“Do you think the astronauts will really be able to land there?” she asked Ravi, still peering into the eyepiece.
“Oh, I expect they’ll land all right,” Ravi said, matter-of-factly. “It’s whether they can take off again that I’d be worried about.”
Andie looked at him. “Doesn’t anyone know?”
“Well, it’s never been tried before, has it? They can’t be certain.”
“They must be so brave!” Andie felt a thrill of excitement and fear. “Just imagine, being stranded – looking at the Earth, knowing you can never get back – would you do it, if you had the chance?”
“Like a shot! Wouldn’t you?”
Andie thought. “Yes. Yes, I would,” she said, after a moment. It felt strange to say this, because in her mind she’d been there already – walked about on the moon’s surface, and gazed back at the Earth. But she wasn’t going to tell Ravi, because it would sound stupid. In silence, she studied the lunar surface again. She gazed and gazed until she began to shiver, aware for the first time that she was only in her pyjamas. Ravi was dressed more warmly in jeans and a sweater.
“I can’t believe how close it looks,” she said. “As if we could hop over to it and walk about.”
“I know. It’s nearly a quarter of a million miles away, but that is close, compared to anything else we can see. The next nearest thing’s Venus, and that’s twenty-six million miles, but only at its closest.”
“How do you know so much?” she asked him.
“I just read books, and I look at the sky, and notice things and look them up.”
“What about sleeping? Don’t you sleep?”
“Course – but I’ll stay a bit longer. I want to see – hey!”
He broke off as Andie barged into him, startled by a pressure against her legs, a warm furriness.
“The cats!” she exclaimed. “I forgot – I left the door open!”
Panic juddered through her; she felt trembly and stupid. How could she have been so careless?
“What, those big soft moggies?” Ravi flashed his torch around, revealing a back view of Rumpelteazer, ginger striped tail held high as he stalked along beside the parapet.
“Rumpelteazer!” Andie whisper-called. “Come here – puss, puss! Oh no, I bet they’re both out – Mungojerrie! Rumpelteazer!”
“They’re not easy names to call out…” Ravi was moving slowly along the walkway on the other side of the door.
Andie’s mind was racing. They could go anywhere – escape over the roofs and chimneys of the whole row of Chelsea Walk… She pictured them perched on the highest chimney stack, yowling at the moon like cartoon cats. What if they don’t come back? What if they fall? What if –
Slinking after Rumpelteazer, she wondered whether to grab him – but would he skitter away, even scale the roof? Luckily, he seemed less sure of himself out here than he was indoors. He hesitated, looked at her over his shoulder, turned and miaowed. She darted forward.
“Gotcha!” She tightened her fingers round his collar, and picked up his heavy, resistant bulk. Carrying him back in triumph, she saw that Ravi had gone inside, to the storeroom. Rumpelteazer’s weight made her arms sag as she ducked through the low door. The glow from Ravi’s torch swept round the room, illuminating beams, cobwebs and more boxes and bundles.
“Yesss!” went Ravi, as the light picked out black Mungojerrie stalking a spider in a corner. “Shut the door –”
Andie struggled to do so, her arms full of protesting cat. At least, now, Mungojerrie couldn’t go gallivanting over the rooftops. Ravi was stalking him, holding out one hand as if offering a titbit. The cat hesitated, his eyes reflecting greenly. Ravi pounced; Mungojerrie yowled and hissed, but he was caught.
Giggling with relief, Andie followed Ravi down the stairs, treading carefully. At the open door of the flat, she moved the umbrella rack aside and went in; Ravi shoved Mungojerrie through after her. She held the door open just a crack, enough to speak, not wide enough for the cats to slip out again. “Thanks!” she whispered. “I’d better stay in now. But I liked the skyhopping. Can I come next time?”
“Course. I’ll tell you when.”
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” she added; but he was already ghost-footing up the attic stairs again, heading back to his telescope and the countless millions of stars.
“You know what, And – you’re good.”
Andie looked up from her sketchpad, astonished. It was unusual for Prune to say anything complimentary. But, yes, Andie was pleased with the drawings she’d done of the stilt-legged models in the King’s Road shops, with their perfect, haughty faces and their strutty poses.
Prune turned her head on one side for a better look, adding, “They need better clothes, though. The ones you’ve given them are just ordinary.”
“I don’t really do clothes.” Andie had just sketched in vague short dresses, or flared trousers.
She was sitting on the garden swing, Prune looking over her shoulder. Evening sunshine filtered through the branches of the walnut tree; pigeons cooed, and a thrush was singing somewhere nearby. It wasn’t late, but Andie was tired, after the excitement of the night, and a full day. Mum and Dad, relenting a little, had taken her to the Tate Gallery; they’d spent the whole morning there, then had a sandwich lunch on the Embankment and walked all the way home. Andie’s mind was afloat with paintings and sculptures, colour and shape – Turner and Blake, Rousseau and Rossetti, and more recent work that was made entirely of dots or wavy lines or bits of metal. Mum and Dad had tutted at those, and moved briskly on to the Turners and Constables, but Andie had wanted to see everything. Now her head was filled with so many images that she hadn’t known what to draw first. She had come out to the garden in the hope of seeing either Kris or Ravi, but neither of them seemed to be about. Flicking through her sketchbook, she had found the drawings from Friday, and had just been doodling. But the doodles had turned themselves into a whole series, and her pencil had worked away at them while her mind was elsewhere.
“Could I have some?” Prune asked.
“Have some what?”
“Some of your drawings. You could do them with –” Prune giggled – “with no clothes on. I mean just do the outlines in soft pencil, and I’ll add the clothes. I like designing. I’ve got loads of ideas, but you know how hopeless I am at drawing.”
“Well, okay.” Andie shrugged, turned a page and started again. If it kept Prune in a good mood, it was worth doing. And it might give her a bargaining tool for later.
Mum’s secretarial agency had found her a temping job for the week, shorthand-typing. She was up early to get breakfast for herself and Dad, dressed in her cream suit, and fretting because she said her hair was a mess, although to Andie it looked exactly the same as usual.
“If you go out, you must go together,” she told the girls. She was wiping down the draining board, which was already spotless. “Andie, remember what we said about not going out with Kris. And don’t be late back. I’ll be getting tea for half past six and I want you both in long before then.”
Andie agreed reluctantly, wondering if she could persuade Prune to catch a bus to the National Gallery. But Prune had other ideas. As soon as Mum and Dad had left, she retreated to the bedroom, where she spent nearly an hour getting ready to go out.
“I’m meeting someone,” was all she would say.
“Who?”
“No one you know.”
“Can I come?”
“No!”
“Well, that’s great! Mum says I can only go out with you, and you don’t want me!”
Prune didn’t answer, gazing at herself in the mirror, mascara wand in hand. Andie wondered if she’d met a boy; she was certainly going to a lot of trouble with make-up, so it must be someone she wanted to impress. It couldn’t be Sushila she was going out with; Sushila and Ravi’s school, St. Dunstan’s, didn’t break up till Friday.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Andie persisted. “Sit indoo
rs all day, on my own? That’ll be fun!”
“You can do your painting, can’t you? Down in the garden? Then it won’t be like staying in. When I get back, we’ll go for a walk or something.”
“Big deal!” Andie humphed.
When Prune finally left, after examining herself from all angles in the wardrobe mirror and changing her top three times, Andie went downstairs to see if Kris was in. She was, and suggested doing what she called a “Bridge Walk”: crossing the Thames on the nearest bridge, back on the next, and so on. “We can easily get as far as Westminster Bridge, then we can go in St. James’s Park as well. I once did it all the way to the Tower, but it’s a bit hot to walk so far.”
Andie agreed straight away. She didn’t want to tell Kris about the prohibition; it made her feel like a little kid. Anyway, it was quite obviously Prune’s fault: she was the one not doing what Mum had said. If Andie got in before Mum did, and preferably before Prune as well, no one need know.
It felt seasidey by the river, standing on the Embankment looking down at a passing tourist launch whose wake made ripples that fanned out to the shore. There was even a faint smell of saltwater. Busy traffic crossed the bridge, but along the promenade people were lingering, taking photographs, eating ice creams. Andie liked the mixture of holiday and busy Monday.
“Did you come on your own?” she asked Kris. They were on Westminster Bridge, watching the pleasure launches and the drabber, more workmanlike barges that passed underneath. “That time you walked all the way to the Tower of London?”
“No – that was with Ravi. It was his idea, actually – bridgehopping, he calls it. He’s awfully quiet when there are people around, but fun when you get to know him.”
What a strange boy he was, Andie thought – bridgehopping, skyhopping! She opened her mouth to tell Kris about her night-time adventure on the roof, but closed it again and said nothing.
As soon as she let herself into the flat, she heard Prune crying. Really crying – face down on her bed, sobbing hard.
“Prune! What’s wrong?” Andie rushed in, fearing a dreadful accident to Mum or Dad, at the very least.
“Nothing!” Prune turned her face into the pillow, her shoulders heaving.
Andie sat on the bed beside her. “Don’t be daft! What is it? Were you attacked or something? Has something awful happened? Come on, tell me!”
Prune continued to sob and gulp for a few moments, then sat up angrily and grabbed at a tissue from the box on her bedside table. “They were horrible, that’s what! So horrible!”
“Who?”
“The people. The snooty people at the agency.”
“Agency? What, Mum’s temping agency?”
Prune glared at her. “Don’t be dense! You know! The people at Andromeda – the model agency. Sushila wouldn’t go, so I went instead – rang up and made an appointment and they said they’d see me. But they – they –” She started to weep again, tears spilling. Her eyes were already panda-like, smudged with black mascara that made sooty runnels down her cheeks. “They hardly even looked at me! The girl at reception – the way she sneered, you’d think I was something that had crawled in under the door. Then she sent for this other woman, the one who spoke to Sushila in the King’s Road. She looks like Marianne Faithfull, only much older – up close you can see her eyes are all wrinkly. She didn’t even recognize me! It was only Sushila she was interested in. Just looked me up and down, then said where was my portfolio – photos, she meant. And of course I haven’t got any. But then she said – she said –”
“Come on! What did she say?”
Prune could hardly get the words out between sobs. “She said – I haven’t – haven’t – haven’t got the looks or the bone structure – or the figure – I’m too big – I – I – I could make myself look a lot better but I’m just – just not model material – oh, Andie! You should have seen the way she looked at me, all sniffy – like I’m substandard or something, a reject –” She grabbed another tissue and blew her nose hard. “And she went, ‘That friend of yours, with those gorgeous exotic looks, we could do something with her. But you’re not what we’re looking for, I’m afraid, darling.’ Darling! She really called me darling, only it sounded like an insult. And the reception girl sort of sniggered – she didn’t think I heard it, but I did – so I just turned round and walked out.”
“Well, I’m glad you walked out,” Andie said with feeling. “They sound awful! Why’d you want to have anything to do with people like that? As for saying those things – of course you’re not substandard! Snobby cow. Don’t take any notice.”
“But how can I not take notice? You don’t understand, Andie, you just don’t get it – I want to be a model more than anything else, and if I can’t do it, I don’t know what the point of anything is – and Sushila could do it if she wanted, only she doesn’t, and it’s such a waste – oh, you don’t know how useless it makes me feel!”
“Don’t be daft! Of course you’re not useless. Are you going to let that bossy woman tell you what to think of yourself, just ’cos you’re not an identikit Chelsea Girl?”
The answer was obviously yes – Prune dissolved into another tearburst. Andie looked at her in dismay. To be quite honest, Prune looked terrible – her eyes red and puffy, her make-up streaked, her mouth stretched sideways with crying. Andie had been about to say, “That was only one agency. You could try others.” But that would surely lead to more disappointments. Prune was never going to turn herself into one of those sleek girls with their racehorse legs and pouty faces and straight glossy hair, the girls she saw every time she opened a magazine or went to the King’s Road. Instead, Andie said, “You look nicest when you’re just you. When you’re not trying to look like everyone else.”
“But I want to look like everyone else!” Prune wailed.
Andie felt rebuffed. She was doing her best, but nothing she said could make Prune feel any better. She tried to care as much as Prune did, to see how it felt. She thought: it’d be like someone telling me I’ll never be any good as an artist, no matter how hard I try. It’d feel like one of my arms or legs was useless, and might as well be chopped off.
“Come on! You’d better stop crying before Mum and Dad get in,” she told Prune. “You don’t want them to know where you’ve been, do you?”
“No,” Prune said, in a muffled voice. She got up from the bed, and went through to the bathroom.
Later, in bed, Andie listened for telltale creakings from above, hoping that Ravi might be skyhopping again. Not a sound. Disappointed, she wondered whether to creep out of the flat and go up to the attic, just in case the door was unlocked and Ravi up there. But while she was still dithering, she fell asleep.
Kris was away for part of the next week, visiting a cousin. With time to herself, Andie painted and painted. She worked at the kitchen table, so that Mum wouldn’t fuss about spilled water and stained carpets. Pleased with her moonscape, she made a whole series – fantastical landscapes with rocks and ravines, craters and crevices. She used harsh, bright colours that made the settings look larger than life.
At night, when she looked out of the window at the real moon, it felt like sharing a secret with it. But what sort of secret could it be, when the TV news and the papers were full of the approaching Apollo 11 launch? There were charts, diagrams, interviews, discussions – and it was still more than a week away.
And what about Ravi? When would she have the chance to look at the moon properly again through his telescope, or to stand lost in wonder at the huge spread of blackness and stars? She saw him only once – out in the garden with his mother, who was snipping mint from the herb bed beyond the shrubbery. Ravi had just come from school, and wore a brown blazer and a brown and white striped tie.
“Hello there, Andie! Isn’t it a lovely day?” called Mrs. Kapoor, and Andie went over hoping to talk to Ravi. Maybe Mrs. Kapoor would go indoors with the mint; then Andie could ask Ravi when he was next going star-watching. But he only said hello, i
n an awkward, formal way, then made an excuse and went indoors, and it was Mrs. Kapoor who stayed.
“You’ll have to excuse Ravi. He’s so shy, especially with girls,” she told Andie. “I hope you don’t think he’s unfriendly. He doesn’t mean to be.”
But Ravi hadn’t been unfriendly, or even the slightest bit shy, when they’d been up on the roof! He’d been a different person – confident, fun. Andie was mystified. Had she upset him, somehow? Or only dreamed about being outside with him in the middle of the night?
Prune remained doleful and downcast, though she tried to hide it when Mum or Dad were at home. She lay out in the garden on a towel, trying to get a tan, and complaining that the high walls and the walnut tree gave too much shade; all the same, she managed to get herself sunburned and sore. Without telling Mum, who wouldn’t have approved, she had bought herself a bikini – bright pink, with turquoise stripes – but was too self-conscious to let anyone but Andie see her in it. If anyone came into the garden, she made a grab for her towel, and shrouded herself from shoulders to ankles.
Andie did the sketches Prune had asked for, and Prune tried to draw clothes on the models, getting cross and frustrated when the drawings didn’t turn out as she wished. “You do it, Andie!” She flung down her latest attempts on the kitchen table. “I just can’t get them right! I’ll tell you what I want, and you can draw it.”
Anything for a quiet life, Andie thought. She put her own painting carefully to dry, and drew and drew to Prune’s instructions. The results, they both thought, looked good. Andie had expected Prune to want frills and beads and floaty dresses, but the designs were surprisingly tomboyish and practical. Fashions For The Future, Prune called them. Since the clothes could be worn by either boys or girls, Andie developed a face and hairstyle to match – longish sleek hair, and a handsome face that could be either male or female.
Girls on the Up Page 5