I came across this by accident when I was going through my docs. file (as you do when you're putting off actually knuckling down and writing something). I wrote it some time ago, quite a long time actually, when I decided to write a part of Molly's back story from Belinda's point of view, and then promptly forgot all about it. I've always loved the Dawes family, so after some encouragement I have decided to go ahead and publish it as a one shot (!) but may very well add to it after Christmas because I have some thoughts about how the family reaction to him and to the wedding ... and as it was pointed out to me, my track record with one shots is not great ...
-OG-
MY GIRL
I suppose I should have expected something like this would happen one day, I mean she's not exactly a little kid anymore is she? Can't believe it sometimes, how she's all grown up and in the army and that, not when it still feels like yesterday she was just my Molls, me little girl, well she probably always will be so I can't help worrying about her. She's changed so much in the last couple of years, grown up I suppose, but sometimes it feels like she's a different girl to my Molly. Not that she's going to listen to me, but then I was the same at her age, I thought me mum didn't understand anything about anything and that she was totally wrong about Dave but that she couldn't see it. She was right of course, Mum I mean, I know that now, but I can't blame Molls for looking at her dad and me and thinking I haven't got any room to tell her anything.
She was never one for bringing her mates home, well it was difficult with the way her dad was. I can't remember her ever doing it actually, well except for that girl Katy once and that Smurfie but we don't talk about him anymore in case it might be upsetting for her, not that they was together, or so she says. I'm not so sure meself, and I know his mum thinks they were a couple, but our Molls has never been one to talk about her feelings or any of that sort of stuff, except for once when she got all upset about some little girl out in Afghanistan. It was just after she first got back and was finding it hard to settle, but it was like she was breaking her heart over what had happened, said she thought she'd wrecked the little girl's life or something. I'm sure it couldn't have been as bad as that, not our Molly, she wouldn't do something like that but she don't talk about her anymore so I don't know whether or not she's still bothered about it and I don't feel like I can just ask. If she's got over it I don't want to bring it all up again and upset her, make her start worrying again.
I blame her dad for most of it, for the way he was when she was a teenager, not that she's much older than that now, it just seems like it. Mum always says it was my fault and I should've done something about it, but Mum didn't understand. I couldn't. It wasn't that he didn't care about her anymore, he'd always loved her to bits, but he was angry with the way things had turned out and I used to beg her to keep her bloody trap shut and keep her head down, to just give him a bit of a break and stop winding him up all the time like she did, and that he couldn't help it the way he was. Trouble is when your life has gone to shit and you think drink is the answer to all your problems, well, you don't listen to anyone who says it won't help, do you?
Dave used to do a lot of yelling, he had a bit of a temper on him when he'd had a few, but she would keep on running her mouth until he fetched her one and even then she'd answer back, stubborn little mare. It was like there was no way she was going to let him win. She'd get him so wound up he'd be accusing her of all sorts, would yell at her that she had no respect and that she thought she was too good for him. But he never seemed to see the look on her face when he called her names, told her she was nothing but a common little slag, he didn't see how hurt she was, but he never got it that you don't get respect by yelling and calling people names, and definitely not by slapping someone. Anyway he was wrong, that wasn't it at all, I knew that.
She just liked to keep things ... sort of separate, and she was always the same even when she was still at school and when she had that Artan as a boyfriend. She had all these, well I suppose you'd call them dreams really, she wanted more and I can't say I blame her, but she sure as hell wasn't going to get it shacked up with that little bell-end. He thought he was the dog's bollocks so he had the right to do what he wanted, even shag any little tart who was willing, and that our girl belonged to him so she'd just have to put up with it. That stupid twat Dave seemed to agree with him for some reason. I could never really understand why, but I suppose it could have been that the little shit was his ticket to going back on the sick, was maybe offering to cut him in on one of his dodgy deals. But Molls, well, she wasn't having none of it, and because she had far more bloody sense than I did at her age, she made sure she didn't get herself knocked up either. Probably could see a lot of her Dad in Artan and didn't want to be me. Can't blame her for that either.
Dave has tried lately, I mean you can see that. He's been doing his best ever since she got back from Afghanistan that first time, and then when they got back proper and she got that medal for being extra brave or something, he was dead proud of her, over the bloody moon he was. Trouble is, I think he'd left it too late so she was dead suspicious of him, thought it was because of what he could get out of it, but I think she was wrong, well maybe it was a bit that, but he was proud of her. On the other hand you can't blame her for not trusting him.
When he first hurt his back and went on the sick, it was all a bit shit. He was out of it most of the time, what with the painkillers he was necking like bloody Smarties and then the stuff that dodgy mate of his got for him when the doctor wouldn't give him any more, and then there was all the booze he was necking, said it helped with the pain, so he was off his stupid nut most of the time. Wouldn't listen to me, would he? Wouldn't listen to anyone, so things got a bit crap in the house, and our Molls was no more than a kiddie then, so she didn't really understand why he was being such a bell-end, but it was hard on her.
Mum used to take her to stop with her sometimes, give her a break from it, but the council wouldn't have let her stop there if they'd found out, not in sheltered accommodation and mum and I was a bit bothered about them taking her into care if they found out what was going on. I got a little job around then cleaning offices, it was only a couple of hours a few times a week, well, someone had to worry about putting food on the bleeding table and keeping the lights on without robbing the meter, and I liked it, it gave me a bit of a break. Until the night I got home and found her sitting outside in the dark where her dad had chucked her out for something. She only had her nightie on even though it was pissing down and she wasn't even bawling, was just sitting there and she was only eight. So I couldn't work anymore after that of course, I had to rely on help from mum but I couldn't bring meself do me shopping same way she did, I was far too bothered that I'd get caught and then who'd look after the kids? And I couldn't risk anything happening in the house again when I wasn't there to keep an eye out, one of the nosy bleeding neighbours would have reported it and then the coppers would 'ave been round. They already had a bleeding season ticket to ours from Dave keep kicking off in the pub or out in the street and we didn't want any more visits or one of them social workers shoving their sticky beaks in neither. It would be over my dead body that they would get their hands on her, none of them was going into care, not if I had anything to do with it..
There was a long time when I didn't see her, she had this huge bust up with him when she was off learning to be a soldier, something to do with bloody Artan and Dave said she had to choose, army or family. And she did. So we never saw her for months, didn't even talk about her, he wouldn't have it. We didn't read her letters, when they come he burned them, and I wasn't allowed to write to her so she stopped writing after a bit. Broke my bloody heart. Why I put up with it, I don't know now. I never even went to her passing out thing and that's something I'll always be sorry for, but she was my girl, well, she was his 'n all, and I decided that if I wanted to see her, I was bloody well going to and he wasn't going to stop me. So I got up one day and went to that place she was at and asked them if I could see her. Must admit I was a bit scared she'd tell me to do one, actually wouldn't have blamed her if she had, but she didn't. And well, he just had to put up with it didn't he? I told him that if he didn't like it he could be the one who could fuck right off, that I'd had a bloody basinful of all of it and him, and that things had to change, and I s'pose they did. Not overnight of course, he'll always be a selfish fucker and I don't really know why I've stuck with him the way I have, but I suppose it's that he wasn't always that bad. I mean he's always been a lazy git who liked his pint a bit too much, but he's always loved me underneath in his own way, so I suppose I've kept waiting for him to get back to being the bloke I married.
Trouble is I'm pretty sure Molls remembers the times he'd come home from the pub steaming and spoiling for a bleeding fight and he'd think nothing of lamping me one, and I know she used to hide herself under her bed until he shut up, passed out probably, or I'd take his mind off of things the only way I could, and then, well ... But them days are done now, no more little accidents, no more me trying to keep him happy, I've got me job at the school and I've got me mate Shazza and she's always on my side. I know none of them like her but that's just tough, I do and that's what counts.
I'm a bit worried about this today, this place has always been a bit of a shithole. It's not that I don't try, I do, but what with the kids and never having enough money, or enough hours in the day and bloody Dave not doing anything to help and playing up, it's never been enough. I suppose if I'm honest, I've given up a bit now. But I'm a bit worried about letting her down.
-OG-
Apparently she's got this bloke, and he's going to come here and pick her up later on. I should have guessed there was someone, the smile on her face when she talks on the phone and the way she's been disappearing off all the time to go and see a friend. She neversaid who it was, and I never asked. Can't think why now but I just assumed it was some girl she was friends with in the army. I suppose it was that I thought, well all of us did really, that she was still getting over what happened to Smurf, I don't think any of us really believed her when she said he was just a mate. His mum definitely didn' t. It was bleeding sad what happened to him, but I suppose I should be glad he wasn't her bloke if he was going to die, it was bad enough for her losing him when he was a friend.
She showed me some photos on her phone of this bloke, this Charles of hers and I can see what she sees in him, I can honestly say I can see why she fancies him. He's got a lovely smile and he's dead good-looking I suppose, all dark hair and eyes and she says he's very tall, but I haven't asked her how old he is, I've just got the feeling he's a lot older than her. He looks it somehow, especially in the photos of him wearing his uniform. She hasn't said much about him except how he was her boss when they was out in Afghan or something and how they got close but she's been like a bloody cat on a hot tin roof all day, keeps going up and down the bloody stairs every few minutes and she's been making cups of tea that she doesn't drink and then she asked me to do her nails on her right hand for her. She spent bloody hours in the bathroom till in the end I had to remind her to leave some hot water for someone else and she's changed her top I don't know how many times, and spent bloody ages putting her hair up and taking it down again, and then putting it back so its obvious she's dead excited or maybe a bit anxious or something. When she was helping me tidy round a bit she told me a bit about his house in Bath, or his parents' house I think it is, and what she'd thought when she first went there but how he's just the same as everyone else, but must admit I'm even more bothered about what he's going to think about this place now she's told me all that. He phoned her when she was in the middle of helping me clear the kitchen a bit and I knew it was him on the phone from the way she was all smiles and giggles and how she was twiddling a bit of her hair into one of them ringlets while she listened to him talking and then how she couldn't seem to sit still after. But she didn't say anything else about him being posh, although I'm sure he is. I can't help being worried. I can see how important this is to her, and I can't remember the last time I saw her look so happy and so pretty with her eyes all sparkling, so I just hope nothing is going to go wrong and spoil it for her. I hope he bloody deserves her.
-OG-
"Moll, MOLL, you deaf or what? Someone at the door for you ... some bloke"
Tommy must have been coming in from football practice when this Charles got here, so being Tommy he's just stood at the bottom of the stairs and yelled for her at the top of his voice, I think they must be able to hear him down the High Street. I knew Molls would be a bit disappointed, that she'd wanted to be the one to open the door and let him in, and I could hear her running down the stairs and wanted to shout at her to go careful, that she was going to break her neck if she didn't watch it.
Then I popped me head round into the hall and saw him in the doorway and saw the way he looked at her as she flung herself at him, and at the way his arms went round and how he swung her off her feet and round in a circle. And best of all I saw the way his whole face lit up with this smile as if someone had turned a light on inside him when he looked at her and the way he kissed her and swung her round again, and knew that I was most probably worrying for nothing, there was nothing to worry about.