memory of the precious few hours they had managed to snatch together earlier in the month when his ship had docked.

They had gone to the cinema, cuddling up on the back row, exchanging whispered confidences in between kisses and declarations of their love, Molly virtuously saying ‘no’ when Eddie had whispered in her ear that since her father and June were both out, they could go back to number 78.

Eddie had burst out laughing when she had given him a graphic description of the scene at Johnny’s mother’s house, with Doreen’s irate father, but he had stopped laughing when Molly
had confided in him that Doreen’s father had been a recent inmate of one of His Majesty’s prisons, shaking his head and saying that Johnny had better make sure he didn’t get on the wrong side of his future father-in-law.

‘It could be Christmas before we’re back,’ he had told Molly, adding warningly, ‘but when I do get back, I’ll be asking you to set a date, Molly, and I won’t want to be waitin’ long for us to get married. Not with this war on.’

Immediately Molly had pressed her finger against his lips, pleading with him not to remind her of the dangers he faced.

She couldn’t wait for him to get back. John and Elsie had both made it clear to her how much they were looking forward to welcoming her into their family. A small secret smile curved her lips as she remembered the passionate kiss she and Eddie had exchanged when they had said goodbye. The intimacies she had been so reluctant to share with Johnny were intimacies she couldn’t wait to share with Eddie once they were married.

‘Oh look, do!’ Anne exclaimed delightedly. ‘Isn’t that your dad dancing with Frank’s mam?’

Molly laughed. Frank’s mother had unbent enough to give her approval of June’s frock, and everyone had seen the gusto with which her posh friends had tucked into the food.

‘Folks like that don’t know how to cook proper,’ had been Elsie’s comfortable comment. ‘All they know is posh shop-bought food. That cousin of
Doris Brookes’s said as how my tongue was the best he ’ad ever tasted,’ she had boasted to Molly earlier.

‘Dad doesn’t look very comfortable,’ Molly giggled.

Her father was a couple of inches shorter than Frank’s mother and a good deal thinner.

‘It’s like watching a Mersey tug taking on a big liner,’ Anne’s brother, Richard, observed, laughing.

‘I heard the best man talking to your brother-in-law, Molly. He was saying that he’s heard that more of our troops are to be moved out to France.’

‘Ronnie’s in the regular army,’ Molly explained, looking over to where Ronnie and Frank were now deep in conversation. ‘And his unit’s already over there. They’ve given him leave to come home for Christmas and to see the baby.’

‘Excuse me, girls,’ Anne’s brother smiled as he stood up and looked meaningfully towards Frank and Ronnie, ‘I think I’ll go over and join them.’

‘Rick’s heard that he’ll be going out to Nantes any time,’ Anne explained quietly once he had gone. ‘The Royal Engineers are based there and some of the RAF ground crew like Richard.

‘It’s still so hard to believe we really are at war,’ she continued. ‘I know there’ve been enemy planes up at Scapa Flow and down on the Thames Estuary, but somehow it is hard to believe it’s all real, despite our practising our drills and doing all the things we’ve been told to do.’

‘It is real, though. Rationing has started,’ Molly
reminded her. ‘And we’ve lost ships,’ she added in a lower voice.

Anne reached out and squeezed her hand in silent acknowledgement of Molly’s anxiety. Molly had told her about the ending of her engagement and, to her relief, when she had learned the reason why, Anne’s hostility towards Molly’s love for Eddie had thawed immediately and completely.

‘Come on, Molly, it’s your turn to dance with Frank,’ June laughed, puffing slightly as she and Frank came to a halt in front of them.

‘Thanks for everything you’ve done for June, Molly,’ said Frank.

Molly shook her head, matching her steps to his as they started to dance. ‘We’ve all done our bit, Frank.’

She liked Frank. He was a big, easy-going young man with a kind heart, whom she suspected her sister would bully unmercifully, much as she guessed his mother already did.

The newly married couple were to have two nights in a hotel in Blackpool, before returning home for Christmas. Since there was no room for them at number 78, they were to share Frank’s old room at his mother’s whilst he was on leave – not that June was too happy about the prospect of that.

‘I’d have sooner rented a place of our own,’ she had told Molly, ‘but Frank says that there’s no point, with him going away.’

Molly smiled with sleepy satisfaction as she snuggled deeper into her bed. In the end all the wedding guests had gone to Lime Street station to wave Frank and June off on their honeymoon, laughing and joking as they did so, before returning to the village hall to clear everything away. The perfect day could only have been made more perfect by Eddie’s presence. But it wouldn’t be long now before he was home, Molly reminded herself happily.

‘And then last night, when we were at the Tower Ballroom, they gave out that they were going to play a special dance number for all the newlyweds, seeing as how they’d heard there was so many couples honeymooning in Blackpool. The dance floor was that packed you could hardly move, and, of course, wi’ them great size eleven feet of his, Frank were standing on me toes …’

‘Oh, size eleven, is it?’ Uncle Joe broke into June’s monologue with a knowing wink.

‘Give over, do,’ she gave back, before calling out, ‘Molly, where’s that tea? I’m dying for a proper brew – that hotel tea was awful.’

The newlyweds had arrived back in the cul-de-sac just over half an hour earlier, and June had talked non-stop ever since, whilst Frank had looked on indulgently. He was obviously still as besotted with his new bride as he was when they left for Blackpool.

‘I’m on me way with it,’ Molly assured June
when she came into the kitchen. Her cheeks were flushed from bustling around in the heat from the oven, buttering the scones she had made earlier in the day, in between laying out their late mother’s best tea service, bought at Preston Pot Fair, the year before Molly’s own birth.

‘What’s all this for?’ June asked, pushing the door to so that they couldn’t be heard by the others.

‘You, of course,’ Molly told her, pausing to wipe her hands on her apron as she did a quick count of the scones, wondering if there were enough to go round with so many neighbours having called in to see the newly married couple.

‘Ah, you daft bugger.’ June shook her head, but Molly could see the pink tinge of pleasure warming her skin.

‘I wanted to do something a bit special, like, to welcome you and Frank home, June,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve missed you. I know that we’ve had a few words these last few months, specially about Johnny, and me joining the WVS, but …’

As Molly’s voice trailed away, June put her arms around her and gave her a fierce hug.

‘We’re sisters, you and me, our Molly, and nothing can ever change that, specially not a few cross words. When our mam died it was just you and me and our dad, and I had to tek charge a bit, like, me being the eldest, an’ all. I felt it were me duty to look out for you just like Mam would have done. I know you thought it was being a bit
hard on you, like, with Johnny and that, but I was just trying to do me best for you,’ June told her earnestly.

For a moment Molly was too overwhelmed to say or do anything other than look at her pink-cheeked sister, suddenly seeing her through more mature eyes. They were equals now and even June was acknowledging that fact.

‘Oh, give over looking at us like that, do,’ June protested, as tears welled in Molly’s eyes, and she hugged June tightly.

‘Where’s that tea? I’m dying for a brew to wet me whistle.’

Both sisters burst out laughing as they heard Uncle Joe’s complaint outside the door.

‘Here, give me the teapot; you bring the tray,’ June ordered, adding wryly, ‘I’ll tell you something, Molly, I’m not looking forward to having to sleep over at Frank’s mam’s tonight. I’m not saying that I’m not right glad that I married Frank, because I am, but having to live with his mother until we can find somewhere of us own to rent is something I could do without. It doesn’t seem right somehow, me not being here at number 78. With you and Dad. Even though me and Frank are married now, this house is still me home.’

‘I miss you too, June. But you won’t have to stay with Frank’s mam for long,’ Molly consoled her.

‘I hope not. You should have seen her face when I told her that me and Frank would be having our
Christmas dinner here. Mind you, she soon changed her tune when she heard that our Auntie Violet was sending a nice big turkey up from Nantwich for our Christmas dinner.’

‘It came yesterday, with one for Elsie as well,’ Molly informed her. ‘Me and Elsie spent all morning taking out the giblets and making a bit of stuffing for it.’

‘Well, mind you don’t start cooking it until I’m here. I don’t want you burning it and showing me up in front of Frank’s mam,’ June warned her, reverting to her normal bossy elder-sister role. Molly smiled. Her sister might be married now with more responsibilities, but she would always give Molly her twopenn’orth, and Molly wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was late afternoon before all the well-wishers had left, Frank having been dispatched to bring his mother round to join in the merrymaking, only to return with the information that she was suffering from a headache and had gone to lie down.

‘Headache, my foot,’ June protested angrily to Molly as the two sisters carefully washed their mother’s tea set whilst Frank and their father sat talking about the war in the parlour. ‘If you ask me, she was just pretending to be poorly.’

‘Oh, no, June, surely she wouldn’t do that,’ Molly replied. The steam from the hot washing-up water had turned her cheeks pink and a few
stray curls clung damply to her forehead, whilst the pinny she was wearing emphasised the slenderness of her waist.

‘You don’t know her like I do, Molly,’ June retorted. ‘I’ve already told Frank that I’ll not stand for his mam trying to tell me what to do like she does him. He’s a married man now, and he’s got a wife to think about, and the sooner his mother knows that the better.

‘Me and my Frank had best be on our way,’ June told her when the tea set had been carefully put away in the china cupboard in the front room. ‘I’ll come over early tomorrow to give you a hand with everything. Eeh, Molly …’

To Molly’s surprise, she saw that June’s eyes had filled with tears.

‘It doesn’t seem right somehow, me not being here on Christmas Eve. Do you remember when you was little how we allus used to hang up our stockings together?’

Molly nodded her head, remembering those childhood Christmases and their innocent happiness. They never had much money but there was always a turkey on the table and stockings hung above the fireplace, which would be full come Christmas morning. The festive season had never lost its magic for Molly. She still felt like a child every year, creeping downstairs as dawn gave way to the early morning light.

‘I knew, of course, that there was no Santa, but of course I had to pretend I still believed in him
because of you. I knew it was what our mam would have wanted me to do.’

‘One year you took my sugar mouse and put your dates in my stocking instead,’ Molly remembered with a chuckle.

‘I never.’ June tried to look innocent but the corners of her mouth were twitching.

‘Yes, you did,’ Molly laughed back, and then they were crying and laughing and holding on to each other as tightly as they could, reminiscing about the Christmases they had shared as young girls.

‘You’re sure then about Eddie, are you?’ June demanded as they recovered themselves.

Molly nodded so vigorously that her curls bounced, her blue eyes shining with love and conviction. ‘I know he’s the one for me, June.’

‘How long will it be before he’s back?’

‘He said that he hoped he’d be home for Christmas, but obviously that’s not going to happen now. Maybe it will be before the new year,’ Molly told her.

It was almost midnight. June and Frank had left to go to Frank’s mother’s, and Molly looked tiredly round the spick-and-span kitchen, checking to make sure she had left nothing undone.

‘Come on, lass,’ said her father. ‘It’s time you was in bed, otherwise Santa might not come.’

Molly smiled lovingly at him as she took off her apron. ‘I want everything to be right for our
June tomorrow, Dad, what with Frank’s mam going to be here.’

‘Eeh, but you’re just like your mam, Molly, allus worrying about others. Aye, and you look like ’er an’ all,’ he added gruffly. ‘A right bonny girl was my Rosie. Thought that the minute I set eyes on her, I did. It was in Ma Wheeler’s pie shop that I first saw her, standing waiting to be served. I knew straight away that she were the one for me. Come over from Ireland, she had, to stay with her auntie, after she lost her mam and dad. I’d not long bin living in Liverpool meself then. Come here looking for work, I had, aye, and bin lucky to be took on by the railways. I was living in digs then down on Daffodil Street and it turned out that your mam was living just round the corner. I asked her if I could call on her and she told me that I could. Walking out for two years, we was, before I were earning enough for us to get married. We were that proud when we paid our first week’s rent on number 78. I can still see your mam’s face now when we came to look round and she saw that it had its own bathroom. I told meself then that I’d find the money to pay the rent even if I had to work round the clock to get it. Never a day goes by wi’out me thinking about her, and even more so at this time of year. She loved Christmas.’

‘You must have loved her so much,’ Molly whispered. She had heard how her mother and father had met dozens of times, but she never grew tired
of the story. She had grown up without her mother, and over the years had learned to accept her absence, but now, loving Eddie as she did, she recognised how very hard her mother’s death must have been for her father.

‘Aye, I did. And you think on about that, lass,’ her father told her. ‘I knew the moment I met your mam that she were the one, and I reckon that you tek after me that way, Molly. So you mek sure you listen to what’s here inside yer in future,’ he urged her, touching his own chest, ‘and not what other folk tell yer to do. Our June – now, she’s different. She’s got more of a practical head on her shoulders, just like me sister.’

‘Oh, Dad,’ Molly choked, ‘I’m sorry I’ve caused everyone so much trouble, but I do truly love Eddie.’

‘Aye, lass, I can see that. I’ve bin worrying about you these last weeks, I admit. I could see as sommat were wrong, and I’m right glad that everything’s bin sorted out now.’

It was the longest speech she could ever remember her father making to her. She ran over to him and hugged him fiercely. She knew how lucky she and June were to have their father. Never once in the whole of their lives had he said an unkind or sharp word to them, never mind taken his belt to them.

‘All I want is for the two of you to be happy like me and your mam was,’ he told her. ‘Best thing that ever happened to me, meeting your
mam were, and I shall want to hear that this young man of yours thinks the same about you an’ all.’

Molly was so tired she could barely climb the stairs after she had bade her father good night and Happy Christmas. She paused as she opened her bedroom door, her eyes widening in disbelief as she saw the small stocking hanging from the mantelpiece, her tiredness suddenly vanishing, her eyes sparkling with happiness.

‘Oh, June,’ Molly whispered to herself as she ran over to the fireplace and removed the sock, just as eagerly as if she were still a child. She could feel the nuts stored in its toe and something round and hard, which she suspected would be an apple. There was a pencil too – a reminder of childhood Christmases of the past when Molly would laugh with glee when presented with another coloured pencil for her collection.

She sat down on the bed, both laughing and weeping. It was so typical of June – always so touchy on the outside and so loving on the inside.

June had sworn that just because she was married that didn’t mean that anything was going to change. She had said that she and Frank would find somewhere to rent close by, and that with Frank in the army she would probably end up spending more time in her old home than her new one, but Molly knew that June was making those assurances for herself as much as for her, and that
they both knew that their old set-up as older and younger sister, bound together by the loss of their mother in a relationship in which June took charge and gave the orders, and Molly obeyed them, had already gone. She had outgrown her childhood need to have June ‘look out’ for her, Molly knew, but if anything she loved her sister more now that they had to look out for each other.

She undressed quickly after washing in the chilly bathroom, burrowing into her small bed, and luxuriating in the warmth of the hot-water bottle she had put there earlier, squeezing her eyes tightly closed so that she could think about Eddie.

Eddie. She couldn’t wait for him to come home. She touched the golden heart he had given her, a small secret half girl’s, half woman’s smile curving her mouth as she dreamed of being with him and of the future they would share.

Excitement and longing bubbled up inside her, but it was different from what she had known as a child on Christmas Eve. She wondered what next Christmas would bring. Hopefully peace and married life for her and Eddie.

Restless, she tossed and turned, thinking of the presents she had made and wrapped so lovingly and which were now carefully tucked beneath her bed: a warm muffler and a pair of fingerless gloves for her father to wear through the winter when he worked on the allotment; a pretty tray cloth she had embroidered for June, ready for when she got her own home; some handkerchiefs for Elsie
next door; and, best of all, the two pairs of thick warm socks she had knitted for Eddie from the oiled wool she had unpicked from an old fisherman’s sweater she had bought from a secondhand market stall.

‘Oh, Eddie,’ she whispered lovingly. She couldn’t wait for the time to come when they would spend Christmas together as man and wife.

‘Listen up at the fellas putting the world to rights,’ Sally Walker laughed, cocking her head in the direction of the parlour that Christmas morning.

‘Aye, well, they’ll have to talk up a bit to hear themselves over Frank’s mam’s snoring,’ June grinned. ‘How many glasses of Elsie’s sloe gin did you give her, Molly?’

The three girls were in the kitchen washing up the dishes from their Christmas dinner, whilst Frank’s mother slept off the effects of her after-dinner drink, whilst supposedly keeping an eye on Sally and Ronnie’s baby, Tommy. When Sally had told Molly that they would be on their own for Christmas because there wasn’t any room for them with their families in Manchester, Molly had invited them to come round and join in their own festivities.