Some Sunny Day (6 page)

‘At last. Put the kettle on, will yer?’ Christine demanded when Rosie opened the back door. ‘I’m parched.’ Christine was sitting with her feet up on a chair whilst she painted her nails a vivid shade of scarlet. Her hair and makeup looked immaculate and she was wearing one of her best frocks. Tight-fitting and in bright red imitation satin, it was a dress that Rosie knew her mother loved, whilst whenever she saw her in it, all Rosie could think was that she wished her mother wouldn’t wear it, and that it looked both cheap and too young for her.

It astonished Rosie to see Christine looking all dressed up and full of herself, when the Grenellis were experiencing so much heartache, but the last thing she wanted to do was provoke a row with her, so instead of saying what she felt she said quietly instead, as she filled the kettle, ‘I’ve just been round at the Grenellis’.’ Trying to keep the
reproach out of her voice, she continued, ‘They’ve had some news, but it isn’t very good. The men are going to be moved to Huyton in the morning.’

‘Yes, yes, I know all about that,’ Christine interrupted her, looking bored. ‘I went down to Rose Street this dinner time and managed to sweet-talk Tom Byers into telling us what was going on. I suppose Sofia’s still carryin’ on about how she wishes they’d all gone back to Italy, is she? Ruddy fool. She wants to watch her tongue, she does, otherwise it won’t just be her Carlo who’ll end up being deported as a Fascist.’

Rosie couldn’t conceal her shock. ‘The Grenellis aren’t Fascists, Mum.’

‘Well, you could have fooled me the way Sofia’s bin carryin’ on. I’ve bin warning Aldo to keep his distance from Carlo – not that Carlo’s to blame. It’s ruddy Sofia wot’s got them all into this mess, if you ask me, allus goin’ on about Italy and that Mussolini. Of course, she’s allus bin able to twist her dad round her little finger. It should be her wot was taken off, not Aldo. Anyway, Tom Byers has tipped me the wink that them as is found to be Fascists will end up being interned on the Isle of Man, wi’ the worst of them shipped off to Canada. I’m going up to Huyton in the morning to see if I can manage to have a word wi’ Aldo and warn him to keep his mouth shut when he’s questioned at this Warth Mills place they’re all going to be sent to.’

Rosie could only stare at her mother. How had she managed to find out so much when poor Maria
had been told next to nothing? Rosie winced inwardly as she took in her mother’s smug expression and dressed-up appearance.

‘I would have thought you’d be straight round to the Grenellis to tell them what you’d heard,’ was all she could manage to say.

Christine reached for her cigarettes. ‘Wot, and ’ave to listen to Sofia ranting on? No, thanks. Besides, I don’t want to get tarred wi’ the same brush as them, and if you’ve any sense in that head of yours, our Rosie, you’ll keep a bit o’ distance from Bella whilst all this is goin’ on. Hurry up with that cuppa, will yer, Rosie?’ Christine looked down at her legs and added, ‘I hope that yer dad remembers to bring us some stockings back wi’ him this time. Honestly, he’s that daft at times. Fancy goin’ all the way to New York and not thinkin’ on to fetch us some stockings.’

‘They were almost torpedoed the last time, Mum, and Dad said that they were lucky not to be sunk. I dare say he didn’t have time to go looking for stockings with them having to unload and come back so quick so as not to miss the convoy,’ Rosie told her.

She was still trying to come to terms with the change in her mother’s attitude towards the Grenellis – a change that left her feeling ashamed and determined to make sure that the family knew they could count on
her
loyalty and friendship at least. 

The week dragged by with no real news about what was going to happen to the men. Rosie had no idea whether or not her mother had visited Huyton as she had said she was going to because Christine had flatly refused to discuss the subject with her, saying that it was her business what she did and no one else’s. There were times, Rosie acknowledged, when she found it very hard to understand the way her mother’s mind worked. Her mother’s behaviour made her feel guilty when Bella told Rosie that she and Maria were going to Huyton with the Podestra family to see if they could somehow or other manage to see their menfolk.

‘We’re going to take them some food and some clean clothes.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Rosie volunteered immediately.

Bella shook her head. ‘You can’t, Rosie. We’re goin’ in the morning because that’s when Louisa Podestra reckons the guards let the men come out for some fresh air. You’ll be at work. Louisa has told me I can have the time off. Not that we’ve got that many coming into the chippie since it all happened, exceptin’ to ask if there’s bin any fresh news. It seems to me that me mam’s in the right of it and it would have bin better for us if we’d gone back to Italy,’ Bella added with a new bitterness in her voice.

‘Bella, don’t say that,’ Rosie protested. ‘You’re as English as I am.’

‘No I’m not. I’m Italian, and proud of it even if I were born here.’

‘We’re at war with Italy now,’ Rosie reminded her, trying not to look shocked.

‘
I
don’t need telling that, do I?’ Bella retaliated. ‘Not wi’ me dad and me granddad in a concentration camp.’

‘Huyton isn’t a concentration camp.’

‘Huh, those who run it may not be callin’ it that, but what else can it be when they’ve got men imprisoned there?’

Rosie said nothing. She was beginning to feel as though she didn’t know her friend properly any more. She hadn’t missed the bitter looks Sofia gave her whenever she went round to the Grenellis’, and now here was Bella treating her more as though they were enemies than friends, and as though England wasn’t her home at all. Rosie was confused by her own feelings. She felt hurt by Bella’s attitude towards her and, if she was honest, she felt angry as well when Bella complained and said that she wished she were living in Italy. She had understood when Bella had been upset about what had happened to the Italian men, but she couldn’t agree with what Bella was saying now.

‘I hope you manage to see your dad and granddad,’ was all she could manage to say eventually. And for the first time since they had grown up they did not hug one another when they said goodbye.

‘You’re still on for Saturday at the Grafton, aren’t you, Rosie?’ Ruth asked cheerfully as the girls put on their coats to leave work.

Rosie hesitated before replying. The truth was that the last thing she felt like doing was going out dancing, but she didn’t want to let Ruth down by backing out now.

‘Of course she is, aren’t you, Rosie?’ one of the other girls laughed. ‘You won’t catch me missing out.’

‘Meet us outside at half-past seven, Rosie,’ Ruth told her, adding with a wink, ‘And thanks for sortin’ me dress out for me. I’ll write and tell my Fred not to be so eager next time.’

As she walked down Springfield Street half an hour later, Rosie wondered whether or not she should call at the Grenellis’. Don’t be so soft, she chided herself. There was no call to go getting all upset and taking it to heart because Bella had been a bit funny with her. Chances were that she had
only been like that because she was so worried and feared for her dad and granddad. She had probably read too much into Bella’s wild talk. Reassured by her own thoughts, Rosie felt her spirits start to lift as she headed for number 16. She had missed Bella even though it had only been a couple of days since she had last seen her.

It was Maria who opened the door to her knock, hugging her briefly, her expression betraying the strain she was under.

‘If you’ve come to see Bella, she’s round at Pod’s,’ Maria told her before Rosie could ask after her friend.

‘Who is it? Oh, it’s you, is it?’ Sofia announced in a hostile tone, answering her own question as she came into the kitchen. ‘Where’s your mother, or daren’t she show her face here after what she’s been doing?’

‘Sofia…’ Maria protested.

‘What’s wrong?’ Rosie demanded, indignant at her mother being talked about in such a way even though she had been feeling ashamed of her behaviour herself these last few days. ‘What’s my mother supposed to have done?’

‘There’s no
supposed
about it,’ Sofia answered bitterly. ‘Seen at it, she was. Acting cheap around our men, wi’ them wot’s guardin’ ’em and we all know why. Some of us have allus known what she is, even if others…’

Sofia’s voice was rising higher with every word she spat out. She was trembling with fury whilst
Rosie had started trembling herself. All her life she had thought of the Grenellis as her family, never imagining that anything could change the deep bond she had believed they shared. That belief had been turned on its head the moment the trouble had started in Liverpool.

‘Sofia, please…’ Maria begged her sister urgently in a low voice.

Rosie heard her but she was too shocked to be able to react. Somewhere in a corner of her mind she had always known that her mother’s behaviour wasn’t like that of Maria and Sofia, but she had put that difference down to the fact that they were Italian, not because…She couldn’t stand here and let Sofia call her mother cheap without defending her. She took a deep breath.

‘I know my mother went to Huyton Camp but—’

‘She had no right to go there,’ Sofia shouted her down angrily. ‘What’s she to us? Nothing! And you can go home and tell her we don’t want her coming round here any more. Not that she’ll dare to show her face here after what she’s done…’

Rosie looked helplessly at Maria, not knowing what to say or do and not really able to understand why Sofia was so worked up.

‘You’d better go home, I think, Rosie,’ Maria advised her, bustling her out of the room. ‘I’m sorry that Sofia spoke to you like that. She’s not herself at the moment.’

‘I know how much you must all be worrying,
Maria,’ Rosie agreed, swallowing down the tears that were thickening her voice. ‘How is la Nonna? Have you managed to get any word of the men?’ The questions she wanted to ask came tumbling out on top of one another as Maria hurried her towards the back door.

‘You’re a good girl, Rosie. A kind girl,’ Maria told her, without answering her. ‘But with things the way they are, it’s best that you don’t come round for a while. Just until things settle down and Sofia’s back to her normal self.’

The tears burned in the back of Rosie’s eyes. She wanted to throw herself into Maria’s arms and be told that everything was all right, just as she had done so many times as a little girl: when she had lost both her first front teeth and had been teased at school; when she had not been chosen for the school pantomime; when the goldfish her father had won for her at the fair had died, to name just a few of the small sadnesses that had coloured her growing up. But this was different. Everything was not all right, and she wasn’t a little girl any more. Poor Maria. Rosie could hardly bear to think about what she must be going through.

Squaring her shoulders, she reached out and gave Maria a fierce silent hug, and then hurried away before her emotions got the better of her.

Rosie frowned as she studied her appearance in her dressing-table mirror. Having dipped her forefinger into a pot of Vaseline, she then drew the tip of it along the curve of her dark eyebrows to smooth and shape them, a beauty aid that Bella had shown her.

She was wearing a frock she had made herself from a remnant of pretty floral cotton, bright yellow flowers against a white background. She had bought a roll of it at St John’s market in the spring. There had been just enough to make herself a halter-necked frock with a neat nipped-in waist and a panelled skirt.

She had made the halter and trimmed the top of the bodice with some white piqué cotton, and then used the offcuts from the floral material to trim the little matching bolero jacket she had made. The result was an outfit that had brought her more than a few admiring comments. The smile that had been curving her mouth at the memory of those comments dimmed when she remembered how many of them
had come from the Grenelli family and how Bella had begged her to make a similar frock and jacket for her. Together they had gone to St John’s every market day until they had found the perfect fabric for Bella’s dark colouring: a deep rich red, patterned with polka dots. They had both worn their new outfits for Bella’s birthday early in May. Less than two months ago but it might as well have been a lifetime ago, so much had changed, Rosie admitted sadly. Her mother hadn’t said anything about the fact that neither of them was visiting the Grenellis any more and, having heard Sofia’s bitter denunciation of Christine, Rosie had felt unable to talk to her about what had happened or why she had stopped visiting their old friends.

‘Where are you off to then?’ her mother demanded now when she saw Rosie dressed up to go out.

‘The Grafton,’ Rosie answered. ‘I’m meeting up with the other girls from work. It was Ruth’s idea. I think she’s feeling a bit low with her Fred in the army, and she wanted a bit of cheering up.’

‘Huh, well, we’d all like a bit of that, I’m sure,’ Christine said sharply. She lit a cigarette and inhaled, then exhaled the smoke, narrowing her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t mind comin’ with yer meself to be honest, Rosie. How do yer fancy havin’ yer old mam along? Mind you, I bet I could show you young ’uns a thing or two,’ she added, her pursed lips relaxing into a small secretive smile.

Rosie’s heart sank. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother – she did – but she didn’t feel
comfortable about her coming out with them, especially after what Sofia had said.

‘There isn’t time for you to get ready now. I promised the others I’d meet up with them at half-past seven,’ she blurted out.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed again but not against the smoke this time. ‘I see you don’t want me along spoiling your fun.’ She gave a small contemptuous shrug. ‘Please yourself then. I can soon find meself summat to do. As a matter of fact them from the salon are going to the Gaiety tonight and they’ve asked me to go along wi’ them,’ she said, referring to the cinema on Scotland Road.

Rosie felt guilty at how relieved she was to be leaving the house without her mother. It was a pleasant evening, and the city’s streets were still busy with people coming and going, making the most of the light evening and the freedom from the blackout that the dark nights brought.

Like everyone else, Rosie was carrying her gas mask on her arm in its protective box. She had hated having to carry it around all the time at first. It had looked so ugly and felt so cumbersome. But soon, along with other girls, Rosie had been finding imaginative ways to dress up the carrying case with a cover made from scraps of fabric, just like the fancy carrying cases she had seen in the magazines. Automatically she stopped to scan the headlines written up on the newspaper sellers’ sandwich boards, sucking in her breath, her stomach tensing
with anxiety that there was more bad news about the Italian men being held.

‘You can allus buy a paper instead of trying to memorise it, love,’ the newspaper seller told her drily, causing passers-by to laugh. Rosie blushed but she too laughed and shook her head. However, the three young lads who had stopped to listen to what was going on, and admire her as they did so, bought a paper apiece.

‘Here, you can stay if you like,’ the seller grinned, winking at her. ‘Pretty lass like you is good for business.’

Rosie laughed again. She was going to be late meeting the others if she wasn’t careful. The lads who had bought papers watched her from the other side of the road, and whistled at her.

Cheek, Rosie thought to herself, tossing her head slightly to let them know what she thought of their impudence, but still secretly pleased by their harmless admiration.

‘There you are. We was just thinking you weren’t going to come,’ Ruth told Rosie, grabbing hold of her arm. ‘Let’s get inside and get a table before it gets too packed.’

The Grafton was one of Liverpool’s most popular dance halls. It had a wide double stairway that led up to the dance hall itself, and on busy nights the stairs could be packed with people eager to dance, as well as some couples standing there smooching, oblivious to the crowd around them. The Grafton
was well known for having the very best dance bands on, led by the likes of Victor Silvester, Oscar Rabin and Ivy Benson. As Ruth had predicted, it was already almost full of young people, all keen to enjoy themselves whilst they still could. Of course, the young men in uniform attracted the most interest from the girls in their dance frocks.

‘And remember,’ Ruth cautioned the party from Elegant Modes as they wriggled through the crowd just in time to grab the last vacant table close to the edge of the dance floor, ‘no one’s to go encouraging any RO lads.’

RO lads were the men who were doing very necessary reserved occupation work, but who lacked the glamour of a uniform.

‘That dress looks ever so pretty on you, Rosie,’ Evie Watts, a window dresser at the shop, commented admiringly. ‘I thought so the last time I saw you wearin’ it. Mind you, you ’ave got the figure for it.’

Rosie had just started to thank her for her compliment when Nancy butted in nastily, ‘For meself, I allus think that shop-bought looks smarter than home-made, especially when you’ve had the fabric off of the market and half of Liverpool’s wearing it.’

‘Don’t mind Nancy, Rosie,’ Ruth whispered. ‘She’s just jealous of you on account of her thinking she were the bee’s knees and the prettiest girl in the shop until you come along.’

The band had already started to play and Ruth
nudged Evie as a group of young men several yards away edged a bit closer to their table.

‘I’m dancing wi’ the one with the blond hair and blue eyes, in the corporal’s uniform,’ Ruth announced with a predatory gleam in her eyes. ‘He’s got his stripes and I like a lad wi’ a bit of experience about him.’

‘Wot about your Fred?’ Evie demanded

‘Wot about ’im?’ Ruth came back smartly.

When Evie pulled a face behind Ruth’s back and whispered to the others, ‘I fancied that blond lad meself,’ Rosie couldn’t help giggling, her spirits starting to lift.

Ruth might be more outspoken than she was herself but she was such good fun that you couldn’t help but enjoy being in her company. Ruth was always the one for a bit of quick backchat and never behind the door when it came to putting a cheeky lad in his place if she felt like it. Rosie remembered how much it had made her laugh when Ruth had riposted to one particular lad who had swaggered over to them like he was really something, to ask her to dance, ‘Come back in five years when you’re old enough – and tall enough.’

Two girls who Rosie didn’t recognise made their way over and were introduced by Evie as her cousins Susan and Jane. Drinks were ordered, cigarettes lit, and the girls settled down to the ritual of pretending they were oblivious to the way the boys were eyeing them as they smoothed already straight seams and
patted immaculately rolled curls, thus showing off slim ankles and shining hair.

‘’Ere, that blond lad’s on his way over. Remember what I said. Hands off, everyone else,’ Ruth warned with a wicked grin.

After a few muttered comments about some girls having the cheek to grab all the best lads before anyone else had a chance to get a good look at them, the girls dutifully clustered together in such a way that the young man was automatically channelled towards Ruth.

‘I reckon it were you he really wanted to dance with, Rosie,’ said Evie as they watched Ruth dancing past them in the arms of the young soldier, who had introduced himself as Bob. ‘There’s no Italian lads here tonight by the looks of it. Shame, ’cos they’re good dancers, and good-lookin’ too.’

Rosie’s smile faded. Evie’s comment had reminded her of the dreadful things that had been happening to the Grenellis. Because of her family’s plans for Bella to marry one of the Podestra boys, Sofia did not allow Bella to go dancing with Rosie, but Bella had always been eager to hear about the fun Rosie had. Dances at the Grafton would be the last thing on Bella’s mind now, Rosie thought, her happiness suddenly shadowed by guilt because she was here and enjoying herself. One of the other young men in army uniform who had been watching them came over and asked her to dance. He was blushing slightly, his brown hair slicked back, and his gaze fixed on a point somewhere past her shoulder. Rosie
didn’t have the heart to turn him down. His hand, when he clasped hers, felt hot and slightly sticky, and she could see how self-conscious he felt. His accent wasn’t Liverpudlian, and under her kind questioning he admitted that he had only recently joined up and that he was feeling a bit out of his depth.

‘I didn’t realise that Liverpool was going to be so big,’ he confessed, his honesty and humility making Rosie warm to him.

‘So where are you from, then?’ Rosie asked him.

‘Shropshire,’ he told her. ‘My dad works on a farm down near Ironbridge. I’ve never seen so many houses all together before I came to Liverpool. Nor the sea neither.’

He sounded rather forlorn and Rosie felt quite sorry for him.

‘You must have made friends with some of the other men who joined up at the same time,’ she suggested.

‘Oh, aye, I done that all right,’ he agreed, looking happier. ‘A nicer bunch of blokes you couldn’t hope to meet.’ He gave Rosie a shy grin. ‘After all, it were them as persuaded me to come here tonight. Aye, and it were them an’ all that said I should ask you to dance.’

By the time their dance was over and he had returned Rosie to her table it was surrounded by a jolly crowd of mostly uniformed young men.

Ruth was a flirt, there was no doubt about that, but she was also a big-hearted girl, and Rosie saw
how she made sure that even the shyest girl on their table was invited to get up and dance.

‘Here’s Nancy coming over wi’ that cousin of hers wot thinks he’s God’s gift with bells on,’ Evie muttered. ‘Watch out, girls.’

Rosie turned to look at the man coming towards their table. Nancy was at his side and two other young men who were also obviously part of the small group were walking slightly behind him. He was tall, with broad shoulders, his dark hair brilliantined back, and almost film star good looks, apart from the fact that his eyes were too close set, but Rosie knew immediately why Evie had disparaged him. It was all there in those eyes, everything a person needed to know about him, and it made her recoil from him physically. There was not just a coldness but a brutality in his eyes as his darting gaze moved arrogantly over the girls seated at the table. There had been a boy very similar to him at school, Rosie remembered, a bully and a liar who had terrorised the younger children, stealing from them and physically hurting them, until one day the big brother of the small first year he had pushed to the playground, stamping deliberately on his glasses and leaving him crying, had come down to the school and taught him a much-needed lesson.

‘Come on, Lance, you promised you’d dance with me,’ Nancy was wheedling, when they reached the table. She was hanging on to his arm, and looking up at him in a way that was more lover-like than cousinly. It was plain, though, that he did not return
her interest because he disentangled himself from her quickly and almost brutally. Rosie could feel him watching her, staring at her, she realised indignantly, as he struck a pose and lit up two cigarettes, withdrawing one from his mouth and then trying to hand it over to her. His action was so deliberately intimate that it made her face burn, not with self-conscious female delight but with anger.

‘No, thank you,’ she told him coolly. ‘I don’t smoke.’

‘But you do dance, right?’

He had put out the cigarettes now, but he hadn’t stopped looking at her and he had moved closer to her as well – so close that she instinctively wanted to put some space between them. But that wasn’t possible with her still seated.

‘What’s happened to them Italian Fascist friends of yours?’ Nancy cut in, taunting Rosie, unhappy the limelight wasn’t shining on her. ‘Or need we ask? All bin imprisoned, I expect, and so they ruddy well should be – aye, and all them wot support them as well. You should be reportin’ her to the authorities, Lance, not asking her to dance.’

‘Supportin’ Fascism – that’s treason, that is,’ Nancy’s cousin announced. The way he was looking at her made the fine hairs on Rosie’s neck rise in angry dislike.

‘Having Italian friends doesn’t make anyone a traitor and it doesn’t mean that they’re Fascists either,’ she defended.

‘I know a group of handy lads, who have their
own way of deciding how ruddy Fascists need to be treated. Aye, and they’ve proved it already,’ Lance taunted.

The other girls were beginning to look uncertain and uncomfortable now. Was Nancy’s cousin saying what Rosie thought he was saying? Was he implying that he was one of those who had been involved in the violent riots?

‘Mebbe there are some Italians fighting for Blighty but there’s a hell of a lot more fighting our lads, aye, and killin’ ’em as well. Why take any chances, that’s wot I say. A concentration camp is the best place for the ruddy lot of them,’ Lance told her. His voice had risen as he became more animated, so that the rest of the revellers could hear what he was saying and Rosie could see the approving nods that some of the people standing around them were giving. The earlier light-hearted mood had been replaced by a dark undercurrent of anger and hostility that made her feel vulnerable and afraid.