Hungry Moon (12 page)

^{His father was inches short of the man when he heard something. His masklike face lifted in the moonlight; Andrew thought of a dog pricking up its ears. His father began to back stealthily away up the bowl, and Andrew fled back to his place in the ash. On his way he saw another of Mr Mann's helpers hurrying across the moor.}

^{The newcomer passed within a few yards of Andrew without noticing him. 'I'm sorry, I overslept,' he called down toward the cave. Andrew's father was already out of sight along the other path, the long way back to Moonwell. Andrew ran home as soon as the newcomer was in the stone bowl, ran slapping himself to dust off the ash, slapping harder to stop his thoughts.}

^{He let himself into the cottage and crept upstairs. He lay in bed, hardly able to breathe as he waited for his father to come home, his mother to waken and demand to know where his father had been. At last he heard the front door close, the creaking of the stairs, then silence. His mother hadn't wakened. Andrew lay awake then until dawn, praying that whatever was still going to happen wouldn't happen.}

^SEVENTEEN

^{'I say, I say, I say, what's this film we're watching?' 'I don't know, God told me to throw my glasses away.' "That was no God, that was Godwin Mann throwing his voice.'}

^{'Godwin Mann throwing his voice? Why should he want to do that?'}

^{'So you can't see what an old devil his father turned into.'}

^{Nobody was laughing except Eustace. If that was laughter somewhere up on the moors, it could hardly be meant for him. He wouldn't be performing that routine when the landlord of the One-Armed Soldier showed the video in which Mann's father played the devil. He wasn't a comedian, he was just a postman who'd been talking to himself. If he weren't a postman, he wouldn't be on his way to Phoebe Wainwright's house.}

^{He hadn't seen her since the night at the pub. Whenever he had to deliver her mail, he made sure she wouldn't hear him coming. The idea of just being a postman, nothing more than his job, was oddly comforting; the sense of being unworthy of her was, surprisingly, a relief. He was settling into not having to approach her any more when he heard how she'd been prevented from saving the baby.}

^{What appalled him even more was how everyone he'd spoken to blamed her. He had to let her know that somebody was on her side, and today he had a reason to go to her house. He glanced along the High Street to reassure himself that nobody had heard him playing straight man to himself and turned quickly along Church Row.}

^{He had a letter for her that had been posted locally and a childbirth magazine that was too bulky to go through her letter box. He stepped under the viny arch and tried to think of a joke to cheer her up, something about the magazine, in case the sight of it upset her. 'They mustn't have heard that God doesn't want you to deliver any more babies,' he thought, and rang the doorbell.}

^{When she peered through the front-room window, he was shocked to see how slack her face was. Cheering her up would be more of a task than he'd thought, he realized, and then he heard his headphone voice delivering the tasteless, insensitive joke he was planning to offer her. He tried frantically to think of something else to say as she opened the door.}

^{All he could think of were jokes, even more tasteless than the one he'd suppressed, and he was terrified that they would spill out if he opened his mouth. She was gazing at him not so much patiently as indifferently, while he fumbled in his bag as though he might have more for her. He thrust the letter and the magazine at her. 'For you,' he mumbled, as if they were presents.}

^{Her face turned blanker still as she glanced at the magazine and stuffed it under one arm. Now she was tearing the envelope open with one plump thumb. She must want him to speak; otherwise she would have closed the door. 'I heard what happened the other}

^{night,' he blurted, and floundered on: 'They won't let either of us do what we do best, will they? Maybe they just can't stand creative people.'}

^{When she looked up from the single page she'd unfolded, he wished he'd made one of his jokes instead. It was a joke, of course - a joke at his expense. 'Sorry,' he babbled. 'Nothing worse than a comedian trying to be serious, except I'm not much of a comedian, as you're painfully aware . . .'}

^{She must be wondering if he would ever stop. Trapped with his own headphone voice, he wondered that himself. He gulped himself silent, and she began suddenly to blink, more and more rapidly. For a moment he thought she might hide her face against his shoulder, and then he found himself staring at the closed front door.}

^{Her letter came seesawing through the air to his feet. He picked it up and rang the bell without thinking. In the seconds before she flung the door open, he saw what the letter said. The message, written in large anonymous capitals, said LEAVE OUR TOWN BEFORE YOU KILL MORE CHILDREN. Phoebe snatched it from his hand. 'Can't any of you leave me alone? If I throw myself down the cave, will that make up for the baby?' she cried, and slammed the door.}

^{He reached wildly for the doorbell, but turned away instead. Whatever he said would only make things worse. He saw himself handing her the letter for the second time, the third, the fourth. He couldn't even survive that by making it into a joke at his own expense -there was nobody to whom he could tell the joke.}

^{He finished his deliveries and tramped home, speaking to nobody. No, he didn't want to speak to Eric at the pub. What on earth would Eric be achieving by showing the film with Mann's father? It was nothing but defiance, so trivial it was like accepting that the town was Mann's now. Eustace stalked into his cottage and locked himself in with his rage at himself. He had only just dropped his postbag beside the sofa when someone knocked at the front door.}

^{It was the dressmaker who lived three cottages away. She squinted at him through the smoke of the cigarette in one corner of her mouth. 'Well, Mr Gift,' she said, the cigarette jerking, 'you've been keeping well out of our way, haven't you?'}

^{'Where's your friend, in your pocket? Up your arse?' But all he said was 'I've just been doing my job.'}

^{'So long as that's all you've been up to.' She slapped her breasts vigorously to dislodge a worm of ash. 'Well, are we going to see you up there on Sunday?'}

^{He felt close to laughter, or something more violent. Someone like her had sent Phoebe the letter. 'I don't think you'd want to see me,' he muttered.}

^{'Oh yes we would, my lad. Do you know you're the only one in the street who wasn't up there last Sunday? You're not going to say we're all deluded, are you?'}

^{'I'm not going to say that, no.'}

^{'I should think not too. Do you know that every single person in both of the next streets was up there? Just you make sure you are on Sunday. We don't want our street shown up.' She trod on her cigarette and peered at him. 'You aren't scared to go, are you? No need to be. We all know what you have to confess. Do yourself some good for a change.'}

^{'It doesn't seem to have changed you. Now, if you'll excuse me,' Eustace said, and closed the door, 'while I play with myself, or get ready for a black mass, or stick pins in my Godwin Mann doll.' His urge to laugh went out with the words, leaving him more furious than ever. He went back to the sofa and watched the dressmaker stump away down his path, and suddenly he had to force himself to sit down rather than chase after her, grab her, drag her - where, he didn't know. Somewhere he was almost sure he heard laughter, deep and hollow, growing.}

^EIGHTEEN

^{PRIEST DEFENDS SEX BOOKS, the headline said. Given the lack of detail in the report, you might well assume that the bookshop was a sex shop. The name of the town - 'a small town near Sheffield' - was apparently Moonwall. It wasn't Nick's fault, Diana told herself; he'd done his best, and now she must do better. She dropped the newspaper on the hall table and stepped out of her cottage.}

^{The afternoon was grey and muggy. Diana's thin dress clung to her as she made for the hotel. The round-shouldered man at Reception, who wore a Sacred Heart badge in his lapel, referred her to one of Mann's helpers when she asked for Mann. 'If you need counselling, perhaps I can help,' the young, wide-eyed, smiling woman said. 'Godwin is resting just now.'}

^{‘I thought he was available to anyone who wants to talk to him.'}

^{'Usually he is. Right now he's preparing,' the young woman said, and went on quickly: 'Miss Kramer, isn't it? I'll tell him you were asking for him. He'll come to see you as soon as he can.'}

^{Then Diana would talk to Nathaniel Needham. Indeed, that might better equip her to talk to Mann. Townsfolk watched her suspiciously as she headed for the nearest path to the moors. This morning the woman from whom she rented the cottage had wanted to know how much longer Diana would be staying now that she had no job. 'For a while yet,' Diana had told her- for as long as she felt the children had to be protected. It didn't matter that she'd seen parents telling their children to stay away from her. Her instincts told her she had to stay, and that must be to protect the children, even though she had a vague, uneasy notion that she was underestimating whatever she had to protect them from.}

^{She climbed on the moor and hurried across the dead ground, the ash that muffled her footsteps, and the oppressive silence that seemed to surround the cave, above which one of Mann's followers was kneeling. From the top of the slope where Needham had stood at the rally, she surveyed her route. The slopes beyond were thick with grass and heather, but there was no sign of a cottage, nor of a path. A mossy concrete slab showed her where an abandoned mineshaft was. She avoided that and trudged up the next slope, fanning herself. There was a cottage two slopes ahead.}

^{She ran down into the next hollow and made her way between the abandoned shafts, left uncovered this far from town. Tussocks and heather slowed her down, grass concealed ankle-deep puddles. The silence seemed to have followed her from the cave; no bird was singing. Not until she climbed the next slope did she realize the silence was mist.}

^{In the few minutes she'd spent in the hollow, the adjacent slopes had all but vanished. A clump of trees looked like stitching on grey velvet. The mist unveiled a glimpse of the cottage a few hundred yards ahead, then wiped it out. She made for the cottage, the only landmark.}

^{At the bottom of the slope, darkness lay under the grass. She avoided the dark widely wherever she saw it, even if it was only puddles. She felt as if the ground were gaping at her, opening its mouths. One detour took her to the edge of a shaft, which she almost didn't see for tall grass. She recoiled, heart pounding, and stumbled up the wet grass of the nearest slope. She was safe on an island in the midst of a still, grey sea, but she no longer knew where the cottage was. She was preparing to wait until the mist lifted when a man's voice said, 'Who's there?'}

^{'I'm lost. Can you help me?'}

^{'Wait there where you are.' The mist fell silent, and Diana's eyes began to sting as she tried to see where the voice had come from. When it spoke again, it was farther away. 'If you want to be found, keep talking,' it growled.}

^{'My name's Diana Kramer. I was looking for Nathaniel Needham's cottage. I almost had it when the mist came down.'}

^{He appeared suddenly at the foot of the slope, a tall man leaning on a stick. He levered himself through the mist and towered over her. He had white hair that spilled over his collar, a long face wizened as a monkey's, and large, veinous, knuckly hands that gripped his stick as he leaned at her, his grey eyes staring blankly. 'Well, you've found me,' he said.}

^{'You're Nathaniel Needham.'}

^{"That's who I am. And if you've come looking to save my soul, you've got yourself lost for nothing. I'll make my own peace with God when the time comes.'}

^{'I haven't come for that. I've nothing to do with what's happening in Moonwell. I read your pamphlet about the Roman mines, and I heard the song you sang the other week at the pub. I guess you may want to see traditions preserved, like I do.'}

^{He shrugged, apparently because he felt cold. 'Take my arm,' he said, and began to descend the slope. 'You Americans are fond of our traditions, aren't you? My da used to say that's because you've got none of your own.'}

^{'I ought to tell you I'm not a tourist. I taught school in Moonwell until I refused to be a mouthpiece for Godwin Mann. I love the town and I don't see why someone else should cross the ocean to change it.'}

^{'Happen there's traditions you wouldn't want to keep.' He raised his stick to point at an open shaft they were avoiding in the murk. 'Who do you think used to}

^{live down one of those?'}

^'Miners?'

^{"Think a man who spent his working life down there would want to live down there as well? No, love, not bloody miners. A family who'd wait for someone like you to get lost on a day like this.'}

^{'Robbers, you mean.'}

^{'Happen they started off that way, but what they needed most was food. And they'd plenty of that once they dragged some poor lost fool into their lair. My da heard tell how they were caught when someone from Moonwell was missed. They'd cut out his tongue so he couldn't scream for help, and cut bits off him, but he was still alive. My da heard tell they gave their kids the eyes for supper,' he said, and with less relish, 'I suppose you'd better come in till the mist lifts.'}

^{He'd brought her to his cottage, when she'd thought he was leading her back to Moonwell. He unlocked the small front door, which was thick with red paint that had splashed onto the limestone walls, and stooped in. The door opened into the main room. A double bed stood against the far wall; a bookcase full of dusty books leaned in one gloomy corner; two faded easy chairs faced a hearth on which stood a toaster-shaped radio that must have been at least thirty years old. Needham stooped slowly to the hearth and began to build a fire with chunks of wood. 'You're here in my house where you wanted to be,' he said, 'and I still don't know what you're after.'}

^{'I'm trying to find out the truth about the cave. Godwin Mann keeps claiming that there's something evil there, something that's spreading evil I don't know how far.'}

^{Needham reached for a box of kitchen matches beside the radio and lit the fire. As it began to crackle, he rubbed his hands close to the flames, then reached behind him and lowered himself into the right-hand chair. 'I think Godwin Mann is on the right track.'}

^{Diana couldn't keep dismay out of her voice. 'You agree with him?'}

^{'I don't agree with what he wants to do, no. I think he should leave well alone, but you can't reason with his sort. Only I don't think he knows the half of what's down there in the cave.'}

^{Diana felt as if the chill were seeping through the small window from the mist that crept across the glass. 'Why, what do you say is down there?'}

^{'Come and sit by me before I get a crick in my neck.' He settled back, closing his eyes, as the fire flared higher. 'What do I say? The man in the moon.'}

^'Oh.'

^{'The man in the moon came down too soon and asked his way to Norwich,' he chanted like a grandfather to a child. 'But I don't reckon you'd know that song.'}

^{'Sure I do. One of the children I taught used to sing it. And I know my Shakespeare. The man in the moon was supposed to have a bundle of sticks on his back because he'd been exiled to the moon for cutting wood on the Sabbath.'}

^{'Aye, that's the story.' He sounded grudgingly impressed. 'And you hear tales of people bringing the moon down to earth and waking up the dead, and St Peter having to put it back. And wishing on the new moon brings you luck, and babies born at the new moon are healthiest. Happen you don't realize those are the kind of story people make up about things they're afraid of.'}

^{'Used to be afraid of, you mean.'}

^{'Not so long ago either.' He turned his head toward her, flames flickering in his slitted eyes. T remember my da sitting where you're sitting now, in a muck sweat because the radio was saying they'd put a man on the moon. It did for his heart, and I've lived alone here ever since.'}

^{'I'm sorry,' Diana said, though he sounded as if he would resent sympathy. 'But did he really have a reason to be afraid?'}

^{'No, and I told him so.' He breathed hard through his nose, and then he said, 'I told him what he was afraid of on the moon was already on the earth.'}

^{Diana made her face blank. 'The man in the moon, do you mean?'}

^{'God help us, you sound like a nurse. I haven't had one in my house yet, and I'm damned if I'll have one now. Didn't I just tell you the man in the moon was a story folk made up to hide the truth from themselves? When folk knew the truth they kept it to themselves, the druids did. Happen that's why they never wrote anything down.'}

^{'Godwin Mann mentioned the druids,' Diana said, telling herself that there might be a version of some truth in the midst of all this.}

^{'Aye, and what does either of you know about them?'}

^{'Quite a lot,' Diana said, provoked. 'I do, I mean. I know some historians say the Romans occupied your country in order to destroy the druid religion. It was either religion or politics.'}

^{'It was religion right enough.' He was quiet for so long that Diana wondered if he were nodding off. Suddenly he said, 'The druids made their last stand here at Moon-well. They did what they'd never dared to do - they called what they worshipped to come down from the moon and stay on the earth.'}

^{'I thought they worshipped the sun.'}

^{Needham thumped the arms of his chair. 'They had a god of the moon all right, they just didn't dare give it a name. They sacrificed people to it, but the priests didn't stay to see it come for them. They used to throw people down shafts like the one your gospelling friend wants to tamper with. That way it had to go down out of the light to get its sacrifices.'}

^{If there was any logic to his argument, it wasn't clear to Diana. 'Seems strange they'd try to use the moon against the Romans.'}

^{He sighed like a long-suffering teacher. 'The Greeks and Romans worshipped the moon, and the druids reckoned their months and years by the moon, and I keep telling you that was just to keep it happy, don't you understand? They all knew it had no love for us. The druids were only the last of an older religion, if you didn't know. There's something about it in those books.'}

^{Diana took that as a hint that she could look at them. Mist surged against the windows as she crossed the dimming room, scraps of carpet shifting underfoot, to the light switch. The bare bulb lit, though feebly. 'Could you show me where?'}

^{'I could have once. Look if you want to.'}

^{The books weren't merely dusty; above the illegible spines, the tops of the pages were furred with grey. 'Just because I can't see any longer,' Needham growled, 'doesn't mean I can't think.'}

^{She thought of living up here alone and blind, miles from the next house, surrounded by the gaping shafts. 'I wasn't thinking that,' she said.}

^{'And it doesn't mean I can't remember.' He drew himself up in the chair and recited: ' ". . . sustulere monstra, quibus hominem occidere religiosissimum erat, mandi veroetiam saluberrimum . . ."Know what that means? A monstrous cult who thought murdering someone was the height of religion, especially if you ate him afterwards. That's what old Pliny said about the druids.'}

^{'But it wasn't so long since the Romans gave up human sacrifice themselves.'}

^{'They were never like the druids. There was a book, fifty volumes of it, written before Christ was born, that told all about the druids. "To fear the moon, to feed her as she must be fed, and never to look upon her feeding" - I read that somewhere, quoted out of one of those books, the thing the druids used to believe. Those books were lost because they told too much about the druids. And Moonwell was lost because of what the druids brought to it.'}

^{'You mean its Roman name was lost.'}

^{'Aye, you said you'd read my pamphlet.' The thought seemed to mollify him. 'The Romans couldn't have known this was the ideal place for the druids to call on their god that wasn't a god but a monster.'}

^{'Why was it ideal?' Diana asked, and then her instincts told her. She didn't need to hear him say, 'Because we see less of the sun here than anywhere else in the country.'}

^{The shapeless movements at the window were darkening. 'But is there really any story about the druids using magic or whatever it was against the Romans?' Diana said.}