That Liverpool Girl by Ruth Hamilton

Author:Ruth Hamilton [Hamilton, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780330522243
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

There was more wrong with Frances Morrison’s house than had met the eye of a builder speculating in the dark after the bombing was over. Several homes had been disturbed, while the old couple in the bungalow had both perished. Work continued during daylight hours, and all available men toiled to stabilize the buildings. Liverpool already had many homeless families, so labourers battled to hang on to as many homes as possible.

A system developed almost of its own accord. While fuel lines and water pipes were checked and restored where necessary, neighbours who were unaffected did the cooking. It finally reached the stage where no one knew whose crockery was whose, so items were piled up until someone ran out of plates or cups and came to reclaim her property. The someone would arrive, find her displaced items, and stop for a chat.

All of this suited Frances Morrison down to the ground. Eileen became make-up artist, dresser and manicurist, while the old woman bucked up no end during this supposedly dark time. She had visitors almost daily. Some had exciting tales to tell, and she lapped them up like a thirsty cat with a bowl of milk. One neighbour spoke about her son who, at sixteen, was already a volunteer fire-fighter. The rules regarding age had been bent, and that young man was happy to stand with two others and hold on to a massive hose through which many pounds of pressure flowed. ‘If they let go, it would kill their comrades.’

A nurse with a badly affected house told tales of women giving birth while buildings collapsed all round them, of people so badly injured that only morphine would do, of the packing of open wounds, of death and tears and fury. She had a fair share of funny stories as well. A man who lost a leg in the Great War lost it all over again. ‘Not a mark on him, but his house was flattened, and he ordered his rescuers to get back in there and find his missing limb. Needless to say, they didn’t.’

If it hadn’t been real before, if the red skies at midnight had not managed to convey the message, news from living, breathing people brought it home. One woman could never stay long, because she had to keep a close eye on her husband, who was yet another victim. ‘Pulling dead children out of debris is one thing, Miss Morrison. But pulling out a piece of a child finished him.’ The poor man had lost his mind. So keen had he been to find the rest of the infant that he had dug himself into a pile of smouldering debris which had almost become his grave. There was a possibility that he might never regain his senses.

The knitting began then. When it came to knitting, Miss Frances Morrison displayed all the dexterity of a small iceberg approaching a miniature Titanic. But Eileen encouraged her before retrieving socks clearly made for giants, dwarfs, or people with deformed feet.

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