Amy's Children by Olga Masters

Author:Olga Masters [Masters, Olga]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction classic
ISBN: 9781922148162
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2013-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

22

Amy went to Brennans in Newtown in her lunch hour next day and bought two pairs of silk stockings at three and elevenpence each. It is stupid the way I am sucking up to her, Amy thought, but all the time imagining handing the stockings to Kathleen when she got home to Petersham.

Kathleen had never had silk stockings, and if Amy hadn’t become friendly with a girl in underwear and hosiery she would never have been allowed two pairs. Silk stockings had all but disappeared with wartime rationing. A dye to paint legs was hailed with great enthusiasm until it was discovered that perspiring feet sent the dye running into shoes and it was abandoned. Legs were bared, except in the event of gifts of stockings from American servicemen, repaying households for their hospitality during Rest and Recreation leave.

Good-looking girls crossing long silken legs in trams and trains were given long hard stares and it was whispered more than once: “A Yank’s ground sheet, bet your money on that!”

The stockings quivered from their wrapping, shimmering as they dropped fold after fold from Kathleen’s hands. She was on a chair in the sitting room, ready in her brown dress. She whipped off her white socks with one hand and drew the stockings on up to her thighs, after a moment raising agonized eyes to Amy.

“Garters!” she cried. Amy ran for her chocolate box of cottons where a roll of elastic and scissors was tucked into a corner.

“Good and beautiful Amy!” Kathleen cried, throwing out a leg to bind the elastic around her thigh, snip the length off, then begin a matching one, moistening the end of the cotton with a dart of her little tongue before threading the needle.

Amy went to the bedroom and sat on the bed and closed her eyes. “Thank heavens,” she said aloud. “Thank, thank heavens!” She caught up her blouse and ran to the kitchen to heat the iron.

Amy had to restrain Kathleen from opening the front door and waiting in the doorway or on the step.

“In the sitting room! We’ll wait there,” she said, brushing her skirt, although it was spotless, newly dry cleaned at Lincoln’s shop.

“I know why that place is called Maytime Dry Cleaning,” Kathleen said.

“Of course. Because May is a nice fresh white flower,” Amy answered.

“No!” And Kathleen’s hair swung back and forth like a branch in a gale. “It’s the letters of your name.”

“Oh, rubbish!” Amy said.

“You’ve gone red.”

“I have not!” Amy spoke too soon, before she opened her little powder compact and studied her face.

The doorbell rang and Amy’s body jerked and Kathleen raised a cool hand. “The reason I’m going tonight is to watch out for you, Amy.”

She slipped past her to open the door, speaking over her shoulder with her hand on the knob. “Someone has to.”

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