Andie's Moon (2 page)

When she was little, Andie pretended to see the Man in the Moon, because Dad used to tell her a story about him. She liked to imagine that the moon’s greeny-blue shadows formed the outline of a face, a wise and good-humoured face. The Man, she thought, was smiling at her. He was hard to make out, but perhaps that was why not everyone could see him. He only appeared to especially observant people, and Andie liked to think she was one of those.

Now, everyone was talking about man
on
the moon, because in a fortnight’s time the American astronauts would not only fly to the moon, but land there. Just thinking about it gave Andie a thrill of excitement and disbelief. Did the moon
know
?

“Fly me to the Moon” – that was one of the songs on Mum’s favourite Frank Sinatra record. The familiar tune started to sing itself in Andie’s head; because of Apollo 11, it was always being played on the radio this summer. Soon, flying to the moon wouldn’t be the fantasy it had once been. But, gazing at it now – at
her
moon, the moon she always looked for, and the moon she used to think looked back at her – Andie couldn’t quite take in that this was the same place they were aiming for. The moon was Earth’s mysterious companion, keeping half of itself always hidden. The space rockets seemed like ropes, lassoes, thrown out to catch and tether it and bring it closer. Apollo 10 had already orbited, with three astronauts aboard, and they’d seen what no human had ever seen before – the far side of the moon.

Mystery, or discovery? Which was better? And could you have
both
?

A moonscape began to form in her mind, sharp, clear and perfect. It was far better than she’d ever be able to achieve with paints and brush; but there it was, demanding to be painted. Tomorrow she’d do it.

She crept back into bed, hearing, as she did so, another small creak from above. Andie froze, listening.

“Prune?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

But Prune gave no sign of having heard. Andie stayed where she was for a few more moments, ears straining. Then, hearing no more, she gave up, lay down, and closed her eyes firmly.

Chapter Two

Feet on the Ground

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were the main reason for the Miller family’s stay at Chelsea Walk. As Andie was the only one who liked cats, she’d been appointed cat-sitter in chief. She didn’t mind that. Forking out Kit-e-Kat twice a day, and keeping the litter tray clean, wasn’t much to do in return for a luxurious London flat to stay in.

This kitchen was almost twice as big as the one at home. Everything was white and gleaming. It looked freshly cleaned when they’d arrived, but the first thing Mum had done was get out rubber gloves and scourers and sponges, to wash and disinfect every surface, tap and plughole.

“You don’t have to do that!” Dad told her. “The Rutherfords’ cleaner comes every Wednesday.”

“You never know.” Mum was sprinkling bleach powder in the sink. “It looks very nice, but who knows what germs are lurking? Especially with those cats shedding fleas and hairs everywhere.”

The cats, like the flat, belonged to the Rutherfords, who were partners in the insurance company Dad had now joined. While Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford, with their daughter Anne, were in Manchester to set up a new branch there, and Dad, with his new job in the King’s Road office, wanted to move to London, it solved everyone’s problems for the Millers to move into Number Six, Chelsea Walk. The house at home was up for sale, and Andie’s parents were looking for a house or flat in Chelsea. Such a move would mean leaving behind friends, school, everything that was familiar – daunting, but exciting.

Meanwhile, neither Andie nor Prune could quite believe their luck at getting an extra two weeks of summer holiday. For Prune, who had just finished her O-Levels, coming to Chelsea was the perfect reward, the closest thing to heaven. According to
Honey
magazine, which Prune devoured every month from cover to cover, Chelsea was the trendy heart of London, the switched-on scene, the hub of the fashion universe. “Maybe I’ll get taken on by a modelling agency!” she had told Andie, at least five times. “There are loads of them in Chelsea. What if I turn out to be the next Twiggy or Jean Shrimpton?”

Andie could have pointed out that both Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton were a lot prettier as well as a lot thinner than Prune, so maybe it was as well that she hadn’t been asked for her opinion. But she knew that Prune would be doing a lot of hanging around the King’s Road – starting today, most likely. Prune hadn’t decided yet what to do in September. Dad wanted her to stay on at school (but
which
school? Hillsden High, back in Slough – or, if they moved house, one near here?), while Mum thought she should enrol on a secretarial course. Prune wasn’t keen on either.

Part of the fun of missing school was to think of all the lessons you weren’t having. Andie ran through her Friday timetable: Maths, Biology, French and English, and finally double Art. She felt a little leap of joy inside, at the thought of not being there.

Art was her least favourite lesson. It ought to have been the time of the week she most looked forward to, which made it worse that she hated it. There was something so dispiriting about filing into the big, raftered space on the school’s top floor, and hearing Miss Temple’s brisk, “Sit down, girls.” Art with Miss Temple was deadly. She liked the girls to do life drawings or portraits of each other, in pencil or in the powder paints that no matter how thickly you mixed them never kept their brightness on the cheap spongy paper that drained everything of life. The paintbrushes were old and scrubby and looked as if generations of schoolgirls had chewed their wooden ends in frustration. Sometimes, Miss Temple experimented with what she called Modern Art, by which she meant looking at Picasso prints and trying to imitate them by drawing things chopped up into chunks, or viewed from strange angles.

“But Modern Art doesn’t mean copying someone else, who’s been doing it like that for years and years!” Andie objected. “Modern is
new.
Modern is
now
.”

Andie and Miss Temple didn’t get on at all. Andie liked to do things her own way, which made Miss Temple go tight-lipped and offended. “When you’ve spent several years at art college, Andrea, maybe you can come back and tell me how to teach. Until then, I strongly recommend that you do as I tell you.” And just being in the same room as Miss Temple sent Andie into one of her dark, depressed moods in which nothing seemed worth doing.

On Andie’s report, Miss Temple had written, in her tight, knotty handwriting:
Andrea has considerable talent, but no self-discipline at all.
And a stingy B-, and C- for effort. Andie’s friend Barbara, who didn’t even
like
Art but managed to turn out neat, boring pictures week after week according to Miss Temple’s instructions, got B+ and A-.

“Oh, Andie!” Mum said, reading the report. “You really mustn’t be obstinate. I don’t like you getting into trouble at school.”

Andie only took notice of the “considerable talent” bit. Well, that was something, however grudgingly Miss Temple had squeezed out the words. Going to art college was exactly what she had in mind for herself, but Mum and Dad were going to need an awful lot of persuading. “Anything goes, these days. It’s all Pop Art now, isn’t it?” That was Dad’s view. “You can be as good as you like at drawing and painting, but where’ll that get you? People do comic-book cartoons, or pictures of soup tins, and call that Art.”

Mum’s line was, “It’s a nice hobby, painting. You can do it at evening classes or join a group. But you’ll never make money at it.”

“Money’s not the most important thing there is!” Andie protested.

“No, I know. But you try living without it, and you’ll realize that it is
quite
important. When it comes to getting a job, you’ll do far better to concentrate on your Maths and your English. Then you can learn shorthand and typing. I keep telling Prue, a good grounding like that can get you a job almost anywhere.”

“Yes, but only boring jobs in offices!”

“Boring, you may think,” retorted Mum, “but office jobs pay well. We wouldn’t be going to London, if it wasn’t for Dad’s job. And as soon as we get there,
I’ll
be looking for office work as well. If I decided to sit about all day painting pictures, how would we eat?”

Sometimes Andie gave up arguing; sometimes she didn’t. Mum was like that, always going on about keeping your feet on the ground and not having your head in the clouds
. Gaze at the moon and fall in the gutter
, that was one of her sayings. A daft one, Andie thought. Surely, even if you fell over and grazed your knees or twisted your ankle, it’d be better than plodding along
looking
at the gutter, not raising your eyes any higher to see what was shining in the sky? You’d miss the moon altogether, doing that.

Mum could talk as much as she liked about jobs and offices, but nothing was going to make Andie give up her ambition. How could filing and shorthand-typing ever match the excitement of paint and paper and light?

The Rutherfords’ two cats were the haughtiest Andie had ever met. The cat she knew best, Ringo, who belonged to Barbara, would have been purring loudly and twining himself around her legs. Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer sat upright in their basket and stared in disdain.
You’re ten minutes late,
they might as well have said aloud.
We hope you’re not planning to make this a habit.

Mrs. Rutherford had left a long list of instructions, which Andie had already studied carefully but now read again. The cats were to be fed twice a day, at eight in the morning and six in the evening precisely, always from clean dishes. They liked full-cream milk served at room temperature, and on Sunday evenings they were to have tinned pilchards as a treat. Both were large and sleek, with velvet collars. Mungojerrie was black with white chin and whiskers; Rumpelteazer striped ginger, with a pink nose.

Andie placed the dishes of meat on the cats’ special mat, and filled one bowl with water, a second with milk. The rest of today would be free for going out and finding her way around. Later, this evening, the Millers had been invited down to Patrick’s flat to meet everyone who lived in the house.

When the cats had finished picking at their breakfast of minced morsels with haddock, and were sitting on the window sill washing their paws and faces, Andie went to see if Prune was getting up.

She found Prune out of bed, standing by the wardrobe mirror, turning this way and that. She was wearing a dress Andie hadn’t seen before, the colour of purple grapes, with a high collar and a very short skirt.

“Hey, is that new?”

“Oh!” Prune turned round, startled. “I thought you were in the bathroom.”

“That dress. Is it new? Where did you get it?”

“No, it’s, er, not mine.” Prune’s face flushed red. “I was just trying it on. I found it in a bag on the top shelf of the wardrobe.”

“So it belongs to the Rutherford girl!”

“I was only looking.” Prune turned away with a flounce. “I haven’t got anything to wear tonight, and I found this groovy dress. I’m only trying it on. Isn’t it fab? It’s from Biba.” She posed for the mirror: bare legs splayed, toes turned in, both arms held out to show the fullness of the sleeves, which were gathered into long buttoned cuffs.

“Yes, it looks great,” Andie conceded, “but you can’t help yourself to other people’s clothes! Anyway, what does it matter? We’re only going downstairs to meet people.”

“But they’re
Chelsea
people. I don’t want them thinking I’m a complete square.”

“So you’d rather they think you’re a thief? They’ve probably seen Anne Rutherford wearing it. And Mum and Dad know it’s not yours. They won’t let you.”

“Oh, don’t be boring!” Lovingly, Prune stroked the jersey fabric over her hips.

“I’m just
saying
.”

“Oh well, I’ll have to get something in the King’s Road,” said Prune, cheering up. “All those fantastic shops, just round the corner! There’s Just Looking, and Bazaar, and Top Gear, and it’s not far to the Chelsea Cobbler and Biba and Bus Stop – oh, I can’t wait! We can go today!”

“We?” said Andie, suspicious.

“You will come, won’t you?” Prune was unbuttoning the cuffs. “I can’t go on my own! If Susan was here, she’d come like a shot. But she’s not, so I’ll have to make do with you.”

“Huh,” went Andie. “Well, don’t think you’re doing me a favour. It’s the other way round, if you ask me.”

She didn’t see why Prune couldn’t go alone; Andie certainly didn’t want Prune trailing behind her when she went to art galleries. Andie
liked
being on her own, but that, she told herself, was because she was an artist and had an artist’s temperament.

“When you’re my age,” said Prune, “you’ll be just as keen on fashion as I am.”

“No, I won’t. What’s the
point
of it? Everyone trying to copy everyone else? All those magazines telling you what you can and can’t wear? Why can’t you decide for yourself?”