Some Sunny Day by Annie Groves Read Free Book Online Page B

heard anything. Her mother was still in bed, and Rosie made as little noise as she could when she brewed herself a cup of tea, and put up some sandwiches for her dinner.
    She was halfway across the road when she saw Bella coming towards her.
    ‘Has there bin any news?’ she asked anxiously.
    Bella shook her head. ‘La Nonna is taking it that badly, Rosie. Cryin’ all night, she’s bin. Me mam as well, rantin’ and ravin’ she were, sayin’ as how we should all have left and gone back to Italy, and how it’s me Uncle Aldo’s fault that we didn’t. It would be different if all of them had teken out British nationality, but it’s too late for that now.’ She gave a small shiver. ‘Me Auntie Maria were up all night trying to calm them both down.’
    ‘Oh, Bella.’
    The two girls looked at one another.
    ‘Mebbe they’ll know a bit more at Podestra’s. I’ve told me Auntie Maria that I’ll send word if I hear anything and that she’s to do the same for me. That’s if there’s any of our men left to tell us anything,’ she added bitterly.
    Bella worked in the back of one of the Podestra family’s chippies, peeling and chipping potatoes, and it was expected between the two families that eventually Bella would marry the young Podestra cousin who was lodging with the family. Rosie had once asked Bella if she minded her future being decided for her but Bella had simply shrugged and said that it was the custom and their way, that she liked Alberto Podestra well enough and that she would rather marry him than some lads she knew.
    ‘But don’t you want to fall in love, Bella?’ Rosie had asked her.
    Once again Bella had shrugged. ‘Marriage isn’t about falling in love for us, it’s about family,’ she had told her.
    Rosie had mixed feelings about love and marriage. Her father had fallen passionately in love with her mother but their marriage had not been a happy one, so far as Rosie could see. Sofia, however, married to placid easy-going Carlo, seemed perfectly happy with the man her parents had chosen for her. But there was Maria, who had also had her husband chosen for her and who anyone could see was not treated kindly by Aldo. From what she had seen around her in themarriages of those closest to her, Rosie wasn’t sure if falling in love was a good thing. On the other hand, all the girls at work could talk about was falling in love like they saw people doing in films, and living happily ever after. And what she did know was that she certainly did not want her husband chosen for her. In that, if nothing else, close as she and Bella were, they felt very differently, Rosie admitted.
    After she had said goodbye to Bella, imploring her not to worry with a strength and cheeriness she really didn’t feel inside, Rosie called round at the hairdressing salon where her mother worked to deliver her message, and then headed up into the city, trying not to look too closely at the broken glass and damaged buildings as she did so. People were already outside cleaning up the debris.
    Newspaper sellers were out on the street, and Rosie hurried to buy a paper, scanning the headlines quickly, her eyes blurring with tears as she read about the violent rioting of the previous night, which had been caused, according to the papers, by patriotic feelings overwhelming some people on hearing the news of Mussolini’s decision. The paper did of course condemn the violence, but although Rosie searched the print several times, she couldn’t find anything to tell her what was going to happen to the men who had been taken away, other than that Mr Churchill had acted swiftly to ensure that dangerous Fascists were ‘combed out’ from Italiancommunities, and would be interned as Enemy Aliens for the duration of the war. Her heart jumped anxiously inside her chest when she read the words ‘Enemy Aliens’, but of course they did not apply to men like the Grenellis. And there was some comfort in knowing that it was only those men