The Moon At Midnight Read online

  ‘God, you are so, so beautiful, Flavia,’ she told herself, in a low voice.

  ‘Flavia! Flavia!’

  Her mother’s voice, edged with anxiety, interrupted her orgy of narcissism.

  Flavia stood up, panic-struck, and knowing that she’d be in a boiling cauldron of hot water if her mother found her trying on her precious new twinset. She tore the pullover and cardigan off and stuffed them back into their tissue paper and under her bed, until such time as she could secretly replace them in her mother’s wardrobe.

  ‘Flavia! Ah, there you are!’ Rusty Sykes sighed and stopped halfway up the stairs as she saw Flavia coming out of her bedroom. ‘Lunch is served in the dining room today.’ She stared at her daughter. ‘Your dad has insisted that I entertain four members of the Empire League for Ladies, and I’m afraid the Empire League for Ladies would not understand your being dressed like that, Flave.’

  Flavia nodded. She knew how much her mother hated formal entertaining, quite as much as she hated everything else to do with the social life of Churchester. Ever since they had moved to their bigger, grander house, Rusty had worn an expression of resignation close to martyrdom. Part of Flavia understood this, because her mother had always lived in nearby Bexham, by the sea, and had sailed boats – even been to Dunkirk several times on rescue missions, her grandad had told Flavia, although Mum never would talk about it nowadays. So Flavia knew that Rusty found town life claustrophobic, and she sympathised with her; on the other hand, another part of her sympathised with her father who wanted his wife to toe the line and make a proper social life, mix with the right people, if only for the sake of his business.

  ‘OK, I’ll put on proper things, don’t worry.’

  Flavia turned on her heel and went back to her room, sighing, as Rusty in her turn went back down to the ground floor of their large Victorian house clicking her tongue.

  ‘And try not to say “OK”, Flavia. It’s not nice.’

  Flavia turned to address her mother’s departing back.

  ‘Mrs Perkins our English teacher says we shouldn’t say “nice”,’ she called down to the hall, tossing back her hair.

  Flavia quickly went from her bedroom to her parents’ room, replacing the precious twinset in the new mahogany wardrobe. Rusty loved clothes, because, as she was always explaining to Flavia, not having had any during the war, what with clothes rationing and the rest, she was only too appreciative of them now.

  Having carefully removed the tulle-lined petticoat with a regretful little sigh, Flavia went to her own newly made mahogany wardrobe, opened the doors and stared in. She knew that if there were members of the Empire League for Ladies coming, she would be expected to wear a pleated tweed skirt, a silk crêpe blouse with long sleeves, nylon stockings with a light brown seam, and a pair of slip-on shoes in a discreet dark colour. A single row of pearls – never two – and a dark matching cardigan with small pearl buttons draped across her shoulders would complete her ensemble.

  Once appropriately dressed she turned yet again to her dressing mirror to check her clothes, anxious to make sure that she looked every inch the well-brought-up young lady, which, thanks to her parents’ new-found prosperity, she truly thought she might be. Flavia really liked to examine herself objectively at every point of the day, because she was increasingly aware that, if she was to get on, she had to study herself as if she were a subject she was taking at school. She was after all her own greatest asset, and likely to be able to make more from herself than she was ever going to make from geography or Latin.

  She studied her straight red hair and green eyes, her tall, slender figure, and her thankfully freckle-free skin every time she passed a mirror, or even a shop window, and, while she took care to always be critical of what she saw, she was none the less also aware that the reflection she saw was of a gratifyingly beautiful young woman.

  She heard the bell downstairs being rung, and turned regretfully from her mirror. It was time to be ladylike.

  * * *

  Nowadays the more proper ladies of Churchester were only too happy to come to the Sykeses’ large Victorian house in its few acres of carefully manicured grounds, because not only was the food at Lowfield House quite a cut above that to which they might be used, but since their move into Churchester Mr and Mrs Sykes were proving an unexpected asset to such organisations as the Empire League for Ladies. Peter Sykes had taken care to donate generously to the League, and was in the way of lending them cars, and drivers, whenever it was necessary for the ladies to travel round the country in the course of their League work. As a consequence of all of this, the ladies were kindly prepared to ignore the fact that Peter Sykes was in trade.

  After the statutory greetings, and the serving of before-lunch sherry, Flavia sat silently throughout the meal, contributing nothing except ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘would you like’ and listening to the to and fro of conversation, which always seemed to centre around improving the world, and women’s role in it, by placing rallying articles in newspapers or magazines. As far as Flavia could gather, even such things as recipes for bottling beetroot could produce a better, healthier nation, something which greatly concerned the League. Today the menu in the dining room at Lowfield House consisted of the cold jellied soup known as ‘consommé’ – which Flavia ate dutifully, but privately found quite revolting – chicken in white sauce with rice, and Queen of Puddings, which when served, which it was with monotonous regularity, was always greeted with a murmur of appreciation. Happily for Flavia she knew that it was not her place to contribute to the general conversation, which was just as well, since she found the word ‘empire’ as pathetically old-fashioned as the ladies themselves. For, what with their tightly corseted figures encased in neat suits whose lapels were inevitably decorated with regimental brooches, they seemed to be as much part of the past as the League itself.

  It was not that Flavia herself was political, because she certainly was not. It was just that she could not see what the Empire League for Ladies could possibly have to do with the modern world, particularly when they all knew that Kennedy was probably just about to chuck an atom bomb at Russia, and Khrushchev quite ready to return the compliment. Also, the very fact that the subject of Cuba was not even raised once over lunch seemed really so peculiar. It was just as if none of the ladies present had ever heard the news on the television or the radio, or even read a newspaper, for the past heavens only knew how long, as if their lives had stopped in 1945.

  Not that Flavia herself cared too much what happened to the world at that moment, just so long as whatever was going to happen manifested itself after she had been to see Max Eastcott in his West End show. It was to be her half term treat, and if an atom bomb ended the world before that she would be really, truly furious.

  Before the Cuban crisis came to a head that week Lionel Eastcott had already been to see his grandson Max in his show. He had made sure to attend the first night in London, taking along his old friend Waldo Astley, and, as he told the boy afterwards, thoroughly enjoyed it.

  ‘Some of it’s a bit left wing, and so on, but nothing wrong with that, that after all is what being young is all about. Left wing before forty, right wing after, I think you’ll find,’ he told Max, patting him affectionately on the shoulder before turning quickly to leave the boy’s dressing room and make way for the next visitors. ‘Just make sure you get down to Bexham for a game of golf before too long.’

  ‘You bet, Pops,’ Max called back, his eyes drifting over his grandfather’s head to the next in line.

  ‘Jolly good show, wasn’t it?’ Lionel asked Waldo as they walked back to spend the night in Waldo’s London flat.

  ‘I thought so.’ It was Waldo’s turn to pat his old friend reassuringly on the back. ‘I really thought so. Clever boy, Max. Should go far I would have thought. Acted and sang like a real pro. You must be proud of him – you should be proud of him.’

  ‘I am proud of him. I just hope the critics don’t devour it.’
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  ‘They can’t, not after a reception like that,’ Waldo stated, and for a while the two of them walked on in happy silence, as friends do after they’ve enjoyed an evening out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lionel went on, after a bit. ‘These critics, you know, they can get their knives out and carve up the young, make mincemeat of them, just like that, and all of a sudden they’re finished, at the bottom of the barrel.’

  As it happened Lionel’s fears had not been realised. Far from devouring the show the London critics adored it, which was just fine, and had delighted Lionel. Now, as he looked round his late autumn garden taking in the few things that still needed tidying up, he could still remember the reviews for Max’s show, which was hardly surprising because he had not only rushed them round to Waldo at Cucklington House, but had reread them time after time, after time, until he knew them by heart and the print seemed to be fading from the warmth of his hands.

  ‘Stunning tour de force by Max Eastcott’ and ‘A star is born’ and ‘Run to see Max Eastcott because not to do so is to miss the performance of a lifetime.’

  The reviews had been well beyond the wildest dreams of any grandfather for his twenty-year-old grandson, which was more than gratifying, because young Max had always been a bit of a handful, although that was only to be expected, what with having been born out of wedlock to Lionel’s daughter Mattie during the war.

  Not that Mattie didn’t love Max with all her heart, because of course she did; she just didn’t appear to love him quite as much as Jenny and Sholto, the children she’d subsequently had with his stepfather, John Tate. Lionel knew that of course Mattie had meant to love Max quite as much, but it had become increasingly hard for her not to appear impatient with the boy, simply because Max was already growing into a stroppy adolescent when the others were still young and angelic.

  It was then that the game of golf had come in so handy, because Lionel, only too happy to have a young companion on the links, had been able to take his grandson under his wing and whisk him off to the golf club at every opportunity that presented itself. Not only did their regular games do them both the world of good, but it also gave Lionel an opportunity to listen to Max airing what he considered to be his problems, while Max was forced to listen to an older more reasonable point of view.

  However, hard as Lionel tried to be a peacemaker between the two generations, the fact that Max’s mother and stepfather had, for various reasons, been unable to go with Lionel to Max’s first night in London had not made family relations any smoother, which was why, quite against his better judgement, Lionel found himself ringing Mattie to confirm that she and John were actually going to Max’s show, albeit a week late.

  ‘I told you, we are going to Max’s show, Daddy,’ Mathilda sounded irritated, as if Lionel was nagging her to do something for the hundredth time, which was so far from being the case that her father found himself feeling almost virtuous. ‘I already told you, we are going, but John had to rush up to Scotland for his opening of his new factory which has been having terrible teething problems, and I, as you well know, have had the most God-awful flu.’ She paused, preparing to list a catalogue of emotional achievements which would cancel out any hurt that her son might have suffered on their account. ‘We sent him a first night telegram. I’ve spoken to him on the phone, and we’re booked to take the children on their half term to see the show next week. We’re even taking the Sykeses and their children, so we’ll be a big Bexham party. Only Hubert will be missing because his half term’s different. So, we are going, really we are, and I’ve told Max. There’s no need to fuss, really there isn’t.’

  Lionel replaced the telephone. He was not fussed. He knew he wasn’t fussed. He just didn’t want the boy hurt. Although, come to think of it, it was a bit late for that kind of talk. His grandfather knew that Max had been hurt, was hurt, and so far as Lionel could see would remain hurt. For, whatever the reasons for his mother and stepfather’s having missed the opening night of his first success on the West End stage, Lionel knew that they could never now make it up to the boy. It would have been better if they’d attended it and hated it, rather than just not gone, whatever the excuses. Not to have gone looked like disapproval, and both the good Lord, and Lionel Eastcott, knew that disapproval was the last thing young Max needed.

  Max stared at himself in his dressing room mirror, wondering for the hundredth time what it would be like? Would he feel anything? Would he know anything? What. Would. It. Be. Like. What would the Big Bang be like?

  The door of the dressing room was pushed open. Max turned to see the dark, curly-haired head of Joe Martino. He was unshaven. He had bags under his eyes, and he had not even started to change into his dark suit for the first act.

  ‘You look awful.’

  ‘What else should I look? I spent the night in the theatre basement.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘I did.’

  Max started to laugh. Henry Robinson had suggested that Max and Maisie and the rest of the cast do the same thing, but neither he, nor the other three, had taken the idea seriously. Hiding from the impact of atomic warfare in a theatre basement seemed somehow perfectly hilarious.

  ‘I just don’t believe it.’ Max lit a cigarette and immediately puffed the smoke out, at the same time doing up his tie in front of his mirror. ‘That’s about as clever as taking refuge in a broom cupboard when an incendiary bomb is about to drop on your house, Joe.’ Max laughed again. ‘What did you sleep on, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘There’s a sofa down there, but I didn’t sleep,’ Joe said hoarsely. ‘I took a bottle of Scotch and a blanket, and drank myself into a stupor.’

  ‘Overture and beginners, please.’ The announcement came over the tannoy.

  ‘You’d better scarper, my friend.’ Max looked at Joe affectionately. ‘Henry is on the war path. We went up two minutes late yesterday.’

  ‘Rather an unfortunate phrase in the circumstances, I should have thought, Max,’ Joe grumbled, but he hurried off to his own dressing room nevertheless.

  Kim Tate was waiting impatiently by the school gates for her cousin Jenny to arrive. They were being let off early for half term so that they could drive up to town with Jenny’s parents, John and Mattie Tate, to see Jenny’s half-brother Max in his musical revue.

  All the time they were growing up Kim had never bothered to conceal from Jenny that she found Max both big-headed and patronising. However, this did not stop her feeling excited at the idea of seeing him on stage in a professional West End revue, his name in lights, the lot.

  When they all looked back to their childhood, growing up in and around the little fishing harbour of Bexham, the fact that Max Eastcott was starring in a show when he was not yet twenty-one did not surprise the young of Bexham. They had all long ago accepted that Max stood apart from the rest of the Tate clan, not just because he was not a Tate, but because he was Max, tall, dark, handsome, edgy, and highly strung, looking out on the world with what Kim always thought of as being an unnecessary and really rather tiring cynicism.

  ‘Oh, God, Jenny, do stop fussing with your hair. You look fine, really you do.’

  Kim groaned, and both fourteen-year-olds hurried towards the school gates. They were dressed not in their school uniform but in home clothes, and feeling happily confident they would be able to mix with the most sophisticated in the West End theatre audience, since beneath their navy blue winter coats they were both wearing borrowed black cocktail-type dresses with the new fashionably shortened hem lengths.

  ‘What on earth have you both got on?’

  Mattie stared at Kim and Jenny, and then shrugged her shoulders as both girls, their eyes watering from the excessive amount of Woolworth’s mascara they had plastered on their eyelashes, stared miserably back at her, trying not to look deeply hurt at her reaction to their carefully chosen high fashion look and succeeding only in looking painfully guilty. Kim had thought that it would be quite difficult to get the length of their skirts
past her Aunt Mattie, while Jenny, knowing her mother’s sharp eyes, had judged it to be impossible, while hoping against hope that she was wrong.

  ‘Really, I don’t know.’ Mattie stared at both girls in some despair, wondering what on earth to do about them. ‘Look, it’s too late for you to go back and change, so just keep your coats done up, and for heaven’s sake, whatever you do, don’t undo them when we get to London.’ She looked at Kim and shook her head. ‘Walter and Judy will have a fit, young lady, if they find out I let you go to the theatre dressed like that! As for your uncle. You know what he’s like when it comes to skirt lengths. Just as well your parents saw the show earlier in the week. If they saw what you were wearing they’d send you straight back to St George’s to change.’

  Kim climbed glumly into the back of the car, followed by Jenny, both of them muttering ‘Hiya, Sholt’ to Jenny’s brother, Sholto, who was already sitting in the front of the old Rover.

  ‘Mummy says that Daddy only likes women to look like old Queen Mary. You know, skirts down to your ankles, and hair in a bun,’ Sholto opined, looking back at his sister from his front seat.

  Kim peered out from under her dark fringe of hair at the road ahead of them. The thought of having to keep her wool coat done up for the rest of the evening was enough to make her want to burst into tears. She turned and looked at her cousin, but Jenny seemed oblivious of disappointment, merely staring ahead, a faraway look on her face.

  In Kim’s eyes at any rate, Jenny was looking really pretty. Her long blond hair was held back decorously by a velvet bow at the back, a black velvet ribbon around her neck giving her what they had both imagined, when they were dressing, would be a sophisticated woman-of-the-world air. OK, so her mascara was a bit smudged, but otherwise in Kim’s opinion her cousin looked so wonderful, someone might actually mistake her for a model, and sign her up.