fireside chair.
“Molly’s come to stay,” Mother went on. “They’ve thrown her out, Charlie. Her mother and father have thrown her out, and it’s your fault.”
“No!” Molly cried. “Don’t say that. It isn’t his fault. It’s no one’s fault.” She ran over to Charlie and threw herself into his arms.
“What’s happened, Moll?” asked Charlie. “What’s going on?”
Molly was shaking her head as she wept uncontrollably now on his shoulder. He looked at Mother.
“What’s going on, Charlie, is that she’s going to have your baby,” she said. “They packed her case, put her out of the door and told her never to come back. They never want to see her again. She had nowhere else to go, Charlie. I said she was family, that she belongs with us now, that she can stay as long as she likes.”
It seemed an age before Charlie said anything. I saw his face go through all manner of emotions: incomprehension, bewilderment, outrage, through all these at once, and then at last to resolve. He held Molly away from him now and brushed away her tears with his thumb as he looked steadily into her eyes. When he spoke at last, it wasn’t to Molly, but to Mother. “You shouldn’t have said that to Moll, Mother,” he spoke slowly, almost sternly. Then he began to smile. “That was for me to say. It’s our baby, my baby, and Moll’s my girl. So I should have said it. But I’m glad you said it all the same.”
After that Molly became even more one of us than she had been before. I was both overjoyed and miserable at the same time. Molly and Charlie knew how I must have felt, I think, but they never spoke of it and neither did I.
They were married up in the church a short time later. It was a very empty church. There was no one there except the vicar and the four of us, and the vicar’s wife sitting at the back. Everyone knew about Molly’s baby by now, and because of that the vicar had agreed to marry them only on certain conditions: that no bells were to be rung and no hymns to be sung. He rushed through the marriage service as if he wanted to be somewhere else. There was no wedding feast afterwards, only a cup of tea and some fruit cake when we got home.
Shortly afterwards, Mother received a letter from the Wolfwoman saying it had been a marriage of shame; how she had thought of dismissing Molly and only decided against it because, whilst Molly was clearly a weak and unmoral girl, she felt she could not in all conscience punish Molly for something that she was sure was much more Charlie’s fault than hers, and that anyway Molly had already been punished enough for her wickedness. Mother read the letter out loud to all of us, then scrunched it up and threw it into the fire — where it belonged, she said.
I moved into Big Joe’s room and slept with him in his bed, which wasn’t easy because he was big and the bed very narrow. He muttered to himself loudly in his dreams, and tossed and turned almost constantly. But, as I lay awake at nights, that was not what troubled me most. In the next room slept the two people I most loved in all the world who, in finding each other, had deserted me. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I thought of them lying in each other’s arms and I wanted to hate them. But I couldn’t. All I knew was that I had no place at home any more, that I would be better off away, and away from them in particular.
I tried never to be alone with Molly for I did not know what to say to her any more. I didn’t stop to drink with Charlie any more at The Duke, for the same reason. On the farm, I took every opportunity that came my way to work on my own, so as to be nowhere near him. I volunteered for any fetching and carrying that had to be done away from the farm. Farmer Cox seemed more than happy for me to do that. He was always sending me off with the horse and cart on some errand or other: bringing back feed from the merchants maybe, fetching the seed potatoes, or perhaps taking a pig to market to sell for him. Whatever it was, I took my time about it and Farmer Cox never seemed to notice. But Charlie did. He said I was skiving off work, but he knew that all I was doing was avoiding him. We knew each other so well. We never argued, not really; perhaps it was because neither of us wanted to hurt the other. We both knew enough hurt had been done already, that more would only widen the rift between us and neither of us wanted that.
It was while I was off “skiving” in Hatherleigh market one morning that I came face to face with the war for the first time, a war that until now had seemed unreal and distant to all of us, a war only in newspapers and on posters. I’d just sold Farmer Cox’s two old rams, and got a good price for them too, when I heard the sound of a band coming down the High Street, drums pounding, bugles blaring. Everyone in the market went running, and so did I.
As I came round the corner I saw them. Behind the band there must have been a couple of dozen soldiers, splendid in their scarlet uniforms. They marched past me, arms swinging in perfect time, buttons and boots shining, the sun glinting on their bayonets. They were singing along with the band: It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go. And I remember thinking it was a good thing Big Joe wasn’t there, because he’d have been bound to join in with his Oranges and Lemons. Children were stomping alongside them, some in paper hats, some with wooden sticks over their shoulders. And there were women throwing flowers, roses mostly, that were falling at the soldiers’ feet. But one of them landed on a soldier’s tunic and somehow stuck there. I saw him smile at that.
Like everyone else, I followed them round the town and up into the square. The band played God Save the King and then, with the Union Jack fluttering behind him, the first sergeant major I’d ever set eyes on got up on to the steps of the cross, slipped his stick smartly under his arm, and spoke to us, his voice unlike any voice I’d heard before: rasping, commanding.
“I shan’t beat about the bush, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “I shan’t tell you it’s all tickety–boo out there in France — there’s been too much of that nonsense already in my view. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it for myself. So I’ll tell you straight. It’s no picnic. It’s hard slog, that’s what it is, hard slog. Only one question to ask yourself about this war. Who would you rather see marching through your streets? Us lot or the Hun? Make up your minds. Because, mark my words, ladies and gentlemen, if we don’t stop them out in France the Germans will be here, right here in Hatherleigh, right here on your doorstep.”
I could feel the silence all around.
“They’ll come marching through here burning your houses, killing your children, and yes, violating your women. They’ve beaten brave little Belgium, swallowed her up in one gulp. And now they’ve taken a fair slice of France too. I’m here to tell you that unless we beat them at their own game, they’ll gobble us up as well.” His eyes raked over us. “Well? Do you want the Hun here? Do you?”
“No!” came the shout, and I was shouting along with them.
“Shall we knock the stuffing out of them then?”
“Yes!” we roared in unison.
The sergeant major nodded. “Good. Very good. Then we shall need you.” He was pointing his stick now into the crowd, picking out the men. “You, and you and you.” He was looking straight at me now, into my eyes. “And you too, my lad!”
Until that very moment it had honestly never occurred to me that what he was saying had anything to do with me. I had been an onlooker. No longer.
“Your king needs you. Your country needs you. And all the brave lads out in France need you too.” His face broke into a smile as he fingered his immaculate moustache. “And remember one thing, lads — and I can vouch for this — all the girls love a soldier.”
The ladies in the crowd all laughed and giggled at that. Then the sergeant major returned
