‘Oh Len—’ Seeing him, the news suddenly felt unbearable. ‘What am I going to do without yer?’
He held her close. ‘If only we could get some time to ourselves,’ he said. ‘Just before you have to go. I can’t stand the thought of your leaving. Look—’ An idea seemed to come to him. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Whenever she knew they were about to leave a particular site, Molly usually started to feel very attached to it. Knowing that this was their last day but one on the gun site in Clacton brought a sweet preciousness to the work, the place and people. Suddenly she felt very fond of the seaside town on the sweeping east coast, and the ramshackle old house they were staying in. She even gave Ruth a cheerful smile as she saw her go past to spot for another battery. Everything was bathed in the awareness that she was about to lose it and start anew yet again somewhere else.
She worked hard all day, trying not to think about Len, or the horrible unease which filled her whenever she remembered Sheila’s letter. Every so often, Len’s besotted face would float into her memory, and then the sight of him looking worried and dejected, and she was filled with confusion.
When he met her that evening, though, he looked very cheerful.
‘If this is our last proper evening, let’s make the most of it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go out on the town, shall we?’
They headed out into Clacton and found a pub popular with service people. It was full to the gunwales and very smoky and noisy, with someone on a penny whistle, songs and screams of laughter, and they had some drinks and joked and chatted with some of the others. After a time, Molly saw Jen come in with her bloke and they waved at each other.
A piano was playing and people were taking turns to get up and do a number. There was a raucous rendering of ‘Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats,’ and then a young, fresh-faced ATS sang ‘Somewhere in France with You’, and several others had tears in their eyes by the time she’d finished. Len looked at her admiringly.
‘Are you going to get up and sing?’ he asked.
‘Not likely!’ Molly said. ‘I can’t sing to save my life – least I don’t think so.’ She realized that she was not sure if she was any good at singing or not.
‘Bet you can – you’ve got a good strong voice on you. Why don’t you give it a go?’
‘Don’t be silly!’ She was blushing now. ‘I’m not getting up there, singing. Why don’t you sing?’
‘I’ve sung before – in church, when I was young.’
‘Have yer? What did you sing?’
‘Well, hymns of course. They got me to sing on my own sometimes. I was quite good then – course when my voice broke it all changed.’
Molly stared at him. It was another of those moments when a gulf opened up between them. What did she really know about Len? Her awful feeling of discomfort increased.
‘My uncle’s a lay preacher, so we go to his church – used to anyway, but then he died.’
‘Oh,’ Molly said. ‘That’s nice.’ She had no idea what a lay preacher was. For the first time in a long while, she was suddenly filled with the urge to get blindingly drunk.
‘Come on—’ Len leaned close to her ear. ‘Let’s go – I want you to myself.’
She followed him from the pub into the darkness and the pub’s racket receded behind them. A gaggle of soldiers were talking and laughing across the street and other couples, some having to prop each other up, were meandering along the pavement. The sound came of someone being sick somewhere out of sight.
‘Charming,’ Len said. ‘There’s no need for that, is there?’
‘No,’ Molly said, glad he could not see into her memory of the times when she had been in much the same state, if not worse.
‘Let’s go and look over the sea. There’s enough moon to see a bit.’
He took her arm, holding her close, as if she was very precious. She sensed an excitement in him, whereas she was full of a sense of things not being real, as if she was distant from everything, or in a dream. The faint sound of laughter floated from somewhere.
The moon gave just enough light to make out the edge of the land, where the black sea began. Despite the buffets of moist wind, the sea itself was fairly calm and silent below them. It was just possible to make out where the pier extended out over the water.
‘You’ll still be looking out at the same water, where you’re going,’ Len said, as they stood side by side, looking out.
‘Yes, I s’pose I will,’ Molly said.
Len leaned round and kissed her on the lips, then stayed close, looking into her eyes in the gloom. ‘God, I wish you weren’t leaving. My lovely girl.’
These words pierced through Molly. Lovely girl! If only he knew. The sense of conflict began to grow in her again.
‘Have you told your mother and father about me?’ he asked fondly.
‘My dad’s dead.’
It came out abruptly.
‘What, and you never told me? How long ago did he die?’
She could hardly tell him the truth, that it had been just two months ago, since she’d never mentioned it before now.
‘Some time back,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t very well for a long time. It was the war, and that.’
‘You poor girl . . .’ He turned and took her in his arms, holding her close, as if deciding on something. Then, drawing back a little, he looked down at her.
‘We must meet each other’s folks. Look, I’ve been thinking a lot over the past day or two. Molly – I need to get things straight, to ask you something . . .’
Her heart thumped. What did he want to know? God, he barely knew anything about her, and what about when he found out! Imagine Len coming to Birmingham and meeting Iris and Bert, seeing where she came from, after all she’d heard about his wholesome farming life! She knew that was why he was attracted to her, because she was different, pretty and lippy, and drew men like bees. She knew that besotted look in his eyes. She’d seen it so many times before. But what about her real life and family? How would he ever come to terms with that? Why on earth hadn’t she told him they were all dead while she was at it? She couldn’t gather her wits enough to say anything, so she stood waiting.
‘What I’d like to ask, Molly’ – he was down on one knee suddenly, so that she was looking into his pale, upturned face – ‘is if you’d agree to be my wife.’
Molly stood as if turned to stone. She was filled with complete panic at this reality which had crashed over her, at all it meant. There would be his family to deal with, let alone hers: his would be disappointed that he had chosen this common woman over Sheila, who they’d known since girlhood. Imagine what the wedding would be like! Then there’d be bedrooms where he would expect, even demand, her to give herself to him. But she barely knew him at all! She could never marry him! How could she have even thought it might be possible – her with her drunken mother and the filthy specimens of men she had had around her all her life? And though she longed for it, she just
could not
give herself like that, couldn’t tie herself to him, fond of him as she was.
‘Molly?’ He stood up again, trying to interpret her silence. ‘I know it’s a bit sudden, but with you going away – and we know we want each other, don’t we? Just say you’ll be my wife. After all, I’ve let Sheila go – I need to know you’ll be there, that my wife is waiting for me somewhere.’
Words seemed to choke her. It would be so much easier just to do what he wanted and say yes. But in seconds, the whole idea of her being with him, marrying him, had become preposterous. The fantasy dissolved. What the hell had she been thinking of?
‘I can’t,’ she said faintly.
‘Molly?’
‘This is all a mistake.’ She backed away from him until she almost toppled over the low wall of the promenade. ‘Oh Len – don’t ask me. Not me. I’m not right for you, I’m not right for anybody!’
‘What are you talking about?’ He sounded lost and utterly baffled.
‘I just—’ She struggled to find words, holding out her hands to fend him off as he tried to embrace her again. ‘I don’t know what I‘ve been doing, making you think I could marry you. I’m all wrong. You mustn’t think you can marry me. I’m no good for you.’
Len came close. ‘What the hell’re you going on about? I love you, girl – I can’t think about anything else. God, if it wasn’t so wrong I’d take you here and now, I want you so much. I’ve given up Sheila for you – my mother and father are furious with me. That’s how much I love you. You can’t pull out on me now!’
‘You don’t want me,’ Molly said, speaking low and seriously, trying to get through to him. ‘You want to have me,
like that
, you want to take me to bed. Men always do. But you don’t want
me
– you don’t know anything about me, Len.’
‘Well tell me then!’ he pleaded. ‘I want to know everything about you. But when I ask you, you change the subject. I want to know about your family and your home and, and everything!’
‘Len – just believe me. I’m no good.’ She was firm now, hard as steel. ‘You’ll thank me for this one day . . .’
‘Don’t say that!’ He was distraught. ‘Molly, what’s happened to you?’
‘You will. You don’t want to get tangled up with me. I’m not much good and my family are terrible. I don’t want you to know about them, that’s why I’ve never said. Look, love’ – she laid a hand on his shoulder – ‘just forget about me. Go back and tell Sheila you’re going to marry her. That’s what’s right. She loves you – no one’d write a letter as nice as she did if she didn’t. I wouldn’t have done, I can tell yer! Go and say sorry, send her a wire – tell her it was all a mistake.’
He was breaking down, almost weeping now. ‘How can you? How could you make me go through all that and then say all these things to me, and turn me down?’
‘I thought I could do it,’ she said. ‘I thought I loved you. But I can’t – and I don’t.’
Her heart felt squeezed too tight, and she longed to cry and tell him not to leave her, to be with her for ever. But above all there was the relief, the sense of escape. She’d never live as a farmer’s wife in a quaint country house with hens pecking across the yard. Deep down she’d always known that, that somehow it would always have been spoilt and it would always have been her fault. But if she’d said any of that to him she knew he would never understand.
‘Go on, Len. It’s the right thing. Go back, without me. It’s been a nice time – but I don’t want yer.’
He stood, stunned. Then his face turned ugly. ‘You stupid
bitch
,’ he snarled. ‘You stupid, spiteful bitch – you’ve messed up everything for me. Everything . . .’ He was outraged, lost for words.
‘Go and put it right then.’ She turned from him. ‘And, Len – thanks for the good times.’
And she walked away.
‘Molly! You can’t just go – not after all this!’ She thought he would follow, but she knew, from the way she had spoken, that he had heard that she meant it.
She left him, and moved quickly back to the pub where they had been earlier. By the time she went to bed she wanted to be so drunk that she wouldn’t remember anything, or think of anything. Most of all, she didn’t want to think of the cold, harsh truth she had discovered in herself: that it would have been the same, in the end, with Tony. That it would be the same with anyone.
New Year’s Eve 1943
‘So come on, Ernie – what’re you going to play for us now?’
Dot’s sister-in-law, Margarita, a glass of spicy wine in her hand, leaned over and playfully prodded her husband, who was sitting with his accordion across his knees. Ernie turned from sharing a joke with Lou.
‘Woman, give me a rest! She’s a slave driver!’ he appealed to the rest of the room.
They were all crowded into Dot and Lou’s cosy front room, a little get-together for New Year’s Eve. Em had gone along with Cynthia and Bob, pushing Robbie through the dark streets in his pushchair, and Joyce and Violet had come too. Sam was out with his girlfriend, Connie. Margarita, Lou’s sister, a vivacious woman with her long waves of bouncing chestnut hair, was there with Ernie and their grown-up daughter Carolina, whose husband was away in the army. There was Lou’s youngest daughter, Clara, and her husband and baby, and two of their elderly neighbours who had been asked to join in the party as well.
‘Oh come on, love!’ Margarita insisted. ‘What’s the use of you having the squeeze box here if you won’t play it?’
‘Give us “Auld Lang Syne”!’ Cynthia called to him.
‘It’s not time for that,’ Ernie protested. ‘That’s for midnight. It’s tradition!’
‘Well summat then – anything,’ Dot insisted.
‘Come on, Uncle Ernie,’ Clara urged as well.
Ernie, a jolly, round-faced man, took a resigned swig from his glass and set it on the floor by his chair. ‘All right then . . .’
He pressed the accordion into a happy jig and immediately everyone’s feet were tapping. Em looked round at the faces, pink with drink and the warmth of the room. The two elderly ladies were clearly enjoying the company and music. Cynthia and Bob looked relaxed and Em was happy to see her mom giggling at jokes with Dot. The pair of them were like two girls without a care in the world, and Nancy and Joyce were doing much the same on the floor in the corner. Dot was obviously so happy with Lou, who was a lovely, cheerful man with a big heart like Dot’s own, always with room for others in their lives who might need help or a bit of kindness. Clara, who looked very like him with her big, dark eyes, was smiling, watching Ernie’s dancing fingers. Violet was parked at Em’s feet, a bit left out, so resorted to playing with Robbie as there was no one else her age. But as soon as Ernie had started playing again, Robbie broke away from Violet and toddled straight to him, staring with his mouth open, absolutely rapt. The instrument itself was a lovely thing, creamy mother-of-pearl, and Robbie had been allowed earlier to try pressing the keys while Ernie pumped it to make a sound. Now, hearing the music again, Robbie’s eyes stretched wide and he was bouncing and flexing to the music. He had done the same thing every time Ernie played and they all laughed.