No Moon Read online

  For Rebeccah and Hannah

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Jim Watts and Deborah Hodge for assistance with research. My continuing gratitude to Sue Tate, who helps make my every manuscript better than I ever imagined it could be!

  “I thought her unsinkable…I do not understand it.”

  –Philip Franklin, vice president of the White Star Line, Monday, April 15, 1912.

  London, England

  1902

  1

  Johnny

  The night before the picnic, Kathleen and I stayed awake long after Johnny had been brought to his room and settled in his crib. Unlike us, he’d been fast asleep for hours. Our Sunday dresses and aprons were draped over the back of the chair, the collars starched stiffly.

  Kathleen and I had run over to the bedroom window half a dozen times to make sure it wasn’t raining.

  “Is it night yet?” I asked my big sister. “Where’s the moon and the stars? When will it be time to go, Kath?”

  “Will you hush, Lou? Mother’s coming upstairs.”

  The door opened.

  “One more word from either of you and you won’t be going anywhere! Into bed with you, and stay there, before you wake up your little brother. Father says we’re to leave by five,” Mother said.

  I jumped onto the bed, crawled over Kathleen, and burrowed under the thin blanket to my place near the wall. I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that I could see colored spots beneath my eyelids.

  “I’m sleeping,” I said.

  Close beside me, Kathleen shook with laughter before pushing the blanket away. “I’m so hot, Mother, I can’t breathe,” she said.

  “What did I just say? I’m warning you, one more word and I’m going to tell Father.”

  We lay still, not daring to move until after we’d heard her go downstairs, into the kitchen, and close the door.

  “Night, night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” Kathleen said, and gave me a friendly pinch.

  Neither of us had ever been on a train, let alone to the seaside. Mr. Dawson, the greengrocer for whom Father worked, had announced the firm’s annual family outing was to Southend on Sea. This year, Mother said all three of us were old enough to go!

  In the morning, I’d been too excited to eat breakfast. The swaying of the train made me feel sick. Getting off, I tripped down the steps. Johnny cried–he’d got soot in his eye. After Mother had taken the smut out with the corner of her handkerchief, Father hoisted Johnny onto his shoulders. We followed him out of the station.

  And there was the sea at last, waiting for us. It shone brighter than the scullery window Kathleen and I rubbed clean with newspaper and vinegar, every Saturday.

  A hurdy-gurdy man played a barrel organ; his monkey wore a red waistcoat and danced on a chain. The man sang, and the tune made Kathleen and me skip along and Johnny clap his hands. Father said the man was from Italy. I asked if we were going there on the train, and Mother laughed. She forgot to tell us to walk nicely!

  Behind us, the hurdy-gurdy man trundled the organ down the lane, wheels rattling over the cobbles. Past the stands selling eels and cockles and mussels, we all went. A few of the men threw coins into the monkey’s little cap.

  All along, as far as I could see, was water. I remember thinking it was more water than I’d ever seen before in my whole life! Father bought us a bottle of lemonade to share and promised us a walk on the pier, later in the day.

  Kathleen asked, “Does the sea stretch all the way to Australia, Father?”

  He winked at Mother and said, “Almost,” and I knew it was a fib. But I didn’t know where Australia was, so I never said anything.

  We walked down some rocky steps onto the sand. Father paid the man for two deck chairs.

  Mother said, “Jack, you don’t need to do that–I brought a blanket to sit on.”

  Father said, “Nothing’s too good for my Flo.” He calls Mother Flo when he’s in a good mood and Florence when he’s had a bad day, but that’s not often.

  “Don’t be daft,” she said, smiling at him.

  It was a happy day, and after we’d eaten our sandwiches, Mother shook the crumbs off the blanket for the gulls. She told us we could go and play. “Mind you don’t go out of sight, and mind you watch your brother,” she said, taking out her knitting. She always keeps busy doing something, but Father put his newspaper over his face and went to sleep. We turned round to wave to her, and she waved back.

  Kathleen and I each held one of Johnny’s hands. She carried the bucket and I carried the spade, and we ran with him down towards the water. Above us, the gulls screeched and swooped as they flew. I felt dizzy from the sound, from the taste of salt, from the smells of the day, and the warmth of the sun. I never wanted this lovely time to end.

  We took off our boots and stockings and helped Johnny off with his. Kathleen lined the boots up in a tidy row beside a small rock. We grabbed Johnny’s hands and jumped him over the rocks and pebbles, closer and closer to the waves that looked like the foam on Father’s pint of beer.

  “How old are you, Johnny? Say one, two,” Kathleen said.

  “One, two,” he repeated after her.

  We sat him down, and he stuck his fingers into the wet sand over and over and held them up to show us the grains of sand stuck to them. I dug a hole for him before Kathleen and I went looking for shells. I wanted pink ones to decorate the castle I was planning to build. For a while I heard Johnny humming to himself, happy as can be.

  The sun shone hot on the back of my neck. The sky got bluer, and a breeze lifted my hair. Waves, aglitter with color, teased my toes, splashing my legs. I pulled my dress higher, hoping Mother couldn’t see me. Filling my apron with shells, I brought them back to shore and began to make a pretty pattern.

  “Wicked, wicked, girl!”

  I looked up and there was Mother, shaking Kathleen. I was afraid I’d be in trouble too. Had she seen me with my dress up? I tried to brush the sandy streaks from my apron. Then I grabbed my boots and stockings and put them on as fast as I could. Johnny’s were still there, but I couldn’t see him. Where was he? Had Father taken him on the pier without us?

  Then I heard two slaps–one, two–sharp, like wind slapping at sheets on wash day. Turning around, I saw Kathleen standing there, silent, her cheeks red. I ran over and took hold of her hand. I was five and she was seven, and we looked after each other.

  “What have you done, Kathleen and Louisa Gardener? Look at your dirty frocks. I can’t trust you for a minute! Didn’t I tell you to watch your little brother? Answer me!” I closed my eyes, shutting out the glare of the sun and my mother’s face. Her fingers dug into my shoulder.

  “Look at me when I’m speaking to you.” The voice didn’t sound like Mother’s.

  Mrs. Bernardi came over. She put her arms around Mother and tried to pull her away. Father helped her, all the while talking quietly to Mother.

  I heard him say, “Let the girls be, Flo, it won’t bring him back.” He picked up Johnny’s boots, and we followed them, hearing the murmurs of the women gathered round us.

  “Drowned, poor little mite. His father found him, lying face-down in the water.”

  “Who drowned, Kath?” I asked.

  We’d left the bucket behind, and when I turned to look, I saw my spade sticking up in the water. The tide had already washed my shell pattern away.

  “Shall I run back and fetch the bucket and spade? Will we get in trouble for leaving them, Kath?”

  “Hush, Lou, never mind them. Johnny’s drowned.”

  A small crowd had gathered, and a policeman was holding something wrapped in a blanket. A bare foot dangled against his uniform. A woman picked up Mother’s knitting and put it in the hamper. It was late, too late to go on the pier, like Father ha
d promised us.

  Someone brought Mother a mug of tea. She took a sip and put the mug down on the sand.

  A long, long time later, when we made our way slowly to the train station, the hurdy-gurdy man was still there, playing his tune. The policeman told him to move along. When I look back on that day, I always think he was playing for my brother.

  It was dark by the time we got home.

  “Where’s the moon, Kath?” I asked.

  “The moon is asleep,” my sister said.

  “Is Johnny asleep, Kath?”

  “Yes.”

  After the funeral, after friends and neighbors had left, Mother came up to our room. Kathleen and I had been sitting on the edge of our bed for a long while. It was too hot to hold hands.

  Mother’s face looked hot too, red and blotchy, as if she’d been crying. “Come here,” she said. We didn’t move. She knelt down in front of us. “Johnny’s never coming back,” she said. “It shouldn’t have happened, but it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident, remember that.” She got up and sat down on the bed between us. For a while, no one spoke. Mother reached out and clasped our hands in hers.

  “We’re sorry, Mother,” Kathleen said.

  “Sorry, I’ll never do it again,” I whispered, remembering my dirt-streaked Sunday frock and apron that Mother had to wash again before Johnny’s funeral.

  “We won’t talk about Johnny anymore, just now. We’ll go downstairs in a minute, and Father will give you a cuddle. I’ll make something nice for your tea,” Mother said.

  “Will Johnny be there?” I asked.

  “Hush, Lou,” Kathleen said.

  I put my head on Mother’s lap, and Kathleen leaned against her arm.

  Mother’s voice was quiet–it sounded as if she were speaking from a long way off. “Our Johnny can’t come back. He’s gone to heaven to live with the angels. He’s safe there.”

  Then, holding hands, we went downstairs, and I walked on tiptoes so as not to wake Johnny up.

  Later, after we’d put ourselves to bed, after Mother had come in to say good night and we’d fallen asleep, something woke me. I sat up, looking at the moonlight shine through the window onto the bedroom floor, making it glisten like a pool of water. Like the sea where Johnny drowned.

  Kathleen sat up beside me, rigid, hearing the sounds coming through the wall. We looked at each other.

  “Is it a ghost, Kath?” I asked her. “Is it Johnny gone back to his room, crying for us?”

  “Ghosts don’t cry, silly. I’ll go and see. Are you coming?” Kathleen slid out of bed.

  I was afraid to be left alone, so I followed. Stepping fearfully across the pool of light on the floor that looked like water, I crept out. We listened at the door of Johnny’s room.

  “It’s not a ghost at all,” Kathleen said. And then, “Quick, get back to bed before Father finds us!”

  We were just in time. We heard Father’s footsteps on the landing, heard him open Johnny’s door.

  “Now, Flo, don’t carry on so; you’ll make yourself ill,” Father’s deep voice said. “Do you want to wake up the girls?” We hardly dared breathe. More steps, our parents’ door closed.

  I never forgot the sound of that weeping. And somehow it was all tied together–the sea, the moonlight, Mother’s tears, and the awful knowledge that my little brother was never coming back.

  Kathleen and I don’t talk about that night. And I never got over feeling, deep down, that I was to blame for the accident, despite Mother saying I wasn’t. When I have a nightmare and cry in my sleep, my sister has to shake me awake.

  “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 s
hepherd’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!

  London, England

  1910

  2

  “Life’s not fair”

  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!