worked in the back of one of the Podestra family’s chippies, peeling and chipping potatoes, and it was expected between the two families that eventually Bella would marry the young Podestra cousin who was lodging with the family. Rosie had once asked Bella if she minded her future being decided for her but Bella had simply shrugged and said that it was the custom and their way, that she liked Alberto Podestra well enough and that she would rather marry him than some lads she knew.
‘But don’t you want to fall in love, Bella?’ Rosie had asked her.
Once again Bella had shrugged. ‘Marriage isn’t about falling in love for us, it’s about family,’ she had told her.
Rosie had mixed feelings about love and marriage. Her father had fallen passionately in love with her mother but their marriage had not been a happy one, so far as Rosie could see. Sofia, however, married to placid easy-going Carlo, seemed perfectly happy with the man her parents had chosen for her. But there was Maria, who had also had her husband chosen for her and who anyone could see was not treated kindly by Aldo. From what she had seen around her in the marriages of those closest to her, Rosie wasn’t sure if falling in love was a good thing. On the other hand, all the girls at work could talk about was falling in love like they saw people doing in films, and living happily ever after. And what she did know was that she certainly did not want her husband chosen for her. In that, if nothing else, close as she and Bella were, they felt very differently, Rosie admitted.
After she had said goodbye to Bella, imploring her not to worry with a strength and cheeriness she really didn’t feel inside, Rosie called round at the hairdressing salon where her mother worked to deliver her message, and then headed up into the city, trying not to look too closely at the broken glass and damaged buildings as she did so. People were already outside cleaning up the debris.
Newspaper sellers were out on the street, and Rosie hurried to buy a paper, scanning the headlines quickly, her eyes blurring with tears as she read about the violent rioting of the previous night, which had been caused, according to the papers, by patriotic feelings overwhelming some people on hearing the news of Mussolini’s decision. The paper did of course condemn the violence, but although Rosie searched the print several times, she couldn’t find anything to tell her what was going to happen to the men who had been taken away, other than that Mr Churchill had acted swiftly to ensure that dangerous Fascists were ‘combed out’ from Italian communities, and would be interned as Enemy Aliens for the duration of the war. Her heart jumped anxiously inside her chest when she read the words ‘Enemy Aliens’, but of course they did not apply to men like the Grenellis. And there was some comfort in knowing that it was only those men who were a danger to the country that the government wanted to detain, not men like Giovanni, Carlo and Aldo. She tried to cheer herself up by thinking that by the time she finished work tonight they would be safely back at home, and that Bella’s mother would be back to her normal self. No doubt too la Nonna would be spoiling them and cooking up a celebration supper for them. Her own mouth watered at the thought of it. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday dinner time, apart from a piece of dry toast without butter before she left the house this morning.
It had been left to Rosie to deal with the complexities of shopping on the ration, Christine having no intention of standing in line for hours for scarce cuts of meat, and learning to experiment with the recipes the Ministry of Food was recommending.
Stopping to talk to Bella meant that Rosie was the last to arrive at the shop, despite her early start. Several of the girls were clustered around Nancy, who was standing in the workroom, with her back towards the door.
‘Go on, you’re ’aving us on,’ Rosie heard Dot, the cleaner, protesting.
‘No I’m not. It’s as true as I’m standing here,’ Nancy retorted. ‘Me dad’s an ARP warden and he said he’d heard as how the police ’ave arrested every single one of them and that they’ve bin told not to stand no nonsense from any of them. About time too, that’s what I say. We don’t want their sort over here. A ruddy danger to all of us, they are, not that some people have got the sense to see that,’ Nancy added with a challenging toss of her head, having turned round and seen Rosie standing in the doorway. ‘Ruddy Eyeties. Me dad says if he had his way he’d have the whole ruddy lot of ’em sent back to Italy before they start murderin’ us in our beds.’
‘That’s not true.’ The hot denial was spoken before Rosie could stop herself. Everyone fell silent and looked at her. She could feel her face burning with a mixture of anger and self-consciousness. She might know her own mind but she wasn’t generally one for speaking out and being argumentative. There was no way, though, that she was going to stand here and let Nancy Dale speak like that about her friends.
‘Oh, and you know, do you? Well, that’s not what Mr Churchill says. P’haps seeing as you think so much of them as is decent people’s enemies you ought to have bin teken away by the police along wi’ them.’
‘I’d rather be with my friends than with someone like you,’ Rosie responded. She could feel her eyes starting to burn with angry tears. The arrival of the police in the middle of the night to take away the men, even if they had been led by kindly Constable Black, whom they all knew, had left her feeling frightened and upset. Not that she was going to let Nancy Dale see that, she told herself fiercely, but she was still glad that Mrs Verey’s arrival had them all hurrying to their posts, and the argument was brought to an end.
Rosie was supposed to be working on the uniforms belonging to some friends of Mrs Verey who were members of the WVS. With limited ‘standard’ sizes to choose from, many women were finding that the regulation uniforms they were supplied with simply did not fit, and dress shop owners like Mrs Verey, anxious to find ways to keep their business going at such a difficult time, were now offering alteration services.
Normally Rosie took a pride in turning the not always flattering clothes into neatly tailored outfits that brought grateful smiles from their pleased owners, but today she simply couldn’t focus on her work. When yet another accidental needle stab to her already sore fingers brought a small bead of blood, tears filled her eyes and her throat felt choked with misery. What was going to happen to Papà Giovanni and the other men? She looked at her watch. It wasn’t even eleven yet. She didn’t think she could manage to wait until after work to find out if there was any news. If she was quick and she could slip out the minute the dinner bell went, she would have time to run back home.
The workroom door opened and one of the other girls came in carrying two mugs of tea.
‘Here, Rosie, I’ve brought yer a cuppa,’ Ruth announced, putting down both mugs and then heaving a sigh as she sank onto one of the room’s small hard chairs. ‘There’s not a soul bin in the showroom, nor likely to be with a war on. I ’ate standing round doin’ nuffink; it meks me legs ache far worse than when I’m bein’ run off them.’ She took a gulp of her tea, and then added, ‘Mrs Verey sent me up to tell you that Mrs Latham will be coming in later to collect her suit, and that you’re not to take your dinner hour but that you can leave early to make up for it.
‘Oh and I need a favour of yer. I’ve torn me spare work frock. Can you mend it for us, on the quiet, like?’
All the girls who worked for Mrs Verey wore neat plain grey short-sleeved dresses trimmed with removable white collars and cuffs for washing. The dresses were made in the workroom, and the cost of them deducted from the girls’ wages so that any damage to them meant they had to be replaced.
‘I’ll try,’ Rosie agreed. ‘But I’ll have to have a look at the tear first. If it’s a bad one …’
Ruth grinned and winked before telling her, ‘It’s one of the buttonholes that’s bin torn. My fella got a bit too keen, if you know what I mean. Mind you, since it was his first time home since he joined up last Christmas, and he were at Dunkirk, I suppose there’s no point in blamin’ him. I’ll bring it up later when Mrs V. is chatting with her friend. I’ve got to run. Me mam’s asked me to collect us ration from the butcher’s this dinner time and if I don’t get there dead on twelve there’ll be a queue right down the ruddy street. Ruddy rationing. Me da was saying last night that there’ll