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Rosie shivered. What was happening to people? To the city she loved? Those boys had grown up here in Liverpool. Suddenly she longed desperately for her father, with his slow reasoned way of speaking and his gentle strength. He might not be a handsome man like Aldo, nor possess the musical talent and hospitable warmth of Carlo, who drew others towards him so easily, but her father had his own special strength and Rosie loved him with a fiercely protective intensity. She hated it when her mother snapped at him and taunted him because of the limp he had developed as a young boy, when he had fallen downstairs and broken his leg so badly that he was left with it slightly shorter than its fellow, and which made it uncomfortable for him to take her dancing.
‘If you’re mekin’ for Pod’s I shouldn’t bother, it’s closed,’ a woman called out to Rosie from the other side of the street, showing her the empty bowl she had obviously intended to have filled with pease pudding.
Thanking her, Rosie regretted her own decision earlier not to stop to get herself something to eat. The larder would almost certainly be bare.
The summer light was beginning to fade from the sky, which was now streaked the colour of blood. Blackout curtains were going up in those windows that hadn’t been broken, and outside those that were, small groups of men were gathering to examine the damage and make temporary repairs. At least it was summer and rain was unlikely to hinder their efforts. The look on the victims’ faces made Rosie feel shamed of her own nationality. She wanted to go to the Italians and assure them that not everyone felt the same way as those who had rioted against them.
When she got home she found her mother in the parlour, sitting on the sofa with her feet up on a worn leather pouffe, smoking a cigarette, her hair already rolled up in rag curlers, and a scarf tied round them turban style.
‘Where’s us supper?’ Christine demanded irritably. Her lipstick had bled into the lines around her mouth, Rosie noticed absently. And there was a button unfastened on her blouse.
‘Pod’s was closed.’
‘So why the hell didn’t you go somewhere else? It’s not as though there ain’t enough ruddy chippies around here,’ Christine complained acidly.
‘Yes, and they’re all Italian-owned,’ Rosie reminded her, ashamed that her mother was only thinking of her stomach at a time like this.
‘Aye, well, they’ve only got themselves to blame,’ Christine told her. ‘That Sofia thinks she’s bin so bloody clever getting her Carlo in with that Fascist lot and her Bella enrolled at one of them language schools what they run, but you mark my words, she’ll be regretting it now.’
There had been a lot of talk in the area whilst Rosie was growing up about Mussolini and his effect on Italian politics. Being a passionate race, Liverpool’s Italian community talked as intensely and fiercely about ‘Fascismo’ as they did about everything else. Rosie knew from sitting in the Grenellis’ kitchen whilst these often heated discussions were going on that to the older generation of immigrants, Mussolini’s desire to treat them as though they were still ‘Italians’, albeit living away from their homeland, meant so much to them emotionally. They saw what Mussolini was doing as a means of uniting them, of giving them respect and status, and of preserving their Italian heritage. They couldn’t see, as their younger British-born children could, the dangers of Fascism.
Hadn’t Mussolini shown respect for their patriotism? the older men argued. Hadn’t he encouraged ‘his’ people living outside Italy to set up social clubs where the men could meet to talk about their homeland and to share their sense of what it meant to be Italian? Hadn’t their mother country sent delegations to talk to them and, thanks to them, hadn’t an Italian school been opened in Liverpool so that their children could learn their true mother tongue? If some of their non-Italian neighbours in their adopted country chose to resent what Mussolini was doing for his people, then that was their problem. For themselves, they were now doubly proud to be Italian and to know that their mother country valued them and recognised them as such.
Stubbornly these often elderly men believed that Fascism was more about an upsurge of patriotism and a love for their homeland, than about politics, which they did not really understand or want to accept.
Many of the younger men, on the other hand, especially those who worked alongside non-Italians, were concerned that in clinging so determinedly to the mother country their fathers and uncles and grandfathers were ignoring the realities of just how antagonistic towards Mussolini the English people and the British Government were, and this led to heated arguments within families when they gathered together. Rosie had seen the way Maria shook her head when they took place in her own kitchen. Sofia was fiercely proud of her Italian heritage, and determined to encourage her husband and her daughter to be equally patriotic, so easy-going Carlo was bullied into joining their local Fasci club, and Bella was sent to the Italian school in the evening for Italian lessons, even though she complained that she already spoke Italian perfectly well.
Rosie had felt slightly left out at first and a little bit hurt when Bella came back talking about the new friends she had made, but Rosie was a gentle-natured girl and she couldn’t resent her best friend’s obvious enjoyment of the fun the classes provided for too long.
It had been in 1935, after Italy invaded Abyssinia, that people had begun to realise the possible implications of Fascism. About that time Rosie could remember hearing a great deal of talk of some members of the Italian community deciding to naturalise and become British citizens. The Grenelli men hadn’t though, mainly because Sofia had been so insistent that to do so would be unpatriotic.
‘Sofia and Carlo aren’t Fascists, they’re just patriotic,’ Rosie protested.
‘Huh, that’s what Sofia might say, but there’s folk around here as thinks different.’
Rosie frowned. ‘I thought that the Grenellis were our friends, but you’re acting as though you don’t even like them. Maria’s always—’
‘Oh, Maria’s well enough,’ Christine stopped her. ‘But ruddy Sofia, she’s allus had it in for me. I’ve warned Aldo many a time not to let Sofia go dragging him into that Fascist lot with her Carlo. Well, I just hope that Aldo’s listened to what I’ve bin saying to him and not got hisself involved, now that there’s all this trouble brewing and folk taking against Italians. Did you try the chippie on Christian Street?’ Christine finished.
It was typical of her mother that it was her hunger she was thinking about and not the fact that she, Rosie, could have been in danger if there had been another outbreak of violence, Rosie accepted ruefully.
‘I’m not going back out again tonight,’ she told her firmly. Other girls with stricter mothers might have been wary of being as outspoken as she was. She was a gentle girl, not normally argumentative, but she knew with her mother she had to stick to her guns – or risk being bullied into doing whatever it suited Christine to have her do.
‘I’ll be glad when Dad gets back,’ she added.
Since Rosie had overheard her father discussing his ship’s near miss, she had prayed extra hard, not just for her father but for all those men who had to make that perilous journey across the Atlantic to be kept safe. War was such a very dreadful thing but, as her father had told her, they had no option other than to stand up to Hitler and to fight as bravely as they could.
‘Well, if I’m not goin’ to get me supper I might as well go to bed. Pity we didn’t get a bit of sommat at number 16. We would have done an’ all if bloody Sofia hadn’t started havin’ a go at me like that.’
‘I don’t think she liked the way you were with Aldo,’ Rosie told her mother uncomfortably.
Christine dropped her cigarette, cursing as it burned a hole in the thin carpet. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You should have let Maria be the one to greet him first. She is his wife, after all.’
Christine gave a dismissive shrug. ‘We all know that. Old Giovanni had both Aldo and Carlo shipped over from the old country so as he could have husbands for his daughters. Mind you, it were the only way he could get them wed. Maria’s that saintly she should have been a ruddy nun, and as for Sofia, she’s got that sharp a tongue on her, the Grenellis don’t need no knife-grinder comin’ round.’
‘Mum …’ Rosie objected. It disturbed her to hear her mother running down the two women who were surely her closest friends, but she knew better than to take Christine to task when she was in this kind of mood.
TWO
Rosie plumped up her pillow and tried to get comfortable. There was silence outside in the street now, but the earlier violence had left her feeling on edge and unable to sleep, even though she was bone tired. Right from being a little girl, Rosie had been afraid of the dark. Then she had been able to creep into her parents’ bed when her father was at home, seeking reassurance. She couldn’t do that now, of course, but no matter how much she tried to rationalise away her fears, the blackout was something she hated.
Further up the street she heard footsteps and then the sound of a knock on a neighbouring door. Silence followed, suddenly broken by a woman’s screams of anguish. Quickly Rosie slipped out of bed and hurried over to the window, easing back the blackout curtain.
Several doors down from them she could see four burly policemen marching seventy-odd-year-old Dom Civeti away from his front door whilst his wife pleaded with them not to take him.
Rosie couldn’t believe her eyes. Everyone knew and loved Dom Civeti, who was the kindest and most gentle man you could imagine. He trained the singing birds that so many Italian families liked to keep, and he was also famous throughout Liverpool for his accordion playing. Rosie could remember how Dom had always had barley sugar in his pockets for the street children, and how he would patiently teach the young boys to play the accordion.
As her eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, she saw that there were other men standing at the end of the street under the guard of the unmistakable bulk of Constable Black, a popular policeman from Rose Street police station. Having escorted Dom to where Constable Black was standing, the other policemen turned back down the street, heading, Rosie recognised with a lurch of her stomach, for the Grenellis’.
She let the blackout drop and raced to pull on her dressing gown as she hurried into her parents’ bedroom, switching on the light and demanding urgently, ‘Mum, wake up.’
When there was no response from the sleeping figure, Rosie gave her mother a little shake.
‘What the … Turn that ruddy light off, will you Rosie?’ Christine objected grumpily, rubbing her eyes and leaving streaks of mascara on her face. Christine claimed that it was a waste to clean her mascara off every night when she was only going to have to put fresh on in the morning, and she often derided Rosie for her insistence on thoroughly removing nightly what little bit of makeup she did wear.
‘It’s the Grenellis,’ Rosie told her mother. ‘I’ve just seen the police going to their door.’
‘What?’ Christine was properly awake now, pushing Rosie away and sitting up in bed, the strap of her nightgown slipping off her shoulder. Several of the rags she had tied in her hair had come out whilst she had been asleep, leaving tangled untidy strands hanging round her face. The air in the room smelled strongly of cheap scent and, despite her anxiety for their friends, Rosie was guiltily aware of how much she wished that her mother was different and more like other girls’ mothers.
‘Are you sure it was the Grenellis’ they were going to?’ Christine demanded.
‘Yes …’ Rosie tensed as they both heard the sound of angry male voices outside in the street.
‘Pass us me clothes then, Rosie. We’d better get dressed and get over there to find out what’s going on,’ Christine asserted. ‘No, not that thing,’ she refused when Rosie handed her her siren suit, as the unflattering all-in-one outfit everyone was urged to keep to hand to wear in case of an air raid in the night, was called. ‘Over my dead body will I go out in that. You’d better go and get summat on yourself,’ she added, when Rosie had handed her the discarded skirt and twinset Christine had been wearing before going to bed and which she had simply left lying on the floor.
Five minutes later they were both dressed and on their way to the Grenellis’.
There was no question in Rosie’s mind about any risk to their own safety. The Grenellis were their friends and if they were in trouble then Rosie and Christine should be there to help them if they could, or share it with them if they couldn’t.
‘What the bleedin’ hell … ?’ Rosie heard her mother suddenly exclaim sharply, both of them coming to an abrupt halt as they saw Constable Black shepherding Giovanni, Carlo and Aldo out through the Grenellis’ front door.
Rosie’s stomach tightened with shocked disbelief when she saw Giovanni, the once proud head of his household, looking so shrunken and old and, even worse, so very frighteningly vulnerable. As she and her mother hurried up to them Rosie could see the tears on his lined cheeks.
‘What’s going on?’ Christine demanded as she ran forward and grabbed hold of the policeman’s uniformed arm.
‘You can’t do this,’ Sofia was protesting angrily as she came out of the house. ‘You have no right to come into our house, saying that you’re looking for Fascist papers and taking away good innocent men.’
‘I’m sorry, Sofia,’ Constable Black apologised gruffly, ‘but orders is orders and we’ve bin given ours. There’s no need for you to go carryin’ on like this. Like as not your dad and the others will be sent home in the morning, once everything’s bin sorted out.’
Christine was now deep in conversation with Aldo. La Nonna was standing just inside the open door, still dressed in her nightgown, her long white hair in a plait. Bella was at her grandmother’s side, her own thick black hair curling softly onto her shoulders. Where Rosie was fine-boned and slender, with delicate features, Bella was slightly plump, with warm olive skin and large dark brown eyes, that could flash with temper or dance with laughter, depending on her mood. Immediately Rosie rushed over to her friend.
‘La Nonna cannot understand what is happening,’ Bella whispered tearfully to Rosie, as Rosie reached for la Nonna’s thin veined hand to give it a comforting squeeze. It felt so cold, trembling in the comforting grasp of her own.
‘They are taking my Giovanni away, Rosie,’ she wept, ‘but he has done nothing wrong.’
‘Hush now, Mamma. It will be all right. You will see.’
Rosie turned with relief to see Maria, neatly dressed as always in her plain black clothes, her hair, like her mother’s, confined in a neat long plait, and looking as calm as though it was nothing unusual to be woken in the night and forced to watch the family’s menfolk being marched away by the police.
‘You’re a fool if you think that, Maria,’ Sofia cried out bitterly. ‘Mamma and Papà should have left this country and gone home to Italia where we would all have been safe. I have told them that so many times.’
‘England is our home now, Sofia,’ Maria reproved her sister gently, whilst Rosie and Bella stood protectively either side of la Nonna, trying their best to comfort her.
‘How can you say that? Look at the way we are treated! See the way our men are dragged from their beds, and our homes are invaded. Is that the way to treat people?’
‘Constable Black has explained to us that he is simply carrying out his orders. It is for Papà and the other men’s safety that they are being taken to the police station. Especially whilst there is so much rioting going on in the city …’
‘That’s nonsense,’ Sofia stopped Maria scornfully. ‘Look at Mamma … see how distressed she is. This will be the death of her, you do know that, don’t you?’ Sofia turned to challenge the policeman bitterly. ‘Is that what you want? To have the blood of an innocent Italian grandmother on your hands?’
‘Sofia, please, you are upsetting Mamma and Papà,’ Maria reproved her sister quietly.
‘Oh, Maria, why are you such a saint that you cannot see what is beneath your own nose?’ Sofia rounded on her angrily.
‘What’s happening, Constable Black?’ Rosie questioned the policeman shakily, as Maria struggled to calm her volatile sister.
‘Like I said, it’s orders, Rosie,’ he answered her reluctantly. ‘But there’s nothing to worry about, you’ll see.’
‘It isn’t just our family – all our men are being rounded up like animals,’ Bella told Rosie fiercely. ‘They are to be taken into custody on the government’s orders in case they are Fascists. That is what we have heard from the other families.’
‘Oh, Bella. How can such a dreadful thing be happening?’ Rosie hugged her friend, and they clung together, both in tears.
‘Constable Black, I implore you,’ Maria protested. ‘You know my father. You know he is a good man. My cousin’s boys are in the British Army. My father is not a Fascist – none of us are. Please do not take him away. My parents are old and frail. They have never been apart before,’ she whispered urgently.
‘I’m sorry, Maria, but orders are orders …’
‘But where are you taking them? How long will they be gone? At least give us time to pack some things for them – clean clothes, food …’
‘There’s no need for that. Like as not you’ll have your pa back in the morning. And now if you’ll tek my advice you’ll all get yourselves back to bed.’
Rosie felt sick with shock and disbelief. She was shivering as though it was the middle of winter, not a warm summer night. She thought of Giovanni and la Nonna as her own grandparents, because that was what they had been to her. She had never known her father’s parents, who had died before she was born, and her mother had fallen out with her own family, so she had told Rosie, because she had married outside her religion. How could this be happening – men being taken from their homes in the middle of the night without any warning and marched away as though they were criminals? Carlo looked worried but determined to remain calm, whilst Aldo was protesting noisily. But Giovanni wasn’t saying anything. Instead he was simply standing there, an elderly man robbed of his pride and dignity. Rosie’s heart ached with love for him. As she had done earlier in the evening but for different reasons, she wished desperately that her father were here.
‘Where are you taking them?’ she asked Constable Black, who had not answered Maria’s question.
‘I can’t tell you that, Rosie,’ he said gravely, ‘but I promise you there’s nothing to worry about.’
Constable Black was a great favourite in the area, and Rosie’s anxiety eased slightly. He was a kind and trustworthy man and if he said there was no reason for concern then surely that was true.
Bella had come to stand beside her so that Rosie was between Maria and her friend. Rosie reached for Bella’s hand and squeezed it as tightly as Maria was squeezing hers.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ she told Bella. ‘Constable Black says so.’
Bella’s mother was still protesting loudly, whilst Rosie saw that her own mother was crying as the men were marched off to join the others. Maria released Rosie’s hand to guide la Nonna gently inside and then came back for Sofia. Automatically Rosie went inside with Bella.
La Nonna was seated in her chair, rocking herself to and fro, making a soft keening sound, her apron flung up over her face. As always the kitchen smelled of good food and warmth. From further down the street they could hear the sound of another family being woken up and fresh shocked protests of disbelief and grief.
Rosie could see in Bella’s eyes the same dull glazed look of shocked disbelief she knew must be in her own. She went over to her friend and reached for her hand. Wordlessly the two girls clung together. Yesterday they had been giggling about the soulful looks they had received from Dino and one of his cousins as they passed them in the street, and talking excitedly about the new dresses they hoped to buy. Tonight they were wondering if life would ever be the same again.
‘You’d better get off home, Rosie,’ Sofia told her. ‘Your ma’s already gone. But then, of course, there’s nothing for her to stay here for now.’
Rosie saw the small gentle shake of her head that Maria gave in her sister’s direction whilst Sofia’s mouth tightened as hard as though she were eating a sour grape. Sometimes Bella’s mother could be very sharp, and over the years Rosie had learned not to be hurt by that sharpness.
‘You’ll tell me as soon as you hear anything, won’t you?’ Rosie begged Maria.
‘Constable Black will have it right, Rosie. Our men will be back home here in next to no time once the authorities realise that they’re good men,’ Maria announced firmly.
‘Oh, Bella …’ Rosie hugged her friend tearfully.
‘It isn’t your fault, Rosie,’ Bella told her emotionally, ‘even though you are English and it’s the British Government that’s doing this, and I shall hate them for ever for it.’
‘Oh, Bella!’ Rosie hugged her even more tightly, not knowing what to say.
They were so close to the longest day that the sky was already beginning to lighten as Rosie walked home. It was three o’clock in the morning and she had to be at work at eight, but she knew already that it would be impossible for her to sleep. The street was empty now and silent. Where had the police taken the men? Rose Street station, the nearest police station, was surely too small. The authorities couldn’t intend to keep them for very long, Rosie tried to comfort herself as she let herself into her home, not if they hadn’t let them take any clean clothes.
Her mother was seated at the kitchen table, smoking. There were even darker black tracks down her face now where her mascara had run. Her hand trembled as she put out her cigarette. As well as selling ice cream, the Grenellis also sold cigarettes and sweets from their handcart. Rosie suspected that sometimes these cigarettes came from the black market and her heart thudded in sudden anxiety. If that came out, would that mean trouble for the Grenelli men? Not that they were alone in supplying their customers with black-market cigarettes. Indeed, buying goods that ‘had fallen off the back of a lorry’ coming out of the docks had become part of the city’s culture, and often the only way in which poor families could feed and clothe their children.
Christine worked in a hairdressing salon, but right now she did not look like a good advertisement for the business, Rosie reflected sympathetically as she took in her mother’s haggard expression. Her hair was now untidier, and without the red lipstick she always wore, her face looked pinched and pale. It touched Rosie’s heart to see her mother, who often seemed so hard and unemotional, so distressed on behalf of her friends. Lovingly she reached out for her hand and squeezed it.
‘Maria was wonderful the way she took charge, wasn’t she? You’d have thought that Sofia would be the one to do that but—’
Almost immediately, her mother dragged her hand free, and snapped, ‘Stop going on about it, will you, Rosie? I told Aldo there was goin’ to be trouble, but of course he wouldn’t listen. Ruddy fool … Now look at the mess he’s got hisself into. I’m goin’ up to me bed. Oh, and when you go to work you can call in at Sarah’s and tell her that I won’t be in on account of me nerves being bad.’ She reached down and scratched her leg and then stood up, lighting up a fresh cigarette as she did so. ‘A ruddy slave, that’s what she thinks I am, paying me next to nowt and expectin’ me to work over when it suits her.’
Rosie sighed. As usual, Christine managed to turn the situation to herself, complaining about the hardships she constantly suffered. Life might hold dramatic changes, as she had witnessed that very evening, but some things would always stay the same.