Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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‘Well,’ Molly said with a shrug, ‘they’ll do, I suppose, till I can get something more suitable.’
Ray pulled Molly towards him and put an arm around her shoulder as he said gently, ‘Listen, sweetheart, Britain is at war. Making clothes in vast quantities is not considered important for the nation’s survival and most places that make clothes have been converted to making uniforms anyway, so there is little in the shops to buy. You were not the only one, either, to be left with just the clothes on your back. No one can afford to be too choosy these days. So these things may not be your choice, but there is little alternative.’
Molly knew Ray was probably right. After all, what did she know of war restrictions? And she had no desire to upset the man who had been so kind to her.
‘Anyway,’ Ray went on, ‘you have a lovely body. Never be ashamed of it.’
‘But it’s wrong to show yourself.’
‘Who said? The harridan of a grandmother?’
‘No, well, I mean she didn’t need to. I just knew.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean why is it wrong to show your body?’ Ray said. ‘The female naked form can be beautiful. Look at some of the paintings.’
‘I … I haven’t seen paintings like that.’
‘There are many of them in the art gallery in the town, or were before the war.’
‘But in real life …’
‘Someone had to pose, don’t forget.’
‘I couldn’t do that,’ Molly said with a shiver of distaste.
‘Why not?’ Ray said, and without waiting for a reply, went on. ‘Look, my darling girl, you are no longer in a little tin-pot Irish town. You are eighteen years old and in a thriving city. Let yourself go a bit. And you do want to, even if you won’t admit it. Look at the nightdress you chose for yourself. It’s nice, very nice. You chose well and the fact that you can’t remember doing it is neither here nor there – you still chose it. Be honest with yourself. You wanted to look sexy.’
Did I? Molly wondered. She couldn’t seem to think straight; her head felt woozy. It wasn’t unpleasant, in fact it was quite a nice feeling, but it did mean she couldn’t seem to hold a thought in her head for long.
Molly was not to know how expressive her face was. Not that Ray scrutinised her closely and had a very good guess at what went on in her head.
‘So let’s have no more complaints about the clothes then,’ he said, leading her by the hand into the living room and sitting her down on the sofa.
‘No, Ray,’ Molly said. ‘I’m sorry. It was very ungrateful of me. But who did those clothes belong to?’ She was curious about the type of woman who would leave all her things behind in such a way. ‘Do they belong to your friend’s wife?’
‘He has no wife,’ Ray said. ‘And the things don’t belong to one person.’
‘Oh,’ Molly said, perplexed.
‘This flat belongs to a friend of mine, as I said,’ Ray said. ‘There is no need for you to know his name,’ he went on, because by the time Molly was given over to Collingsworth for his pleasure he definitely didn’t want her on her guard in any way. ‘He is away at the present time, as I said, but he often entertains ladies here, and he likes them to feel clean and comfortable – hence the toiletries in the bathroom – and then to dress up for him because it pleases him, and the ladies like to please him in all ways.’
‘Oh, oh, I see.’
‘You’re shocked, aren’t you?’
Shocked was an understatement. Molly wasn’t a fool and she knew what the girls would be doing to please him. She thought of the bedroom with the mirrors, and privately considered it one of the most disgusting things she had ever encountered. But she tried hard to cover that disgust as she cried, ‘No … no, not at all.’
‘Don’t deny it,’ Ray said with a smile. ‘You are shaken right down to the core of your good little Catholic soul.’
‘It’s just that I have never heard of such behaviour.’
‘And you think it wrong?’
‘We are taught it is wrong.’
‘What harm are they doing?’
‘Well, if they are … if they do … What I mean is, sex before marriage is a big sin, just about the biggest, and these people will go to hell when they die.’
Ray burst into a gale of laughter at this before asking, ‘For what? For bringing a bit of comfort and pleasure to one another?’ That maybe was a little exaggeration, for the girls didn’t always like it at first. They put up with it, though, as Molly would in time. The powders, their love of gin and the fear of being beaten virtually ensured their compliance until they got over their initial distaste.
No one had ever spoken to Molly of the pleasure to be had from sex. In fact, no one talked about sex much at all. Molly remembered Nellie telling her that her husband would tell her all about it on her wedding night. And she had wondered at the time how her husband would find out if it wasn’t up for any sort of discussion at all. Nellie had never mentioned any pleasure to be had, but made it sound more of a duty that a woman had to do for her husband.
Here Ray spoke openly of men and women bringing pleasure to one another sexually. It was all alien to Molly. Yet Ray was right in one way, for they were hurting no one. She wasn’t sure, though, that she could act that way, or even want to. She had never even been alone with a boy, let alone held hands or, heaven forbid, kissed.
She had allowed Ray to hold her tight when she was scared of the raids and had no objection to him draping an arm around her shoulder when he was explaining something, but he did those things as a brother might. Molly had never felt the slightest unease with Ray, but she didn’t know that she would like anyone else to be so intimate.
Ray watched her face and smiled to himself. Molly didn’t know what pleasures were in store for her.
‘Time for a drink,’ he said.
‘Oh, no, after yesterday—’
‘Nonsense,’ Ray said, surreptitiously tipping the white powder into Molly’s glass before adding the lemonade. ‘Brandy is good for shock and, protest as you might, I have shocked you to the core this evening, so I am afraid I must insist.’
Molly sipped the drink, which she did like the taste of. But within minutes of finishing it she felt lethargy beginning to creep over her.
Ray felt the sag against his body and said, ‘Come on, bed for you, before you are too far gone again.’
Molly wondered why she was so tired, but she definitely was, and she staggered as she got to her feet. Ray had to help her to the bedroom, and there she sat on the bed and tried to summon up the energy to get undressed. However, it proved too much for her and she slumped on the bed just as she was. Ray found her in a deep sleep a little later, so deep that when the sirens went off she didn’t stir. Ray smiled as he undressed her, leaving her clothes scattering the floor and this time rolled her into bed and under the covers completely naked.
In the living room, he stood for a moment listening, but the raid was some distance away and he decided to risk going out. He had to see Charlie anyway, but he took the precaution of locking the bedroom door as well as the front one, and pocketing both keys before he set off into the night.
Ray found Charlie in his local. He sipped his drink while Charlie told him what he had found out that day of the people that Molly had come to Birmingham to find.
‘Nothing on that Hilda,’ he said. ‘I mean, the people in her house didn’t know anything, so I reckon