Page 46 of A Family Affair
Focusing on the sheets in her hand, Honey obeyed. ‘Okay, I’m just going to read it out, in Molly’s words, as Aunty Beryl wrote it.’
Sucking in her courage, or nerves or whatever the horrible sensation that had taken hold of her body was, Honey did as Ernie said, and got on with ruining his life.
CHAPTER34
MOLLY MCCARTHY
Manchester. February 1941
Nobody batted an eyelid. No one realised that the sleeping boy in my arms wasn’t the one that had grown inside me for the past nine months. Why would they?
I’d arrived home in the back of an ambulance and the sight of me and baby Ernie, alive and well, was cause enough for celebration, never mind my family surviving the blitz.
I can’t describe how relieved I was when we turned into our street and saw our row of houses still in one piece, and you know all I could think about was being with my mam and having a cup of sweet tea. Those two things would put my world to rights, and in a way they did.
The blitz spirit, the mindset of everyone who was living through those war years, meant that we got on with it. Babies were born, the washing still had to be done, kids went to school, men were dying on the front, rationing was the norm, we were cold, scared, hungry, but at the same time stoic, jingoistic, making the best of a bad world. Me and baby Ernie were just a tiny part of all that and what I’d done slipped under the radar.
Just like I’d slipped the locket I’d found in Ernie’s blanket into my pocket. It was while we were in the ambulance and as we rumbled along, avoiding craters and potholes, swerving obstacles in the road. It was the first time I’d been alone with him really, so I’d opened the swaddling to look better at the baby in my arms. Not having had chance to do the counting of fingers and toes that I’d seen Mam do when our Linda’s babies were born, I just wanted a peep.
That’s when I saw it. Wrapped around his hand. A silver locket on a delicate chain. Carefully, I removed it and hid it in my palm. I knew it was something private and personal, and would hold a photo, and that Nora must have put it there during the hours we laid in the darkness. I couldn’t look at it then. It was too much.
Days passed before I found the nerve to open it and when I did I looked into the eyes of Ernie’s real parents. A handsome young man and a very beautiful woman. On the back was an engraving, the letters R and E, encircled by a heart. This threw me slightly because Ernie’s mother told me her name was Nora, so perhaps it was a nickname, or a shortening of something.
I didn’t dwell on it. I couldn’t. He was my baby now and that was all I cared about. Looking after him and waiting for my Walter to come home. Getting through the war and being a mum was my priority.
As for the locket, I couldn’t bear to throw it away because I convinced myself it would be bad luck. And that if I kept it, hidden but close to Ernie, I’d be respecting Nora and she’d know I was looking after her boy – my boy now. It was like a talisman, and in some ways it eased my conscience.
I won’t lie, but every now and then my mind did wander, and I couldn’t help wondering if they’d given Nora and my Joseph a proper burial. I’d heard some horrible stories, about folk being put in mass graves because of the sheer volume, but I comforted myself that they’d be together, and Nora would be looking after him in heaven.
Two months passed by and there’d been no more bad raids like the night Ernie was born, so me and Mam ventured into the city. It was only a short walk, and even though it was a bitter cold February day, Mam said it would do us good to get outside and away from the house. We headed for Piccadilly, and I remember being shocked by the destruction of such a central part of Manchester. It was barely recognisable.
We couldn’t afford to buy anything, so window-shopped instead. It took our minds off things I suppose, chatting and seeing folk going about their business, like there was hope and purpose to everyday life.
Mam, after all her bluff about exercise and varicose veins and getting rid of baby weight, decided she needed a sit down and sent me to fetch my dad’s tobacco ration. I left Ernie with her, in his pram, and headed towards the newsagents.
That’s when it happened. When my whole life was ruined. If Mam hadn’t needed a rest. If my dad hadn’t smoked like a chimney. If I’d chosen another shop. If I’d looked left not right.
It was her hair that caught my eye. I knew instantly it was her. Nora. Deep auburn locks flowed down the back of her coat that looked three sizes too big. She was standing slightly to one side staring into, or actually, at the window display.
I thought I was going to drop dead from heart failure right there and then. In a panic, short of breath, I took two steps to the side and hid behind a poster stand and from there I watched her. I can see her now. Everything about her.
She looked perished and was deathly pale, gaunt too. Her bare legs poked from the hem of the baggy coat and were like sticks. On her feet shoes that I could see were also too big because there was a gap between the leather and her heel. Her arms hung by her side and in one hand the bag, the same one that was by her bed in the hospital. I recognised the lovely oyster clasp. But it was her eyes that got to me. It was as though she was looking but not seeing, just being, a lost figure outside John Lewis, captured in time and in my memory.
It hit me, the hideous, hideous truth, like a punch in the stomach. Winded me right there on Market Street and made me sick to the core. Because I knew what she was thinking, what she’d been through and what she’d lost. And it was all because of me.
There, right in front of my eyes was a woman I truly believed had died. She’d lost all that blood. I saw it. Her lips had been blue; her body stone cold. I listened, my ear to her mouth and she wasn’t breathing. I was sure. I felt for a pulse. There was none.
And thanks to me getting it wrong she was alone in the world, grieving the loss of her lover and her baby. That dreadful night, she told me she had nobody. So I’d offered her a roof over her head. Friendship and support. Love and a family.
All I had to do was go straight over to where she stood, place my hand gently on her arm so as not to startle her, and with a few gentle words and a smile, bring some light back into her life. It would have been the right thing to do. To make everything right.
And then I thought of Mam and Dad and my Walter out there fighting the Nazis. What everyone would think of me for doing what I did. They’d never forgive me for telling such lies and deceiving them. For putting someone else’s name on a birth certificate. Having Ernie christened and standing there in front of them all, saying prayers and listening to promises. For taking someone else’s baby and leaving my own behind, to be buried God only knew where.
My feet, that had been welded to the spot, followed orders from my brain and suddenly took flight. I dared one last look at Nora then turned away, making sure she didn’t spot me before I almost ran back to Mam, who was where I left her with Ernie.
Before she could protest, I told her that the shop had run out of tobacco and that I didn’t feel well and we needed to get home, into the warm. She must have told me a hundred times on the way home that I looked a funny colour, and asked if I was all right and would I slow down because she was getting out of puff.
I remember telling Mam I’d be fine in my home, and she went off in a bit of a huff to get Dad’s tobacco. When I reached my little terraced house, once I’d pushed open the door the step seemed too high and the gap too narrow to get my pram in and I nearly screamed with panic and frustration. All I wanted to do was get inside where it was safe, away from Nora, away from the shame of what I’d done.
