Some Sunny Day. Annie Groves

some pie and chips back,’ she told her mother. ‘It’s in the oven, keeping warm.’

      Christine had been out when they had got back and so they had eaten their own meal together without waiting for her. However, it seemed there was no pleasing her. Instead of being grateful that they had thought about her she burst out bitterly, ‘Pie and bloody chips! If you was any sort of a man, Gerry, you’d make sure we had something a bit better than that on the table.’

      ‘Like what?’

      ‘A decent bit of meat, for a start.’

      ‘There’s a war on.’

      ‘Yes, and there’s a black market as well. If others can get it then why can’t you? Kate Hannigan from five doors down was boasting the other week about how her Kieron works down the docks and brings them all sorts. Oh, there’s no point in talking to you. I’m going out.’

      ‘Mum …’ Rosie protested, but it was too late; her mother was already yanking open the back door.

      ‘Let her go, Rosie,’ her father told her quietly.

      ‘But she hasn’t had anything to eat, and—’

      ‘Your mother can look after herself.’ There was an unfamiliar hard note in her father’s voice. ‘Come on, lass. I’ll give you a hand with the dishes, and then how about we put the wireless on?’

      * * *

      ‘Look after yourself, Dad.’ Rosie gave her father a fierce hug two days later, burying her face against the rough fabric of his jacket to hide her tears as she stood with him in the shadow of the grey-hulled ship towering over them.

      Rosie had got permission from Mrs Verey to leave work early so that she could come down to the dock to say goodbye to him. Her mother had said that the salon was too busy for her to get time off and, as she always did when she witnessed the tension between her parents, Rosie wished desperately that things were different between them. It made her miss the warmth and conviviality of the Grenellis even more. Having her father home had eased the pain of that enforced separation. But now he was going again she felt more alone than ever.

      ‘I’ll bring you back some stockings, and maybe a bit of perfume,’ her father promised.

      Rosie shook her head. ‘You just bring yourself back safe, Dad, that’s all I want.’

      She hugged him again one final time and then stood and watched as he joined the other men going on board, their kitbags slung over their shoulders.

      A pretty blonde girl standing close to her was drying her tears, a shiny new wedding ring on her finger glinting in the sun. Rosie eyed her sympathetically as she stood watching the ship, sensing that, like her, she wouldn’t move until the vessel had not only sailed, but disappeared completely from sight.

       SEVEN

      ‘Bella!’

      Rosie had seen the other girl turning into Gerard Street ahead of her and she had hurried to catch up, thrilled to have a chance to speak to her at long last.

      Bella might have stopped and turned round, but she was not returning her smile, Rosie saw. However, she was so pleased to see her friend that she immediately exclaimed, ‘Oh, Bella, I’ve been thinking about all of you so much! I’ve been longing to come round and see how you all are. Has there been any news yet?’

      ‘We’ve heard that Dad and Aldo are to be sent to the Isle of Man and interned there, but at least Granddad is going to be released and allowed to come home. Not that Liverpool feels like home to us any more after what’s happened.’ There was an unfamiliar stiffness, not just in Bella’s voice but also in the way she was standing.

      Looking at her, Rosie felt her excitement draining away into worry.

      ‘Bella, please don’t say that,’ she begged her. ‘This is your home, of course it is.’ Hot tears filled Rosie’s eyes as she reached out towards her. ‘I miss you so much, I really do. I know we aren’t related, but I think of you all as family.’

      ‘But we aren’t family, are we? We’re Italian and you’re English. The police didn’t come for your father in the middle of the night and take him away, did they? He isn’t being sent to a … a concentration camp …’

      ‘Bella …’ Rosie recoiled from her hostility.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Bella told her, not sounding sorry at all, ‘but it’s the truth.’

      What had happened to the soft, kind Bella she had thought she knew? Rosie didn’t recognise this new Bella, who was looking at her with such contempt.

      ‘When will your grandfather be home? Do you know?’ she asked her eagerly, determined to ignore her hostility.

      ‘No, not yet.’ Bella’s answer was given reluctantly, as though she would rather not have to talk to Rosie. ‘We’ve heard that some of the men your government have decided are Fascists are going to be deported to Canada.’

      Rosie didn’t know what to say. There were so many conflicting stories and rumours going round the city, it was hard to know what was or wasn’t the truth. She had read the papers avidly, looking for news about the Italians, and she understood why the government had felt it had to take a strong line on the real Fascists who might work against the country from inside it. And, of course, she had heard the nasty comments made by people like Nancy, who claimed that all Italians were tarred with the same brush.

      ‘Well, when it comes to those that really are Fascists,’ she offered awkwardly, ‘then—’

      Anger flashed in Bella’s eyes. ‘Showing your true colours now, aren’t you? You’re siding with your own government. What if they aren’t? What if they are just innocent men like my dad and my granddad? You say you think of yourself as part of our family, but you don’t and you aren’t – you never were and never will be! How can you be? It’s right what my mum says. You’ve got to stick with your own kind. How can you even begin to understand what it feels like to be me?’

      ‘Oh, Bella,’ Rosie protested, unable to hide her distress, but Bella shook her head and then pushed past her and hurried down the street, leaving Rosie to fight back her tears. She was trying to put herself in Bella’s shoes, but it was hard when Bella was being so nasty to her, and acting as though they were enemies and not friends. She continued home, feeling more sick at heart than she had ever imagined she could feel, and wondering whether Bella would even speak to her again.

      ‘I saw Bella when I was on my way home,’ Rosie told her mother later. ‘She told me that Carlo and Aldo are being sent to the Isle of Man and that Grandfather Giovanni is going to be released.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ Christine agreed carelessly. ‘I managed to send word to Aldo when I was up at Huyton the other day, and he sent a message back to me.’

      ‘You never said anything.’

      Christine shrugged dismissively. ‘So what? Pass us me ciggies, will you, Rosie?’

      ‘So can anyone go up to Huyton and do that then?’ Rosie asked her mother curiously. ‘Only Bella never said that she’d been in touch with her dad.’

      Christine lit her cigarette and blew out a ring of smoke, studying it for several seconds before replying, ‘No they can’t, and don’t you go telling Bella that I’ve done it neither. It all depends who you know. It just happens that I’ve got to know one of the chaps up there on guard duty, and he sorted it all out for me.’

      There was something that her mother wasn’t telling her, Rosie felt sure, something about her story that didn’t quite ring true.

      ‘What do you mean, you’ve got to know one of the chaps?’ she asked uncertainly. As a child Rosie had never questioned the fact that it was the men of the Grenelli household with whom Christine spent most