Goodnight Sweetheart (34 page)

A second wave of bombers followed the first, and then a third. The whistling sound of bombs falling, followed by the stomach-gripping silence before they exploded, filled the shelter with a nerve-straining tension. A child started to wail in shocked fear as a bomb exploded somewhere close enough to the shelter to send pieces of debris thudding down on top of it.

‘That were close,’ one of the men commented uneasily.

June whimpered deep in her throat. She had refused to unroll her sleeping bag, and instead was sitting tensely staring at the door. If June wouldn’t try to sleep then she could not do so, Molly acknowledged.

‘I don’t see why we couldn’t have stayed at home,’ June told her, panicking. ‘There’s plenty as does.’

‘Yes, and I’ve seen what happens to them,’ said Molly tersely, thinking again of the two children she had pulled out of the wreckage of their own home. The shelter might be cramped and oppressive but it had to be better than staying at home, leaving yourself at the mercy of the German bombers.

‘Quick, Molly, this way.’

Johnny had grabbed hold of her hand and was running so fast with her that Molly was afraid she might lose her footing on the slippery cobblestones
and fall. Up above them the early May night sky was crisscrossed with the beam of searchlights and the speeding molten silver tracery of the gunfire from the AA batteries. Round after round of ammunition was being fired in an attempt to stem the relentless flood of German bombers blanket-bombing the whole city, determined to destroy Liverpool’s docks and the British people’s desperately needed lifeline to North America.

Above them, bombers released their cargo of death. Crouching down beside Johnny in the protective shadow of their van, Molly shivered as they watched them explode so close that she could feel the air rushing past her as it was sucked into the explosion and then expelled again. Both she and Johnny were covered with dust.

They were supposed to be on their way down to the docks, but they had become trapped down one of the narrow streets, unable to leave for the bombs going off all around them.

‘Looks like the end of the street’s had a direct hit. We’ll have to turn round and go down Dukerman Street,’ Molly told Johnny worriedly.

This was the third night in a row that the city had been blitzed by night-time bombing raids. Yesterday Mr Harding had told Molly not to bother coming into work but to concentrate on her voluntary services duties. He had taken on extra staff to meet the increased demands from the War Office. But with the city being bombed,
and families having to be rehomed – many living in the community of tents that had been set up in the fields just outside the city – some girls looked for jobs closer to where they were now living, resulting in a constant turnover of workers.

‘I thought the last two nights were bad enough but they were nowt compared to this,’ Johnny admitted, checking the sky before urging Molly towards the van.

May wasn’t even a week old yet but, for three nights solid, the city had been subjected to a relentless attack from German bombs. As fast as everyone worked during the daytime to deal with the damage of the night before, the bombers returned again at nightfall to begin another round of death and destruction.

‘I just hope that our June’s all right,’ Molly said.

Johnny could hear the anxiety in her voice. ‘She’ll be fine,’ he tried to comfort her. ‘Your dad will see to it that she gets into the shelter.’

Molly gave him a wan smile.

‘Everyone OK?’ Johnny called out as the rest of their small group, who had also taken cover where they could, made their cautious way back to the waiting van.

They had been on their way to Huskisson Dock in response to an emergency call-out, and after Molly had reversed the van back up the narrow street, she drove as quickly as she could towards the fires illuminating the night sky. All around
them lay the evidence of the devastating effect the blitz was having on Liverpool and its people. Not that Molly needed to see any evidence. The queues of people forming every night in the buildings where the WVS worked to provide blankets, warm food and what other help and advice they could were proof enough of the growing number of homeless Liverpudlians.

‘Hellfire and buckets of blood,’ one of the men – a First World War veteran with a bad leg – swore as Molly brought the van to a halt and they all stared at the inferno in front of them.

Opening his door, Johnny called out to a passing ARP warden, ‘What’s happening, mate?’

‘Barrage balloon’s bin hit and deflated. It’s fell onto a steamer berthed in number two dock,’ he told him tersely. ‘Steamer’s loaded with a thousand tons of shells and bombs, and the ruddy thing’s on fire. Port Authority’s got every fire crew they can spare trying to put it out. Of course, bloody Jerry’s scented blood and he’s using the light from the fire to bomb the rest of the dock.’ He swore under his breath and ducked as an incendiary bomb exploded, igniting one of the nearby dock sheds, showering everything with burning shards of timber and fiery red sparks. Fresh flames leaped hungrily towards the steamer trapped inside the dock.

Two fire engines came racing past the parked van, followed by a boy on a bicycle, pedalling furiously.

‘Hey, you, lad, where do you think you’re going?’ the ARP man demanded.

‘Mill Road Hospital’s bin bombed,’ the boy told him breathlessly. ‘Bomb’s fell right into one of the operating theatres. I’ve bin sent to see if there’s any fire engines to spare down here.’

Molly was about to ask Johnny if they were needed more at Mill Road than they were here at the dock, when a port official came hurrying towards them, calling out tersely, ‘Out. Out … now. We’re clearing the dock of everyone apart from the fire fighters. The ruddy ship’s loaded to the gunwales with explosives.’

‘Let’s head for Mill Road and the hospital,’ Johnny suggested, following the same line of thought as Molly. He added, ‘If it’s bin hit then they’re going to need as much help as they can get tekkin’ patients out.’

‘Eh, Molly, it makes me blood run cold just thinking about it, a bomb dropping right onto the operating theatre, and killing everyone excepting for the patient,’ Doris Brookes told Molly soberly as they stood together outside her front gate.

‘I was on one of the Nightingale wards when we heard about it. We all rushed out to see what we could do to help, and blow me if the ward I’d been in didn’t take a direct hit itself.’ She spoke with the bemused shell-shocked air that had become so familiar to Molly.

She had been at the hospital herself, after it had been bombed, helping to ferry patients away from the danger. In some cases this had meant taking them on stretchers to church halls to await medical attention because the other hospitals were too full.

The
Malakand
, the steamer in Huskisson number two dock, which Molly and the crew had originally been summoned to help with, had ultimately exploded, showering debris for over two and a half miles, and blowing a hole in the overhead railway. How only five people had been killed, Molly did not know. Lewis’s store in Ranelagh Street, the place where June had bought her wedding dress pattern all that time ago, had gone, along with the Customs House and St Luke’s Church, down in the city centre. Fires burned everywhere in the wrecked buildings, and with bombs hitting the water mains, it was often impossible to get sufficient water pressure to put them out. Molly didn’t think there was a sight more dreadful than a church in flames. Whole streets had been demolished and fire fighters had been coming in from all over the country to do what they could to help. At night Jerry wreaked destruction, and at daybreak, Liverpool’s weary citizens dragged themselves back to the heart of their city to start clearing up and doing what they could to keep the trains, buses and trams running. Their spirits were flagging but they wouldn’t give in. It made
Molly proud to see her neighbours rallying round each other.

But most important of all were the docks. The man responsible for them, Captain F. J. ‘Johnny’ Walker, had become a hero to those who knew him and all that he was doing to protect the vessels crossing the Atlantic, bringing into Liverpool the supplies the country so desperately needed.

‘How’s your June doing?’ Doris Brookes asked Molly.

Molly had grown to like Frank’s mother over the last few months and admired her fortitude and strength, but her loyalty to her sister made her cautious.

‘Elizabeth Rose is cutting some new teeth, so, what with that and the bombs, our June hasn’t bin getting much sleep this last week. She’s had a letter from Frank to say he’ll be coming home on leave soon, though, so she’s got that to look forward to.’

‘Aye, well, let’s hope this time she treats my Frank a sight better than she did last time he were home,’ Doris told Molly forcefully.

Molly could only hope so too.

‘How much longer is it going to go on for?’ June’s voice was high-pitched and querulous as she looked almost accusingly at Molly in the dull blue light of the air-raid shelter. It was two o’clock in the morning, and the seventh night of
the blitz. Molly had spent the earlier part of the evening helping out at one of the temporary shelters, before hurrying home, dodging falling bombs herself.

To her relief their father had managed to persuade June to take refuge in the shelter, but it was plain to Molly that her sister’s nerves were being increasingly badly affected by the constant bombing raids. Molly wondered how long it would be before she broke. She had seen it happen to others; frightened despairing people unable to cope with what was happening to their city and their lives.

A loud explosion close at hand shook the sides of the shelter. June gave Molly a wild-eyed look of terror.

‘It’s all right, they aren’t interested in us,’ Molly tried to calm her. ‘It’s the gridiron they’ll be after. Give me Lillibet,’ she offered, holding out her arms and smiling at the baby, who had been crying with the pain of her new teeth.

‘’Ere, June, why don’t you try rubbing a bit of me elderberry wine on her gums?’ Elsie suggested.

‘I’m not risking poisoning my baby, giving her stuff like that,’ June refused.

‘Suit yourself,’ Elsie sniffed, offended. ‘But it never did either of mine any harm. Nor you two neither, seeing as yer own mam weren’t too proud to use it.’

‘Aye, do as she says, June. Then we might all get a bit o’ peace. Little ’un’s mekkin’ more noise
than bloody Jerry,’ one of the men chipped in, causing June to glare angrily at him, and then swing back to face the door as they all heard the whining dive of one of the small fighter planes that came in with the bombers.

‘Ruddy hell, sounds like it’s right overhead,’ another man commented uneasily, his voice almost drowned out by the sharp staccato sound of the fighter’s machine guns.

‘I reckon you’re right and he’ll be after the drivers of one of them ammo trains going through the gridiron. Let’s tek a butcher’s, Stan, and see what he were after,’ Pearl’s husband, George, demanded of the man nearest the door, who obligingly started to open it.

‘We’re going to die! We’re all going to die in here!’ June suddenly screamed frantically. ‘Let me out. I want to get out …’

‘June, no!’ Molly protested, but to her horror June was already on her feet, clutching Elizabeth Rose as she ran to the now open door.

Molly struggled up, crying out desperately, ‘Dad, Stan, stop her!’ Immediately both men reached for June, trying to hold her back, but somehow she managed to slip through their hands, and run into the street. They could all see the fighter plane banking and turning its machine gun, spewing bullets into the darkness above the bottom of the close and Edge Hill station, and then banking to take another run at its target, so that it was directly over June.

‘Shut the ruddy door,’ someone called out in panic, ‘otherwise he’ll get the lot of us.’

They could all hear the fierce staccato noise of the machine-gun fire, and through the still open door Molly watched in horror as June flung herself to the ground in an attempt to protect herself. Oblivious to her own safety, Molly pushed past her father and ran after her sister.

‘June!’ she screamed.

June lay motionless in the street in front of her. Molly dropped to her sister’s side, whilst the fighter sped away.

‘June …’ Molly whispered her sister’s name, distantly aware of other people coming to her side and her father’s choked voice, as he told her thickly, ‘She’s gone, lass. She’s gone.’

‘No!’ Molly wasn’t going to accept that June could be dead, even though her hands were wet with June’s blood; even though she could see where the row of bullet holes punctured her back, as neat as a piece of riveting, her blood glistening black in the moonlight. Molly could hear a thin small cry.

‘Ruddy hell, the kiddie’s still alive,’ George Lawson called out.

Eager hands lifted June and reached beneath her to remove the crying Elizabeth Rose.

‘Give her to me.’ Molly was still crouching down beside her sister, but she refused to let anyone else take Elizabeth Rose. Miraculously, not a single bullet had touched June’s baby but still
Molly clutched her to her breast as if she were in mortal danger.

‘I’ve got her, Junie,’ Molly whispered to her sister. ‘I’ve got her and I’ll keep her safe wi’ me, just like you made me promise.’

‘She was always a good sister to me.’

Frank could hear the defensive tension in Molly’s voice.

‘And a good wife to me,’ he told her quietly.

It was June, the month in which June had been born and for which she had been named. They had come here together to June’s grave to lay flowers on it. Frank’s leave had not come through in time for him to attend her funeral.

‘Me and Dad thought it was best that she should be laid to rest here with our mam.’

‘I wouldn’t have wanted anything else,’ Frank assured her huskily. ‘She used to talk a lot about her mam. Missed her badly, she did. She was a lovely girl, so kind and warm. A lot of people couldn’t see that – only saw her tough exterior. But I could. I saw it right away. That’s what made me fall in love with her.’

It was the most Frank had said since his arrival home earlier that day and Molly kept quiet, letting
him unleash all his pent-up emotions. Held tightly in Molly’s arms, Lillibet gave a contented gurgle. Molly dreaded having the conversation she knew they must have – about the fate of baby Elizabeth. But she had to tell him sooner rather than later what her sister’s wishes had been.

‘Frank,’ Molly started tremulously, ‘a week or so before she … before she died, our June started talking about what would happen to the baby if she were gone. It was almost as if she knew, as if she’d had a premonition something was going to happen to her.’

Molly shuddered at the thought. Ever since June’s death, she’d thought endlessly of that conversation and wished she’d allowed June to talk about her fears properly rather than hurriedly dismissing them as morbid words.

‘She said that she wanted me to take Lillibet and bring her up as my own if anything were to happen to her. She told me so herself.’

Here was the cause of her anxiety and tension: her fear that Frank would insist that Lillibet was to be brought up by his mother. She was, after all, his child.

Molly couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she waited for the blow to fall. She could feel his breath against the exposed flesh of her neck as he leaned towards her, his hand a heavy weight on her arm. What was she going to do? How was she going to persuade him that he must leave Lillibet with her? It was only natural that he should want
his own mother to raise her but if she let him take Lillibet from her then she would be breaking her promise to June. And besides … Molly’s eyes blurred with more tears as she looked down into the face of her niece.

‘She’s all I’ve got left of June now.’

‘I know that, Molly, and I know too that June would want you to be Elizabeth Rose’s mother.’ Frank’s voice was quiet and calm, helping her to take a deep, steadying breath that banished some of her panic. ‘She always said you’d be a wonderful mother when you had your own. It’s just going to be a bit sooner than you thought,’ he smiled sadly.

‘But what about you, Frank?’ she managed to ask him. ‘What do you want? She is your daughter, after all.’ It was easier to be magnanimous now that he had acknowledged June’s wishes, but Molly feared Frank’s emotions were in turmoil and that he might change his mind when he regained control of them.

‘I want what’s best for Elizabeth Rose, Molly. Me mam is after me to let her mother her.’ Molly stiffened and held the baby more tightly. ‘And I don’t deny that she’s got the experience. After all, she brought me up single-handed from a young age, and wi’ her nursing on top o’ that.’

‘I do not want to say anything against your mam, Frank, but she and our June never hit it off and I won’t have Lillibet growing up not knowing anything about her mam, or even worse,
having it made out to her that she wasn’t a good mother.’

Frank made no comment. He knew that June had loved their daughter but he also knew from what his mother and Sally Walker had both told him earlier that morning that Elizabeth Rose was thriving in Molly’s care in a way she had not been doing in June’s.

‘It were that ruddy book that were the trouble, Frank,’ Sally had told him in private, not mincing her words. ‘You’d have thought it were the bloomin’ Bible from the way June carried on about it. But if you ask me, it weren’t doing poor little Lillibet any good – all that wakin’ her up when she wanted to sleep and then lettin’ her cry when she were hungry. I know your mam wants to take on looking after Lillibet, but if you was to ask my opinion I’d say straight off that Molly is doing a grand job. The little ’un knows Molly, Frank. Of course, she knows your mam as well, but – well, if I had bin June then I’d have wanted someone who loved me to be bringing up my baby and not a mother-in-law who didn’t.’ Sally had flushed bright red as she delivered this statement but she had still looked him in the eye, Frank remembered, and he had understood immediately what she was trying to say to him. His marriage to June might not have worked out as he had hoped – he had felt the last time he had been home as though he were an interloper in her life, whom she simply didn’t want to be there rather than a much-loved
and missed husband – but he couldn’t fault her choice in wanting Molly to bring up little Elizabeth Rose.

It hadn’t been easy, though, getting the opportunity to talk to Molly about it. The kitchen at number 78 always seemed to be full of neighbours. Either that, or Johnny was round visiting. The thought of Johnny and his evident desire to court Molly brought a small frown to Frank’s face. Johnny had let Molly down once. Frank felt very protective towards Molly. He wasn’t going to stand by while Johnny let Molly down a second time, especially if she was going to look after his daughter on a permanent basis.

‘I don’t have any quarrel with what June wanted for Elizabeth Rose, Molly,’ he said to her gently, ‘but I’d like to think that you’ll remember that me mam is me mam and the little ’un’s granny.’

‘Of course I will. In fact, I was thinking of asking your mam if she would have Lillibet for me when I’m on duty – if you agree to me looking after her, that is. Mrs Wesley was saying that I could give up me voluntary work now, but I’d like to keep on with it if I can. I like to think I’m doing me bit …’

Frank gave Molly’s arm a firm squeeze. ‘From what I’ve bin hearing, you’ve done more than just your bit, Molly. I know for a fact there’s two little ’uns have good cause to thank you for saving their lives.’

‘Oh, that were nothing,’ Molly denied bashfully.
‘Can you hold her for a minute?’ she asked him, handing his daughter to him before kneeling down to rearrange the flowers on June’s grave.

‘Me and Dad will come here in the autumn and plant some bulbs like we did for Eddie.’ Her voice started to wobble. ‘Nearly two thousand killed, there were, during the May blitz, Frank, but when one of them’s your own sister …’ She stood up, her eyes bright with tears. ‘If only she hadn’t run out into the street like that. We tried to stop her … she were allus that scared of being in the shelter. I just wish …’ Molly’s bottom lip started to tremble. Shifting Elizabeth Rose into one arm, Frank reached out with his free hand and drew Molly close to him. He could smell the fresh sun-warmed scent of her hair as she cried against his shirt, her whole body trembling with her grief and loss.

‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ she wept. ‘Every morning I wake up and think she’s going to be there, and then I remember. It were bad enough losing Eddie, but losing our June as well …’

Frank’s own eyes glistened with tears as he held Molly as tightly and protectively as he was holding his own daughter. To anyone watching, they would have looked like a young husband and wife, united in grief but lucky to have each other for support. And, Frank reasoned, so they were.

‘I can’t believe you mean that, Frank. It’s me as should be bringing her up, not young Molly.’

Frank had a tender heart and he hated hurting
anyone, never mind his mother, but his mind was made up and he wasn’t going to change it.

‘It’s what June wanted.’ He ignored the grim look his mother was giving him. ‘And it’s what I want as well.’

‘Aye, well, you know my opinion of June.’

‘Yes, I do,’ he agreed, ‘but she were me wife. I’ll thank you not to speak ill of her now she’s dead, Mam. She thought the world of Elizabeth Rose and I couldn’t live wi’ meself if I went against her wishes in that regard. Besides,’ his face softened, ‘you only have to see Molly with the little ’un to know how much she loves her. While there’s a war on, I can’t be here and I need to know that Lillibet is safe and well. I trust Molly, Mam, and I know you do too.’

‘I’ll give you that,’ Doris agreed unwillingly. ‘I’ve nothing against Molly. She’s a good enough girl, and better than most, like I told you before you wed June. Of the two of them I’d rather it had been Molly you’d set your heart on. But have you thought about what would happen if Molly decided to get wed herself and have her own babies?’

Frank frowned and his mother pressed home her advantage.

‘Talk is that that Johnny is after courtin’ her. And what’s going to happen to our Elizabeth Rose if Molly were to marry him? That’s what I want to know. Molly might love Elizabeth Rose now like she’s her own, but it will be different when
she’s got kiddies of her own, you mark my words. And besides, you might want to remarry yourself one day.’

His mother’s words made him feel uncomfortable. ‘That’s enough of that, Mam. June’s not bin in her grave a month yet,’ he reminded her quietly, adding, ‘Me mind’s made up and I’m not going to change it.’

But the truth was that he was more disturbed than he wanted his mother to see at the thought of Molly marrying Johnny, and not just on Elizabeth Rose’s account either.

It was only natural that he should have protective feelings towards Molly, he told himself defensively later. But it still made him feel uncomfortable and guilty to admit just how strong those feelings actually were, and how clearly he could remember how it had felt to hold Molly in his arms, her body soft and warm against his own, in the graveyard. He was a straightforward, honest man, who had remained true to his marriage vows, even when June had denied him her bed and her comfort, but now suddenly and shockingly, to him at least, his body ached with need.

‘And I promise I’ll write to you and tell you everything that she’s doing,’ Molly assured Frank as she held Lillibet up to the open window of the train carriage so that he could kiss his daughter goodbye.

Frank had told her that she didn’t need to put herself out to see him off at the end of his leave, but she had insisted that she wanted to, and he had to fight to stop himself from kissing her more passionately than was seemly when she had lifted her face so innocently towards him.

Whatever had she been thinking of, practically begging Frank to kiss her like that, Molly fretted guiltily, trying to conceal her discomfort by fussing over Lillibet’s bonnet, and avoiding looking directly at him.

She wasn’t able to relax properly until the train finally started to pull out of the station and her face still felt hot with guilt and confusion when she put Lillibet back in her pram.

Tomorrow morning she would go and visit June’s grave and explain to her that she hadn’t intended any harm. It had just been a silly mistake, that was all.

‘And now we’re going to go home and I’m going to tell you a story about your mummy,’ she told the smiling baby.

Talking to Lillibet about June was a ritual she had begun within days of June’s death. It comforted her and she hoped it would keep June’s memory forever fresh in Lillibet’s little mind. It was all very well for others, like Frank’s mother, to urge her to let the baby forget about her mother, and she knew they meant their advice for the best, but she knew how she had clung to every memory she had had of her own mother and how she had
relished those extra memories June had shared with her.

Already she had carefully put away all the mementoes she could think of for Lillibet to have as she grew up and asked for them, even the Dr Truby King book.

She had felt guilty about putting that away instead of using it, Molly admitted, as she pushed the pram out into the warm sunshine. It was wrong of her to blame Dr Truby for the changes they had all seen in June, and to feel that he was partly responsible for her death, she knew. But she still hadn’t been able to overcome her own repugnance for the book. Now she comforted herself with the knowledge that she had never kept it a secret from June that her own belief was that the doctor wasn’t always right and that June should listen to her own instincts.

It was a lovely sunny day, and once she got home Molly lifted Lillibet out of the pram and put her down on a blanket on the small patch of grass in the back garden, watching her lovingly as she kicked and crowed, and then rolled over onto her back to play with her toes. Making sure she could see her from the window, Molly went inside to turn on the wireless and to gather together some darning that she had been putting off doing. She could sit on the step with it and work whilst she kept an eye on Lillibet. But her mind wasn’t really on her darning. Instead, it kept straying to Frank. It had felt so comfortable, somehow, going to the
station with him to see him off, just as though they were … Molly dropped her darning and sucked her thumb where she had stabbed it with her needle. That was what she got for letting such terrible thoughts into her head, she told herself guiltily. There was poor Frank, grieving over losing June, and she had gone and behaved so terribly.

Tears filled her eyes and she hung her head, whispering helplessly, ‘Oh, June …’

‘I’ve got sommat to tell you,’ Johnny announced excitedly. He had arrived at number 78 only minutes earlier, cutting across Molly’s proud urging that he look and see how well Lillibet was crawling.

‘What’s up?’ She gave in but her newly maternal gaze was tracking Lillibet’s progress towards the danger of the climbing rose smothering the wall. ‘No, sweetheart, don’t touch that.’ Smiling adoringly, she ran to scoop up her niece, blowing kisses into her tummy and making her giggle.

‘Put her down, Molly. I want to talk to you.’

She could hear the impatience in Johnny’s voice. ‘If I put her in her pram now she’ll only make a fuss,’ she told him, holding on to the baby. ‘What is it you wanted to tell me?’