Keep Smiling Through (22 page)

Rita grabbed May and they danced an awkward jig among the piles of tyres and abandoned boxes of spare parts, their happy laughter ringing into the rafters. Once they had sobered a little, they stood hand in hand in silence, finally letting the full import of what they were about to do sink in.

‘Things are going to be very different from now on, aren’t they?’ murmured May. ‘I wonder where we’ll be this time next year?’

‘You’ll be flying planes, and I’ll be rushing about on the Norton at some airfield, or better still, helping to mend aeroplanes.’

‘You’ll have to tell Louise soon, because you’re due to take your medical and initial interview in less than a week,’ said May. ‘Want to do it tonight while I’m here?’

Rita thought about it then shook her head. ‘I’ll tell her after you’ve gone.’

‘You can’t leave it too late, Rita,’ May warned. ‘Christmas is going to be hard enough for her as it is, and you leave for your training on the twenty-ninth.’

‘I know,’ Rita sighed, the euphoria seeping away. ‘Let’s just hope she hears from Papa or Roberto before Christmas. I’ll feel so much easier about leaving her once she knows where they are.’

May squeezed her arm. ‘Come on, she’ll have heard us coming home and will be wondering why we haven’t gone up.’ She gave Rita an encouraging smile. ‘I expect she’ll read me the riot act as well once she hears I’m off to fly planes. Perhaps it would be better if you did tell her tonight – get it all over in one fell swoop.’

‘Maybe. I’ll let you tell her first and then play it by ear.’

May grinned. ‘Coward,’ she chided softly.

Rita silently acknowledged that she was being cowardly, but it was important she found the right moment, and the right words, to break her news. This letter was promising everything she’d ever wanted and now it was even more vital to have Louise’s blessing. She carefully folded the letter into her trouser pocket and prayed fervently that nothing would happen to stop her from following her dream.

Louise’s kitchen was warm, the firelight glinting in the ragged bits of tinsel she’d hung from the mantelshelf and over the mirror. Sprigs of holly and mistletoe had been tied together with scarlet ribbons and suspended from the picture rail, and some rather tatty paper chains which Rita and Roberto had made many years before were stretched from one side of the ceiling to the other. There was no Christmas tree, no fairy lights, and only four little gaily wrapped presents sitting on the sideboard. It would be a very different Christmas this year.

‘Hello, May,’ said Louise, drying her hands on a tea towel. ‘I can offer you a cup of tea, but I’m afraid there isn’t much in the way of food tonight.’

‘I’m not stopping long, Mrs Minelli. I’ve just popped in to say goodbye before me and Rita go off for our last night in town.’

Louise paused in the act of putting the kettle on the hob. ‘Goodbye? But where are you going?’

Rita watched Louise’s expression as May told her about the training she was about to do. She noted how her face paled, how her eyes clouded with tears and how she wrung her hands in her apron, and with a sinking heart, was made to realise how very difficult it would be to tell Louise her own wonderful news.

‘But you’re just a child,’ Louise finally managed. ‘You can’t possibly fly planes.’

‘I’m the same age as Rita,’ May replied, ‘and there’re plenty of other girls flying planes, driving fire engines and ambulances – even working for the gas board and sewerage works.’

‘But it’s dangerous.’ Louise sank into the kitchen chair. ‘And girls like you and Rita weren’t meant for such things. I’ve seen some of those posh women up at the airfield, May. You won’t fit in at all.’

‘Things are different now,’ May said firmly as she sat next to her. ‘Girls like me and Rita are doing things we never thought possible before the war. You see, it’s offered us a way of getting out of these streets and trying other things. You know how it is at home with Mum. I don’t want to end up like her, Mrs Minelli, and this is my chance to make something of myself.’ She looked across at Rita for support. ‘Rita understands, don’t you, Rita?’

She nodded, all too aware of Louise’s close scrutiny.

‘Rita has a good life here,’ said Louise comfortably. ‘She has no need to do such a foolish thing when she has me to look after her and give her a proper home.’

Rita knew May was willing her to say something, but realised that if she did it would spoil their last evening together. ‘I’ll make us all a cup of tea,’ she said instead, ‘and then me and May are going to get changed and go out for a drink. As we’re both eighteen, we can now legally go into a pub.’

‘I don’t like you going into those places,’ muttered Louise, rising from her chair to fetch cups and saucers. ‘You’ll get a bad reputation, and then how will I face Papa Tino?’

‘We’re just going for a drink, Mamma,’ Rita replied. ‘It’s all quite respectable.’

‘I just don’t understand it. In my day no respectable woman would be seen anywhere near a public house.’ Louise shuddered. ‘Nasty rough places full of drunken men with only one thought on their minds. My father would have taken the strap to me if I so much as went near one.’

The moment was over for now, but as Rita made the tea, she could hear the rustle of the letter jammed in her trouser pocket and feel the awful churning of excitement and dread that knotted her stomach. Louise had to be told, and soon – but not tonight.

It was almost dawn by the time they returned. There had been two air raids during the night and several hours had been spent huddled in the shelters, but it had been a good, happy evening, and they were both pleasantly tired.

‘I’ll leave my stuff at your place so I don’t disturb Louise,’ said May as they halted at the crossroads which would take them on their separate ways. ‘I won’t need most of it, and it’s only fit for the bin anyway.’

‘I’m going to miss you, May,’ said Rita, her voice wobbling dangerously.

They embraced, their tears mingling. ‘You’ll soon be far too busy to miss me,’ managed May as she drew back. ‘We’ll both be up to our eyeballs in learning new stuff, but I’ll never forget you, I promise.’

‘What time are you catching the train?’

May looked at her watch. ‘In just over two hours.’

‘Want me to see you off?’

May shook her head. ‘Better not. It’s hard enough saying goodbye as it is, and the WAAFs won’t appreciate me blubbering like a baby on the platform.’ She gave a shaky smile. ‘Bye, Rita. Best of luck.’

‘Bye, May.’ Rita stood at the crossroads and watched as her friend walked into the gloom of a foggy dawn. Her footsteps rang in the silence and then faded as she was lost from sight. The tears blinded Rita as she turned away and headed for home.

Not wanting to disturb Louise, she quietly let herself in through her own back door and slowly climbed the stairs. It had been a hectic evening, with riotous singing round the old piano in the smoky, overcrowded pub, followed by dancing at one of the hotels. Now she was tired and ready for bed.

‘What time do you call this?’

Rita’s heart jumped as Louise emerged from the gloom at the top of the stairs. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Waiting for you to come home.’ Louise’s expression was thunderous. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Only to the pub, and then on to a dance. We’ve spent half the night in an air-raid shelter,’ Rita gabbled. ‘I’m sorry you were worried.’

‘Worried?’ Louise shrieked. ‘Of course I’ve been worried, you careless, thoughtless girl. How
dare
you stay out all night?’

‘I’m sorry, really, but you knew it was May’s last evening at home, and I didn’t think you’d—’

‘That’s the point, Rita. You didn’t think. You don’t think of me at all.’

‘That’s not true,’ she protested, following Louise into the main room. ‘I’m always thinking of you.’

‘Then perhaps you’d like to explain this.’ Louise held out the letter.

Rita stared at it in horror. ‘Where did you . . .?’

‘I was tidying up and it fell out of your trouser pocket.’ Louise threw it onto the scarred and battered table and folded her arms. ‘Were you thinking of me when you applied for this posting? Did you think of me tonight when May was talking about her flying?’

‘I was going to tell you,’ Rita stuttered.

‘When? Tomorrow? The day after? Perhaps a couple of hours before you leave Cliffehaven?’

‘No.’ Tears sprang in her eyes as she reached out to Louise. ‘I was going to tell you today, Mamma. I promise.’

‘How am I to believe your promises when you keep such a thing from me?’ yelled Louise in a rush of rapid Italian. ‘How am I to tell Papa you wish to abandon me to the enemy bombers? How can you love me so little that you plot and plan to leave this home we have given you?’

‘Please, Mamma, it’s not like that. It really isn’t.’

Louise shrugged off her hand, sank into a chair and burst into tears. ‘You are my
bambina
, my heart, my little one, but you betray me,’ she sobbed, her words tripping one over the other, the Italian flowing as rapidly as her tears. ‘You leave me just as my other daughters have. I have no one, no one.’

Rita stood there helpless against the storm. ‘I just wanted to do something different, something more exciting than welding bits of planes together. Please, Mamma, try and understand how important this chance is to really make something of myself. It may never come again.’

‘No. I do not understand – I will never understand. Why do you wish to leave me all alone without Papa and Roberto when this is your home?’

‘I can’t stay here forever,’ Rita reasoned softly. ‘I’m eighteen. It’s time I made my own way. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, or appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Mamma.’

Louise grabbed her arm. ‘Then don’t go,’ she said urgently through her tears. ‘I have lost too many people I love. I can’t bear losing you too.’

‘You won’t lose me, Mamma. I’ll only be away a short while for training, and then I’ll be based at the local airfield.’

‘It does not say that here.’ Louise grabbed the letter and waved it in Rita’s face. ‘It says only you will go away to be trained and then it is up to the WAAFs as to where you will be posted. They could send you anywhere.’

Rita sank into the other chair, Vi Charlton’s words ringing in her ears. ‘Mamma,’ she began, ‘please try to understand how much I want to do this. Let me go and do the initial training at least.’

‘No. I will not give my permission. You will stay here with me.’

Rita swallowed the angry retort, aware that losing her temper would simply make things worse. But she had to fight for what she knew was right. ‘Mamma,’ she said as calmly as she could, ‘I do not need your permission. I’m eighteen and have every right to enlist in whatever service I wish.’

‘You will defy me?’ Louise raised her tear-streaked face and glared at her with reddened eyes.

‘I don’t want to defy you. I want your blessing, but if you refuse, then I’m sorry, Mamma, I will do it anyway.’

Louise broke into noisy, hysterical tears. ‘How can I give you my blessing when you wish to wound me with this defiance – this cruelty?’ she gabbled in Italian. ‘You wish to leave me here, all alone with the enemy bombing me, our house in danger every night, the streets unsafe. How can you do this to me when I am alone – when there is no Papa Tino to protect me?’

Rita realised she would get no sense out of Louise tonight, for she wasn’t listening, couldn’t comprehend how much this posting meant to her, or understand that Rita wasn’t abandoning her, merely growing up and moving on to make her own way in life. ‘We’ll talk more after we’ve both had a good sleep,’ she murmured, gathering her into her embrace.

Louise sank into her arms. ‘You will change your mind,’ she murmured. ‘Come the morning you will forget all this silly talk of motorbikes and see that you have a duty to your Mamma to stay with her. For this is what Papa and Roberto asked of you on that terrible day they were taken away – and I know you will not break the promise you made to them.’

Rita fought her tears as she held Louise and tried desperately to think of a way round this terrible emotional blackmail. Vi Charlton had been right – she’d seen how it was with Louise because she could view their relationship from a distance. If only Peggy was not in Somerset she could have gone to her for advice. As it was, she had little choice but to weather Louise’s tears and try to make her understand how important it was for her to make her own choices in life, and not to be forever tied to Louise’s apron strings.

RITA HAD GIVEN
in to Louise’s pleas not to be left alone for the next few hours, and returned with her to her house. But as Louise slept fitfully in the other room, Rita paced the floor, unable to settle to anything more than making endless cups of tea.

She had a thudding headache and her emotions and thoughts were in turmoil as she tried to work out the best way of appeasing Louise without giving in to her demands. Yet, at every juncture, she came up against that great wall of Louise’s neediness, and her own profound reluctance to cause her further anguish.

If only she had someone to talk to, to advise her, but May would have left by now, Peggy was in Somerset, Anne had enough to worry about with running Beach View, and she didn’t really know Jim Reilly well enough to talk to him about it. Even her own father was out of reach – how she yearned to be able to talk to him, to hear his soothing voice and feel the comfort of his embrace.

She drank the last dregs of the cooling tea and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was time to go to work, but she had no idea how she would get through the next eight hours. Her concentration was all over the place, her head pounded and she felt sick – not the best way to begin a new day in the heat and noise of an engineering factory.

Rita left a note for Louise and hurried next door to get changed back into her working clothes, make a flask of tea and stuff down a Spam sandwich. She hesitated as she saw the discarded letter on the table and then folded it carefully and tucked it in the inside pocket of her old flying jacket. There was one person she could trust to give her good advice, but it could prove a bit tricky to get to him.