When the Lights Come on Again

by Maggie Craig

  She turned, and saw that he had one arm about Helen’s shoulders and was extending the other to her. She ran back to him. There were only minutes until the train left. She stretched up to kiss his cheek.

  ‘Look after each other,’ he said huskily into her hair, squeezing her shoulder in farewell.

  ‘We will,’ Liz promised. ‘Don’t you worry about us.’ She turned to Helen. ‘We’ll be out dancing with Polish soldiers every night, won’t we?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Helen agreed. ‘I’m told they’ve got lovely manners. Wouldn’t dream of arguing with a lady. Unlike some people I could mention.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ said her sweetheart. ‘Very funny.’

  The whistle blew. A kiss on both girls’ foreheads and then Eddie jumped aboard the train, slamming the door and swiftly pulling down the window so he could lean out to give Helen one very last kiss. The train began to move and they separated. Arms linked, the two girls waved until they were sure he couldn’t see them any longer.

  ‘Come on, Helen,’ Liz urged. ‘Let’s go.’ Her friend seemed to have become rooted to the platform. Should she suggest the pictures for this evening?

  ‘Och, Liz!’ said Helen, and burst into tears.

  ‘I thought she was never going to stop crying,’ Liz told Mario as she walked hand in hand- with him in the sunshine of Kelvingrove Park the following day. ‘I took her for afternoon tea after we’d seen Eddie off, and she was so upset she didn’t argue with me when I paid for both of us. I don’t think she even noticed, and that’s not like Helen at all.’

  Mario squeezed her hand. ‘I know. It’s tough. At least we don’t have to be separated. That’s one thing.’

  When they got back to the café they found it deserted, two irate customers waiting to be served. After he’d dealt with them, Mario ran swiftly up the stairs, pursued by a worried Liz.

  ‘Papa?’

  His father was sitting in the armchair by the fire, staring into space. Mario crouched down beside him, Liz hovering nearby. Aldo Rossi looked up at them at last.

  ‘I listened to the news,’ he said. ‘I always listen to the news.’ They waited, both of them suddenly realizing what was coming next. ‘Il Duce has joined the Germans. Italy has declared war on Britain.’

  Mario glanced up at Liz, his expression sombre. They’d been expecting it, but it was a blow nonetheless. She could see that he’d already started thinking ahead to the ramifications of the news. She didn’t think his father had considered those yet. He was too shocked. The country of his birth and the country of his son’s birth were now at war. That was enough to cope with.

  The old man’s eyes were wet. Mario put out a hand to him, but he pushed it aside. ‘I go back downstairs,’ he said. ‘I cannot leave my customers unattended.’

  Mario rose to his feet, shaking his head at Liz.

  ‘I think he wants to keep going, pretend that nothing’s changed,’ he murmured. ‘Maybe we can manage that for a wee while.’ He grimaced. ‘At least for the rest of today.’

  They followed Aldo downstairs.

  ‘Will you stay for a bit?’ Mario asked quietly. ‘Help me keep his spirits up?’

  ‘Of course,’ Liz said, giving his hand a quick squeeze. ‘Nae bother.’

  Twenty-nine

  One hour later a brick came flying through the window of the café. Aldo was serving coffee to two of his regular customers, an elderly couple sitting at the table nearest the door. The missile flew over them and struck Aldo on the head.

  The impact was sufficient to fell him, blood seeping from a wound on his forehead. Mario, hastily wiping his hands on the white apron tied round his waist, came rushing out from behind the counter and knelt down beside his father. Liz had been cleaning some tables at the back of the café, exchanging a few sentences with a single man who was the only other customer in at the time. She went forward too, the man rising to his feet and following her.

  ‘Should ye no’ get him down the road to the Infirmary, Mario?’ asked the woman, now also on her knees beside Mr Rossi.

  ‘Aye,’ he said briskly, shaking off the initial shock. ‘Liz, can you mind the store?’

  She was about to say yes, of course, nae bother. The younger male customer spoke.

  ‘I’m thinking you might not have a store to mind! Sorry, pal, but I’m getting out of here!’

  He pulled open the door and was gone. That was when they became aware of the noise from outside. There were people out there. Lots of them.

  ‘Don’t waste any more time, laddie!’ urged the elderly man. ‘Get your father out now! And take the lassie wi’ you! Come on!’

  Between the four of them, they got Aldo to his feet and manhandled him out on to the pavement. It wasn’t a crowd which had gathered there. It was a mob, ugly and menacing. Their very posture shrieked aggression.

  ‘Aw, look,’ shouted one voice. ‘That guy’s hurt.’

  Liz stared at them. She couldn’t believe her eyes. If she blinked, would they go away? There were about thirty of them, mostly men but a few women also. They had a handcart in front of them. It was filled with bricks, and stones big enough to fit into a man’s hand...

  Had a ripple of sympathy run through them when they had seen Aldo, a man of mature years with blood dripping from his head? If so, it didn’t last long.

  ‘Dirty Tallies!’ shouted another voice.

  ‘Tally bastards!’ said someone else.

  Mario, his shoulder under his father’s arm, had gone white. Liz thought of Kristallnacht. Was this how it had started for the Jews in Germany? People calling them names? Men and women lifting stones, taking aim and getting ready to throw?

  ‘We’re no’ wanting to hurt anybody,’ came a man’s voice. ‘Let them through.’ The mood shifted again. It came to Liz what made a mob like this so dangerous. You had no idea which way it was going to go next. First a brick through the window. Then sympathy. Then racist insults. And then more bricks and stones?

  ‘Come on,’ she urged Mario. ‘Your father needs attention now.’

  ‘You a Tally-lover, hen?’

  She didn’t know which one of them had said it, so she lifted her chin and looked at them all. The elderly man gripped her sleeve and whispered, ‘Don’t give them the opportunity, pet.’

  He was right. Her head held high, but her heart racing with fear, Liz followed Mario as he moved across the pavement. A group of younger men blocked his path.

  ‘Tally fucking bastard.’

  The menace was unmistakable, all the more chilling because the man who had spoken had said the words quietly, with slow and deliberate malice. He let a young woman push through in front of him. First she smiled at Mario. Then she spat in his face.

  Supporting his father with both hands, he wasn’t able to react. Trembling with fury, Liz took her handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped the spittle from his face. Locking eyes with the girl who’d done it, she crumpled the cloth up and dropped it in the gutter. The crowd parted and let them through.

  When they came from Partick Police Station to arrest Aldo Rossi later that evening, he was still at the Western Infirmary. Some kind soul directed the police officers there. Aldo’s injury had proved to be not too serious, but he was badly shaken. Cordelia Maclntyre, incensed by what had happened, folded her arms and looked down her aristocratic nose at the police sergeant and his constable.

  ‘You can find Mr Rossi now, but where were you a couple of hours ago? There’s been criminal damage done to his property, you know.’

  ‘There’s been criminal damage done to Italian businesses all over Glasgow, miss,’ replied the sergeant. ‘We cannae be everywhere at once.’

  Over his son’s voluble and frantic protests, they took Aldo away. Mario was distracted. His friends had to restrain him or he’d have got himself into serious trouble. Adam and Cordelia managed to calm him down only by telling him several times that they would get their combined families on to the case, see what strings Mrs Buchanan, Mr Murray and Lady Maclntyre could
pull. There must be something that could be done.

  ‘We’re not living in a police state, after all,’ sniffed Cordelia, her cool eyes sweeping over the representatives of authority. ‘I thought this was the sort of thing we’re supposed to be fighting against.’

  She could do the lady-of-the-manor act to perfection, thought Liz admiringly. It helped wring one concession out of the police sergeant. Mario could visit his father the following morning at the police station, but not before then.

  ‘Of course we’ll not ill-treat him,’ snapped the exasperated sergeant in response to another haughty question from the Honourable Miss Maclntyre. ‘I’ve a father of my own, you know.’

  It was heartbreaking. The business Aldo Rossi had struggled for years to build up lay in ruins, trampled and looted by a mindless mob. Silently, Liz followed Mario as he picked his way through the debris of his father’s life.

  The others had come too, offering to help clear up. Mario hadn’t the heart for it. Not yet. Some of the boys had lent a hand with the boarding-up of the door and window and left it at that for the night.

  ‘Watch your feet.’

  Liz looked down. There was glass all over the floor. She saw the chrome lid of one of the straw dispensers lying in the middle of the mess. They had smashed the counter too, but the glass shelves behind it were intact, although all the sweetie jars were gone.

  ‘They probably took those home with them,’ Mario said. ‘Their children will be eating them right now.’

  Liz’s feet crunched on something else - not glass this time, but cones and wafers, their packets ripped open and tipped on to the floor. She wondered if they’d stood here and weighed up what to steal and what to spoil.

  She blew out a long breath and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘What sort of people could do something like this?’ she asked him despairingly. ‘It’s such wanton destruction.’

  Mario didn’t answer her. He was crouching down, picking something up from the mess on the floor. It was a smashed photo frame.

  ‘My mother’s picture,’ he said, his voice expressionless. ‘Even my mother’s picture.’

  He had stood up again by the time Liz reached him, picking her way over the mess on the floor. There was glass all over the photograph, too. His head bowed, he was carefully picking it off.

  ‘My mother’s picture,’ he said again. Then he began to cry.

  Somehow she got him upstairs to the flat. That, at least, was untouched. Once there, he laid the photo down on a small table beside the settee and walked over to the window. He stood with his back to her, gazing down at the street.

  Liz didn’t follow him immediately, not sure how best to help him. Should she offer him comfort, or leave him alone with his thoughts for a while? While she was debating the point, he began to speak.

  ‘My father served these people for years. Stayed open all hours to sell them ice-cream and sweets, cook them breakfasts and teas, help them celebrate their children’s birthdays. And they reward him like this.’

  Liz crossed the room and stood beside him. She couldn’t bear the hurt in his voice.

  ‘They didn’t all do it, Mario.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘It was only a few people who did this.’ She paused, searching for the right words. There weren’t any to describe the people who had wrecked the café below them. ‘Stupid, mindless people,’ she said wearily, and knew how inadequate the description was.

  He was staring fixedly out of the window. ‘And what about the people who saw it and heard it happening, and did nothing? What about them, Liz?’ He turned to face her.

  ‘Och, Mario,’ she breathed softly. ‘Och, Mario.’

  She lifted her hand again to touch him, this time laying it flat on his chest. He jerked back as though to resist the consolation she was offering, and came up hard against the window.

  ‘Ow!’ he yelped. His eyes were watering. It must have hurt.

  Liz laughed softly. ‘Let me kiss it better. I’m a nurse, you know.’

  She pulled his head down and kissed the back of it, on his thick hair. Then she put her arms around him and held him. ‘Mario?’ she whispered.

  It took him a long time to answer. When he did speak, his voice was muffled.

  ‘Och, Liz... Och, Liz...’

  He was crying again. She could feel the wetness of his tears on her neck. Her own eyes filled up and she took her hands from his shoulders and wrapped them around his waist. She held him as tightly as she could. Then she took him by the hand and led him over to the settee.

  She found the vermouth bottle and poured him a generous measure. He finished it quickly, downing it in angry gulps. She took the glass from him and laid it on the small table, careful not to put it too near the photograph. It might get knocked over and the drops left in it spill on to the picture.

  ‘Fancy a cuddle?’

  He went into her arms again as though he were a small child, turning his face into her breast.

  ‘Oh, Mario,’ she breathed softly. ‘I’m so sorry this has happened. I’m really sorry.’

  He lifted his head. ‘And I’m sorry for being such a milksop.’ He had every right to be bitter, but he made an attempt at a smile. ‘I can usually come up with a joke, can’t I, Liz?’ He bit his lip. ‘Or some sort of smart comment?’

  ‘You can,’ she agreed.

  He took a quick, hurried breath. ‘Right at this moment I can’t seem to think of a single one. Would you kiss me, Elisabetta?’

  Wordlessly, she bent her head and did as he asked - trying to put everything into that kiss: love, compassion, understanding, support.

  He lifted his head and looked into her face. She answered the question she saw in his by leaning back on the settee, pulling him with her.

  ‘Liz?’ His voice was husky as he looked down at her. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes. It’s all right, Mario. It’s all right.’

  He was filled with contrition. It was around midnight and they were lying together on the floor of the living room. Mario had fetched the covers from his bed to put under and over them both. He had also set a well-shaded lamp on the floor beside them.

  ‘Oh, God, Liz, can you ever forgive me?’

  Secure in his arms, she smiled up at him. ‘Forgive you for what?’

  ‘Taking advantage of you, of course.’ He looked really troubled.

  ‘Nobody took advantage of anybody,’ she said firmly. ‘We made love. And it was beautiful.’

  He lifted her hand from under the covers and kissed her fingertips, each one in turn. She laughed.

  ‘But I hurt you,’ he insisted. ‘I made you bleed.’

  She tapped his lips with her index finger. ‘It only hurt at the beginning. Not after that. And of course I bled. You should have expected that, Signor Medical Student.’

  ‘Real life’s different from the textbooks,’ he said a little grimly, and kissed her again. ‘We’ll get married,’ he said after he raised his head. ‘As soon as possible. Once we’ve got my father out.’

  He was beginning to lose the worried look, but his words had reminded Liz of a problem of her own.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she said. ‘What time is it? My father’s going to kill me. And Ma’ll be worried sick by now.’

  ‘They’ll think you’ve had an emergency at the hospital,’ he said. ‘Which, in a manner of speaking, you have.’

  She frowned, and his voice grew gentler as he registered her concern. ‘Remember you stayed over the night of the Athenia?’ That’s what they’ll think has happened, Liz. And you can dash home first thing tomorrow morning before you go to work and set your mother’s mind at rest’

  ‘Do you think?’ She wasn’t entirely convinced, but she didn’t really see how she could travel home at this time of night either.

  Mario’s next words mirrored her thoughts. ‘You’re not going anywhere at this hour.’ His voice was a little testy. Consciously or not, he moved one of his legs and laid it over both of hers, pinning her down.
/>
  ‘I just asked you to marry me, Liz MacMillan.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’ she responded with exaggerated surprise. ‘I thought it was more like an official announcement. I didn’t realize I was actually being consulted on the matter.’

  He muttered something in Italian.

  ‘Pardon? I’m afraid I don’t speak that language.’

  ‘Well, you’d better learn. After the war I’m taking you to Italy to show you off to my relatives.’

  Their momentary spurt of amusement evaporated.

  ‘After the war,’ she repeated, and met the pain in his dark eyes.

  ‘We have to keep hoping,’ he said lightly. ‘Don’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and then, trying to think of a way to lift both their spirits, pulled him once more towards her. ‘No more talking,’ she murmured. ‘I’m sure you can think of something else to do with your mouth.’

  Liz gave a soft little moan of pleasure as he moved his hand against her warm skin and bent his head towards hers.

  ‘What a thing to say to an Italian...’

  They were woken at six o’clock by thunderous knocking on the boarded-up door of the café. Mario hastily pulled on his trousers and ran downstairs. Enveloped in his dressing gown, Liz followed him down.

  ‘Mario Rossi? We have a warrant for your arrest.’

  ‘You can’t arrest him! He’s got a British passport.’

  ‘Aye - and he’s got an Italian one, too.’ It was a different sergeant from the day before.

  ‘He’s a British citizen,’ Liz insisted. ‘You can’t take him away! You can’t! Mario,’ she said frantically, clutching his bare arm. ‘Tell them they can’t do this to you!’

  The policeman’s eyes were cold as his gaze flickered over Liz. They took in the dressing gown and the tousled hair, the knowledge that the two of them had spent the night here alone together.