Keep Smiling Through (8 page)

The air-raid siren went off before they could reach Barrow Lane, and they hurried down the concrete steps of the public shelter that had been dug beneath the recreation ground. It was dimly lit and reeked of damp and too many bodies crammed into a tight space. Babies were crying, women were chattering and complaining at the inconvenience of it all as they puffed cigarettes and shared flasks of tea, and Rita had to push her way through to find somewhere to sit.

She recognised many faces but, as she held Louise’s hand and tried to comfort her, she noticed how their gazes shifted away, how they shrank from making contact with them, and whispered to each other behind their hands.

‘It’s all right,’ she consoled Louise. ‘Let them turn their noses up. Roberto and Papa are worth ten of them.’

Despite her brave words, they suffered an uncomfortable half-hour down there until the all-clear rang out. It was yet another false alarm, and everyone trudged back up the steps, more concerned with getting home than continuing their gossip.

Louise tied her headscarf under her chin, gripped her handbag and gas mask box to her chest and, head held high, walked alongside Rita who was pushing the bicycle. They went into the house through the back door and, after making sure everything was locked, wearily climbed the stairs to the main room.

‘You’ve worked hard today,’ said Rita as she pulled the blackout curtains over the fresh plywood, lit the gas lamps and put the kettle on to boil. ‘It must have taken ages to clean up the mess downstairs.’

Louise sank into her favourite armchair with a deep sigh and pulled off her gloves and headscarf. ‘I had plenty of help. Peggy and Jim Reilly came over and she got him to board up the windows and carry the heavier stuff out to the pavement while we scrubbed the floor and cleaned the mess. Jim even managed to find a replacement door. They were both so very kind.’

‘They’re lovely people,’ agreed Rita. She prodded the poker amongst the few coals in the range fire and coaxed it to burn more brightly as her thoughts whirled. It was a great pity their neighbours hadn’t rallied round, and she hoped they’d felt at least a twinge of shame as they watched the Reillys help clean up.

‘Peggy was all for going to the police station and giving the superintendent a piece of her mind, but I managed to persuade her not to make a fuss. It would have only made things worse for Tino and Roberto.’

‘It might not have done,’ said Rita as she let the tea steep in the pot and reached for cups. ‘Peggy knows a lot of influential people in this town, and she might have been able to pull some strings.’

‘There are no strings left to pull,’ said Louise, who was close to tears again. ‘You see, it’s my fault Roberto is in prison, and I didn’t want the shame of having to tell Peggy how stupid I’ve been.’

Rita perched on the arm of Louise’s chair and took her hand. ‘What is it, Mamma?’ she asked softly.

Louise sniffed back the tears and tried her best to remain composed. ‘Antonino and I had taken the girls to Naples for his brother’s wedding. We thought we’d have plenty of time to get back before Roberto was born – but he came early. I left Italy only a few days after he was born and planned to deal with the paperwork when I got home. But Roberto was a demanding baby, Tino needed help in the café and I had the two girls to look after. It slipped my mind.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ murmured Rita. ‘You had enough to worry about by the sound of it.’

Louise nodded and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘When I finally remembered, there were so many forms to read, so many places that had to be signed and witnessed and stamped – and I couldn’t understand half of them.’ She dipped her chin, her voice softer now. ‘I was never much good at reading and writing, and I got more and more confused and upset about it all. I finally decided it wouldn’t really matter if I didn’t fill them in. Tino had made his home here since he was fourteen, the girls were born in this house and I was already British anyway. Roberto was less than a week old when I brought him home, and I didn’t think there was any harm in pretending he was English too.’

‘But surely Papa Tino must have known?’

Louise burst into tears. ‘I was ashamed to admit I couldn’t understand all those forms. So I lied to him. He didn’t question it because he trusted me.’

Rita held her as she sobbed into a handkerchief. The whole thing was a terrible mess. If only Louise had had more courage, Rita was certain Tino would have understood and perhaps paid for advice on how to fill in those damned forms. But it was too late now, and all they could do was wait and see what happened next.

Louise eventually blew her nose and then scrabbled in her handbag for a rare cigarette. She lit it, coughed on the smoke and determinedly carried on puffing. ‘He will know now that I lied to him, but it was the only time, Rita, I swear. And look what it has done.’

Rita didn’t know what to do or say. Events had whirled out of her control to the point where she was as confused and upset as Louise. But one thing was certain. Louise could not cope alone. It was now up to her to make sure they both got through this – no matter how long it took, or how hard it became.

AS THE WEEKS
passed and there was still no news of her husband and son, Louise slowly lost hope and became a shadow of her previous self. The allotment where Antonino had once worked so diligently was all but abandoned. The three rooms above the boarded-up café began to look shabby as she couldn’t dredge up the energy to cook and clean, and she’d lost any interest in her appearance, rarely leaving the sanctuary of her home for fear of the real and imagined slights of the neighbours who mostly still kept their distance.

Louise had become a lost soul – a prisoner in her own home, and Rita despaired at ever seeing her smile again. Peggy was a frequent visitor, and she and Rita did their best to clean the house and try to bring some order to Louise’s life. Ron turned up to weed the allotment now and again, but there were too few hours in the day for any of them to do much. Peggy had a houseful, Ron had his own garden to keep as well as helping in the pub and attending to his Defence Volunteer duties. Production at the factory had been stepped up, and everyone was encouraged to work longer hours to complete the quota, which meant Louise was often left alone to mope.

Rita had all but abandoned her own home, sitting night after night with Louise, encouraging her to eat the dismal little meals she’d cooked as she attempted to persuade her to take up some sort of work – or at least to spend time in the allotment. Peggy would often arrive with a tin of something to eat, but with no income from the café, and few savings, Louise had effectively come to rely on Rita’s slender pay packet. Although their needs were few, it was getting harder to cope each week.

But all these worries faded into insignificance at the beginning of July when they heard that the
Arandora Star
had been sunk by a German U-boat. She’d been on her way to Canada with 1,562 internees on board. Over eight hundred lives were lost, the majority of them Italian, and although there was a public outcry, it didn’t stop the government from sending another, larger ship, the
Dunera
, to Australia with even more internees on board, including German Jews who had escaped the terrors of Europe only to find themselves imprisoned alongside Nazi POWs.

It took Rita and Peggy many days to reach the right people and confirm that the Minelli men had not been on board, or sent to Australia on the
Dunera
along with the survivors from the
Arandora Star
. But their whereabouts was still being kept secret, and all communication banned. This lack of knowledge was almost the undoing of poor Louise and she retreated further into her shell of despair.

As the summer waned, the war news became ever more alarming. The Channel Islands had fallen to German occupation. Italy had invaded Southern France and bombed Abyssinia and Eritrea, capturing the British outposts of Kassala and Gallabat on the Sudanese border, and the Italians had bombed the British protectorate of Palestine. Cardiff and Liverpool had come under attack by the Luftwaffe and August saw the first enemy bombing raid over London. Hitler’s blockade of the British Isles was swiftly followed by massive enemy raids on London, Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester.

The activity at the airfield increased tenfold as the RAF began night raids on Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Berlin. Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that ‘The Battle of Britain’ had begun, and now there were daily air-raid warnings as seaports, airfields, radar stations and factories came under attack. Shipping was under fire in the Channel as Hitler’s blockade of Britain tightened, and everyone was on high alert as the activity in the skies increased and the danger of invasion became ever more likely.

Cliffehaven was in the direct flight path of the enemy bombers which came across the Channel to attack London, and was being called ‘Fire Alley’ in the newspapers. Because of the military camps, the factories and the airfield in the hills behind it, the sprawling seaside town had suffered numerous heavy bombing raids during August and September, which had caused several deaths and a great deal of damage.

Beach View Boarding House had escaped a particularly fearsome explosion nearby, and no one had been hurt, but the front door and most of the windows had been blown in, leaving it looking rather forlorn.

Barrow Lane’s proximity to the railway added to Rita’s concern for Louise’s safety, and she’d made her promise she’d run for the public shelter the moment she heard the sirens. But she had a sneaking suspicion Louise hid beneath Tino’s marble-topped table at the back of the café rather than face the other women from the street. So far, they’d been lucky, and the only real damage had been further up the railway line in open country, which was inconvenient, but at least no one had been hurt.

It was now late October, and everyone was too occupied with their own problems to get involved in Aggie’s troublemaking, or to be concerned over the Italian families who’d been forcibly removed from Cliffehaven. Rita’s dark hair and olive skin caused a lingering suspicion among some of the women that she was closer to the Minelli family than she let on, but with the constant raids and the need to increase their output, they were kept busy at the factory and they left Rita in peace. However, she had learned a sharp lesson in how quickly this could change, and she kept her thoughts and her personal business to herself as she went about her work.

It had been another long, fraught day and she was exhausted, but Rita’s mind was working busily as she buried her chin in her coat collar and ran through the rain out of the factory gates. She’d come to the conclusion it was time to talk seriously to Louise about finding some kind of work, and she’d spent the day mulling over what she should say, and the best way to say it without upsetting her. Yet, as she hurried down Barrow Lane in the darkness, she knew that no matter how she dressed it up, Louise would not take kindly to her suggestions – or to Rita’s latest news.

The night was black and wet, the wind tearing down the narrow streets and whistling round the corners and rooftops. Rita slipped into the alleyway between the houses and quietly let herself in through her own back door. She was glad to be out of the appalling weather, and needed a few moments to wash and change and catch her breath before she went next door. The day had been interrupted by numerous air raids and what felt like hours huddled in the shelter beneath the factories, and she wanted to sit quietly for a moment over a cup of tea and read her father’s latest letter.

With the blackout curtains pulled and candles lit, she kicked off her boots, stripped and washed at the sink. Her last sixpence had been used in Louise’s meter this morning, so she had to make do with candlelight and cold water.

The chill dowsing made her shiver, and she swiftly pulled on a thick sweater and slacks, knitted socks and sturdy shoes. Giving her wet hair a vigorous rub with a towel, she eyed the dust on the furniture, the hastily discarded clothes on the back of the couch, and wrinkled her nose at the pervasive smell of damp walls and musty rugs. The house was neglected and shabby, and she made a mental note to do something about it as soon as she could – but it wouldn’t be tonight.

She poured the last of the tea from the flask she’d taken to work, but with only a dash of milk and no sugar, the weak concoction was barely drinkable. She curled up on the sagging couch, pulling the blanket round her to ward off the chill as the candles threw flickering shadows across the walls. Her only consolation was the thought that there probably wouldn’t be any raids tonight if this weather carried on, and that, for once, she and Louise could get a good night’s sleep.

She had revealed none of her struggles to her father, who had enough to worry about, and had kept her letters cheerful and hopeful, telling him only about her trip to the theatre to see Cissy in her show, her afternoon teas at Peggy’s when time allowed, the matinees she’d gone to with May to watch the latest films, and how Louise had struck on the idea of trying to make pasta out of potato. The result was a disaster, but even Louise had seen the funny side of it and for the first time in months, Rita had seen her laugh.

Rita grinned at the memory as she opened the envelope. The postal service was erratic, and some of his letters took weeks to get to her. This one was almost a month old. Jack Smith wasn’t a natural letter writer, and his offerings were usually short, but they were so heavily censored it was difficult to make much sense of them.

He was kept very busy, with only a few hours off a week to go to the nearest town, where there seemed to be a pub on every corner. He was enjoying the camaraderie of the other men, and Rita suspected he was finding this sudden independence rather liberating after having had the responsibility of raising her on his own for so many years. The army was a man’s world, and her father was clearly revelling in it.

Rita had had to tell him about Tino and Roberto’s arrest, and he was so concerned that he’d also written to Peggy to ask her to keep an eye out for them – which of course she had done. He suggested that it might be better if they moved away from the coast and the constant threat of attack or invasion, but Rita doubted she could persuade Louise to do so until they’d had word from Tino.