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 you can’t be expected to look after the gardens and some hens, Sally. I feel a bit guilty as it is, watching you working so hard.’
‘I enjoy it,’ Sally told her truthfully, ‘and you and Tilly and Agnes all give me a hand.’
‘Well, if you really want to take it on, I’m all for it,’ Olive approved. She looked up at the sky through the leaves on the apple tree.
‘I can’t imagine what it will be like to be invaded by the Germans, but that’s what everyone says Hitler will try to do now that he’s got France.’
‘It won’t be as easy to invade us as it was to invade France,’ Sally said stoutly.
Olive gave her a wan smile. ‘That’s what everyone said about the Maginot Line – that he’d never cross it – but he did. I keep thinking of all those people who tried to escape.’ She put her hand to her mouth and Sally knew that she was thinking of the women and children who had been killed by the Luftwaffe. She herself had heard the most graphic and awful stories from some of the injured soldiers they’d got at Barts, the words bursting from them as though they couldn’t contain the horror of what they’d witnessed.
‘If they do invade, they’re bound to march on London.’
‘We’ve got the RAF to hold them back, don’t forget,’ Sally tried to comfort her.
Olive gave her a troubled look. ‘I worry for Tilly and Agnes, and you too, Sally. You are young with your whole lives in front of you, and I can’t help thinking that if Hitler does invade you’d all be safer out of London.’
‘If he succeeds in invading,’ Sally told her gently. ‘I personally don’t think he will. If those of us who live and work here did desert London then what kind of message would that send out to him, and to our boys who are fighting for this country and for us? The BEF have taken a terrific blow to their pride. We need to show them, as well as Hitler, that we have faith in them.’
Olive looked at her lodger, taking in Sally’s determined expression. ‘You’re right,’ she agreed, adding, ‘You have such a wise head on your young shoulders, Sally.’
‘My mother’s head, or rather her teaching.’ Sally’s smile softened and then disappeared, to be replaced by a look of sadness. ‘I miss her so much. The trained nurse in me knew that she couldn’t survive and that she would die, but as her daughter I couldn’t bear to lose her.’
‘Your father is still alive,’ Olive began, but Sally shook her head.
‘Not for me. I have no father any more. My father ceased to exist for me the day he married Morag. The man I knew and loved as my father could not have performed such a betrayal. I must finish this weeding before
