By the Waters of Liverpool by Forrester Helen

Author:Forrester, Helen [Helen forrester]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780007369300
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As war began to breathe down the back of our necks, our socially isolated family received unexpected visitors.

A fussy, elderly man who lived in the next street arrived to show us how to put on our gas masks. He was apologetic to the ladies because their hair styles were likely to be disturbed by the straps, since it was essential that the masks fit tightly. He recommended our keeping our hair short. He also warned us that mascara was liable to melt and run down our faces while we had our masks on.

Fiona was the only member of the family who used mascara, and she continued placidly to brush it on in front of the piece of mirror wedged into the kitchen window frame. It made her already huge eyelashes even more seductive. She brushed her hair up into the newly fashionable high sweeps round her face, and at the back bouncing curls fell to her shoulders.

My bun got so tangled up with the straps of the mask that it was as well that there never was a gas attack.

The Air Raid Warden knocked peremptorily on our door. He lived a few doors away from us and had been unemployed for years. He had a reputation for being utterly lazy, but he took his present duties very seriously, and demanded to see our blackout curtains.

We had none. We had no curtains at all upstairs, except for a short net curtain across the front bedroom window. We did have, however, the original big wooden shutters of the house in the downstairs rooms, and had always used these instead of curtains in the living room. The Warden agreed that these would make excellent blackout and a good defence against flying glass. He tutted like a maiden aunt over the bare bedroom windows, and ordered us to buy black cloth and make curtains.

‘Or yer can paste double layers of brown paper over t’ panes. Another thing you can do, is make wooden frames covered with thick paper and fit ‘em into t’ windows each night, like.’

Mother said frostily that we would just have to manage without candlelight in the bedrooms. She was not going to blot out the daylight with brown paper, and she could not afford curtains or frames.

The Warden stuck his blue chin in the air and replied that the windows must be covered – by law – in case the flare of a match or other casual light flashed out of them and brought German bombs down upon us.

Mother was not going to take orders from any local oaf, and retorted, ‘What rubbish!’

The Warden stood firm. ‘I tell yez, you’ll be fined if you don’t cover ‘em,’ he warned, his dark Irish face grim as he held his temper in.

Muttering maledictions, Mother went out to buy blackout material for the front bedroom. Then, in the copper in the basement, we dyed two of our few sheets and pinned one over the back kitchen window, which lacked shutters, and one over the window of the boys’ bedroom.

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