you’re mekin’ for Pod’s I shouldn’t bother, it’s closed,’ a woman called out to Rosie from the other side of the street, showing her the empty bowl she had obviously intended to have filled with pease pudding.
Thanking her, Rosie regretted her own decision earlier not to stop to get herself something to eat. The larder would almost certainly be bare.
The summer light was beginning to fade from the sky, which was now streaked the colour of blood. Blackout curtains were going up in those windows that hadn’t been broken, and outside those that were, small groups of men were gathering to examine the damage and make temporary repairs. At least it was summer and rain was unlikely to hinder their efforts. The look on the victims’ faces made Rosie feel shamed of her own nationality. She wanted to go to the Italians and assure them that not everyone felt the same way as those who had rioted against them.
When she got home she found her mother in the parlour, sitting on the sofa with her feet up on a worn leather pouffe, smoking a cigarette, her hair already rolled up in rag curlers, and a scarf tied round them turban style.
‘Where’s us supper?’ Christine demanded irritably. Her lipstick had bled into the lines around her mouth, Rosie noticed absently. And there was a button unfastened on her blouse.
‘Pod’s was closed.’
‘So why the hell didn’t you go somewhere else? It’s not as though there ain’t enough ruddy chippies around here,’ Christine complained acidly.
‘Yes, and they’re all Italian-owned,’ Rosie reminded her, ashamed that her mother was only thinking of her stomach at a time like this.
‘Aye, well, they’ve only got themselves to blame,’ Christine told her. ‘That Sofia thinks she’s bin so bloody clever getting her Carlo in with that Fascist lot and her Bella enrolled at one of them language schools what they run, but you mark my words, she’ll be regretting it now.’
There had been a lot of talk in the area whilst Rosie was growing up about Mussolini and his effect on Italian politics. Being a passionate race, Liverpool’s Italian community talked as intensely and fiercely about ‘Fascismo’ as they did about everything else. Rosie knew from sitting in the Grenellis’ kitchen whilst these often heated discussions were going on that to the older generation of immigrants, Mussolini’s desire to treat them as though they were still ‘Italians’, albeit living away from their homeland, meant so much to them emotionally. They saw what Mussolini was doing as a means of uniting them, of giving them respect and status, and of preserving their Italian heritage. They couldn’t see, as their younger British-born children could, the dangers of Fascism.
Hadn’t Mussolini shown respect for their patriotism? the older men argued. Hadn’t he encouraged ‘his’ people living outside Italy to set up social clubs where the men could meet to talk about their homeland and to share their sense of what it meant to be Italian? Hadn’t their mother country sent delegations to talk to them and, thanks to them, hadn’t an Italian school been opened in Liverpool so that their children could learn their true mother tongue? If some of their non-Italian neighbours in their adopted country chose to resent what Mussolini was doing for his people, then that was their problem. For themselves, they were now doubly proud to be Italian and to know that their mother country valued them and recognised them as such.
Stubbornly these often elderly men believed that Fascism was more about an upsurge of patriotism and a love for their homeland, than about politics, which they did not really understand or want to accept.
Many of the younger men, on the other hand, especially those who worked alongside non-Italians, were concerned that in clinging so determinedly to the mother country their fathers and uncles and grandfathers were ignoring the realities of just how antagonistic towards Mussolini the English people and the British Government were, and this led to heated arguments within families when they gathered together. Rosie had seen the way Maria shook her head when they took place in her own kitchen. Sofia was fiercely proud of her Italian heritage, and determined to encourage her husband and her daughter to be equally patriotic, so easy-going Carlo was bullied into joining their local Fasci club, and Bella was sent to the Italian school in the evening for Italian lessons, even though she complained that she already spoke Italian perfectly well.
Rosie had felt slightly left out at first and a little bit hurt when Bella came back talking about the new friends she had made, but Rosie was a gentle-natured girl and she couldn’t resent her best friend’s obvious enjoyment of the fun the classes provided for too long.
It had been in 1935, after Italy invaded Abyssinia, that people had begun to realise the possible implications of Fascism. About that time Rosie could remember hearing a great deal of talk of some members of the Italian community deciding to naturalise and become British citizens. The Grenelli men hadn’t though, mainly because Sofia had been so insistent that to do so would be unpatriotic.
‘Sofia and Carlo aren’t Fascists, they’re just patriotic,’ Rosie protested.
‘Huh, that’s what Sofia might say, but there’s folk around here as thinks different.’
Rosie frowned. ‘I thought that the Grenellis were our friends, but you’re acting as though you don’t even like them. Maria’s always—’
‘Oh, Maria’s well enough,’ Christine stopped her. ‘But ruddy Sofia, she’s allus had it in for me. I’ve warned Aldo many a time not to let Sofia go dragging him into that Fascist lot with her Carlo. Well, I just hope that Aldo’s listened to what I’ve bin saying to him and not got hisself involved, now that there’s all this trouble brewing and folk taking against Italians. Did you try the chippie on Christian Street?’ Christine finished.
It was typical of her mother that it was her hunger she was thinking about and not the fact that she, Rosie, could have been in danger if there had been another outbreak of violence, Rosie accepted ruefully.
‘I’m not going back out again tonight,’ she told her firmly. Other girls with stricter mothers might have been wary of being as outspoken as she was. She was a gentle girl, not normally argumentative, but she knew with her mother she had to stick to her guns – or risk being bullied into doing whatever it suited Christine to have her do.
‘I’ll be glad when Dad gets back,’ she added.
Since Rosie had overheard her father discussing his ship’s near miss, she had prayed extra hard, not just for her father but for all those men who had to make that perilous journey across the Atlantic to be kept safe. War was such a very dreadful thing but, as her father had told her, they had no option other than to stand up to Hitler and to fight as bravely as they could.
‘Well, if I’m not goin’ to get me supper I might as well go to bed. Pity we didn’t get a bit of sommat at number 16. We would have done an’ all if bloody Sofia hadn’t started havin’ a go at me like that.’
‘I don’t think she liked the way you were with Aldo,’ Rosie told her mother uncomfortably.
Christine dropped her cigarette, cursing as it burned a hole in the thin carpet. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You should have let Maria be the one to greet him first. She is his wife, after all.’
Christine gave a dismissive shrug. ‘We all know that. Old Giovanni had both Aldo and Carlo shipped over from the old country so as he could have husbands for his daughters. Mind you, it were the only way he could get them wed. Maria’s that saintly she should have been a ruddy nun, and as for Sofia, she’s got that sharp a tongue on her, the Grenellis don’t need no knife-grinder comin’ round.’
‘Mum …’ Rosie objected. It disturbed her to hear her mother running down the two women who were surely her closest friends, but she knew better than to take Christine to task when she was in this kind of mood.
Rosie plumped up her pillow and tried to get comfortable. There was silence