Spoils of War
while you change.’
    ‘Not one yard.’
    ‘Come on, Megan, be a sport.’
    To Bethan’s amazement, Andrew picked up her aunt, dumping her in Dino’s arms before opening the passenger door.
    ‘As far as the house and not one yard further,’ Megan relented.
    ‘Told you I’d tame her,’ Dino crowed.
    After making sure Megan’s coat was inside the car, Dino climbed into the driver’s side, and turned the ignition. The car inched forward to the raucous accompaniment of dozens of rattling tins that Angelo and Alfredo had filled with stones and tied to the back bumper. Unable to hear herself think, Bethan stepped back and found herself standing next to Tina.
    ‘Anything wrong?’ she asked, wondering why Tina wasn’t in the forefront of the hubbub as she usually was.
    ‘Just tired.’ Tony’s revelation was too new, too devastating for Tina to contemplate sharing it with anyone – even Bethan.
    ‘Good luck,’ Bethan called as Dino slid the window open and waved. ‘Be happy.’
    ‘That’s an order, Morelli,’ David shouted from beside her. ‘I’m sorry, Bethan,’ he apologised, ‘I can’t take your husband up on his invitation. Pressure of work. With Dino away for the next week I’ll have to put in twice as many hours. You’ll explain?’
    ‘Of course.’
    Sensing rather than seeing Andrew watching them, he tipped his hat to her, as though she were a stranger. ‘See you around, ma’am.’
    *……*……*
    ‘No – no – no – no – I won’t hear one more word!’ Mrs Ronconi’s dark eyes glittered hard with raw anger as she shook her diminutive fist at Tony. Half the height of her second son, and thinner and frailer than she’d been before the war, Mrs Ronconi still had the power to intimidate her children.
    There was something ridiculous in the fierce altercation between mother and son – comic farce bordering on tragedy, worthy of Chaplin or Keaton – but neither Gina nor Luke, the only ones in the family who’d been brave enough to stay in the kitchen once the shouting had started, were laughing.
    ‘I would rather die than accept a German into this family and that is absolutely my last word.’
    ‘Mama –’
    ‘Antonio,’ her voice changed as her anger turned to pleading, ‘isn’t it enough that they killed your father and made a prisoner of Angelo all these years?’
    ‘Not all Germans are bad, Mama. Gabrielle didn’t hurt anyone.’
    ‘But she is a German and they start wars, force us to fight them, make us suffer and now you want to fra … frat …’
    ‘Fraternise, Mama,’ Luke supplied helpfully, unable to stand the tension a moment longer.
    ‘That’s it! Fraternise! And it is forbidden. All the newspapers say it is forbidden.’
    ‘Not since last July, Mama,’ Tony contradicted.
    ‘So, because someone tells you it’s all right to go off with enemy women, you do! What was this woman doing when all the other Germans were running around fighting, killing, looting, burning, bombing and drowning innocent people and imprisoning your brother – and Charlie – have you seen Charlie? They put a nice, quiet man like him in one of those horror camps. They made films of them and showed them in the pictures.’
    ‘I’ve seen the places as well as the films, Mama.’
    ‘And you still want to marry with the enemy.’
    ‘The war’s over, Mama. We won.’
    ‘It’s not over for me – not ever for me.’ Mrs Ronconi’s voice softened slightly as she gazed reverently at the photograph of her husband that dominated the chimneybreast. Rigidly posed in his best black suit, white shirt with wing collar and dark tie, his face adorned with a modest version of the luxuriant moustache he had worn in his later years, he looked younger than even she remembered him ever being. After a few moments during which neither Tony, Gina nor Luke dared speak, she turned from the photograph to confront her son. ‘Antonio, you marry this girl and you will no longer be my son or a member of
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