her look down on you?’
‘Because you aren’t British,’ Dulcie replied irritably. Surely it was obvious to him that him being Italian and foreign, an immigrant, meant that he could never be considered as good as someone who was really British. After all, everyone knew that was how things were.
‘Actually I am British,’ he informed her. ‘I was born in this country, to parents who were also born here, and who, whilst being part of Liverpool’s Italian community, have taken British nationality.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Dulcie said dismissively. ‘You look Italian, and you were with Italians when I saw you.’
‘So I can’t look Italian but be British is that what you are saying?’
Dulcie gave an exasperated sigh. ‘This is boring and I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘It isn’t boring to me,’ he told her grimly. ‘This is my country, a country I have enlisted to fight for and to die for, if necessary, but according to you because of my Italian ancestry I am not good enough for Britain – or for you? My grandfather would enjoy listening to you. It would validate and vindicate everything he believes.’
They had to stop walking for a minute to allow the crowd of people coming the other way to surge past them, giving Dulcie the chance to demand, ‘Your grandfather?’
‘Yes. It is to see him that I am here in London, to see if I can mend a family feud. You see, he abhors the thought of me being British just as much as you abhor the thought of me being Italian.’
‘I don’t abhor it,’ Dulcie defended herself. She’d never heard the word ‘abhor’ before, but she could guess what it meant and she certainly wasn’t going to let him know that it was new to her, she decided. She had to hurry to catch up with him as he strode off. ‘But everyone knows that a girl who isn’t Italian would be plain daft to get involved with an Italian chap when they always marry their own kind. Why doesn’t your grandfather want you to be British?’
A shaft of sunlight beaming down as they crossed a road, highlighted the warm olive tint of Raphael’s skin, catching Dulcie’s attention. Here in the city, its buildings shutting out the sunlight, its dust filling her nose and its war-ready grimness all around her to be seen, that sudden glimpse of healthy vitally alive male flesh brought her an emotion she didn’t understand. And because she didn’t understand it, Dulcie refused to countenance it.
‘Because he believes, as so many of his generation do, that our presence here in Britain is temporary,’ Raphael told her. ‘When he came here it was to work and send money home, to save up so that one day he too could return home. That was his belief and his dream. He and his contempararies do not consider Britain to be their home and their country because in their hearts Italy is that. They are fiercely proud of being Italian and they cling together in their communities because they are afraid if they do not, that they might forget and lose their traditions and their way of life. To Italians, family is all important, and family means not just husband and wife and children, but their whole community, to which they owe their loyalty along with their loyalty to Italy itself.’
He paused as a bus that had stopped to pick up passengers set off noisily, disgorging fumes that made Dulcie fan the air with her hand, continuing once it had gone, ‘When my father decided to become a British national my grandfather disowned him. He wanted my father to do as he had done and work to send money home to Italy but my father wanted to build a life here for my mother and for me. My father doesn’t say so, but my grandfather’s disowning of him hurts him. I would like to see them reconciled.’
‘It won’t please your grandfather to know that you’ve enlisted then, will it?’ Dulcie pointed out practically.
‘No,’ Raphael agreed. There were deeper and more complex reasons why he wanted to speak to his grandfather, but he didn’t intend to discuss those with Dulcie. He and his father had had several concerned discussions about the Italian Fascist movement in Britain, to which so many Italians belonged without really understanding the position in which it could put them in the eyes of the British Government, especially now with the country at war with Germany.
They had to stop to cross another road, the warmth of the sun making Dulcie begin to feel hot, hemmed in by the press of people on the busy street.
The movement provided Italian lessons for the children of Italians born in Britain, it provided meeting halls, schools, a place for Italian communities to be together, a small part of Italy and home in a foreign land. Only a small proportion of those who belonged to the movement were politically motivated and true fascists, and Raphael wanted to warn his grandfather against placing himself in that small group, especially as increasingly it looked as though Mussolini was about to ally himself to Hitler, and thus declare war on Britain.
He wasn’t sure himself why he had elected to do what he had done with regard to Dulcie. It was true that he had had time on his hands, but he could have filled that time doing other things. It had surprised him to discover how much his pride had stung to hear Dulcie announce that he wasn’t good enough for her, when her comment should have amused him. She was a shop girl, sharp enough when it came to her own wants, and ambitions, but oblivious to the political and social situations that were so important to him. If one of them should look down on the other then he should be the one looking down on her.
He stopped walking as they came to another crossroads.
‘I’m sorry but I must leave you here.’
It was only after they had gone their separate ways and Dulcie was almost ‘home’ that she allowed herself to give vent to her feelings. Of all the cheek, him apologising to her for leaving her as though he thought that she had actually wanted his company, and would be disappointed at being deprived of it. Well, she wasn’t. She didn’t need anyone’s company, much less that of a ruddy Eyetie. She was forced to admit to herself, however, for all that Arlene had affected to sneer at him, she’d seen the look in her eyes when they’d first clocked him. Eyetie or not, he was still a well set up and good-looking chap.
Chapter Twenty
Sally pushed her hair back off her face, shading her eyes from the June afternoon sun as she looked up from the row of lettuces she had just been weeding around, leaning on her hoe as she did so.
‘Looks easy hoeing, but it isn’t.’ The voice of Nancy’s husband, Arthur, reached her from the other side of the garden fence. Arthur was a kindly gentle man, the complete opposite of the image of him that Nancy held up to others with her frequent references to Arthur’s dislike of all those things that Nancy had decided were to be disliked. Now, as he filled and then lit his pipe, Sally laughed and agreed.
‘Much harder. I’ve never been in full charge of a veggie plot before, although I helped my father with his.’
‘Tea leaves is what you need. Soak them in vinegar overnight and then put them round your lettuces, and you won’t get no slugs coming after them.’
Nancy’s, ‘Arthur, come and get a cup of tea,’ over the hedge dividing the two gardens, had him giving Sally a farewell nod of his head before he dutifully headed for the back door where Sally could see Nancy standing with her apron on over her floral-patterned summer frock, her hands on her hips.
‘Poor Arthur,’ Olive commented, coming down the path with a tray of tea and two scones from the batch she had just baked, just in time to hear her neighbour calling out to her husband. ‘He is rather henpecked. No butter for the scones, I’m afraid, but luckily I’ve got plenty of jam left from the batch I made last year. I’m really glad now that we’ve got rationing that I decided to sort out a stock cupboard last summer.’
‘I’ve been thinking that perhaps we could get half a dozen hens,’ Sally began five minutes later when the two of them were settled under the shade of the apple tree, enjoying their tea and scones. ‘There’s room for them, and I noticed a sign in the hardware shop as I came past the other day, advertising hen coops.’
‘Well, I can certainly use the fresh eggs,’ Olive agreed, ‘but