Married couples arm in arm, a serenity in their expressions that said they expected this Christmas would be the best since before the war, because so many foodstuffs, including sweets, had come off ration. Sweethearts, hand in hand, looking at each other with tender smiles; old people huddled together for warmth, perhaps afraid this would be the last time they’d see the lights. And there were so many families, some of their children sagging with weariness on their father’s shoulders, others jumping up and down with the excitement of being out so late, but all gazing up at the lights with awe.
She remembered, when she and Emily were little, how excited they used to get as Christmas approached, making paper chains, sewing needle cases or making calendars for Christmas presents. If her parents had brought them to London to see the lights they would have been delirious with joy.
That same kind of joy was everywhere she looked, and it was unbearable when she didn’t even have a bed to sleep in. Unable to stand another moment of it, she turned off Oxford Street towards Soho.
When she had first got here, people had delighted in telling her lurid tales about Soho. It was supposed to be a dangerous haunt of prostitutes and gangsters. But from what Molly had read in newspapers and travel guides, it also had the best night clubs and restaurants in London. She and Dilys had loved walking through it and, though they certainly sensed an element of menace in some parts, perhaps because of the neglected old buildings and unsavoury smells, their overall impression was that Soho was just a melting pot of people from all walks of life and of many different nationalities. They had observed elegant, aristocratic women in evening dress with their equally elegant male escorts sharing the grubby pavements with vagrants, snotty-nosed urchins and the kind of rough-looking women in aprons and scarves, fastened turban-style, that her mother had always called ‘fishwives’. If there were prostitutes working here, then they weren’t out on the streets wearing the kind of tight skirts and clingy sweaters Molly imagined such women wore. Dilys had always joked that maybe streetwalkers were like vampires, and they had to wait for the midnight hour to come out.
Molly was really hungry now; she hadn’t eaten anything except a bun since noon. Her feet hurt, she thought a blister was coming up on her heel, her arms throbbed with carrying her case and she was icy cold. She could have stood it if she had been on the way to a warm place with a bed for the night but, knowing that the reality was a bench on the Embankment, she began to cry.
Wiping her eyes on her coat sleeve, she tried to sniff back the tears, but it was no good; she was too desolate to control her emotions, and she put her suitcase down, turned towards a shop window with a display of old books and let the tears fall.
‘Is that bookshop so tragic it makes you cry?’
Molly’s head jerked round on hearing the man’s voice. Its owner was about thirty, stocky, with a round, very pink face, a receding hairline. He was wearing a camel coat with a velvet collar and looked concerned for her.
‘What on earth could make you cry that hard?’ he asked.
‘I’m tired, hungry and cold,’ she blurted out. ‘And I’ve got nowhere to go.’
‘Is that so?’ he said, looking at her hard for a moment or two as if weighing up whether she was conning him. Then he smiled. ‘Well, suppose we sort a couple of those things out by getting something to eat in a warm café, and then you can tell me why you’ve got nowhere to go.’
Her mother had told her a hundred times not to talk to strangers, but as she had found out today that people who know you well can be treacherous, too, her mother’s advice seemed superfluous. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said in a small voice, and dabbed at her eyes with an already damp hanky.
‘I’m Seb,’ he said. ‘That’s short for Sebastian, but no one but my granny calls me that. What’s your name?’
‘Molly,’ she said, giving him a watery smile. ‘Molly Heywood.’
‘Well, Molly Heywood,’ he said, bending to pick up her case, ‘they do a good fish and chips just down here, and you can tell me your troubles while you eat.’
Five minutes later, sitting in a wooden booth at the back of a fish-and-chip shop, Molly felt more hopeful. It was very warm in the café, the fish and chips would be in front of her in just a few minutes and her cup of tea was just as she liked it: strong and very sweet. She liked Seb, too; he had a forthright manner, a lovely speaking voice and he was kind and a good listener. ‘So why did they sack you?’ he asked.
As Molly explained the reason and how humiliated she felt, she began to cry again. ‘As God is my judge, I didn’t let anyone have anything without paying. I don’t know anyone in London aside from the other staff at Bourne & Hollingsworth, so who would I give stuff to?’
‘That is really appalling,’ he said, and took her two hands in his and squeezed them. ‘But I have a friend who works in Personnel. I could contact them for you tomorrow and find out the legal position. I’m sure you have to catch staff red-handed to be able to dismiss them. You might be entitled to compensation, or at least your job back.’
He sounded so confident and knowledgeable that Molly’s spirits soared. The fish and chips were brought to them then, and she ate hungrily.
‘Can you recommend a cheap guest house for a few nights?’ she asked him, explaining how she’d called the Braemar already and it had been full.
‘I can do better than that,’ he said. ‘I know some girls living in a flat just down the road from here. They’re all around your age and they’ll be happy to put you up for a while. They might be able to help you get a new job, too, if you can’t go back to the shop.’
‘Really! You’d do that for me?’ she gasped.
He smiled and patted her hand. ‘I never could resist a damsel in distress. And you’ve been treated very badly.’
As Molly polished off the last of her fish and chips she felt reassured that everything would work out fine. If she could get a job right after Christmas, and was able to pay rent, maybe these friends of Seb’s would let her stay on with them permanently.
Although the street lighting in Greek Street was poor, Molly’s first thought when Seb pointed out the flat, which was above a barber’s shop, was that if the girls let her stay, her first job would be to clean the windows. Even in the dark she could see they were filthy.
A door beside the barber’s was open, revealing a litter-strewn, bare wood staircase and peeling distemper on the walls.
‘I know it looks a bit rough,’ Seb said, ‘but the landlord is too mean to get it smartened up. He claims the rent is too low to make it worth his while.’
‘All of London is a bit rundown after the war,’ she said. ‘I’m quite used to it now.’
He led her up two flights of stairs, past three or four closed doors, and then knocked on one very battered one to the front of the building. It was opened by a dark-haired woman of perhaps forty. She was wearing a grubby pink dressing gown and had curlers in her hair.
‘Hullo, Seb. What brings you round? If I’d known you were coming, I’d’ve baked a bleedin’ cake,’ she said. Her accent was pure cockney and her smile was bright.
‘I found this young lady crying in the street; she’s lost her job and has nowhere to go,’ he said, half turning towards Molly. ‘This is my friend Dora, and, knowing how kind she is, I was certain she’d give you a bed for a few nights.’
‘Oh, you poor love!’ Dora exclaimed, taking a couple of steps nearer to Molly, her dark eyes soft with concern. ‘You come on in and we’ll get you sorted. I got a spare bed up top as it happens, ’cos Jackie went home for Christmas.’
‘I don’t want to impose,’ Molly said. She had a lump in her throat at this unexpected kindness. ‘I could give you a bit of money.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Dora said. ‘Now, come on in. The place is a mess, but it’s warm and homely.’