Dancing the Charleston Read online

  It wasn’t Aunty’s trip-to-Harrods day, so I didn’t linger at the Higginses’ cottage very long. I went to see my mother. I’d been so eager to see Sixpence recently that I’d simply stopped to pat the grass on her grave three times, meaning I Love You, and then rushed off home. This time I lay down flat and begged Mother to make me feel better.

  She was as gentle with me as ever – but not very comforting. ‘Poor Peter,’ she murmured. ‘Poor Ginger.’

  ‘But Peter’s not my actual friend,’ I said.

  ‘He’d like to be,’ said Mother.

  ‘Well, I can’t help that,’ I replied sulkily.

  ‘Mona,’ she said softly. ‘You’re my good kind girl. You know what you’re going to do.’

  I sighed, scrambling up and brushing the grass off my school dress. I could easily disobey Aunty when she snapped at me, but I couldn’t resist Mother’s gentle suggestions. I left the graveyard and doubled back on myself. I went down the narrow alleyway behind the cottages in case Maggie was playing in her garden. I headed for the pink-washed cottage at the other end of the street, where the Robinsons lived.

  It was one of the prettiest cottages, with roses round the white door and a garden full of flowers, with never a weed in sight. Mrs Robinson had time on her hands because she only had the one child, Peter. She didn’t have to work like Aunty. She had Mr Robinson, who was a train driver, and earned a good wage. Almost all the boys at school wanted to be train drivers when they grew up – they begged Mr Robinson to take them up into the engine with him. It made Peter very popular.

  I hovered for a minute or so, pretending to myself that I was simply admiring the flowers. I was feeling nervous. I knew that Peter liked me, but I wasn’t sure his mother would. Then I looked up and saw him standing at his front window, his forehead against the glass. He looked comically surprised.

  I gave him an airy wave, then went to the front door and knocked politely – Aunty had trained me never to bang hard. I hoped Peter himself would come running, but it was his mother, in a dress as floral as her garden, without an apron.

  ‘Yes, dear?’ she said. Her voice was as refined as Aunty’s.

  ‘How do you do, Mrs Robinson?’ I said, holding out my hand.

  She shook it, disconcerted. ‘And you are …?’

  She knew perfectly well who I was. Everyone knew who I was. I was that girl who lives with her aunt in the cottage on the estate.

  ‘I’m Mona Smith,’ I said.

  ‘She’s in my class at school, Mother,’ said Peter, coming to the door too, cradling Ginger. ‘Hello, Mona!’

  ‘Hello, Peter. Oh, Ginger’s grown! He’s much bigger than Sixpence, but he’s still very sweet. I was wondering – would you like to come round to my house with him so he can play with Sixpence?’

  ‘Yes, please!’ said Peter, going painfully red. ‘Can I, Mother?’

  ‘But I’m just making your tea! I thought you said you were starving!’

  ‘I’m not hungry any more. Oh, please!’ he begged.

  ‘Won’t your aunt mind?’ she asked me.

  There! She did know me.

  ‘Peter could have tea at my place,’ I said.

  We had much nicer food now that Aunty had a contract with Harrods. We had ham or corned-beef salad, or cheese on toast, or egg and beans – really tasty food that filled you up but didn’t need much cooking. (Aunty was busier than ever, sewing and sewing until her hands stiffened and her sight blurred. Still, she didn’t seem to mind too much. She held out the skirts of her little dresses, checked the white collars and puffed sleeves, examined the embroidery, and then gave them a little pat, as if there was a real child wearing them.)

  ‘Please, Mother,’ said Peter.

  ‘Oh, very well then. But don’t outstay your welcome. Come back home after half an hour like a good boy,’ she said. ‘Let me look at you.’ She ran a comb though his short hair and then spat on her hankie and wiped round his mouth. Peter wriggled uncomfortably.

  ‘I wish she wouldn’t do that,’ he said as we set off.

  ‘My aunty does it too,’ I said. ‘I expect the kittens’ mother licked them clean too.’

  ‘I keep wondering if Ginger is missing her,’ said Peter, rubbing his cheek against the bright furry head.

  ‘I keep thinking that too!’

  ‘Do you miss your mother, Mona?’ Peter asked. ‘Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.’

  ‘It’s all right. She died when I was born, but I sometimes go to the graveyard and talk to her,’ I said. I’d never told anyone that before, not even Maggie, because I knew she’d think it weird.

  Peter stopped in his tracks, looking interested. ‘How do you talk to her? Is it like saying prayers?’

  ‘Not really. I just lie down beside her – well, on her, actually – and whisper stuff down to her,’ I said.

  ‘You mean you lie on her grave? Isn’t it a bit scary?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Not in the slightest,’ I said. ‘And she talks back to me.’

  Peter must have squeezed Ginger quite hard in surprise, because the kitten gave a little protesting mew.

  ‘Sorry, Ginger! She doesn’t really talk, does she? Like a ghost?’

  ‘She’s not a ghost, she’s my mother, and she still loves me and wants to look after me, even though she’s dead and buried,’ I said.

  ‘Cripes!’ said Peter. He stood there, stroking Ginger. ‘Are you going to talk to her now?’

  ‘No, I’ve already done it. She told me to invite you back to my house so that our kittens could play together,’ I told him.

  He blinked. ‘That was nice of her,’ he said. He paused. ‘Did she tell you to invite Maggie too?’

  ‘No, she didn’t actually.’

  Mother didn’t seem to think much of Maggie. I’d told her all the secret things we whispered about sometimes, and Mother had been shocked. She hadn’t scolded me – she never did that – but she did murmur that it wasn’t very nice for little girls to talk about such things.

  ‘Though I do understand that it’s lovely for you to have a special friend, dear,’ she added comfortingly.

  Aunty didn’t mince her words. She didn’t know about Maggie’s surprising knowledge or her rude jokes (she’d have been utterly horrified by them), but she didn’t think much of her manners. The one time I’d invited Maggie to tea she’d wiped the crumbs off her face with the back of her hand, and once she’d even wiped her runny nose. Maggie had got down from the table without asking, and when she peeped into Aunty’s workroom she’d whooped at the sight of the sewing machine.

  ‘Let me have a go!’ she demanded, sitting down on Aunty’s chair and touching the machine’s gold lettering with her sticky fingers.

  ‘Oh no, dear, it’s not for little girls,’ said Aunty, giving her a steely smile.

  She sighed deeply when Maggie went home. ‘Well!’ she said. She didn’t say any more. She didn’t need to. I knew she wouldn’t want me to invite Maggie back, though it was a little awkward when kind Mrs Higgins minded me once a week now.

  I worried that Aunty wouldn’t take to Peter either, but when we got to the cottage he was very polite.

  ‘I won’t outstay my welcome, Miss Watson,’ he said, quaintly quoting his mother. ‘I’d just like to let my kitten Ginger meet up with Sixpence again. I think it would be good for them.’

  ‘Sixpence has been a very naughty girl today,’ said Aunty, shaking her head. ‘She’s just knocked my box of embroidery silks off the shelf and got them into a terrible tangle!’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Peter. ‘Shall we help you untangle them?’

  Aunty had vowed never to let any more visiting children into her workroom, but surprisingly she agreed. We shut Sixpence and Ginger in the kitchen together, and then sat cross-legged on Aunty’s lino floor, winding each different skein of silk. Aunty sat on her little chair, unpicking knots in a totally mangled thread, nodding at Peter approvingly.

  ‘You’ve got nimble fingers for a boy, Peter Robinson