Birmingham Rose (23 page)

As he reached them he nodded, interrupting the whistling to say ‘Morning’, and was clearly going to carry on past.

‘Michael?’

He stopped and turned, clearly not having any idea who she was.

‘Michael Gillespie.’ It was not even a question. She knew it was him.

He stared at her. ‘You sound like another Brummy but who the—?’

Rose said just one word: ‘Lazenby’s.’

She saw Michael register the word. Then he slowly pointed a finger at her, still unable to believe it. ‘Jesus – if it’s not little Rosie!’

And to her astonishment he came forward and picked her up easily by the waist, swinging her round and laughing, and Rose laughed with him, completely delighted to see him.

‘Oh, Michael,’ she said breathlessly as he finally put her down. ‘You always were a mad sod!’

Suddenly she remembered Tony and introduced him. The two men nodded at each other. Tony muttered, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ and Michael said, ‘All right Tony?’ and they all stood together in the bright morning sunlight.

‘Well,’ Michael laughed. ‘Lazenby’s. That’s real old times now, isn’t it?’ His memories gradually began to come back to him. ‘You did a bunk from Lazenby’s, didn’t you? What got into you? Old Lazenby came in blinding away one morning, saying you’d gone off without a please or a thank you and he’d have to get someone else.’

‘Did he?’ Rose said drily. ‘Well it wasn’t quite like that. Let’s just say me number came up. Anyhow – what on earth are you doing here? Got time for a cuppa?’

‘No – ’fraid not. I’m late already. I’m after having a bath – the first in a long while I can tell you. And now I’m clean and fit, and this is sound again’ – he stamped his left foot – ‘I’ve got to rejoin my unit pronto. I’ve had sick leave. Smashed me ankle up jumping off a wagon soon after we got here. Not much of a war wound eh?’

‘What division are you?’ Tony asked him.

‘Infantry,’ Michael said. ‘One of the poor buggers who goes up front and cops all the shit – ’scuse me, Rosie. These bust-up bones down here have got me out of quite a bit of it so far. There’s no putting it off now though.’

‘You’re not going to Cassino are you?’ Rose asked, horrified.

‘Not Cassino, no. Further east along the front somewhere. Dodging the mines.’

Rose’s eyes showed her dismay, so that Michael bent down and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ he said. ‘Look at you in that uniform – you’re a picture. I’ve got to go now, but don’t you worry, Rosie. I’ll see you in Corporation Street when it’s all over!’

And he backed away, clowning around and singing ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when!’ with a flourish of his arm, and then he was gone.

‘Mad sod,’ Rose said again, and realized suddenly that she had tears in her eyes.

‘Are you all right?’ Tony asked. ‘You look a bit shaky. I take it Michael is an old flame of yours?’

‘Oh.’ Rose was startled. ‘No. No – not really. I worked with him. It’s just – things keep happening like that. Bits of the past and bits of home blowing in when you’re somewhere else and not expecting it.’

As they sat drinking a cup of tea Rose found herself telling Tony about Lazenby’s and Michael and the sort of work she had done there. She didn’t explain why she’d left. Tony sat listening, his grey eyes attentive, his large hands curved round his mug.

‘Sorry,’ she said after a while. ‘I’m running on again.’

Tony smiled. Rose liked the way his wide mouth with its generous lips made his smile look completely wholehearted.

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying hearing about it. Your life’s been so different from mine.’

Tony had already told her that he came from a village in Sussex and that his father had died when he was five. He and his brother and sister had been brought up by their mother. Tony had been an apprentice engineer when the war started.

‘You’ve had a decent education, haven’t you?’ she asked him.

‘Well – we had a good local school,’ he agreed. ‘I think I educated myself really. I was the sort of child who sat reading
Encyclopaedia Britannica
and filled my mind up with a whole collection of apparently useless snippets of information. It’s surprising how often they come in handy though.’

‘We never had books in our house, except a few a friend lent me now and then. I remember reading
Treasure Island
out in the lav to get a bit of peace. Someone always came knocking on the door sooner or later though. I thought I was going to surprise them all and become a teacher. Some hope.’

‘But just because you haven’t had all the chances doesn’t mean . . .’ Tony saw Rose was watching him very seriously as if hungering to be given assurance. ‘I mean intelligence just shines out of you. Look – there are a lot of well-educated ATS here, but how many of them are taking the trouble to try and learn Italian like you?’

Rose shook her head. ‘I dunno. I don’t understand a lot of the people here. We’ve been given the chance of a lifetime really, haven’t we? To come and live in this country, which is fascinating – to me anyway. And all most of them can think about is the next social and what bloke they can get hold of . . . It’s not the only thing is it? They all live as if they’re still in England. I mean, what the hell’s the point of that? We’ll be back there sooner or later and none of them’ll be any the wiser.’

‘Oh, I agree – although my goodness, it can be a harsh place.’ Into his mind flashed the uncomfortable image of a warehouse in Naples where a misguided friend had taken him a couple of weeks before. All around inside, women waited impassively to give their bodies there and then to any man, in return for tins of army rations. The men had queued awkwardly at the door. Ashamed and revolted, Tony had put down some food and left. He didn’t feel he could tell Rose about this so he just said, ‘You need to be careful.’

‘Yes, but I want to see a lot more,’ she said. ‘More of Naples for a start. Get to know people. I’ve found someone to help with the Italian already.’

She told Tony she had got to know an old woman across the other side of Caserta who did tailoring.

‘She’s called Signora Mandetta. She’s making me a skirt at the moment – you know, she’s only got that black stuff like the old ladies wear. Anyway, she said she’d help with my Italian. I think she likes the company, so I pop down whenever I get the chance.’ Rose sighed as they stepped out into the sunshine. ‘Touble is, to get anywhere much there’s all this ruddy chaperone lark.’

‘Well . . .’ Tony looked at her shyly. ‘Would I do?’

Suddenly Rose felt full of confusion. She had seen Tony as a friend. Was he now asking her on a date? What did he expect from her?

‘I . . .’ she stumbled over the words and then decided to cope with anything that happened when the time came. ‘Thank you. That’d be very nice.’

‘Right,’ Tony told her. ‘If you want to see Naples, there’s going to be transport over on Friday evening. Let’s go, shall we?’

Rose nodded, excited, noticing with relief that unlike most people he didn’t refer to the leisure transport as ‘passion wagons’.

It took them just over an hour to reach Naples. The sun was setting over the bay as they wound through the evening clamour of the city’s streets. The uncertain light, and the familiar stench, to which was added a smokiness as evening fires were lit among the rubble, made them hurry towards the familiarity of the Naafi to spend the evening drinking and dancing.

Even over that short distance they were surrounded by a gaggle of children, their hair caked in filth, most wearing the meagrest of rags. The boys gave out gruff adult cries, ‘Ey – ey!’ they shouted, bony hands prodding at the well-fed foreigners, fingers snapping for attention. They wanted food, cigarettes, anything that was on offer.

‘You come!’ one of them shouted at Tony. ‘My sister pretty!
Mia sorella molto bella
– ey, jig a jig!’

Some members of the party, in slight panic, threw cigarettes and coins. The children scrambled for them like wrangling birds.

‘My God – they’re starving!’ Rose said, horrified, once they had entered the relative comfort of the club. She had been moved almost to tears by the sight of them.

One curly-haired boy who could only have been two or three had stood silently, his huge brown eyes staring, his small hand stretched out to them. He had been covered from head to foot in filth. ‘Oh, I wish I could’ve taken that little one back with me and looked after him!’ she said.

Tony smiled at her. ‘There must be thousands out there like him,’ he told her. ‘You can’t feed them all. Let’s just try and enjoy the evening, shall we?’

Rose was beginning to look disgruntled. ‘We’re not going to see a lot of Naples sat in here, are we? Home from bleeding home again.’

Couples sat round the tables laughing and drinking. A band was playing songs of home: ‘The Lambeth Walk’, ‘There’ll Be Bluebirds Over’ and, as ever, ‘In the Mood’.

As Rose sat beside Tony they were joined by another fair-haired lad who Tony introduced as Alex. He was a fellow engineer and the two of them were soon chatting beside her. Opposite them, a chap called Stan from Huddersfield was trying to entertain everyone by telling jokes. The ATS girl with him kept snuggling up like a kitten, resting her head on his shoulder, giggling. After a quarter of an hour of this Rose could have happily socked the pair of them.

Lightly she nudged Tony, who turned a little apologetically from his conversation with Alex.

‘I’m just going to find the Ladies,’ she murmured.

She walked towards the front entrance where there was a small reception desk, as if to enquire. Then, casually glancing back towards the table to check none of them was watching her, she walked to the door. A moment later she was standing alone out on the street.

She knew she needed to move fast. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark of the unlit city. Now that the Germans had moved out of Naples it was their turn to bomb it, so the inhabitants were still constrained by a curfew and blackout. When she reached the end of the street the Piazza Municipio opened out in front of her. In the gloom a huge building loomed up, round, dark turrets at its corners, and she remembered having driven past it. It was the Castel Nuovo.

She made the mistake of stopping for a moment to get her bearings. The sea was a whisper to her left. From somewhere else she could hear a wheezing, squeaking sound as if someone was playing a very old and asthmatic concertina. She heard carts go by, creaking to the exhausted clop-clop of the mules’ hoofs, and a number of shadowy figures passed her in the darkness, some of them in uniform.

And then she felt a hand grip her. She jumped, giving a loud gasp, feeling bony fingers clasping her lower arm. She turned to see a minute old lady standing beside her whose body was bent forward so that her shoulders were rounded into a grotesque hump and she had to twist her head round to look up. Her mouth appeared like a terrible empty hole in the darkness and Rose could make no sense of the cracked whimpering noises she was making. In revulsion and panic of which she was immediately ashamed, she jerked her arm down to rid herself of the goblin-like figure beside her and walked away very fast. She began to hear other voices calling out to her from people she could barely see.

Rose knew she had no definite way of finding her way back once she left the main square. But she had been taken over by her old drive to press on and explore, and it would not let her turn away. She turned her back on the sea, her stomach churning with fear and exhilaration, and walked quickly towards the dark, mouth-like openings of the side streets. She could just make out a pale off limits sign over her head, suspended in the smoky air. She felt as if she was watching herself from the outside and was not really responsible for what she was doing: an ignorant, reckless foreign woman heading into the blackness of the slum streets; and thought, I must be off my head.

And then she was inside, or that was how it seemed: that these streets were the real heart of the city. It was even darker here, the sides of the buildings looming on either side of her very close together, so that looking up she could just make out a ribbon of sky above her head between them. There were a couple of stars showing their minute clear light. Around her the shadows were thick and menacing. She had no idea whether anyone was watching her, but ahead she could see a faint flickering light which must have come from a candle burning in one of the
bassi
. Further along the street she became aware of an orange glow playing on the outlines of the buildings. She could hear voices, women shouting, and somewhere a man was singing.

There was no chance of walking very fast. There was too little light and the thick paving slabs underfoot were littered with rubble from the destruction wrought by the bombing and such rubbish as the Neapolitans could spare lay rotting and urine-soaked on the street. Among the stones and chunks of wood, Rose felt her foot slide on something rounded and yielding and nearly cried out in revulsion.

As she moved along, now and then she felt hands clutching at her. She held her bag clutched tightly to her chest, cursing herself for bringing it. She pushed people away with a roughness born of fear and panic. She was beginning to realize just how foolish she had been to come.

I’ll just go a bit further and then I’ll get myself out of here, she said to herself. She was breathless with fright.

As she drew nearer the glow of the fire she saw that it was burning in the shell of what had once been a tall building like the rest around them. Some lower sections of the outer wall were still standing. Inside was a chaos of stone and timber with beams jutting across at odd angles to the floor and heaps of rubble. In a space among the obviously dangerous ruin, what looked like two or three families were clustered round the darting flames. The stench of drains was even worse here. She watched the circle of people crowded round the fire over which a large cooking pot was balanced on a makeshift support.

She stopped for a few seconds, only to find herself surrounded by clamouring children. The shadows of the fire wavered over their faces, and Rose felt herself unable to move from fear and helplessness.