by Ellie Dean
Humming one of the tunes from last night’s dance, she put away her few clothes in the drawers and the wardrobe, and waited for Ron to assemble the other bed. John Hicks’ wife Sally and her little brother Ernie had lived in this room when they’d been evacuated from London at the beginning of the war, and Sally had told Rita how she’d come to love it as well as the warm-hearted people who’d taken them in. Now Rita could finally be more at ease, the burden of responsibility for Louise lifted and shared: 1941 was going to be a good year.
Peggy and Sylvia got to know one another a little more as they swiftly stripped the bed and remade it with fresh linen. June had left a mess, which wasn’t surprising after her rapid departure, and as Peggy swept and dusted, and Sylvia unpacked her things into the drawers, Peggy learned all about Sylvia’s two sons who were on battleships protecting the Atlantic convoys, and her hopes to take Christopher home very soon.
‘I’m very lucky in that I have good transport,’ she said. ‘He can rest easily in the back of the Rolls with his leg propped up. But the doctor said I should leave it another two weeks just to further the healing process.’
Sylvia paused in the act of folding a caramel-coloured cashmere sweater into a drawer. ‘It’s been lovely staying here,’ she said on a sigh, ‘and everyone has been so very kind, but I miss my home.’
‘Home is certainly where the heart is,’ agreed Peggy, ‘but my two youngest are so far away, and I’m constantly torn.’ She surreptitiously watched Sylvia as she continued unpacking. ‘What about your husband? He’s in London, isn’t he?’
Sylvia nodded. ‘I haven’t seen much of him since this war started,’ she said softly. ‘He’s very involved with the Foreign Office as well as in the House of Lords.’ She sank onto the dressing table stool. ‘I have no idea how he fared in that terrible raid,’ she said on a tremulous sigh. ‘The blessed telephone lines are still down.’
‘My sister Doreen was in the middle of it all, as well,’ said Peggy. ‘I’ve decided to accept that no news is good news until I can get hold of her.’
Sylvia smiled at her. ‘This war doesn’t make things easy, does it? But at least James was in a position to stir some life into the authorities over Louise’s menfolk.’
Peggy knew nothing of this, so Sylvia went on to tell her. ‘It seems Antonino and Roberto sort of slipped through the gaps in the system,’ she concluded, ‘but now James has alerted the author-ities, I’m sure Louise will soon know where they are.’
‘That was very kind of you both,’ said Peggy. ‘Louise is lost without Tino and . . .’ She decided she’d said enough.
‘Knowing where they are will give Rita some respite,’ finished Sylvia. She smiled. ‘She was the reason I got James to see what he could do. That poor child is so loyal to Louise, I don’t think she realises how expertly she’s being manipulated.’
Peggy’s estimation of Sylvia rose higher. ‘Thank you for caring enough,’ she murmured. ‘Most people wouldn’t have even noticed.’
Sylvia laughed and moved away from the dressing table. ‘I have an eye for such things,’ she said enigmatically. ‘Now, I don’t know about you, but I could do with a cup of tea. I’ll go down and put the kettle on.’
Peggy finished the dusting, eyed the room with satisfaction and closed the door. Sylvia might belong to a social class way above the humble Reillys, but she had a heart of gold, and Peggy regarded herself as fortunate to have the chance to get to know her.
Rita and Louise had been at Beach View Boarding House for two weeks. They’d settled in quickly, and despite Louise complaining that Rita was always going out with Cissy and her friends, she seemed much more willing to give Rita her freedom. Perhaps Peggy had had a few words with her after their long chat on her first evening – or perhaps Louise just felt she didn’t need her quite so much now she had other people to lean on. Either way, Rita was delighted to be young and carefree again.
Rita had met Chuck outside the cinema as planned, but as they’d sat in the back row, he’d tried to put his hand up her skirt again, and she’d told him straight that she was having none of it. She’d been so angry that she’d slapped his face and left her seat to a chorus of titters before the film ended, pushing past the other people before storming outside.
She hadn’t waited to see if he was following her, and had run down the High Street and round the corner into Camden Road, the tears blinding her, the shame of her very public exit from the cinema warming her face. Half of Cliffehaven must have seen.
Cissy and her friends had been coming out of the Anchor and, after one glance at Rita’s expression, she had linked arms with her, said goodbye to her friends and steered her back into the pub. Rosie also seemed to realise something was wrong and gave them drinks before shooing them upstairs into her parlour so they could have a private heart-to-heart.
Cissy had listened as Rita’s tale poured out, offered quiet advice and related some of her own horror stories, which had made Rita feel a lot better. They’d come to the conclusion that it would be best to stick to English officers in the future and to always be one of a crowd.
Rita always left the Norton at the fire station now she’d finished working at the factory. Being so close to Beach View meant she didn’t really need it, and it was safer there than in Ron’s shed. She loved her work at the fire station and was learning a great deal from George Wickens as they serviced the engines and did repairs and replacements of parts to the collection of vans, motorbikes and bicycles that were used by the volunteers.
There had been some activity from the local airbase over the past two weeks, but although they’d heard distant booms, and enemy bombers had raced towards the Thames, no bombs or incendiaries had fallen on Cliffehaven.
However, the RAF had been very busy. They had attacked Turin and Calais, and repeatedly bombed Bremen in reply to the heavy raids on Cardiff, Bristol, Portsmouth and Plymouth. The North Africa campaign was progressing very well, with Bardia falling to the ANZACS and the British forces, which were now sweeping towards Tobruk and almost certain victory. Shipping losses were at their lowest for eight months, and an important convoy got through to Greece after a skirmish in the Mediterranean.
The only piece of news that really touched Rita was the disappearance of Amy Johnson, whose plane had probably come down over the Thames. It made her think of May and all the other brave young women who were playing their part in ferrying vital machinery and men from one end of the British Isles to the other, thereby releasing the RAF pilots to concentrate on defending Britain and doing as much damage as they could to the Nazis on their home territory.
It had been bitterly cold all day, and as Rita stepped outside into the darkness, she was met by swirling snow. It was very pretty, dancing and floating, lying in soft drifts on the road and dusting the rooftops, deadening the sound of her footfalls as she pulled up her coat collar and headed for home. The temperature seemed to have risen now the snow had started to fall, and by the look of the sky, there was still plenty more to come.
She slipped and skidded down the pavement, past Goldman’s factory and the bomb site where a block of flats had once stood next to the school, which had closed for the duration. The Anchor looked dark from the outside, but she knew that if she pushed open the door she’d be blinded by light and deafened by noise as the tightly packed crowd tried to make themselves heard above the singing and the thumping of the piano keys. She carried on walking, for she and Cissy were planning a night out tomorrow and she needed to catch up on her sleep.
The short parade of shops was in darkness, the taped windows shuttered to protect them from bomb blasts. As she reached the end of the road and crossed over into Beach View Terrace, she saw someone open their front door, careless of the light streaming out onto the pavement.
‘Turn that light out. I won’t tell you again, missus.’
Rita’s heart did a jump and she recoiled in shock. The warden’s yell had come from the shadows beside her and she’d had no warning. ‘You could
give someone a heart attack, yelling like that,’ she said crossly.
‘That damned woman has been opening that door every five minutes,’ he snapped. ‘If she’s anything to do with you, tell her that I’ll arrest her if she don’t stop it. She’s breaking all the blackout rules.’
She quickly assured him it wouldn’t happen again and ran up the steps. ‘Get inside,’ she hissed, giving Louise a nudge and shutting the door firmly behind them. ‘The warden’s on the warpath.’
‘I was waiting for you to come home.’ Louise dismissed the warden with a wave of her hand and grabbed Rita’s arm. ‘I’ve had a letter from Roberto,’ she breathed. ‘I need you to read it to me.’
Rita took the letter Louise was thrusting into her face. She could hear the lively chatter in the crowded dining room and smell something delicious that made her stomach clench with hunger. But a letter from Roberto was far more important, and she could understand Louise’s impatience to read it. ‘I’ll just tell Peggy I’m home and then I’ll read it to you upstairs where it’s quiet.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ snapped Louise. ‘She already knows the letter has come and I can’t have her knowing that I need you to read it to me.’
Rita followed an impatient Louise up the stairs to their bedroom.
‘Read, read,’ implored Louise, wringing her hands.
Rita struggled out of her damp coat, unwound her scarf and kicked off her boots. Lighting the gas fire, she warmed her hands so she could feel them again, and carefully slit the envelope.
The letter was in English and several pages long, the writing small and filling every square inch. Rita sat on the bed and began to read it out.
‘“Dearest Mamma and Rita, Papa and I are well, and we have been given warm clothes and plenty of food, so we are not cold or hungry. Papa is sitting beside me now and asks me to send you many kisses, Mamma and Rita, and wants to know if Mamma remembered to give you the earrings for your birthday.”’
Louise flicked a dismissive hand. ‘Go on, go on,’ she urged. ‘How are they, where have they been?’
Rita continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. ‘“After our arrest we were kept in the cells overnight and then, with Gino, his brothers and their sons were taken to Wormwood Scrubs prison. For Gino it was much worse, as their women and children had been taken away and sent to an unknown place. At least we knew that you and Mamma were safely at home.”’
‘But our home is gone,’ Louise wailed. ‘Poor Tino, he’ll be heartbroken.’
Rita continued calmly. ‘“Papa and I were allowed to stay together and we shared a very small cell in one of the wings that hadn’t been used since the days of the Suffragettes, so Papa and I had a bit of a task to clean away all the pigeon droppings and make it habitable. But it was good to be doing something useful, it kept our minds off what might be happening to you.”’
‘He cannot know the half of it,’ Louise muttered.
‘“There are aspects of prison which I will not go into here, but it can be very degrading, and I learned to hate the lumpy lukewarm porridge which was given to us every morning without fail. The bedtime bread and cocoa was welcome, but only because when cooled, the cocoa formed a layer of butter which we used to make candles so we could see after lights out, which was on the dot of six every night.
‘“After six long weeks we were all ordered to gather our few possessions and were taken from the Scrubs under military escort to a train. None of us knew where we were being sent, and I think Gino and his brothers hoped that they would be reunited with their women and children.
‘“But it was a false, cruel hope, for our destination was Ascot, and after we were marched to the outskirts of that town, we arrived at a place surrounded by pine trees. It was the winter quarters of Bertram Mill’s Circus, and we were all expected to make the best accommodation we could in the various animal houses. Papa and I helped Gino and his brothers clear out the elephant house, but the smell of the beasts remained the whole time we were there.
‘“It was the height of summer and very hot, but there was plenty of water, so none of us went thirsty. But we were all very hungry, and soon discovered that although there were plentiful supplies of food, no provision had been made to feed us. When we were made to strip and line up in rows for a roll-call in the blazing heat, some of the older men fainted.”’
‘Mamma mia,’ gasped Louise. ‘My poor Tino, my poor Roberto! Such shame for them to be naked among strangers.’
Rita silently agreed, but said nothing. The letter was a long one, and with all of Louise’s interruptions, it could take half the night to get through.
‘“Being Italians, most of us could run a kitchen, so we set to and scrubbed and scrubbed until everything was clean and shining. Then we made a hearty vegetable soup and everyone was fed.
‘“Conditions improved over the next few weeks, and we made many friends, entertaining ourselves with readings from books, little shows where everyone had to sing a song, juggle, or tell a joke – we even had cookery lessons. But none of us knew what would happen next, or if we’d be sent somewhere else, and this made us uneasy. Rumour was rife, and we all dreaded the thought we might be shipped off to Australia or Canada.
‘“We had been at Ascot for five weeks when we were again taken by military escort on a very long train journey. Papa and I came to the conclusion that the circus people wanted their winter quarters back now it was November, and we hoped they appreciated the lovely clean kitchen we’d left behind.
‘“Papa and I and the other men from Cliffehaven had hoped we might be taken south, but the train went north and we ended up at an internment camp on York racecourse. The main grandstand and administration buildings had been converted to house us, though it was very cramped beneath the grandstand, and it felt much more like a prison than the last place, for it was surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by the military.
‘“We had no chance to cook for ourselves at York, and every meal was dominated by badly cooked rice – this plain, tasteless fare made a little less dull by the lovely smell of chocolate that drifted into the camp from the nearby Terry’s factory.
‘“We remained in York for only two weeks, each day marked off in the hope that our liberation would come soon. But then we were separated from Gino and the others and taken to Huyton, a half-finished council housing estate on the outskirts of Liverpool. It was surrounded by anti-aircraft guns which made it almost impossible to sleep at night when there was a raid on the city.
‘“The conditions were bad, and we had to make our own beds by stuffing grass into sacks left behind by the builders. The unfinished houses were mostly rat infested and full of rubble, so we lived in tents. It was only a few weeks before Christmas and the weather was very bad. We supplemented the awful diet with the dandelion leaves that grew everywhere, but it was the boredom and the cold that defeated us more than anything. We had nothing to do and Papa got a bad cold which settled on his chest. I was afraid for him, but he has since made a very good recovery and is well now.”’
Louise groaned and rocked back and forth. ‘I should have been with him,’ she sobbed. ‘I should have been told he was so ill.’
‘Listen to this, Mamma,’ said Rita excitedly as her gaze skimmed the last of the letter.
‘“It was like a miracle, for one day an officer came and questioned me for a long time and then ordered that Papa and I were to be removed from Huyton immediately and sent south to a farm near the Brecon Beacons in Wales.
‘“We packed our few things and were on a train under escort of a soldier until we arrived at our destination to be met by the farmer and his wife. Papa got well again very quickly, and although we couldn’t understand much of what the farmer or his wife said – their accent was almost impossible to decipher – we both realised this, at last, was our chance to play our part in the war effort.
‘“The farmer, Mr Hugh Jones, and his wife, Nerys, already have several other Italians working for them and we are al
l housed in a big, comfortable barn. There are no guards and we can come and go as we please as long as we are in the barn by ten o’clock at night. It is very quiet and isolated so there’s nowhere to go, but some of the other men have their English wives and children billeted in the tiny nearby village, so they sneak out at night to be with them.”’
Rita looked up to find that Louise’s eyes were shining with hope. She quickly returned to the letter.
‘“I think the farmer knows this but turns a blind eye, and Mrs Jones is very keen to learn our recipes for Italian food and does her best to find all the ingredients. On Christmas Day she made us a beautiful dinner and invited the women and children as well. We missed you so, Mamma, Rita, and think of you all the time, but it was especially hard to see the other families celebrate together and not to be with you on that special day.”’
‘For me too,’ sighed Louise as she shot Rita a reproachful look. ‘Some of us did not forget you on that day.’
Rita ignored the barb and finished the letter.
‘“As you see from the address at the top, you can write to us now, and if it is at all possible, you could come to visit. There are some nice people in the village and it may be possible for you to find a billet with the other wives. This little Welsh valley seems to have taken us to its heart, and I know you will find a welcome here.
‘“It would be wonderful to see you again, but we both understand how difficult it would be for you to make such a journey. We’ve heard about the bombing in Cliffehaven and the terrible attack on London, and we pray with all our hearts that you remain safe and well, and that Peggy and the Reilly family have come to no harm either.”’
‘So like my Roberto,’ murmured Louise, ‘always thinking of others when he is in trouble himself.’
‘It sounds as if they’ve both fallen on their feet,’ said Rita with a wry smile. ‘Let me finish the letter, it’s almost done.
‘“Papa is strong again and I am feeling much more useful now I have work around the farm. I’m learning to milk cows, drive the tractor and plough the fields, and Papa is making butter and cheese the Italian way, and has begun to make ice cream too. Mrs Jones sells it all at the big market and gives him a share of the profit.