To The Grave Read Free Page B

the war began they had a better stock of things with which to make do and mend .
    When Mena returned to her bed, she found that she was incapable of sleep.  She tried a book from the pile of classics on the floor beside her, but neither Dumas nor Stevenson could hold her attention.  Instead, she wrapped herself in her bedcovers and sat in her favourite chair by the window where she watched the sunrise.  It was a perfect morning: no snow, but the frost was thick enough to give the illusion and if it wasn’t going to snow then a clear and crisp sunny day was just what she liked.  The mist had all but gone now and the world outside her window was no longer silver but orange like her gift, which was back in her hands, slowly turning in her lap.
    She was deep in thought, her gaze fixed on the horizon while she wondered how her brothers were today.  She said good morning to each of their remembered faces, which she did every morning, silently praying for their safe return.  She knew that their Christmas fare would be better than hers again this year.  They would have real roast turkey and roast potatoes, with cranberry sauce and pickles, peas and corn, spread with real butter, too, no doubt.  At least, she liked to think they would.  She thought about the ‘mock turkey’ she’d helped her mother prepare: sausage-meat with chopped apple and onion and two parsnips for the legs.  It tasted nothing like turkey, but as with so many things now, it was all about appearance.
    Appearance.  Mena hadn’t given much thought to what she would wear today, but with the arrival of her orange, she knew that she had to come up with something special.  She felt it her duty to look her best - all part of the war effort and doing one’s bit, which brought her to the makeup issue.  That was another matter altogether and one on which her mother avidly disapproved.  But it was Christmas Day and she was every bit sixteen and a half years old.  The only thing that concerned her was how to improvise with what remained of the few items she’d managed to scrounge off Mary on her last visit a few months ago - she didn’t want to arrive at breakfast looking like a rag doll.
    There was a Boots in Leicester and she was dying to try their No.7 range.  She hadn’t been there in a while, but the last time she looked they had foundation cream and complexion milk, which cost three shillings each, rouge cream and nine different shades of face powder.  The lipstick came in so many colours, it was like being in a sweet shop, but Pop wouldn’t waste the money even if her mother had approved.  ‘We’ve no knowing how long this war will last,’ he’d say, and that would be the end of it.  She hoped Mary would come up trumps with a few leftover essentials for her Christmas present this year, so she could make a better job of things for the evening.
    Mena unwrapped herself from the bedspread and sat at her dressing table.  She set the orange down in the sunlight from the window and frowned at herself.  Her hair was too straight for what she had in mind.  She wanted long golden waves for the daytime, straight at the sides to frame her face before gently curling onto her shoulders like that Hollywood actress she’d seen in a movie last summer: Veronica Lake.  For the evening it had to be an up-do.  Nothing looked classier.
    She opened a drawer and found her makeup kit - such as it was.  The only item of real makeup she had was a stub of lipstick that she had to get at with a cotton bud because what little remained was recessed far into the tube.  She had rouge for her cheeks but that wasn’t really makeup.  She’d crushed a square of watercolour paint into as fine a powder as she could manage using the mortar and pestle from the kitchen once when her mother was out, and she had to use it sparingly on moist cheeks so as not to overdo it or out came the rag doll.  She had nothing at all for her eyes, but then her father had always told