No Moon (2 page)

“Johnny?” I ask, and sit up.

Kathleen puts her arm around me.

“You had a bad dream, Lou. Johnny’s with the angels now.”

There are times when something reminds me of him again–the way the sun glitters on the River Thames…Mother’s anxious look if one of the young ones comes home late, after play.

It wasn’t long before Father stopped delivering groceries for Mr. Dawson. Uncle Alf spoke about them going into partnership at Covent Garden, selling produce at his stall.

“You’re my brother, Jack,” Uncle Alf would say. “It stands to reason I want you as a partner. We’re family, aren’t we?”

I overheard Mother talking to Mrs. Bernardi from next door about it. “It’s the pitying looks he can’t stand. He doesn’t want to be reminded. He’ll do better with Alf. No one knows his fruits and vegetables like my Jack–he’ll go when he’s ready.”

Uncle Alf came to see us one evening and brought a big round yellow piece of fruit from the market. He cut it up in wedges and gave Kathleen and me a piece each to taste. “Very popular with all the chefs, this is. They buy them to serve up for their lordships’
breakfasts. Grapefruit, they’re called,” he said.

I watched Kathleen pucker up her mouth and run into the scullery. I licked my piece with the tip of my tongue. “It’s horrible! I don’t want it.”

Mother slapped my bottom, not hard though! “Don’t you be so rude to your uncle Alf,” she said. “It’s a special treat. Sorry, Alf.”

Kathleen came back in, wiping her mouth. “It might taste better with a bit of sugar on top, Uncle Alf.”

“Quite right. You are a clever one and pretty as a picture. So are you, Lou.” He put a penny in the pocket of my pinafore. “Mind you share!” Uncle Alf said. “Come on, Jack, I’ll stand you a pint, and we’ll drink to our partnership:
Alf and Jack Gardener, Fresh Produce
.”

That year I started school, two years after Kathleen. Every day, we’d walk home together. One afternoon, instead of Mother waiting for us at the scullery door, Mrs. Bernardi stood by the kitchen table. She was buttering thin slices of bread and cutting them into triangles. She put them on the pretty flowered plate that Mother told us had been a wedding present. We never used it!

“You carry the plate, Kathleen, and Louisa can bring up the cup.” Mrs. Bernardi led the way upstairs, holding the tray with our brown teapot, the milk jug, and a bowl of sugar.

Where was Mother? Why weren’t we going to have our tea in the kitchen?
We were never allowed to bring food upstairs.

Mother’s bedroom door was open, and she was sitting up in bed. Mother was always the first one up and dressed in the morning, and her day did not end until long after we were asleep.

“There you are at last, my two big girls. I have a surprise to show you!” She held a bundle in each arm, tightly wrapped in shawls. “These are your new brothers. This is Harry, and this one is Tom. Aren’t they beautiful?” Mother asked us.

“Twin boys!” Mrs. Bernardi said.

“Why are they all red?” I asked.

“They’ve been on a long journey in the doctor’s bag, and they’re tired. Now you go down and have your tea,” Mother said.

“I’ve seen the doctor’s bag–there’s not room in there for two babies.” Kathleen looked puzzled.

I saw Mother wink at Mrs. Bernardi, who said, “The doctor brought them one at a time.” She and Mother looked pleased.

The boys’ faces didn’t stay red, but their hair did. They both have the same snub noses and identical freckled faces. Only Mother can tell them apart.

Thank goodness the next baby was a girl! She was born when I was nine. Emily is the image of Kathleen, with her auburn curls. Father’s hair used to be red,
too, before the gray crept in. Mother and I are fair, and I’m glad my hair is straight–it makes it easier to braid.

Mother said, “That’s the last one, or we’ll be eating and sleeping in shifts!” But after Emily, there was one more: Little George was born in 1910, the year our king, Edward VII, died, the year after I turned twelve and left school. Mother said she needed me at home to help with the children and the chores.

Who invented Mondays and Tuesdays? Every week I think the washing and ironing will never get done. I don’t know whose shirts get dirtier or ripped more often–my father’s or the boys’! And I hate touching raw meat before I put it through the grinder, to mince for shepherd’s pie. But I love taking the young ones for walks and stealing five minutes with Mother for a chat and a cup of tea!

I
’ve been hoping and hoping that I can go out to work like Kathleen. She found herself a job the minute she left school. She got taken on at Miss Jenny’s Drapery, where she’d been going every time she had the chance. Kathleen’s been crocheting and sewing and making clothes over since we were little girls.

Mother and Father didn’t seem the least bit surprised when she told them that Miss Jenny had agreed to hire her, for three shillings a week. Last Easter, Kathleen bought a few ribbons and bits of lace from the Odds & Ends bin and trimmed all our hats. She’s doing what she loves best.

“I know I could earn a few pence extra as a finisher in the blouse factory, but I’ll learn more at Miss Jenny’s, won’t I?” Kathleen asked. Mother said that
it was fine to begin with and told her that she could keep half her wages for herself. The rest goes into the housekeeping jar.

Since King Edward died on May 6, people are wearing mourning bands to show their respect. Kathleen says they are running out of black crepe in the shop.

She confides in me, though. “I thought I’d like working in a drapery shop, Lou, but there’s no challenge in it for me–the same faces, people wanting the same bits of ribbon. And if a customer asks me for advice about a pattern, Miss Jenny sends me down to count stock. She’s showing that she’s in charge, but what would it hurt if she gave me a bit of responsibility for a change? If she’d let me arrange the window display, I’d soon get rid of all that fuss and clutter. And another thing–some of the girls I went to school with are earning five or six shillings a week!”

“But it’s a start, Kath–you’re earning money, and you’re out of the house doing something different.”

I long for it to be my turn. I wish I had a bit more gumption like Kathleen, the way she makes things happen–talking her way into Miss Jenny’s without even telling Mother and Father until it was all arranged. I wouldn’t dare!

The coronation will be held next year, on June 22, 1911. Mother says if George had been another girl,
she’d have named him after the new queen instead of after the new king, George V. It’s just as well he’s a boy, so he can share a room with the twins.

Kathleen does not think Queen Mary is as beautiful and stylish as King Edward’s widow, Queen Alexandra. People adore her and say she is still the loveliest woman in London. But I like Queen Mary, with her shy smile and delicate complexion. Kathleen admires her “exquisite” taste in hats. I had to guess what that word meant!

When Emily is asleep, Kathleen tells me how she’s got her life planned. Mine, too. She’s like Mother and Father–she doesn’t ask me if that’s the life I want!

“Miss Jenny’s is a stepping stone, that’s all, Lou,” Kathleen whispers. “I won’t stay there forever. One day I’ll open a hat salon and a tea parlor, so we can serve tea and pastries to the grand society ladies–after they’ve bought their hats!” She jumps out of bed and swans up and down the room.

“May I be of assistance, your royal highness?” Kathleen makes a deep curtsy. Emily stirs, threatening to wake up. I can’t help laughing at Kathleen. She jumps back into bed and tickles me until I beg for mercy.

“We’ll call the salon the Gardener Sisters,” she says.

“And who is going to serve your grand ladies and make fancy pastries?” I ask her, knowing full well
she has decided that I am to stay in the kitchen. As if I don’t spend enough time there already!

“You will, Lou. Naturally, you will be in charge of all that side of things. Emily can serve when she’s old enough; you’ll train her. You’re ever so patient with the little ones.”

I remind her that Emily won’t be little forever, that she may have her own dreams, but Kathleen’s lost in a make-believe world.

“We’ll all wear black silk dresses,” Kathleen tells me.

Silk?

Here I am, in the middle of a hot afternoon, day-dreaming just like Kathleen. Young George fusses, reminding me I’m supposed to put him down for his nap. I still have to cook carrots and parsnips to put in the cottage pie Mother is making for supper. Emily plays quietly under the kitchen table with her rag doll. I heat the water to start the vegetables cooking. Thank goodness our twins are not back from school yet!

“I’ll take George upstairs, shall I, Mother?”

She wipes her hand across her forehead, leaving a streak of flour. “Thanks, Lou, I’m almost finished rolling out the pastry.” She cuts a perfect circle, leaving a scrap for Emily to whisk off the edge and gobble down.

“Now where did that bit of pastry go?” Mother says. “Is that mouse back in my kitchen? I’ll make a cup of tea before the boys get home.”

I carry George upstairs, and he falls asleep at once.
How can I persuade Mother to let me go out to work too?
I’ve been teaching Emily to do all kinds of small chores.
Wouldn’t it be better for me to bring in a bit of money to help with the rent?
Father says the landlord’s raising it.

I go back downstairs. Busy as usual, I mop up spills, finish off the last of the week’s ironing, and give the scullery a good sweep. Now I’m behind with the vegetables.

The stewing beef has been simmering on the stove all morning. I chop the last potato and add more onions because that’s how Father likes his pie. Mother swiftly trims the now-tender meat before mixing it with the partly cooked potatoes, carrots, and parsnips and covering the lot with the pastry lid. She opens the oven door, and a wave of heat makes our kitchen hotter than ever.

I wipe down the table, dry my hands on my apron, and set out two mugs. The tea’s steeped. Mother pours milk into the mugs and we sit down.

Now’s my chance. I try not to sound too eager. I don’t want Mother to think I’m not happy at home.

“A girl I know has been taken on at Black’s Glove Factory, and the foreman asked her if she knows of
any others wanting work. The pay’s the same as Kathleen gets. I’d like to try. What do you think?”
There, I’ve got it out at last!

Mother doesn’t say anything. Her expression gives nothing away.

“Kathleen started work when she was my age, and you were younger than me when you went into service.” Mother stirs her tea round and round. I hold my breath.

“Louisa, I can’t spare you and that’s the truth. You do more than your share, helping with the young ones and the chores. I need you at home for now–helping me the way you do is good training for when you go into service. That factory is no place for you.”

I can see Mother’s made up her mind, but I’m not giving up so easily.

“Mother, ever so many of the girls from school are working in factories. Mrs. Bernardi’s granddaughters are at Pink’s Fruit Factory, so why isn’t a factory a place for me, if it’s good enough for them?”

“You should hear what Rosa thinks of that. Those girls are barely fourteen years old. On their feet for ten, twelve hours a day, in a steamy room with no windows. They cough all the time, she says. They can’t scrub the red stains off their fingers, however hard they try. The foreman’s a bully and a brute. I won’t have you exposed to the likes of him! You’re
too young. No, don’t tell me about Kathleen again. I need you here for the present, and I don’t want to hear any more. And there’s the back door. Surely that’s not Father home so early?”

He clumps through the scullery and stands in the doorway, looking at us. I can tell by the expression on his face that he knows something’s going on.

“It’s very quiet in here. Where’s Emily gone–off to Spain, is she? I’ve time for a quick cup of tea, Flo, before I pick up my last load of cabbages.” Father sits down, and I bring another mug and pour out his tea.

“Who wants this?” he says, taking a shiny red apple out of his pocket. Emily comes out from under the table and clambers onto Father’s knee.

“What’s Spain, Father?” Emily asks, her mouth full of apple.

“It’s a country across the sea, where Uncle Alf and I get our oranges from, my little duck.”

Mother sets Father’s mug in front of him, stirring in a big teaspoon of sugar–the way he likes it. She doesn’t say a word.

“Is something going on that I should know about?” Father asks.

Mother’s face doesn’t move a muscle. “Louisa wants to work in a glove factory. I’ve said no!”

“Father, let me explain!” I know it’s hopeless. There’s no way I’d ever persuade him once Mother has made
up her mind. If I was Emily’s age, I could wheedle the world out of him. But then, it wouldn’t be about going out to work I’d be asking for, only a sweetie.

At that moment, the back door opens. Tom and Harry cross the flagstones I’d mopped only this morning. The twins are dripping blood–one from his nose and the other from a cut lip. Both their shirts are filthy and torn, and the pair of them look as if they’re going to burst into tears. I’m ready to join them!