Hungry Moon (23 page)

^{'Never mind. Can't be helped.' Jeremy sounded almost relieved that she was admitting what he already knew. 'Let's just find somewhere to sit and wait. Maybe it'll get lighter or I'll feel better. Someone's bound to drive by eventually.'}

^{He was coping by telling himself that the shape on the road had been a hullucination, she realized. What would he do if she told him he was wrong? She'd never taken psychedelics, but she'd seen it in the headlights, and it was still somewhere in the dark. She wanted to drag at his hand and run, anything rather than wait blindly, but running would only betray where they were, if indeed the smiling white thing with the elongated arms didn't know already. Perhaps it was waiting for them to run into those arms. 'Please,' she murmured so intensely that it made her shiver, yet so quietly that she couldn't hear herself, pleading for any kind of help. She felt Jeremy tugging at her hand, guiding her forward to the tree where he mustn't have noticed the carved faces, urging her to sit among the roots and wait in the utter dark. She was letting herself be urged, since any other course seemed even more dangerous, when fingers closed around her free hand.}

^{Her mouth gaped, her throat shrank, until she thought she was going to choke on the scream she couldn't release. 'What's wrong? What's wrong now?' Jeremy demanded as he felt her grow tense and shud-dery. The next moment she managed to slacken her grip on him and let out a long breath. The hand that had taken hers was a child's.}

^{She wanted to let go of Jeremy, reach for the child's face and trace the features with her fingertips, but she was afraid that if she let go of Jeremy she might lose him in the awful dark. She didn't need to, she told herself. Only one child could have found them in this. The small hand was squeezing hers as if to tell her so, to encourage her to trust him now that they were together at last. She felt like crying out with joy, but then she would have to explain to Jeremy, and she mustn't risk an argument now. She pulled him to his feet among the roots as the small hand tugged gently at hers. 'One more try,' she whispered.}

^{'For Christ's sake, what now? What are you trying to do when we can't even fucking see?'}

^{'Trust me, Jerry,' she murmured, squeezing his hand as the child's hand was squeezing hers, until Jeremy stopped trying to pull free, making her dread that he would stumble away from her in the dark. He lurched in the direction she was guiding him, and she heard him cursing monotonously and almost inaudibly, as if he could curse the darkness away. The small hand led her gently around obstacles that she couldn't even sense, over the loamy earth. When without warning the earth hardened underfoot, she couldn't help crying out. Jeremy said 'Christ' in a voice that sounded drained of feeling. It wasn't hard earth, it was tarmac.}

^{The child's hand led her into the middle of the road. They'd ventured a few yards before she realized that she and Jeremy were being guided back toward Moonwell. 'Wouldn't it be better if-' she murmured, and fell silent for fear that Jeremy would want to know who she was speaking to, refuse to believe her, refuse to go on. She might have guided his hand to the child's, except that he would think he was hallucinating, and panic. Best simply to follow where she was being led; she was too overwhelmed by joy to care much where she was going. Her cheeks were wet, and she couldn't dab at them. Her head, her whole body, felt light enough to fly. She was hardly aware any more of the dark.}

^{Jeremy was silent as far as the ridge that overlooked Moonwell, but the sight of the lit streets started him stammering. 'Gerry, you're a miracle. How did you do it? Only I didn't realize we were heading this way or I'd have suggested we go down to hitch a lift on the main road.'}

^{She barely heard him. The moment the lights had come into view, the child's hand had let go of hers. She swung round, strained her aching eyes at the ridge that was just visible. She and Jeremy were alone. 'Jonathan,' she whispered.}

^{'Jeremy, you mean,' Jeremy said with a hint of impatience. 'Never mind, there's a breakdown van in town, near the playing field, I think. Let's go and get ours towed back.' He was obviously anxious to be among the lights. As she stumbled with him, she stared desperately over her shoulder at the woods. Jonathan was in there, or somewhere in the dark, and there was nothing she wouldn't do to get him back.}

^{THIRTY SIX}

^{'This is the weather for us, eh, Mr Gloom?'}

^{'Too many bloody lights about for my taste, Mr Despondency.'}

^{'Give the folk time to get used to the dark and happen they'll put out the lights themselves.'}

^{'If they keep us waiting much longer, it'll be me who'll be putting out their lights for them, you can bet your eyes on that.'}

^{'I'll bet theirs if it's all the same to you. But they're an adaptable lot round here, I reckon. They'll change for anyone who brings a bit of light into their lives, change into anything. All except the likes of that Eustace Gift.'}

^{'Don't tell anyone, will you, but I think he's listening.'}

^{'If you ask me, he's sitting in there by himself still wondering if they kept the post away from him because of what he said in front of everyone up there last Sunday.'}

^{'Aye, and sitting brooding about how nobody will give him the time of day after that.'}

^{'Even if they knew it any more.'}

^{Eustace had had enough. He switched off the video-cassette of
Sons of the Desert
and darted to the window. 'Hey up,' a voice warned, and there was silence in the street, where he could see nothing but two streetlamps and the segments of terrace and front gardens they illuminated. He ran to the front door, down the path to his gate.}

^{Three figures stood just outside the glow of the lamp at the end of the lane. The lamp lit an almost vertical slope of the moor, spiky with grass. Had he been hearing three voices? Perhaps they hadn't said all that he'd seemed to hear, but he was sure they had been talking about him. He stepped onto the pavement for a better look at them, and they turned toward him.}

^{He couldn't help recoiling. Their faces looked blank and white as eggs. It must be the dark, for he couldn't even see what they were wearing; it must be the dark that made them seem thin as insects. The dark was behind everything, and he couldn't bear the way it had trapped him in a town that loathed him. It felt like the embodiment of that hatred, a medium that wanted to blind and suffocate him, wipe him out altogether. He backed away from it, into his cottage.}

^{He'd hardly closed the door and stumped into the living room when the voices recommenced beyond the open window. 'Didn't dare come near us, did he, Mr Gloom?'}

^{'Wasn't even sure he could hear us, Mr Despondency.'}

^{'Keep them confused, that's the ticket,' the third voice said. The others sounded like the voices Eustace used in his routines, but this was very much like his own, like the voice that had come back to him through the earphones, far away beyond the dark. He glared at the window, clenching his fists. 'Then we'll have them where we want them,' the voice said.}

^{'Get them huddling round the light the way they used to.'}

^{'And then -'}

^{'Hang on, don't forget the clown is listening. You're all mouth.'}

^{'Listen who's talking. Anyway, nobody would believe him. He's still not even sure we're here.'}

^{'Know what I'd like to do?'}

^{'Tell us, tell us.'}

^{'Let him hear what he said up there at the rally.'}

^{'You're a clever one. You ought to be on the stage. You mean let him hear what he said about his friend the midwife?'}

^{'No friend of his after what he said, I reckon.'}

^{'Even though everyone thinks she is. Happen they think she might have a few of those kids he said he wanted to give her.'}

^{"The ones he was going to throw down the cave so they wouldn't have to go to school in Moonwell.'}

^{'Aye, and throw the other kids in after them.'}

^{'He sounds a bit mad if you ask me.'}

^{'Must be, to be hearing voices.'}

^{This time Eustace almost fell as he ran along the hall. He pulled the front door open so furiously that it bruised his left foot. He hopped along the path, cursing in a muted screech, and hobbled along the pavement toward the streetlamp. But there was nobody. For a moment he thought he saw movement above him, except how could the three shapes be climbing straight up the almost vertical slope to the moor? What he'd seen or thought he'd seen concerned him far less than what he'd heard, for he knew that he'd heard the truth.}

^{He glared at the dark and felt as if it were flooding through him, sweeping away all that he'd taken for granted about himself, leaving him only the memory he'd been straining for days to grasp. The rally had made him blurt out his feelings about the way the Scraggs treated children. He'd known already that he felt that way, but what he'd said about Phoebe Wainwright came from somewhere deeper in him. He'd been shown a part of himself he didn't recognize, and so had virtually the whole of Moonwell.}

^{He had to talk to Phoebe now, or he never would. He hobbled back to his cottage and slammed the door, closing himself out in the dark; then he made himself hurry to Roman Row, to give himself no chance to falter. The cottage next to Phoebe's, where the toothless, garrulous old woman lived, was unlit, thank God.}

^{He limped under the arch of vines that looked withered now, and up the path. Before he could reach for the bell, his gravelly footsteps brought Phoebe to the window.}

^{His toes curled in dismay, his bruised foot throbbing. Perhaps she'd been eating heavily because she was depressed. She blinked slowly at him and shook her head on its rolls of neck. 'Go away,' she mouthed through the glass. 'I don't want any visitors.'}

^{'Please come to the door, won't you? I've something to say to you.'}

^{'You've said enough,' she told him, more indifferently than angrily, and shoved herself away from the window, plodded across the room, and switched off the light. He heard her labouring along the hall and up the stairs. He wanted to ring the bell, but the sight of her as she crossed the room had dismayed him so much that he limped home as fast as he could, to be out of the dark. There was nothing he could do about her overeating. Surely it must be overeating that had made her belly swell that way.}

^{THIRTY SEVEN}

^{When Brian heard the timid knocking at the bedroom door, he fought his way awake. 'Get back to bed,' he snarled.}

^{'It's Letty Ingham, Mr Bevan. I'm sorry to trouble you. I wondered if you could tell me what time it is.'}

^{'The middle of the night,' he growled, and then remembered about the dark. 'Just a minute,' he said, murmuring too late to avoid waking Andrew, who was sandwiched between himself and June. 'Don't want to go back to my bed,' the boy whimpered.}

^{'Keep quiet then or you'll wake your mother.' Brian peered at the bedside clock, forced his eyes wider. 'I'm afraid I can't tell you, Miss Ingham. The damn thing's stopped.'}

^{'So has my watch, and the town clock doesn't seem to be striking either. I don't know how I'll be able to tell when it's time to take Andrew to school.'}

^{'You go ahead if you like and I'll bring him.' The sooner she was out of the house, the sooner Brian might be able to banish her from his thoughts.}

^{June woke then, and sat up straight as a knife blade. 'Why can't Miss Ingham take him?'}

^{'We were just trying to decide what time it is, Mrs Bevan. What I'll do, I'll go to the school and find out what's happening.'}

^{She went back to Andrew's bedroom, which she was using now that the boy wouldn't sleep alone. 'Don't want to go out in the dark,' the boy whimpered.}

^{'You won't have to until it's time for school. You don't mind going out in the daytime, do you?' June said heartily, and glared at Brian across the pillow. 'I'd like to know who's been filling your head with this nonsense.'}

^{Brian lay back and closed his eyes, to hide. If the boy was frightened because of him, it must be that he sensed how uneasy Brian was. In his sleep Brian had thought he was pulling Letty's head off, making her giggle, as he dwindled inside her. He heard her go out of the house, and kept his sigh of relief to himself. But he'd hardly begun to relax when she came back.}

^{'People are taking their children to school,' she said through the door. 'Their clocks and watches aren't working either. I'm told it's some kind of magnetic effect to do with the weather.'}

^{'It must be morning,' June decided, and swung her legs out of bed. 'I can feel it is. No more of your nonsense, Andrew. Miss Ingham will be taking you, so you've nothing to worry about. Quickly now, I've the shop to open.'}

^{By the time Brian came out of the bathroom, she'd bustled Andrew away with the teacher. 'Your breakfast's on the table,' she called up the stairs, and left Brian surrounded by stickers and plaques that said 'God Lives Here' or 'God's Room' or 'On Loan from God,' though they might as well all have said 'God's Watching You,' the way they made him feel. He gobbled his breakfast and headed for the shop.}

^{On the High Street everyone was bidding good morning to everyone they met. If they all thought it was morning, did that make it so? June was counting the cash in the till, though nobody had bought from the shop since the young hiker. Her routine was a way of pretending that nothing had changed, he realized, but that didn't explain the way she'd glanced at him. 'What's wrong, love?' he said.}

^{She mouthed her counting and then said flatly, 'What could be wrong?'}

^{'If it's that I went to the pub with Letty Ingham, I only went to show whose side I was on.'}

^{'Miss Ingham! You think I'm worried about her, do you?' She slammed the cash drawer so that the till rang. 'No, I don't think you've been up to anything with Miss Prim-and-Proper-Healthy Ingham. You wouldn't get far if you tried to make her do any of the filthy things you used to make me do. But you won't be surprised if I wonder what you get up to now that I won't do them.'}

^{Brian forced himself to respond while he could. 'I'm not with you, love.'}

^{'Aren't you? Then maybe you can tell me why you're so eager to take Andrew out since it's got so dark.'}

^{'Why shouldn't I? He's my son, isn't he?' Brian had to restrain himself from grabbing her across the counter, he was suddenly so furious. He stepped back, well out of reach, his arms tingling. 'Just what did you mean by saying he'd have nothing to worry about with Letty Ingham as if he would with me?'}

^{'You tell me, Brian. Tell me why he's so frightened of you.'}

^{'I'll be buggered if he is. He's frightened of this dark, and no wonder.'}

^{'Isn't it?' June gave him a bitter smile. 'The dark's been sent us by God just like everything else. It's meant to guide us back to Him like all the troubles He sends us. If you ask me, it's a sign that there are still a few people in Moonwell who aren't on His side.'}

^{'I've already told you I am.'}

^{She ignored that. 'There can't be any reason for a child to be frightened of God's dark, can there? That isn't what the boy's frightened of.'}

^{'So it must be me. Do you know, love, I think the dark's getting you down, confusing you.'}

^{She leaned toward him across the faded guides for hikers. 'I realized something this morning. You were the one who started worrying about whether Andrew was a pansy. Who'd have made him that way if he was? The only man he's spent much time with is you.'}

^{Brian had a sudden feverish impression that his arms could stretch to her, grab her from halfway across the shop. 'I'm not arguing with you when you're like this. You pray a bit and maybe that'll get you thinking straight. I'm going to see Godwin.'}

^{'Going to tell him what you can't tell me?'}

^{'No, of course not,' he said, turning to the door for fear that his face would betray him. 'I want to ask him how long he thinks this is going to last and what we ought to do.'}

^{He went quickly out, before his rage could turn him back. She'd no right to say such things about him and Andrew. What was she trying to do, leave him with no sense of himself at all? The only way to get rid of all the guilt that was festering in him and regain himself was to confess to Godwin. He hardly saw the people in the dark streets as he made for the hotel.}

^{A beaming woman with a cross on her front met him on the chipped steps of the hotel. 'Godwin says we can have a service at the church,' she told him.}

^{'You mean he's conducting it now?'}

^{'No, he's delegated someone. He'll be leading us again in worship soon, but going down the cave took a lot out of him. There'll be lots of hymns and praying at the church. You should come.'}

^{'I'll try and get along later,' Brian said and sidled past her into the lobby, which was almost deserted. The receptionist looked half asleep. Brian hurried to the lift and stepped in, shivering. He'd grown almost used to the chill of the streets, but each floor that sank past the small window seemed to lower the temperature. The lift wavered to a halt on the top floor. The doors staggered open, and the cold reached for him.}

^{It must be all his guilt that made the corridor seem so cold and huge and daunting. He'd been down it once before, past the same anonymous doors, the same dim lamps on the walls. He drove himself forward, feeling as if he were tiptoeing because he couldn't hear himself, to Godwin's door at the end. At least it would be brighter in there, he saw. Part of his mind noticed how the brown paint had speckled the doorknob when the door was painted, how the door didn't quite fit the frame, and he found those details somehow reassuring as he knocked on the panel in front of his face.}

^{He had to swallow then, because he couldn't hear for the drumming of his heart. The lift started down the shaft with a groaning of metal, and Brian glanced along the empty corridor, which looked suddenly longer and dimmer. Was the whole top floor deserted? The voice beyond the door made him flinch. 'Come to me,' it said.}

^{It was just the suddenness that had startled him, not the tone, which was gentle, almost coaxing. He wished he were going to confess to a priest so that they couldn't see each other's faces, but there was only Godwin. Before he could tell it to, Brian's hand grasped the doorknob and opened the door. He had to force himself not to shut his eyes against the brightness as he lurched into the room.}

^{Godwin was sitting on the bed, his legs stretched out, his upper body against the headboard under the bright lamp. His eyes were closed, his hands were clasped on his chest. He must be praying, though for a moment Brian thought he was supporting something on his chest. Unless it was inside his loose shirt, there was nothing. More than ever his face had the look of thrusting forward into an icy wind, the skin stretching, turning almost white. His stillness made Brian feel he couldn't move, until Godwin's face turned slowly toward him. 'Shut us in,' he said softly.}

^{Brian reached behind him, pulled at the door, and then he stood wondering what to do. Should he kneel down, close his eyes? The light overwhelmed him with Godwin's presence, the thin, almost-lipless mouth, the sharp bones, the closed, flat eyelids. The light clung to him like frost, made him shiver. He opened his mouth to speak, to regain some control of himself, and all his guilt rushed into his head, choking him. He was struggling to speak when Godwin's unseeing face lifted toward him. 'You've something to say to me,' the evangelist said.}

^{Brian's words came tumbling. 'I need forgiveness. I wanted to help you, I did try to help, only something, something inside me -'}

^{'Quiet now. No need to talk. I know.' The pale mouth smiled. 'You did help me, Brian, and not only when you brought the rope. Without you, I mightn't have succeeded.'}

^{Brian was swaying, dizzy with relief. 'You really think so?'}

^{'Would I lie? Come here, put your hands in mine. Let's rid you of your doubts about yourself. Until you're clear on who and what you are, you'll never be able to do what you're capable of.'}

^{He must mean things that Brian could do for God. Brian stumbled forward and put out his hands timidly.}

^{The evangelist's hands reached unerringly for them, closed over them and held Brian there, stooped awkwardly toward the bed.}

^{When Brian began to shudder from head to foot, he thought at first it was because of his posture. Or perhaps this was what faith healing felt like, yet he couldn't help blaming the icy light for causing him to quake, turning his limbs into soft objects that no longer felt like arms and legs. He glanced away from Godwin's masklike smile and up at the lamp, to see what kind of bulb could emit such a light. But the holder was empty. There was no bulb.}