Rue End Street

by Sue Reid Sexton

  There was a row of shops going off to the left, facing the sea and beyond some grass, but there was probably nothing in them, being the war. In the other direction, on a corner, just beyond a church was ITAL in big bold letters on a corner above a shop window. The full word was ITALIAN, of course, and peering inside I saw tables, but not set for dinner. Instead, queues of people were on one side and ladies in uniforms on the other. The room was full of smoke and there were no chips or ice cream to be seen anywhere. I positioned myself so I could see some faces, but my dad wasn’t amongst them. Then I noticed a small hand-written sign which said ‘LABOUR EXCHANGE’. It seemed a horrible place with walls of bare bricks.

  Not knowing what else to do I started along the row of shops I’d seen on the waterfront. The rain was gathering and I was getting cold, so I decided to walk quickly about town and look at everyone I met. As I sped along I must have seen a hundred faces coming towards me before the shops ran out, and on the way back I crossed the grass to the walkway by the shore and stared in panic out to sea instead and wished I was in Carbeth. If it hadn’t been for a motor car honking its horn, which naturally I had to investigate, I’d have missed Dino’s café altogether. I quickly took the postcard from my pocket and compared it to the real thing. Dino’s. I went back across the grass and went in.

  ‘Can I help you?’ said a lady behind the counter.

  I could smell the chocolate, but there was almost none on display. She didn’t sound Italian at all, but then neither did my dad. I showed her the photo.

  ‘He looks like a cheery chappie,’ she said.

  ‘Oh he is,’ I assured her. ‘But I don’t know where he is. He’s I... he’s Italian. He’s my dad.’

  Her eyes went large and round. She put my dad face down on the glass counter, sniffed and looked over my head. I glanced round at the other customers. An old man caught my eye and turned away. I took my photo quickly and put it back in my pocket.

  ‘Filthy scum,’ I heard the lady mutter as I walked away. ‘Coming in here...’

  I ran out and stood shaking on the pavement and felt my eyes burn. It was definitely time to go home. As soon as I could get my legs to work I would head for the station.

  ‘Excuse me,’ called a voice behind me. ‘Excuse me. Young lady? You with the gentian on your face.’

  It was the old man in the café who’d turned away. My shoulders shot up around my ears.

  ‘What?’ I said, and I looked at him with eyes like bad George’s, small and tight.

  ‘Don’t mind her,’ he said. ‘She’s embarrassed because she got Dino’s café to run. Everybody loved Dino, really, you see. Let’s see your photo. Maybe I’ll know him. Who is it you’re looking for? Go on then, I don’t bite. I don’t even have any teeth.’ He grinned broadly at me and I saw that this was true, so I gave him the photo.

  ‘Nope. Never seen him in my life. Sorry.’ He seemed pretty sure. ‘There are a few Italians at Blairvadach, though it’s mostly Germans.’

  ‘Germans?’ I said.

  ‘In a camp,’ he said. ‘Prisoners of war.’

  An old lady came and stood near us. She seemed to be listening in. We shouldn’t have been talking about this kind of thing, I knew that, but I thought she might be his wife and anyway I had to break the rules if I was going to find my dad.

  ‘Gracie, mind your own business,’ he said. ‘Away home to that man of yours and his gout.’

  Not his wife then, just a busybody.

  ‘I’m just doing my job,’ she said. ‘You watch what you tell her, Archie, and don’t be an old fool.’

  ‘Ach, away you go!’ he said. ‘She’s only young. Who’s she going to tell?’ The old lady moved a little way off and stood in a doorway. A horse and cart went past with a car stuck behind them. ‘Now, where was I? Oh yes. Germans, prisoners of war. That’s them on the cart now, see over there. You don’t usually see them this time of day. They come down the loch in the morning, hundreds of them, no exaggeration, and off through town to the farms and so on. Usually on foot. Those men must be sick to be on the cart.’ He scratched his chin. ‘You don’t sound Italian.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘Which way do they go?’ I stared after the cart. Real live Germans.

  ‘Oh, anywhere at all,’ he said. ‘Wherever there are farms. That lot are going up the hill.’

  The cart lingered on the corner, then turned up the hill and vanished from sight.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he said. ‘What’s your dad’s name?’

  ‘Lenny,’ I said. ‘We’re both Lenny.’

  ‘Both of you?’

  ‘I’m Leonora and he’s Leonard or... Leonardo.’

  ‘As in Da Vinci?’

  ‘Pardon? No, as in Galluzzo. Is there another Leonardo?’

  ‘There are probably a few, but I’ll look out for Leonardo Galluzzo.’

  ‘Tell him to come home,’ I said, which made a lump appear in my throat. A drop of rain hit my face.

  ‘Alright, Leonora. Be careful. Bye!’

  I left him and ran after the cart. It wasn’t moving fast so I caught up easily but hung back, scared to get close. Eight or so men huddled together on the back, one with a patch over his eye. They were young, not much older than George. None of them spoke and nobody paid them any attention. Maybe they didn’t realise there were Germans in their town.

  The rain pelted down so I stood in a doorway which smelled of pee and waited for it to pass, which it soon did. What was I doing following Germans anyway? One of them pointed at me and they all began to wave. I fell back against the door again and yanked my hat over my eyes. What if someone saw and thought I was a spy?

  But I needed these Germans to help me find the Italians so I ignored Mr Tulloch’s good sense and chose Mr Tait’s instead, in other words I drew up all my bravery from my boots and followed the cart up the hill, even though it had already disappeared round a corner.

  The road wound on another half-mile past cows in one field and a bull in another until I came round a bend where the country pancakes lay thick and plentiful. I was surrounded by brown newly ploughed fields and others full of workers picking tatties in one and peas in another. A track lead off to the right so, avoiding the cow pies and with no other plan, I wandered along between thick green hedges until I came to a farm. There in the yard was the cart with the Germans. I turned and ran back the way I had come, tiptoeing furiously over the pancake pies.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ someone shouted. It was a man’s voice, slow, deep and broad. I looked round for someone built to match but instead saw an ordinary little man in farm clothes, dark trousers and jacket, with mud up to his knees leading the world’s biggest horse. It was bigger even than back-to-front Senga’s dad’s horse. The ground was awash with ‘pie’ so the whole place stank to high heaven. Mr Tulloch’s hardly ever smelled like that.

  ‘I’m looking for my dad,’ I said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ he shouted. Carefully, I went closer.

  ‘I said I’m looking for my dad. He sounds English but he’s Italian and he’s on a camp and I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m awful hard of hearing,’ he said. I was practically in front of him. He must have been stone deaf.

  ‘Are there any Italians working here?’ I shouted. ‘Italians?’ The horse didn’t even flinch.

  ‘Italians? They were late today but they’re in the top field.’

  It seemed easier to shrug my shoulders and show him my palms than to actually say ‘and where would that be?’ especially since my heart was in my throat again. He followed suit and directed me with his free hand without saying another word.

  The Italians were dotted about a big field, mostly bent double picking carrots. The field swooped off in all directions with a perfect hedge running over the brow of a hill. I felt oddly close to the sky especially as I could see another shower on its way. None of the Italians noticed me. I tried to see if any of them was my dad but they were all too far away. A hor
se stood by the gate with a cart full of carrots. I waited there and gazed out over the field to the river below and all the big ships spread across it and over on the other side the green hills above Greenock.

  There were no soldiers guarding the Italians so I knew if anything happened I was on my own. At last one of them stood up and swung his sack onto his back and started in my direction. I got behind the cart just in case. Closer he came until he banged into the cart and shifted the sack off his shoulders onto the orange pile of carrots, making them drum against the sides of the cart. He pulled himself straight with some effort and looked over at me.

  ‘Hello, love, have you come to give us a hand?’ he said in perfect English, in a perfect English accent.

  ‘I’m looking for the Italians,’ I said, confused.

  ‘This is Scotland,’ he said. ‘You’re in the wrong country. Best go back the way you came.’ He leant over to one side to stretch his back and then the other.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Isn’t this the top field?’

  ‘Who told you about the top field?’ he said. ‘The top field’s top secret, you know. You don’t want to go blabbing about the top field.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just I’m looking for someone. He doesn’t seem to be here. The man at the farm said to go to the top field.’

  ‘Sh!’ he said, leaning on the rim of the cart. ‘There you go on about the top field again. These fields have ears, you know, especially that one.’ He nodded to the cornfield next door which was full of stubble. ‘Used to have ears anyway. Used to. Who are you looking for?’

  ‘The Italians,’ I said.

  ‘What, all of them? There’s a few million, you know. You might want to choose one.’

  I laughed.

  He took his hat off, shook the rain off it and stuck it back on again. ‘What about Rocco?’ He tapped his chest with both hands. ‘Won’t I do?’

  ‘You’re not Italian,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Rocco.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘I am, actually, and I should know, shouldn’t I, seeing as I am me and therefore something of an expert.’

  A shiver came over me and I straightened and looked across the field at the other men. Two more were making their way towards us. I was warm from climbing to the field but the wind was already racing through my coat.

  ‘Don’t bite your lip,’ he said. ‘Have a carrot instead. Much better for you.’ He offered me one across the cart but I was too busy trying to see if any of the others was my dad. Rocco sighed and tossed the carrot back on the cart. The other two dumped their carrots in the cart then stretched. ‘Who are you looking for?’ said Rocco.

  ‘My dad,’ I said. ‘He’s Italian. He has an English accent but it’s not like yours. It’s northern.’

  ‘Well, that makes you Italian too. Fantastico! Fortunati voi!’ Suddenly he sounded like a proper Italian.

  ‘Nae luck!’ said one of the others. They threw their sacks onto the cart then leant backwards to stretch.

  ‘What’s the story?’ he said, pure Glasgow.

  ‘Che cosa sta succedendo?’ said the third.

  ‘Ha perso il suo papà,’ said Rocco.

  The other two took off their hats, crossed themselves and stared at the ground.

  ‘No, no! Non è morto! No, no. Perso! Lost.’

  They all laughed, and the two newcomers wiped the sweat off their brows and put their hats back on and leant on the cart with Rocco. Suddenly they were all proper Italians, talking Italian and fast, so I couldn’t understand a word.

  ‘They say none of us are old enough to have a grownup daughter like you,’ said Rocco straightening. ‘And we’re all too ugly anyway.’

  ‘Except maybe Gio who started young,’ said the Glasgow one and got thumped for his trouble.

  So I told them my story, that we were from Clydebank, that my dad had joined the army but then he’d been arrested when he was home on leave, that I thought he was somewhere around Helensburgh because of the postcard and I hadn’t known he was Italian.

  ‘Wha ha detto?’ said one, which was followed by a storm of Italian. I waited ’til they’d finished then brought out the photo. My hand was trembling. What if they grabbed it off me and wouldn’t give it back? What if they grabbed me?

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ said Rocco. I passed it to him over the carrots. ‘Ah, Leonardo,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ said the others and they all three stared at me, serious at last.

  Chapter 20

  Rocco and his friends argued in Italian again, then gave me directions to another farm not far away. They said my dad had been staying there but wasn’t any more and someone on the farm would know where he’d gone, probably. Then they argued again.

  ‘Ask for Jean,’ said Rocco. He’d stopped smiling and carrying on. ‘I should come with you.’

  ‘Aren’t you a prisoner?’ I said, my heart thumping in my chest. It somehow seemed rude to point this out. ‘Don’t you have to stay and work?’

  ‘Yeah, but he might let me go, under the circumstances, special dispensation by his majesty Mr Gregory.’

  So Rocco came back to the farmyard with me and it turned out they all lived in a little bothy at the end of a barn and not in a camp after all. There was a guard called ‘Bud’ who visited once a week but otherwise they could move about the farm freely, but couldn’t leave it, even to go to the other farms.

  ‘Bud wouldn’t allow it!’ shouted Mr Gregory. ‘The authorities will send you back to the camp if I do that.’

  ‘She’s a child. Don’t you think I should go? She’s too young to go on her own.’

  ‘What?’ said Mr Gregory.

  ‘She’s too young,’ shouted Rocco.

  ‘What?’ said Mr Gregory. ‘No, no, no.’ He wandered into a byre and was greeted with a moo.

  Rocco shook his head and produced carrots from his various pockets and stuffed them into my own. ‘Say ciao to your papa for me,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I can’t come with you.’ He watched me go. ‘You be careful now and come back and tell me how you get on.’

  I washed a carrot in a ditch and hurried along the lane, crunching on it. I wished I’d listened to Mr Tulloch and not gone alone. But maybe I was actually going to find my dad after all which was just the most exciting thing in the world ever.

  ‘A row of trees full of rooks,’ Rocco had said, ‘the only trees on that side of the road. The last cottage after the farm.’

  I saw it in the distance, higgledy-piggledy against the side of the hill, a farm, the trees and a row of cottages. The family of rooks above the trees seemed to call me to join them. So this was it.

  The track from the road was sludgey and there was a stink like Mr Gregory’s farm. I kept to the roadside even though my socks were soon wet from the long grass. Five hens came out to greet me. One even pecked my toes, but I didn’t care. There were hens at Carbeth. Then a cat came slithering round the gable end and after that a black-and-white sheepdog who barked and ran in circles. I wasn’t scared of dogs either, not this one anyway because once it had finished running round me it ran round itself and chased its own tail.

  Beyond the farmhouse there was the row of stone cottages, as Rocco had said. I passed by them until I came to the last which was a little up a hill and had tatties growing in the garden and straggles of nasturtiums by the path. The dog followed as I passed through a gate in the hedge. A toddler in muddy dungarees came round the corner of the house with a slice of apple in his hand. He was a little tiddly thing all wobbly on his legs and very serious with lots of pale curls and two fat sunburnt cheeks. He stopped by the vegetable patch when he saw me. The dog ran up and licked his cheeks and the toddler looked at the dog and laughed. The sun had come out and the wind shook great drops of rain at us from the chestnuts nearby.

  ‘Hello,’ I said to this little ragamuffin. The dog seemed keen to lick my face too so I stepped out of his way. Then a lady came out and stopped still with her mout
h open.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  Here goes, I thought. Deep breath. I did consider pretending my dad was someone else, like my friend’s dad instead of my own, but it might have got me into even more trouble. ‘I’m looking for my d... dad,’ I said. I had my fingers crossed behind my back.

  The lady wore grey dungarees like my mum’s and had a basket on her hip and inside it I could see potatoes. She was turning one over in her hand and for a second I thought she was going to throw it at me. Instead she stared with these big brown eyes she had. They seemed to get bigger and browner the longer we stood there and I felt prickles up my back until my face burned. Then an old man with a garden fork came up behind her. He stopped and leant the handle of his fork against his stomach so he could roll up his sleeves and stare at me.

  ‘Who’s this then?’ he said, wiping his hands on his apron.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she said. Her eyes were fixed on mine. The little boy tottered forward with his wiggly nappy-bottom and offered me a bite of his apple.

  ‘Lenny,’ I said.

  The lady seemed to stop breathing. Her mouth clamped shut.

  ‘L... Lenny Gillespie,’ I said. ‘It’s my dad’s name too. I’m looking for my dad.’

  I went into my pocket for the photograph. The toddler dropped his bit of apple and bent to pick it up. His little hands had trouble with it being slippery so in the end I had to crouch down and get it for him. In return he gave me the biggest beamer ever and reminded me of Mavis when she was wee.

  But then a big strong arm came swooping round his middle and whisked him off the ground and away from me. The bit of apple flew through the air and bounced off my hair and onto my shoe. And while I was gazing at my toe where it landed I heard a great man’s hawk, like my dad when he’d been smoking, and a big glob of spit landed beside my shoe.