One Blue Moon by Catrin Collier Page B

suggested brutally. Any well of sympathy he might have felt for the ego-induced traumas of theatrical life had been sucked dry by a succession of chorus girls who had sobbed out the most horrendous stories on his shoulder, only to switch to smiles and laughter when someone better heeled had come along and offered to buy them a drink or a meal.
    ‘Pride, I suppose,’ she intoned dramatically. ‘Besides,’ she curled her damp sweaty fingers around his, ‘there’s nine of us kids in a two-bedroomed house in Bermondsey. It’s so bloody full. You can have no idea what it’s like ...’
    ‘You can’t tell me anything about overcrowding,’ he said shortly. ‘As of today there’s eight of us living in our house.’
    ‘Then you do know what it’s like.’ She fluttered her lashes in the direction of his blue eyes.
    ‘Not really,’ he dismissed her attempt to steer the conversation into intimacy. ‘We all get on pretty well.’
    He thought of William, Charlie, his father, Diana and now Maud. If she was as ill as Ronnie had hinted, God only knew how much longer they’d have her with them.
    He already missed his older sister Bethan more than he would have thought possible. He hadn’t realised just how much he’d talked to her, or relied on her judgement, until she was in London and out of everyday reach. Maud was no Bethan. She’d always been the baby of the family: the one who needed protecting and keeping safe from the harsher realities of life. He shuddered, hating himself for even thinking of a time when Maud would no longer be in the house. As though he were precipitating tragedy by giving free rein to such thoughts.
    ‘We all get on very well,’ he murmured again, superstitiously crossing his fingers and hoping that his home and house as it stood now, full of family and cousins, would remain exactly as it was that night. He wished with all his might that he could make it last forever. But even as he formulated intense wishes into silent prayers he knew it wouldn’t. Because change, whether welcome or not, was inevitable.

Chapter Seven
    ‘Here we are,’ Ambrose announced loudly, halting outside the entrance to the pub. ‘In you go, girls and boys.’
    ‘If he calls us “girls and boys” once more I’m going to thump him right where it hurts with my handbag,’ Betty whispered in Haydn’s ear.
    They filed down the tiled passageway and into the long, narrow back room that had been named after the length of the bar. Ambrose clicked his fingers and shouted for the head barman in a voice calculated to be heard in every nook and cranny of the building. He pulled a five-pound note out of his wallet and held it upright between his thumb and forefinger.
    ‘Drinks for the entire cast, and all the stage crew of the Town Hall,’ he ordered flamboyantly. ‘No doubles or trebles,’ he muttered confidentially into the barman’s ear. ‘And just so you can’t say you haven’t been warned, these are coming out of the profits of the tour,’ he explained to his fellow artistes. ‘You’ll be drinking your bonus.’
    ‘Old fart,’ Patsy griped. ‘Has to hold centre stage, even when he’s out of the theatre.’
    ‘What’s yours, Patsy?’ Haydn asked, looking for an excuse to move away from Betty.
    ‘G and T, darling,’ she called out as she sank into the sagging plush upholstery of a couch pushed against the back wall. ‘Treble,’ she added defiantly, eyeing Ambrose.
    ‘Seeing as how it’s you darling, I’ll make an exception.’ Ambrose mouthed an OK to the barman.
    ‘Same for me, Haydn,’ Betty demanded, pouting because he’d left her side.
    ‘And me,’ Tessie cried out.
    Before Haydn knew what was happening, he was acting as waiter, ferrying gin and tonics, whisky-and-its, and brandy and sodas between the bar and the seats. A good quarter of an hour elapsed before he was free to look for a seat for himself. Clutching a full pint he rested his heel on the brass rail, turned his back on the