No Moon (3 page)

“What in the world? After all I’ve said, into the scullery. Lou, hand me that old towel, please,” Mother says. “It’s only a bit of blood. It looks worse than it is. Tom, stand still. If you’re big enough to fight, you’re big enough to put up with a bruise or two.” Mother sounds harsh, but she doesn’t mean it. She cleans their cuts gently.

As I rinse the blood and dirt out of the towel, Father comes into the scullery. “Alright, who started it?” He looks from one twin to the other.

The boys hang their heads.

“If I’d come home looking the way you do when I was your age, I’d have felt your grandfather’s belt. And I’d have been sent to bed, without supper. I work hard to put those shirts on your backs, and now look at them!” He bends down to put his boots on again.

“Sorry, Father,” they whisper.

“Sorry is not good enough. You’ve got too much
time on your hands, running wild the way you do. I don’t know what they teach you in that school. As if there is not enough trouble, with the price of fruit and vegetables sky-high. I hear talk of strikes down at the docks. Women are throwing themselves in front of horses and demanding the vote. Whatever next? No one seems to know their place anymore.

“This Saturday, and every Saturday from now on, you’ll both do a man’s work. Great big boys of eight should be a help, not causing trouble!”

Father can’t bear to see Mother upset. He’s not angry about the boys fighting. He just wants everything to stay the way it is and he and Mother to decide what’s best for me!

“You boys will be too tired, after you’ve loaded and unloaded a few sacks of potatoes at the market, to be thinking about fighting. Uncle Alf and I can do with some help.”

“Yes, Father.” The twins nudge each other, all smiles again.

“Good-bye, my little mouse,” he says, patting Emily’s cheek. “See you later, Flo.” At the door, he turns back towards me. “You’ll go into a factory over my dead body. No daughter of mine is going to slave over a machine and look like an old woman by the time she’s sixteen. I won’t have it. You’ll stay home until we decide otherwise. Mother is always telling
me how she doesn’t know how she’d manage without you!”

The door slams and George wakes up crying.

“Can we go out to play until bedtime, Mother?” The boys look at her hopefully.

“Hand me your shirts and go upstairs. See if you can keep George quiet for a bit, and then I’ll see.” She shakes her head as they pelt up the stairs, pushing each other.

“Lou, Father’s right, and one day you’ll thank us for it. Next year, maybe you can be spared, and then we’ll look round for something suitable. I’m going to soak these shirts. Emily, it’s time to put your dolly away.”

I didn’t really expect Mother and Father to say anything different, but why can’t I help out, like Kathleen?

Miss Pringle told us last week in Sunday school that there are many different ways to help in the world.
What I’d like to know is, why is it always the eldest who gets to do things first?

Father says that life’s not fair, but that there’s always someone worse off than you are. Know your place in this world, and do the best you can. No one can ask more of you than that!

How am I going to know what my place in the world is if I don’t get a chance to take a look at it?

“I
’ve never known it to be this hot, so early in June. The milk’s off, again. Emily, come out from under that table and pop round to Mrs. Bernardi’s. Ask her if she can spare us some milk for tea, until tomorrow. And don’t forget to say please and thank you. Here’s the jug, mind how you go, that’s my big girl,” Mother says.

Emily, at four and a half, still thinks being sent on errands is a treat. She comes back in a few minutes.

“I never spilt a drop. Mrs. Bernardi’s got a pretty plate with a picture of the king and queen on it, Mother.”

“Has she, now? And who’s going to see their majesties ride in a carriage?”

“Me!” Emily jumps up and down.

It makes me hot, just looking at her. The coronation is in three weeks’ time, on a Thursday.

“I’m thankful they didn’t choose wash day,” Mother says.
Would the earth have swallowed us up if they had?

We are all going, even little George. As Mother says, he won’t remember anything, but it’s fitting the whole family pays its respects.

George will ride on Father’s shoulders. I know he’ll love the bands. Father plans to leave at dawn and has picked out a good spot along the route.

Kathleen and I are hoping to go to a band concert in the park that evening. Mother says we’ll take sandwiches and a thermos of tea. “Everyone in the city will be out, so you’d better be ready. I’m not waiting while you girls fuss over your hats,” she says.

“Let’s hope the weather stays fine. If everyone brings umbrellas, it’ll look like a funeral!” I tell Mother. Imagine, if I was at work and earning money, I could buy her a coronation plate, or maybe a mug.

I slice the cold mutton for supper–the last of Sunday’s roast.

“There are cold potatoes and pickles for your father,” Mother says. They’re what we have every week; I don’t need reminding. I’m slicing the loaf when Kathleen comes rushing in. She’s all flushed, and her eyes are bright.
What has she been up to this time?

“Sorry I’m late, Mother. It’s busy at the shop right now.”

After supper, Mother takes the little ones off to bed. Kathleen rolls up her sleeves and washes the dishes; I dry and put them away. Father’s gone out for his evening pint at the Black Hart.

When Mother comes back down, Kathleen asks, “Is it alright if Lou and I have a bit of a walk?”

“Off you go then, but don’t be too long.” Mother picks up her mending.

We walk down the street towards Vauxhall Bridge. As soon as we’re out of sight of our house, Kathleen stops and grabs my arm. “I’ll burst if I don’t tell you, Louisa. I’ve given in my notice!” She’s breathless.

“You haven’t! Whatever will Father say? Kathleen Gardener, here I am, pining to go out to work, and you hand in your notice!” I must have spoken too loudly because anyone would think we were being followed, the way Kath shushes me.

“Not so loud–people are looking. Keep walking. Well, of course I’m going to tell Mother and Father… at the right moment.”

“What made you do it?” I ask her.

“Last week, a customer left Saturday’s
Daily Mail
on the counter. On Monday morning, I took the newspaper to tidy away. Miss Jenny was serving a particularly fussy lady, so I guessed they’d be
occupied for a while. She sent me down to unpack some new stock, and that gave me an opportunity to look over the
SITUATIONS VACANT
. I’m always hoping for something better. There was one from a milliner who needed an apprentice. I tore out the address and asked Miss Jenny if I might leave half an hour early. When I offered to make it up next day, she let me go.

“Don’t you think it was an omen that I’d worn my straw hat that day–the one I’d just finished trimming? Lou, the milliner has the most elegant establishment! We’re going there now…”

Kathleen and I link arms and cross the street near the Church of St. Savior. As we pass the cabman’s shelter opposite, we hear a whistle.

“Don’t look up, Lou,” Kath says. She sounds exactly like Mother. We turn onto Lupus Street and walk up to the corner of Glasgow Terrace.

“Here we are,
Madame Claudine’s
.” Kathleen points to the name above the shop. “Isn’t that a beautiful name? It’s French.”

I stare at the window display: a delicate gray hat with a feather curling up from the brocade ribbon round the brim and a veil glistening with tiny pearls. The table is draped with a pearl-colored shawl, and a string of pearls lies gleaming between the folds.

“That’s an ostrich feather.” Kath preens, as if she’d arranged the plume herself. “Madame serves tea to
her clients, or lemonade. Our dream come true.” She sighs happily.

I am just the least bit envious, pleased for my sister, but it is her dream, not mine. “However did you get taken on in such an elegant shop, Kath?” I ask her.

“After I left Miss Jenny’s and found the salon, I waited. A lady came out, followed by a maid who carried a gold-and-white striped hatbox. A chauffeur opened the automobile door, and they drove off. I took a deep breath, straightened my hat, and went inside. A lady wearing a white tunic over a black silk skirt came forward. Her hair was black and shiny, coiled into a perfect knot, and fastened with a tortoiseshell comb. She spoke to me as nicely as if there were a chauffeur waiting for me too.”

“‘May I be of service, Mademoiselle?’

“I curtsied before explaining that I had come about the position of apprentice.

“She asked my name and what experience I’d had. Then she wrote the answers down on a little notepad, with a tiny gold pencil.

“I told her I’d always wanted to learn how to make beautiful hats and how much I admired the window display.

“‘What is it you admire?’ she asked me.

“‘It makes me want to see more of your hats, Madame. It is as if you are offering a taste, instead of the whole meal at once.’”

How does Kathleen find the right words to say?

“‘I’ll work hard; you’ll never be sorry. Please give me a chance, Madame. I want to learn,’ I explained, and she seemed to approve of that.

“She asked me to take off my hat and to put it on the counter. She turned it this way and that and asked if I had trimmed it myself. She must have approved because she took me into the little back room, where she works on her designs.

“What a muddle! There were all kinds of fabrics–lace and muslins, silks and ribbons–tumbled about on the shelves. She’d dropped pins on the floor, and the sewing machine had no cover on it. Miss Jenny would have had palpitations if she’d seen it. I said I’d straighten it up in no time at all.

“She waved her hands at me helplessly, jangling her bracelets, and shrugged her shoulders.

“‘I have only recently opened the salon,’ she said. ‘I am an artiste,
naturellement
I create each hat uniquely for every one of my clients, but with no help…’ I could tell that she has never had to clean or tidy up after herself. A proper lady she is, from Paris, France.

“I’m going to keep that place spotless. I’ll make myself so useful that she’ll wonder how she ever did without me! I am to start next week, and she will pay me a pound a month. That’s a whole shilling a week more than Miss Jenny gave me. Twelve pounds a year, Lou!”

“What did Miss Jenny say when you told her?” I ask, when Kathleen finally runs out of breath.

“I don’t think she minded. She said her niece wants to work in the shop. Well, she’ll come cheap, seeing she’s a relative. Miss Jenny agreed to give me a character reference, though Madame did not even ask for one!”

“You talked too much to give her a chance. I am proud of you, Kath.” I give her arm a squeeze. “But you’re going to have to tell Mother and Father, before they hear that you’ve given in your notice,” I warn her.

“I will, tonight. Stay close by when I tell them, won’t you, Lou? And, one day, we will have a salon of our own, the way we always planned….”

Father’s sitting outside the scullery door smoking his pipe as we return to the house. He taps the ash out on the back steps and follows us into the hot kitchen.

Mother is just closing the oven door–she’s been baking. I am beginning to dread what is about to happen–Father is going to be angry with Kathleen. It is too hot to have arguments tonight. It feels like the threat of a thunderstorm.

“I baked some sour-milk buns. Had a nice walk, did you, girls? Kettle’s on the boil; make some tea please, Kathleen. Louisa, go up and tell those rascals
there’ll be smacks if they’re not in bed in five minutes,” Mother warns.

The twins are wrestling on the floor. I grab Tom by the waist and Harry by an arm. Managing to separate them, I shoo both boys into bed. George watches us wide-eyed, standing up in his crib. He’s started to take his first steps. I never thought he would, the way we all carry him around. Emily runs to his every bidding, a willing slave.

“You’d better get to sleep, all three of you, before Father comes upstairs,” I tell them.

George puts his thumb in his mouth and lets me tuck him in. “Lou, Lou,” he says, and my stomach turns over. He’s our Johnny, all over again.

“No more shoving, Tom, I saw you. Keep to your own side of the bed.” I pretend to glare at the twins.

“It was Harry, not me!”

“I don’t care which of you it was–stop it. Mother said smacks if she hears another word.” It’s all I can do not to burst out laughing at their antics. I close their door.

Father’s voice reaches me as I come downstairs.

“You’ve done what?” he bellows. He and Mother are sitting at the kitchen table. The tea’s poured. Kathleen stands facing them. When I join her, Father glares at me.

“I suppose you knew all about it, too? Children
doing as they please, money wasted on ribbons and coronations, and the working man is nothing, not even in his own home! I don’t need another upset this month, what with the docks on strike, my fruit rotting in the crates, and crops withered from the heat. How am I supposed to make a living? And now, Madam here tells me she’s handed in her notice. Where’s your respect?”