you, she’s as much of a drama queen as that ruddy mother of hers. Their men couldn’t have been on board. I spoke to Aldo meself on Saturday night. He told me then that they was going to the Isle of Man.’
‘You spoke to Aldo? But that’s impossible. You couldn’t have done. No one was allowed to talk to the men.’
‘Well, I did. And don’t go looking at me like that. It’s the truth. Like I’ve already told you, there’s always ways and means, Rosie, if you know how to go about things and you know the right people. Bella’s got it wrong. Aldo was full of it, and that relieved …’
‘Bella said that they’d changed places with someone,’ Rosie stopped her mother quietly.
Between one breath and another Rosie saw her mother’s expression change, and the colour leave her face, only to rush back into it to burn in two bright spots on her cheeks.
‘The stupid bastard,’ she breathed. ‘The stupid, stupid bastard. I warned him not to …’ Suddenly it was her mother who was shaking from head to foot. She dropped down into a chair and leaned her elbows on the table, holding her head in her hands.
‘Mum …’ Rosie begged her uncertainly. She was upset – devastated – but her mother was inconsolable.
‘It’s that ruddy Carlo – he’s the one who’s responsible for this.’ It was as though she was talking to herself. ‘He’s the one who dragged Aldo into that Fascist lot on account of Sofia nagging at him. She’s the one who’s to blame for them all being drowned … She might as well have murdered them with her bare hands.’
Had the news somehow affected her mother’s brain? How was it possible for her to know so much?
‘We don’t know what … what’s happened yet, Mum. They might still be alive …’
Her mother was giving her the same look that Bella had given her when she had said that to her.
‘No, they won’t be alive,’ she told Rosie bitterly. ‘I need a drink.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Rosie offered.
‘Not that kind of drink. A proper drink. There’s a bottle of gin in the sideboard – go and get it for us.’
‘Mum, I don’t think—’
‘All right, don’t get it, I’ll go and get it meself,’ she glowered.
‘I don’t understand,’ Rosie protested. ‘Why did they change places with these other people, and why did you say it was Sofia’s fault? They aren’t Fascists.’
‘Aldo certainly wasn’t. Sofia’s had it in for Aldo for a long time – well, I hope she’s happy now with what she’s gone and done.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Rosie repeated.
‘No, you don’t understand, Rosie, and that’s the ruddy truth.’
It was another week before they knew for sure that the Grenelli men were indeed amongst those missing, presumed drowned. And not once in that week had the Grenellis’ door opened to Rosie’s knock, even though she had gone round every day hoping to be allowed to share their grief. Rosie went with her mother to the service that was being held at Holy Cross in memory of those who had died, both of them dressed in their most sombre clothes.
The church was packed full, and it was almost impossible to hear the voice of the priest because of the noise of women crying, Rosie and her mother included. And then during the prayers one woman screamed so loudly in her despair that Rosie thought she herself was going to faint from her pain. The grief they were all feeling couldn’t be contained. It spilled over and filled the church as the mourners gave themselves over to it.
All Rosie could think about was how the Grenellis must be feeling and how much she wished she had been allowed to share this dreadful time with them. All week she had hoped that today of all days they would relent and accept that although she and her mother were not Italian, they shared their sense of loss and bewilderment. But the church was so packed that it was impossible to find anyone particular amongst the huge crowd. Many of the widows and children of the men who had lost their lives were given seats at the front of the church, but although Rosie craned her neck to see if the Grenellis were amongst them, she couldn’t find their familiar faces.
The grief of the mourners brought home to Rosie not just the cruel tragedy of what had happened but also the reality of what it meant to have a beloved husband or father die in such a dreadful way. It had always been her fear that one day her own father might not return home, and witnessing the anguish here reinforced that fear and added to her grief for all the lost lives.
She and her mother clung to one another for support when they left the church after the service. Rosie had never seen Christine so emotionally affected by anything. For once her mother was not wearing her trademark mascara and bright red lipstick, and it tore at Rosie’s tender heart to see her looking so unexpectedly vulnerable, as some of their Italian neighbours glowered pointedly at them, making it plain that they considered them to be outsiders.
‘Did you see the way that Carlo Cossima were looking at us, like we was to blame for what’s happened, when it were me wot tried to save Aldo? If there’s anyone to blame for them drowning then it’s that Sofia and not me,’ Christine wept as she clung to Rosie.
Rosie could feel her mother trembling. She squeezed her arm, trying to comfort her, not trusting herself to speak. Her mother seemed fixated on Aldo’s fate, whereas Rosie recognised that it was for all of their men that most of the women had come to mourn, and that was why they were looking so bitterly at them – because they were English and it was the British Government they believed had sent their men to their deaths.
Everyone had been saying that the war was going to change people’s lives for ever, but Rosie felt sure that nothing else could ever have the impact on hers that the internment and deaths of the Italian men from Liverpool had had. She felt bereft without the closeness and friendship of the Grenellis, but her pain went deeper than that, and she knew that a part of her would never recover from the words Bella had thrown at her. They had grown up together, both innocent of any differences between them, bonded by a friendship Rosie had believed would last for ever. But now that innocence was gone. Rosie’s tender heart ached for all the Italian families who had suffered so much pain and loss, but it ached as well for her own loss.
It ached too for her mother, who had begun to frighten Rosie with the way she was drinking. All week Rosie had lain in bed at night, hearing her mother walking around downstairs, wanting to go down to her to beg her to come up to bed, but knowing that Christine would have had too much to drink to pay any attention to her. It had been the early hours before she had eventually come upstairs and then in the morning she had been sleeping so heavily that Rosie had been unable to wake her up properly so that she could go to work. Rosie was astonished that her mother had actually made it to the service.
She longed for her father to come home, and yet at the same time she felt guilty because he was alive whilst so many other men from the neighbourhood were dead. Over seven hundred had drowned, so it said in the papers, most of them Italian. Amongst them had been the man she had thought of almost as her own grandfather. She and Bella should have been mourning his loss together, supporting one another and comforting one another. How could her friend not understand that she had loved him too?
Конец ознакомительного
