Paint on the Smiles by Grace Thompson Page B

masks arrived and with them the realization that war was frighteningly real. The town was one of those being given a supply of household shelters, and auxiliary fire pumps were presented to assist in the town’s defences.
    It was also in May that, after encouragement, women busied themselves building supplies of clean white cloth to use as bandages as well as preparing for the evacuation of children from the danger spots when war was declared. No longer ‘if’, but ‘when’.
    At the end of the month, a sea and air battle took place to enable the forces to demonstrate how and what the town could do to protect itself. There was a practice blackout and shops advertised aprons and blankets made of asbestos, which could be used to put out fires in the event of a fire-bomb attack.
    It was frightening yet the organization of summer on the beaches went ahead as if the rumours were nothing more than the government’s pretence to the German threat that they were ready and strongly able to combat any foolish attempt to begin battle.
    Van played tennis with Edwin during the long evenings and skated and danced and picnicked on her days off. She was showing a quickness and an intelligent ability to deal with the running of the shop with its complex seasonal changes. Ada and Cecily were proud of the way she fitted into their ways. She had, after initial problems, become very reliable.
    Ada and Phil continued to live with Phil’s mother who, although looking frail, was still keeping the whitewashed cottage as neat and orderly as always, and producing a meal for them every evening. Ada tried in vain to be allowed to help, but apart from bringing home theshopping and paying all the bills, Mrs Spencer managed contentedly alone. She had never learned to read and took great delight in deceiving others and convincing them she could. She would listen while the news items were read to her, marking mentally the section of the pages where these were to be found.
    With the absence of Ada while Phil was in prison, it had been Gladys Davies who read the main news items to her and she continued to do so. Gladys was impressed by the woman’s memory as she pretended to read the paper, reciting without error all that she had been told.
    ‘Fancy delivering post to foreign parts by aeroplane,’ she greeted Phil and Ada with one evening. She was referring to the newly augmented transatlantic Air Mail service. ‘A bit different from when that Amy Johnson flew to Australia in twenty days or so. Or when that man Corrigan went to fly to America, turned the wrong way and ended up in Ireland! There’s a thing! Fancy if you posted a letter to Ireland and it ended up in America!’
    She would prattle on as she brought dishes to the table, seemingly unaware of how little Phil contributed, although he occasionally laughed at her reminders of things long ago. She would take her son into his workshop while Ada did the dishes and talk to him of the customers he’d once served, hoping one day to see him rise out of his lethargy and start up the machines. But he would stare vacantly around him as if he were in a strange place with nothing even vaguely connected with his past or his future. Then he would walk back to the living room, crouch near the fire and play patience, while Ada talked about the happenings of the day.
    He gave up playing patience in June and began counting things. Tassels on the chenille table cover, flowers on the wallpaper, bars on the grate, roses on the cloth covering the kitchen table. He would become agitated when his tired eyes refused to separate them and make him lose count. He would begin again and again, anxiously holding threads in his hands, or covering the roses with dishes as he counted, or touching the bars of the fire with the long brass poker.
    The doctor called regularly and wanted to take Phil into hospital but Ada wouldn’t hear of it.
    ‘Can you imagine what it would do to his mother if he went away again?’ she argued.