Young May Moon

by Sheila Newberry

  There was segregation in the playground: one side for the girls and the infants, the other for the boys, who played more vigorous games. The latrines were outside, of the bucket-and-drain variety, and drinking water, with a dip-in tin mug, was available in a pail, under the shade of a tree. This was tepid in summer, as Pomona discovered, and you were limited to half a mugful. A monitor was in charge to see that this was observed.

  There were qualified teachers for the older children, but the infants, in a smaller room, were in the charge of a supplementary teacher, a young woman who had no formal teaching training, had not long left school herself; but was both intelligent and kind. She taught the little ones by rote, which was how she had learned herself: words were pointed out on a cloth which was rolled down to cover the blackboard, and the children recited these obediently after the teacher. A pupil from the top class sometimes helped the slower readers.

  The population had increased since the end of the Great War, and now the church school took children up to eleven. At the beginning of the century, children often left school at that age, but education now continued until they were fourteen. So a new school was built, out of town for the older students, who were provided with bicycles, by the local authority, to get there.

  Pomona and Danny were in the lower school. The old slates had been replaced by exercise books and pencils for handwriting practice; there was ink in the wells in the desk tops, and scratchy metal pen nibs to scatter blots on copy work. There was a large globe of the world, with plenty of pink patches for the British Empire, which could be swivelled on a stand. Less daring children looked at it wistfully, wishing they could spin it like one or two of the bolder ones did, when the teacher temporarily left the classroom. The cane, a few swipes on the hand, was still the punishment if you were caught.

  The blackboard had a white film of chalk where the rubber had been carelessly applied. The teacher of the top group had an unerring aim with stubs of chalk, to sting the unwary behind an ear, when heads were turned to whisper to a neighbour. To Pomona, surveying the classroom apprehensively on her first day and separated from Danny, who was in the other class, it all seemed very old-fashioned. Some girls even wore starched frilled pinafores over their dresses, just as their mothers had done. However, many now had their hair bobbed, as she had insisted upon for herself. It was bad enough being dubbed ‘Freckles’, without having long plaits pulled, or wound round rulers by the sneaky type behind you, she thought.

  She was in for a pleasant surprise later. Soup, made from vegetables grown by the boys in the gardening club, some of whom had escaped scripture lessons, which had been their motive for joining the club originally, was served every day for lunch. Because of the current high level of unemployment, tradesmen helped the needy. The local baker provided yesterday’s bread for free, and the butcher gave meaty marrow bones for the basis of the soup. Volunteers from the top class chopped the vegetables and tipped them in to a big cauldron, which simmered on an old oil stove for most of the morning. This nourishing food was particularly important for the children from outlying villages, who had already walked a long way to school, some without breakfast. There was no dining hall, so the children had their soup sitting at their desks. Empty plates were taken to the pump and rinsed before play was allowed.

  Pomona managed a few words to Danny over the fence which separated the boys from the girls.

  ‘How did you get on?’ he asked, after cautiously checking that the teacher on duty was not near by.

  ‘All right,’ she fibbed. In fact she had failed an arithmetic test – well, what did she know about fractions? They hadn’t been tackled at her school.

  ‘I got on all right too,’ he said, but he didn’t sound too convincing either. It was unsettling, attending a new school near end of the term. ‘It was good soup,’ he said.

  ‘I could have done with more bread,’ Pomona said. ‘But someone told me, the teacher will be bringing round a basket of windfall apples shortly – hope she does!’

  While Pomona and Danny were settling in at school May was on the pier by ten o’clock, meeting Carmen in the empty theatre. The cleaner had already been and gone, having gathered up crumpled paper bags and orange-peel, and wiped the tip-up seats with disinfectant. The curtains were pulled apart for their practice.

  May had thought she would be shown how to manipulate the dancing puppet, but she soon discovered that she was in fact being taught the first steps of the flamenco.

  ‘I will lend you a pair of proper shoes, but not today – with that sore heel of yours!’ Carmen said, wincing as it was revealed.

  ‘Harden your feet with surgical spirit,’ she advised. ‘Wear your father’s boots!’

  It was not altogether a successful session, Carmen was not the most patient of tutors. She was also unaccustomed to such an early start. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I learned to dance as soon as I could walk. When you were with Aunt Min during the war and I was on tour, she did not encourage you, like me.’

  ‘You can’t blame her for that; she’s not a dancer! She never followed Dad into the world of Punch and Judy either! She got married young and helped her husband on his parents’ farm. When they died, she inherited the farm. She’s worked hard all her life, and given us a home when we needed it,’ May reminded her mother.

  ‘Am I wasting my time?’ Carmen demanded. ‘Will you please concentrate!’ It’s hard without music, May muttered to herself. But as she watched Carmen displaying the basic steps, there was a rustling of the back curtain and Carlos appeared, yawning, with his guitar, and seated himself in a shadowy corner. Now May felt the urge to follow, faltering at first, in her mother’s footsteps. When they paused briefly, Carlos called to Carmen, ‘It will take much time, but the girl is worth it.’

  Just before eleven the session was over. ‘Carlos and I will return to the hotel for breakfast,’ Carmen announced. ‘Think about what you have learned this morning. Come again on Wednesday.’

  May felt hungry too. She hoped that Paddy had remembered to bring sandwiches for their lunch!

  Paddy was waiting on the beach. Smokey was tethered and enjoying a nosebag of hay. Toby was on a long lead, which Paddy had looped round his ankle as he soaked up the sun on the sand and watched the waves ebb and flow. There were not yet many people about, but some of the beach-hut doors were open.

  May unfastened her boots and cooled off her feet in the shallows. ‘Ooh, that feels better!’

  ‘I reckon most of the Whit week visitors have gone home,’ he observed. He opened his rucksack. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ May said, accepting an egg-and-cress sandwich. ‘Hope you made a flask of tea, too!’

  Paddy was right, there was only a small straggling audience at the first show of the afternoon. It could be another month before things picked up, she thought, and it was obvious from what the papers said, and listening to the crackling wireless when she took her turn with the headphones, that tough times were ahead for the country as a whole, and that holidays would not be a priority for most folk. As if he could read her thoughts, Paddy said, as he unwrapped the buttered scones, ‘Maybe you should have gone home after all, and come back in August.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Actually, Mum and Dad are talking about giving up the wandering life after this season. Dad has been offered his old teaching post, to start next September. Danny could complete his education there, and maybe I could get an apprenticeship in furniture making – my grandfather could pull a few strings in that respect. We’d have to move in with him, to begin with.’

  ‘And your mum?’

  ‘Mum could take private pupils, when we find a permanent place to stay.’

  ‘But you’re not going yet?’ May asked anxiously.

  ‘No, we’ll be here, like you, until the end of August. Don’t worry, I’ll be your assistant until then!’ He didn’t add ‘unpaid’ for he had insisted, from the beginning, that he was happy to help out for free. He’d deduced that M
ay’s earnings in July, before the main holiday, would only cover the girls’ board.

  She smiled. ‘Good!’ She hoped that they would be friends for ever. To think that she hadn’t liked him when they first met! She needed someone on her side – she was understandably wary of her mother’s interest in her future. ‘Promise me, you’ll keep in touch after the summer,’ she added.

  Nine

  ‘YOU NEED CHEERING up,’ Paddy said to May after the Punch and Judy had played to an audience of four, one windy afternoon on the beach. ‘Let’s pack up, go back to the Swan, give the animals the rest of the afternoon off, then suggest to Mum and Dad that we meet the young ’uns from school and go to the second house at the pictures. It would fill in the time before the evening on the pier.’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea,’ May agreed. ‘What film is on?’

  ‘The Navigator – Buster Keaton. It came out last year.’

  ‘We promised Jenny to hold the fort here, as she’s out today. You might get a glimpse of her in town,’ Brigid said mysteriously. She would not divulge anything further, but added: ‘Why don’t you two go on your own? The children need a run around after school, not sitting down again in the pictures. They can throw a ball for Toby and maybe groom old Smokey. He’s looking rather shaggy.’

  ‘He’s getting ancient – this could be his last summer season, I suppose, before he retires,’ May said regretfully. How could she return to West Wick then?

  They’d had their packed lunch on the sands, so now they had time to change their attire for going out. May hesitated for a moment, thinking it wasn’t really a special occasion as nowadays a cinema seat cost only sixpence, if you didn’t mind sitting in the front row and tilting your head back to view the screen. Then she slipped into the green dress her mother had bought her, and the now comfortable Mary-Jane shoes. However, she rebraided her hair, mindful of Aunt Min’s warnings: ‘You never know what might hop off the back of the seat on to your hair, in the cinema.’ The very thought made her scratch her head. She’d escaped being lousy by bearing that in mind, she thought. Who wanted to smell of paraffin, the treatment for itchy scalps, or to have the fine-tooth comb plied to remove nits?

  The cinema here was actually a modern, well-run place. The management insisted on good quality films, so the picture did not wobble on the screen or break down frequently as in the aptly named flea-pits in poorer towns. Lighting was good, and local advertising helped towards a full house at most performances. Aunt Min would certainly have approved of the West Wick Palace cinema. May and Paddy, arriving early, were shown to the best seats in the centre of the third row.

  The Navigator was a full-length film. Both May and Paddy were familiar with Buster Keaton’s short features so they looked forward to a story with more of a plot.

  ‘I think I prefer Buster Keaton to Charlie Chaplin,’ May whispered to Paddy. She received a prod in the back from the person behind her to remind her to be quiet.

  ‘I agree,’ Paddy dared to whisper back. ‘That dead pan face, and all the acrobatics – he’s a genius.’ It was his turn to be prodded.

  They had read about the film when it first came out: of how when Buster Keaton learned that a once-great passenger liner was about to be scrapped he bought at a bargain price the ship, which had been a troop-carrier during the war, to use as a giant prop. He had invented a story around it.

  There were two main characters, Rollo Treadway (played by Keaton), a rich, idle playboy, determined to marry spirited heiress Betsy O’Brien, who was equally determined not to marry him. Somehow, after a series of comical misunderstandings, the two found themselves alone on the abandoned ship Navigator, not aboard the luxury cruise liner on which both, by coincidence, had booked passages. The Navigator, the subject of mistaken identity, was then set adrift in the fog by a ‘foreign power’ to be destroyed at sea.

  Despite the implausible plot the audience was engrossed by the desperate survival tactics of the two players. May was unaware that she was gripping Paddy’s hand when Keaton attempted to open a solitary can of meat with a chopper. Later, they were due to be on the menu themselves when they came upon an island populated by fierce cannibals….

  Although the film had no soundtrack the accompanying stirring music on a piano situated below the screen made them thrill to the unfolding picture story.

  At the end of the hour-long film, when Rollo had proved that he could be brave and resourceful rather than shallow and selfish, and so had won the girl, the lights went up and the pianist took a bow while the audience applauded her skilful playing.

  ‘It’s Jenny Wren!’ May exclaimed, wondering if their friend had spotted them. She realized that she was still clutching Paddy’s hand. ‘Oh, sorry.’ She blushed, ‘I got over-excited!’

  Paddy smiled at her confusion. ‘I must say I didn’t mind.’

  The girl who had beamed her torch along the aisles when they arrived was now playing a different role. She had a tray suspended on cords round her neck, laden with small tubs of ice cream and tiny wooden spoons. She stood at the bottom of the centre aisle and a queue formed in front of her.

  ‘My treat. You paid for the seats,’ May said, giving a precious shilling to Paddy.

  The lights dimmed and the advertisements were shown on the screen. Then there was a newsreel, followed by a short film of a car chase causing havoc in a sleepy town. The subtitles were full of exclamation marks. The national anthem signalled the end of the show, when the audience all rose to attention as one.

  May and Paddy resumed their seats while the audience left the cinema, then went to congratulate Jenny on her performance.

  ‘You never know, they might ask me again. It makes a nice change from standing behind the bar, particularly now folk make one drink last all evening, as funds are low! Don’t wait for me – I have a bit of shopping to do before I come home. The regular pianist will be here this evening. Tell Percy I’m on my way.’

  They emerged into the late afternoon sunshine, blinking at its brightness.

  ‘Better hurry back,’ Paddy said. ‘I’ll have to leave again soon for the evening show. I imagine Mum is cooking supper, as Jenny is filling in here. Did you enjoy yourself, May?’ It seemed natural now for her to link her arm in his as they walked along in the wake of other cinema-goers. ‘Oh, I did!’ she said happily.

  It was fortunate that they only had eyes for each other, because they were under intense scrutiny from the other side of the road.

  Carmen had been shopping. The parcel she had tucked into her handbag contained a box camera, a present for her daughters. They could record the Punch and Judy as much as they liked, for Carmen was determined that this would be their last season on the West Wick sands….

  Even the fact that Pomona was having a fit of the sulks because she had not been invited on their outing couldn’t spoil May’s euphoria. She thought: I suppose Paddy is my young man now, and it’s a good feeling, it really is.

  Ten

  ‘FANCY A TASTY piece of smoked haddock for supper?’ Jenny asked on the last day of the school term. ‘A celebration meal for our scholars! The good news is that our friend Bobby Blowers has taken over the old smoking huts that you can see across the estuary from the bridge. Ever been over that side?’

  May shook her head. ‘I can’t swim,’ she said cheerfully, ‘even though the water is clear at that point.’

  ‘My dear, you can take the ferry from the harbour, then walk back along the river path. Paddy’s keen to make the trip, why don’t you go with him this morning?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be my practice today,’ May said.

  ‘Ring your mother up – say you’ve got something better to do,’ Jenny advised.

  ‘Oh, I can’t do that, I’d never hear the end of it.’

  ‘Look,’ Paddy put in, ‘I don’t mind waiting while you have your lesson. Then, why don’t we give the Punch and Judy a miss until Saturday, when the visitors will begin to arrive? You’re bound to be busy from then on, especially w
ith the August bank holiday coming up on the third.’

  ‘You don’t need to ask me twice!’ she told him.

  Paddy sat where he was told, some way back in the little theatre. He had been warned by Carmen to be quiet. There was no dancing spotlight on stage for rehearsals, but the house lights were on. The guitar strumming began. May, to her mother’s disapproval, was not dressed for dancing. She wore a pair of faded blue box-pleated shorts which Jenny had sorted out from a collection of clothes destined for the next jumble sale, deeming these suitable for a boat trip, and her old school blouse. Her hair was tied severely back. May followed her mother’s instructions.

  Paddy observed how May had grown in confidence, but with that hairstyle, he thought, she looks very different from when we first met.

  ‘You will soon be ready for your debut – the audience here will not realize you are a novice. You have the hair right, anyway,’ Carmen said, at the end of the hour.

  ‘Debut…?’ May sounded uncertain. ‘Well, thank you for the lesson, anyway. We have an errand to run for Jenny now.’

  ‘Wait a moment, I have a gift for you and your sister. Can you use a camera?’

  ‘Yes, Dad’s old Brownie. He showed us how to make good pictures. Unfortunately, Pom dropped it one day and the film is jammed inside. Aunt Min said she’d get it mended—’

  ‘That won’t be necessary now. But you should be the one responsible, not your clumsy sister.’ Carmen handed the box to May. ‘This has a film, ready to use.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I can take photographs to record our summer season, May thought, pleased. She said aloud, to please Carmen, ‘I must get a picture of you in costume on stage.’