Young May Moon Read online

  Praying fervently that she wouldn’t swallow the swazzle, May was glad that her father had adapted the familiar story over the years, that he had toned down the more violent aspects. But Punch, of course, began in benevolent mood.

  Boys and girls, pray how do you do?

  If you are all happy, then I’m happy too.

  Let’s have some hush, now, for my little play,

  If I make you laugh, mind, I expect you to pay….

  As Punch ducked from view on May’s right hand, up popped the policeman on her left. He strutted up and down the stage, waving his truncheon.

  I am the village bobby.

  and I have quite a hunch,

  that there will soon be trouble,

  with that scoundrel, Mr Punch.

  He has a spouse named Judy,

  and a little baby, too –

  A saucy dog called Toby –

  who now come into view….

  ‘Don’t panic,’ May said to herself, as she divested herself of the bobby, dropped him in to the bag, and fitted Judy in his place.

  Meanwhile, Toby, resplendent in her ruff, leapt on to the stage and pirouetted round and round, to warm applause. May continued, gathering confidence from scene to scene, and when the audience cheered or booed in all the right places, she knew Jim would have been proud of her.

  They were a generous crowd, and Pomona did her bit with the bottle. Then the front curtain opened slightly and Paddy peeped in at May, smiling broadly. ‘Well done, Punch and Judy lady!’ he congratulated her. ‘Need any help with all this?’

  ‘No thank you,’ she said crossly, biting back: Mind your own business!

  ‘We’ve two more shows to do before we pack up,’ Pomona said.

  As the curtains fell back into place, May realized that she had been ungracious. She came out to apologize, but Paddy and Danny had gone. Smokey, tethered in a shady spot, was being petted by a family of children. Pomona too had disappeared. May felt panic rising inside; Pomona – and the bottle full of coins! Then her sister emerged from the ice cream tent, licking a cornet, Toby at her heels.

  ‘Pomona! You bad girl, spending our money on ice cream.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Pomona said, breaking off the end of the cone for the dog. ‘But I didn’t buy it. Paddy gave me sixpence. Said I’d earned a prize for my good work. So I bought two cornets and gave one to Danny. He collected some of the money for us, in a bucket.’

  ‘Well …’ May began. She took off her boater to stuff her hair under it more securely. Off-handedness had ruled out an ice for her.

  ‘Look, Mum, the Punch and Judy man’s a girl!’ came an excited voice. May ducked hastily back into the booth.

  Jenny had to hear all about it. ‘Reckon you’ve done well,’ she congratulated them both. There was cold rabbit pie for supper. They were joined by the boys. May ignored Paddy’s smile.

  ‘Their parents prefer to eat after the show,’ Jenny explained.

  ‘Eating doesn’t affect my singing,’ Paddy said complacently. ‘I can’t hit the right notes since my voice broke, so I whistle instead.’

  ‘Doesn’t make any difference to me,’ his brother put in. ‘I’m always hungry!’

  May observed that Jenny looked tired. ‘I’ll help dish up,’ she offered.

  ‘I’ll wash up the plates,’ Pomona said eagerly, hoping to postpone bedtime.

  ‘That leaves me to open up the bar, to draw a pint or two to keep ’em quiet ’til Percy appears. He’s down the cellar, rolling out the barrel,’ Jenny said, adding gratefully, ‘You’re a lovely lot you are, like family.’

  A whistling noise down the speaking tube in the wall made them all jump. ‘Boys,’ it was Brendan’s voice. ‘Time to go. We’re the opening act tonight, at 7.30….’

  ‘Don’t forget to ask your parents if they can get tickets for May and Pomona for the show next week,’ Jenny reminded the boys.

  It was a squeeze, sharing a single bed, the girls discovered. Pomona insisted on being next to the wall. ‘I might roll out on to the floor if I’m on the outside,’ she insisted. May took more after their mother in looks, but Pomona could be autocratic, like Carmen Jolley.

  ‘So might I.’ May sighed, but she gave in, thinking, don’t I always? She placed a couple of cushions next to the bed as a precaution to soften any landing. As tomorrow is a special day, she yawned to herself, even if no-one else is aware of it, I’ll make sure we change places tomorrow night!

  Despite their apprehension they were both soon asleep. It had been a long day, after all.

  May suddenly jerked awake when she heard singing. Jenny was rendering an old favourite from her music hall days.

  Just a Song at Twilight,

  When the lights are low

  And the twinkling shadows

  Softly come and go

  Tho’ the heart be weary

  And the days be long –

  Just a song at twilight,

  Comes love’s old sweet song

  Comes loves’ old sweet song

  May recalled her friend telling them that it had been sung: ‘not by me, dearie, but I was tickling the ivories, the night Percy and me met. It’s been our song ever since.’

  That’s so romantic, May thought dreamily, before she succumbed once more to sleep, despite the discomfort of their sleeping arrangements.

  Three

  THEY AWOKE TO a tintinnabulation – they’d overslept and the church bells were ringing to proclaim the sabbath and herald the morning service. Most of the bedclothes appeared to be wound round Pomona, and her muffled voice said apologetically: ‘Happy birthday, May!’ It was Whit Sunday, 31 May, and now May was not ‘almost’ but actually sixteen.

  There was a scraping noise. Something was being pushed under the door. An envelope. May waited for a few seconds, listening for descending footsteps on the stairs before she jumped out of bed and retrieved it.

  Inside the envelope was a handmade card, with a pencil sketch of a Punch and Judy booth. Punch was front stage, and a bubble from his mouth proclaimed, HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOUNG MAY MOON! Inside was written, Best wishes from Paddy and Danny.

  Her face flushed as she said, ‘Cheek! I didn’t say they could call me that….’

  A tap on the door. ‘May I come in?’ asked Jenny. ‘I heard you talking. Awake at last, eh? You must have been tired out.’

  She was wearing her Sunday hat with a yellow silk rose fastened to a wide band, matching her shiny satin blouse.

  ‘Here’s your hot-water jug and two mugs of fresh tea! I’ll pop the tray on the washstand. The bells have just stopped ringing, I must dash, or I’ll be late for church. Oh,’ she turned at the door, ‘many happy returns, May! I didn’t forget! There’s a bowl of fresh eggs in the pantry, if you fancy ’em boiled for breakfast. We had ours hours ago! The roast is already in the oven.… ’Bye, my dears!’

  Brigid was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and dropping them with a splash into a large pan of water on the stove. ‘I must wish you a happy birthday, May! I thought our busy landlady might be glad of a hand with the spuds… Paddy and his dad are helping Percy. Danny took Toby for a run in the meadow, I hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘Thank you, of course not,’ May replied. What else could she say? ‘It’s very kind of you all,’ she added.

  ‘Can I go outside until breakfast is ready?’ Pomona wheedled.

  ‘Put your shoes on, then. The grass will be damp, even though it’s looking to be a fine day,’ her sister said.

  ‘We’re all enjoying a day off – even Smokey! I’ll make sure he’s been fed and watered,’ Pomona said, as she wriggled her feet into her sandals without undoing the buckles.

  Danny was kicking a ball in the air and Toby leapt up to catch it.

  ‘She’s an old dog, you know,’ Pomona reminded Danny when she joined them in the meadow.

  ‘She can still do a back flip in the air,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘So can I!’ Pomona promptly demonstrated, ending up with her skirt
around her ears. Fortunately May was not there to remonstrate with her; she could be quite prim at times, Pomona thought, Mum was the one who was outrageous in our family. She’d only been four when Carmen went off, but she still missed her mother, quick temper and all.

  ‘You and Toby ought to be in the circus, I reckon.’ Danny pulled up a long blade of grass and demonstrated how to make an earsplitting noise by blowing over it. ‘You can both do tricks. Your talents are wasted in the Punch and Judy.’

  ‘I play an important part, May says,’ she flared.

  ‘Paddy says May is jolly good, but she’s watered the story down! Punch is a real villain. He whacks his wife and baby and chucks them out of a window. He gets hanged for his sins. But at least you had the crocodile in it!’

  ‘Don’t be so critical! My dad didn’t like violence. He said enough shouting went on with my mother!’

  ‘So that’s where you get it from,’ Danny said unwisely, before he scooted off to the house with Pomona in hot pursuit.

  May was already dipping into her egg. ‘I called you, Pom, but you didn’t hear me, and I was hungry, so.…’ She was sitting at the kitchen table. Paddy was there, too, drinking a cup of tea.

  There were cards on the mantelshelf. The china dogs that Jenny had won at a fair long ago propped them up. There was one with roses on it from Jenny and Percy, a shiny card with deckled edges with a picture of a box of chocolates from Grandpa and Aunt Min, which May had brought with her, and another home-made card with a moonface with a wide grin, rather hastily made by Pomona, alongside the better-executed card by the boys.

  ‘I thought we’d go for a stroll down to the sea before lunch,’ May said to her sister. ‘You could ride Smokey, eh?’

  Pomona nodded, as Danny put in: ‘I fancy doing that, too!’

  ‘Who asked you?’ Pomona retorted.

  May looked from one to the other. She realized Pomona follows my example, she’s too quick to snap back.

  ‘You can take it in turns,’ she said equably. ‘Bareback riding, Danny – we don’t have a saddle. I guess I’m left minding the dog!’

  ‘Get up a nice appetite for your Sunday dinner.’ Brigid smiled. ‘What about you, Paddy – are you going, too?’

  Paddy rose from the table, took his cup to the sink. ‘I’ve something I want to finish making, in the barn. See you later.’

  ‘Well, at least he’s in the right place for his woodcarving,’ Brigid observed. ‘Percy cleaned off an old work bench for his use.’ Seeing the look of interest on May’s face, she added: ‘My father makes walking-sticks, May. It was a family trade back in Ireland. He carves the most amazing handles, to suit gentlemen about town. I can always spot his sticks in society pictures in the newspapers.

  ‘They were more in demand before the war, but he still has a steady flow of orders. He’s passed his enthusiasm down to his grandson, it seems. I’m not sure that it would be a good livelihood nowadays. Not that our profession is secure either, particularly since all the strikes and unemployment over the country mean many folk won’t be able to afford holidays, or entertainment.’

  ‘How do you manage Danny’s schooling?’ May asked.

  ‘If we get a long unbroken run somewhere he enrolls at the local school. Otherwise, Brendan tutors him. He was a teacher before we took to the road with our family act. He is a trained musician. I learned the harp at my mother’s knee, so I’m told.’

  ‘Maybe, if this week goes well, and Aunt Min agrees, Pom could go to school here, too, until August.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please!’ Pomona obviously liked the idea.

  ‘It would depend on what Jenny thinks, of course.’

  As if on cue, Jenny appeared, back from church. ‘Well, how is the roast doing? Who would like to lay the table?’

  ‘I will,’ Brigid offered. ‘They’re going down to the beach.’

  ‘One o’clock lunch,’ Jenny said, ‘Try to be back on time!’

  The entertainments were not permitted on a Sunday, the slot machines on the pier were idle, no What the Butler Saw, nor the crane which let prizes slip from its jaws but sometimes yielded up bright green sweets which tasted as if they had been in the machine since the year dot; no messages from Madame Zora the clairvoyant, with her chipped plaster nose and bright-red finger nails, but the young people watched the midday paddle steamer arrive and passengers disembarking on the pier. This was a favourite destination for Londoners. The little café on the promenade did a roaring trade in cups of tea with slabs of yellow fruitcake, and sold picture postcards and sticks of bright-pink mint rock. In the afternoon there would be a brass band in the bandstand on the green, beside the cannon, which still pointed out to sea to deter any invaders.

  Sometimes there were guided tours round the historic little town, where the colourful painted ships’ figureheads in the gardens were a focus of interest. Pomona always giggled at the carved wooden bosoms on display. May found them embarrassing and averted her eyes.

  May, Pomona and Danny walked a fair distance along the beach. The sand was damp and rippled from the receding tide. Toby carried a long frond of seaweed in her mouth, and Smokey plodded along, pausing only to be petted by the holidaymakers. There was a pleasant breeze and puffy white clouds scudded along in a blue sky.

  Danny presented May with a giant stick of rock. ‘Happy birthday!’

  May was suitably impressed. ‘Thanks, Danny! We’ll share it after lunch. We’ll have to ask Percy to break it up with a hammer!’

  This was not her only surprise gift. When they arrived back at the Swan, Paddy emerged from his den. ‘Thought you might be glad of this,’ he said gruffly. He held out a slapstick – one of Mr Punch’s special props. This always made the shocked audience jump, when Punch wielded it, due to the explosive crack! ‘Pomona told me you’d mislaid yours. It’s made to her specifications,’ he added disarmingly.

  ‘Thank you, that’s thoughtful of you.’ May was embarrassed, but also impressed. She’d not been exactly friendly to him, she thought. Dad would have told her off. ‘I’m sorry, you know – I haven’t been very nice to you.’

  ‘I can guess why,’ he said quietly. ‘Your first birthday without your father.’

  She nodded. ‘Come on, or we’ll be late for lunch!’

  Jenny was a superb cook, unlike Aunt Min, who had a heavy hand with suet dumplings and lumpy gravy. They ate thinly sliced succulent roast beef, perfectly browned crisp potatoes, buttered parsnips, mashed potatoes and lightly cooked shredded cabbage – the vegetables all grown by Percy in the garden.

  To follow, there was apple pie in the softest of light pastry, dusted with sugar, with custard which poured from the jug and didn’t need cutting with a knife, like Min’s. Cream, too, from the house cow.

  They could hardly move after leaving plates so clean. Pomona declared, ‘They don’t need washing up!’ Her plate certainly didn’t, after she’d chased every morsel with a hunk of homemade bread.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jenny sighed, glancing at the clock, ‘Time to pull the first pint. Needs must when the devil drives, as they say.’

  ‘I hope you’re not referring to me,’ Percy said, with a grin. ‘On a Sunday, too!’

  Brendan settled down in the parlour with the newspaper. Pomona and Danny went outside again with Toby, Paddy retired to the stable, while May and Brigid cleared the table and made a pot of tea.

  Brigid was easy to talk to, and later the two of them joined a dozing Brendan and sat beside him on the sofa, sipping their tea.

  ‘Do you ever hear from your mother?’ Brigid asked tentatively.

  ‘No. It upset me a lot at first, but I knew it was worse for Dad. Aunt Min is very kind, but she has Grandpa to care for, too – his memory is not what it was, and sometimes he goes wandering, and then we have to go looking for him … poor old chap hasn’t really taken it in, that Dad is gone.’

  ‘Have you?’ Brigid said softly.

  ‘Not quite,’ May admitted.

  Then they were silent, apart from
a gentle snore from Brendan.

  ‘Your mother doesn’t know how lucky she is, to have two lovely girls like you,’ Brigid said at last. ‘You are bringing up your little sister – doing her job for her. Surely she must think of you?’

  ‘She’s not like you – you’re a real mum!’ May told her. ‘And Brendan is a good dad, I can tell. My dad was like that …’ She wiped a tear from her eye. ‘I’m doing what I can for Pom. I know that’s what he wished.’

  Brigid gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. ‘Is the life of a Punch and Judy lady what you really want, I wonder? You know, I ran away from home at your age to be with Brendan. He persuaded me to go back to my parents until I had finished at school. I’m so glad I did. He waited for me to grow up, and then we married, as you see! Wouldn’t you like to further your own education?’

  ‘I promised Dad I’d carry on the business.’

  ‘You could maybe do the summer season and study the rest of the year. Think about it,’ Brigid advised.

  She knew it was an illusion, but May seemed to hear an echo: ‘Better to be happy than sad.’

  Four

  WHIT MONDAY, 1 June, which May and Pomona had been anticipating as the highlight of their performing week, dawned wet and dismal. Unless it cleared up by lunchtime, it would not be worth their while to set up the Punch and Judy outfit.

  ‘Don’t look so despondent,’ Jenny said at breakfast time. ‘There’s always folk worse off. A friend telephoned me from Beccles, that’s not so far away from here, to tell me a hurricane whipped tiles off her roof, last night. D’you want to ring your aunt to let her know we were all right here? Apart from Percy, that is, complaining of wind in the early hours, but then he shouldn’t have eaten those pickled onions with that lump of cheese at midnight, as I told him.’