The War Widows (30 page)

‘Foundations are basic, Lily. Like a body without bones, a dress without a corset has no structure,’ Diana insisted.

‘I thought
buildings
needed structure,’ she replied.

‘Exactly, my point…You know what happens to a house without foundations?’

What a surprise to discover she’d a bust after all, and the neatest waist.

‘I can’t breathe,’ she protested.

‘That’s the point! It’ll make you stand up and breathe properly, not slouch. Posture, think posture.’

It was all right for Diana-she was slim as a lath, more like a boy than a girl. Everything looked neat on her.

Ana was quaking in her shoes, trying to find an excuse not to turn up, but she was transformed by a good hoisting harness. When Diana was on the march there was no shillyshallying in the ranks.

Esme had lined up half of Division Street to support the effort by buying tickets. What if I stumble and fall and make a right fool of myself? Lily wondered.

It was funny how, once the clothes were put on, she felt a different person, no longer good old Lil, but more like a Lily or even Joan Crawford, American and glamorous. Until she saw herself full of curlers in the mirror.

Sylvio was stomping around, giving orders with a grim face instead of his usual grin. Had Maria done what she had promised and given him his marching orders? Happen it was for the best.

Maria was keeping out of everyone’s way, just shampooing and towelling off. Queenie was playing pig in the middle, pretending there weren’t any tensions in the salon.

Ana refused to have her hair cut, so now it was coiled in a sophisticated chignon at the back of her head and covered in a net headscarf.

Susan was sulking because she wasn’t modelling and she was the prettiest of the lot of them. Ivy had refused to buy a ticket so they saddled her with the babysitting, for once. Esme had put her foot down and insisted she pull her weight.

Maria couldn’t wait for the salon to empty, for the models to rush across to the town hall, for Gianni to disappear upstairs so she could catch Sylvio on his own.

It had been a long afternoon and she should have taken her half-day visit to Moses Heights but there were so many heads to do.

This time she wanted to face her husband with a clear conscience. She would go for visiting time as usual
on the evening bus with Rosa.

Sylvio had been in a bad mood all morning. Gianni was breathing down his neck, saying what styles he must show. The trouble was they were yesterday’s hairdos, not suitable for the New Look clothes.

‘He won’t let me do anything new,’ Sylvio complained as he shot into the wash cubicle.

‘Il poverino’
, Maria smiled. ‘Just be patient, one day everyone will want your ideas.’

‘We have to get out of here…start a new salon.’

‘Now’s not the time,’ she whispered. He was barely out of the POW camp, without any money to set up on his own. It was too soon for Grimbleton to accept him. ‘One day, perhaps…you will show them all.’

‘We will do it together, yes?’

Maria drew in a breath. ‘There is no “we”. I am married. I have baby and big family. I must work for them.’

‘No, I take care of you both. We go away.’

‘Stop this!’ she cried. ‘This is a silly dream. This can’t go on. You know it’s wrong. We will be punished.’

Sylvio grabbed her tight and shook her. ‘What are you saying? We are good for each other. I will wait for you…until Marco…’ He spoke in desperation.

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.

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.’