Birmingham Rose

by Annie Murray

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rose said. ‘I will.’

  ‘Good. Then you will need this. It’s for the outer gate.’ She felt a large key being pressed into her hand.

  Then he turned to go, saying ‘Arrivederla.’ And disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  Tony was standing outside the club, rigid with anxiety and anger. ‘God knows what might have happened to you!’

  ‘Why?’ Rose asked stupidly. She had just returned as if from another existence and didn’t have her wits about her. She’d only just remembered that she was without her bag. Fortunately there had not been much in it.

  ‘Why?’ Tony shouted, and then lowered his voice to an infuriated whisper, not wanting anyone else to hear. There was no one standing near them. ‘You walk out and disappear for almost an hour and a half and you ask me why I’m worried! For God’s sake, I thought you had a brain, woman. And besides,’ he added rather petulantly, ‘you’ve made me look a proper fool.’

  Rose was astonished at the strength of his anger. He was usually so gentle and soft-spoken. She looked at his thin face and felt sorry she had let him down so badly.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said, reaching out to touch his arm. Instantly he pulled away from her. ‘I just wanted to have a look round the place. It was so boring in there and—’

  ‘Oh – I apologize for being boring. I was under the impression you liked my company until now.’

  ‘I do, Tony. But you were talking to Alex and that Stan was carrying on and getting on my nerves. I never meant to stay out for so long – honestly I didn’t. I don’t know what came over me.’

  She was very surprised to find it was now only ten-twenty. It felt as if she had been away for hours, and she realized that it had not even crossed her mind to worry about being stranded here if they’d left without her. The passion wagons were due to start back for Caserta at eleven.

  The two of them walked a short distance down the slightly misty street.

  ‘Look,’ she appealed to him again, glancing at his dejected face. ‘It was stupid of me. I’m sorry. But I’m all right – see?’ She did a mock curtsey to try and make him laugh. ‘I just didn’t think you’d be that bothered.’

  ‘Well you were wrong then, weren’t you?’ he said grimly. Rose realized to her consternation that the young man beside her was not far from tears. ‘Just because I don’t—’ he stopped abruptly.

  Rose stepped closer and went to touch him on the shoulder, moved by the emotion she seemed to have aroused.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said savagely. He turned to her, his white face looking strained, the lick of fair hair falling down over his forehead. ‘It’ll be wrong. We’ll just get each other all wrong.’ He stood in silence for a moment, hands thrust down hard into his trouser pockets, looking away from her. A few people passed – the shadowy figures of other servicemen, some with women on their arms, laughing and necking together after an evening’s drinking.

  In the end he said almost formally, ‘I just want you to know I do have feelings for you, Rose. That’s all.’

  ‘Well, I’m fond of you too,’ she said helplessly, thinking how strange he was.

  ‘Come on,’ he said impatiently, as if unsatisfied by what had been said. ‘Let’s go and have a last drink before it’s time to go back.’

  Twenty

  March 1944

  By the third week in March, Rose had only managed one brief visit to Il Rifugio. She felt she had failed them badly. The first time she had tried to go back, in February, she had only managed to get together a few bars of army soap, some cigarettes and a few tins of food. She had a lot to learn. Nai¨vely, as she realized afterwards, she had packed the supplies into her army bag, which was instantly recognizable even though she was dressed in mufti herself.

  After the truck from Caserta had dropped them off and she and Tony had parted, Rose walked quickly into Via degli Spagnoli looking around her anxiously. She had just begun to take in the full destitution of the place in daylight when she felt a hand hard on her shoulder. Thinking it was someone begging for food she tried to shake the grasping fingers off.

  ‘And where do you think you’re off to?’ an English voice said sternly.

  She turned to find herself staring into the mocking eyes of a Red Cap, the Military Police. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Open the bag,’ he ordered from under a little ginger moustache.

  ‘You from the Midlands?’ Rose appealed to him as she unfastened the bag. She thought she heard a familiar ring to his accent.

  ‘Coventry,’ he snapped. ‘Though I hardly see that’s any concern of yours.’ He took a notebook from his breast pocket and bent over to look into the bag.

  ‘What have we here? Army soap, army rations – cigarettes. Hmm. I see. Got your legs under the table in one of the bassi have you? My God – I thought it was only the chaps who played at that sort of game. You want to watch you’re not rounded up with all the other prostitutes in the VD wagons.’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ Rose shouted at him, absolutely livid. ‘Don’t be so bloody rude! Who d’you think you are talking to me like that? You and your poxy little notebook.’

  The young man glared at her, infuriated.

  ‘And a fishwife to boot,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s see: being found in an area designated out of bounds to service personnel, unauthorized use of army property . . .’

  ‘But that’s all my stuff,’ Rose argued. ‘It’s none of your business what I do with it!’ She was wild with frustration.

  ‘. . . and insubordination to a senior officer.’

  ‘You’re only a ruddy corporal!’

  ‘Which makes me senior to you, doesn’t it, Private Lucas?’

  As a result her leave was cancelled, she was ordered to return to Caserta immediately, and spent a substantial part of the day waiting for transport. As well as that, she was confined strictly to the limits of her working area for a fortnight.

  ‘Well, what were you doing in Naples?’ Madge asked, standing by her bed and attempting to squeeze her large waistline into a non-uniform skirt. ‘I should’ve thought you’d have had more sense. Anything for a quiet life, I say.’

  ‘Oh, I was just nosing around.’ Rose bent to undo the laces of her heavy black shoes, evading Madge’s curious eyes. If that was army rules, she thought, then they were made to be broken.

  As soon as the fortnight was up, Rose went to Signora Mandetta in Caserta, who had made her a skirt. The widow sat at her old sewing table, her gnarled hands working on the intricate seams of a wedding dress.

  ‘I need to look like an Italian,’ Rose said.

  Signora Mandetta smiled indulgently at her. She was a woman of about sixty with faded hair and a large wart on her left cheek. But her eyes were like those of a seventeen-year-old – a little watery, but still dancing with life.

  ‘Rosa . . .’ She held out her hands, palms up, and shrugged as if to underline Rose’s eccentricity. ‘You already look like an Italian – your hair, your eyes . . . Tell me the truth. Your father – he is really a Neapolitan?’

  Rose laughed, enjoying the signora’s teasing. ‘Not wearing these clothes I don’t,’ she said, pointing at the khaki. ‘I need to look really Italian. I want black clothes made of old material.’ Her Italian was coming more easily now through use at every possible opportunity.

  The signora narrowed her eyes with shrewd curiosity. ‘You have a boyfriend? An Italian amante?’

  ‘No.’ Rose wondered how she could possibly explain. It might be easier if Signora Mandetta thought she was disguising herself to meet a lover. She giggled with as much coyness as she could manage. ‘Well . . . it’s a secret. You’ll make me the clothes?’

  ‘Of course. Whatever you want.’

  ‘Marvellous. Grazie. Now look what I’ve brought.’

  She often brought a cake or two from the Naafi with her and shared a snack with the signora. This time it was a couple of rock cakes.
Signora Mandetta chewed on hers thoughtfully, pouring out tiny tumblers of rough red wine.

  ‘Better if they leave them for the rocks next time,’ she commented.

  Rose grinned. ‘Next time I’ll bring doughnuts.’

  Within a few days the signora had produced a black outfit for Rose, cobbled together out of some other old clothes. To top it off she offered her a threadbare cardigan and some worn black mules of her own for which Rose paid as well.

  ‘These look just right,’ Rose told her as she tried them on.

  Signora Mandetta cackled unrestrainedly when she saw Rose in her ‘new’ clothes. ‘Now you just need a fat belly on you to look like a true Italian signora with at least four children!’ she cried, wiping her eyes. ‘Holy Mother, what a transformation. I only hope he doesn’t go off you, mia cara!’

  When the leave day finally came round Rose brushed a drop of olive oil through her hair. She also bought herself a couple of string bags in which she carried the objects, well wrapped, that she was going to take into Il Rifugio. She changed in the Ladies at one of the Naafi clubs, slipped out the back entrance and walked briskly across the square towards the Via Toledo.

  The black market was flourishing on almost every street corner, and she identified with some amusement the array of army goods laid out to be sold on the streets. The food, cigarettes, soap and many other objects which were spirited away from the docks with the collusion, quite often, of army officials and sold openly to the locals. Rose approached one of the little makeshift stalls and bought another handful of packets of cigarettes so that Francesco or Margherita could sell them and buy something they really needed.

  Then she made her way through the filth of the Via degli Spagnoli, startling fat green flies with her feet as she walked. She let herself quickly into Il Rifugio. Francesco and Margherita greeted her with admiring hilarity.

  ‘You should have been a spy,’ Margherita cried, kissing her with real warmth. ‘Oh, look at this! Soap, Francesco, and meat. When can you come again?’

  ‘Soon,’ she told them. ‘At the beginning of April I get two days. Can I stay here and help you? I will try to bring more things with me.’

  ‘Come when you can. Stay as long as you like,’ Francesco said with a shrug. Then he grinned at her. ‘You’re welcome – pazza!’

  She spent a few hours there that day, talking with Francesco and Margherita and playing with some of the children. The oldest of them, Margherita told her, was fifteen and the youngest only just over a year old. The routine seemed surprisingly relaxed, and they sat outside in the late afternoon after feeding the children and giving a few of them as much of a wash as was possible with the limited supplies of water which had to be fetched from a pipe outside. Some of the children played out in the courtyard, watched by a couple of the elderly tenants occupying lower rooms in the building. Sometimes they sat out and talked to the children, but mostly they kept to themselves.

  Rose picked out the figure of Maria Grazia trailing round the courtyard, her pregnant belly protruding from her pitiful, stick-thin body. She had long straggling hair, and deep-set, myopic-looking eyes which held a sad, dreamy expression. She and another little girl were playing with a filthy cloth doll.

  ‘What will happen to her?’ Rose asked Margherita, who had sat down wearily on a stool beside her in the courtyard.

  ‘She will stay here. We can help her care for the baby.’

  ‘But after . . . ?’

  Margherita shrugged. ‘What will happen to any of them? We shall have to see what God intends for them.’

  Rose was silenced by this. Her practical upbringing had not accustomed her to leaving things up to God to decide.

  After a while Francesco came out, stretching and yawning from a long siesta. He sat beside them on the ground in the pale afternoon light, his arms round his legs.

  Margherita smiled and rumpled his curly hair with her hand. ‘My husband would sleep all day if there was not work to be done,’ she said affectionately.

  ‘Husband?’ Rose said, wondering if she had heard right. ‘I didn’t know you were . . .’

  Both of them laughed, so much that Rose wondered whether she had said something hilarious in Italian by mistake. They laughed even more at her astonished face.

  ‘You are not a Catholic, are you?’ Margherita gasped out eventually. ‘You think the Church would even give us candles for this place if we weren’t married? Can you imagine the bishop, Francesco!’

  That afternoon Rose learned as much as she could about everyone at Il Rifugio. Margherita told her that Francesco came from a wealthy Neapolitan family who had a large house at Vomero, the affluent suburb high up on the cliff overlooking the bay. He was evidently something of a rebel. When Italy entered the war he had been completing his studies in political history at Naples University. His family knew where he was but left him to follow what they saw as his bizarre inclinations.

  ‘He calls you mad,’ she said, ‘but the family think he is truly . . .’ She tapped her head with one finger. ‘For them, madness is to live here and to identify with the poor. To make their troubles one’s own.’

  Francesco silently shook his head as if what he was hearing made him sound too heroic. ‘But,’ he said, jumping up suddenly, ‘I have not given away all my possessions to the poor. Let’s have some music.’

  In a moment he was back with an old wind-up gramophone which he set down on the pale paving slabs. He wound the small machine and fed it with his thick records, songs in Italian and French, most of which were strange to Rose.

  ‘The soul must have music,’ Francesco pronounced, in the solemn manner which made Rose unsure whether he was taking the micky out of himself. ‘I will sell my body to feed the poor, but not my gramophone.’ He saw Rose looking at him rather quizzically and laughed. ‘She takes me very seriously this Englishwoman.’

  While the tinny sound of the music played across the courtyard, Rose asked Margherita whether the two of them had married as students.

  ‘No, only when we came here,’ she said. She told Rose that her family came from a village near Torre del Greco, and that she had met Francesco while studying literature. ‘My family are much poorer than his,’ she said. ‘We got married very quietly.’

  ‘But you’re happy, I can see that.’ Rose was impressed by the pair of them, by the degree of freedom they seemed to have with each other along with a respect and commitment matched only by their devotion to Il Rifugio.

  The two nuns, Assunta and Magdalena, had also made her very welcome during the visit. Magdalena, for all her soulful appearance, proved to be a very down-to-earth woman in her thirties, who could always be relied upon to get things done.

  Assunta, who tended the shrine in the hallway as lovingly as if it were another of the children, spent her life waiting for miracles to happen. All her conversation that day while they were preparing food for the community was of the flying monk at Pomigliano. He was said not only to have demonstrated the stigmata, bleeding from hands and feet, but also to have left the ground and soared up to rescue an Italian pilot from a burning plane. Assunta was completely convinced of the truth of this. But for Rose, who nodded politely as she listened, hearing these bizarre claims from Assunta’s pallid, cross-eyed face made them seem only more barmy than they would have done otherwise. The children, however, seemed to adore her, and whenever she was not busy with some task she sat cradling one of the younger ones in her plump arms.

  The only discomforting presence was the brooding Enrico, who stood at the edge of rooms, silent, always watching. Then he would disappear without even indicating to anyone that he was going. Rose could not quite make out what was odd about him but he made her feel very ill at ease.

  The day passed far too quickly, but seeing the children, getting to recognize some of them and realizing at the mealtimes just how little food they had to live on was a spur to her to think up more ways in which she could help.

  ‘You see the problems?’ Margherita had said to h
er while they were eating, all sitting round on the floor of the long room where Rose had first seen them asleep. ‘We can manage to feed them – just. But it means we spend so much time finding food. We have so little time to give them any teaching or the love they need.’

  Rose looked round at all the dark faces, wolfing down the tiny portions of sloppy army meat and vegetables that she had brought in tins, mixed with macaroni. She would have liked to put her arms round every one of them, dirty and ragged as they were. She felt as if she had found herself a family in Italy. And she was damned if she was going to let them go hungry.

  As spring progressed the temperatures grew quite hot. The country was at its most beautiful, with oranges and lemons hanging heavy on the trees. During off-duty periods the men and women stationed at Caserta spent more of their time outside in the grounds of the palace. The last long tank into which the cascades fell was large enough to land a light aircraft on. It was certainly big enough for a swimming pool and already people were making use of it.

  One evening Rose and Tony were strolling towards the cascades in the uncertain light of dusk.

  ‘I always forget what a long way it is,’ Tony said. ‘It must be a couple of miles I suppose.’

  Rose just said, ‘Umm.’

  Tony turned to look at her. Her thoughts were obviously elsewhere. For a moment he enjoyed looking at her face, the soft line of the cheeks and her dark, pensive eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said suddenly. ‘I was just wondering if there’s going to be any more bombing tonight.’

  A couple of nights ago they had heard heavy raids on Naples and, knowing that most of the raids were concentrated on the port area and Il Rifugio was not very far from the sea, Rose was concerned. Her mind was constantly occupied with thoughts of how she could help them further. It had ocurred to her that Bill, Gwen’s young man who worked in supplies, might be prepared to help. Most likely not. He seemed a bit of a stuffed shirt. Because what was she really thinking of? Stealing from the army? On a large scale? The thought frightened her. Of course odd things were going missing all the time – but more than that . . .