Birmingham Blitz (26 page)

‘Should I go?’ I whispered to her.

‘No, course not. You’re all right.’ She put her mouth closer to my ear. ‘They’re worried. They think people will be arrested.’

‘But there’s no one here who’d do any harm, surely?’

She shrugged. ‘Even today at work someone made a nasty remark about my name. I suppose I’m Italian now whether I like it or not.’ She sounded bewildered more than upset.

Suddenly Fausto leaned over the table, raising one of the thick glasses half full of red wine. His sharp-featured face looked quite bonkers, I thought, eyes blazing with fanaticism and the effects of the drink. The men round him, Micky included, all started shouting at him at once, telling him, so far as I could make out, to shut up.

But Fausto wasn’t going to shut up. He lifted the glass even higher, slopping some of the wine on the head of a bloke sitting next to him. ‘
Viva l’Italia!
’ he shouted. ‘
Viva il Duce!
’

Two of the younger men, one an uncle of Teresa’s, moved in and took Fausto by the shoulders, forcing him towards the door.

‘What did he say?’ I hissed at Teresa.

‘Long live Mussolini,’ she said without turning her head, too busy watching what was going on. ‘Dad’s not going to have that. Fausto’s such a bloody idiot. Doesn’t spare a thought for anyone else.’

Micky pushed his chair back and stood up. He talked so well with his hands that I didn’t need to understand the rest. Get him out of my house. Out. Now. D’you want to get us all arrested?

Fausto was led out of the house by two of the men. As they stumbled past the window we could see his mouth was still going.

That night, Teresa told me, there was a loud hammering on the Spinis’ door. Micky went down, pulling on his trousers. The rest of them listened, frightened, at the top of the stairs.

‘Micky?’ It was a neighbour. ‘’Fraid you got some trouble out the front, mate. Someone’s broke your windows.’

They all went out, except Giovanna and Luke who stayed asleep, and stood in the street in their night-clothes staring at the shattered front window of the shop, the big hole in the glass with jagged splinters round it. Stevie was cursing, Francesca crying. Vera stood with her hands on Tony’s shoulders in silence.

‘We should have stayed in the Quarter,’ she said, shaking. ‘Then at least we’d all have been together.’

Micky didn’t say much, just kept running his hand through his hair.

‘It might have been someone trying to break in?’ Teresa suggested. ‘Or kids?’

‘No. We know why it is.’ Micky’s voice was quiet, but angry. ‘I don’t know what to think. I suppose we get it glazed again tomorrow. But maybe now this is going to happen every night? We’re in the wrong camp, even if we have spent most of our lives here. We’re the enemy all of a sudden.’

There were to be no more church bells. No more of the usual pattern of chimes across the Sunday city. Only if we were invaded. That was to be the warning.

The Germans were closing in round Paris. It was over a week now since the evacuation of Dunkirk ended and we hadn’t heard anything. Our newspaper clipping about Dad was starting to go yellow at the edges.

Mom was having to wear her loosest clothes already, though she could still easily get by as not being pregnant. But being a skinny woman she did show early. She put her hand to her stomach a lot. Her face was permanently sullen and sulky as if life had cheated her. Of everything.

The day after Italy declared war, she went out into the garden in the evening. She’d only had one glass of port so far. That performance at Nanny Rawson’s had brought her up a bit sharp. ‘I’ll have to watch myself.’ I went out and found Mom staring at the sky, the last bronze light on ‘our’ barrage balloon. From inside we could hear Gloria playing ‘When You Wish upon a Star’. Mom was standing sideways on to me and I thought I could see the little bulge of the baby growing inside her.

‘Victor’s dead.’

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to hear those words.

‘He’s dead. I know he is.’ She whipped round. ‘Genie – whatever am I going to do?’

We stood there, both in agony, but not touching each other. I wanted my dad so badly, wanted the solid, sensible bit of our family. Mom blew about like a feather and I couldn’t trust or rely on her. Everything was breaking up. No Dad, no Eric, and now she was going to bring a babby into the house whose father I could murder with a smile.

‘At least he’ll never know,’ she said, all wrapped up in herself as usual. ‘He’ll’ve died thinking I was a good wife to him. I can keep Bob’s babby.’ Then, voice going high, she went on, ‘But how on earth am I going to manage? We’ll have no money, and another babby and no man to look after us . . .’ That old bogeyman poverty, the cold, aching, eking-out struggle she remembered from her childhood, leered up over her shoulder.

‘You’ve got me, Mom. I can earn money now, don’t forget. And Lenny.’

She squatted down on the grass suddenly, hands over her eyes, head bent. ‘I’ve messed up everything, Genie. Every single thing I’ve ever done I’ve made a mess of it.’

‘Mom . . .’

She didn’t look up.

‘He might not be dead . . .’ I still hoped that, prayed it. Until we had some sign or letter we’d never properly believe it.

She got up suddenly without another word and went into the house as if someone had called. They had. The gin bottle.

On the Wednesday that week, in the evening, the police moved into Park Street, Bartholomew Street and the others which made up Birmingham’s Little Italy, arresting a man from every house and carting them off to the police station. Among them was Vera’s elder brother, Teresa’s uncle Matt Scattoli.

‘They thought it was a bit of a joke at first,’ Teresa told me. ‘Some of the lads anyway. A group of ’em went down there all full of themselves and the police said if they didn’t get off home they’d arrest them as well.’

‘Have they let them go now?’ I asked.

‘Oh no. No one knows what’s happening. They haven’t got themselves sorted out.’

‘Well what about your dad?’

‘God knows. They haven’t come down our way. He’s in the Fire Service, Mom keeps saying. What would they want to arrest him for?’

The Germans moved into Paris and the French surrendered. The newsreader’s voice was very sombre, seeming to come out of a big echoing silence behind him. After the news they played trumpets.

The heat and breathless calm made the atmosphere electric. Waiting. Rumours all the time. They’ve landed on the coast at Margate! No – they hadn’t. Planes overhead! They were ours. Leaflets came fluttering through our doors again, ‘Don’t give the invader anything’. Strangers were remarked on, even invented. Previously normal behaviour seemed suspect and all sorts of tales spread based on hearsay. They might parachute in dressed as nuns. Look out for hairy-knuckled nuns!

Even the newsreaders started telling you who they were. ‘This is the — o’clock news, and this is Frank Phillips [or Stuart Hibbard or Alvar Liddell] reading it.’

The rumour-mongering reached such a pitch that the government released a whole collection of posters to try and keep us quiet: ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’. This was our turn now. Us. We were next in line now the French had gone. Would we have Germans marching down our street, kicking down our door with their jackboots?

Lil said, once France had fallen, ‘Well at least we know what we’re up against now.’

But we didn’t. Not really. That was the trouble, and our imaginations were on fire.

‘Have some dinner with us, Genie – there’s enough,’ Vera said.

It was Sunday and the Spinis were all squeezed round the table as usual, except for Stevie who was out with the ice-cream cart. Mom was at work, trying to redeem herself by turning up regularly, and so was Len, so I’d come looking for company.

The door to the yard was open and it was quiet, everyone in having dinner. I could see the tap across the way, shining drops falling fast into the blocked drain. The Spinis’ yard always stank of drains.

Micky Spini seemed relaxed enough, his health improving by inches. He sat at the table in his shirtsleeves, in one of his quiet moods, just staring ahead at the table as if he had things on his mind. He smiled at me though, when I came in. Vera had cooked beef, pink in the middle, liver-coloured at the edges, and there were potatoes and peas. It was nice to be in a proper family again with a dad, and a mom who could see further than the bottom of a glass.

‘Sorry to hear about your windows,’ I said to Micky. ‘You had any more trouble?’

He shook his head. ‘Not so far.’ They kept talking about Uncle Matt and the others still held by the police. Everyone was edgy.

‘No news, Genie?’ Vera said to me as usual.

‘Mom doesn’t think he’s coming back. He’d’ve come by now if he was coming, wouldn’t he?’

Vera stared at me wide-eyed and tried to make comforting noises but I could see she’d been thinking the same. What else was there to think?

‘What about Eric?’

‘He still writes. Sometimes. Seems to like it down there. His handwriting’s come on a treat.’ I sniffed and Teresa reached across and squeezed my hand. ‘Can’t see him wanting to come home after all she’s done for him down there.’

‘Course he will!’ Vera said indignantly. ‘Home’s home. You’re his family. Not Mrs Whateverhernameis down there.’

I didn’t contradict her but I wasn’t sure any more. About anything.

‘And how’s your mother bearing up?’ This was always Vera’s conversation. Family concerns. She knew Mom hadn’t got any time for her but close family ties were what she’d been brought up on.

Teresa’s eyes met mine. I couldn’t tell Vera about Mom’s other predicament. She was kind all right, but sins were sins and she wouldn’t have had any cotter with what Mom had been up to.

She brought in ice cream flavoured with vanilla pods.

‘It’s made with unsalted margarine. There’s nowhere near enough butter about.’

‘It’s not the same,’ Teresa said. ‘Doesn’t have the creaminess.’

‘No, it’s OK. You’re imagining it,’ Micky said, sliding it over his tongue.

‘I’m not. D’you think I can’t tell!’

Already the argument was growing heated. Micky splayed his stubby hands, palms up. ‘You put two plates side by side. You’d never be able to tell the difference.’

‘I can’t tell the difference,’ Francesca said.

‘You see?’

‘She doesn’t know!’ Teresa was shouting by now. ‘She can’t tell if she’s eating lemon drops or bulls’ eyes. She’s got no sense of taste at all!’

All the kids were tasting now, making their own comments at full volume. Personally I thought Teresa was right but decided to keep my trap shut about it.

‘My tongue must be more sensitive,’ Teresa said. ‘It tastes of margarine. It tastes cheap.’

‘Cheap!’ This caused uproar. One of the Spinis’ full-blast ding-dongs was just getting warmed up, Luke banging his bowl on the table since he couldn’t manage anything loud enough with his mouth to enter the competition.

‘What d’you think, Genie?’

‘I can’t remember what it used to taste like,’ I was saying, when we all realized there was a shadow across the doorway. Two shadows. Men in dark suits with bowler hats. One red-faced and fat, everything about him round, even his nose, the other tall and gangly. Laurel and Hardy to a tee. But their faces weren’t anything to laugh at at all. Their coming slashed into the afternoon. The shouting switched off.

Micky stood up, nervously rubbing his hands on his trousers. ‘Can I help you?’

Without being invited they stepped in, and looked round the tiny room at the ice-cream-smeared faces of the children and at the Spinis’ tidy few belongings: the shelf with their remaining bits of chipped crockery that weren’t on the table, the worn pieces of brocade draped over the mantel, Vera’s ‘photograph’ of Jesus. They wore sneers on their faces. Considering how hot it was they had ever such a lot on, and the fat one’s face was perspiring. It seemed a long time before anyone spoke again and it all felt bad before they’d even opened their mouths.

Eventually the fat one said, ‘Are you Michele Spini?’

Micky nodded.

‘I am instructed to arrest you under Regulation 18B as an enemy alien to this country.’

Vera let out a gasp and put her hand over her mouth.

‘But for God’s sake, I’ve been here eighteen years!’ Micky protested. ‘My wife was born here, and my children. I’m in the Fire Service.’ The agitation started him coughing again.

‘That’s as may be. But you haven’t been here
twenty
years or more, have you?’ The thin man stood up very straight and recited pompously, ‘We are given leave to take into custody anyone believed likely to endanger the safety of the realm.’

The two of them went to Micky and took him by the arms. ‘So let’s not waste any time about it, eh?’

‘No!’ Vera cried, standing in front of them, barring the way. ‘You can’t do this. It’s all wrong! You’ve already arrested all the wrong people. My husband loves this country. He’d fight if he was the right age. You’re making a mistake.’

‘Vera,’ Micky said quietly. ‘It’ll be all right. We’ll get it sorted out.’