their families for years.
Although she had been hungry, suddenly Rosie couldn’t stomach her sandwiches.
‘Come on, back to work,’ Evie called out as the dinner bell rang, adding, ‘A girl I know was telling me that in London the girls are getting dressed up and wearing long frocks now when they go out dancing. Mrs V. was saying as how she’d had one or two ladies in already asking if she can sort them out with evening frocks. I’m going to try and get meself a few yards of chiffon and satin and mek meself up something.’
‘Satin and chiffon? Where do you think you’ll get that?’ Nancy scoffed.
‘There’s plenty of second-hand stuff around if you know where to look. What about it, Rosie? Why don’t you do the same, so that we can go out together in them?’
‘Don’t you listen to her, Rosie,’ another of the girls chipped in. ‘You know what she’s after, don’t you? She can’t set a stitch to save her life and she’s hoping you’ll make hers for her as well as your own.’
There was always some good-natured bantering going on amongst the girls so Rosie laughed and answered pacifyingly, ‘Well, I don’t mind doing that.’
‘You’re a real pal, Rosie,’ said Evie warmly. ‘And as a matter of fact, I do just happen to have seen a really nice dark red taffeta frock in a shop up by the Adelphi Hotel. Proper posh-looking it is, and I reckon it must have belonged to someone rich. The colour would suit you a treat. We could go and have a look on Saturday after work if you like.’
Rosie wasn’t really sure she needed or even wanted a full-length evening dress but Evie was so enthusiastic she found herself giving in and agreeing. It would be a welcome distraction from her ever-confused thoughts. She did so miss the happy times she and Bella had shared when they had hurried off to St John’s market to look for bargains.
‘Ta-ra then. See you tomorrow,’ Evie sang out when she and Rosie reached Great Crosshall Street where their routes home separated. ‘And don’t forget about Saturday and us going to look at that frock.’
Rosie still hadn’t got used to the unfamiliar silence of the streets of Little Italy. Those Italian families that hadn’t already moved to be with their relatives in Manchester or London, where there were larger Italian communities, were keeping themselves inside their houses, with the doors firmly closed against the outside world. Less than a month ago virtually every door would have been open, with women calling out to one another and children playing happily in the street, men pushing home their ice-cream carts and gathering on street corners to talk, whilst the sounds of music from accordions and flutes mingled with the smell of freshly ground coffee and herb-flavoured tomato sauce cooking, but now all that was gone.
Michael Farrell, whose wife, Bridie, did all the local laying-outs, was leaning against a lamppost, obviously the worse for drink.
‘Oh, it’s yourself, is it, Rosie,’ he greeted her. ‘And sad day this is and no mistake, all them poor sods drowning.’
As he spoke he was wiping his arm across his eyes to blot away his tears. ‘Over a thousand of them, so I’ve heard. Aye, and the ruddy ship torpedoed by their own side. Complaining they was being sent to Canada, but there’s many a family here in Liverpool will be wishing tonight that that’s where they are instead of lying drowned at the bottom of the sea.’ He swayed and staggered slightly, belching beer-laden stale breath in Rosie’s direction but she barely noticed. A horrible cold feeling had seized her.
‘What do you mean? What’s happened? Tell me please,’ she begged the Irishman.
He focused on her and blinked, hiccuping. ‘It’s that Arandora Star what was taking them Italians and Germans to Canada,’ he told her. ‘Gone and got itself sunk, it has.’
It couldn’t be true. Michael Farrell must have got it wrong. But somehow Rosie knew that he hadn’t. After she left him she started to walk home as fast as she could and then broke into a run, driven by a sickening sense of dread.
Her mother was in the kitchen. She was standing right beside the wireless, a fixed expression on her face, even though she was listening to someone singing. Rosie knew immediately that she too had heard what had happened.
‘You’ve heard,’ she still said.
Her mother nodded. ‘Someone came and told us at the salon. There’s bin hundreds drowned, so they say.’
‘Has the BBC news … ?’
‘I haven’t heard anything official yet. Mind you, I haven’t bin in that long.’
‘It can’t be true,’ Rosie whispered, still unwilling to accept that something so terrible could have happened. ‘The Arandora Star wasn’t a warship. It was carrying Germans and Italians.’
Christine gave a small shrug. ‘Well, perhaps someone ought to have told ruddy Hitler that.’ She reached for her cigarettes, her hands trembling as she lit one. ‘Apparently there’s a crowd of women down at the docks already, waiting for news, daft sods. More than likely they’ll be ruddy lucky to get a body back, never mind news, and it won’t be here they’ll dock, more likely somewhere up in Scotland.’ She spoke with all the authority of a sailor’s wife.
‘At least the Grenellis weren’t on board.’ Rosie felt guilty even saying that when so many families would have had men on the ship. ‘I’m going to go round and see them,’ she announced. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’
Christine shook her head. ‘We won’t be welcome there, Rosie,’ she warned. ‘If I was you I’d stay away.’
‘I can’t do that. Not now that this has happened. And anyway, I don’t understand why they don’t want to be friends with us any more.’ When her mother made no response she told her fiercely, ‘I’ve got to go round; it wouldn’t be right not to.’ None of the Grenelli men would have been on board the Arandora Star but there were bound to have been men on the ship whom the family knew and Rosie felt she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t at least go round and offer her sympathy and her help.
‘Why don’t you leave it until after your tea?’ Christine suggested. ‘There might have been something on the wireless by then.’
Rosie shook her head. ‘I couldn’t eat a thing. Not now …’ she said, rushing out of the door.
As she slipped down the alleyway that led to the Grenellis’ back door, Rosie could see Father Doyle up ahead of her, stepping into the home of one of the Italian families. Seconds later the fine hairs on Rosie’s skin lifted at the unnerving sound of a woman’s single solitary anguished scream of denial. The grief it held was like a physical blow.
Outside the Grenellis’ back door Rosie hesitated. Her palms were sticky with sweat. What was she going to do if Bella’s mother answered and slammed the door in her face or, even worse, started to shout at her? She took a deep breath, wiped her hands on her skirt and then knocked on the door before she could lose her nerve.
To her relief it was Bella who opened it, but there was no smile of welcome in her eyes or lifting of her mouth. Instead she looked as blankly at Rosie as though she had been a stranger.
‘We’ve heard the news. I had to come,’ Rosie began in a rush. ‘I know that Carlo and Aldo and Granddad Giovanni weren’t on board, but—’
Bella looked at her and then said bleakly, ‘They were on board.’
Rosie’s heart jerked. ‘No,’ she protested. ‘You said … you told me yourself that Granddad Giovanni was coming home and that your father and Aldo were going to be interned on the Isle of Man.’
‘They were, but some … someone my father owed a favour to asked if they would swap places with them.’ The words came jerkily as