Clover Moon Read online

3

  WHEN I WOKE in the morning I found my hair had stuck to the pillow. I had to douse myself under the cold tap and rub hard to get rid of the dried blood. It hurt terribly. The children said I looked scary. When I sidled into Pa and Mildred’s room and looked in her precious mirror I saw what they meant.

  I had several gashes on my temple, which had swelled horribly at one side, giving me an odd lopsided appearance, and I had a black eye into the bargain. Even Mildred looked concerned when she caught sight of me. She made me stand in the daylight with her hand under my chin, having a good peer.

  ‘What have you done to yourself now?’ she said, as if I’d whacked my own head with a thimble.

  I stared at her.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that with those witch’s eyes. And don’t go telling tales on me to no one. It was all your own fault anyway,’ she said gruffly.

  Mrs Watson came calling, her baby in her arms, her little girl hanging on her skirts. She came to give me a scolding, but she was shocked when she saw the state I was in.

  ‘Merciful heaven, Mildred, what have you done to the child? You’ve bashed her about good and proper!’ she said.

  ‘Well, there’s a cheek,’ said Mildred. ‘You were the one who said she deserved a good hiding!’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t mean mark her like that. I was annoyed at the time because washing day’s such a trial – I was so tired with the baby not sleeping that I couldn’t bear the thought of having to do it twice. But it was only a piece of childish mischief all the same. I’m not even sure your Clover pulled the sheets down herself, though she was certainly the ringleader,’ said Mrs Watson. She peered at my face. ‘You nearly took her eye out, Mildred! What were you thinking?’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate! I just gave her a smacking,’ Mildred told her. ‘And it was well deserved because she ran off and stayed out all hours, probably hanging round that weird old doll-maker, and then she started sweet-talking her pa to get him on her side. She’s the craftiest little baggage. She needs sorting out or she’ll really go to the bad. I’m only doing my Christian duty as her stepmother.’

  ‘There’s nothing Christian about marking a child for life, and that’s what you’ve done, Mildred.’ Mrs Watson took my hand and squeezed it hard. ‘I’m sorry, pet. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.’

  ‘I’m sorry too, Mrs Watson,’ I said, enjoying the situation. Mildred was starting to look really worried.

  After Mrs Watson had gone she didn’t say anything more, but when she heard the street doctor calling for customers at the top of Cripps Alley she went hurrying out, purse in hand. She came back with a small blue jar.

  ‘Come here, you,’ she said to me. ‘Look what I’ve got you. A pennyworth of Arabian Family Ointment. Doctor says it’s the best for inflammation of the eyes. And it’s good for chapped hands too, which I blooming well need, seeing as I did two full washes yesterday.’

  She hooked my hair behind my ears and dabbed on the ointment.

  ‘Ouch! You’re hurting!’ I protested.

  ‘Well, keep still, you ungrateful little miss. I’m trying to make it better for you, aren’t I?’

  ‘It smells!’

  ‘Oh, Miss Hoity-Toity! I’ll shove it right up your nose in a minute if you keep up this nonsense.’ She slathered it on as if spreading dripping. ‘There, that should clear it up,’ she said. ‘Now, take the baby and get out from under my feet. I can’t stand to look at you. And don’t you dare go running to that creeping crookback or I’ll have your guts for garters.’

  Mr Dolly said the pills and potions the street doctor sold were all useless rubbish, likely to do you more harm than good, but the ointment did stop the throbbing just a little. I longed to go and see him but didn’t quite dare, not so soon. I wound a blanket about my shoulders and sat out on the doorstep instead, with Bert on my lap. Megs came and sat beside me. She kept giving my sore head worried glances.

  ‘It doesn’t really hurt,’ I said reassuringly.

  ‘It still looks funny,’ she said. She huddled against me. I could feel her shivering.

  ‘Here, it’s chilly today. Have my blanket.’ I eased Bert forward so I could shrug it off.

  ‘But then you’ll be cold, Clover,’ said Megs.

  ‘I’m warm as toast, truly,’ I said. I was actually burning. Perhaps I had a fever. I still felt addled inside my head, unable to think straight.

  Megs had been given the burnt porridge pot to scrape clean with a scrubber. The other girls were making the beds and sweeping the floors. Richie and Pete staggered outside with the mats to shake. I’d usually be inside, helping Mildred with the ironing, but she didn’t want me anywhere near her today.

  ‘So lucky me,’ I said to Bert. ‘No chores at all. We’re free as birds, aren’t we, Bertie? You’re a little bird. My little duck.’

  ‘Duck!’ said Bert. ‘Duck!’

  ‘Oh my! Did you hear that, Megs? Bert said duck. He really did. Say it again, Bertie! Duck! Say duck!’

  ‘Duck!’ said Bert.

  ‘Oh, you clever little boy. Listen to your brother, Richie, Pete. He can say duck!’ I said.

  ‘We can say duck too, silly. Anyone can say it,’ said Richie. ‘Duck, duck, duck!’

  ‘Duck, duck, duck!’ Bert repeated, and made us all laugh.

  ‘Let’s play a game so that Bert can join in too,’ I said. ‘It’s a bird game. We’ll each choose a bird, and then, when I point, you have to say your name and flap your wings. We’ll do it ever so quick, but we’ll slow down for Bertie because he’s little. You play too, Megs. You can be a little sparrow.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a little sparrow,’ said Pete. ‘I want to be a big, big, big bird.’

  ‘Then you can be an eagle,’ I said. ‘They’re the biggest of all.’

  ‘I want to be an eagle,’ said Richie, predictably enough.

  ‘You can be a hawk. Oh, how all the little mice and rabbits tremble if they sense you flying overhead.’

  So we started the game, and then Jenny and Mary came running out and joined in too. Jenny was a beautiful white swan preening herself, and Mary was a speckled hen clucking at the top of her voice. Soon Jimmy Wheels came bowling along and I declared he was a kingfisher, the most beautiful and brightly coloured of all the birds.

  I’d turned the pages of Mr Dolly’s Book of British Birds but it was a struggle thinking up new birds when half the children in the alley joined in. The twins five doors down were two cuckoos, and pretty blonde Angel was a yellowhammer who said, ‘Little bit of bread and no cheese.’ Angel’s baby sister was too little to say anything at all, so she was just a fledgling who cheeped whenever she wanted. I added a parrot and a hummingbird, though I knew they weren’t British, and Sukey down the alley and Daft Mo were very loud in their interpretations. Sukey squawked alarmingly and Daft Mo hummed furiously even when it wasn’t his turn.

  The rules of my game fell by the wayside but it didn’t seem to matter. Little Bert cried, ‘Duck!’ every time I pointed at him, extremely pleased with himself. I lifted him up and down, making his stubby legs dance on the cobbles, and after a minute or so he was trying to do it himself, practically performing a polka, though he tipped forward if I let him go.

  Halfway through our noisy game I became aware that a strange man was leaning against the wall at the top of the alley. He kept looking at us and then seemed to be writing rapidly in a notebook. He was in the shadows so I couldn’t see him properly. I wondered if he was the police, making notes of our whereabouts.

  The police hated all us alley folk. They’d arrested all three of Old Ma Robinson’s boys for thieving, they’d kept Peg-leg Jack in the cells many a night for drunkenness, and they were forever harassing Daft Mo’s big sister because she liked to go off with gentlemen.

  Then the stranger edged a few paces nearer. He wasn’t the police. I recognized his floppy scarf and his fancy waistcoat and crumpled suit. It was Mr Rivers, the gentleman who’d bought Marigold for his daughter!

&nbs