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Sofia was fiercely proud of her Italian heritage, and determined to encourage her husband and her daughter to be equally patriotic, so easy-going Carlo was bullied into joining their local Fasci club, and Bella was sent to the Italian school in the evening for Italian lessons, even though she complained that she already spoke Italian perfectly well.
    Rosie had felt slightly left out at first and a little bit hurt when Bella came back talking about the new friends she had made, but Rosie was a gentle-natured girl and she couldn’t resent her best friend’s obvious enjoyment of the fun the classes provided for too long.
    It had been in 1935, after Italy invaded Abyssinia, that people had begun to realise the possible implications of Fascism. About that time Rosie could remember hearing a great deal of talk of some members of the Italian community deciding to naturalise and become British citizens. The Grenelli men hadn’t though, mainly because Sofia had been so insistent that to do so would be unpatriotic.
    ‘Sofia and Carlo aren’t Fascists, they’re just patriotic,’ Rosie protested.
    ‘Huh, that’s what Sofia might say, but there’s folk around here as thinks different.’
    Rosie frowned. ‘I thought that the Grenellis were our friends, but you’re acting as though you don’t even like them. Maria’s always—’
    ‘Oh, Maria’s well enough,’ Christine stopped her. ‘But ruddy Sofia, she’s allus had it in for me. I’ve warned Aldo many a time not to let Sofia go dragging him into that Fascist lot with her Carlo. Well, I just hope that Aldo’s listened to what I’ve bin saying to him and not got hisself involved, now that there’s all this trouble brewing and folk taking against Italians. Did you try the chippie on Christian Street?’ Christine finished.
    It was typical of her mother that it was her hunger she was thinking about and not the fact that she, Rosie, could have been in danger if there had been another outbreak of violence, Rosie accepted ruefully.
    ‘I’m not going back out again tonight,’ she told her firmly. Other girls with stricter mothers might have been wary of being as outspoken as she was. She was a gentle girl, not normally argumentative, but she knew with her mother she had to stick to her guns – or risk being bullied into doing whatever it suited Christine to have her do.
    ‘I’ll be glad when Dad gets back,’ she added.
    Since Rosie had overheard her father discussing his ship’s near miss, she had prayed extra hard, not just for her father but for all those men who had to make that perilous journey across the Atlantic to be kept safe. War was such a very dreadful thing but, as her father had told her, they had no option other than to stand up to Hitler and to fight as bravely as they could.
    ‘Well, if I’m not goin’ to get me supper I mightas well go to bed. Pity we didn’t get a bit of sommat at number 16. We would have done an’ all if bloody Sofia hadn’t started havin’ a go at me like that.’
    ‘I don’t think she liked the way you were with Aldo,’ Rosie told her mother uncomfortably.
    Christine dropped her cigarette, cursing as it burned a hole in the thin carpet. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You should have let Maria be the one to greet him first. She is his wife, after all.’
    Christine gave a dismissive shrug. ‘We all know that. Old Giovanni had both Aldo and Carlo shipped over from the old country so as he could have husbands for his daughters. Mind you, it were the only way he could get them wed. Maria’s that saintly she should have been a ruddy nun, and as for Sofia, she’s got that sharp a tongue on her, the Grenellis don’t need no knife-grinder comin’ round.’
    ‘Mum…’ Rosie objected. It disturbed her to hear her mother running down the two women who were surely her closest friends, but she knew better than to take Christine to task when she was in this kind of mood.

TWO
    Rosie plumped up her pillow and tried to get