Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ Tom,’ Molly said, taking comfort from her uncle’s arms around her. ‘It is being realistic.’

      Tom, who now knew Molly well, was aware she was very near breaking point, and though he could hardly blame her, it wouldn’t help for her to go to pieces now. He released her and said, ‘Come on now. You have to stay strong for young Kevin. If you are right – and I hope and pray that you are not – then how must he be feeling?’

      Molly straightened her shoulders and wiped her eyes, for her uncle was right and if some second terrible tragedy meant that they were left alone in the world, then it was down to her, because she was eighteen, almost an adult, and old enough now to see to her brother. As soon as she reached Birmingham, she intended to seek him out.

      Tom saw with relief that Molly had recovered herself and said, ‘You will write? Even if you have no permanent address for me to write back to, let me know you are all right. Nellie will hold any letters you send me?’

      ‘I will be glad to write to you,’ Molly said. She stood on tiptoe and kissed her uncle on the cheek. ‘Thank you for your kindness to me over the years.’

      Tom’s face was flushed crimson with embarrassment and his voice gruff as he said, ‘Everything I did for you was a pleasure, and you may as well know that I will miss you greatly, more than I ever thought possible. But now you must go, for the train will not wait.’

      Tom watched Molly walk away until the darkness swallowed her up. Burned into his memory was the day many years before when Aggie had climbed out of the window to make for England and to the very city that Molly was making for. From the night he’d watched her climb into the cart at the top of the lane, he never saw or heard from her again and he knew he wouldn’t rest until he got a letter from Molly saying she was all right.

      Molly knew the train she would travel to Derry on would be a goods train really, but she would be comfortable enough in the passenger coach they attached to the end. When she booked her ticket, the stationmaster warned her the journey would be slow with plenty of stops, but this was the only convenient train. The other passenger trains didn’t go out until too late for Molly to catch the mail boat when it sailed with the tide at about ten to eight.

      That early winter’s morning, Molly entered the carriage with a sigh. She could hardly credit that she was here at last, on her way to Birmingham, and on this date, Tuesday, 19 November, more that five years after she had left it. Had she just been going home in the normal way she would have been in a fever of excitement, but the nagging knot of worry about the safety of her loved ones had crystallised into real alarm at the arrival of Kevin’s note and she wished the journey was over and she was safe at the other end.

      She stacked her case in the rack above her and sat back in the seat. Thanks to Nellie and Cathy’s generosity she was warmly and respectably clad for the journey. She had delighted in the feel of the soft underclothes against her skin and the brassiere that cupped her breasts so comfortably as she had dressed that morning, and she had chosen to wear the tartan skirt and the red jumper that Nellie and Cathy had insisted she had. The thick black stockings were her own, but the fine boots had once been Cathy’s and she smiled at her reflection in the mirror as she unplaited her hair and coiled it into a bun, which she fastened at the nape of her neck. It was the way Nellie wore her hair, and Molly knew that immediately she looked more grown up.

      It was a shame she thought that she had to cover her fine clothes with the old black coat, which was as drab and shapeless as ever, though even that looked better when teamed with the tam-o’-shanter and scarf that Tom had bought her that first Christmas.

      The journey was, as she had been warned, very stop and start, and so slow that sometimes she had an urge to get out and push. One half of her was in a fever of excitement to get to Birmingham, to find Kevin and bring him some measure of comfort, and yet the other half of her recoiled from the idea of what she might find.

      By the time the train had chugged its way into Derry, she felt as cold as ice and burdened down with sadness. The night was still dark as pitch on the train to the docks at Belfast, and though the sky had lightened a little by the time she was aboard the boat, it hardly affected Molly’s mood.

      The pearly dawn had just begun to steal across the sky when she stood on deck and watched the boat pull away from the shores of Ireland. She remembered doing the same thing in Liverpool when she vowed to return, and she also remembered the promise she had made to her little brother, which she was now going to keep.

      This time, although her stomach did churn a little, she was able to eat and keep down some of the food that Tom had packed for her, and she bought a cup of nice hot tea to wash it down, but it didn’t chase away the cold, dead feeling inside her, nor stop her imagining the tragic and devastating scenario waiting for her at the end of the journey. Many spoke to the young and very pretty girl travelling alone and looking so sorrowful, and although she was pleasant enough, she wasn’t up to a long, in-depth conversation with anyone. She wanted to keep herself focused on what she had to do once she reached Birmingham, because that helped keep the tears at bay and she had shed quite enough of those.

      Although the day was grey, overcast and bitterly cold, Molly was glad it was daylight when they reached Liverpool and she followed the other passengers as they made their way to the station. The train south had passed three stations with the names blacked out before she mentioned it to a fellow passenger.

      ‘It’s to confuse the enemy,’ the woman said. ‘You know, in case there are spies travelling about the country.’

      ‘But how do people manage if they didn’t know the area?’

      ‘Have to manage, and that’s that,’ the woman said. ‘I mean, my dear, don’t you know there is a war on? God, if I had had a pound every time someone said that to me since this whole shebang started, I would be a rich woman by now.’

      ‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘As if you couldn’t know. Even if a Martian landed I would say he would be aware of it, and in short order too. And the government treat us like imbeciles. I mean, look at that poster.’

      The train had drawn to a halt at another nameless station and Molly saw that on the wall was a poster showing a man and woman standing beside a train ticket office that looked closed and the poster asked, ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’

      ‘It’s because they want trains left to move the troops, my old man said,’ the first woman told Molly. ‘But I ask you, with this stop-start nature they have at the moment and the way trains never run on time, because “there is a war on”, you understand, if your journey wasn’t necessary, then I’m sure you would stop at home.’

      ‘This is all new to me,’ Molly said. ‘I was born in Birmingham but was taken to my grandmother’s in Ireland when my parents died five years ago.’

      ‘Ah,’ the first woman said, ‘how lucky to have one of your own willing to take you in, in such awful circumstances.’

      If only you knew, Molly thought, but didn’t give voice to it.

      ‘Why come back now?’ asked the second woman.

      Molly told them about her young brother staying with his grandfather and the absence of letters that prompted her to come and see for herself what had happened to them.

      ‘Well, I hope you find them both safe and sound,’ the first woman said. ‘But you will see Birmingham is very changed from the place you remember, and the two women regaled Molly with tales about the raids on Birmingham and the great swathes of the city laid waste, until the train drew up at a station they said was Crewe, СКАЧАТЬ