Home Front Girls

Glad.’
    And then suddenly all the strength drained out of Lucy as a thought occurred to her. It must be something to do with Mary, but she was safe in Folkestone and she was going to see her on Saturday. She had booked a day off work especially and had the train tickets all ready at home. She had been looking forward to it for weeks.
    Perhaps Mary was ill and they were writing to ask her to postpone the visit? She opened the envelope but when she started to read what was inside it she had to lean against the wall as her legs threatened to buckle.
    ‘It-it says that they deeply regret to have to inform me that M-Mary and the people who she was staying with were all k-killed last Saturday night,’ she stammered incredulously. ‘They say the unused bombs that the Germans were carrying were dropped on Folkestone before they set off back across the Channel.’
    She stared at Mr P appealingly, as if she were begging him to tell her that it was some horrendous practical joke, but the expression on his face told her that it was true.
    ‘B-but Mary can’t be dead,’ she sobbed as a picture of the little girl’s innocent face floated in front of her eyes. ‘I’m going to visit her on Saturday, you see. I’ve got her a new dolly and some fairy storybooks and . . .’ her voice trailed away as she slithered to the floor in a dead faint.
     
    She woke up to find herself lying on Mrs P’s settee and for a moment she wondered why and how she had got there. Then suddenly it came flooding back and she threw herself into the older woman’s arms and began to sob heart-rendingly.
    ‘There, there,’ Mrs P soothed, weeping herself for the loss of the little girl she too had loved. ‘Our Fred got one of the staff to fetch yer home in his car. There were no way yer could have stayed at work after receivin’ news like this.’
    ‘Tell me it isn’t true,’ she pleaded, but Mrs P could only hang her head.
    ‘I’m afraid it is, luvvie,’ she whispered, then blew her nose. ‘This war is a terrible thing an’ cruel.’
    Lucy was almost beside herself with grief and when Lucy and Annabelle suddenly rushed in she could only stare at them vacantly, her face ravaged.
    ‘We heard what happened and felt we had to come,’ Dotty explained as she looked at Lucy with concern. ‘Oh Lucy, we’re so sorry! We all know how much you loved your little sister. We loved her too.’
    Lucy laughed bitterly and they all gazed at her uncomprehendingly. Perhaps the shock had unhinged her mind?
    Lucy then gazed into the fire before saying, ‘You all know that my mother died in a mental asylum, but perhaps it’s time you knew why. It was because . . . because she stabbed my father to death. He was a bully, you see.’ She shuddered as she remembered and the people in the room stared in horror.
    Lucy scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hands before forcing herself to go on.
    ‘I think it was Mary’s birth that was the final straw for her. She’d been ill in bed on and off for years – she was never strong,’ she said tremulously. ‘And one night shortly after Mary was born, Joel saw Dad hitting her and he went at him with fists flying, calling him all the names he could think of. But Dad was a big man, and he started to knock Joel about the room. That’s when Mum disappeared and when she came back,’ Lucy sucked in her breath as she relived the scene in her mind, ‘Mum was holding a knife. She screamed at Dad to leave Joel alone and called him a wicked bastard, but Dad just kept on hitting Joel again and again. So then she . . . she ran towards them and stabbed Dad in the heart. He died instantly. If she hadn’t done that, I think it would have been Joel that was killed. After that, all hell broke loose. One of the neighbours had heard the commotion and called the police, and when they arrived they arrested Mum for murder. She had no life at all with Dad, he had knocked her from pillar to post from as far back as I can remember, and me and Joel too if it came to that. Yet strangely she still loved him, and once she knew that she had killed him, something inside her just switched off. By the time they took her to court it was clear that she was mad, so they sentenced her to life in a mental asylum. That was when we moved here. Joel decided that we needed a fresh start where no one knew us . . . so now you know the truth.’
    ‘Dear God above.’ Mrs P was so shocked that she had to force the words out.
    It was Annabelle who