Young May Moon Read Online Free PDF

glance.
    ‘The family are waiting in the motor,’ Brendan said, ‘You are safe with us.’
    As they followed him out of the theatre, Pomona whispered to May: ‘Isn’t it wonderful – Mum’s back!’
    ‘Let’s see what she has to say first,’ May said. She was still uneasy about the intense scrutiny directed at herself by the strange man accompanying her mother.

Five
    T HE GIRLS STOOD uncertainly on the red thick-pile carpet in the hotel foyer. They wore their best floral crêpe dresses as they had last night to the theatre, but the platinum-blonde receptionist with lips painted in a pillar-box red cupid’s bow, gave them a supercilious look from behind the counter, before she checked the admissions book and rang through to Carmen’s room.
    ‘Mrs Jolley will be with you in a moment,’ she told them. ‘Please go through into the small sitting room, on the left. I will arrange for you to have coffee there.’
    ‘I don’t—’ Pomona began.
    May said quickly, ‘Please could my sister have lemonade? She’d prefer that.’
    ‘Certainly,’ the receptionist agreed, then moved away from the window to her desk. She inserted shiny dark-blue carbon paper between two sheets of quarto white paper and rolled them into position on her typewriter. There was the clatter of keys and the noisy return of the carriage at the end of each printed line. When she became aware that the two girls were watching this procedure with interest, she gave them a look which made them move hastily in the direction they’d been told.
    The tray of refreshments was placed on a low table: a tall coffee pot, jug of cream and a bowl of brown sugar lumps, with tongs. Pomona drank some of her lemonade, and crunched a couple of sugar lumps.
    ‘Try the biscuits.’ May pointed out the plate of tiny almond flat cakes.
    ‘There’s only one each.’
    ‘You can have mine as well.’
    Carmen swept in, wearing a scarlet silk frock with the fashionable ‘pointed handkerchief’ hemline. Draped round her shoulders was one of her exotic shawls, heavily embroidered. Her black hair was pulled back from her forehead, coiled in the nape of her neck and anchored by a silver comb.
    ‘You’ve plaited your hair today, it looked
much
nicer last night,’ was her greeting to May. She held out her arms to Pomona, ‘Aren’t you going to give me a proper hug today, my darling?’
    It was fortunate that May had delayed pouring the coffee, for when Pomona sprang up she spilt some of her lemonade and scattered the sugar lumps on the table. May tidied them up, ignoring the touching embrace. Then she poured the coffee and said evenly: ‘Well, let’s have our coffee, shall we? Then we must talk. We should be on the beach by half past one – our friends are putting up the booth and looking after the animals for us until then.’ She would have to change quickly in the cramped space, into her ‘disguise’, she thought.
    ‘I suppose you wish me to tell you where I have been and whom I have been with these past years?’ Carmen challenged May.
    ‘Well, the man we saw you with last night wasn’t the preacher you went away with, was he?’ May was emboldened by her mother’s obvious surprise that her daughter was answering her back.
    ‘No …
that
man – we were on the boat train and about to leave for Europe, when he went out of the carriage to buy a newspaper and never returned. I certainly did not go after him!’ Her dark eyes flashed.
    ‘Why didn’t you come back to Dad, to us?’ May demanded.
    Carmen sighed. ‘Pride. Anyway, I knew it was the end of our marriage. Best for you all that I should keep away. Still, I am sad, you know, that I am unable to make amends with your father.’
    ‘But you’re back now, Mum, aren’t you?’ Pomona put in anxiously.
    ‘For
you
, darling, yes. I did not forget it was your birthday, May. I shall buy you a new frock –
puff sleeves
, at your age, Aunt Min’s choice, I presume. If you want to prove you are grown up