Annie Groves - A Mother’s Blessing

June and Frank had been gone almost an hour when there was another knock at the door – the front door this time. Molly went to open it, her eyes widening with surprise when she saw Johnny standing there.

‘Thought I’d come and say goodbye to you proper, like, Molly,’ he told her boldly, winking at her, and then walking into the small hall without so much as a by-your-leave, pushing the door closed behind him. ‘Come here and give us a kiss.’ He grinned, making a grab for Molly as she backed away from him into the front parlour.

‘Johnny,’ Molly began in protest, but he ignored her as he took her hand, led her to the settee and sat her down, all the while kissing the side of her neck.

Frantically, she tried to push him away but he grabbed hold of her other hand.

‘We’re engaged now, remember,’ he told her, ‘so how about showing me how much you love me before I go? I’ve gorra ring for you, look, Molly,’ he added cajolingly. ‘Bought it off a chap in the pub.’

Delving into his pocket, he produced a gold ring set with a small red stone, which he pushed onto her finger.

The slightly sour smell of his beery breath was making Molly feel sick. She didn’t want to be engaged to him because she was afraid of the unwelcome intimacies being engaged would bring. His open hunger for her was too much, too soon, and it repelled rather than pleased her. But she didn’t know how to tell him how she felt, and could only submit mutely to his kiss, longing for it to be over.

When June first started walking out with Frank, Molly, who had already begun to have a secret girlish crush on him, had envied her elder sister, but now she acknowledged miserably that sighing over a tender kiss on the cinema screen was far nicer than actually having to endure being kissed. Did other girls feel like her, or was there something wrong with her, she wondered unhappily as she finally managed to wriggle away from him far enough to warn him breathlessly: ‘Our dad will be back soon, Johnny, and you know what he said.’ She only hoped that it was true. She felt horribly guilty about not wanting him to kiss her, but she was too conscious of the fact that he could be going off to war to be able to tell him that she didn’t want to be engaged to him.

‘How many of us did you say had to fit in here?’ Molly heard June demanding in disbelief as, along with the other women, they crowded into the Anderson shelter the men had spent the afternoon installing.

‘The lorra us from number 56 down,’ one of the men answered her, whilst the women exchanged concerned looks.

When the corrugated iron shelter had been sunk into the ground, the top had been covered with the earth that had been dug out.

‘It will seem more like home once you get some curtains hung in it,’ Brian, their neighbour from number 80, called out to his wife with a grin, whilst he winked at the other men.

‘Curtains? But there aren’t any windows …’ Mavis Leadbetter began, and then shook her head when the men burst out laughing. ‘Go on with you, you’re nothing but overgrown lads, the lot of you. No one would think there’s going to be a war on.’

‘Come on, love,’ her husband chivvied her. ‘It’s either laugh or cry.’

‘Aye, well, there’ll be a lorra crying done before we’re out of this,’ someone else chipped in.

‘We’ve gotta sort the inside of this out yet,’ Brian Leadbetter changed the subject firmly, ‘but at least we’ve made a start …’

‘Well, let’s hope that none of us gets caught short whilst we’re down here,’ Nellie Sinclair, who lived on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac, said pithily.

‘Don’t worry about that, Nellie.’ Molly and June’s Uncle Joe grinned. ‘I reckon the ARP lot won’t miss a couple of those buckets they’ve told us we need to have in case of a bomb dropping. Brian’s a fair joiner and it won’t tek him long to fit a nice polished seat on top of one of them for you.’

‘Go on with yer, you’ve gorra lorra cheek, you have. And we’ll have less of that mucky talk, if yer don’t mind.’ Nellie might be pretending to be shocked but Molly could see that she was laughing.

Uncle Joe was their father’s cousin, not his brother, but the girls had grown up calling him Uncle Joe and his wife Auntie Averil. Following their father’s example, Joe had moved into Chestnut Close shortly after he and Averil had married. He was a tall, well-built man, always ready with a smile and a joke, and much more outgoing than their own father, and so he had soon become a popular figure, not just in the close but also beyond it. He had a fine singing voice, and that, plus the fact that he could play the accordion, made him welcome at every local social event. Joe enjoyed a drink and a laugh, and he was a good father and husband as well as a kind-hearted uncle. He might tease June for being bossy, and make Molly blush with his saucy jokes, but Molly was always glad to see him. June might say disapprovingly that he had a bit of a reputation for being quick with a quip and even quicker with a silver-tongued compliment, but their father always defended him and said that there was no real harm in him.

As different as chalk and cheese was how people described the two men. Where the girls’ father was quiet and self-effacing, Joe was boisterous and ready to put himself forward. Where Albert Dearden liked nothing better than to spend his spare time working on his allotment, Joe preferred to go down to the pub for a beer.

‘What about your mam, Frank?’ Albert asked a few minutes later as they all made their way home. ‘I could go round and give a bit of a hand getting her shelter sorted out.’

‘Thanks, Mr Dearden, but it’s all sorted. She’s to share with next door, and me and Fred Nuttall got it in this afternoon.’

‘Well, don’t you go worrying about her whilst you’re away, Frank. I’ll keep an eye on her.’

‘I’d be obliged if you would, Mr Dearden. It’s going to be hard for her, being on her own …’

‘What about me? It’s going to be hard for me as well, worrying about you,’ June put in crossly. ‘You don’t want to be spoiling your mam too much, Frank.’

‘Leave him alone, lass. Of course he’s worried about her. If she needs a hand putting up them blackout curtains, Frank, you tell her that she’s only got to say,’ her father responded sharply.

‘Never mind that. You remember to find out when you can have some leave, Frank, so that I can tell the vicar.’

‘Ronnie Walker was saying that on account of me being a qualified electrician they might put me into the Royal Engineers.’

‘Aye, and if’n you’d thought of it in time and got yourself a job with the electric company you’d have been in a reserved occupation,’ June reminded him tartly.

Unlike their father, and most of the other men in the cul-de-sac, Frank had been lucky enough to get a proper trade apprenticeship – thanks to his skill and his mother’s determination. And that was yet another reason why Mrs Brookes felt that June wasn’t good enough for her Frank, Molly suspected.

‘Now that’s enough of that, June,’ Frank rebuked her gently, adding too quietly to be overheard, ‘I want to do me bit, and I wouldn’t want anyone thinking any different. Especially not folk like your dad.’

A couple of the women with young children were gathering them up and Molly went to help them.

‘No way am I letting mine be evacuated,’ Pearl Lawson was saying vehemently.

The Government had sent out notices earlier in the year advising people of their plans to evacuate city children out of danger in the event of war, sending them to live in the country along with their teachers, who would make sure that they continued to have their lessons. Pregnant women and mothers with babies were also included in the evacuation plans, but the mothers of Chestnut Close, like many mothers up and down the country, were divided in their feelings about the planned evacuation. Some accepted that it was a necessary decision if their children were to be kept safe but others were openly hostile to it.