Birmingham Rose

by Annie Murray

  She knelt down to take his small form in her arms, giving him the kiss he wanted so badly. She sat with him on one knee, and on the other a younger girl who sidled up to her shyly. She pressed her face against Emilio’s, and against the plumper cheeks of the little girl, enjoying the feel of cuddling children again. Emilio turned and put his skinny arms round her neck.

  Magdalena finished off the session by saying the Angelus with the children, and then it was time to prepare something to eat.

  ‘Let me help tonight,’ Rose offered. ‘You should all sleep. I do little enough here. I’ll sit up to watch the children.’ They took it in turns to perform this vigil, partly to comfort any children who woke up disturbed in the night, and also to make quite sure no one else found their way into the building.

  Magdalena nodded in response to Rose. ‘It is good that il dottore Falcone has come,’ she said. ‘He can help us with Maria Grazia. That child needs every help we can give her.’

  It was not until they were settling the children down for the night that the doctor woke up. He stumbled out from the small room carrying a cup of water in one hand, his expression entirely bewildered, as if he had woken to find himself in another country. The eyes which looked round at them were large, dark, fringed by the long lashes Rose had noticed as he slept. She saw his gaze settle curiously on her and linger there for a moment.

  ‘So Falcone – you feel better?’ Francesco called to him.

  Falcone nodded absently. Now he was standing, Rose could see he was a powerfully built man, though, like almost all Neapolitans she had seen, too thin for his build. His dark grey trousers and green shirt were dirty and extremely worn. The shirt had only two or three buttons remaining near the bottom, so that it fell open in a V, showing the dark, curly hair of his chest. He stood watching them all from the doorway as they settled the children, covering them with a strange array of old curtains, army blankets, tablecloths – anything they had managed to get hold of.

  Some of them wanted comforting before they could sleep, and when they were all settled Assunta stayed in the room for a while, sitting in a ring of candlelight with her rosary beads held between her fingers.

  The others went quietly into the room opposite the kitchen storeroom, where there was a thin rug on the floor and an assortment of old chairs.

  ‘Rosa has brought some English tea,’ Francesco announced, perking up for a moment. ‘The life-blood of the British army.’

  ‘I’d better make it then, hadn’t I?’ she laughed. ‘Goodness knows what you might do to it!

  As she stood in the dim light of the kitchen, waiting for the flame from the gas cylinder to heat the water, she heard knocking on the outside door. She realized Francesco was letting Enrico in and she felt immediately uneasy. He sloped in behind her, laying a number of wrapped loaves of bread on the table. She jumped slightly when she turned and found him watching her, his pointed features accentuated by the candlelight.

  ‘Good evening,’ she said coolly.

  Enrico nodded, still staring hard at her, and for a moment she thought he was about to speak. But he turned and went out of the room again.

  The place seemed strange and empty without Margherita. Rose sat drinking the black tea with the strange assortment of people who were left: Magdalena and Francesco both seemed stunned by exhaustion, Enrico, whose eyes carefully watched everyone else, and the troubled figure of Falcone, who despite Francesco’s attempts to rouse him was often wrapped in his own thoughts.

  ‘Should I take Assunta some tea?’ Rose asked.

  ‘No, leave her. She is saying her rosary every night. For the liquefaction,’ Magdalena said, yawning, her eyes straining to keep open behind her spectacles.

  ‘The what?’

  Francesco explained. ‘It is a miracle which shows us that there will be good fortune for our city. The blood of San Gennaro which is kept in a phial in the Duomo liquifies. Assunta is very worried that too many bad things are happening. The war, the eruption. She’s frightened that there will be no liquefaction this May, so she’s saying a special rosary every evening.’

  Rose nodded solemnly, glad that she had managed to bite back the words, ‘Thank God for that – I thought it might be something really important.’

  After a moment Magdalena said, ‘What are we going to do about Maria Grazia? Margherita thinks she should be taken to the cemetery before the child is born and I think she is right. She should be able to see her mother’s grave. Her mind has nothing to settle on.’

  ‘But when?’ Francesco asked wearily. ‘We have so little time and transport is impossible. It would take us all day to walk up there. I don’t even know when Margherita is going to come back.’

  At the thought of Margherita they fell silent again, so Rose took her opportunity. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she started timidly, gathering courage when she saw they were all paying attention. ‘I don’t come here very often, and when I do I bring very little with me. You asked me for help, and I think I have disappointed you. I should be able to do more. After all, I’m a driver. I could transport almost anything, except I don’t know how to get hold of it. I can’t think who to ask.’

  Francesco nodded. ‘It’s always a question of making the right connections.’

  Suddenly, to everyone’s amazement, a voice said, ‘Why the bleeding hell didn’t you say you was a driver before?’

  Everyone looked round for the owner of this English voice. Enrico.

  ‘If you’ve got a truck,’ he went on, addressing Rose, ‘then that’s all I need. I can get the rest of the gear. Blimey – I’ve been trying to get hold of a driver who can shift the stuff free for months but no one’d cough.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Magdalena pulled on Rose’s sleeve impatiently. ‘He’s English too? Who is he?’

  Falcone and Francesco were both looking astonished. Especially when Rose burst out laughing.

  ‘So that’s why you’ve been giving me those queer looks every time I’ve seen you! You’re a deserter, aren’t you? D’you think I was going to blow the whistle on you or something?’ She laughed again. ‘We all thought you had a screw loose!’ The others watched, totally bemused. ‘Enrico, my foot,’ she said. ‘What’s your real name then – Fred?’

  ‘No. Henry,’ he said, looking rather sheepish. ‘I’m from Bromley. Couldn’t stick the army. When they moved on through here I just stayed. There’s quite a few of us in Naples you know. Scared the arse off me – all them mines every time you moved a foot forward. I can fight a better war helping to feed these kids than anything I could ever do with that lot. But I couldn’t work you out at first. I had to size you up and make sure you wasn’t trouble.’

  ‘So – come on, then. How d’you get hold of the food?’

  ‘Easy. The depot. When they’ve taken the stuff in from the docks it all goes into the warehouse. I’ve got a couple of mates there. They can make a packet selling the stuff, but they’ll give me the odd load free – in a good cause.’ Henry winked at her. ‘Anyhow, I’ve managed to get hold of a bit of petrol, which makes a good price, so they don’t do it all out of love. Problem is, I’ve never had proper transport. If you can get yourself over here a night or two in the month, we can get these kids fed up like turkey cocks.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ Magdalena gripped Rose’s arm, no longer able to contain herself. ‘Please – what is he saying?’

  Rose explained. ‘Don’t you speak Italian?’ she asked Henry.

  ‘Nope. But I can tell what they’re going on about as long as it ain’t too involved.’

  Rose could feel her breathing going shallow from excitement and anxiety. In Italian she asked, ‘D’you think it’s right that I take my truck and steal for you from the army?’

  There was silence for a moment, and then Francesco said, ‘Of course. Already we eat their food, their bread. You know, even the fish in the city’s aquarium have been eaten by now. What choice do we have?’

  Suddenly they were all startled by Falcone’s voice, low
, but full of conviction. ‘We have to do what is good for the children,’ he said. ‘What use are the laws of peace during a war? Our Lord tells us to feed the hungry, so that is what we must do, even if we have to take a little from the rich.’

  ‘You sound like another Lupo,’ Francesco teased, referring to the Robin Hood figure of Domenico Lupo who travelled in the south with a small gang of bandits, raiding the army and the black market to feed the poor of his people. ‘You’ll have us holding up trains next.’

  Falcone said nothing, but sat staring at the ground between his knees.

  Henry pressed Rose further. ‘We’ll have to be on the spot about times and meeting places. No hanging about. It’s a risky business. So – d’you think you’re up to it?’

  Rose took in a deep, fearful breath. ‘I’ll have to find a way, won’t I?’ she said.

  Twenty-Two

  It was a night Rose would remember all her life. The sisters and Francesco gratefully accepted the chance of rest and soon all of them were fast asleep. She sat up watching the children with Falcone.

  At first it looked like being a long, hard night. Rose was very unsure of this silent, scruffy man who sat leaning against one side of the doorframe smoking cheap cigarettes. For a while she busied herself by walking round the room with a candle to check on each of the sleeping children. As she turned at the far end of the long room and her huge shadow leapt up the wall behind her, she realized that he was watching her. When their eyes met he moved his solemn gaze to the wall opposite him.

  When she had exhausted all the activity she could think of, Rose offered to make tea. She sat tensely on the floor at the other side of the door, drinking the watery brew, unsure whether to try to talk to him.

  Eventually she said, ‘You are an old friend of Francesco and Margherita?’

  He pulled the cigarette out from between his lips and said, not ungraciously, ‘Yes. We studied together.’ Then he added, ‘That seems a very long time ago.’

  After another silence he said, ‘You are English. You do not look English. Why are you here?’

  ‘I wanted to help.’

  Suddenly he turned his whole head to examine her fully. Shyly, she turned also and looked into his large brown eyes with a hint of challenge in her own. But in his she read sorrow and vulnerability. Francesco had hinted that Falcone was holding back a weight of feeling that he could not communicate and in that moment she knew it was so. That exchange of glances between them after such brief conversation seemed to carry an intimacy which went a great deal further than their words.

  But they could not find any more to say, and Rose began to resign herself to the fact that the rest of the night would be like this.

  After about half an hour they heard the sound of planes overhead, followed by a number of bangs. Rose saw Falcone jump, shocked out of his thoughts. Several of the children began to cry. Glad of some diversion to keep her mind off the bombing, Rose went round whispering comforting words to the little ones who, only half awake, were only too happy to sink back into sleep again.

  There was another wave of explosions from outside, evidently from the port, as the Germans sought out Allied supply ships. As she sat holding her breath it brought back vividly to Rose the night she had spent watching over her mother while the blitz raged outside.

  She heard another shrill voice calling ‘Rosa! Rosa!’ It was Emilio. She went to sit beside him. To lull him to sleep she sang ‘Golden Slumbers’ in English because she didn’t know any lullabies in Italian.

  There was one more wave of bombing and then it seemed to go quiet. A brief raid, thank heaven. Rose stayed by Emilio, humming to him and rocking her slender body in time with the tune until she began to feel quite sleepy herself and closed her eyes.

  A shadow moved in front of the candle. When she opened her eyes, Falcone was squatting down opposite her looking at Emilio. Curious, she watched him. As he gazed into the child’s face she saw in his expression an extraordinary sympathy and tenderness. Emilio, barely awake, smiled up at both of them and she saw Falcone smile for the first time, lighting up the dark eyes with a warm, mischievous light. Emotions she could barely identify stirred in her.

  He said softly to her, ‘You must love children very much. You could be resting in comfort away from all this.’

  As she looked up at him she too felt trusting as a child, and spoke without hesitation. ‘My own little son died when he was three weeks old. I never saw him at this age. If he was alive now he would be seven this year.’

  Falcone looked a little puzzled. ‘You have a husband?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was raped. By the man who employed me.’

  How strange that she should make this confession to this stranger whom she had sat with for only a couple of hours. That she should feel able to trust him as much as anyone in her life before.

  Falcone said sadly, ‘That is a terrible thing. And to suffer the death of your child as well. Now I understand why you long to be with children.’

  ‘I don’t usually tell people,’ she said. ‘I felt you wouldn’t judge me.’

  He let out a sharp rush of breath as if she had said something outrageous. ‘I am not fit to judge anyone.’

  Suddenly he sat down facing her and scanned her face. ‘You do not look English,’ he said again. ‘Perhaps your face does not look quite Italian, but your colouring, the clothes – one could almost think . . . You are very beautiful.’

  Rose smiled, looking away from him to deflect the compliment. ‘Your name – does it mean, like the bird? Is it the same?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, falcone, the bird with the sharp, vicious beak. I hoped that I wasn’t like this bird but I’m not sure what my nature is any more.’ His face took on the sad, troubled expression it had worn for most of the evening.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked gently.

  He replied slowly, as if he had not spoken the words before but had been thinking for a long time how to say them. ‘I’m here to wait for the end of the war. Until it’s finished I have to be like someone without a real home. A wandering soul.’ Seeing Rose frown at this rather abstract notion he went on, ‘As soon as the war’s over I shall enter the seminary of San Domenico Maggiore. I’m going to be a priest.’

  ‘A priest?’ Rose cried, then lowered her voice again, looking round to see if she had disturbed any of the children. ‘But you can’t do that. You’re a doctor.’

  ‘I was a doctor.’ His voice was bitter. ‘Actually I only practised for a short time after I qualified. I don’t have a lot of experience.’

  ‘But being a doctor is one of the most important things you could do,’ Rose argued. ‘Honestly, you people with an education don’t know you’re born. All that work to become a doctor and you want to give it up and be a priest? You must be mad.’

  Falcone didn’t rise to her anger. ‘You didn’t have an education?’

  ‘Not much, no. It was what I wanted, badly. To be a teacher. But . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Dreams.’

  ‘I would’ve thought you were educated. You’re a very intelligent woman. And you speak my language well.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re right though. It’s a great privilege to have an education. But you see, to be a doctor – a doctor is supposed to have reverence for life, to cherish and preserve life.’ Falcone cupped his hands as if holding up a large and delicate egg shell. ‘And I’m tainted. This war has given me a feeling of guilt, of loathing. Whatever I try to do for the best, I’m pursued by death, by destruction. You see?’

  He saw that Rose’s eyes were full of sympathy and interest. He knew she would not condemn him, that he could lay on her the weight that was pulling his mind down, sometimes it seemed, towards madness.

  Rose indicated that they should move back to the door so as not to disturb the children. She fetched them each half a cup of water, and they sat each side of the door again, surrounded by their shadows and the sleeping children.

  ‘When Italy became involved
in the war I was still finishing my studies,’ he began. ‘I felt it right to stay because I was doing something dedicated to giving life instead of working to destroy it.’

  ‘Didn’t you have to join up?’ Rose asked. She had wondered the same thing about Francesco.

  Falcone smiled wryly. ‘The Italian army does not even have enough socks to go round. We steal them from the dead when they have finished with them. No – not everyone joined the army.

  ‘When I finished it was 1941. By then we were occupied by Germany. Things were very hard. Naples was growing hungrier by the day. I went home to my family in Cellina, north of Caivano and Acerra, not all that far from Caserta. My father was the town’s doctor. Perhaps I would’ve simply taken over his role. Who knows? For about eighteen months I helped him in the practice. It wasn’t difficult work. I enjoyed it, using the skills I had been trained in. Even under occupation a job like that brings a lot of satisfaction.

  ‘Then everything changed. It was December forty-two. I had been out on a late call and I was still in bed. That was why my father was the one to open the door. The body of a German soldier had been found in a side street off the main square. He’d been stabbed in the night and bled to death there. Naturally no one would admit to such a crime. When the Germans found out they had to have their revenge. To teach us Italians a lesson. They are a people who carry out vengeance with mathematical precision. For each German, the life of ten Italians. The ten most prominent men in the town. The mayor, Signor Pacelli, the postmaster – and of course they came to the house of the doctor. They took my father.

  ‘The same morning, they made them stand—’ Falcone made a slow pointing gesture with his finger. ‘A line of them against the wall of the post office. They made sure there was a big crowd to watch the spectacle. They didn’t even blindfold them. I stood there in the piazza as they shot my father. One moment he stood, looking so old suddenly, so frail. He was looking for me, I could tell. But his eyes did not find me among the crowd before the guns went off. And then they were all on the ground. The wall of the post office is broken open with holes. We were allowed to take them for burial.’