Birmingham Rose (35 page)

‘I’m longing to set up a home with Bill,’ Gwen confided to Rose as they walked round the palace grounds. ‘Make a real cosy nest, have lots of children. But in some ways I dread going so much. I’ll have to face Mummy, and she’s going to expect us to live as close to her as possible and I know she’ll never leave us alone.’

‘Go and live near Bill’s family then,’ Rose suggested. ‘His dad’s not too well, is he? That’s a good enough reason I’d’ve said.’

‘Not good enough for Mummy,’ Gwen said grimly. ‘If I go and live in Bromley she’ll never speak to me again. Are you looking forward to going back?’

‘No,’ Rose said bleakly.

Earlier in the war she had longed to see Grace and the twins and Harry – even George. But so much time had passed that although she did want to see them they felt like strangers. How could she leave Italy now, when the person she loved most in all the world was here? Her mind was already working on how she could arrange to stay. The thought of making her life here with Falcone was the only future she could imagine.

‘You and Tony haven’t . . . I mean – is there any chance?’

Rose looked at her, frowning for a moment as if puzzled. Then she registered what Gwen was saying. ‘Tony? You mean us getting married? No. Tony and me have never been anything but good pals. That’s all.’

Gwen sighed sympathetically. ‘I’ll miss you such a lot, you know, Rose. You’ve been ever so good for me. Don’t know what I’ll do without you in fact.’

Rose smiled, her dark eyes warm and suddenly amused. ‘We’ve all been good for each other, when you think of it. Look at that toffee-nosed Willy for a start. She’s almost human nowadays!’ They laughed together. ‘Anyway, come on. We’re not leaving yet. Knowing the army, it’ll take them months to get round to demobbing us.’

Rose went to Naples a week later. The truck carrying them there could not move fast enough for her. She was almost frantic with anticipation at seeing Falcone, of feeling him close to her again. In her mind a plan had been forming over the past days. It was exciting, frightening, but right. She knew it was what she must do. This was home, the place she wanted to give her life to. When her number came up for demobilization she would not leave. She was going to stay on. Whatever else mattered in her life, there was nothing so important as being here with Falcone.

As they reached the city and rumbled over the cobbles, the usual stench hitting them, she felt like putting out her hand to stroke the faces of the dusty, weary-looking buildings. They had become familiar to her and she knew she was meant to remain here among them.

Napoli, she said in her mind. Napoli, Napoli. My home, God help me. And she smiled so broadly that the barrel-chested corporal opposite her in the truck might have mistaken it for a come-on had her mind not been so obviously elsewhere.

She half walked, half ran to Il Rifugio through the squalor of the back streets. She had not bothered to put on her old black clothes this time, and she had gathered quite a bunch of poking, nudging children around her by the time she reached the rough wooden entrance. She opened the gate with her key and locked them all out behind her. She ran up the stone stairs, her heart pounding, and hammered on the door. Next to her on the wall, more faded now, were the rough letters she had first seen:
IL RIFUGIO
.

Margherita opened the door. Rose saw her look of pleased recognition tighten into one of sorrow, fear almost. Without speaking she took Rose’s hand and led her inside, not even kissing her, and she shooed away the children with unusual sharpness. Rose felt her insides turn with dread.

‘What?’ she gasped. ‘What is it? Where is everyone? Where is he?’

‘Rosa,’ Margherita said gently. She led her to a chair in the little side room and made her sit down.

She went over to the old table and opened the drawer. For a second she hesitated before turning to Rose with an envelope in her hand. Rose saw that she had tears in her eyes.

‘He left this,’ Margherita said. ‘Rosa, I’ve never seen him more distressed, more frightened of himself.’

Numb, not understanding, Rose took the army-issue envelope and opened it, her hands beginning to shake. She realized as she read the short letter, written in bold, black ink, that she had never seen his handwriting before.

‘
Mia carissima Rosa
,’ it began. ‘My dearest Rose,

What can I write to you that will ever make you understand what I have done? In my mind I can see your eyes filled with nothing but pain and I know that I, and only I, am the cause of it.

As you read this you’ll know I am thinking of you, as I begin life in the seminary of San Domenico Maggiore, because I can think of nothing else until I can be sure you have left Naples and I know there is no chance of us meeting again.

Now that the war is over, I know that you will go back to your country, my beautiful English friend, for your life is there. I know that this is what you have to do, that our days together here during the war have been a time like no other that we shall never have again. I have asked myself a thousand times if we could make a life together, but I know that your home is really in England, and that my certainty that I must try this vocation would stand between us. Please know that you take my heart with you. I am following God’s call, but believe me, it’s a road of thorns.

I don’t have the words to ask you to forgive or to understand. I know only one thing. That I love no other human being as I love you.

Please accept this ring as a bond, a memory of a time like no other. Forgive me. Go well, my love. Paulo Falcone.

Slowly Rose tipped the envelope and shook it, and into her hand fell a slim, silver-coloured ring. She recognized it as one of the many hammered out and sold as souvenirs in the area after the eruption. Into its rim was engraved ‘
NAPLES
’44’.

For a few seconds she sat staring dumbly at the letter, at the ring, both of which seemed to bear no relation to him, to the man she loved. Then, leaping up, she exclaimed wildly to Margherita, ‘Where is he? Where is San Domenico Maggiore? It’s on the way to the Duomo, isn’t it? I remember. I can walk. I must go.’

Solemnly Margherita held her back, taking her firmly by the shoulders, almost shaking her to make her stand still.

She looked hard into Rose’s distraught face, willing her to accept, to understand. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s no good, Rosa. Even if you go they’ll never let you see him when he’s just entered. It’s the rule.’

She watched her friend’s face, so alight with love and anticipation when she arrived, as it crumpled finally into shock and grief. For a long time she held Rose in her arms that afternoon as her heartbreaking sobs filled the room, the sound of a woman beyond hope and beyond comfort.

1947–1957

Gradually she came to, feeling sick and muzzy, and opened her eyes, becoming aware of the white room. She saw the edge of a long blue and white curtain hanging beside her, and, above, a light with a white institutional shade over it like a stiff little hat. Wherever was she? She tried to move, and felt a sharp, tearing pain across her stomach which made her sink back on to the bed again.

After a moment a face appeared, smiling down at her. A young woman with blond hair pinned back under a starched white cap.

‘What happened?’ Rose demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Wrong? Nothing at all,’ the nurse said soothingly. ‘You’ve got a lovely little daughter, Mrs Meredith. Just over seven pounds. You needed a bit of help with her, that’s all. Anyway, now you’re awake I’ll bring her to you. Your husband’s waiting outside.’

Soon Alfie walked into the ward following the nurse who was carrying their tiny child wrapped in a white cellular blanket. Alfie was grinning broadly. Rose felt the blanket bundle in her arms and saw the baby’s small squashed face, her eyes closed and a shadow of brown hair on her head.

‘There,’ Alfie said, as if he’d given birth to the child all by himself. ‘Meet Hilda Grace. Our firstborn. Ain’t she grand, eh?’

Hilda. Rose tried to smile back at him. So he had named her already, before she, Rose, had even come round. They had argued for months about the name. Rose had wanted Diana if it was a girl (‘That’s a toff’s name,’ Alfie had said), or Dora, or Margaret. Hilda was Alfie’s mother’s name. Though she was fond of Mrs Meredith, Rose thoroughly disliked the name. But it had been said. Once a new baby had been greeted by its name it seemed too late to go back on it.

She looked down at this child, whose birth she could not remember and whose name she had not spoken, with a strong sense of unreality. She was lovely, it was true, healthy and wholesome. But even at a few hours old, so obviously Alfie’s child – his colouring, his narrow eyes. What connection did she have with her mother?

Alfie’s face wore a delighted, triumphant grin as he watched Rose suckling their daughter, oblivious to the hard, angry expression on her face.

‘Ah, Mrs Meredith. You’re back with us I see.’ A doctor with dark, bushy hair was striding towards the bed, white coat gusting out behind him. ‘Feeling all right? Your baby was breech I’m afraid. Feet first, in other words, and very awkwardly positioned. So we had to whip her out by Caesarean section. All’s looking good now though, as I can see.’ He spoke very fast.

‘Just have a quick glance at you.’ He pulled the curtain across briskly on one side and gestured at Alfie to move out.

When he’d checked her wound and opened the curtains again, the doctor suddenly turned with a smile. ‘By the way, do you speak Spanish by any chance? Or Italian?’

Bewildered, Rose said, ‘Italian. Well I did. In the war.’

‘I’ve been hearing about you from my staff,’ the doctor told her with an amused grin. ‘Believe me, you haven’t lost your touch. You caused quite a stir – chatting away nineteen to the dozen in Italian as you came round from the anaesthetic.’

‘Oh my God!’ Rose was suddenly delighted, and smiled back at him. Then she saw Alfie scowling beside her. He didn’t like hearing anything about Italy, about her war. He was jealous of it in ways he didn’t really seem able to explain.

Cautiously she asked, ‘What did I say?’

‘No idea,’ the doctor said. ‘Afraid none of us speak the lingo. I was out east myself. Picked up a smattering of Hindustani. You must have worked hard at it. Apparently it was quite impressive.’

When Rose was finally left alone and Hilda had been taken back to the nursery, she lay drowsily in bed, trying to take in the existence of her daughter. It all seemed very new and strange. Her body, having recovered sensation, felt battered and sore from the operation, and her breasts tingled with the forgotten pains of feeding. She had not yet experienced much in the way of any stirring of love for her child. But those feelings would come, she hoped with all her heart. That little girl had to be the centre of her life, for what else was there? A baby. A child. Was it not, if she was honest, mainly so that she could have children that she had agreed to change her name from Lucas to Meredith?

*

Hilda was crying. Again. All afternoon, on and off, she had screamed and cried until Rose, after trying to work out what it was that was distressing her, had now reached the point where she could scarcely bring herself to care. The sound set all her nerves on edge again. Tutting with infuriation, she picked the baby up and started suckling her in the hope that it would put her back to sleep.

As she was gently laying the child in her wooden cot, she heard the slam of the back door.

‘Got the dinner ready?’ Alfie shouted. Holding her breath, she heard him drop his heavy boots on to the floor one by one. Then she heard him rattling the lid of the big stewpot, the contents of which had been simmering for over an hour, the smell of gravy and vegetables filling the little prefab house.

‘Smells a bit of all right,’ he called out.

Hilda stirred in her cot and let out a loud, cracked-sounding wail.

Alfie padded through in his dusty socks, daubs of greyish cement stuck round the ankles. ‘Hello. All right, love?’

‘You’ve woken her up again!’ Rose snapped at him. ‘D’you have to shout about the place every time you come in?’

She had meant it to be different. She was going to try much harder today: smile at him when he came in; make life sweeter between them.

Alfie shrugged. ‘Can’t have your whole life ruled by a babby. They have to fit in with everyone else. That’s family, ain’t it?’

He came over to try and cajole her, putting his arm round her shoulders as she picked up Hilda, who was showing no sign of wanting to go back to sleep. Rose flinched at his touch.

‘Can’t you get changed first? You’re filthy dirty.’

‘Oh, a dirty frock won’t hurt. Not when you hear what I’ve got to tell you. Got some news. I’ve got a new job. Bigger firm – not just houses like MacMahon’s is, so we shouldn’t get buggered about so much. All that on, off, on, off with the government. Don’t know if you’re coming or going. And it’s fifteen bob a week more. How about that?’

‘Oh, good,’ Rose said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Alfie kissed her. ‘I knew you’d be pleased,’ he said. He unfastened his trousers and slipped them down as he sat on the bed. ‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘Half this blooming city needs rebuilding. I’ll have me own little firm one day.’

She tried to arrange her face into a tired smile. ‘I ’spect you will.’

His shoulders flexed back allowing his work shirt to slide off and revealing his very white, though quite muscular torso. Fishy white, Rose thought, staring at his back. Alfie turned to look at her, deliberately, she suspected, not putting his clean shirt on straight away. Did he really imagine the sight of him would excite her, with a restless baby in her arms?

‘We’re going places, you and me, Rosie,’ Alfie said, his grey eyes showing his habitual optimism. ‘We’re going to give our kiddies the best you can get.’