I can’t start off doing all that again, she thought, frightened of herself and what she might do. She remembered some of the more humiliating times she’d had as a result of drink – in the army and before it. The thought made her feel even more lonely. Everything was slipping away from her.

She tried desperately hard in those following days to pull herself together. Though at times she was almost screaming for a drink, Jane Lester kept her very busy and she didn’t have much free time. She managed not to do anything she would regret. But it did not stop the craving. And as the days passed, her mood sunk lower. At night, when she finished work, feeling utterly worn down by the task of keeping going, she fell into bed only to find her mind full of terrible thoughts: memories of the past and her own jeering voice telling her she was no good, that anything that might have worked out well for her was all over now, and there was nothing left to look forward to. The past pulled at her, sucking her down like a foul, bony hand, and the present didn’t seem to offer her anything of hope to pull her up against it. She was a prisoner of all the bad things of the past, and that was that. And it was unbearable.

She sneaked out one afternoon when she knew Jane Lester was resting and bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker. Just a drop every night – I won’t have much. It’ll just help me sleep. The nights had become restless, full of uneasy dreams.

Carrying the bottle home in a shopping basket, she crept back into the house and almost jumped out of her skin when she saw Bernard Lester standing at the other end of the long hall, watching her.

‘Oh my goodness, you made me jump!’ she said, laughing to cover up how much her heart was thumping. Suppose he looked in the basket. She had covered the bottle with her cardigan, but wasn’t it obvious what she had been doing? He watched her climb the stairs.

Hands shaking as she reached the room, her resolve to have only a nip from the bottle last thing at night went straight out of the window. She closed her door and, without even sitting down, opened the bottle and took a long swig. God, seeing that creeping Jesus down there had given her a start!

‘Aah.’ Molly sank down on the bed, cradling the bottle. ‘That’s better!’ She took one last swig and put the top back on. Then she hid the bottle under her mattress at the head of the bed and sat down with her eyes closed for a moment, to let the drink really take hold. She was warmer, suddenly, and comforted. Now she could face the rest of the day.

And that was how it was the next day, and the next.

Thirty-Four

‘Molly – over here!’