Women on the Home Front (29 page)

In the heightened atmosphere within the club, the tale of Rick's heroic bravery spread like wild-fire, causing Raphael to ask where he might find him. Since the Manellis were distant relatives and had no son of their own, it fell to him to thank Mrs Manelli's rescuer for his timely intervention.

Armed with the information, from a couple of young Italians who knew him, that he would more than likely find Rick Simmonds at his boxing club, and instructions about which bus he would need to catch to get there, Raphael headed for the bus stop, recognising only after he had left the club that Mrs Manelli's rescuer had the same surname as Dulcie. Raphael shrugged. Perhaps Simmonds was as common a surname to the East End as his own was to the Italian community. He had no intention of wasting time allowing someone like Dulcie to take up residence in his thoughts.

The warmth of the light June nights had brought people out into the city to stroll in its parks and see its shows, perhaps, Raphael suspected, aware of what was happening to France and thinking that they might as well enjoy their freedom whilst they could, although it was obvious that the people's mood was sombre. Everyone you talked to spoke in hushed or anxious voices about their belief that Hitler would try to invade Britain, often without admitting to their unspoken fear that he might succeed.

Like all those who had been rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk, Raphael had been granted two weeks' leave. That leave was already half over and in another few days he would be rejoining his unit of the Royal Engineers. He just hoped that before that happened they would know what had happened to his grandfather, not only for his grandfather's sake but, more importantly, for his father's. Raphael knew how desperately worried his father would be and how guilty he would feel, even though in Raphael's opinion his father had no reason to feel any guilt. He had, after all, over the years made endless attempts to be reconciled with his father, and it was the older man who had stubbornly refused all Raphael's father's attempts to make peace.

In the boxing club, Rick let the conversation going on all around him wash over him, as he stood at the bar. The club was busy tonight with young men in shorts and singlets working on the club's three punch bags, or lifting weights whilst the club's hopeful bantam weight contender for a local title was sparring in the ring under the stern eye of one of the ex-professional boxers who trained the young talent.

The building was run down, with chunks of plaster missing from the walls here and there, left like that, so the story went, by a pro from before the Great War, who'd had a habit of punching the wall if one of his sparring bouts hadn't gone well. Worn dark brown linoleum covered the stone floor, and in the winter the club got damp from the leak in the roof, which had been repaired with a sheet of corrugated iron.

It was here that deals were done that weren't always strictly on the right side of the law, from matches that were fixed to the selling of black market cigarettes. There was a small room off the bar that everyone knew not to go into when the door was closed because that meant that there was a ‘meeting' going on that involved ‘business'.

Rick still came to the club because he had boxed there for a while as a boy, and it was where his friends gathered, but his membership was merely a social one now. Tonight, though, Tom, his comrade in arms who had joined up with him and who had also gone through the hell of Dunkirk, wasn't in, and Rick wasn't in the mood to join in the speculation and talk of the possibility of Hitler invading England. Unlike him the other lads here hadn't tasted the reality of war as yet, some of them still raw recruits who had only just finished their basic training, others still waiting for their call-up papers and several in reserved occupations. How could they know how it felt to have been driven back by the Germans – to have to retreat as the BEF had done, abandoning its weapons and its artillery as it did so.

Rick knew he would never forget the silence that had greeted them when they had finally been put ashore in England, or the way that those dealing with the practicalities of their repatriation had avoided looking directly at them, as though ashamed of them. A shame they had all shared.

And if the shame of the retreat was hard to bear then the memories of what that retreat had involved were even harder to endure.

Rick was just about to leave when Raphael walked into the club, heading straight for the bar where he asked after Rick.

‘Rick Simmonds?' the barman repeated. ‘He's over there, heading for the door,' nodding his head in Rick's direction, and then adding warningly, ‘If you've come here looking for trouble, mate, you've chosen the wrong place and the wrong man. Well thought of hereabouts, Rick is.'

‘It's nothing like that – quite the opposite,' Raphael assured him, the sound of his Liverpool accent causing a couple of the regulars who were in the Merchant Navy to glance across at him in recognition of a voice from a well-known port.

Rick was outside before Raphael caught up with him, turning round when Raphael called out, ‘Wait up, mate.'

Like the merchant seamen, Rick recognised Raphael's Liverpool accent. A quick glance at Raphael revealed a tall dark-haired broad-shouldered man with a soldier's bearing and stride, wearing army uniform and the badge of the Royal Engineers. Rick wasn't really in the mood for company but something about the other man's determined stride made him wait.

‘Rick, Rick Simmonds?' Raphael asked. When Rick nodded, Raphael extended his hand to shake Rick's.

‘Raphael Androtti. I just heard down at the local Italian club about what you did tonight for Caterina Manelli, and I wanted to thank you. She's family – a distant cousin.'

‘It isn't me you should really be thanking,' Rick told him. ‘It's my sister Dulcie. She was the one that got in between the mob and the shop.' Rick shook his head, betraying his continuing disbelief that Dulcie of all people should have done such a thing and taken such a risk.

So Dulcie was related to Rick. Now there was a coincidence.

‘I couldn't believe it when I saw what she'd done,' Rick admitted. ‘She's not exactly the type to put herself at risk for someone else, isn't Dulcie.' He spoke openly, somehow finding the sight of Raphael's uniform making it easy for him to do so. Raphael might be Italian but he was a soldier, like Rick himself, and right now that formed a bond between them that meant Rick could speak frankly to the other man.

‘Of course, once she'd got herself involved I'd no option other than to do the same. She is my sister, after all.' Rick shook his head. ‘Women. I'll never understand them, doing something as risky and daft as that, just because old Mr Manelli used to put an extra dollop of ice cream in our bowl when we were kids.'

‘I obviously owe your sister my thanks as well then,' Raphael told Rick. ‘It's a bit late for me to call round at your home now, but—'

‘You wouldn't find her there anyway,' Rick stopped him. ‘Dulcie doesn't live at home. She's got digs in Holborn and a landlady who doesn't take too kindly to men she doesn't know turning up on her doorstep asking for her lodgers. Your best bet would be to go to Selfridges. Dulcie works there in the cosmetics department.'

Now was the time for him to come clean and tell her brother that he already knew Dulcie and where she worked, Raphael knew. That would be the right and honest thing to do. He battled with his conscience. He liked what he'd seen of Rick, and as a man honesty was important to him. However, he knew that Rick wouldn't like hearing about how he had come to know his sister – as her brother he was bound to be protective of her; that was only natural. In the circumstances it was best that he didn't say anything, Raphael decided, but that didn't stop him feeling guilty.

‘I'll go and see her at Selfridges, as you suggest.'

‘Will Mr Manelli be all right?' Rick asked him.

‘I hope so.' Raphael reached into his tunic pocket to remove a packet of service-issue cigarettes, offering the pack first to Rick, who took one, and then lighting Rick's cigarette for him before lighting one for himself.

‘Been in the army long?' he asked Rick.

‘Joined up just in time to be sent out to France with the BEF. And you?'

‘Same. We were working on an airfield down near Nantes when the order came to pull out. We were lucky. We got taken off the beach at St-Nazaire by a Finnish vessel and taken to Falmouth. Not that we thought we were going to be lucky at first, not when we'd seen all the RAF lot being given preference to get on board this warship they'd got at St-Nazaire, packed with women and children as well as the RAF. Poor sods. There wasn't any room for us.

Raphael narrowed his eyes and looked into the distance before telling Rick, ‘The warship got bombed by the Luftwaffe – those on board didn't stand a chance.'

Both men drew heavily on their cigarettes in shared silence, each knowing why the other didn't speak.

Olive was in the kitchen when Dulcie came in. The girls had already gone up to bed taking their cocoa with them, but Olive had hung on downstairs. Not because she was concerned about the fact that Dulcie was still out, like she would have been had she been Tilly or Agnes. It was no business of hers what time Dulcie came in or where she'd been, only she had said that she was going over to her parents' because it was her mother's birthday, and the look on her face had said that it wasn't a visit she was particularly looking forward to.

Her walk back to Article Row took Dulcie around forty-five minutes and had given her time to think about what she had done, and once the euphoria of feeling that she'd triumphed over all those who thought they could look down on her by doing something brave had worn off, Dulcie had started to recognise the risk she had taken and to feel a bit shaky. The last thing she wanted as she walked into the kitchen, intent on making herself a spirit-strengthening cup of tea, was Olive, and the sight of her sitting in a chair as though waiting for her return brought Dulcie to an abrupt halt. No one had ever waited up for her. It was Edith her own mother worried about and sat up anxiously for, refusing to go to bed until she knew she was safely home. When Dulcie had pointed out that she had never waited up for her, her mother had simply said that there wasn't any need for her to do that because she knew that Dulcie was perfectly capable of looking after herself. Not that Olive would be waiting up for her to get in, of course. It would be Tilly and Agnes she was sitting there for.

‘Tilly and Agnes not in yet?' she asked Olive, as she headed for the kettle. Her mouth felt dry and her head ached painfully.

‘Yes. They've gone up,' Olive told her, adding without intending to, ‘You're later back than I expected.'

Dulcie had turned towards her, the kettle she had just filled in her hand, the light falling sharply onto her, causing Olive to gasp in shock when she saw the dried blood on Dulcie's cheek where a sharp-edged pebble – one of a handful thrown by one of the mob – had caught her and cut her skin. There were other marks on her clothes, dusty marks, and another cut on her leg.

‘Dulcie, what on earth's happened to you?' Olive demanded, getting up to go and take the kettle from her.

Immediately Olive got close to her Dulcie recoiled, telling her abruptly and dismissively, ‘There's no need to make a fuss. It's nothing. Just some lads who'd had too much to drink.'

When Olive's eyes widened in shock, Dulcie realised that her landlady was jumping to the wrong conclusion and she told her fiercely, ‘It wasn't anything like that. I'm not daft enough to let any lads try doing something they shouldn't with me. It was all this fuss about the Italians being Fascists and being taken away. A group of lads were throwing stones at the Manellis' shop window. Me and Rick told them to leave it out. Mr Manelli wasn't even there. The police had already taken him away.'

Olive had heard about the mobs going round attacking the premises of Italian businesses whilst she'd been at her WVS meeting and had been horrified by their behaviour, but somehow she hadn't expected to hear that Dulcie had stepped in to prevent one of those attacks.

Dulcie's mouth thinned when she saw Olive's expression and guessed what she was thinking.

‘That's the trouble with people like you,' she told her sharply. ‘You think that unless a person goes running around wearing something like a St John Ambulance uniform they're nothing, and you can look down on them.'

‘Dulcie, that's not true,' Olive denied, but even as she spoke she recognised that there was a grain of truth in what Dulcie was saying.

‘Yes it is,' Dulcie told her flatly.

‘The doctor's been again this morning to number forty-nine,' Nancy announced over the hedge.

Olive paused on the steps to her back door, balancing the weight of the washing she had just been to collect from the local Chinese laundry more securely on her raised knee.

‘It can't be long now, not with the doctor coming nearly every day. I said to my Arthur when they moved in that I didn't reckon the husband would last very long.'

Olive felt that sometimes Nancy took too keen an interest in such morbid subjects, almost relishing it when one of her dire warnings became true.

‘Mr Long is very poorly at the moment,' she felt obliged to agree, whilst pointing out, ‘But his son, Christopher, has told Tilly that they have every hope that he will rally and make some recovery. Apparently this has proved to be the case on more than one occasion in the past.'

Nancy merely shook her head, adding darkly, ‘And that's another thing. If I was you I wouldn't let your Tilly get too involved with that boy of theirs, not with him being one of the conscientious objects. There's no saying where it might lead. Folk like them like putting the wrong ideas into other folk's heads, and you don't want your Tilly getting them kind of wrong ideas.'