Free Some Sunny Day by Annie Groves Page A

immediately.
    Bella shook her head. ‘You can’t, Rosie. We’re goin’ in the morning because that’s when Louisa Podestra reckons the guards let the men come out for some fresh air. You’ll be at work. Louisa has told me I can have the time off. Not that we’ve got that many coming into the chippie since it all happened, exceptin’ to ask if there’s bin any fresh news. It seems to me that me mam’s in the right of it and it would have bin better for us if we’d gone back to Italy,’ Bella added with a new bitterness in her voice.
    ‘Bella, don’t say that,’ Rosie protested. ‘You’re as English as I am.’
    ‘No I’m not. I’m Italian, and proud of it even if I were born here.’
    ‘We’re at war with Italy now,’ Rosie reminded her, trying not to look shocked.
    ‘ I don’t need telling that, do I?’ Bella retaliated. ‘Not wi’ me dad and me granddad in a concentration camp.’
    ‘Huyton isn’t a concentration camp.’
    ‘Huh, those who run it may not be callin’ it that, but what else can it be when they’ve got men imprisoned there?’
    Rosie said nothing. She was beginning to feel as though she didn’t know her friend properly any more. She hadn’t missed the bitter looks Sofia gave her whenever she went round to the Grenellis’, and now here was Bella treating her more as though they were enemies than friends, and as though England wasn’t her home at all. Rosie was confused by her own feelings. She felt hurt by Bella’s attitude towards her and, if she was honest, she felt angry as well when Bella complained and said that she wished she were living in Italy. She had understood when Bella had been upset about what had happened to the Italian men, but she couldn’t agree with what Bella was saying now.
    ‘I hope you manage to see your dad and granddad,’ was all she could manage to say eventually. And for the first time since they had grown up they did not hug one another when they said goodbye.

FOUR
    ‘You’re still on for Saturday at the Grafton, aren’t you, Rosie?’ Ruth asked cheerfully as the girls put on their coats to leave work.
    Rosie hesitated before replying. The truth was that the last thing she felt like doing was going out dancing, but she didn’t want to let Ruth down by backing out now.
    ‘Of course she is, aren’t you, Rosie?’ one of the other girls laughed. ‘You won’t catch me missing out.’
    ‘Meet us outside at half-past seven, Rosie,’ Ruth told her, adding with a wink, ‘And thanks for sortin’ me dress out for me. I’ll write and tell my Fred not to be so eager next time.’
    As she walked down Springfield Street half an hour later, Rosie wondered whether or not she should call at the Grenellis’. Don’t be so soft, she chided herself. There was no call to go getting all upset and taking it to heart because Bella had been a bit funny with her. Chances were that she hadonly been like that because she was so worried and feared for her dad and granddad. She had probably read too much into Bella’s wild talk. Reassured by her own thoughts, Rosie felt her spirits start to lift as she headed for number 16. She had missed Bella even though it had only been a couple of days since she had last seen her.
    It was Maria who opened the door to her knock, hugging her briefly, her expression betraying the strain she was under.
    ‘If you’ve come to see Bella, she’s round at Pod’s,’ Maria told her before Rosie could ask after her friend.
    ‘Who is it? Oh, it’s you, is it?’ Sofia announced in a hostile tone, answering her own question as she came into the kitchen. ‘Where’s your mother, or daren’t she show her face here after what she’s been doing?’
    ‘Sofia…’ Maria protested.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Rosie demanded, indignant at her mother being talked about in such a way even though she had been feeling ashamed of her behaviour herself these last few days. ‘What’s my mother supposed to have done?’
    ‘There’s no