Some Sunny Day

by Annie Groves

  ‘There’s nothing for me to say that hasn’t been said. But what about the duke, Mary? Did Ian…?’

  ‘The duke’s not there at the minute. But he should be back next week, so you see, it’s just as well you didn’t go rushing off to see him like you was planning. I’m going to have to give our Sheila a bit of a talking-to, I don’t want her going rushing off before me and Ian get married. I’ve got me mum and dad and as many of the family as can make it coming up to see us wed, and Ian’s lot as well. The vicar’s said we can have the village hall for the wedding breakfast and a bit of a dance afterwards. There, Rosie, don’t go looking like that,’ Mary urged when she saw the sadness in Rosie’s eyes. ‘I still reckon that you’re daft not telling your dad how you feel about Ricardo. It’s not Ricardo’s fault, when all’s said and done, that your mum got herself involved with an Italian.’

  Rosie knew there was no point trying to explain her position to her friend all over again, and she was grateful to her for what she had done. She just hoped that if Ian could get some news of Ricardo it would be good news.

  The week ended with wet weather and the unwanted news via another girl that George Duncan had been swaggering around the village boasting that ‘that bloody Eyetie who had a go at me has got hisself in big trouble’.

  ‘He’d got his wife with him,’ she added. ‘Half scared out of her wits, she looked too.’

  ‘Talking of folk being half scared out of their wits, how’s your Sheila feeling now, Mary?’ Mabel asked. ‘Only my chap was saying that she’s bound to be called to give evidence at the inquiry. He said he’d heard talk of how there’d bin a lot of gossip about her and the way she flirts wi’ lads, and he reckons that George Duncan will say that she led him on, and wasn’t making any fuss until Rosie interfered.’

  ‘But that’s not true,’ Rosie fired up indignantly.

  ‘Well, it might not be true that she was willing, but it is true that she’s allus encouraging the lads to flirt with her, isn’t it?’ a plain sour-faced girl demanded sharply.

  Rosie’s heart sank as she remembered that the girl had already complained bitterly about Sheila’s behaviour, claiming that she was giving them all a bad name.

  ‘Sheila’s pinched her chap off her is more like it,’ Mary had said pithily at the time, and Rosie had thought that her friend was probably right.

  ‘Anyone fancy going down the village to the pub Saturday night?’ Audrey asked.

  ‘Me and Ian are going to the pictures,’ Mary answered her, whilst Rosie shook her head. She didn’t want to do anything any more, only hear that Ricardo wasn’t going to be unfairly punished for what he had done for her.

  It was quiet in the hostel with it being Saturday evening, and those girls who had not gone home for the weekend having either hitched a lift or cycled into the town or gone down to the village pub.

  Audrey had urged Rosie to go into Crewe with them to the dance hall, but Rosie had refused. It frightened her to think of how bleak and empty her life now felt. It would be different when her father came home. She would be busy taking care of him and making it up to him for all that he had gone through with her mother. She wondered if he’d received her letter yet and, if so, how long it would be before she heard back from him. It would be a terrible shock for him to read about his sister’s death, but at least she had been able to tell him that she had been there with her, and she would make sure that she never let it slip that her aunt had tried to keep them apart and had let her go on thinking that he was dead.

  She had always felt protective of her father, but never more so than now.

  Ricardo would find someone else, she insisted stubbornly to herself. He was Italian, with a family who would insist on finding him a suitable wife, an Italian girl. She knew nothing really about his family other than that they were distantly related to the Volantes and lived in Manchester. There hadn’t even been time for them to talk in detail about such things. But now for some reason she started to torment herself, trying to imagine what they were like.

  Ricardo had told her he had returned to Italy on behalf of his grandfather. And what about Ricardo’s parents? Was his mother like Maria or was she more like Sofia? If so, she would certainly not welcome a non-Italian as her daughter-in-law. And, of course, it wasn’t impossible – far from it, in fact – that once her connection with the Grenellis was known to Ricardo’s mother, questions would be asked, and when the answers were received she would be even more inclined to be hostile towards Rosie.

  It surprised her a little that Ricardo had not spoken more frequently about his mother. She remembered how, in the Italian families she had known, the sons were always adored by their mothers and adored them in return. No good Italian son would marry a girl his mother had not approved. In Italian households, young brides knew to defer to their mothers-in-law, and if they didn’t their husbands took them to task for their failure. An Italian male was a son first and a husband second. When a young Italian couple got married, it was a very important event for both their families and a matter of pride to have a huge and lavish wedding.

  She might know the customs of Italian family life but she was still an outsider to that life, Rosie knew, and that was how she would be considered by Ricardo’s family and their friends. So really, she was doing him a favour by not putting him in a position where his marriage would cause him to be isolated from his family. And no doubt it wouldn’t be very long before he realised that for himself. And then he would look around for another girl to love and marry.

  Tears filled Rosie’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She tried to comfort herself by rereading her father’s letters, but the ache in her heart wouldn’t go away, not even though she knew she was doing the right thing. In fact, right now, doing the right thing seemed a sorry exchange for the happiness she had felt in Ricardo’s arms.

  Sunday brought more rain, but Mary’s smile was beatific after the church service and the last reading of her and Ian’s marriage banns. She went to join Ian straight after, and they went together back to the camp.

  Rosie and her other friends were just about to start walking back to the hostel when another land girl came rushing up and burst out, white-faced, ‘Oh, Rosie, I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m ever so sorry…’

  ‘What? What is it?’ Rosie demanded.

  ‘It’s that Italian you was friendly with. The one that went and got himself in trouble over that foreman.’

  Rosie could feel the sick dread twisting through her stomach. ‘Tell me,’ she begged. ‘Tell me quickly what’s happened.’

  ‘Well, he only went and ran off from the camp and tried to escape. He didn’t get very far, mind. They soon caught up with him and took him back. But then – I really hate to have to tell you this, Rosie, but you’ll hear it soon enough anyway, I reckon – it seems he got himself in that much of a state that he had to be locked up.’

  Rosie couldn’t speak. All this was her fault. None of it would have happened if Ricardo hadn’t come to her rescue.

  ‘And then this morning,’ the other girl continued, speaking more slowly now and very uncomfortably, ‘well, when they went to take him his breakfast they found he’d gone and hanged hisself.’

  ‘No! No!’

  ‘Rosie…Rosie! What did you have to go and tell her like that for, you stupid nit?’ Jean snapped.

  ‘I didn’t mean no harm. She’d have found out soon enough anyway.’

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  That was the warden, Mrs Johnson’s, voice, Rosie recognised numbly as she stood stiffly, gripped by shock, and unable to say or do anything.

  Someone was explaining what had happened and then the warden was saying calmly, ‘Come along, Rosie. Let’s get you back to the hostel and make you a nice cup of tea. One of you girls help her. She’s bound to be feeling a bit shaky.’

  ‘All right now, Rosie?’ asked one of the land girls when they got back to the hostel, making Rosie a cup of tea.

  Rosie looked blankl
y at the concerned face of the girl standing over her. How could anything ever be all right again? She had no recollection of the walk back from the village, or indeed, of anything other than hearing the dreadful news of Ricardo’s death. How desperate and alone he must have felt to do such a thing. It was a crime against the law and against God for anyone to take their own life. Rosie started to shiver violently.

  Why had he tried to escape? Because he feared what would happen to him because he had hit George Duncan? That was her fault. And her fault too that he had died believing that she had stopped loving him.

  ‘Here, Rosie, drink this tea, there’s a good girl.’

  Obediently she gulped the hot sweet liquid from the cup someone else had to hold for her because she was trembling too much to hold it herself.

  Ricardo was dead. He’d taken his own life.

  She shuddered violently.

  Ricardo. Ricardo…how could he be dead, when she loved him so much?

  It was all her fault.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘What’s going on? What’s up with Rosie?’

  Rosie heard Mary’s voice sharpening with anxiety but she couldn’t find the strength to speak to her friend. Instead she left it to the others to explain for her, hugging the numbing protection of her grief to her as their words slid in and out of her consciousness.

  ‘She’s heard about Ricardo.’

  ‘What? I didn’t think anyone else would know yet. Me and Ian have only just heard and I came straight back from camp to tell Rosie meself.’ Mary was sounding very put out, Rosie noticed distantly.

  ‘It’s given her ever such a shock, Mary.’

  ‘Mebbe, but I’d thought more of her than to see her looking like this, especially after all the trouble my Ian’s been to, and the duke, an’ all.’

  ‘Well, you can’t blame Rosie for feeling like she does, Mary. I reckon anyone would feel the same, hearing about a chap like Ricardo doing away wi’ himself.’

  ‘What? Who told you that?’

  ‘Vera heard it in the village, didn’t you, Vera?’ Mabel spoke up.

  ‘Yes. Everyone was talking about it. Given everyone a shock, it has. Of course, there’s them as was saying that it’s all on account of what happened with that George Duncan and that—’

  Rosie dragged herself up from the chair she had been given. ‘Stop it! Stop it, please,’ she begged. She couldn’t bear to hear any more.

  ‘Rosie, it’s all right,’ Mary told her, coming over to her and taking hold of her to give her a small shake. ‘Ricardo isn’t dead. Vera’s got it all wrong.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘It was that poor lad Paolo who went and did for himself.’

  ‘Paolo? Are you sure?’ Hope struggled inside her against her fear and the shame of knowing that whilst she would be saddened to hear of Paolo’s death it couldn’t cause her the same pain as Ricardo’s.

  ‘’Course I’m sure. I wasn’t going to say anything about it for now. I know you had a soft spot for the poor lad after what you did for him, but it seems that his spirits had got that low there was no reasoning wi’ him, and there’d already been a lot of wild talk from him about doing away with himself. All he wanted was to go home but, of course, that wasn’t possible. He tried to escape but he didn’t get far. Daft lad couldn’t speak a word of English and didn’t have any money wi’ him. You can’t help feeling sorry for him. Your Ricardo will be cut up about him, of course, seeing as he’d bin doing his best to try to help the lad learn a bit of English and settle down.’

  ‘He isn’t my Ricardo,’ Rosie told her, but she couldn’t put the vehemence into her voice she knew should be there.

  ‘Oh, so you don’t want me to tell you what’s going to happen to him then, do you?’ Mary demanded, relenting when she saw the pain in Rosie’s eyes. ‘You are a softie. Fancy thinking that a chap like Ricardo would do himself in. He’s got more sense than to do summat like that. And I’m not the only one as thinks highly of him, I can tell you. It seems that the duke himself has taken a hand in what’s been going on. I told my Ian that he had to go and have a word with His Grace and make sure he knew all about our Sheila and that, but when he did the duke told him that he’d already made his own enquiries and found out about some of the things George Duncan had been up to. Mind you, I’m not saying that he wasn’t grateful to my Ian for putting him straight,’ Mary announced smugly, ignoring the teasing comments of those close by. ‘Anyway, seemingly the duke has arranged for Ricardo to be released from his internment into his charge on the promise of good behaviour from Ricardo. He’s to live in a cottage on one of the farms and take charge of the POWs that are sent to work for His Grace.’

  Rosie could scarcely take it all in. To have gone from believing that Ricardo was dead to learning that he wasn’t in such a short space of time had left her feeling unable completely to trust in the feeling of relief that had covered her earlier despair.

  ‘Ricardo is to work for the duke?’ she managed to question. ‘But what about George Duncan?’

  ‘Oh ho, well, he’s got his comeuppance and no mistake. He’s bin given his marching orders and told to leave. And not only by the duke. His wife has told him that she’s going back to her family. Serves him right, if you ask me. Well, aren’t you going to thank me?’ Mary challenged Rosie teasingly. ‘After all that my Ian’s done.’

  ‘Yes, Mary, of course I am,’ Rosie told her fervently. ‘Oh, but poor Paolo. How awful that he should feel so distressed that he…I hate to think of anyone feeling so unhappy that they did something like that, though,’ she added sadly. ‘I felt so sorry for him, Mary. He was so young and so dreadfully unhappy at being here. He wasn’t a soldier at all, really, just a boy who had been forced into the army against his will.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can be hard-hearted enough to tell Ricardo that you don’t want him any more, and then go moping over that lad.’

  ‘You know why I can’t be with Ricardo, and anyway—’

  ‘Anyway what?’ Mary challenged her.

  ‘Ricardo’s Italian and they always marry their own. His family won’t want him marrying me any more than my dad would want me marrying him.’

  ‘That’s silly talk. It’s what you and Ricardo want that matters. Them old-fashioned ways don’t count now that there’s a war on.’

  Rosie should have been asleep but instead she was lying in her bed wide awake, grieving for poor Paolo and yet at the same time feeling with every beat of her heart her joy that Ricardo was alive.

  How different his life was going to be from now on. With a cottage provided on the duke’s estate and the duke’s confidence in his ability to act as a specially appointed sort of foreman in charge of the other Italian workers, the hopes for his future that Ricardo had shared with her had been not just fulfilled but exceeded. It hurt so much, knowing that she wouldn’t be sharing that future with him.

  She tried not to picture the cottage, cosy and private, somewhere where they could be alone as a married couple when they had finished work, but her own imagination was deliberately tormenting her. What would have happened if somehow she and Ricardo had actually got married before she had found out about her father?

  Rosie’s heart bumped uncomfortably. She mustn’t think like that, she told herself guiltily.

  ‘Oh, no, not the potato fields,’ Sheila, who, once she had been told that George Duncan had been dismissed and that she wouldn’t have to see him any more, had decided to stay on after all, groaned theatrically when they arrived at the farm on Monday morning to be told that it was time to start harvesting the potato crop.

  A piece of machinery attached to the tractor would unearth the potatoes – lift them, the farmer told them – and then it would be their job to gather them up.

  It sounded a simple enough task but, as the girls soon discovered, if they got too close to the machine when it was lifting the potatoes they ended up sprayed with soil, and if they didn’t get close enough the potatoes would start falling back into the furrows before th
ey could get to them, which meant that they had to dig down to reach them.

  It was dirty, exhausting work, especially on such a warm day, and those girls who had cheekily cut off the legs of their dungarees to turn them into shorts and get sun tans were very quickly regretting wearing them for potato picking when they ended up spattered with mud.

  It wasn’t until they broke for dinner that Rosie lifted her head from her work to realise that the Italians were back and working a couple of fields away.

  ‘Ricardo’s with them,’ Mary told her unnecessarily, for his familiar back had been the first thing Rosie had looked for and focused on, recognising that it was only now that she had seen him that she felt truly able to believe that he was alive. ‘Why don’t you go over and speak to him, Rosie? I’ll cover for you.’

  ‘There’s no point,’ Rosie refused, but when she dipped her head and turned her back on the men, her eyes were flooded with tears that she didn’t want Mary to see.

  ‘Well, if you won’t talk to him then I certainly will,’ Mary told her promptly.

  ‘No, you mustn’t tell him what I told you about my father,’ Rosie began, but it was too late. Almost as soon as Rosie had spoken Mary had put down her sandwiches and was already walking nonchalantly towards the men.

  Although she had tried not to do so, Rosie couldn’t help but look across the fields to where she could see Mary talking with Ricardo. Was she telling him about her? Was he begging Mary to persuade her to change her mind? Did she want him to do that? It seemed an age before Mary came back.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ Rosie demanded urgently.

  ‘I just told him what my Ian had done for him, and I said as how we was both sorry he had such a bad time,’ Mary answered.

  ‘You didn’t say anything about me then?’ Rosie persisted.

  ‘I’m not telling you any more, Rosie, but I have to say that I wouldn’t want to see my Ian looking so cast down and not himself. Proper thin, Ricardo is looking, and a bit drawn in the face too, like summat’s really upsetting him,’ Mary concluded meaningfully.