When the Lights Come on Again (39 page)

The others had come too, offering to help clear up. Mario hadn’t the heart for it. Not yet. Some of the boys had lent a hand with the boarding-up of the door and window and left it at that for the night.

‘Watch your feet.’

Liz looked down. There was glass all over the floor. She saw the chrome lid of one of the straw dispensers lying in the middle of the mess. They had smashed the counter too, but the glass shelves behind it were intact, although all the sweetie jars were gone.

‘They probably took those home with them,’ Mario said. ‘Their children will be eating them right now.’

Liz’s feet crunched on something else - not glass this time, but cones and wafers, their packets ripped open and tipped on to the floor. She wondered if they’d stood here and weighed up what to steal and what to spoil.

She blew out a long breath and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘What sort of people could do something like this?’ she asked him despairingly. ‘It’s such wanton destruction.’

Mario didn’t answer her. He was crouching down, picking something up from the mess on the floor. It was a smashed photo frame.

‘My mother’s picture,’ he said, his voice expressionless. ‘Even my mother’s picture.’

He had stood up again by the time Liz reached him, picking her way over the mess on the floor. There was glass all over the photograph, too. His head bowed, he was carefully picking it off.

‘My mother’s picture,’ he said again. Then he began to cry.

Somehow she got him upstairs to the flat. That, at least, was untouched. Once there, he laid the photo down on a small table beside the settee and walked over to the window. He stood with his back to her, gazing down at the street.

Liz didn’t follow him immediately, not sure how best to help him. Should she offer him comfort, or leave him alone with his thoughts for a while? While she was debating the point, he began to speak.

‘My father served these people for years. Stayed open all hours to sell them ice-cream and sweets, cook them breakfasts and teas, help them celebrate their children’s birthdays. And they reward him like this.’

Liz crossed the room and stood beside him. She couldn’t bear the hurt in his voice.

‘They didn’t all do it, Mario.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘It was only a few people who did this.’ She paused, searching for the right words. There weren’t any to describe the people who had wrecked the café below them. ‘Stupid, mindless people,’ she said wearily, and knew how inadequate the description was.

He was staring fixedly out of the window. ‘And what about the people who saw it and heard it happening, and did nothing? What about them, Liz?’ He turned to face her.

‘Och, Mario,’ she breathed softly. ‘Och, Mario.’

She lifted her hand again to touch him, this time laying it flat on his chest. He jerked back as though to resist the consolation she was offering, and came up hard against the window.

‘Ow!’ he yelped. His eyes were watering. It must have hurt.

Liz laughed softly. ‘Let me kiss it better. I’m a nurse, you know.’

She pulled his head down and kissed the back of it, on his thick hair. Then she put her arms around him and held him. ‘Mario?’ she whispered.

It took him a long time to answer. When he did speak, his voice was muffled.

‘Och, Liz... Och, Liz...’

He was crying again. She could feel the wetness of his tears on her neck. Her own eyes filled up and she took her hands from his shoulders and wrapped them around his waist. She held him as tightly as she could. Then she took him by the hand and led him over to the settee.

She found the vermouth bottle and poured him a generous measure. He finished it quickly, downing it in angry gulps. She took the glass from him and laid it on the small table, careful not to put it too near the photograph. It might get knocked over and the drops left in it spill on to the picture.

‘Fancy a cuddle?’

He went into her arms again as though he were a small child, turning his face into her breast.

‘Oh, Mario,’ she breathed softly. ‘I’m so sorry this has happened. I’m really sorry.’

He lifted his head. ‘And I’m sorry for being such a milksop.’ He had every right to be bitter, but he made an attempt at a smile. ‘I can usually come up with a joke, can’t I, Liz?’ He bit his lip. ‘Or some sort of smart comment?’

‘You can,’ she agreed.

He took a quick, hurried breath. ‘Right at this moment I can’t seem to think of a single one. Would you kiss me, Elisabetta?’

Wordlessly, she bent her head and did as he asked - trying to put everything into that kiss: love, compassion, understanding, support.

He lifted his head and looked into her face. She answered the question she saw in his by leaning back on the settee, pulling him with her.

‘Liz?’ His voice was husky as he looked down at her. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes. It’s all right, Mario. It’s all right.’

He was filled with contrition. It was around midnight and they were lying together on the floor of the living room. Mario had fetched the covers from his bed to put under and over them both. He had also set a well-shaded lamp on the floor beside them.

‘Oh, God, Liz, can you ever forgive me?’

Secure in his arms, she smiled up at him. ‘Forgive you for what?’

‘Taking advantage of you, of course.’ He looked really troubled.

‘Nobody took advantage of anybody,’ she said firmly. ‘We made love. And it was beautiful.’

He lifted her hand from under the covers and kissed her fingertips, each one in turn. She laughed.

‘But I hurt you,’ he insisted. ‘I made you bleed.’

She tapped his lips with her index finger. ‘It only hurt at the beginning. Not after that. And of course I bled. You should have expected that, Signor Medical Student.’

‘Real life’s different from the textbooks,’ he said a little grimly, and kissed her again. ‘We’ll get married,’ he said after he raised his head. ‘As soon as possible. Once we’ve got my father out.’

He was beginning to lose the worried look, but his words had reminded Liz of a problem of her own.

‘Oh, God!’ she said. ‘What time is it? My father’s going to kill me. And Ma’ll be worried sick by now.’

‘They’ll think you’ve had an emergency at the hospital,’ he said. ‘Which, in a manner of speaking, you have.’

She frowned, and his voice grew gentler as he registered her concern. ‘Remember you stayed over the night of the
Athenia
?’ That’s what they’ll think has happened, Liz. And you can dash home first thing tomorrow morning before you go to work and set your mother’s mind at rest’

‘Do you think?’ She wasn’t entirely convinced, but she didn’t really see how she could travel home at this time of night either.

Mario’s next words mirrored her thoughts. ‘You’re not going anywhere at this hour.’ His voice was a little testy. Consciously or not, he moved one of his legs and laid it over both of hers, pinning her down.

‘I just asked you to marry me, Liz MacMillan.’

‘Oh, did you?’ she responded with exaggerated surprise. ‘I thought it was more like an official announcement. I didn’t realize I was actually being consulted on the matter.’

He muttered something in Italian.

‘Pardon? I’m afraid I don’t speak that language.’

‘Well, you’d better learn. After the war I’m taking you to Italy to show you off to my relatives.’

Their momentary spurt of amusement evaporated.

‘After the war,’ she repeated, and met the pain in his dark eyes.

‘We have to keep hoping,’ he said lightly. ‘Don’t we?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and then, trying to think of a way to lift both their spirits, pulled him once more towards her. ‘No more talking,’ she murmured. ‘I’m sure you can think of something else to do with your mouth.’

Liz gave a soft little moan of pleasure as he moved his hand against her warm skin and bent his head towards hers.

‘What a thing to say to an Italian...’

They were woken at six o’clock by thunderous knocking on the boarded-up door of the café. Mario hastily pulled on his trousers and ran downstairs. Enveloped in his dressing gown, Liz followed him down.

‘Mario Rossi? We have a warrant for your arrest.’

‘You can’t arrest him! He’s got a British passport.’

‘Aye - and he’s got an Italian one, too.’ It was a different sergeant from the day before.

‘He’s a British citizen,’ Liz insisted. ‘You can’t take him away! You can’t! Mario,’ she said frantically, clutching his bare arm. ‘Tell them they can’t do this to you!’

The policeman’s eyes were cold as his gaze flickered over Liz. They took in the dressing gown and the tousled hair, the knowledge that the two of them had spent the night here alone together.

‘In case you hadn’t noticed, miss, there’s a war on. We can do what we damn well please.’

Ten minutes later, Liz flung into the hospital looking for help - five minutes after her father had got there, in search of his missing daughter after she’d failed to come home the night before. His eyes reminded her of the policeman who’d just taken Mario away.

They saw the same things he had: the hastily thrown-on clothes, the uncombed hair, the fact that she clearly hadn’t spent the night in the hospital. They made the same judgement.

Thirty

‘So what happened after that?’ asked Helen in a tone of fascinated horror.

‘All hell broke loose,’ said Liz drily.

‘A wee bit of a scene?’

‘You might say that,’ said Liz, trying to sound bright and cheerful and totally in command of the situation. ‘I told him the truth.’

‘Och, Liz! Was that wise?’

‘I was fed up with all the lies, Helen. And I was so upset I wasn’t thinking straight.’ She shrugged. ‘So now I’m an ungrateful daughter, a loose woman, and I’ve broken my mother’s heart into the bargain. Not to mention being a cheap little tart.’

Despite her bravado, her bottom lip wobbled. The expression her father had used had been a lot worse than that. In silent sympathy, Helen laid a comforting hand on her arm.

‘I’m never to darken his door again,’ said Liz flippantly. ‘Or words to that effect.’ Her voice shook. ‘And I’ve not to try to get in touch with my mother. He’s going to get her to pack my things in a couple of cases, and he’ll drop them off at the Infirmary.’

A note of bleak bitterness crept into her voice. ‘Not at my grandfather’s house where I’m actually staying. He couldn’t bring himself to do that.’

‘Does your grandfather know what happened?’

‘Not the gory details. Only what happened to Mario and Mr Rossi, and that I’ve fallen out with my father.’

Helen shook her head sadly. ‘Your poor mother,’ she said. “That’s her lost both her children. I’m so sorry, Liz.’

The two girls sat in silence for a moment or two. Liz, lost and alone, had come home to Clydebank for solace. Not to Queen Victoria Row, of course. That wasn’t home any more. She’d gone to her grandfather, and to Helen. Peter had tactfully made himself scarce for an hour or two so that the girls could talk.

‘Are they going to let you see Mario?’