by Annie Groves
‘That was then, Rosie; this is now, and you and me aren’t friends no more. I don’t want you for my friend now. All I want is to be with my own kind. Me and Alberto are going to get married and then we’re going to go back to Italy just as soon as we can. That can’t happen soon enough for me. No way do I want my children to be born here where my sons could be taken away from me and drowned at sea.’
‘But Alberto naturalised and so he’s British – that’s why he wasn’t taken with the others,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘It was only the men who didn’t take up British nationality when they were offered the chance who were rounded up.’
‘He might have naturalised but that means nothing to him now, not after what’s happened,’ Bella told her bitterly.
Whilst they had been talking Alberto had been helping Sofia and Maria get la Nonna into the van. Now, ignoring Rosie completely, he gave Bella a brief nod.
‘Bella,’ Rosie protested as her friend walked past her to join her mother, but Bella totally ignored her as she and Sofia climbed into the van.
Only Maria was left, having gone back to close and lock the front door.
Sick with misery, Rosie reached pleadingly towards her, begging her tearfully, ‘Mamma Maria, please, at least say that you’ll write to me. I love you all so much…’
Maria’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Ah, bambina,’ she whispered chokily, responding to Rosie’s despair and opening her arms to her.
But before Rosie could go into them, Sofia was there, almost dragging her sister away, hissing at Rosie as she did so. ‘Go away, and stop upsetting my poor sister. You are nothing to us – nothing!’
Sofia had bundled Maria into the van and followed her inside it before Rosie could react. She heard the engine being started but was unable to move, tears pouring down her face, watching as it trundled down the road.
It was only when it turned the corner and disappeared from sight that Rosie gave a sharp forlorn cry and started to run after it. But it was already too late. The van was gone, and with it her hopes of a reconciliation with those she loved so very dearly.
PART TWO
October 1940
NINE
‘Well, we might ’ave won the Battle of Britain, but it ain’t doin’ us much good here in Liverpool, is it?’ one of the girls complained as they all sat down in the workroom of Elegant Modes to eat their dinner. ‘There’s bin that many bombs dropped on the docks that my da says we’ll be having Hitler and his army marching up Scotland Road by Christmas.’
‘We’ll have less of that talk, if you please, Marjorie Belham,’ Enid, who was now the senior sales assistant, ticked off the new junior sharply. ‘Walls have ears, just you remember.’
The new junior blushed fiery red, her small face burning.
Sympathetically Rosie went to sit next to her and gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t let her upset you,’ she whispered. ‘Her bark’s worse than her bite, and I dare say she meant it for the best.’
‘’Ere, Rosie, you’re still coming down the Grafton wi’ us tonight, aren’t you?’ Sylvia Bennett, another new girl, demanded, planting herself down on the bench next to Rosie.
There had been several changes at the shop over the summer, some girls leaving and others taking their places, and Rosie had been relieved when Nancy had been one of those to leave.
‘Yes, but I don’t want to stay late because I’ve got to go to a fire-watch drill on Sunday morning,’ she warned.
The government had given instructions that everyone over sixteen who was physically able to do so had to take their turn on fire-watch duty of their local area, and under the guidance of their local ARP officers everyone had to attend regular fire-watch and fire-fighting drills.
During the summer months these drills had been treated with derision and mockery by some people but September’s bombing raids on the docks had brought home to the inhabitants of Liverpool just how vigilant they needed to be. The city’s Central Station had been hit on the night of 21 September, and some coaching stock had been damaged. Then five nights later there had been heavy bombing over the docks and warehouses, with a huge fire at one dock that was still burning twenty-four hours later. Two theatres, one the world-famous Argyle Theatre in Birkenhead, had been set alight by incendiary bombs, but most telling of all was the fact that the bombing raids had started off what was now a regular late afternoon trek to air-raid shelters by mothers and children who lived down by the docks.
Rosie had seen them on her own way home from work, her heart aching for them and for the city of her birth. Their own street was just about far enough away from the docks to be considered that bit safer, and the houses that had been left empty by the exodus of Italian families moving to Manchester or London were now being taken over by new tenants. The street might be coming to life again, but it was not the same and it never could be.
Rosie would never forget those who had been lost and the friendship that had been destroyed, but she had willed herself not to dwell on what had happened or to think too often or too unhappily about Bella and the rest of the Grenelli family. But sometimes it was hard, and she still missed her friend very much.
‘Oh Gawd, I hate them drills,’ Sylvia grimaced, joining in the conversation. ‘Last time I had to go to one I had to crawl through this smoke tunnel they’d set up, helping to drag this bloomin’ stirrup pump, and I thought I were going to choke to death. Wot I want to know is, what ’ave we got a fire service for? It should be them wot’s dealing wi’ fires, not us.’
Rosie tried to give Sylvia a warning shake of her head but it was too late. Bernadette Chester, whose husband was a full-time fireman working down by the docks, had heard her comment and, putting down her sandwiches, she stood up and put her hands on her hips.
‘We have to do our duty and watch out for fires because our firemen are risking their lives down on the docks tryin’ to save the ships and their cargoes that this country needs for the war effort, that’s why,’ Bernadette told Sylvia angrily. ‘Five nights in a row my Jack hasn’t made it home this week on account of them being called out to the docks. Nearly got his bloody head blown off last week, he did, when they was ordered to go into one of the warehouses that was on fire. He’s already lost two mates, and another one is in Mill Road Hospital and not likely to come out alive, so don’t you go talking your selfish talk about not wantin’ to do your bit.’
‘I’m sorry, Bernadette,’ Sylvia apologised immediately, white-faced. ‘I wasn’t meaning no ’arm. I just meant it as a bit of a joke. I just wasn’t thinking, that was all.’
‘Aye, well, next time perhaps you just had better think before you go saying summat stupid,’ Bernadette told her sharply. But to Rosie’s relief Bernadette was looking slightly mollified, and was sitting down again and picking up her sandwiches.
The early September euphoria of the RAF winning the Battle of Britain had caused great jubilation, but that had made the crash back to the harsh reality of the war all the harder to take when the bombs had started falling again on Liverpool’s dockland area.
Now Rosie prayed not only that her father would be safe at sea, but that when he did come back it would not be in the middle of one of the bombing raids.
‘I’m getting that fed up of working here that I’m thinking of going for a new job at Bear Brand’s,’ Sylvia whispered to Rosie. ‘I’ve got a cousin who works there and she was saying as how you get given stockings as part of your wages. Aye, and if you play your cards right, there’s a foreman there what will see to it that you get more than one pair an’ all, if you get on the right side of him, if you know what I mean.’
The saucy wink that accompanied Sylvia’s comment made Rosie choke on her sandwich.
Sylvia was a one and no mistake. She had certainly livened up the atmosphere at the shop since she had come to work there in July. She was the youngest of a big family, with older sisters who liked their fun, and so although she was younger in years than Rosie, being only sixteen, in terms of worldly experien
ce and knowledge she was very much Rosie’s senior.
Rosie had desperately missed the closeness of her relationship with Bella, and so had welcomed Sylvia’s overtures of friendship, even though she knew that no one could ever replace Bella. In the early weeks after Bella had gone, Rosie had hardly been able to bear walking past their empty house. Even going to church had reminded her painfully of all those occasions during their shared growing-up when they had gone there together hand in hand, and walked together in all the special saints’ day processions the Italians loved so much. When Bella had ended their friendship she had taken away with her a huge chunk of Rosie’s childhood, and Rosie felt that nothing could ever be the same again.
But with a war on, people were having to cope with much worse than losing a best friend. Rosie knew that, and she felt that it was her duty to try to put a brave face on her misery and get on with things as best she could, just like others were having to do. And so when Sylvia had made it plain she wanted them to be pals, Rosie had told herself that she was very lucky to have a new friend in her life.
‘We can have much more fun if we pal up together,’ had been Sylvia’s shrewd comment when she had suggested that she and Rosie started going out to the cinema and the Grafton together. ‘We can watch each other’s backs and mek sure that we don’t get landed with the lads that we don’t want.’
‘How would we do that?’ Rosie had asked her naïvely.
Sylvia had heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes and then informed her firmly, ‘You don’t know much, do you? We’ll have a little sign that we give one another when a chap asks us to dance – you know, like a wink means clear off and leave me wi’ him and a frown means you’re not interested, that kind of thing.’
A little uncertainly Rosie had agreed, but so far she hadn’t seen Sylvia do much frowning.
‘I want to go to Houghtons before we go dancing. I need some more leg tan and they mek their own, and our Jean says that it gives a really nice tan colour. Do you fancy coming with us, Rosie?’
Houghtons shop in the Old Swan area was out of Rosie’s direct route home but good-naturedly she agreed.
‘I just hope that we don’t get any bombers coming over tonight,’ Evie Watts said tiredly. ‘Her next door to us has a new baby and it’s bin bawling its head off every night since she brought it home. What wi’ it, and having to go down the air-raid shelter, I’d give anything for a decent night’s sleep.’
‘We haven’t bin bothering usin’ the shelter this last week,’ Sylvia announced. ‘Me cousin Frank reckons there isn’t any point, and that if a bomb’s got your number on it, it will find you anyway.’
‘Well, more fool you, that’s what I say,’ Bernadette told her critically, adding firmly, ‘Rules is rules, after all.’
‘Oh, trust her to think that. She’s a real miss goody-goody,’ Sylvia whispered to Rosie.
The buzzer rang, warning the girls that a customer had entered the shop.
‘I’ll go,’ Clarice Baird, one of the other girls, announced, jumping up determinedly.
‘It isn’t your turn. It’s Rosie’s,’ Sylvia tried to stop her, but Rosie shook her head.
‘Why did you let her take your customer, Rosie?’ Sylvia demanded indignantly when Clarice had gone. ‘If she makes a sale then that’s threepence in the pound you’ve lost. She’s allus pushing in and taking customers when it isn’t her turn, and it’s not as though any of us is paid that much.’
This was true. Rosie earned twelve shillings and sixpence a week, whilst the new girls received only ten shillings, so every penny of commission the girls earned was worth having.
‘It doesn’t matter, Sylvia,’ Rosie told her friend. ‘After all, it’s not as though we’ve got that much stock left to sell now, what with Mrs Verey deciding that she’s only going to hire out gowns and wedding dresses now until the end of the war.’
The elegant and expensive clothes sold in the shop had come mainly from France, and with the fall of that country Mrs Verey had swiftly recognised that she would not be able to replace her stock. She had been fortunate to have obtained a large delivery of silk underwear, blouses and accessories just prior to Dunkirk, but as she had told the girls, if clothing coupons came in, as she had heard they would, then the shop would not have any customers for these expensive items anyway.
‘We’re still getting soldiers and the like coming in, though, wanting to buy bits and pieces for their girls, and with the prices Mrs Verey is charging for her stock, even selling a pair of knickers adds to your commission.’
‘I know that,’ Rosie agreed, ‘but Clarice was telling me the other day that they’ve had a telegram to say that her dad’s missing, presumed dead,’ she told her friend quietly. ‘There’s six younger than her at home, and they need every penny she can earn.’
‘Aye, well, there’s plenty that’s in the same boat. By, but you’re a real softie, Rosie. Fall for any hard luck tale, you would.’
‘Dinner break’s over, you two, just in case you hadn’t noticed,’ Bernadette interrupted them sharply.
‘Aw, give us a chance, Bernadette,’ Sylvia protested. ‘It’s not as though there’s a shopful waiting to be served, after all.’
‘Mebbe not, but there’s plenty of stock wants an ironing, and Mrs Verey will be wanting someone to take the money over to the Midland Bank this afternoon.’
Sylvia pulled a face behind Bernadette’s departing back. ‘I hate doing that bloomin’ ironing.’
‘Well, mind you don’t scorch anything,’ Rosie warned her, knowing Sylvia was easily distracted and quite careless. ‘Otherwise you won’t be getting any wages until you’ve paid for it.’
‘I don’t know why I bothered gettin’ teken on here. There’s better jobs going wi’ more pay and more fun, an’ all. They’re paying five pounds per night for night shift work at the munitions factory, so I’ve heard.’
‘That’s dangerous work, though, and the girls end up all yellow,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘I’ve heard that there’s been a few accidents and that one girl got her fingers blown clean off.’
‘Ooooh, don’t, Rosie, you’re mekin’ me feel right sickly. Fancy havin’ that happen to you.’
‘I don’t. That’s why I wouldn’t go and work there,’ Rosie told her firmly. She had developed an almost elder sisterly protectiveness towards Sylvia, whom she thought was the last girl suited to work with anything as dangerous as munitions. It might seem unkind to tell her something so horrible, but Rosie hoped it would stop Sylvia taking a job where she was all too likely to end up hurting herself. The shop buzzer rang again and Rosie stood up, smoothing down her skirt and checking her hair before hurrying to answer it.
Two women, obviously mother and daughter, were waiting in the shop, the girl’s face animated and excited, and the mother’s tight with maternal anxiety.
‘Miss Price will show you the wedding gowns we have for hire, Mrs Simpson,’ Mrs Verey was informing them as Rosie stepped into the room.
The bride-to-be wasn’t much older than she was herself, Rosie assessed as she led the way to the salon at the rear of the shop, which was kept especially for the trying-on of bridal and evening gowns.
Rosie realised that it had been a shrewd move on Mrs Verey’s part to conserve her stock by hiring out gowns instead of selling them outright, but she could see too that Mrs Simpson was not happy about the idea of her daughter wearing a dress already worn by someone else. They were the kind of customers Rosie had grown used to since coming to work at the shop – well-to-do, with a different way of speaking to her own – posh folk from higher up in Wavertree. But as Rosie listened to the bride-to-be explaining shyly that her fiancé was a pilot in the RAF, and realised that her mother’s tight-faced anxiety was caused by her concern both for her young daughter, her fiancé, and her own son whose friend he was, Rosie recognised that whatever their social position, the Simpsons were just as vulnerable to losing their loved ones to the war as everyone else.
It was some time before the
bride-to-be and her mother had finally chosen a lovely duchesse satin dress with a fitted bodice and beautifully draped full-length skirt.
The dress had a fifteen-foot-long train in the same heavy satin, and the young bride pulled a face and complained to Rosie, ‘I’m sure I shall never be able to keep it straight when I walk down the aisle,’ as Rosie kneeled on the floor to pin the hem of the dress, which needed shortening.
‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ her mother chided her. ‘Your matron of honour will see to it that the little bridesmaids and pages do that.’
‘That’s all very well, Mummy, but if I have to have Hugo and Charles, one of them is sure to tread on it. Wretched little beasts.’
‘Darling, they are your cousins,’ her mother protested, whilst Miss Simpson gave Rosie a meaningful look.
Rosie responded with a sympathetic smile as she marked out the other small alterations that would be needed. Although socially they were poles apart, Rosie couldn’t help but like the girl, and feel sympathetic towards her in her anxiety for her special day to go well. It would certainly be a shame if such a beautiful dress were spoiled by the clumsiness of two little boys.
When Rosie returned with them to the main part of the shop, the girl’s fiancé and her brother, who had subsequently arrived, were patiently waiting, both young men looking very handsome in their RAF uniforms.
A small pang clenched Rosie’s heart as she watched them leave. The engaged couple were so obviously in love and so happy together. It must be wonderful to feel like that, Rosie decided. Deep down she longed to have a truly happy marriage filled with mutual love. The kind of marriage that so far her experience of life had shown her was more of a dream than reality. But maybe one day she would meet someone special and they would fall deeply in love with one another. It would be wonderful if that were to happen. It was her most secret and special dream and one she had not even shared with Bella, knowing that Bella’s views on marriage were far more practical than her own.