The Girl on the Moon by Rosamund Eyre – affecting new story set during World War Two

In the midst of war, did a box of secrets hold the key to a child’s past Ð and his future?

‘I’ll get straight to the point, if you don’t mind’

Looking out of the bay window, Audrey frowned… who was the woman coming up the drive? She was carrying a cardboard box and gazing around her as she neared the house, as if she wasn’t sure she was going in the right direction.

Putting some toys into a cupboard, Audrey smoothed down her hair and went to the door.

‘Can I help you?’ she called before the woman had reached the front steps.

‘Is this St Anthony’s children’s home?’ the woman replied.

‘Yes,’ Audrey smiled. ‘Are you here to visit someone?’

‘No,’ the woman said curtly, approaching the door and looking Audrey up and down. ‘I’d like to see the person in charge.

I’m guessing that’s not you. You’re far too young.’

Bristling at the woman’s tone, Audrey ushered her into the dark hallway, where the smell of boiled beef and cabbage had wafted up from the kitchens.

‘If you’d like to wait here, I’ll check if Mrs Sutton is in her office,’ she said. ‘Who shall I say is here to see her?’

‘Mrs Edna Harris,’ the woman replied flatly.

‘Please take a seat,’ Audrey offered, indicating a hard oak bench next to a grandfather clock, which ticked dolefully. Mrs Harris sighed, sitting down heavily and placing the box she’d been carrying on the tiled floor between her feet. ‘You won’t be long, will you?’ she said sharply. ‘I’ve a train to catch back to London.’

‘Would you like some tea?’ Vera Sutton asked, looking over her glasses.

Mrs Harris sniffed, arranging herself on the seat opposite Vera’s desk. ‘I’ve no time. I’ll get straight to the point, if you don’t mind.’

‘Very well,’ Vera replied coolly. Her unexpected visitor was clearly not in the mood for social niceties.

‘Have you got a six-yearold boy here called Danny Woods?’ Mrs Harris asked.

Vera nodded, thinking of the shy little lad who’d come to them two months before. He had been pulled from the rubble of a house in the East End of London after a bombing raid. His name was practically all he had said about his identity since then. Luckily, he wasn’t badly injured, but the authorities had been unable to trace his family, so he’d been sent to St Anthony’s.

‘Well, he’s my sister Gloria’s boy…’ Mrs Harris went on.

A broad grin immediately spread across Vera’s face and she leaned forward… ‘Oh, I’m so glad…’

‘Well, don’t be,’ Mrs Harris snapped. ‘Gloria, God rest her soul, died in the raid.’

Vera sagged. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.

Taking a handkerchief from her bag, Mrs Harris dabbed at her eyes, then she sat up stiffly again.

‘Gloria gave me this a few years back,’ she said, looking down at the box on her lap. ‘She made me promise if anything was to happen to her that I’d give it to Danny. I don’t suppose she imagined he’d be getting it so soon…’

Mrs Harris’ bottom lip began to tremble again as more tears threatened.

‘I’ve no idea what’s in it, I didn’t have the heart to look,’ she continued,

putting the box on Vera’s desk and pushing it forward. ‘So here it is…’

With that, she started to get up.

‘Mrs Harris!’ Vera exclaimed. ‘Please sit down. Don’t you want to see Danny? To know how he is?’

‘No,’ came the blunt reply. ‘I’ll say good day to you,

Mrs Sutton. Thank you for your time. You must be very busy.’

Turning, she walked to the door, then stopped.

Vera stood up too, seeing Mrs Harris’ shoulders shake as she began to sob.

‘I can’t see him,’ she wept, barely audible. ‘I just can’t…’

‘Please sit down again,’ Vera said gently, coming around her desk. Then she guided Mrs Harris to a sofa near the window.

The two women sat quietly for a moment while Mrs Harris dried her cheeks. Then she looked directly at Vera…

‘Before I came here today, I gave myself a talking-to. I was going to be strong. Get the job done, go home. No questions. No discussion.’

Vera simply nodded as she listened.

‘I took our Gloria’s death real bad, Mrs Sutton. She was my big sister, always there for me… I didn’t even know they’d found her boy until days later. The house took a direct hit. I thought the poor little mite was dead and buried in the…’

Vera reached out and took Mrs Harris’ hand.

‘I’ve had the devil of a time trying to find him,’

Mrs Harris went on, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘The only thing that’s kept me going has been Gloria’s voice in my head. I had to find him for her. So she could rest in peace. Do you see, Mrs Sutton?’

‘Of course,’ Vera replied.

Mrs Harris twisted her handkerchief. ‘Gloria adored that lad, he was her world. It was just too cruel she was taken along with Joe, her husband – he was home on leave at the time. Now Danny has no one.’

‘He has you, his aunt,’ Vera said, pressing Mrs Harris’ hand.

‘But that’s just it!’ Mrs Harris said, emotion building in her voice once

‘There’s something else you should know’

again. ‘He doesn’t have me. I can’t take him in. I’ve four of my own and I’m at my wits’ end. What with losing Gloria, my Bill away at sea, Lord knows where, the raids, the rationing… I can’t do it, Mrs Sutton, I just can’t!’

Suddenly sobs were racking her body, and she buried her face in her hands.

‘Oh, Mrs Harris,’ Vera said, wrapping her arms around the older woman.

‘I’m not a hard person, I’m really not,’ Mrs Harris said, the words catching in her throat. ‘But there’s only so much I can take. Danny will be safer here with you, won’t he? Please say you’ll keep him and care for him.’

‘Everything’s going to be all right,’

Vera soothed.

When Mrs Harris’ tears had finally subsided, she took a deep breath and pushed stray strands of hair back into place under her hat.

‘There’s something else you should know, Mrs Sutton,’ she said. ‘Danny isn’t a blood relative. My sister adopted him.’ Vera nodded. ‘You see, our Gloria couldn’t have children of her own. She and Joe tried for years. So when they got Danny, it was such a blessing. I’d always felt guilty with my little ones, but suddenly Gloria had a baby too. We all loved him.’

‘But you don’t want to see him today?’ Vera ventured again.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to, Mrs Sutton, I simply can’t. It would be too cruel. Can you imagine how he’d feel if he saw me and then I walked away? Can you imagine how I would feel?’

Suddenly, laughter rang out in the garden and the two women turned towards the window. It was playtime and children were pouring onto the lawn.

‘I have to go!’ Mrs Harris said, getting up and looking around for her bag.

But then her breath caught in her throat and her eyes grew wide.

‘There he is,’ she breathed.

Vera stood up too and saw Danny walking unsteadily along the edge of a flower bed, away from the others. His leg had been injured in the bombing raid and he had a slight limp.

‘Oh, my word!’ Mrs

Harris gasped, touching the glass, her cheeks now streaked with tears again. ‘Gloria’s precious little boy…’

Then, trembling, she quickly turned and picked up her bag.

‘I’m sure you’ll take good care of him, Mrs Sutton, you’ve been most kind.’

‘Oh, Mrs Harris!’ Vera pleaded. ‘Please don’t leave like this.’

But the older woman simply shook her head and hurried out of the office.

Audrey sat in the kitchen, still stinging from her encounter with Mrs Harris. That awful woman had been so rude!

In front of her, on the table, was the cardboard box that Mrs Harris had been carrying. Vera had explained everything to Audrey – how Danny had been adopted, and the reason for Mrs Harris’ visit. She had also asked Audrey to check what was inside the box before deciding whether to hand it over to the little boy.

Taking a deep breath, Audrey now carefully levered up the lid – and a waft of lavender and mothballs met her nostrils.

Peering inside, she could see a small felt rabbit and a tiny pair of knitted bootees. The bootees were white with faded yellow ribbons woven through them.

Picking up the rabbit,

Audrey saw that it had a paper label tied to it with string. It said, ‘Benny, your bunny.’ The bootees also had a label. ‘Auntie Bessie knitted these for you.’

Delving deeper into the box, Audrey drew out two nursery rhyme books, a rattle and a cute little baby’s bonnet.

Then, at the bottom, she saw some photos tied with the same yellow ribbon that was on the bootees.

Picking them up, Audrey loosened the ribbon.

The top photo showed a grinning teenage girl standing on a windy seafront. On the back, scribbled in pencil, it said… ‘Bessie, Ilfracombe, 1931’.

‘The bootee knitter,’ Audrey mused.

Putting the photo aside, she looked at the postcard beneath. It was the sort given out by theatres as publicity, and it showed a different girl. With her large expressive eyes, she was sitting demurely on a cardboard crescent moon suspended on wires. The name printed at the bottom said ‘Miss Stella Sweeney’.

Turning the photo over, Vera read… ‘Your mummy, aged 19, 1937’. And under that, there was an address in the East End of London.

Audrey frowned. Was the girl on the moon Danny’s birth mother? Was she some kind of actress?

Looking at the girl’s face again, Audrey raised an eyebrow. Miss Stella Sweeney, with her kohled eyes and dark lipstick, was wearing far too much make-up. Audrey’s parents

Audrey’s parents had warned her about girls like that

had warned her about girls like that. Girls who went on the stage were no better than they ought to be.

Audrey sniffed. She was glad she had a respectable job at the children’s home. And her heart went out to Danny. If this was indeed his mother, what kind of future could she give him?

One thing was for certain, it wouldn’t be right to hand over the contents of this box to the little boy. He was much too young. What on earth would he make of it all?

Packing everything away again, Audrey picked up the box and went straight to Vera’s office.

Audrey sat in silence while Vera gazed at the postcard of the girl on the moon.

After a few moments, she looked up.

‘I agree, Audrey,’ she said. ‘We can’t give these things to Danny. I’d like to know more about this Stella. If we can find her and she is Danny’s birth mother, then we can take it from there. I’ll write to the address on the back and see what response I get.’ Audrey nodded sagely. She suspected Mrs Sutton was thinking exactly the same thing about the girl on the moon. How could someone like that be responsible for a child?

But then suddenly, she sat up, her eyes bright with an idea…

‘Why don’t I go up to London, Mrs Sutton?’ she said. ‘I know that street mentioned on the postcard. It’s not far from Mum and Dad. I could pay a visit to the address in person. It would be better than a letter, wouldn’t it?’

‘No,’ Vera replied flatly, shaking her head.

Audrey’s parents had thanked Vera for giving their daughter a job away from the incessant air raids. They were glad she was safer in the countryside.

And for months now,

London had been pounded by German bombs, day and night. So many people had lost their lives, their homes. Vera couldn’t allow Audrey to face such danger. She was only 18.

‘Oh, please, Mrs Sutton,’ Audrey begged. ‘I’d love to see how Mum and Dad are. I worry about them so much. I could stay with them overnight and be back the next day. And if I can find this Stella as well…’

Vera sat thinking for a few moments. Audrey was so young, but she was enthusiastic and a hard worker. She was always asking for more responsibilities. But could Vera really allow her to travel up to London in the Blitz? And if Audrey did find Stella, was she mature enough to handle such a delicate situation?

‘All right, Audrey, just this once,’ Vera finally agreed, and the young woman clapped her hands.

But Vera feared she was making a terrible mistake… CONTINUES NEXT WEEK

Rosamund Eyre, 2021