Wartime Family by Lizzie Lane Page B

sheets, clothes and shoes – were thrown haphazardly all over the place. Fingers covering her mouth, she ran over the flinty yard. Whoever had done this had not been content with just throwing her things around. Footprints blackened by coal dust had trodden some items into the puddles. Although not quite ruined, everything would need laundering, which was a tremendous task given the number of things strewn around.
    ‘Vandals,’ said John’s uncle, shaking his head as he patted her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry. We will soon clean this up.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s my fault.’
    He shrugged and spread his hands in the dramatic way he used daily. ‘How can you be? It is us this is aimed at, me and my darling Maria. We are Italians. People around here know we are Italians and despite us living in this country for years, they see us as the enemy.’
    ‘I’m so sorry.’
    He shrugged again. ‘It is not your fault. It is I who must apologize. These are your things.’ He gestured at the ruined cottons, linens and tapestry prints.
    Mary Anne began picking things up and a thought occurred to her. Only the family knew she’d rescued a little of the stock and stored it here. One thought followed another and her hands started to shake.
    ‘Just kids all the same,’ John’s uncle was saying.
    Auntie Maria, his wife, was less forgiving. ‘Wait till I get my hands on them. I’ll give them such a wallop.’
    ‘Not kids.’
    They both looked at her.
    ‘Not kids,’ she repeated, her voice trembling as much as her hands.
    ‘Then who …?’
    ‘I can guess who,’ she said, lowering her voice.
    They waited for her to enlighten them, but she did not do so. In her heart she felt a bitter anger. Henry! It had to be Henry.
    He’d tried soft-soaping her to get her back, telling her he was a changed man and would never hit her again. She’d rejected every plea he’d made. Michael had made her happy, and with Michael she would stay.
    ‘Look,’ she said, holding up a white sheet complete with a size-ten boot print. ‘Call this a child-sized foot print?’
    No one met the accusation in her eyes! Even Daw, who continually fought her father’s case, did not deny the likelihood that he could be responsible for this.
    ‘Your father’s quite capable of something like this,’ said Mary Anne in a brief burst of accusation. White faced, Daw just shook her head.
    ‘Wait till I see him,’ her mother muttered into the sheet. Raising her head, her eyes blazing with anger, she repeated the same words to her daughter. ‘You tell him that,’ she said, more strident now. ‘You tell him that I’ll be round to see him. You make sure you do.’
    Just then a series of firm knocks came from the shop door.
    ‘We’re closed,’ Auntie Maria shouted in response, but the knocking continued.
    She marched off, crossing herself and asking the dear Lord why she couldn’t have some peace on her afternoon off. The knocking stopped and she wasn’t long coming back. A big smile was spread all over her face.
    ‘It’s your Lizzie,’ she said to Mary Anne. ‘She’d gone by the time I got there, but—’
    ‘Gone!’ Mary Anne dashed past her, a satin slip – slightly muddy – fluttering over her arm.
    ‘She’s only down the road,’ Auntie Maria called after her. ‘She wanted to see the place where the old house used to be.’
    Mary Anne heard. Although December had gripped the air with icy fingers, she felt warm. Lizzie was home. She could see her standing on the pavement, studying the bombed-out ruins of what had once been their home. Six houses had been hit that day, and theirs was one. Biddy Young’s was another. Luckily no one had been in either of the houses. Only Mr and Mrs Crawford in number fifteen had refused to go to the shelter. They’d both been in their eighties; one bedridden and one hard of hearing. ‘If Hitler wants me, he’ll have to come and get me. I won’t be up for any fighting, that’s