‘Surely there won’t be so many,’ she whispered.
Her father’s mouth twisted. ‘This is nowt to them as died last time.’ His haunted expression aged his face. He had never told his daughters of the horrors he had witnessed in the trenches of France: of how he’d had to drink filthy, muddy water just to stay alive; of how he’d had to strip a dead soldier of his ammunition while he was still warm; of how he’d seen his best friend blown to pieces right beside him. ‘A load of cardboard coffins we had shipped in on one of t’trains this week. There was talk as how the ice rink is going to be used as a morgue, if’n Hitler drops his bombs on us. Lorra rubbish. If’n he does it won’t be whole bodies as they’ll be buryin’.’
Molly shivered, her eyes widening in fear. ‘Don’t talk like that, Dad,’ she begged him.
When he looked at her Molly realised that he had momentarily forgotten her and that he had been back in the past and his dreadful experiences of the last war. He squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head, just like he had done when she was a child and had fallen over and scraped her knee.
‘Don’t you worry, love. With lads like Frank and Johnny to look out for us, we’ll be just fine,’ he assured her, although in his heart he felt mounting anxiety.
Sombrely the three of them made their way along the familiar footpath until they came to Rosie’s grave. For once, even June was silent. The grave was marked with just a simple headstone, but at least she was with those she had loved and who had loved her, and as a child Molly had taken comfort from that knowledge.
One by one they kneeled down and offered up their flowers and their prayers. Molly could see that their father was trying not to cry.
Afterwards, though, when they made their way home, it was the sight of that empty land waiting to receive the bodies of those who were still alive that occupied Molly’s thoughts and tore at her heart. For the first time she knew properly what it was to be afraid of war and death. So many graves; so many people who were going to die. She looked at her father and her sister, anguish inside her. It wasn’t just the men abroad. What if one of them …?
She could taste dust in the August heat when they got off the bus and walked up the cul-de-sac.
‘I thought we’d make a start on turning out the attic tonight,’ she heard June telling her once they were back home, briskly back to business.
Numbly Molly looked at her.
‘What’s up with you?’ June asked her.
‘All those graves, June, so many of them …’ Molly’s voice shook.
Immediately June’s expression softened. ‘Aye … I thought like that meself when I knew that my Frank would be joining up, but we’ve got to keep our chins up, Molly. Don’t you worry about Johnny – he’s a tough one.’
The two sisters looked at one another, both fighting against tears. Molly felt guilty that she was not thinking of Johnny but of every man fighting.
The door opened to admit their father, who had been upstairs to remove his collar. His shoulders were bowed, his expression drawn and sad.
Giving Molly a warning look, June said briskly, ‘I expect you’ll be off down the allotment, won’t you, Dad, after you’ve checked on them blummin’ chickens of yours. All over the kitchen, they are.’
June was so strong, Molly thought admiringly, as she watched their father respond visibly to her goading.
The chickens had escaped from their box and greeted their owners’ return home with excited cheeps as they hopped and jumped all over the place. Their antics broke the sombre mood, and Molly couldn’t help but laugh at them as she gave them their feed.
‘Come on,’ June instructed Molly, once their father had gone out. ‘We’d better go up and make a start on that ruddy attic. Otherwise we’ll be having that fusspot Alf Davies round.’
Molly nodded her head, determinedly putting her earlier despair firmly behind her.
‘I could do with getting meself some new stockings before tonight, seeing as how Irene’s set us all up to go dancing at the Grafton,’ June commented. She and Molly clambered into the loft space and stood looking at the dusty boxes, illuminated by the bare bulb. ‘Gawd, look at all this stuff! Just how long is it since we last came up here? We’ll never get it all sorted out.’
But Molly wasn’t listening. Instead, she was on her knees, examining the contents of a box she had found behind the pile of cardboard boxes stacked one on top of the other, labelled ‘Christmas Decorations’.
‘June, come and look at this,’ she begged her sister. ‘This box has got all my exercise books from Neville Road Junior School, right back to me first year, in Miss Brown’s class, and here’s yours next to it.’
Molly could feel tears prickling her eyes as she saw the careful way their father had written their names on the boxes.
‘Well, they can’t stay up here. Everything that might catch fire has got to be got rid of – that’s what the Government has said – and any glass taped up or removed in case we get hit by a bomb. Mind you, Jerry would have to be daft to be bombing us instead of aiming for the docks,’ June added prosaically.
Reluctantly abandoning her school books, Molly started to help her sister go through the other boxes.
An hour later, Molly sat back on her heels and pushed her hair off her hot forehead with a dusty hand.
‘We’re nearly done,’ June told her. ‘There’s just this box here that some fool has wedged right at the back.’ Panting, she tugged it free, and then started to open it. ‘Gawd knows what’s in it … Oh …’
As June’s voice changed and she suddenly went still, Molly stopped what she was doing and crawled over to her side, demanding, ‘June, what is it?’ And then her own eyes widened as she saw the crumpled, slightly yellowing lace that June was holding close to her cheek.
‘It’s Mam’s wedding dress,’ June said to her in a small choked voice.
The two sisters looked at one another. There were tears in June’s eyes and Molly’s own gaze was blurred with the same emotion.
‘Let’s take it downstairs so that we can look at it properly,’ she suggested quietly.
As carefully and reverently as if they were carrying the body of their mother herself, between them they took the dress down to the bedroom they shared and then slowly unpacked it.
‘Look how tiny her waist was,’ Molly whispered, as she smoothed the lace gently with her fingertips. The dress smelled of mothballs and dust, but also of their mother – the scent of lily of the valley, which she always used to wear.
‘Mam must have put it away up there when she and Dad moved here.’ June’s voice was husky, and Molly was startled at how much finding the dress had affected her normally so assured and controlled sister. It was at times like these that she realised June had a soft centre underneath her hard shell.
‘It’s too small for you to wear but maybe we could use some of the lace to trim your wedding dress,’ Molly suggested.
June smiled with shining eyes. ‘Oh, Molly, could we? I’d feel like I’d got Mum with me.’
‘Does this lipstick look all right with this frock?’ June demanded later that evening, as she scrutinised her appearance in the bedroom mirror. Molly, who had been applying pale pink lipstick to her own mouth, stopped what she was doing and put her head on one side to study her sister.
‘It looks fine,’ she assured her. ‘What time are we supposed to meet up with the others?’
‘Seven o’clock, outside the dance hall. Have you seen my shoes?’
‘They’re over there, by your bed,’ Molly