by Louisa Young
Riley was in Gillies’ office. Everyone knew an announcement was to be made, and Gillies, who shouldn’t really have been there on a Sunday, had invited him in to listen. As the words proceeded, Riley could feel something else in his face which was familiar from long ago: a lowering feeling, a cutting off, an accepted and unmentioned resentment. And so it goes. The freedom has all been a mirage; now all is boss and instruction and fear once again. Will they want me? Perhaps in ten years’ time when they’ve used up everyone else. No – I will have nothing to do with that side of it. I must stay while others go – boys—
‘Well,’ Gillies was saying.
Riley grunted.
‘What do you think?’
He wrote:
Nothing to say, is there?
Gillies was silent, and then said: ‘I think it was kind of fate to give us those happy years, before turning the lights off again and drawing down the curtain. Though there were those for whom the curtain never lifted.’
Riley wrote:
We always knew we’d have to fight them again.
Gillies was staring. Then he shook himself, and read the note, harrumphed, and said: ‘All the more reason to get you done and out of the way, eh?’
Riley’s cheeks tightened a little, and he covered his face with his hands. I have no choice, he thought. Gillies will cut bone off my leg and dismantle my face again to get it in, and finish off the job. He kind of, almost, laughed. Yes, best get it done now, before the crowds.
Later, he gazed out of the window. The high redbrick and white stucco buildings of the West End sat as they had sat for generations, scarlet geraniums in their window boxes, front doors and black railings shining. Those will be carted off for ordnance, sooner or later … A sense of terrible importance lay on the tense and muted streets. He felt rising from the people passing below a need to do, and no knowledge yet of what to do. Outside the pub on the corner men muttered, in low voices. Women clicked by anxiously, their shoulders nervous in their jackets, their shopping bags twitching as they rushed home.
They’re all ready to roar off from the starting line, Riley thought – but when they look over their shoulders, they’re running against nobody. Things should be happening, but nothing is happening yet. They’re all going to get prepared, with their new socks and gas masks and evacuation plans. All right, boys and girls, this term, we’ll be fighting the Hun … They’ve invaded everybody else and now they’re going to invade us.
But never mind. As Gillies had said, ‘We’re much better at it than we used to be.’
*
Peter and Mabel were at Locke Hill. It was Mrs Joyce, listening to the radio as she was ironing, who came hurtling from the laundry room, and called them. They all stood around the ironing board. At the end the women looked at Peter with the same expression, one he found helpless and irresistible. He said: ‘Well we knew it was coming, didn’t we?’ and Mabel said, ‘Did we?’ because she didn’t, really.
‘In a way,’ said Peter.
Iris was staring at a small pile of tennis balls, wondering whether this would affect her going to the Royal College. She remembered the moment for the rest of her life.
*
Rose had stopped in after church for a cup of tea with the vicar. He was a younger man, and he looked up at her with a glint of query in her eye, and she thought, I am a veteran.
‘I don’t know,’ she said to him, before he could ask. ‘I suppose it will all be very different. It’s not as if everyone just heads back to the Western front, or the Med, or Egypt. I have no idea what it means.’
Later, in her sitting room with Mr Mackesson and a glass of sherry, he said: ‘Bombs, is what it means. We will all be needed here as much as anywhere else.’ Rose had blinked, a lot, and he had held his arms out to her, so she had gone to him and leant against him, her head on his tweed shoulder and his arm around her, and to be honest her thought was not of war, but of love: Why didn’t I allow this before? Why did I protect myself from it, deny it to myself? Could I have had this, with someone else, twenty-five years ago?
And then: No. Because it is him. This is him, for me. And how much easier it is going to be to face all this with him here.
*
Kitty was in her flat, woken by Johnny on the telephone. When he told her, she felt, in order, vindicated, sick, and excited, and called to her flatmates to share the news. Cynthia rushed to the window to look out, wanting to see if the world had visibly changed. Ada told her to come away, she was in her dressing gown and people would see, before lighting a cigarette, and trying to look bored. Cynthia burst into tears.
*
Nenna, when the news reached Rome, cried and cried, she couldn’t stop crying. She could hear Aldo’s voice saying: ‘Sweetheart, Italy is not in the war. It is Germany with whom England wants to fight.’ And she shouted at him though he wasn’t there. ‘Blood and Steel, Papà – what you want and here it comes. We will all be killed.’
You cannot desert your father … she whispered … then she closed her eyes, spat three times, and made her mind up. The men could do what they wanted – Papà, Vittorio, even Stefano, who had not come back, and whose friends said he had gone to Naples. Naples! Why? It was beyond her. This was men’s work and men’s fault – to hell with them all. Blood and steel would separate her from them, whether they loved her or cared about her or remembered her at all or not. They must look after themselves.
And Tom? A trail of memories flared up in her heart, right back to the beginning: Tom and her as children together by the river; when she asked him in the church if she had killed Jesus, and he wrote down the words to look them up. Him shouting in a field, his hair shining in the sun. His face when she produced the marriage certificate – his voice cracking as he shouted down her father – the intensity with which he had tried to help her, for so long, despite all her resistance. His kisses. And now he had to be the enemy and she had to be with the Italians fighting alongside the Nazis – Such nonsense! Such hideous nonsense!
The world became very small to her, suddenly. Shrinking what you cared about to manageable proportions seemed the only possible response. My mother, and my little sister. Feed them, comfort them, keep them safe. Marinella and Mama. That’s what matters. So that meant Marinella, as Mama had not come back from her dockside vigil for Vittorio. So. Head down, hard work, Marinella. That might be achievable.
And England. She didn’t know. She waited to hear. He must have had her letter by now, her telegram.
The following day a telegram came: GO EVERY DAY TO EMBASSY MENTION CARMICHAEL TAKE PASSPORTS LOVE ALWAYS TOM
Marinella had no passport. Aldo would have to sign for her to get one. Pah. Tullio would have to make her one. She would do whatever it took.
And she would go. Every day.
*
Aldo was in Pomezia. Just watching. He just wanted to see. It was looking beautiful. He’d come down a few times now. One evening, he had seen the Duce on his Moto Guzzi: he’d heard the rumble, the cracking echo of the big V-twin echoing across the plain, unmistakeable. He’d chased after him – like a fool. He just wanted to ask him face to face, to make absolutely sure; to see if the Duce could give him any idea about when he’d be able to reverse it all, when he’d want him back – he was going to tell him how he was using his time constructively, studying, keeping up with things – he was pretty sure what the plan was: stick with Germany, then when they had won the war together, everything could go back to normal.
People were sitting out on the bridges and the low walls and along the embankments for the evening passegiata. They stared at him.
He’d helped to build five of these cities, and the canals that permitted them and gave them strong foundations, and the roads that linked them. The flag of the new city was to be red and blue, for the earth and the sea. This afternoon he saw three people he knew: a tractor driver, who waved and yelled a greeting. A foreman, who looked embarrassed, and frowned. And on the other side of a gleaming white canal ch
annel full of murky water, he saw an old man he hadn’t seen for years, thin, poorly dressed. Aldo squinted, trying to recall him, his name or face or function. It came to him: it was Olivieri, one of the brothers who used to sell him frogs, right at the beginning. Aldo cried out to him, cheerfully; Olivieri squinted back at him, raised his hand in a knowing and weary salute, and walked on. There was no bridge nearby, or Aldo would have gone to talk to him.
*
Nadine was at home, alone, packing a small bag of things to take to Riley. She listened carefully to the Prime Minister’s voice, and took three long silent breaths as it came to a close. Tension rose off her shoulders. So. Now. What’s to do?
She would speak to Mrs Kenton. She would remind her that no foreign soldier has invaded England for nine hundred years. And to her father, and she would telephone Rose. Then – carry on. She would take Riley’s things down to him: the operation was tomorrow morning, and he would stay in for a couple of weeks. After that she would nurse him at home. The supplies had been ordered. They were giving him a naso-gastric tube with a little pump, through which he could have broth and beef tea and eggs and cream, bypassing his mouth completely.
She wondered how soon rationing would be introduced. Is this going to be a long haul? It feels like the start of long haul. They would give her instructions: recipes, amounts for a balanced diet. He would manage the pump himself. It would give him something to do during healing, which would take a while.
Lots to be done. Lots to be done.
We fight all our individual battles alongside this big one. How big will this be?
Another long silent breath.
It will be hard. It will be hard. But we know what to do. So do it.
*
Tom was on a train south with a package of papers and cash. He had four return tickets in his pocket and a tune stuck in his head: ‘Lucciola lucciola vien da me io ti daro il pan del re …’ His heart rattled like the train itself for the thousand miles he travelled. He blocked it all from his mind for the duration, and slept like an exhausted child after a long sickness. He woke, he ate, the trucks coupled and uncoupled, he stepped off one train and on to another. Day into night into day. And then St Peter’s appeared in his window, and fled again, and he stood, and stretched, and checked the times for the return train that afternoon.
He went directly to the island, and told the cab to wait. The door was open to the piazza, late summer sun drifting in. She was in the kitchen, looking at some chickpeas. Marinella was at the table. Aldo was singing softly in the next room.
Tom went to Marinella first, and said: ‘Go and get a bag, put your favourite book and toy in it. And some clothes.’
Nenna turned.
‘You too,’ he said. ‘Now.’
They went. Nenna moved as if in a trance, wading through something. He didn’t open his arms to her; he didn’t kiss her. He could hear her speaking softly to Marinella.
‘Passports!’ he shouted up the stairs. ‘Anything valuable. If you’re not going to bring it, hide it.’
All right.
He went in to where Aldo was, and saw him sitting, staring, crooning.
‘Are you coming?’ Tom said.
‘Tomaso!’ cried Aldo, with a kind of joy in his voice and Tom said: ‘If I try to push you into the cab, will you come?’
‘Come where?’ Aldo said. His voice was a soft echo of the joviality of former times. It made Tom flinch, and feel sick.
‘Or will you hit me again?’ Tom said.
‘Tomaso!’ Aldo said, and his smile was idiotic, his eyes dull.
‘Here’s your tickets,’ he said. ‘Visa, letter with a job offer. Get your passport, and go and get in the cab.’
Aldo sat there.
Nenna and Marinella appeared behind Tom.
‘Papà?’ she said, so gently, and at that Aldo scowled, and stood, and said: ‘I’m going to the bar.’
‘Papà!’ she cried, and Tom felt that if he heard her cry out one more time to her father.
‘Nenna,’ He said.
‘You won’t get any other answer from him.
Her eyes flared.
‘Coming, Marinella?’ he said. He held out his hand and she took it. She turned, looked up at Nenna.
Marinella and her little suitcase.
He picked up Nenna’s case, and said ‘Got everything?’
Outside the driver helped him put the bags in the boot. Marinella clambered in the back. Nenna stepped forward. He didn’t offer her his hand. It’s your decision, he thought, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t dare.
She climbed in.
Triumph? Not yet.
He looked around. ‘Aldo?’ he called, but Aldo was not there.
‘Keys,’ he said to Nenna, and he went and closed the door, and locked it. Leaning against it, he scribbled a note, and went to tuck it under the Setas’ door.
‘They’ve gone,’ she said. He glanced over at her, and moved across to the next house along.
Nenna was frozen immobile when he got into the car beside her.
‘Budge up,’ he said, and she budged.
‘To the British Embassy,’ Tom said to the driver, and he ducked his head, as if to avoid anything Nenna might say or do, as if hiding from her potential to change what was happening.
‘Where are we going?’ Marinella said.
This is where I pretend it’s all a huge adventure, he thought.
‘As far as we can,’ he said, and smiled.
*
He held his breath on the train until it started up, shuffling and shuddering, and left the station.
Somewhere north of Civitavecchia, Nenna started crying, and he put his arm around her, and couldn’t tell her shaking from the train’s. Marinella leapt up from her seat and stood by them, patting her, saying, ‘Nenna, Nenna, what is it?’ in that insistent, plaintive way, until he said to her, ‘Marinella, sweetheart, it’s all right. It’s difficult, but it’s all right.’ Somewhere north of Bologna he felt Nenna go to sleep, and he held her head close to him. Marinella curled up as best she could on the other side, trying to lean on Nenna, each of them trying to negotiate the hard seats and the stupid armrests.
He remained nervous and wakeful. The border loomed ahead in his mind: the mountains, the queues, the officials, the trolley-bus lines which stopped where Switzerland began. Muscly thighs and unpleasant magazines. A stamp saying COMO, crossed out. Beyond all that, a memory of clear cold water, wild strawberries in an impossibly steep green meadow, an eagle circling overhead. But somewhere north of Milan he too slipped into sleep, and the train rattled on, carrying them towards the mountains, into the night.
Acknowledgements
And thanks go to
Charlotte Horton, for eternal Italian support in every way for such a long time.
Derek Johns, for twenty years of top agenting.
Natasha Fairweather, for inheriting me so seamlessly.
Alexander Stille: without his exceptionally interesting book Benevolence and Betrayal, these characters would not have taken this path or, indeed, existed.
Milton Gendel, Anna Gendel and Monica Incisa della Rochetta, for Rome then and now, the Island, Piazza Mattei, the house, the story of the little room.
Armando and Lina Olivieri, Renzo and Roberto, and Angelo.
Elisa Sesti, for some things she said, and the loan of her hair.
Don Alessandro and Donna Amelia Odescalchi, and Don Francesco Massimo-Lancelotti, for Vigna Grande.
Sergio Bertelli, for Trevignano.
Ilaria Tarasconi, for native Italian grammar and culture.
My lovely publishers old and new – Katie Espiner, Suzie Dooré, Cassie Browne, Louisa Joyner, Charlotte Cray, Ann Bissell and all at Borough Press.
Andy Ryan and Look Right Look Left Theatre Company, Mimi Poskett, Oliver Payne, Katie Lyons and Magdelene Mills, whose ideas for how CityRead 2014 should present My Dear I Wanted to Tell You led directly to a scene in this book … Meta or what.
&n
bsp; Isabel Adomakoh Young, first reader.
Robert Lockhart, who still managed to contribute so much, despite being dead. So typical.
Mum and Dad, ditto.
Michel Faber, for being good at these things.
About the Author
Louisa Young was born in London and read history at Trinity College, Cambridge. She lives in London with her daughter, with whom she co-wrote the bestselling Lionboy trilogy, and is the author of eleven previous books including the bestselling novel My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Wellcome Book Prize, was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice, and the first ever winner of the Galaxy Audiobook of the Year.
Also by Louisa Young
FICTION
The Heroes’ Welcome
My Dear I Wanted to Tell You
Tree of Pearls
Desiring Cairo
Baby Love
NON-FICTION
The Book of the Heart
A Great Task of Happiness: The Life of Kathleen Scott
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada