Dancing the Charleston Read online

  I found myself telling him my problem, and he burst out laughing, which made me blush. I didn’t want him to think me ridiculous – or selfish.

  ‘Dear Mona! Do you know something? I was just about to select a handful of bangles for you three girls, so you can stop worrying about that. But if you’d like to buy the little present for your aunt, I’m sure she’d be delighted. Then you’ll still have sixpence, just in case there’s anything else that takes your fancy.’

  I gave him a hug because he was so understanding and generous. I chose my three, and Marcella copied me. Esmeralda chose different shades of blue: sky and royal and navy.

  ‘It’s not fair! I want bangles too!’ Bruno wailed.

  Mr Benjamin bought Bruno and Roland little pocket knives instead, the handles studded with rubies. They weren’t real rubies of course, they were just red glass, but they looked lovely all the same.

  I bought the pink silk for Aunty, and a lady in a sari tucked it into an embroidered bag. I was thrilled with the extra present.

  By this time Ambrose was thoroughly bored, yawning and cracking his knuckles.

  ‘So what am I going to buy you to cheer you up, Ambrose?’ Mr Benjamin joked. ‘Aha! I know where you might like to go for a proper lunch. You’re always going on about your stint in the Indian Army, and the curries you ate. Let’s go to the Indian restaurant and give the children a taste of the exotic.’

  Ambrose did cheer up. He ate a very large yellow Indian curry and drank a large yellow Indian beer. I thought both smelled utterly disgusting. Mr Benjamin chose mild curries for Roland and Bruno, and they said they actually liked them. Esmeralda and Marcella and I had chicken and vegetables, but they tasted very odd.

  ‘It was quite nice, I suppose, but now my mouth is all hot and burny,’ said Marcella, drinking a whole glass of water in one go.

  ‘Then I think we need to give your mouth a little sweet treat,’ said Mr Benjamin. ‘We’ll tackle the Palace of Industry next.’

  We walked through vast halls of wool and pottery and household things until we came to the Food Village. We strolled down Biscuit Avenue, where we were offered samples of butter puffs, and arrowroot and Petit-Beurre biscuits – Aunty’s favourite. I turned my back and discreetly tucked one into my hidden pocket, along with the remaining sixpence.

  There were also biscuits I’d never seen before. I wished Old Molly stocked Iced Stars – tiny biscuits with icing rosettes in white, pink and yellow. We ate a lot of those, the sugar soothing our spicy mouths.

  ‘There now, you’ve all sweetened up considerably,’ said Mr Benjamin. ‘Where next?’

  ‘How about seeing this modern dining room in the Palace of Arts?’ said Ambrose. ‘I bet it’s not a patch on yours, Benjy.’

  Roland looked impatient. ‘That’s not fair – we went to the Indian restaurant for you, Ambrose, and we went to the Indian Pavilion for the girls, and Canada for Bruno.’

  ‘So where would you like to go, Roland?’ Mr Benjamin asked.

  ‘I’d like to go to Australia to see the sheep shearing,’ he said.

  ‘For pity’s sake,’ said Ambrose. ‘You can watch wretched sheep being shorn any old time.’

  ‘You can look at boring old dining rooms any old time,’ Roland retorted.

  ‘But the Australian Pavilion is back the way we’ve come,’ Ambrose pointed out, consulting the programme. ‘And we’re right beside the Palace of Arts – look!’

  ‘Then let’s have a vote,’ said Mr Benjamin. ‘Who wants to go to the Palace of Arts?’

  Ambrose put up his hand. So did Esmeralda and Marcella. Mr Benjamin raised his own hand, looking at Roland apologetically.

  Bruno wavered. ‘I don’t want to go to either of them. I want to see the Butter Man again,’ he said.

  Everyone sighed and looked at me. I longed to go to the Palace of Arts and see the paintings. I even wanted to see if the dining room was avant garde. But I could see how much Roland wanted to go the Australian Pavilion.

  ‘I vote for Australia,’ I said.

  Roland’s face lit up. ‘There, then! Tell you what, Mona and I will go to Australia, and you can all go to the namby-pamby Palace of Arts. We’ll meet up later, by the lake.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, then we can have another boat ride!’ said Bruno.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no!’ said Mr Benjamin. ‘We must stick together! I’m not having you getting lost!’

  ‘We won’t get lost, I promise,’ said Roland. ‘Please, Uncle Benjamin. I’ll look after Mona. Trust me.’

  Mr Benjamin looked helpless. Then he consulted his watch. ‘Very well. Be back at the boating lake in an hour. If you’re not there, I’ll have to jump in the lake and drown myself rather than return home to tell your mother and aunt that I’ve lost you,’ he declared.

  ‘Thanks so much, Uncle,’ said Roland. Then he gave me a beaming smile. ‘Come on then, Mona!’

  I absolutely loved the Palace of Beauty.

  23

  ‘You’re an absolute sport,’ Roland told me. ‘I don’t think you really wanted to see Australia.’

  ‘Yes I did,’ I said. ‘Let’s find the sheep. You want to see them because you want to be a farmer, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s exactly it!’ he said.

  I wondered if we’d missed the sheep shearing. After all, they couldn’t keep shearing the same sheep again and again. But when we got there at last, we heard an announcement on the loudspeaker: the sheep shearing would take place in ten minutes’ time.

  Roland and I ran through the crowd, hoping we were going the right way. There were masses of people around the sheep-shearing pen, but we were both skinny and Roland had sharp elbows. We were soon breathing in the woolly smell of the sheep and the sweat of the shearers. A man in a cowboy hat and checked shirt held a crackly microphone and did the commentary while the shearers took it in turns to hoist a huge sheep over their shoulders and start shearing off the thick wool in one long fleece. Each time they held the shorn wool aloft the crowd gave a great cheer.

  I worried about the sheep – they looked so naked without their wool – but they hurried off into the next pen, a little surprised, but none the worse for their experience.

  ‘I wonder if they sheared Esmeralda like that,’ said Roland, making me laugh.

  We watched until all twelve sheep had been shorn, and then looked at the dioramas, the first showing the countryside looking really wild, and then a few years later, properly cultivated.

  ‘There – I wish I could show this to the gardener back at the Manor.’ Roland seemed very interested, and was thrilled by the samples of soil and seed that were handed out.

  The biggest diorama was of Sydney Harbour Bridge, with real water in front of it. I had hoped for real boats like the ones on the lake, but these were only big toy replicas of ocean liners, ferry boats and yachts. All the same they were much better than the toy boats in Mr Berner’s shop. I wished I had Farthing in my pocket so I could give her a sail.

  Neither Roland nor I had a watch, and I started to get a little anxious about the time.

  ‘Don’t fuss, Mona, we’ve got ages left,’ said Roland. ‘Aren’t you having fun?’

  ‘I’m having tremendous fun,’ I replied truthfully. It was wonderful having this tall, good-looking boy smiling at me, telling me jokes, treating me like a sister. No, not quite like a sister, almost like a sweetheart.

  I stopped listening to the jolly, cockney-like tones of the Australian man talking about the harbour, and watched a personal diorama play out inside my head. Every holiday Roland would come to Somerset Manor, and we’d meet up and go off by ourselves to his treehouse. It was still just a few planks nailed across two broad branches, but I hoped that one day it might be a proper little alpine chalet.

  When Roland and I were too old to climb trees, he’d make us our own summer house by the pool, and after our swim we’d sit there, wrapped in thick towels. He would put his arms round me to warm me up, and then he’d bend his head and kiss me.