A Brief Education
A B RIEF E DUCATION
M OLLY PASSED ONE PLACE where the windows were shattered and the door had been knocked down; the inside looked gutted, with tables and chairs overturned and broken up, although there was no sign of an actual bomb’s having exploded there. Then she looked up and saw that someone had painted “Tally” over the name, Edoardo’s Café.
Molly had no idea that “tally” was an anti-Italian slur.
She finally managed to flag down an old, puttering, stiff-bonneted black cab, and it wheeled to the curb as the driver rolled down the window. He was gray and sallow-cheeked, and the etchings on his mustached face looked like a swarm of railway lines all coming together. He wore a pair of thick specs that unduly magnified his eyes. He had military ribbons and medals on his jacket, and painful-looking scars etched on his battered, gnarled hands, all surely from fighting in a previous war, she assumed.
“Where you headed, Miss?” he asked.
She gave him the address of her home in Chelsea and his eyebrows edged higher.
“Nice enough,” he said. “You got the fare, right? I ain’t workin’ for free, luv.”
She opened her small purse and showed him a handful of coins. “I just got off the train at Liverpool and walked here. I know this is sufficient to get me to where I’m going.”
He harrumphed and said, “Right, Miss, just checkin’. Strange times they are.”
They started off slowly and the speed never picked up.
“Where you comin’ from, Miss?” he asked, giving her a look in the glass.
“Suffolk.”
“What you doin’ here then?”
“London is my home. I was sent to the country at the start of the war and now I’m back.”
“Thought all you kiddies was long ago back,” he said in surprise.
Molly’s cheeks reddened. “Yes, well. I see you have medals. Was it from the last war?”
He pressed down the gas judiciously, no doubt conserving precious petrol, and slowly shook his head. “No, Miss. This one.”
Molly looked startled. “Oh, I’m sorry, I… I thought.”
“I’ve just turned thirty-four, Miss. I knows I looks a bit older. But, well, war does that to a bloke. Mustered out a year ago. Can’t hold a rifle worth nothin’ no more, and me eyes, well, they ain’t what they used to be ’cause of a mortar round hittin’ close by. Though I can sees well enough with the specs to drive in the day if I don’t go too fast. And then there’s me bad leg. Got metal in it. Aches with the weather, I can tell you, and walkin’ ain’t so easy as it once was. So’s drivin’ a cab is ’bout all I’m good for, Miss.”
“Of course, I’m so sorry.”
His wiry mustache bristled. “Not lookin’ for no sympathy. I’m alive, ain’t I? Many lads can’t say that. I did my job, that’s it. I’m alive.”
He focused on his driving and they both fell silent for a bit.
“Did they really bomb the Palace?” Molly asked. “I heard on the wireless that they did, but I couldn’t believe it.”
The driver nodded. “I was in uniform then, but my missus told me. The King and his family is fine. Just a bit of bother, really. And they’re still here, waitin’ it out with the rest of us.”
“Well, that’s a proper spirit.”
“It will take more than that to beat the Jerries. It will take more men than we got and more planes and tanks and bombs and bullets, too, by God.”
“Well, the Americans have been fighting with us now for several years. They actually share an air station with the RAF at Leiston near where I lived. I would see Spitfires and American Mustangs flying over the town. It made everyone feel quite hopeful.”
He frowned. “Folks think the Yanks are the ticket. That we can lay down our guns and let them win it for us. Well, it’ll take all of us to beat the bloody Germans, from what I seen.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right.”
“So how was it in the country, Miss? Was you bombed out there?”
“We never were although I heard that Leiston had been on several occasions. I never even heard any of the bombs strike, though. They came at night, apparently.” Molly hesitated. Part of her wanted to tell him about her job helping the wounded. But she felt certain that he had seen far more horrors than she had, and had suffered a great deal. She simply added, “And I’m very glad to be home.”
“And what did bring you back, then?” he asked.
Molly didn’t know exactly how to answer that straightforward query. The fact was the billeting allowance was no longer being paid by her father. The Coopers had offered to keep her on in spite of that but, after all this time, Molly had wanted to come home. She had written to her parents with the date she was returning. Molly was worried because she had not received a reply and no one had come to greet her at Liverpool Station.
“It was just time, I suppose.”
She sat back and wondered what would be awaiting her in Chelsea.