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 be clothes rationing next. Mrs V. will certainly have summat to say about it if they try that on.’ She stood up, gulped down her tea, and had almost reached the door when she turned round and said, ‘There’s a few of us goin’ dancing at the Grafton this Saturday, Rosie, if you fancy coming wi’ us.’
Ruth hadn’t mentioned the argument earlier with Nancy but Rosie knew that the invitation was her way of showing Rosie that she had her support, and she was grateful to her for that. Nor was she shocked by Ruth’s talk of how her dress had come to be torn. No one could live for very long in the Gerard Street area without becoming aware of what went on between the sexes. Not that Rosie herself was one for letting lads think they could get away with anything. Perhaps because she had spent so much of her time in a traditional Italian household, she had automatically absorbed the Italian attitude towards the difference in the freedoms allowed to young women and young men and the different way in which their transgressions were regarded. No way was Rosie going to have any lad or his family talking about her behind her back as being ‘easy’. She didn’t hand out her kisses like she had seen other girls do, as they embraced the new freedoms the war had brought, giggling that it was their duty to offer fighting men a little bit of ‘home comfort’. Rosie was a sensible girl, though, and she was ready to accept that she could well feel differently if she were to fall in love. Just as she had witnessed the behaviour of those girls who saw the war as something that was providing them with fun, so too she had seen the very real grief and despair it brought to those women who feared for the lives of the men they loved.
She was a long way from being ready to fall in love yet, though, and as she admitted to herself now, she was also secretly relieved that she was not subject to the same rigid traditions that prevented Bella from being able to go out to any social function, never mind dancing at the Grafton unless she was doing so under the watchful eye of an older married female relative.
Once Ruth had gone, Rosie went back to her sewing, trying not to feel too disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to nip home. She would eat her sandwiches just as soon as she had finished this seam, she promised herself, even though her appetite had vanished. The anxiety inside her was making both her head and her insides ache. Six o’clock – five o’clock now since Mrs Verey had said she could go home an hour early to make up for working through dinner – seemed like a lifetime away.
In the end Rosie’s need to be with her friends compelled her to take the short cut home, almost running there despite the city’s evening heat.
There was no sign of broken glass any more but the boarded-up windows and doors were a chilling reminder of what had happened.
She was halfway down Gerard Street when one of the neighbours called through her open door, ‘If you’re on your way to the Grenellis’, Rosie, there’s bin no news yet.’
‘But surely the men must be home by now,’ Rosie protested, shielding her face from the
