‘Aye, well, you don’t want to go getting on the wrong side of that Miss Jenner,’ Albert warned his elder daughter after she’d finished telling him with relish how she had outwitted the new supervisor. He knew June could be a firebrand at times.
Molly could see the worry in her father’s eyes and vowed silently to do what she could to keep June from baiting Miss Jenner. No one else would take on a machinist who had lost her job for cheeking a superior.
Once the meal was over and everything cleared away, and their father had set off for his allotment, Molly ran upstairs to comb her hair. She knew she couldn’t put off the visit any longer.
Johnny’s mother and sisters lived three streets away from Chestnut Close, down a narrow backstreet. Its double row of small terraced houses were of poor quality. Unlike the houses on the close, those of Moreton Street did not have gardens or indoor bathrooms, but had to make do with small dank back yards and outside privies.
Two tow-headed little boys, playing in the dusty street, stopped their game to watch Molly until a young very pregnant woman, with untidy hair and wearing a grubby apron, called out to them to get themselves inside.
Moreton Street had a slightly rank smell, and Molly tried not to wrinkle her nose at it. On the cul-de-sac, they had the benefit of more modern housing, the allotments, with their smell of fresh earth and air, and even the scent of roses from some front gardens. Not that some of the residents of Moreton Street didn’t make an effort. Several of the houses had freshly donkey-stoned steps and clean windows with neat curtains hanging in them, but unfortunately Johnny’s mother’s house wasn’t one of them.
Molly climbed the steps and knocked on the shabby door.
She could hear sounds of people talking inside the house, but it seemed an age before the door was finally opened to reveal the elder of Johnny’s younger sisters, Deirdre, her hair in curling rags, and a grubby brassiere strap visible as she clutched at the front of her dressing gown.
‘’Ere, Mam, it’s our Johnny’s fiancée,’ she called back to the darkness of the cluttered hallway.
Molly’s tender heart couldn’t help but pity Johnny’s mother, with her nervous air, her hands disfigured and reddened from her cleaning job at the hospital. It must have been so hard to bring up three children alone with only one wage coming in. It was no doubt because their mother had had to work such long hours cleaning that Johnny’s sisters were the way they were. The fact that their mother was out at work all day and most evenings meant that they had had far more freedom than most girls in the area, whose parents kept a much stricter eye on them.
‘Well, I never … we wasn’t expectin’ you, otherwise—’
‘Give over fussing, Mam,’ Deirdre objected. ‘If she’s gonna marry our Johnny she’s gorra get used to us the way we are, instead of expectin’ us to put on a lorra fancy airs.’
‘Deirdre, you pig, if you’ve bin using my rouge, I’ll skin yer alive.’ Heels clattered on the stairs, barely covered by a threadbare runner, as Johnny’s other sister, Jennifer, came downstairs, her hair carefully curled to emulate the style favoured by the film star Jean Harlow, her flimsy short skirt all but showing off her knees.
‘’Ere, Mam, me hem’s coming down. Have you gorra safety pin, so I can pin it? Only me other one needs a wash, and I ain’t got nuttin’ else to wear, like.’
‘Perhaps it might be better to sew it,’ Molly couldn’t help suggesting.
‘Give over,’ Jennifer laughed, giving a dismissive shrug. ‘I ain’t gor any time for that. I’ve gorra meet me new fella in ten minutes and I don’t want no other girl pinchin’ him from us ’cos I’m late. Gizz us a woodie, will yer, Deirdre?’ she demanded. ‘I’m gasping for a fag.’
‘You’re gonna have to cut that out if we’re going to have a war,’ her mother warned her. ‘Fags’ll be on the ration as well, you mark my words.’
‘Then I’m just gonna have to find a fella to get them for me, aren’t I?’ Jennifer told her, blowing out a cloud of smoke that made Molly’s eyes smart, before asking, ‘So what’s brought you round here then, Molly?’
‘I was just wondering if your mam needed any help with her blackout curtains.’
‘Blackout curtains – just listen to ’er,’ Jennifer laughed. ‘We ain’t gonna be wasting our time messin’ around with nuttin’ like that; brown paper and sticky tape is all we’re gonna be doin’. Bloody hell, Deirdre, have youse been pinching my scent again?’ she demanded, sniffing the air as Deirdre attempted to walk past her.
‘So wot if I have, an’ all?’ Deirdre responded sulkily. ‘You took me last pair of nylons, didn’t yer?’
‘Hurry up and get yerself ready if yer coming down the dance hall wi’ me ’cos I ain’t gonna be waitin’ for yer. Yer want ter come with us, Molly? … Catch me tying meself to one fella like you have with our Johnny … Why don’t yer come wi’ us on Saturday?’ Jennifer asked.
‘It’s kind of you to ask, but me and June are going looking for some material for her wedding dress.’
‘Well, if it’s fabric you’re wantin’, there’s a shop off Bold Street as sells all the best-quality stuff right cheap, on account of it having fallen off a lorry, if yer takes me meaning,’ Jennifer added with a knowing wink.
Molly didn’t make any response. It was impossible to grow up in Liverpool and not know about the brisk black market that existed, with so many goods passing through the docks, but Molly didn’t want to get involved.
She could see through into the back room where the tea things were still on the table. The smell of cheap scent and stale chip fat was making her long to escape, but politeness kept her where she was.
‘They’re good girls really, my Deirdre and Jennifer,’ Johnny’s mother told Molly almost apologetically when both her daughters had gone to finish getting ready to go out, ‘but they’re young and they gorra ’ave a bit of fun, like. Mind you, I’m right glad our Johnny’s going to wed you, Molly. You’re gonna be good for him. Not like some as I could name as would only cause him a lorra trouble.’ Her mouth tightened slightly.
It was a relief to be back in her own home, Molly admitted half an hour later, as she and June worked companionably together. ‘At least we’ve got plenty of light to work in, what with this double daylight saving,’ Molly commented, as they sat on the back step, tacking together the curtains they had cut out, and listening to Max Miller on the wireless.
‘Here, was that the front door I just heard, our Molly?’
Molly put down her sewing and went to see.
Visitors didn’t call on weekdays, and neighbours and friends always came round to the back, so she hesitated for a moment when she saw the shadow of a man through the frosted glass of the inner front door.
‘ARP,’ he called out. ‘Come to mek sure you’ve got your government notice.’
‘You’d better come in,’ Molly told Alf Davies. He looked very official, with his clipboard and stern expression, but he accepted quickly enough when she offered him a cup of tea, and smiled approvingly when he saw that they were already busy making their blackout curtains.
‘Not that I know why we have to do all this stuff, mind,’ June challenged him. ‘Not when there isn’t even a war on yet.’
‘Rules is rules,’ he answered her importantly, puffing out his cheeks and then blowing on the cup of tea Molly had just given him. ‘Gas masks are going to be given out this Saturday at Melby Road Junior School, so mek sure that you go and collect yours. You’ll be given a demonstration of how to use it properly, like. Any children living here?’
Both girls shook their heads.
‘Now what about an Anderson shelter?’
‘We’re