Keep Smiling Through (9 page)

His letter wasn’t long and he finished with the usual warnings to stay safe and leave the motorbike at home. His scrawled ‘
Love, Dad
’ was followed by a row of kisses.

Rita carefully folded it back into the envelope and tucked it away with the others in the shoebox she kept on the mantelpiece. She touched his photograph and blinked back the ready tears that always came after reading his letters. He’d only been gone a matter of months, but to Rita it felt like a lifetime and she longed to see him again – longed to hear his voice, and to feel his steadying, reassuring presence in these troubling times. Losing Tino and Roberto so swiftly after his departure had given her the weighty responsibility of caring for Louise, and without her father’s guidance, she often felt alone, vulnerable and far too young.

She sniffed back the tears and grabbed her coat and gas mask. There was no point in feeling sorry for herself; there were far more important things to deal with tonight than her childish needs. Running down the stairs, she locked the back door and gate and hurried along the twitten that ran between the terraces to Louise’s backyard.

‘Where have you been?’ Louise was at the stove, stirring something in the big pot she’d once used to cook pasta. ‘You were due back half an hour ago.’

‘I went home to wash and change.’ Rita kissed Louise’s cheek and slipped off her coat. ‘There was a letter from Dad, and I lost track of time while I read it.’

Louise sighed as she continued to move the wooden spoon through what looked like a very thin vegetable stew. ‘He is well?’

Rita held her hands out to the warmth of the fire in the range. ‘He’s the same as always, and being kept very busy. He sends his regards, by the way.’

‘There was no letter from Tino or Roberto,’ Louise murmured in Italian. ‘You’re lucky.’

‘I know,’ Rita said softly. ‘But they’ll write once they’re given permission, and I’m sure it won’t be too long to wait now.’

The spoon stirred a little more raggedly. ‘It’s been four months, Rita. How do I know if they are even still alive?’

Rita stilled Louise’s hand, took away the spoon and pulled the pot from the heat. ‘Of course they are,’ she said firmly. ‘They’ll have been sent somewhere far from harm, and I’m sure we’ll hear from them any day now.’

‘You’ve been saying that since June,’ Louise replied, her voice breaking. ‘But we’ve heard nothing, nothing.’

Realising Louise was on the brink of another storm of tears, Rita took her hands. Noting how cold they were, she gave them a rub. ‘Mamma, we have to have a serious talk about what we’re going to do until they come home. We can’t go on like this.’

Louise snatched her hands away. ‘We’re fine,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I have made a start on the allotment again, and as you see, there are plenty of vegetables to eat. And Peggy brought over some tomato chutney and sugar this morning.’

‘We mustn’t rely on Auntie Peggy too much. She has a house full of people to feed, and the rationing is as tough for her as it is for us. We have to fend for ourselves, Mamma, and my wages just won’t stretch that far.’

‘I’m sorry,
cara.
’ Louise’s shoulders sagged as she dipped her chin. ‘I’ve let you down, haven’t I?’

‘Not at all,’ she said hastily, ‘but there’s plenty of work, well-paid work, and it would do you good to have something else to think about.’

‘But what can I do?’ Louise twisted her apron in nervous fingers. ‘I’m not clever like you,
cara mia
. I can’t read and write very well and I’ve only ever helped Tino in the café and raised my
bambini.
I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘But you must have had a job before you married Tino?’

Louise shook her head. ‘I did a bit of cleaning and mending at one of those posh hotels down on the seafront until Tino and me got married on my sixteenth birthday. I’ve never had a proper sort of job really.’

As Rita’s gaze fell on Louise’s Singer sewing machine, she was struck with a bright idea. ‘There’s a uniform factory in Camden Road, and they’re recruiting machinists. You know how to use a sewing machine, and they’re offering really good pay, especially for the night shifts.’

Louise’s blue eyes widened in horror. ‘I couldn’t leave you on your own all night, Rita. It wouldn’t be safe.’

Rita couldn’t quite meet her gaze. ‘That was the other thing I wanted to tell you, Mamma . . .’

‘What is it?’ The blue eyes widened further with alarm.

‘May and I have signed up to do fire-watch. I’ll be sitting on some roof somewhere three nights a week with at least two others and a radio, so you won’t have to worry about me being on my own.’

‘But that’s a man’s job, and you’re only a little girl. I forbid it.’

‘I’ll be eighteen soon,’ Rita reminded her gently. ‘And lots of other girls my age are signing up to do the jobs men used to do. We have to keep the country running while they’re away fighting, Mamma. And I want to do my bit.’

‘You already work in that factory,’ she retorted. ‘It’s enough.’

‘No, Mamma, it isn’t.’ Rita relented at the sight of Louise’s unshed tears, and reached for her hands across the table. ‘We must both learn to adapt to what’s happening, Mamma. It won’t be easy, but think how proud you’ll be when Tino and Roberto come home to find we haven’t given in to the bombings and the rationing. This is our chance to make a difference – however tiny it might be – and I know you’ll find the courage to face your fears, roll up your sleeves and get on with it.’

Louise’s smile was uncertain. ‘You seem to think I’m far stronger and braver than I really am,’ she said, her voice catching. ‘But I will do my best not to let you down.’

Rita rounded the table and gave her a hug. ‘You’ve never let me down, Mamma,’ she murmured, ‘and I love you very much.’

‘This factory. Camden Road, you say?’ At Rita’s nod, she stood and returned to stirring the stew. ‘I will go there tomorrow morning,’ she said.

Rita chewed her bottom lip, hesitant to say what she needed to now. ‘Can I offer just one piece of advice, Mamma?’

Louise stiffened. ‘What advice is that,
cara mia
?’

‘Mamma, you will have to speak English all the time from now on. Even when we’re alone.’

Louise turned from the stove, the ready tears rolling down her lined cheeks. ‘It is all I have of Tino,’ she murmured. ‘How can I not speak Italian – especially if it is only us to hear it?’

‘Because it wouldn’t be wise,’ Rita replied gently. ‘There are still people who enjoy nothing better than to stir up trouble, and now Italy has invaded Greece they need little excuse. You’ll find it much easier to get on with things if you speak English all the time.’

Louise thought about this and finally nodded. ‘Peggy has said the same thing,’ she replied softly in Italian. ‘I will do my best, but you must be patient with me,
cara
.’

‘Then let’s start tonight,’ Rita cajoled. ‘The sooner you get used to it, the easier it will get.’

Louise gave a deep sigh, and Rita was about to offer to go with her to the factory in the morning when the wailing siren heralded yet another air raid. She reached for their gas mask boxes, handbags and overcoats as Louise took the stew off the heat, damped down the fire in the range and stuffed the Madonna and Child into her shopping bag alongside the family photos she always kept in there now.

They hurried down the stairs, locked the back door and gate and raced down the alleyway to join the tide of running people who were all heading away from the station towards the nearest public shelter, which was four streets away.

It was pitch-black outside and still raining, the searchlights cleaving the sky as the Spitfires raced to intercept the enemy before they reached the English coast. The noise was deafening, the wailing siren sending chills up their spines as the roar of the numerous fighter planes made the very air tremble.

Louise stumbled on the cobbles outside the burnt-out shell of Gino’s ice-cream parlour and Rita grabbed her arm before she fell. They were jostled on all sides as the crowd began to funnel towards the steep steps and narrow entrance of the vast shelter that had been made in the cellars of a block of tenements.

It was a gloomy, claustrophobic place deep below ground and sparingly lit. Rita and Louise had always tried to avoid it in the past, for the shelter on the other side of the railway lines was much more pleasant, built as it was beneath the playing fields, and with proper ventilation. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and they didn’t have time to get there tonight.

The warden shouted for them to hurry up as they negotiated the steps and tried to find somewhere to sit. Wooden benches lined the dank walls of crumbling mortar and worn bricks, and a few more were set out in the middle of the vast space. The floor was unevenly laid with concrete that had been painted dark green, but the paint was already blistering from the damp and the tramp of many feet.

Rita found them a place on one of the side benches and took Louise’s hand. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, had never really suffered from being enclosed, but she knew Louise was terrified, and some of that fear was transmitted to her as the warden slammed the door shut and they were plunged into further gloom.

The three ceiling lights flickered and buzzed inside their metal cages, and then mercifully settled, but Rita was suddenly all too aware of how deep beneath the building they were, and of how ramshackle that old tenement was. One blast from a nearby bomb could bring it down, and they would be buried alive.

Determined to keep these thoughts at bay, she rummaged in her coat pocket, found the bag of broken biscuits she’d put in there this morning and offered it to Louise, who shook her head and pressed it back into Rita’s lap.

The siren no longer wailed, but the sound of many aircraft rumbled through the walls and made the earth vibrate beneath their feet. The lights flickered again as the deeper, heavy-bellied drone of the enemy bombers approached. Their fearful power filled the gloomy basement, making the earth tremor and the walls shudder. The answering rat-a-tat-tat of the anti-aircraft guns on the surrounding hills was joined by the heavy boom of the Bofors guns on the seafront and the sharp machine-gun fire of the duelling fighter planes. There was the heavy crump of a distant explosion, swiftly followed by another – and then another.

Rita put her arm round a trembling Louise, finding comfort in their closeness, even though she too was terrified that the enemy bombs seemed to be getting nearer by the minute. Dust and debris rained down on them as the tenement miraculously withstood the blasts, and they both flinched as yet another explosion threatened to rock it from its foundations.

Whimpers of fear and muttered prayers mixed with the sound of crying babies, further explosions and the roar of enemy bombers. It was clear to everyone that the nearby railway station was the enemy’s target.

The deadly whine of a stricken plane screamed overhead, followed by an earthshattering explosion that made them all gasp. No one said anything, but everyone was wondering whether it was an enemy plane, or one of their own.

Rita thought of Martin Black, whom she’d met once at Peggy’s, and understood how deeply Anne and Peggy must worry about his safety up there in his Spitfire night after night. Their fear must be even greater now Anne was expecting their first baby, and she gave thanks that her father was safe in the Midlands. She refused to admit that nowhere was really safe any more, for Liverpool and Manchester had been hit by massive raids, and the whole country was in the midst of an enemy blitz.

The barrage ceased as swiftly as it had begun, and all eyes turned towards the warden, waiting for the all-clear so they could escape this awful place. But he resolutely ignored them as he sat firmly by the door, and they had to accept that the enemy would come back as they always did after they’d finished their attack on poor old London, which was suffering more than anyone.

The enemy bombers returned half an hour later, harried by the Spitfires and Hurricanes, and defended by their own fighter planes. To gain speed and height, several bombs were dropped before they escaped across the Channel – this was known as ‘tip and run’ – and everyone flinched as two explosions once again rocked the very foundations of the old building.

It was another twenty minutes before the all-clear sounded, and as the warden opened the door they shuffled impatiently towards it, hungry for fresh air and open space despite the fear of what they might find.

Rita and Louise were cold and stiff after their long incarceration. They emerged to the urgent clamour of fire-engine and ambulance bells, and the stench of acrid smoke which stung their eyes and hit the back of their throats. It was still dark, but there was a fiery orange glow above the High Street which illuminated the changed landscape of those once familiar streets.

A vast crater was all that was left of the little church where Rita and the Minellis had gone to mass every Sunday morning. The nearby houses had been blasted into scattered remains of bricks and tiles and slabs of concrete, leaving the rest of the terrace adrift. Telegraph poles and street lights were bent and buckled, electricity cables writhed across the uprooted cobbles, hissing like giant snakes amongst the debris of glass shards and the remnants of people’s lives, and a huge fountain of water shot skyward from a broken main. Two houses on the edge of the blast had been opened as neatly as a can of sardines, their pathetic interiors exposed as fire hungrily devoured what was left of the furniture and the precious last pieces of family treasures.

A woman screamed and tried to scramble over the debris to get to her ruined home but was forcibly held back by the men who were trying to put the fire out, mend the water main and repair the electricity cables. Other women began to move as though in a trance towards what remained of their own homes, faces set, the fear and anguish clear in their eyes.

Rita and Louise glanced at one another and moved as one, running as fast as they could towards Barrow Lane. The damage was everywhere, and the stench of smoke, the hiss and spit of electricity cables and the shouts of the rescue workers followed them. They stumbled and tripped, helping each other over the piles of rubble, dodging the twisting cables, wary of the glass and the thick wire that stuck out of the shattered concrete and threatened to rip their legs.