One Blue Moon by Catrin Collier Page A

the quiet ones like small, dark haired Betty. If he was lucky, word would get back to Jenny. Then she’d realise he could survive without her.
    Yes that was it. He’d really give her something to think about. And for once perhaps her nagging would be justified.
    Diana walked the long way round to Graig Avenue. She didn’t want to take the short cut up past Leyshon Street, and through Rhiannon Pugh’s house. One look at her old home had been enough for one day, and she’d met too many old friends and neighbours as it was. She was tired of telling people why she and Maud had left Cardiff. She couldn’t take any more sympathetic, knowing nods from women who’d soon be baking for Maud’s funeral. And it would be even worse if her aunt didn’t listen to the boys and her Uncle Evan, and threw her out. The disgrace of trying to explain why she’d moved away from Will, across town to Bonvilston Road to live with her bachelor uncle, would be the final, bitter straw.
    The first thing she saw when she walked over the rise past the vicarage was her uncle’s horse and cart. He and Eddie were struggling up the steps with the spring base of Will’s old bed.
    ‘It seems you’re moving in then?’ Elizabeth said acidly, as Diana walked slowly up the steps behind them.
    ‘I told Diana she had no choice in the matter. It would look bloody funny, a girl of her age moving in with her bachelor uncle when her brother and married uncle are living here,’ Evan panted as he and Eddie hauled the bedstead on to the doorstep.
    ‘I’ve a job, Aunt Elizabeth,’ Diana announced proudly, too excited to wait for a more propitious time to announce her news.
    ‘You’ve a what ?’ Evan dropped the bedsprings on to the hall floor.
    ‘Don’t you dare scuff that lino, Evan Powell’ Elizabeth shouted angrily. ‘Lino doesn’t grow on trees. And with what you bring in we’ll never be able to replace it.’
    ‘It’s resting on my foot, woman,’ Evan snarled. ‘Where are you working?’ he asked Diana in a gentler tone, as he turned his back on Elizabeth.
    ‘Ben Springer’s.’
    ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! You’d better watch that one.’ Eddie forgot Elizabeth’s presence for a moment. ‘We may have to punch him on the nose.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Diana asked, knowing full well what he meant.
    ‘If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you,’ Eddie mumbled, looking at the floor as his mother cast her disapproving eye on him.
    ‘And I’ll have none of that filthy double talk in my house, Edward Powell,’ Elizabeth ordered.
    ‘I can look after myself,’ Diana asserted, lifting her chin defiantly.
    ‘If you get any trouble from him, love, just tell me.’ Evan picked up the bed again. ‘How much is he paying you?’
    ‘Six bob for the moment, but he said he’d review it if I suited the job.’
    ‘That’s bloody slave labour,’ Eddie cursed.
    ‘And how much do you intend paying me out of six shillings a week?’ Elizabeth demanded, too concerned with the changes in the family’s income to chastise Eddie for swearing.
    ‘Whatever Will and Charlie are paying you,’ Diana said boldly. ‘I can afford to make it up until I get a pay rise. I’ve got savings,’ she said boldly.
    ‘They’re paying seven and six a week. Each.’ Elizabeth folded her arms and stepped aside so Evan and Eddie could move the bed on to the stairs.
    ‘There’s no way a slip of a girl like Diana will eat the same as those two great hulking men,’ Evan protested. ‘Four bob a week is more than fair.’
    ‘Evan!’ Elizabeth exclaimed.
    ‘I’ve spoken, Elizabeth,’ he said decisively. ‘Right, Eddie?’
    Carefully, so as not to tear the twenty-year-old jute carpet on the stairs, they manhandled the bedstead into the hall and over the banisters. It was tricky manoeuvring it through the narrow passageway and into the box room, but eventually they managed it, and laid it on its side beneath the window opposite the door.
    ‘I don’t know where