Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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always is when I leave, to keep you safe.’
‘But where do you go?’
‘To my own flat,’ Ray said. ‘I told you from the start that I have my own place.’
‘Did you?’
‘Don’t you remember when I offered you this place first?’
Molly shook her head. She concentrated hard, but when she tried to remember, all she saw was deep blackness, and the effort of trying to break through that made her head ache. The absolute terror she had felt during the raid, which she had been sure she would never survive, plus the powders Ray was feeding her, had obliterated her memory.
‘I remember nothing but the raid last night,’ she admitted at last.
‘Nothing?’
Molly shook her head. ‘All that went before is a blank. I don’t even know what I am doing here.’
‘We were in a shelter together because of the bombing, me, you and Charlie, my mate, and you said you had nowhere to go and I offered you this place.’
‘I don’t know who I am.’
‘Your first name is Molly, you told us that much,’ Ray said. ‘But I don’t know your surname. Does it matter? Are you unhappy?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then?’
‘But my memory—’
‘Will probably return all the quicker if you don’t worry at it.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so,’ Ray said. ‘Trust me.’
‘Oh, I do totally, Ray,’ Molly said and added, ‘Will you stay here tonight?’
‘There is no bed but yours,’ Ray reminded her.
Molly remembered how intense her fear had been the night before and feared she would die of fright if she had to experience that again alone.
‘You can share it with me,’ she said.
‘Do you know what you are saying?’
Molly swallowed deeply and then looked Ray full in the face and said, ‘Yes.’
Ray knew then that if he had been a proper red-blooded male he would have taken the girl up on the offer and to hell with the consequences. The fact that he had no interest that way was one of the reasons he had been employed to collect up the runaway girls and those escaping council care, and groom them for the whorehouse, so his emotions were not moved in any way by Molly’s offer.
However, it would never do for her to know this and so he said, ‘I think you are not really yourself, Molly, or you would never have said that. And if I were to do this you could well regret it and resent me afterwards.’
‘I would never resent you,’ Molly said firmly. ‘I couldn’t. I think I love you.’
‘And I am fond of you too, Molly,’ Ray said, draping an arm casually about her shoulder. ‘That is why I can’t do what you ask.’
‘Oh, but, Ray, I can’t bear to be alone, really I can’t.’
‘I can give you something to help,’ Ray said. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘I do, Ray. Truly I do.’
‘So if I say that I can give you something that will make you sleep like a baby till morning, when I will be back, you’ll take it?’
‘I’d rather you stayed.’
‘We have been through this,’ Ray said, tight-lipped.
‘Oh, please don’t be cross with me,’ Molly cried, distressed. ‘I will do anything you want.’
‘Right, then,’ Ray said. ‘Now we know exactly where we stand.’
Molly was entering a shadowy period in her life when she was only half alive, though most times she was unaware of this. At first there were times when people’s faces would float before her, but when she tried to hold them in her mind, they seem to shroud over with mist and disappear.
When she was eventually worried enough to talk to Ray about this he said, ‘You are thoroughly washed out, Molly, and your brain has shut down a little to enable you to rest and get really fit again, that’s all it is.’
‘You really do believe I will recover eventually?’
‘Of course, and the thing to do is not worry about it,’ Ray said. ‘Sit back, relax and let me look after you.’
Molly gave a sigh. How good that sounded. She felt too utterly exhausted to care for herself. ‘I’d like that,’ she said, ‘but haven’t you got to go to work sometime?’
‘Don’t you concern yourself with that.’
No, Molly didn’t want to concern herself with anything. She hadn’t enough energy, for one thing. And she didn’t want to risk offending Ray, for he was the one she saw every day – the only person, in fact, apart from a couple of brief visits from Charlie. She no longer minded Ray locking her in for her own safety whenever he had to go out. She had no desire to leave the flat herself, because she felt safe in there.
She hadn’t to worry about anything, Ray said, not even cooking the meals, because he would deal with all that – not that she was eating much, but she liked the brandy and the gin that Ray had introduced her to and the white powders he gave her, which he said were a tonic, always made her feel better.
Every few days, Ray would take away her dirty clothes and a few days later they would come back clean and pressed. The first time this happened she had asked Ray who dealt with the clothes and he said she hadn’t to concern herself with things like that. And so she didn’t, because it really didn’t matter. In fact she was finding very few things did matter, and it was better once the half-remembered shadowy figures faded completely from her consciousness.
‘So when are you going to give Molly a try-out?’ Charlie asked Ray one day towards the middle of December. ‘She’s been here over three weeks already. You’ve never kept anyone longer than a fortnight before.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Ray said. ‘Collingsworth’s been away, though, hasn’t he? He’s back now and I have set it up here for this Saturday night. I tell you, Molly is as ripe as a plum, just ready to be picked. Timing’s good, anyway, because the older couple below us have gone to their daughter’s for a while to escape the bombing, so Collingsworth can make all the noise he needs,’ Ray said with a leer. ‘If you know what I mean.’
Charlie gave a humourless laugh. ‘Oh, I know all right,’ he said. ‘I should say the dirty old bugger is going to have some fun that night. You’ve done the work on Molly, though. God, she’ll be led like a lamb to the bleeding slaughter.’
‘If she knows anything about it, you mean,’ Ray said. ‘Some days she is not aware of much, but in any case, I will prepare her. She will do as she is told, don’t worry.’
‘She certainly thinks the sun shines out of your arse,’ Charlie said. ‘She just does everything you tell her to.’
‘Like she will on Saturday night,’ Ray said confidently. ‘And if she is a really good girl, then I may buy her a specially nice Christmas present.’
Unaware of what was planned for her, Molly accepted it when Ray sat on the sofa and told that he had to go to a special dinner with Edwin Collingsworth, the man who owned the flat she was occupying.
She didn’t remember that he was the man Ray had spoken of before, who’d had girls entertain him in the flat, so all she said was, ‘Does