Some Sunny Day (21 page)

Rosie’s aunt had refused to walk behind the hearse, saying she would go straight to the church instead. When they walked past what was left of
Holy Cross, Rosie ducked her head, unable to bear looking at the ruined church where she had been when their house had been bombed and her mother killed.

Rosie knew from the funeral parlour that her mother’s wasn’t the only funeral taking place that day and that all over Liverpool people were mourning those they had lost to Hitler’s bombs in the dreadful pre-Christmas raid.

They had almost reached the church now; Rosie made herself focus on the solitary figure of Father Doyle up ahead of her. Her father was walking immediately behind him, his shoulders bowed. What must it feel like to have loved someone and then watch that love turn to the bitterness and resentment she had seen her mother exhibit so often? Rob wanted to marry her but what if their marriage ended up like that of her parents?

Rosie pushed aside those thoughts as the church doors opened and they entered to the dark dread sound of the organ.

The service was over but the worst ordeal was still ahead of them, Rosie acknowledged, as she stood with her father beside the newly dug grave – one of so very many in this small graveyard, trying to push out of her head the knowledge that it was her mother who was lying in the wooden coffin that was now being lowered into the ground.

Someone – one of their neighbours, Rosie guessed – sobbed aloud.

Her father’s voice shook as he burst out, ‘She allus hated the dark.’

‘Don’t, Dad,’ Rosie begged him tearfully.

He was crying himself, silent tears running down his face as he let the dark soil fall from his hand and onto the coffin.

Silently Rosie did the same. She couldn’t believe that this was really happening. Rob had come to stand at the graveside with them, the strong bulk of his body protecting her from the icy-cold wind.

And then it was over, the final goodbyes said and the mourners moving slowly away. Rob had positioned himself protectively between her and her father, offering them each the strength of his arm to lean on as he supported them back out onto the street.

Mrs Harris came up, tear tracks plainly visible through her powder.

‘You need to get everyone down to the church hall, Rosie, before they freeze.’

Rosie looked at her blankly.

‘The wake, lass, remember?’

Numbly Rosie nodded and allowed Mrs Harris to lead her down to the church hall where their neighbours and the other mourners were already gathering, the dreadful mood of the graveside giving way to the discreet and respectful hum of conversation, interspersed here and there by the laughter of children.

Like a sleepwalker, Rosie moved amongst the mourners, she and Rob shepherding between them her father with his bowed shoulders and grief-stricken face, whilst her aunt, suddenly in her element, held court in one corner of the room, dabbing non-existent tears from her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

Most of the mourners had already left when the event Rosie had been dreading happened.

She was standing with her father, Rob and her aunt when one of her mother’s friends from the hairdressing salon came over to say goodbye. Marion, a thin woman with peroxide hair and a giggly, girlish manner, which Rosie had always found embarrassing in a woman well into her forties, was both crying and hiccuping, the latter, Rosie suspected, caused by her having had rather too much to drink.

‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ she sobbed noisily. ‘She were my best friend, you know – at least we was afore she took up wi’ that—’

Rosie froze, knowing sickeningly what Marion was about to reveal and yet unable to say or do anything to stop her.

‘Yes, you must have missed her when she went to work at the munitions factory. She often said what good friends you had all been, didn’t she, Rosie?’

Rob’s voice, his words calm and friendly and so totally believable, brought Rosie out of her temporary paralysis. Giving him a grateful look she took hold of Marion’s hand.

‘Yes, she did, Marion. Thank you so much for coming. I know Mum would have appreciated it.’ As she was speaking, Rosie started to lead Marion towards the door, whilst Rob walked at her other side.

Once she was through it and walking down the street, Rosie turned to Rob and hugged him tightly, unable to find any other way of expressing her relief and gratitude. ‘Oh, Rob, thank you for that. If you hadn’t stepped in so quickly then she would have let it slip about him, I know she would.’

She was trembling from head to foot, and when Rob’s arms tightened round her, for once she didn’t try to pull away – not even when he bent his head and kissed her passionately full on the mouth in the protective shadows of the doorway. How could she deny him after what he had just done for her? A surge of emotion flooded through her as she returned his kiss.

‘There!’ Rob exclaimed triumphantly when he finally released her. ‘That’s it, Rosie. You’re my girl properly now. We should get engaged!’

Rosie didn’t argue with him. All she could think about was her relief that the terrible day was finally over, her mother had been laid to rest and her shameful secret with her. Her father would never have to know what she had done.

Rosie winced as the ice-cold wind hit her the moment she left the shop. They were having what was one of the coldest winters on record, with weather so bad that Hitler’s bombers had not been able to fly. After the December bombings the unexpected respite had come as a relief to everyone, even if they were shivering with cold, and hungry all the time, thanks to rationing.

Rosie had one reason at least, though, to smile as she made her way home. Because of the number of cargo ships damaged in the Christmas bombing raid, her father’s period of compassionate leave had been extended and he was still at home. Not that she could really think of her aunt’s house as ‘home’. Rosie would have liked to be able to talk her father into renting somewhere for just the two of them but with so many people homeless she felt it was selfish of her to want to do that, even if it had been possible.

Since Rob was on duty he was not there to walk
her home. Not that she minded, she admitted guiltily. Since he had kissed her the day of her mother’s funeral Rob seemed to have taken it for granted that their relationship had become much more serious, and Rosie didn’t have the heart to protest that she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted. She envied the three other young women in the street who had befriended her, Sally, and the two sisters, June and Molly, who all seemed to be so happily in love with their sweethearts. Didn’t they worry, as she would have done in their position, about finding out that they had made a mistake? But then they had probably not witnessed the kind of unhappiness within a marriage that she had seen in her own parents’ union. June and Molly had only their father, and Sally and her husband lived far away from her family. But every young woman had to get married otherwise she would end up as a spinster, and that was not to be thought of. All around her Rosie could see young women and their sweethearts rushing to the altar, afraid of being torn apart by the war, and snatching at what happiness together they could. And then there were the other kind, the girls whose behaviour everyone talked about in low whispers, the kind of behaviour exhibited by her own mother. But these girls weren’t married. They wanted to have fun, they defended themselves, and if they wanted to dance and sing and flirt and yes, make love too, then that was their affair and no one else’s. But with Liverpool bursting at the seams with sailors from the convoys, Commonwealth troops, and army and
navy personnel stationed locally to protect the docks, a certain section of the city’s young women were beginning to attract a lot of notoriety.

Everyone was talking about it, mostly like Enid, earlier on in the day, with pursed lips and disapproval. Parents were saying that they preferred to see their daughters going steady with a decent young man they knew than going out mixing with those they did not.

The evening skies might be starting to lighten just a touch but the weather was bleak indeed. Rosie had been glad of her father’s old darned seaman’s socks to wear inside her boots on her walks to and from the bus stop on Wavertree Road where she caught the bus down into the city and the shop.

In some ways, and if it hadn’t been for her aunt’s continued coldness towards her, she would have enjoyed living in her new surroundings. Her father too seemed to have settled in well, going down to the docks during the day to help out where he was needed and then spending his free time at the allotments with the male residents who gathered there in one of the huts to talk politics and play cards.

With her father’s contacts and their shared rations, and Rosie’s keen eye for a bargain, they were eating as well as anyone could, given the rationing situation. Rosie had discreetly and tactfully persuaded her aunt to let her take over the cooking. Whilst her mother had simply not been interested in domesticity, her aunt, though
obsessive about the cleanliness of her home, was no cook.

Rosie, having virtually grown up in Maria’s kitchen, had absorbed the Italian ethos of making even the simplest meal a feast. Even her ‘blitz broth’, as the soup recipe recommended by the government had been named, was somehow tasty as well as warming, even though it contained little more than cabbage, carrots, sprouts, swedes and turnips added to a stock made from boiling up a few bones or a chicken carcass, to which Rosie added a bit of Bovril and some herbs.

Rosie enjoyed seeing the pleasure on her father’s face when he tucked into the food she had cooked for them, even if her aunt’s face grew sourer than ever with resentment.

Her father was already in the kitchen when Rosie – let in at the front door by her aunt, who had flatly refused to give her a key – made her way into its grudging warmth. His face broke into a warm smile when he saw her.

‘By, but that’s a fine pink nose you’ve got, our Rosie,’ he teased her as she shed her coat. ‘Come and get a bit closer to the warm, lass.’

‘There’s no need for you to go mollycoddling her,’ Aunt Maude protested sharply.

‘I thought you’d be down the allotments,’ Rosie said to her father, ignoring her aunt’s unkindness, ‘not that any of you would be doing much digging with this snow and ice.’

‘Aye, well, I would have bin, only when I went
down to the docks earlier, I called at the shipping office and they’ve offered me a place on a cargo ship going west, day after tomorrow.’

Rosie tried to conceal her sadness as she heard the happiness lifting her father’s voice. Seamen might complain about life on board ship but they had salt water in their blood, so it was said, and fretted if they were away from the sea for too long. So she asked him matter-of-factly instead, ‘Where will you be going – New York again?’

Her father laughed. ‘Wanting more stockings, are you? I’m sorry, Rosie, but this time the convoy will be making for Canada. As luck would have it, when I was down there I bumped into a couple of old mates and seemingly they’ve signed up for the same ship. Good lads they are, an’ all.’ He rubbed his hands together, visibly heartened by the news. ‘How about summat to eat?’

‘It will have to be snoek pie,’ Rosie warned him, referring to the reconstituted dried fish that everyone loathed.

Later on, when they were alone, her aunt having gone out to see her only close friend – a fellow widow whom she had known for some years and who, from what Rosie had heard her aunt say about her, was as much of a battleaxe as her aunt – whilst her father dried the dishes she had washed, Rosie told him uncertainly, ‘I’m not sure that Auntie Maude will want me staying on here after you’ve gone, Dad.’

‘Don’t be daft. Of course she’ll want you to stay. Where else would you go?’ Rosie didn’t say
anything but she knew her expression had given her away when her father said firmly, ‘Don’t you go worrying about it, Rosie. I’ll have a word wi’ her meself. I suppose you’ll be off later, dancing with that young man of yours, seeing as it’s Saturday night?’

Rosie nodded. ‘But I can stay here with you if you want me to, Dad.’

‘You’re a good girl, Rosie, but there’s no need for you to give up your fun to keep your old dad company. Besides, I sort of promised those mates I met up wi’ that I’d see them down the pub a bit later, provided Hitler doesn’t send his ruddy bombers over, and we end up having to spend the night in the air-raid shelter.’

‘Everyone’s saying that it’s too cold for them to fly,’ Rosie answered, glad that her father had the prospect of some fun that evening too.

‘What’s this then?’ Maude demanded suspiciously on Sunday morning when Rosie and her father appeared downstairs after breakfast, dressed in their mourning clothes.

‘Me and Dad thought we’d go to the grave and see Mum, seeing as Dad joins his ship tomorrow,’ Rosie answered bravely for both of them. ‘You’re welcome to come with us if you want to,’ she added politely, knowing full well that her aunt would refuse.

‘Visit your mother’s grave!’ Maude’s well-corseted bosom heaved, her double chin wobbling
with the same fury that was staining her face an unflattering shade of red. ‘It’s more than a decent person can bear, just knowing that a woman like that is lying buried amongst decent honest folk, never mind me going to visit it,’ she announced.

‘I won’t hear that kind of talk about Christine, Maude,’ Rosie’s father objected sternly. ‘There’s no call to go speaking ill of the dead.’

‘Mebbe not, but there was plenty of folk speaking ill of her whilst she was alive, so I’ve heard, and with good reason, it seems.’

Rosie tensed as her aunt shot her a baleful look of angry triumph.

‘It’s come to my ears that there were things going on that no decent woman should have been involved in.’

Rosie’s father was frowning now. ‘I know that you and Christine didn’t allus see eye to eye, Maude, but she’s gone now and can’t answer for herself.’

‘Mebbe not, but her daughter’s here to answer for her, and from what I’ve bin told she knew what was going on, even if she hasn’t had the decency to tell you about it. Yes, she knows exactly what that mother of hers was getting up to – just look at her face.’

Rosie could feel the scarlet flag of guilt burning her face as her father turned to look at her. He looked so uncomprehending and worried that her heart ached with misery.

‘What’s all this about, Rosie, lass?’ he asked her quietly.

‘Oh, she won’t tell you the truth,’ her aunt cut in nastily. ‘She’d do anything to protect that mother of hers; just like she turned a blind eye to what was going on whilst you were away at sea and she was…’ Maude’s thin lips folded into a tight line as she shook her head. ‘I don’t know if I can bring myself to soil my lips by speaking of what went on.’ Antagonism beamed from her eyes as she glared at Rosie.

‘Perhaps you’d like to tell my brother what your mother was up to when she was supposed to be working at that parachute factory. Working for the war effort, she said she was. Well, we all know now what she meant by that, and it wasn’t standing on a production line making parachutes, was it?’

‘Rosie, what is all this? If there’s something I should know then—’

‘Of course you should know. After all, from what my friend Lily was telling me last night, the whole of your old neighbourhood does. She said she’d heard about it from a cousin of hers who lives down there. She said the whole street knew what was going on, and that your Christine was as bold as brass carrying on with some chap she had coming round calling on her. Seen walking arm in arm, they were, and him acting with her like he was her husband – and him a married man an’ all – whilst she…’

Rosie watched in dismay as the dark red colour rose from her father’s collar up over his face. Although he was a kindly man, on the rare
occasions when he was roused to anger his temper sometimes ran away with him. Rosie could remember how frightened she had been as a child when he had smashed his fist down so hard on their kitchen table that the pots had bounced right off it and broken on the floor. Not that she had blamed him for his anger, knowing the way her mother had been in the habit of deliberately provoking it. On that particular occasion, her mother had left Rosie at home by herself, even though she had only been six years old, whilst she went to the cinema with a friend. When her father had returned home from sea unexpectedly early he had found Rosie crouched in the hallway on the floor in the darkness, crying and alone. Of course, afterwards, typically, her mother had blamed Rosie for being the cause of the row.

‘Is this true, Rosie?’ he demanded fiercely now. ‘Was your mother carrying on with someone?’

Rosie wished passionately that if he had had to find out it might have been any way but this, with her aunt delivering the blow and standing by in triumph.

‘Mum did…she was…I told her it was wrong and I begged her not to do it, Dad. She promised me she’d stop and that she’d give him up. But…she said she was lonely and that she missed you, and I think that the war made her feel afraid. She was going to give him up, she had said so…’ Rosie hung her head, feeling as though she was the one who was at fault and had been found out.

‘Give him up? That’s not what I heard, and you haven’t heard the worst of it yet. She made a proper laughing stock out of you, I can tell you. You walking behind her cortège like any proper grieving husband should, mourning her, whilst the whole of your street knew that the reason she’d been killed was because she’d been with him when the air-raid siren sounded and that the two of them had stayed there. Fornicating…’

‘Dad…’ Rosie pleaded as her father didn’t answer her. Instead he stood staring at them both, his face betraying his emotions.

‘Now see what you’ve done,’ her aunt told her angrily. ‘You and that mother of yours. Cut from the same cloth, the pair of you and no mistake…’

Rosie wasn’t listening. ‘Dad,’ she implored. ‘Mum didn’t mean to hurt you. I know she didn’t. What she did was wrong, but—’

‘I told you right from the start not to marry her, Gerry,’ Rosie’s aunt cut in sharply. ‘It was plain to me the first time I saw her what she was. I told you then what would happen the minute you turned your back, and I was right.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Rosie burst out angrily.

‘Isn’t it? Much you know, miss, an’ all.’ She nodded in Rosie’s father’s direction. ‘He knows as well as I do that this isn’t the first time she’s made a laughing stock out of him. I told him then what she was, but he wouldn’t have it. Carrying on with that Italian under his own wife’s nose as well as her husband’s, and thinking she could get away
with it when everyone could see what she was up to.’

Rosie’s eyes widened in shocked rejection of her aunt’s sharp words. ‘Dad,’ she begged her father, ‘that’s not true…it can’t be. Maria was Mum’s friend. She was always sticking up for her and looking out for her, and for me. You know that. Mum would never have done anything to hurt her.’ Rosie couldn’t believe what her aunt was saying. She knew that her mother had betrayed her father, but she couldn’t believe that she would have done something so low and despicable as her aunt was claiming. But her father wasn’t answering her, and the way he was hanging his head made a horrid sick fear crawl through Rosie’s stomach.

‘Much you know,’ her aunt told her triumphantly. ‘Friend or not, your mother was after that Italian from the moment she set eyes on him, and her not a year wed to my brother.’