When the winter cold really started to bite Molly and Sally took it in turns to have a fire, both families sharing its warmth.
Winter. Sally shivered. No, she didn’t want to start thinking about that yet.
She looked at her sons. Tommy was a real live wire and had been early both to walk and talk. Harry had been crawling until he was nearly eighteen months and then had stood up and walked like he had been doing it for months. He still wasn’t saying much, though, and when he tried Tommy butted in and spoke for him.
‘Come on, you two, let’s get you out of your coats.’
She took Harry’s off first, because she knew that once Tommy had his off he’d be racing around and then she’d have a job trying to keep Harry from wanting to join him.
The coats were good sturdy Harris tweed, real bargains that Doris Brookes had heard about from someone at the hospital, who had heard that when one of the posh Liverpool boys’ private schools had evacuated its pupils it had left behind three trunks filled with only slightly worn second-hand clothes, and they were going to be sold off.
Doris hadn’t wasted any time; she had gone straight down to the school and had come back with two bags bursting with good-quality clothes. That had been early on in the war, and Sally acknowledged that both she and Molly had good reason to be grateful to Frank’s mother for her foresight. Tommy might complain that his long woollen socks made him itch, but what mattered more to Sally was that they had kept his legs warm all through two winters, and that with two pairs of them she was able to dry one out without him having to go without or wear damp socks.
At least Harry was nearly out of nappies now, she thought thankfully as she removed her younger son’s coat, and checked his well-padded behind. It had been a real blessing for her that she had fallen pregnant before war had been declared and that she had had the sense to buy in a really good supply of terrys from that stall on the market that used to sell off factory seconds. That stall, like all the others selling essentials at bargain prices, had long since vanished. Terry nappies were a rationed luxury these days.
Having removed the boys’ outdoor clothes, Sally left her sons playing on the floor, Tommy with a set of tin soldiers Frank had given him, and Harry with the wooden train that Ronnie had bought just after Tommy had been born. Toys, like everything else, were hard to come by and cherished by those fortunate enough to have them. The once bright paintwork of the wooden train had faded and was missing completely in places, but that didn’t seem to interfere with Harry’s enjoyment of it, Sally reflected, listening to him making choo choo noises as she made them their supper. Since Doris had given them their tea, they wouldn’t need much tonight, nor a bath either. Doris was a true good Samaritan and the best neighbour a young mother could have, and Sally just wished there was something she could do to show her appreciation.
‘Seeing these young ’uns grow up is all the thanks I want or need,’ Doris told her whenever Sally tried to thank her. ‘Your two are like my own to me, Sally, especially since I delivered both of them.’
As she stirred the soup she was heating, Sally heard an outraged roar. Harry! She turned round just in time to see Tommy trying to prise out of his fat baby hand the soldier he was clutching determinedly.
‘Let him have it, Tommy. He’s not doing any harm,’ she told her elder son tiredly.
‘It’s mine,’ Tommy glowered, still trying to retrieve it, then releasing his brother when Harry threw the solder inexpertly across the room.
Boys! Molly was so lucky. Lillibet was such a little doll and so good, but then little girls were so much easier, so people said, although Doris said that little boys were more loving. Every time she worried about her own two not having their dad around, Sally reminded herself of what a good job Doris had done bringing up her Frank single-handedly as a young widow. Frank was a lovely man. A good son and an even better husband and father. If Molly wasn’t so nice it would have been easy to envy her, what with her husband at home, and her family around her.
Sally’s own family had urged her to return to Manchester but she had her own reasons for staying where she was, and they weren’t reasons she could explain to them. Or to anyone. Her Ronnie had it bad enough being a POW without having to carry the burden of her betraying him and letting everyone know what was going on.
She stiffened as she heard a determined knock on the door. She knew who that would be! She had told him not to come round here, and he had agreed that he wouldn’t. But it was him, she just knew it.
‘Run!’
As a girl Sam had prided herself on being able to outrun her brother, but plainly that was not good enough for this man. Not content with issuing that command, he virtually yanked her to her feet, then grabbed hold of her hand, pulling her along with him as he ran down the street at breakneck speed.
‘Down… down…’ he yelled at her as soon as they rounded the corner into another street, pushing her down to the pavement and then following her, covering her body with his own.
Her heart was pounding – with exertion, not fear, she assured herself firmly. Her companion showed no awareness of the intimacy of his lying on top of her, and was instead studying his watch, whilst Sam held her breath, waiting for the bomb to explode.
‘Looks like the bugger isn’t going to blow after all.’
‘What?’ Sam stared up at him in disbelief. ‘You knew all along that nothing was going to happen, didn’t you?’ she accused him angrily. ‘I suppose you think it’s funny acting like that. Well, for your information I’ve got a good mind to report you,’ she told him wildly.
‘You report me? That’s a good one. You’re the one who ignored the warning signs and damn-near blew us and the whole street to bits. And if anyone is going to report anyone it will be me reporting you! That’s a two-thousand-pound bomb down there,’ he reminded her bluntly.
‘And you would know, of course,’ Sam snapped back smartly.
Instead of responding, he leaned slightly away from her and produced a torch from his pocket, which he shone up at his own shoulder. ‘See that?’
Something unpleasant and uncomfortable was gripping Sam’s stomach as she stared up at the unmistakable Bomb Disposal Unit insignia on his dust-streaked jacket. Numbly she nodded.
‘Know what it means?’
‘Bomb Disposal,’ Sam offered weakly.
‘That’s right, which by my reckoning makes it part of my job to be checking up on UXBs, and I’d just as soon be doing that without some bloody silly girl all but setting the ruddy thing off. Three days I’ve bin checking up on old Kurt there, waiting for the captain to give the order to move in and sort him out, and then you nearly go and blow us both to kingdom come when the ruddy street is closed off as plain as daylight.’
His torch was still on and whilst Sam listened to him with growing hostility she also registered that beneath the dirt he had the kind of raffish dark good looks that would send some members of her sex giddy with excitement. Some members of her sex, but not her. She was totally immune to dangerously handsome men with war-hardened bodies, who looked as though they knew far more about her sex than it was good for a girl to have them know. And besides, she could just bet that he was the kind who went for chocolate-box soft and pretty girls with curves and dimples.
‘So