Hungry Moon (44 page)

^{It felt like a flood of joy, of release. She couldn't perceive it more specifically than that, except that for an instant she thought of Craig and Vera, Brian Bevan, Father O'Connell. . .They were smiling peacefully, and so was the flood of other faces she glimpsed in that moment. 'They're free,' she murmured to herself.}

^{At least the sunlight had achieved that much. All the same, she was distantly aware of movement, of something old and shrivelled crawling as deep into the dark as it could go. She turned her mind away from that, toward the resurrected landscape, the slopes of heather and grass that looked greener than spring, the gentle dance of trees, the jagged gritstone edges gleaming beneath the eggshell sky. She took Nick's hand, and then she glanced at him to see why he felt so uncertain suddenly. He was staring about him as if he had no idea where he was. All at once she felt lonely and wistful. 'Oh, Nick,' she said, 'I know what has to happen now.'}

THE FOLLOWING YEAR

^{SIXTY EIGHT}
 

^{Nick almost missed the side road. He braked belatedly as he read the signpost backward in the driving mirror, and had to wait while cars raced by on both sides of the main road. He turned the car, narrowing his eyes as the sun shone directly into them, and swung it into the side road. The town didn't look far on the map, and he could do with a drink.}

^{Limestone slopes rose on both sides of the road, casting a welcome chill. The ferns that clothed the slopes gave way to trees that warded off the heat of the early July day. Beyond the forest he drove up a rise from which he could see the town. He stopped the car to enjoy the view.}

^{The limestone terraces of the town formed an amphitheatre for the greenest of the fields in the riverless valley, a playing field. Above the terraces a single main road gleaming with parked cars led to a chapel at the nearer end of the town, a church at the other. All this seemed overshadowed by the giant form multicoloured as the forest, the figure that stood alone above the town, on the deserted moor.}

^{It must have been there since midsummer. A daylight moon hung above it like a wafer of cloud left behind by the flossy mass on the horizon. The moon's markings were as blue as the sky. Nick gazed at the floral giant for so long that he began to wonder why he was gazing; if he didn't move soon, he would be too late for a drink. He drove down through the fields and up to the town, and was slowing to the local speed limit when he saw another sign beside the road. PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY -BLIND PERSON'S CROSSING, it said.}

^{He'd forgotten that, he realized, surprised that he had. His paper had reported the events, more sensationally and superficially than he would have liked. An American evangelist had whipped up religious hysteria in the town to such a pitch that dozens of people had gone blind from staring at the sun. The evangelist must have been overcome by the hysteria too, for he'd wandered onto the moors and had never reappeared -perhaps had fallen down an open shaft. And hadn't there been something about dogs? Yes, the town had run out of food, and starving dogs had run wild in the streets, killing several people, including a priest whose mutilated body had been discovered later in his church. Not the ideal town for a comfortable pint and a bite of lunch, Nick thought, but there was nowhere else within reach. He hoped the outbreak of religion hadn't closed the local pub.}

^{Once he was past the abandoned chapel with its boarded windows and fallen overgrown sign, the town seemed cheerful enough. If any of the people on the streets were blind, he couldn't tell as he drove by. He stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a uniformed postman cross. The man glanced incuriously at him and almost tripped over the kerb. For a moment Nick thought he looked vaguely familiar. He drove on, past a shop that sold climbing equipment, where a woman dressed in black despite the heat was watching the street from the doorway, and parked outside the One-Armed Soldier.}

^{Several blind people sat under the low beams of the public bar, reaching carefully for their tankards, waving their hands in large gestures that weren't quite precise, throwing back their heads to laugh with an unselfcon-sciousness Nick found somehow unexpected. He bought a pint of beer and the last cheese roll, and was halfway through his pint before he realized there was someone in the pub besides himself and the barman who wasn't blind.}

^{She was sitting in a corner near the bar, a young woman with a pale tapering face, wide greenish eyes, long black hair. As their eyes met, she smiled with an odd wistfulness. He realized she'd been watching him ever since he'd entered the pub.}

^{He might have gone over to her, but he felt uncomfortable with the blind people: they would be able to hear everything he said, however quietly. He drained his tankard and carried it back to the bar, and was turning away when the young woman said,_'What brings you here today?'}

^{'Just passing through.' He wondered if she'd meant to emphasize 'today' or if that was just her American accent.}

^{'And what brings you to the Peak?'}

^{She spoke like a native, just 'the Peak' instead of the Peaks or the Peak District. 'The road to Manchester,' he said, and felt unreasonably secretive, though he didn't know why he should. 'I'm a newspaperman. Subeditor, actually. I was in Sheffield today for an interview.'}

^{'You aren't a reporter,' she said in a tone he couldn't make out at all.}

^{'Not any longer, no. How about you? You were one of the people who brought evangelism here, were you?'}

^{'No, they went back where they came from,' she said, smiling so sadly at his question that he experienced a twinge of guilt. 'I was here before that, teaching school.'}

^{'Oh, you're a teacher.'}

^{'Assistant to the headmaster since his wife lost her sight.' She paused and added, 'And I'm a watcher.'}

^{'I see what you mean,' Nick said, nodding at the blind drinkers, and had an odd impression that he'd missed the point entirely. 'They must need people like you. It must have been a dreadful shock, what happened to them.'}

^{'Almost nobody remembers what happened or what led up to it,' she said with a wistfulness he found inexplicable. 'They still know their way around their own town, and our postman helps them a lot when they need guiding.'}

^{Did she want him to interview her? Was that what she was implying, that he couldn't grasp? But his paper had covered the story already, even supposing he'd wanted to do so. He felt more uncomfortable than ever. He didn't have to linger, he thought angrily, and pushed himself away from the bar. 'Well, goodbye,' he said, and even more lamely, 'Keep up the good work.'}

^{All the way to the street door he felt she was watching him. He didn't understand the way she had affected him, but now he felt wistful himself. He took hold of the cool latch and thought of going back to ask if they'd met before, but the approach seemed so laughable that he went quickly out of the pub. He'd driven out of the far side of town before he wondered if he could really have heard her say, 'Goodbye, Nick.'}

^{He stopped the car on the moor and gazed toward the town. Surely he'd imagined it, a fantasy of knowing her because he hadn't managed to. It disconcerted him to realize how much he wished he had. He'd be passing the town again soon, but he didn't know if he would turn off the main road when it came to the moment to choose. The one-armed giant composed of flowers and twigs and seeds stood over the cave that gaped amid the overgrown slopes above the town, and for an instant he couldn't tell which of these things might be drawing him back. Time enough to tell when he returned, if he ever did. He started the car and drove across the empty moor.}