It was hard to believe that over two months had gone by since she’d been to
Cornwall. Since the seismic shift in the universe that had turned her from a
girl into a woman.
Maddie had weaned herself off staring at his photograph every day now,
like a dewy-eyed teenager. She was rationing herself to once a week, taking
out the photograph from beneath her mattress. She didn’t want to become
too reliant on it. On something that could never be.
Where is he now? she wondered. Still free? She pictured him roaming
the countryside. Sleeping in hedgerows. Stealing food. He would survive,
she told herself. He had practical skills. Except for catching fish, of course.
She smiled, remembering.
Today had been a lazy, relaxing day. She and Molly were on a 48-hour
pass, going up west to see a variety show at the Nuffield Centre in Wardour
Street tonight. Billy Cotton was there with his band and comedian Arthur
Askey was also on the bill. Molly had been keen to go, for she loved all the
silly Askey songs and would be belting them out along with the comic.
Maddie had grown used to the looks from some people when her friend
enthusiastically exercised her vocal cords. Stuffed shirts, Moll called them.
‘Wouldn’t know a good time if it bit them on the arse.’ You only get one
shot at life, her friend believed, so why waste it being timid, or too
embarrassed to enjoy yourself?
Maddie admired that sort of courage and the energy and exuberance that
went with it.
‘Something I need to tell you,’ said Molly as she tried to marshal her
bouncy blonde hair under her uniform cap.
‘That sounds serious,’ said Maddie, suddenly worried. ‘You’re not…?’
‘What? In the club, you mean?’ Her friend laughed. ‘I ain’t that daft.
Me ma’s had six of us squalling, troublesome, snot-nose kids. That ain’t no
life.’
‘Couldn’t be easy for her,’ said Maddie.
‘Good Catholic woman! Keep them kids coming, says the priest. Mind,
he wouldn’t say that if it was him had to pop them out and look after them.’
‘No, so…?’
‘I ain’t falling, not if I can help it. What, give some bloke his jollies and
then he leaves you with a kid?’
‘Put like that,’ agreed Maddie, ‘it doesn’t seem fair.’
‘Too right it ain’t fair, and until blokes start looking after the kids same
as us, I ain’t that keen on popping one out,’ said Molly with a snort.
‘So, what’s this news of yours, Moll?’
‘Tell you later, when we’ve had some grub and a laugh at the Nuffield.
God bless the geezer.’
‘Eh?’
‘Lord Nuffield. Weren’t for him giving all us squaddies free tickets, we
couldn’t afford to go up west like the toffs. Not to mention the free STs
the bloke’s a gem.’
‘Seems like it,’ said Maddie.
‘Yeah, I reckon every ATS girl in the country sings his praises when
they get their monthlies and don’t have to fork out cash for sanitary towels.
Man’s a decent bloke for a toff.’
Maddie had always thought it odd that they were issued with ‘free
feminine sanitary products’, as the ATS delicately called them. And all at
the expense of Lord Nuffield, who had a real soft spot for the services, men
and women alike.
‘Talking ’bout which,’ said Molly. ‘I’ll take one with me tonight, just in
case. Don’t pay to be caught out, and my “friend” is waiting in the wings.
Should come on any day now.’
Maddie thought about her mother and how she would have reached for
the smelling salts if her daughter had talked as openly as Molly did about
women’s periods while the subject of sex had never, EVER been brought up
in the Brady household.
She sometimes wondered how her mother and father had ever managed
to produce a family at all. And the act of love? How would they have
navigated that? Would her mother have found it distasteful, like she did
most things? Maybe Phyllis Brady would have worn those long silk evening
gloves of hers. Bodies untouched by human hand.
And then something her friend had said struck a distant bell in the back
of Maddie’s mind.
Monthlies! When did she last have hers?
‘Righty-ho! Don’t stand there daydreaming, girl. We got a show to see
and only an hour to get there. Move your arse,’ said Molly.
The show was brilliant. Maddie laughed as much as her friend at Arthur
Askey’s impression of a bumble bee. He was a natural clown. And the man
seemed able to tap into people’s need to throw off the sadness of war, to
forget it all if only for an hour.
Molly didn’t disappoint, joining in Askey’s rendition of ‘Kiss Me
Goodnight Sergeant Major’ with a raucous version of her own. A full
blooded contralto that made several heads turn.
By the time Billy Cotton’s band came on, Molly was well into her
stride, her voice nicely warmed up, ready for a memorable attempt at
‘Somebody Stole My Gal’. But by then, there seemed nothing unusual to
draw scathing looks from other concert goers, for Molly had worked her
miracle of getting others to sing along unabashed.
That included Maddie, who fearlessly joined in for the final song. She
didn’t have the musical rigour or quality in her voice that Molly did but
made up for it with enthusiasm. And soon she was grinning away, like lots
of the other servicemen and women in the hall, as it rang to the sounds of a
song about a fish. Perhaps the silliest, but happiest, song ever written.
It had been a night to remember, and Maddie’s face was flushed with
excitement, not to mention the gin that her friend had pressed on her. It was
a celebration, Molly had insisted, and they had to mark it with at least one
drink.
She wasn’t sure exactly what the celebration was, but that didn’t seem
to matter as they both marched along in the blackout, arm in arm, giggling
like schoolgirls and singing ‘The Happy Wanderer’. It wasn’t until they’d
arrived at the YMCA, where they’d booked in for the night, that the
evening took a more serious turn. Slipped from happiness into misery.
‘This news of yours,’ said Maddie. ‘Is that what we’re celebrating?’
‘I’ve got a new posting, Madds. They’re sending me to Camberley.’
In an instant, everything changed. And Maddie wished she’d never
asked; that she could turn the clock back, just for a second. Back to the
happy little bubble that had enclosed her and her best friend. A friend who
was about to abandon her.
‘You’re being posted somewhere else? And you’ve known about this for
a week already?’
‘Been working up to tell you,’ said Molly sheepishly. ‘It ain’t easy. We
been friends a long time, Madds. But you know the army – they don’t give
no mind to friends, you go where you’re sent.’
‘But a posting like that, out of the blue,’ said Maddie, confused. ‘They
don’t suddenly retrain you as a motorcycle messenger. Not when you’re
doing useful work somewhere else. And you’ve always wanted to ride a
motorbike. You did this, didn’t you?’ she accused. ‘You asked for the
bloody posting!’
‘It’s the army,’ Molly repeated, miserably. ‘And it’s a promotion, too!
Don’t get angry, not when I only got a week left. And we can still meet up.
Camberley ain’t that far. Please, Madds,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t be angry, just
be happy for me, eh?’
And of course, her friend was right. It would be selfish to wreck a
friendship like theirs over something so stupid. So they made up, because
life was just too uncertain and could be short, especially in the middle of a
war when bombs were dropping, and staying alive seemed as random as a
lottery.
The next day, they went their separate ways: Maddie back to Hammersmith
to spend the last day of her pass doing mending and listening to the
wireless, while Molly had decided to visit her family over in Hackney.
And it wasn’t until three days later, when Molly had already been
declared AWOL, that the news finally came out. It was the war,
communications got screwed up, people went missing. But Maddie knew
her friend would never have gone absent without leave, especially when she
was so excited about the new posting and the promotion to lance corporal
that had gone with it.
Molly Peters had slept over at her ma’s house in Richmond Road, a
house that backed onto the railway line. The East End had always been a
favourite target for German bombers; the docks, railway lines, they were
fair game it seemed. Bad luck some of the ATS girls in Hammersmith had
whispered. A direct hit. Even an Anderson shelter wouldn’t have helped,
but then no one had dug one at the house in Hackney.
In one dark, miserable, earth-shattering moment, Maddie Brady lost her
best friend. And she knew her pain was small compared to that of Petty
Officer Norman Peters, Molly’s father. When he returned home from sea,
he’d find his house missing and his wife dead, along with all six of his
children.
