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

‘I have just this,’ Molly said, withdrawing the locket, ‘though I would hate to part with it.’ She clicked it open and showed him the picture of her parents inside.

‘You wouldn’t get much for it either,’ Will said. ‘It’s gold they are after.’

‘There is nothing else,’ Molly said. ‘I had money, but Ray took it from me – to keep it safe, he said – and I never saw it again. But no, oh, wait,’ she cried suddenly, leaping to her feet with a cry of excitement and pounding up the stairs. ‘I wasn’t sure they would still be there,’ she said when she returned. ‘I had them in the pocket of the wrap I had on.’ She opened her hand to reveal the cufflinks.

‘Those are Collingsworth’s, and solid gold,’ Will said. ‘Where did you get them?’

Molly told him and he whistled in astonishment. ‘God, that was jammy. He hasn’t missed them. He was in no fit state to notice much that night, but even afterwards he’s not said anything. Point is, he owns so many pairs and yet he knows every one. You’ll get a pretty penny for these.’

‘D’you mean someone will buy them?’

‘To pawn them would be best.’

‘Pawn them?’ Molly said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I’ve heard of people pawning things but I have never done it myself. How does it work?’

‘The pawnbroker sort of buys things from you, but gives you a ticket that you can redeem to get the stuff back within a certain time, only you have to pay him more than he gave you. If you don’t redeem it, then he is at liberty to sell it.’

‘Well, we’ll do that then.’

‘Yeah, but not around here,’ Will said. ‘Collingsworth is too well known in these parts and all around the town. Need to go maybe as far as Sutton Coldfield to be safe.’

‘Oh, I know where that is,’ Molly said. ‘That won’t bother me.’

‘And I can’t be involved in this,’ Will said. ‘If ever these are recognised by someone I cannot risk them being traced back to me. With a bit of luck you might well be out of it by then, but we will all still be here.’

‘I know, Will,’ Molly said. ‘You have done more than enough and I would ask no more of you.’ She meant every word and yet she recoiled at the thought of entering a pawnbroker’s. But she knew if she was ever to leave Ruby’s and press on with what she had come to Birmingham for, she had to do it.

Will was still nervous about Molly going out and about, but knew that she really did need to register for a ration book and identity card because everyone did, and they couldn’t manage to feed her without one for much longer. Molly understood Will’s concern, and it wasn’t only Collingsworth she had to be careful of, but the neighbours too.

Early in the New Year, Molly and Ruby were up and out well before it was light, easy enough to do in those dark and dismal winter days, but both women were tired, for there had been a raid the night before and they had had to seek shelter in the cellar and so were feeling very jaded. As they scurried for the tram, Molly heard the frost crackling beneath her feet. The piercing wind cut through her like a knife, despite her good thick coat, and the air was so raw it almost hurt to breath.

And yet she knew the bleak weather conditions worked to their advantage because, in the inky blackness with her hat pulled well down and scarf wrapped around her mouth, Molly felt quite safe, especially as they met few people on the road and those they did were similarly clad. Everyone seemed to be in a rush to get some place too, and she couldn’t blame them one bit. She imagined they were too anxious to be about their own business and under cover as quickly as possible and had no time or inclination to worry about other people on the road. Certainly no one gave them a backward glance, and it was far too chilly for anyone to linger.

The swaying clanking and very draughty tram dropped them at Colmore Row, and as they walked up that wide road towards the Council House, Molly had great sympathy for the citizens of Birmingham. She could see in the gloomy half-light, the gaping holes, often filled with piles of masonry, charred roof beams, slates and other assorted debris where once buildings had stood.

Such indiscriminate and brutal destruction made her think again of her young brother and her grandfather, and she wondered what had happened to them. The tug of worry had never left her since her memory had returned, and she was frustrated that she was unable to try to find out anything and maybe be a measure of comfort to her young brother, She wondered too how long it would be before Will should decide that it was safe enough for her to leave. She knew she had to listen to him, though, and however worried she was about her family, she would never dream of defying Will and maybe putting his family in danger, though it was very hard to do nothing at all.

‘Now, remember you are my niece newly over from Ireland to help Betty with the baby,’ Ruby said.

Molly nodded because it was what had been decided the night before. But the official who listened to her explanation said, ‘Funny time to come, when the country is at war.’

‘That’s why,’ Molly said. ‘Betty is worried about coping with the baby in the raids and all.’

‘My daughter is living with me at the moment, you see,’ Ruby said, ‘but once the baby is born and she is returned to her own home, I am registering for war work and so Molly has come to give her a hand until she is properly on her feet again.’

‘And what do you intend to do then?’ the man asked Molly. ‘Will you return to Ireland?’

Molly shook her head. ‘I very much doubt it,’ she said. ‘I think I will look for a job here.’

The man seemed happy enough with that and he stamped the ration book and handed it over, saying as he did, ‘You have to register with a grocer, greengrocer and butcher to get your allotted rations. I suppose your aunt has explained all that to you already.’

Molly had been surprised when Ruby had said she was going to look for war-related work because she had not said a word about it to anyone, though Molly knew the country had a desperate need for women to enter the workplace. She asked her about it as they made their way home.

‘It’s not something I have just thought of,’ Ruby said. ‘It started when I read about the need for woman workers in the papers before Christmas. I mean, they even had vans with loudspeakers touring the areas, urging woman to do their bit. I know if my Harold had still been alive he would have encouraged me to go for it.’

‘Well, I think it’s wonderful,’ Molly said.

‘Point is, Molly, we have got to win this damned war,’ Ruby said. ‘There is no doubt about that, and so I would say it needs every man jack of us women that can to set to and not only free as many men as possible, but make sure they have the arms they need to fight effectively.’

Molly knew Ruby spoke the truth. ‘You are right. I only wish I could do something worthwhile.’

‘You need to have patience,’ Ruby said.

But Molly was worried because she knew she couldn’t stay with Ruby for ever. In fact, every day she stayed there she was jeopardising them all, but she hadn’t a plan in her head about how she was to support herself once she left the house.

The new year of 1941 was just over a week old when Collingsworth decided to redouble his efforts to find Molly. As he confided to Will, she couldn’t be dead.

‘If she was, her body would have fetched up somewhere by now.’

‘Not if she jumped in the canal.’

Collingsworth thought about this for a minute or two, then said, ‘No, all right, if she jumped in the canal her body might never be found, though with the traffic using the canals since the war began it might well be. But I ask you, why would she go to the trouble of escaping just to do herself in? It don’t make sense. No, I feel it in my bones that she is alive and well, and to be in that state someone has had to be helping her. When I find out who that person is, they will wish they had never taken their first breath.’

Will tasted fear in his mouth that caused it to go suddenly dry, while his heart hammered in his chest, and not for himself alone, but for Betty and the gutsy Ruby. For a moment he wished he had never overheard that conversation between Collingsworth and Ray. If he hadn’t heard it, the deed would have been done and he would have known nothing about it. Molly could have been counted as one more casualty in a war that had already claimed many innocent victims. Hearing about it, however, meant that because he was an ordinary, decent human being, he had to do something, and in doing so endangered the lives of those dearest to him.

There was no course open to him but to go on with it now. Ray, when he had recovered sufficiently, had readily told Collingsworth all he knew about Molly that she had recounted to him in the shelter, and the things that Charlie had checked out, and so Collingsworth learned about the grandfather, who Ray found out had died, and the brother who was probably in Erdington Cottage Homes in Fentham Road.

‘She doesn’t know this?’

‘Well, I didn’t tell her, and when she left she would have no memory of a brother or anything else much. If she has recovered herself sufficiently now, and her memory has returned, she will easily find out, as Charlie did.’

And so a watch was put on Molly’s grandfather’s house and another was sent to keep an eye out at the entrance to the Cottage Homes. Will knew of this, but told no one at the house in case it alarmed them. He told Molly only that she wouldn’t be able to make a move just yet a while.

A month later they were no further forward and the search was called off in the middle of February, though Collingsworth said he could feel in his bones that the girl was alive and somewhere in the city. Of course, he told himself, they wouldn’t have had to go to all this bother if Morris hadn’t screwed up so badly in the first place, and his frustration turned to anger directed against the man. He wished he had let the heavies go on and finish him off that time. Well, that could be remedied he thought; Ray Morris was nothing to him.

Ray was no fool and he knew the way the wind was blowing with Collingsworth. When he saw his heavies outside his flat, just after the search was called off, he shook with fear. He had barely recovered from the first beating that Collingsworth had authorised and he guessed that if he stayed around for this one, then it would be the end for him, and he climbed out of his window, down the drainpipe and was away.