Birmingham Rose

by Annie Murray

‘And . . . ?’ Rose said.

  ‘I’ve said I will.’

  ‘Course you have!’ Madge dashed up to supply one of her bear hugs. ‘As if you’d have turned him down. We’d’ve all lynched you after the amount we’ve heard about your Bill this year!’

  All of them went to add their congratulations. Willy had tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s so romantic,’ she cried. ‘Are you going to get married at the palace?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gwen told them. ‘We’ve fixed it for Christmas Eve. We thought it would be an awfully nice time, when everyone’s feeling festive anyway. Goodness knows if we’ll be ready by then though.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Madge asked. ‘All you need is a bloke and a dress, isn’t it?’

  Gwen laughed, looking really pretty. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. But where shall I get a dress from?’

  ‘Ah – I can help you there,’ Rose said. She knew Signora Mandetta would be pleased to have the work, though she would have been more delighted had it been Rose’s own wedding dress.

  When the fuss had died down, Gwen came and sat on Rose’s bed.

  ‘I’m so happy for you,’ Rose told her. ‘Bill seems a good bloke.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Gwen said, smiling again. ‘He is, really.’ She was watching Rose, her auburn hair curling round her face. ‘I wanted to ask if you’d be my bridesmaid. I’d be ever so pleased if you would.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rose said. ‘I’d be honoured.’ She leaned over and gave Gwen a hug. ‘I’m really chuffed.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell Mummy,’ Gwen told her, looking serious suddenly. ‘Not until it’s all over and settled.’

  ‘Oh, blimey,’ Rose said. ‘Don’t you think you should? She could hold it against you for the rest of your life.’

  ‘She’ll do that whether I tell her now or later.’

  Gwen became Mrs William Charles Crowther in the little blue-walled chapel in the palace, with her ATS friends standing round. They had gone to great lengths to get hold of flowers to decorate the place, which already had its share of marble and ornate white inlay against the blue ceiling.

  Signora Mandetta had made Gwen a beautiful satin dress which hung in soft folds round her hips and swept the floor behind her, decorated with tiny mother-of-pearl seeds. For Rose she had chosen a dress in a pale blue material, and both of them held simple bunches of white lilies.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ Rose said to her, before they set off to the palace in a specially decorated army Jeep. ‘I can’t help thinking about the first time I saw you, at Didcot Station that day when we’d joined up. I’d never have dreamed I’d be doing this with you.’

  Gwen looked solemn for a moment. ‘Sometimes it makes me go cold thinking about how my life would have turned out if I hadn’t joined up.’ Suddenly she stepped forward and put her arms round Rose. ‘I’m so happy,’ she said. ‘And you’ve been a real brick the way you’ve helped with everything.’ She looked into Rose’s face. ‘Maybe it’ll be you and Tony next. Maybe our wedding’ll give him a push in the right direction.’

  Rose smiled back, impishly. ‘Stranger things have happened, I s’pose.’

  Standing with Gwen as she and Bill made their vows, Rose was glad of Tony’s solid presence behind her. Everything went smoothly, and when she danced with Tony at the little celebration afterwards, Rose realized she felt almost light-hearted, glad of a break from Il Rifugio and from Naples.

  ‘I was thinking of going to see Capri on my next leave weekend,’ she told Tony. ‘Any chance of you sparing some time to show me around?’

  Twenty-Six

  April 1945

  The letter from Grace arrived two days before Rose’s weekend leave. It was the second that fortnight, which was unusual for Grace who never wrote more often than every month or so, and only a brief note when she did. In the first letter she had announced her engagement to a GI called Joe Landers. He had just been posted and she was missing him. Just like Grace not even to mention him until she really had something to say.

  The second letter was only a couple of sentences: ‘We had a telegram today. Sam’s been killed. Thought you’d want to know straight away. Love, Grace.’

  Rose re-read the skeleton of a letter, trying to take in the reality of it. She knew its brevity stemmed from Grace’s shock and grief, and also from the fact she didn’t know any more than that. After all, what else was there to say? But Rose longed for detail. Where was he? How had he died? Suddenly the reality of home poured in on her, of life back in the greyness of England, stuck there, waiting for news. In Italy it had all receded from her mind as if Catherine Street was an old film she had seen years ago and half forgotten. Home. The place she would go back to when this was all over, with no Dora, no Sam. No reliable, pedantic Sam.

  Over the next two days she thought more about her elder brother than she had in the whole of the war. Memories of their childhood kept forcing themselves into her mind: of playing marbles with him out in the yard; of Sam rescuing her little cloth doll when one of the Pye children threw it over the wall into the next court. Sam going out to start his first job; his stiff loyalty when he found out she was pregnant.

  The next weekend she had planned to go to Sorrento with Gwen and Bill and a friend of Bill’s. They’d made up a foursome on the previous leave to see Positano and Amalfi. Tony had taken her to Capri for one weekend, and she had revelled in the rich blue of the sea, the sparkling beauty of the island with its bright white villas and cobbled squares where people lingered and drank and talked, even in winter, as if there was no war anywhere in the world.

  Rose had only been to Naples for the weekend once since November. She could not face spending her days so close to Falcone while they were so remote from each other. Now she felt a strong need to talk to Margherita, whom she saw as her closest friend in Italy. Several times Margherita had confided in her, breaking down and pouring out her worries about her father, living in a new place surrounded by strangers. Rose knew Margherita was the one person she could allow to see her feelings.

  Without mentioning Sam, she told Gwen she would be going off with Tony for the weekend after all. Gwen smiled knowingly at her.

  ‘What is it?’ Margherita asked as soon as Rose set foot through the door. She was sitting pounding at some piece of cloth in a bucket of water, her eyes ringed with tiredness. A circle of children stood watching.

  Rose burst into tears for the first time. She started to shake and sob. ‘My brother is dead.’

  Margherita stood up and led her into the little sitting room, indicating to the children that they should not follow. She put her arms round Rose and let her cry for as long as she needed to, as Rose had done for her a number of times in the past. She stroked Rose’s hair as she sat beside her, her kind eyes solemnly watching her friend’s face.

  Then Rose, still shaking, but quieter, was able to tell the little she knew. ‘I don’t even know where he was – what country,’ she said. ‘I know we’ll find out in the end. But it seems terrible to die so far from home.’

  Margherita nodded, understanding.

  ‘I feel so guilty,’ Rose said, starting to cry again. ‘I’ve hardly given my family a thought since coming out here. I’ve been so wrapped up in the army and this place – you’ve all been like my family. It’s suddenly come home to me all they’ve been through, and I’ve been no help at all.’

  Margherita sighed sadly. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Believe me, I have those feelings too. When the eruption came and I lost my mother, that was when I realized I had hardly seen them since the war began. The children had taken all my time. Francesco and I were always so busy, so involved with each other and this place. My family only lived across the bay, and still I did nothing for them. Now I shall never see my mother again. Every day my heart aches when I think of it.’

  Holding Margherita around her waist, Rose felt how thin she had become. When they let each other go, she realized they were not alone. Falcone was standing in the doorway, his face ful
l of concern and at the same time surprise at seeing Rose there at all.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Rosa’s brother has been killed,’ Margherita told him. ‘Somewhere,’ she added. ‘Qualche parte.’ The words hung woefully in the air.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Rosa,’ Falcone began.

  ‘You need some time,’ Margherita interrupted. ‘You shouldn’t be working here this weekend, Rosa.’

  Rose started to argue, but Margherita silenced her.

  ‘You must go somewhere else, somewhere more peaceful and pleasant. Falcone – you take her.’

  ‘But . . . I—’ Falcone started to say.

  ‘You are the person we can spare most easily,’ Margherita continued ruthlessly. ‘Take her. Look after her.’ She sighed, tilting her head on one side with a certain impatience. ‘Forget your own struggles for a bit, eh?’

  ‘No!’ Rose cried immediately. ‘No. I’ll stay here. It will do me good to be working.’ A few months ago nothing would have filled her with greater delight than the idea of two days alone with Falcone, but now, the thought of him being forced to take her away for a weekend against his will filled her with panic. ‘If I’m busy I won’t have to think,’ she protested.

  ‘Go,’ Margherita said. It was an order. ‘You need to think.’

  Rose had never heard her so steely and commanding before. It seemed as if she and Falcone would be thrown out bodily if they refused to go. They looked at each other warily for a moment. It was the first time their eyes had met for a very long time. Rose went and picked up her bag.

  *

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked as they stepped out into the warm spring air of the streets. The hawkers were in full throat on the pavements.

  ‘I know a peaceful place I can take you. I used to go with my father. We had holidays there when he needed a rest. You’ll like it.’

  ‘I’m sorry you have to do this.’

  ‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he said stiffly. ‘Margherita’s right. I’ve been too wrapped up in myself. I need to do my duty by other people.’

  Quelled by the coldness of the word ‘duty’, Rose fell silent again. They walked along the majestic Corso Umberto and into the Piazza Garibaldi where they could catch a train. Rose felt her spirits plummeting. The easy friendship, the fire of discussion between them, the tenderness – all this had vanished. Now they were like wooden puppets with each other. She felt despairing at the thought of the cold, awkward weekend ahead.

  They took a train for Sorrento. Falcone had money and they each paid for their own ticket. He also bought a newspaper. They sat opposite one another, and throughout the entire journey Falcone read the newspaper. Rose often glanced across at his solemn face, the brown eyes moving in concentration across the print. A stranger’s face, she thought. Had she loved him? Who was he? Where was the vulnerable, complex man she had given her heart to?

  Determinedly she looked away from him out of the window. She wanted to see more of Italy, didn’t she? But she could have been seeing this same place so much more cheerfully with Gwen. She stared out at the louring shape of Vesuvius. The lava fields from the eruption lay greyish mauve, spongy-looking, and cool now. Villages, orange groves and vineyards pushed defiantly right to the edges of them. On her side of the train she caught glimpses of the sea, the morning sunlight wrinkling in its deep blue surface. How these sights would have exhilarated her had her mood not been so sad.

  The train climbed high along the verdant cliffside, and Rose smelt the pine trees. For a time they looked right across the sea, and then gradually rolled down into Sorrento.

  Everyone climbed out at the small station. Immediately the place felt different from Naples. Quieter, with almost a holiday feel. Rose was terrified of meeting any service people who might recognize her, and she was relieved to get away from the station. Walking with Falcone and dressed in her black clothes she was certainly not conspicuously British.

  ‘We have a way to go,’ Falcone told her. ‘I hope you’re not too tired? My friends live on the hillside outside the town.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Rose said, though in truth she felt dragged down and exhausted.

  Falcone led her along the cobbled streets, usually walking slightly ahead of her, though she was unsure whether this was through impatience to get there or because her presence was unbearable. As they left the town and toiled uphill, past rough cottages with flowers bright at the windows, the stones burning hot under their feet, she became convinced it was because he could not stand to be near her. That long walk in the heat, bothered by flies, seeing his back in front of her, was the lowest point she could remember since being in Italy. With her head aching and her hand sweaty on the handle of her bag, she could only think about what she had lost and this terrible silence that had grown up between them.

  For the first time she found herself thinking, ‘I wish I could just go home. Get away and forget it all.’ Hot tears stung her eyes and she wiped them away crossly. She was not going to let him, an alien creature, as she thought of Falcone now, see her cry again. At that moment she hated him.

  Falcone stopped finally at what seemed to be the end of the road, at a large house, its front covered in pink, crumbling plaster and shaded by two eucalyptus trees. As he went to knock at the door they heard a dog give a moaning bark somewhere behind the house, and two white geese waddled out from among the weeds and stood muttering at them.

  Rose put her bag down and wiped the sweat from her forehead. There was a slight breeze up there and, suddenly refreshed, she looked around her. Not far from the house, where the road petered out, a stepped path built from huge, pale stones wound upwards between the trees which covered the higher slopes of the mountain. She longed to walk there and lose herself among the trees, to escape from Falcone and these people she now had to meet.

  The door opened and a voice cried, ‘Paulo! Is it you, really? How marvellous. Welcome, welcome . . .’

  An elderly man, with steely grey hair and a stubbly little moustache, opened his arms wide in greeting. His face was deeply lined and tanned the colour of strong tea.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘This is Rosa, Signore Finzi,’ Falcone said loudly. ‘Rose Lucas. She is English.’

  ‘Un’inglese?’ Signore Finzi looked puzzled, staring at Rose, who suddenly found herself blushing at the thought of all the questions that must be going through the old man’s mind.

  Falcone explained briefly what they were doing there, and their host offered condolences while leading them inside to a large cool kitchen.

  ‘Clara, Clara! Look who’s come to visit us!’

  No sooner had Clara Finzi set eyes on Falcone than he was clasped tightly in her plump arms amid loud expressions of delight, and wasn’t he thin and where had he been all this time and, finally, tears, which she mopped from her round, soft-looking cheeks. His father, his father. It would seem like the old days young Paulo being here – but holy Mother, how it made her think of Doctor Falcone . . . What a terrible, terrible thing . . .’

  As soon as Rose was introduced as a friend she also found herself crushed against the signora’s bosom, and kisses landing on her cheeks from lips with a hint of moustache above them.

  ‘Fetch wine, Angelo – and water,’ the signora commanded at the top of her voice. Rose had quickly grasped that Signore Finzi’s hearing had almost gone. They sat down at the scrubbed wooden table. On a side table the signora had been cutting long strips of tagliatelle. Her husband sat down with them having brought the drinks and the signora talked and talked while she carried on preparing the food.

  ‘You have come right in time for a meal!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s so long since anyone has been to stay here. We have the rooms ready, but not even the soldiers come. They don’t know we are here, of course, and they want the sea, the bars, the shops. Nothing is like it was in the old days. And we make no money.’ She stopped to take a swig of the wine. ‘But now I have someone to cook for,’ she added, almost like
a threat.

  ‘We must drink to your father,’ she said to Falcone. Looking at Rose she added, ‘Ah – il dottore Falcone. What a gentleman. What a doctor!’ Her tears started to flow again. ‘Of all the places he could have stayed, he came again and again to our poor house. Every year, with his children. From when this one was a small boy. Look – I have a photograph.’

  Rose glanced nervously at Falcone, but saw nothing but affection and amusement in his eyes. He had relaxed suddenly, and looked younger, as if revisiting this place of his childhood had stripped some of the troubled lines from his face.

  The signora swung herself back to the table after taking a small photograph from a shelf of the dresser.

  ‘There. You remember?’

  She held out the picture between Rose and Falcone. Rose saw a tall, thin man with a serious but gentle face, standing rather formally beside two boys. Behind them was the Finzis’ house. The three of them were dressed in dark trousers and jackets. The taller of the two boys next to him closely resembled his father, the face thin and hair lighter than his younger brother’s. Clearly the smaller of the two was Falcone, even if Rose had not known he was the youngest. Darker and stockier than his brother, he stared out of the photograph with the mischievous expression she recognized and those long-lashed eyes.

  Without thinking she turned and smiled at him. ‘You’ve hardly changed at all.’

  ‘It’s true, he hasn’t,’ Angelo Finzi said. ‘He was always like his mother, God rest her.’

  To Rose’s surprise Falcone returned her smile, the warmth suddenly back in his eyes. The Finzis exchanged glances.

  Signora Finzi put in front of them bowls of delicious tagliatelle with pomodoro al sugo and an egg on top, which they both ate hungrily. All the while the signora talked and reminisced and lamented the war, and the tragic murder of il dottore, so that neither Angelo Finzi, who sat nodding at what he could hear, nor Rose and Falcone were required to say anything at all. They sat eating beside each other in what now felt a more comfortable silence.