One Blue Moon Read Free Page A

have to work behind the counter?’ Tony asked indignantly as he appeared from behind the curtain. ‘Angelo can’t. He’s still washing breakfast dishes. At half speed,’ he added. Noticing Diana for the first time, he smiled and nodded to her.
    ‘It’s only ten o’clock,’ Ronnie countered, quashing his brother’s complaints. ‘Papa and I used to get out seventy dinners in two and half hours on a Saturday in High Street with no help, and only an hour’s preparation. Time you learnt to do the same, my boy.’
    Maud began to cough.
    ‘Prop her up, you stupid girls,’ Ronnie shouted at his sister and Diana. ‘Can’t you see she’s choking?’ Lifting himself on the flat of his hands he swung his long, lithe body easily over the high counter. He pushed his hand beneath Maud’s back and eased her into a sitting position. Startled by how light she was, he failed to stop the shock from registering on his face. He looked up. Diana was watching him. ‘I’ve seen more meat on picked chicken bones,’ he commented. ‘Didn’t they feed you in the Infirmary?’
    ‘Slops and leftovers, and not enough of those,’ Diana said harshly.
    ‘You back for the weekend, Diana?’ Tina asked brightly in a clumsy effort to lighten the atmosphere generated by Ronnie’s insensitive questioning.
    ‘No, back for good,’ Diana said flatly.
    ‘Job didn’t work out then?’ Tina asked.
    ‘They gave us all a medical yesterday. Afterwards they told Maud she was too ill to work. Swines handed over her wages along with her cards. I could hardly let her come home on her own.’
    ‘Language!’ Ronnie reprimanded. ‘If you were my sister I’d drag you into the kitchen and scrub your mouth out with washing soda.’
    ‘Then it’s just as well I’m not your sister.’
    ‘One more word from you, young lady, and I’ll put you outside the door.’
    Diana fell silent. Although Ronnie was eleven years older than her, and more her brother’s friend than hers, she knew him well enough. He wasn’t one for making idle threats, and she was too worried about Maud to risk being parted from her now, when they were so close to home.
    ‘They only told Maud to leave yesterday?’ Ronnie demanded incredulously as he brushed Maud’s fair curls away from her face with a gesture that was uncommonly tender, for him.
    ‘It was as much as they could do to let us sleep in our beds in the hostel last night. New girls took over from us today.’
    ‘Maud didn’t get like this in a day or two, I know.’
    ‘She never was very strong,’ Diana insisted defensively. ‘And as soon as the weather turned really cold, she got worse.’
    ‘Stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here,’ Maud murmured, consciousness coinciding with yet another coughing fit.
    ‘See what you get for trying to talk?’ Ronnie unpinned the corners of the tea towel he was wearing round his waist and flung it at Tony. ‘I’m going to get the Trojan out of the White Hart yard. You’ll have to hurry the dishes and do the vegetables as well Angelo,’ he ordered his fifteen-year-old brother, who was peeking out from behind the kitchen curtain to find out what all the commotion was about.
    ‘I was going to the penny rush in the White Palace. Why should I do Tony’s jobs as well as my own?’ he complained.
    ‘Because Tony’s needed behind the counter, and because I’m telling you to,’ Ronnie said forcefully.
    ‘Well I’m not doing the cooking as well.’ Angelo slammed the pile of tea plates he was holding on to the counter. ‘And that’s final.’
    ‘I wouldn’t trust you to,’ Ronnie rejoined.
    ‘Then who is?’ Angelo demanded.
    ‘Tina, and before you say another word, think of Tony. He’ll have to manage both the counter and the tables for half an hour.’
    ‘But Ronnie, you promised I could go to the penny rush this week. You promised.’
    ‘Just stop your griping and get on with it, will you? It’s time all three of you learned to cope on your own for