GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love by Barrett Duncan; Calvi Nuala

Author:Barrett, Duncan; Calvi, Nuala [Barrett, Duncan; Calvi, Nuala]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
ISBN: 9780062328069
Amazon: B00H7LZVUO
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2014-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

The next day was a Sunday, and Bob proudly showed Sylvia around the local area, all the time holding her hand and stealing kisses whenever he could. It was a pleasant neighbourhood a couple of miles from the city centre, with a seafood shop just across the street and a cinema nearby.

In the early evening they rode the tram into the centre of town and went to the harbour. Sylvia was less than impressed – it looked shabby and unkempt, and there were a few high-rise buildings to be seen around it. Baltimore was nothing like she had imagined.

The government buildings around the post office, where Bob and his dad worked, were more appealing. There was a grand city hall with a dome in the centre and a marble exterior, even if it was rather run down.

The next day, Bob and his father had to get up at 4 a.m. for their postal rounds, but his sister Dorothy, who lived nearby, came round with her three-year-old son. She had a pretty smile and the dark hair and eyes from Mrs O’Connor’s side of the family. ‘I’ve come to take you shopping!’ she told Sylvia. Bob had left a pile of dollars to fund the trip. ‘What have you got for your wedding night?’

Sylvia showed her the nightie she had made herself, and Dorothy shook her head. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to buy you something else.’

Dorothy left her little boy with her mother and she and Sylvia took the tram into the city, getting off near the downtown shopping area, the other side of Charles Street from the government district. Sylvia was very impressed with the window displays, showing mannequins dressed in the latest fashions, and in all the shops she was overwhelmed by the range of styles and colours on offer. Everything seemed to be made with so much more material, with pleats and folds and layering that would have been hard to come by in post-war Britain.

Dorothy took her to a shoe shop, since she hadn’t come with any white shoes for the wedding. Sylvia picked out a pair of white suede heels, with a flower pattern punched into the material at the front. They were exquisitely made.

‘Why don’t we buy another pair while we’re here?’ Dorothy asked. ‘You can’t just have one pair of shoes!’

Sylvia felt giddy buying so many things at once, but encouraged by Bob’s sister she asked the salesman if she could look at a pair she’d seen in the window. ‘They’re the nigger-brown sandals,’ she said.

The man stared at her in disbelief.

‘Sylvia, we don’t use that word over here,’ Dorothy whispered.

‘Oh,’ Sylvia said, confused. Back home in England, ‘nigger’ was just a shade of brown.

They bought the shoes as quickly as possible and hurried out of the shop.

Next, Dorothy took her into a department store and they headed for the lingerie department, where they bought a beautiful pink lacy nightie for Sylvia’s wedding night, along with some satin slips, camiknickers and a dressing gown.

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