‘It won’t be easy for them, Rosie. Maria’s a good woman and she won’t have intended to hurt you. But sometimes it’s best to stay close to your own when things like this happen. Like to like, kin to kin.’ He gave her a warm hug. ‘You have a good cry if it will make you feel better.’
Rosie gave him a wobbly smile. ‘What a way to welcome you home, Dad – Mum not here and me crying all over you about other people’s problems. I’m so glad you’re home, though. I think about you all the time and I say a special prayer every night that you’ll be kept safe.’
‘You’ve always had a soft heart, you have, our Rosie. Don’t ever lose it. I’m going up to Edge Hill tomorrow to see your Auntie Maude,’ he told her, changing the subject. ‘Why don’t you come with me? She’d like to see you.’
Rosie seriously doubted that but tried not to look unenthusiastic. She knew how strongly he believed he owed his sister for looking after him when their parents died in an outbreak of cholera when he was only twelve years old, and she knew too how much discord it caused between her parents when her mother refused to go and see Maude.
‘Of course I’ll come with you,’ she assured him, and was rewarded with a smile and another hug.
‘I’m for me bed,’ he told her as he released her. ‘I only waited up on account of you not being in.’
‘Don’t you want to stay up for Mum?’ Rosie asked him.
‘No. If I do that I could end up staying down here all night. I didn’t send word to her that we’d docked, and you know your mother … if she’s had a few drinks like as not she’ll stay over with her pals and not come home until morning.’
He said it quite dispassionately but Rosie’s tender heart couldn’t help but feel sad for him. By rights her mother ought to be here waiting to welcome him home but, as they both knew, Christine just wasn’t that sort of woman.
There was a joke in Liverpool that with each intersection a person crossed as they walked up from Edge Hill through Wavertree, the houses got larger and the accents got ‘posher’.
Gerry Price’s elder sister might live closer to Edge Hill than the poshest part of Wavertree, with its tennis club and its smart big houses, but she certainly acted as if she was something special, Rosie acknowledged as she got off the bus with her father and crossed the road to turn into Chestnut Avenue.
Since it was a summer Sunday it was no surprise that the avenue’s inhabitants, especially its children, should be out enjoying the sunshine. Rosie was grateful for the warm smile one of a trio of young women, their gas masks slung casually from their shoulders, gave her as they walked past. The other two young women were both wearing smocks and were obviously pregnant, one of them holding on to a pretty little girl.
Rosie suppressed the sharp pang of envy she felt for their friendship. The one who had smiled at her had her arm linked with the one without the little girl and it was obvious how close they all were.
‘Come on, June,’ Rosie heard her saying. ‘We’d better be getting back, otherwise Dad will wonder what’s happened to us.’
There had been no word at all from Bella since Rosie had last seen her, although to be fair she had heard that she had been spending most of her time at Podestra’s, helping the family keep the chippie open. Rosie had tried to mend the breach between them. She had slipped a note through the Grenellis’ front door, asking Bella if they could meet somewhere, and she had told her how much she missed them all and how much she would like to hear any news they had had of the men, especially Giovanni. She had waited eagerly, convinced that Bella would get in touch with her, and then when she hadn’t done, Rosie had become very downcast and upset. After that rebuff she had told herself that she had too much pride to go running after a ‘friend’ who didn’t want her friendship any more, but then her pride had crumpled and she had been so desperate to see Bella and have news of the family that she had gone to the chip shop and waited outside, hoping to catch Bella when she left work. However, when Bella had eventually come out, she had been with her intended, and his parents. Rosie had felt so uncomfortable about stepping forward when Bella was surrounded by other people that she had ducked back into the shadows, creeping away once they were safely out of sight.
She told herself that Bella knew where she was if she wanted to see her, but deep down Rosie grieved for the friendship she had lost, and found it hard to understand how Bella could neglect it either. She had tried to put herself in Bella’s shoes and to imagine how she might have felt had their circumstances been reversed, but she just couldn’t imagine ever not wanting Bella to be her friend.
Maude Leatherhall lived at number 29, one of a row of three red-brick houses that, like the rest of the estate, had been built by a private developer at the beginning of the century.
Heavy lace curtains shielded the interior from the curious stares of passers-by whilst, Rosie suspected, still allowing her aunt to keep a watch on everything that was going on. A privet hedge enclosed the small front garden and its immaculate ‘rockery’ of a few pieces of soot-lined limestone brightened by pockets of brightly coloured annuals, planted with regimented precision. The window frames and the front door were painted cream and green, and twice a year Maude summoned Rosie’s father to come round to clear out her gutters and wash down her paintwork.
As they drew level with the gate, the ARP warden coming towards them slowed down, obviously wondering who they were. Since it was his responsibility to know the occupants of all the houses in his area, Rosie wasn’t surprised to hear her father informing him easily, ‘We’re just visiting m’sister.’
‘Thought I hadn’t seen you around before,’ the other man responded.
The path was so narrow that Rosie had to walk up it behind her father, but the front door opened so quickly after their knock that Rosie knew she had been right in thinking that her aunt kept a beady eye on the goings-on of the avenue from behind her lace curtains.
‘Oh, you’ve brought Rose with you, have you?’ Maude sniffed.
‘It’s a good while since you last saw her, Maudie, and I thought that with it being a Sunday and her being at work during the week, it would be a good opportunity for her to come along with me.’
‘You’d better come in then,’ was her grudging response as she led the way into the back parlour.
The house smelled of polish and pride. The parlour was cold, as though the sun never warmed it, the back door closed, unlike the door of the adjoining house, which Rosie could see through the window was propped open, as though in invitation to anyone who might want to call.
‘I can’t offer you a cup of tea, I’m afraid, not with this rationing.’
Rosie saw her father smile and reach into his pocket. ‘You get that kettle on, Maudie,’ he insisted, giving her a wink. ‘I’ve brought you a bit o’ summat you can put in your teapot.’
‘I hope this isn’t off that black market, Gerry. You know I don’t approve of that kind of thing, not like some I could name,’ Maude answered disagreeably. But Rosie saw that she still took the packet of tea and the small bag of sugar her father was handing her.
‘It’s not black market. I bought the sugar in New York and traded the tea with another sailor.
‘So how’ve you bin keeping, Maude?’ he asked when she had filled the kettle and lit the gas.
‘Well enough, I suppose, seeing as there’s a war on, and I’m living on me own with no one to care what happens