Women on the Home Front

by Annie Groves

  She couldn’t believe it. ‘What are you saying? Jesu Maria, you are one crazy man! It is not our time. It will never be our time. I came to England to marry. You came to fight England. I am from the south and you from the north. We’re never meant to marry. Don’t say another word.’ She crossed herself in horror. ‘If the family finds out we are both dead.’

  ‘Fate has brought us together, Maria.’

  ‘And Fate is cruel, showing us what we might have had. I am sorry but I must go.’

  ‘Stay, don’t go. I love you. There will be a way.’

  ‘No, Sylvio, no more Lavaroni’s for me, no more secrets, no more sneaking, finito…Capisci?’ She tried to sound cold but her voice was shaking.

  ‘I don’t believe you. If you don’t come, I’ll go. I don’t care,’ he snapped. ‘Please, come back. We can be just friends.’

  She stared at him. His eyes were full of tears, pleading with her. It would be so easy to fall into his arms, to forget all her vows just for another second of his loving.

  ‘I have to go. One of us has to be strong. Two wrongs don’t make a right.’

  ‘You never loved me…’

  ‘How can you say that? It is love that makes me walk away now. Love for you, love for your safety, love for my child and my husband, but Rosa comes first and always. I must do what is best for her now.’

  She slammed the salon door behind her and did not look back.

  The catwalk down the centre of the Civic Ballroom was lined with hot-house plants. It smelled like a floral pavilion. There were chairs lined in rows facing each other. The seats were filling up with the great and the good of Grimbleton, all sitting in frocks and hats, waiting to be entertained. It was a full house and the raffle prizes were good. Lily bought five bobs’ worth, hoping to secure the main prize of a ticket on a cruise round the Hebrides donated by Bill and Avril Crumblehume, the owners of Longsight Travel who were friends of the Unsworths.

  Her hairstyle was a shock. She was expecting something like the concrete set Esme got from Mavis Tatlock each week. Gone was the hosepipe coil round her head and in its place was a sleek bob, more Veronica Lake with a bang over her forehead. Who was this stranger peeking at her through the fringe?

  There was no time to be nervous as there were six outfits to fling on, one after the other. Her favourite outfit was a two-piece linen suit in a dusty pink with full skirt and frilly petticoat. You could make three dresses from the material in the skirt alone. After all the shortages it seemed so extravagant to be floating around in such luxury, but she wasn’t going to faint now and let the side down.

  ‘Next we have Lee, our English rose…’

  ‘Where’s Lee?’

  ‘It’s you, get on!’ Diana shoved Lily forward. It was now or never to the end of that long, long walk. She fixed her eyes on the clock at the end of the gallery and strode out onto the precipice with her smile plastered firmly onto her face.

  ‘By heck! Is that our Lil? What’ve they done to her?’ Esme stared in disbelief as her daughter swanned down the catwalk like a professional. ‘Who’d’ve thought it?’

  ‘She’s turned out right bonny,’ said Doris Pickvance with a sniff. ‘Just wait until her wedding day. You’re in for a treat there.’

  Esme saw the rest of the parade through a veil of tears. Where had all the years gone? Lily Long-legs, with a pair of plaits like ropes, had gone for good, replaced by this swish young lady with a waspy waist and softly turned hair. When did our Lil get to be such a fine-looking lass? she wondered. It was as if the scales were falling off her eyes and she now looked at her daughter for the first time. How could she ever have dismissed her as plain? How come her sons had got all her attention? They had dazzled her with Redvers’ charm while all along Lil was blossoming into this lovely young lady.

  When it came to the finale, she was floating past in a satin ballgown with a sequined bodice in deep midnight blue. Ana was by her side, looking very sophisticated in sea-green velvet that showed off her full bust and red-gold hair.

  Diana Unsworth wore a figure-hugging black number and the bridal outfit was worn by one of Levine’s assistants. It was fitted with a long train. Perhaps, Esme thought, she ought to let the moths fly out of her purse in a good cause and buy Lily a wedding dress from this shop. She would stop the traffic in one of their gowns.

  Esme was that proud and yet so sad that none of the men was here to see the transformation. Suddenly she felt as if life was passing her by. Her children were grown now and didn’t need her. She was getting old and faded, like a waning moon. Lily’s moon was waxing full. It was her turn now.

  In the flurry of the changing room everyone was on a high. Lily slid herself out of the ballgown with a sigh: time for Cinderella to leave the ball and back to plain clothes and porridge. Time for Lee to change back to Doormat Lil.

  For a few hours she had been pampered and preened but this wasn’t real. Time to be getting back to decorating the cottage and settling down.

  Wearing these dresses was dangerous. In outfits like these, it was easy to pretend she was stepping aboard a Dakota and flying off to Paris and Rome, travelling the world like a film star, not a shop assistant, scrubbing floors and counting boxes of sennapods. It made her feel restless and ready for a change.

  There was more to life than the stall. Levi and Mother could manage without her. Enid would always help out, and Susan. She was surplus to requirements. Time for a change. Then she remembered there was a wedding to organise and Walter to enthuse. Wasn’t that a challenge enough?

  Someone was shouting for Maria but the funny thing was she had not appeared to see the display.

  ‘She’s wanted at the hospital,’ said Enzo Santini, looking as if he had run across town.

  Lily buttoned up her coat and grabbed her handbag. There was trouble and Maria needed help. No more daydreaming. This was for real.

  18

  Moses Heights

  In her eagerness to get away from Sylvio, Maria skipped the show and, with Rosaria, jumped on the first bus to the hospital. Rosa liked to sit on the top deck watching out of the window. It was just another outing with Mamma for her, but today it was life or death for Maria. There was so much to make up for. This time she didn’t mind the long walk up the driveway, or the chill air. To see her husband and begin again was her goal.

  They’d arrived too early and stood in the foyer waiting for permission to go down to his open ward. She was surprised then to see Sister Jarvis scurrying towards her, her starched cap flapping behind her like sailcloth in the wind.

  ‘Thank goodness you’ve come. Did you not get my message?’ the nurse spoke softly.

  ‘No? What’s up?’ Maria’s heart was thumping now. She’d not gone home but rushed from salon to café, grabbed her child and jumped on to the bus.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Santini has had a relapse. Rosaria must stay outside, of course, but you can come straight down. I think your family will not be far behind,’ she continued as they strode down the corridor at speed, shoes squeaking on the tiled floor, limbs pumping with shock and dread.

  ‘He was fine on Sunday…What’s gone wrong?’ Maria whispered, stopping in the doorway of the side room where her husband lay prostrate, breathing into an oxygen mask, his face the colour of ash and his eyes sunk into their sockets.

  ‘Marco, it’s me…what have you been up to now?’ she whispered in their mother tongue. She kissed his limp hand and sat down beside him.

  ‘One minute he was sitting up, his usual self, and then we found him collapsed. His heart isn’t strong. Come outside.’ Sister Jarvis pointed to the open balcony. ‘His heart is struggling after all these years with bad lungs.’ The nurse paused, looking into Maria’s eyes. ‘You may want to call his priest.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ she cried, her knees going weak. Surely it’d not come to that, not when she was coming back to him? This was too cruel. There’d been false alarms before but even she was shocked by the change in him in just a few days.

>   ‘I want Rosa to be with us,’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t allow children, as you know. It’ll only frighten her and you don’t want her to make a fuss and disturb the other patients. Rules are rules for everyone’s good, Mrs Santini.’ The sister shook her head.

  ‘Please, he must see his child. It will give him hope and fight. He’s not been able to touch her for weeks. What harm can it do either of them now? Rosa is too young to understand what’s happening.’

  ‘I insist. No child enters a ward for fear of infection but she can watch from the balcony for a few minutes,’ Sister Jarvis replied, not looking Maria in the eye.

  Maria made for the hall and took Rosa round the outside walkway whilst trying to explain what was happening.

  ‘Papa is sleeping and he’s very, very tired and must rest,’ she said, clutching Rosa’s mittened hand and willing herself to stay calm. ‘We’ll play peep-o with him out here. You can wave but not go inside. He’ll hear you and know you are there,’ she added. ‘Father Michael Grady will come and sit with him.’

  Rosa stood by the open window, staring at her daddy as if he was a specimen in a jar. ‘What is that?’ she asked, pointing to the mask and the tubes.

  ‘It helps his heart to tick tock,’ Maria replied, torn between wanting to reassure her child and hold her husband, dreading the moment when the Santinis would flood into the sickroom and take over. She would be an onlooker then, the stranger in the midst. Her heart railed at sharing precious moments with anyone else.

  Doctors came and went, nurses fiddled with the tubes, but Marco was slipping away, unaware of any of them. It was like sitting in some strange play going on all around her, a slow-motion action unfolding before her.

  They watched Father Michael, who now knew the secrets of her heart in confession, administer the last rites, and Marco’s brothers lined up, caps in hands, standing silent and awkward. Nonna Valentina was on her knees, wailing as if he were already dead.

  Then came the welcome news that Lily was waiting in the foyer. Trust her friend to be there. Leaving the balcony, Maria ushered Rosa towards her.

  ‘Say night, night to Papa, give him a kiss…’

  Rosa stood back. ‘No…I can’t see him.’

  Damn the rules, Maria thought, lifted Rosa up to the bed and let her kiss his forehead. Then she whisked her down the corridor, relieved to see a familiar comforting face even if it was coiffed and made up from the fashion show.

  ‘Thank God you come! This is no place for Rosa now. Marco is dying,’ she croaked, tears streaming down her face.

  ‘I’ll take her home with me…you go back. I’m so sorry. We’ll take care of her. Come on, Rosie, let’s go play with Dina and Joy.’

  Nonna dozed on her knees, praying for a miracle. Maria sat wide awake, stupefied by guilt and disbelief at first, but now rigid with shock. She’d come to re-dedicate herself to her marriage, renew her vows, cleansed by confession only that morning. Now everything was turned upside down and all she wanted was for Marco to beat the odds and live.

  ‘Live, Marco,’ she prayed, but he slipped from them as the lemony dawn rose above the hills. His struggles were over.

  She must embrace her old life, blameless, give him the honour and respect in death that she’d neglected to show him in life. She was a widow and free to make her own decisions but bound tighter than ever before by her guilt.

  It was only when they laid him out and Nonna wept, ‘My poor son, he had no life,’ that the pain surged into every sinew of her body and a weariness like a cloak of lead made her slump into the chair in despair. She watched a skein of ducks flying in arrow formation silhouetted against the sky and felt a flash of envy for her husband.

  ‘No more pain, Nonna, no more beds and open windows and basket chairs now.’

  Soon it would be time to leave but not before she had cleared out the clutter from his locker and bedside table, all the myriad little things that still smelled of him: the green sheets of their local sports paper, sacred pictures, a crucifix, a half-eaten bag of sweets and a little snapshot of the three of them taken on a trip to the seaside. She would leave everything tidy and neat, grief or no grief. It gave her hands something to do.

  Scrumpled in the drawer, half hidden among the postcards, was a letter. Curious, she opened up the page and read it.

  MR SANTINI,

  YOUR WIFE, MARIA, IS A TART. ASK HER WHAT SHE GETS UP TO OF A NIGHT WITH LAVARONI’S NEW HAIRDRESSER. THE REPLY WILL NOT PLEASE YOU BUT IT IS RIGHT YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF WHORE SHE BE. READ HOSEA CHAPTER ONE.

  A WELL WISHER.

  Maria scrambled to find the envelope also typed in capital letters. It was addressed, ‘MR SANTINI, THE SANATORIUM, MOSES HEIGHTS, NR GRIMBLETON’.

  She shoved the letter quickly into her handbag, out of sight but not out of mind. Never out of mind, every word etched into her heart. She felt it thumping through her ribs. Could Nonna Valentina see it throbbing with guilt?

  You have killed your husband, came the words bursting through her eardrums. He had read that poisonous letter and the shock of it was too much for his frail body. You might as well have stabbed him in the heart with a knife yourself. What he must have suffered: shock, disbelief, fear and doubt, and all borne alone.

  Someone hated them so much as to want to shame her and hurt her husband, but who? Who would do this to them? One of the family? Surely not. If a Santini had suspected anything, she’d have been banished from Marco’s deathbed long ago.

  With his dying, for one brief moment she’d wondered if she’d escaped the wrath of God but no, she was found out and would be punished. There was now nothing she could ever do to make it right but pray for his forgiveness from across the grave, pray for his soul to be at peace, have Masses said for his release from such a torment and for the salvation of her own soul.

  Only three of them knew of this dreadful exposé and one of them was now dead. She must find out who had done this and kill them, pay them back for all they’d done to an innocent man. She wouldn’t rest until she was avenged. Marco didn’t deserve this cruel end, with only his wife’s betrayal for company in his agony.

  The Santinis need never know, and Rosa must never know, but this terrible guilt must live in her heart for ever.

  That this was the work of a woman, she’d no doubt. There was something peevish and cruel that smacked of jealousy and malice, but who and why would be her life’s work to find out. When she found that devil, oh, how she’d suffer for this. An eye for an eye was too good for her but revenge was a dish best eaten cold.

  She kneeled by Marco’s body and prayed in silence.

  Marco, I will avenge your suffering. I take it upon myself to live like a nun until you are avenged. I will sacrifice any future happiness. I will live only for Rosa’s happiness. I will make you proud of me and honour your family name, but please forgive me for my weakness. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Forgive me for being weak when you were so strong. Forgive me…

  It was almost dark when they parked in Division Street. Lily held the sleeping Rosa over her shoulder.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Lil? I’ve been that worried. Not another waif and stray to take in for the night?’ Esme was standing in the hallway staring down at the child. ‘Walt’s in the other room and he’s not a happy man. He’s been all over Grimbleton looking for you.’

  ‘There’s been an emergency.’ Lily sat down, suddenly exhausted. She told them the sorry news and then she made some cocoa for Rosa.

  Su appeared and whisked the child upstairs. Ana was on shift and the house was quiet for a change. Walter was listening to the wireless and ambled in when his programme had finished.

  ‘I thought we were going to make a start on Well Cottage. I gather you’ve been all dolled up down the town hall. Mam said you could feed a man for a year on the price of one of the rig-outs.’

  ‘I’m very tired,’ Lily replied. ‘It’s been a rum do at Maria’s. They say Marco Santini’s not going to last the night so I brought Ros
a back here. There was no time to get your shopping in.’

  Tears were rolling down her cheeks, tears of sadness, exhaustion. If ever she needed a pair of strong arms around her it was tonight. ‘Hold me, Walter, hold me tight.’

  ‘What’s brought this on, old girl?’ He patted her on the arm.

  ‘Just hold me. I need a big hug. You won’t leave me, will you?’

  ‘You daft happorth! What would I be doing that for?’ he grinned. ‘I’ll get you a biscuit. You’ve had a shock. What on earth have you done to yerself…all that make-up, and who’s been chopping your hair?’

  ‘It’s modern. Isn’t it?’

  ‘It’ll soon grow out. You don’t look the same.’

  ‘I don’t feel the same, Walt,’ she whispered as he made for the kitchen.

  * * *

  The phone rang at seven on the Sunday morning. Marco had slipped away before dawn and Angelo was coming in his taxi to collect Rosa.

  Later Maria phoned to thank them for taking her child for the night. ‘Oh, Lily, it is terrible. I have to see you. I was going to start all over again, clean slate, new start. Now it’s too late. How can I forgive myself? It should be me who is dead. I killed him!’

  There was no making sense of her. Grief was controlling her senses. Maria was taking Marco’s sudden collapse hard. The Santinis would wrap themselves around her friend, make a big fuss of Rosa, buying her toys and sweets and treats as if to make up for her loss. It was not going to be easy to see her alone. Then there was the matter of Sylvio Bertorelli…

  Three days later Kirkgate came to a standstill as the cortège left the café, pulled by black horses with plumes. It was a beautiful morning and all the shops and businesses were shut in respect for Marco’s passing. Mourners followed in a dignified procession to the Catholic chapel. Everyone was dressed in black, and the women wore lace mantillas over their heads.

  The Italian community turned out in force: the Gambas, Morellis, even their ice-cream rivals, the Falconis, paid their respects and Gianni Lavaroni turned up with his wife in a fur coat. Snow was still covering the moor tops in the distance.