Hungry Moon (8 page)

^{Outside he discovered how drunk he was. Most of a face appeared to be rolling about the sky above the moors, grinning at him. He stumbled home and fell into bed, and woke next morning with the sense that a joke had been played on him. The whole evening had been a joke, but he couldn't turn it into one that would make him laugh. He groped his way through the dawning streets to sort the delivery, wondering what tricks the day had in store for him. When he heard about the sheep, he thought at first that it was a sick joke.}

^ELEVEN

^{Craig tried to keep his temper as they left the One-Armed Soldier. He'd felt like leaving once Eustace had been driven out, but Hazel and Benedict had wanted to stay to the end. The bearded youth with the guitar had received polite applause, but most of the audience had obviously been waiting for the last act, a Christian duo}

^{with an array of instruments and joyful messages. Craig resented the way they seemed to assume they had the greatest right to take the stage. He would have said so if Hazel and Benedict hadn't been with friends.}

^{Hazel had met them at the new Christian shop, where she was helping. Mel held out his large moist hands whenever he wanted to make a point, his wife Ursula nodding her head at every claim he made. Both were bubbling over with joy, and Craig had had enough of them long before they reached the Eddingses' cottage, where Hazel had invited her friends for coffee. Halfway along the High Street he said, 'You seem to have had a good time this evening.'}

^{'Didn't you?' Ursula cried. 'I thought it was super.'}

^{'I enjoyed the comedian, the first one. I rather felt some of you were glad to see the back of him.'}

^{'I certainly was,' Benedict said. 'Moonwell can do without that sort of thing.'}

^{'Can't do without a postman though, can it? I wouldn't blame him if he decided Moonwell could.'}

^{'You wouldn't blame him?' Mel said, drooping a shoulder toward Craig. 'Surely you would. It's up to all of us to blame him, to show him where he's gone wrong.'}

^{Craig breathed heavily rather than argue when he'd had so much to drink, but Vera spoke up. 'You don't usually go into pubs, do you, any of you new people? Were you there tonight to spoil his show?'}

^{'You can't spoil something that's already worthless,' Benedict said.}

^{'You were, weren't you. You went in there meaning to destroy him.'}

^{'Oh, really, now, I don't think so,' Ursula said brightly. 'He must be a pretty poor comedian if one failure destroys him. I hope it'll teach him to make the kind of jokes we can all laugh at. But you must remember that he went on stage tonight meaning to}

^{destroy our faith in God.'}

^{'I should think God and your faith can look after themselves. You near as damn it took over the pub so that the people who weren't on your side would be too embarrassed to laugh.'}

^{'No, no,' Mel said as gently as a sickbed visitor. 'The people are already with us, as you saw. They've realized they need God, not his enemies.'}

^{'Such as us, you mean,' Craig growled.}

^{'Mummy isn't, not deep in her heart,' Hazel said, almost pleading. 'And neither would you be if you'd just take time to think.'}

^{For a moment Craig wanted to take her hand, squeeze it to let her know she shouldn't worry about him, especially not when he was trying not to worry about her. Mel and Ursula began to murmur a hymn, and the Eddingses joined in. They were still singing when they reached the cottage on the moorland road.}

^{Craig slumped in a chair in the front room, under a mass-produced painting of Christ holding out his hands, a tasteful dab of blood on each palm. It was the lack of any painterly feeling that offended Craig, the assumption that any kind of representation ought to be enough to provoke an automatic response. He hoped Benedict had bought the painting, not Hazel.}

^{Mel and Ursula sat down in the corner seat, and Mel read Craig's face as he looked away from the painting. 'Aren't you at all spiritual?' Mel said.}

^{'Put me down as a don't know if you like.'}

^{'Christ doesn't allow neutrality. Anyone who isn't with Him is against Him.' He held out his hands as if he were offering Craig something large yet weightless. 'Can you really search your heart and say there isn't emptiness where there should be faith?'}

^{'Emptiness is good enough for me.'}

^{Mel turned to Vera. 'Hazel said you were more of a believer. We believers have a duty, to show others the right path.'}

^{'I believe in Pascal's wager.'}

^'Pardon?'

^{'The philosopher who argued that since the existence of God can't be proved it's worth betting he exists, because if he doesn't you've lost nothing but if he does you've gained, well, whatever you've gained.'}

^{'That's sophistry masquerading as faith. The only way to believe in God is let Him rule your life.'}

^{'I think we're a bit old for that,' Craig said. 'We don't feel the need to be constantly told what to do.'}

^{Benedict carried in a trayful of mugs of coffee. 'Some people might think that's what you want to do to us.'}

^{'What do you mean, Benedict, some people?' Suddenly Craig wanted to get the inevitable confrontation over with. 'If you've something to say, spit it out. What do you feel you're a victim of?'}

^{Benedict set the tray down carefully next to a pile of tracts. 'Excuse me. Thank you,' he said as he passed the mugs round, and then he blinked at Craig. 'Well, I think you need to accept the way Hazel's grown up. And I think you'd like to tell me how to run my business.'}

^{'If Vera and I were going to lend you the money you asked for we'd have wanted to.'}

^{'I suppose that's fair, to let you make suggestions, anyway.'}

^{'I said if, Benedict. If we'd been going to lend you the money.'}

^{Hazel tried to steady her mug with both hands, winced at the heat and put down the mug on the hearth. 'Aren't you going to?' she said, her voice a little too high.}

^{'We don't know how much we'll have to spare, if anything,' Vera said. 'We don't know where we'll be living. Not in Moonwell if it carries on the way it's going.'}

^{'What way is that?' Benedict demanded. 'All Godwin wants to do is make a little piece of the world free of crime and sin and corruption. He can do it here because we're so cut off, safe from outside influences. Surely even you can't say that's not worth doing.'}

^{'Even who?' Craig felt his chest stiffening with anger. 'Even someone as sinful as us? Perhaps now you see why we wouldn't feel welcome.'}

^{'Oh, Daddy, you know you're both always welcome,' Hazel pleaded, but Benedict interrupted: 'You haven't told me what you don't like about my business methods.'}

^{'Don't be so sure you'd want to hear. I'll tell you one thing we don't care for, and that's the way you use Hazel to try and drum up customers. We've heard some of the abuse she's had to put up with, and no wonder, the way you expect her to play on people's fears to sell your damned alarms.'}

^{'I don't mind, Daddy, really I don't. It's my duty to help.'}

^{'Oh, for Christ's sake, Hazel, when did you turn into such a bloody prig?' Craig demanded, and gritted his teeth as if he could bite back what he'd said. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that. Put it down to the drink.'}

^{'I forgive you.'}

^{Craig gritted his teeth harder. 'What's wrong?' Benedict asked lightly. 'She said she forgives you.'}

^{'Yes, because your friend Mann says she has to, am I right? You're forgiving me because it's your duty, Hazel, isn't that so? It's got nothing to do with my loving you or your loving me or anything else that's real.' He turned on Benedict. 'I'll tell you what's wrong with your kind of forgiveness - it suppresses the feelings you'd have if you were honest with yourself. I thought religion was supposed to bring peace, that's the one way it might have got to me at my age, but if I lived around your forgiveness for any length of time I'd end up with an ulcer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm very tired and I've already said too much.' Nevertheless he halted in the doorway. 'As far as your business problems are concerned, I should think you ought to trust God to provide.'}

^{He laboured upstairs to the bathroom and splashed water on his face, glared at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. When he went into the bedroom with its twin folding beds, Vera was waiting for him. 'I said we'd leave in the morning,' she told him in a small voice.}

^{'We've given up on Moonwell, have we?'}

^{'I couldn't have stood it much longer, either.' But when she came back from the bathroom, put out the light, and climbed into her shaky bed, her voice was unsteadier. 'I just hope he won't stop her from coming to visit us,' she murmured. 'She's still Hazel, however she's changed. I still want to see her. Damn old age for not letting us drive the way we could once.'}

^{When she was asleep, Craig lay hearing what she'd said. Why couldn't he have kept quiet downstairs instead of trying to win an argument that led nowhere? The thought of Godwin Mann and his followers enraged him, the woman who'd taken the stage after Eustace most of all. Humour was a calculated technique they were using, like their imitations of every form of popular song. How could Hazel be taken in by them? Where had he and Vera gone wrong?}

^{He felt clumsy and vulnerable, and perhaps that was why he dreamed he was. He found himself back in his childhood, found himself driven to do things for a dare he didn't even want to do. He was climbing down the rope into the disused mineshaft on the moor above Moonwell, but this time he knew what would happen, and so he was struggling to make his hands drag him up out of the dark while there was still a chance. He'd just managed to halt his descent by gripping the rope with his arms and legs when the knot that fastened the rope to a rock came loose.}

^{He didn't fall far. Rough stone thumped the breath out of him. His friend's face appeared at the top of the shaft as if at the wrong end of a telescope, shouting that he'd go for help, and then Craig was left lying, bruised and breathless, deep in the dark that seemed to be gathering like mud in his lungs. He couldn't breathe because he knew what came next, and now he could feel it coming: something that would drag him into the dark until he could be dragged no further, until his shoulders were wedged and his head was poking helplessly into the blackest dark. Now that was where he was, his shoulders crushed together so that he couldn't move, and whatever had dragged him there was reaching for his head. He woke with his face in the pillow, suffocating.}

^{At least that muffled his cry. He sat up then, to free himself of the dream. Of course none of the worst had happened, he'd been rescued before it could have. It wouldn't have happened anyway, he had just been a frightened child. He must have dreamed about it now because of the song he'd heard in the pub, though he couldn't remember having heard the song before. He got stiffly to his feet and tiptoed to the window, to let the view take the place of the dream.}

^{He pushed back one curtain so that moonlight spread into the room but stopped short of Vera's bed. He turned back to the window to find out why the moonlight was flickering, lapping the carpet. He looked up, and then he craned forward, banging his forehead on the pane. The moor was on fire.}

^{How could fire be so white? For a moment he thought it was mist or gas, except that it moved like neither. The edge of the moor looked more charred than ever, and white flames were dancing on the stone, on the heather and the grass. Then the flames reddened and leaped higher, and Craig was shoving himself away from the window to raise the alarm when he heard a fire engine heading for the moor. He watched until the edge of the moor was still again, not even a hint of smoke under the remains of the moon, and then he went back to bed.}

^{In the morning he learned that someone unknown had started a fire up there. The fire had driven a flock of sheep through the tents, injuring two of Mann's followers. Several of the animals had plunged straight into the unwalled cave above which Mann had held his rally. Benedict recounted all this in a tone that seemed almost to imply that Craig and Vera were somehow culpable. Apart from that, he said very little as he drove them back to Sheffield, and Craig had nothing to distract him from feeling that he shouldn't have let himself be forced out of Moonwell, though it was certainly too late now. He kept remembering that first sight of flames that had looked white as ash - white as the moon.}

^TWELVE

^{The PTA meeting seemed more than ever like a class for adults, but they weren't treated as such. As Diana followed Sally's father into the assembly hall, Mrs Scragg remarked, 'Now we can start, I suppose,' as if Diana should have spent less time in discussing children with their parents. Diana took her place at the trestle table on the stage, and Mrs Scragg slapped the table with the heel of her hand, sending a dull echo across the crowded hall. 'I hope you all know what happened by the cave,' she thundered.}

^{Perhaps she didn't mean to sound accusing, but quite a few people looked away from her. 'I don't know who the terrorists and vandals are who'd stoop to cruelty to dumb animals, but they'd better stay away from my husband and I if they know what's good for them. And they'd better realize it'll take more than them setting fire to the moor to drive Godwin Mann out of our lives.'}

^{She grabbed the edge of the table with both red-knuckled hands and hitched herself forward at the parents. 'Now I'll tell you what me and my husband have done to help our new friends - we've invited two of them to stay in our house for as long as they're in Moonwell. Let the cowards try to harm them now. I hope every one of you will do the same, at least all of you that own your own homes.'}

^{If that was intended to exclude Diana, that was fine by her. Mrs Scragg sat back, snorting for emphasis, and Mr Scragg cleared his throat minutely. 'Before we move on to the rest of the business, are there any comments?' he said.}

^{A hand waved toward the back of the hall. 'Mr Milman,' Mr Scragg acknowledged.}

^{'I appreciate the points you were making, Mrs Scragg, but-'}

^{Mrs Scragg frowned at him as if she'd never seen him before. 'Stand up now or we'll not be able to hear you.'}

^{He stood up awkwardly, leaning on the folding seat in front of him. 'I was saying that of course I don't approve of trying to drive people out that way, but I do think it's understandable if there's a bit of resentment about. I mean, nobody asked for the town to be changed overnight. My family and I go to church every Sunday, and we don't need to be made to feel that isn't enough.'}

^{Several people were nodding agreement, even murmuring. Perhaps this time, Diana thought, they'd speak up for themselves. 'Nobody asked Mary and Joseph if they wanted to have the Christ child,' Mrs Scragg said.}

^{'If all you're wanting is to cry over the spilt milk, Mr Milman, I think we'll be getting on with the business of the meeting.'}

^{'It isn't all, as a matter of fact.' Mr Milman stood up straighter. 'I was saying to Miss Kramer that some of your new pupils have been giving our Kirsty nightmares.'}

^{Mr Scragg sat up on the two cushions that added height to his chair. 'And what did Miss Kramer say to you?'}

^{'She said I ought to raise the question here.'}

^{'Did she now. I hope so,' Mrs Scragg said tightly. 'And how are our new friends supposed to be giving the girl nightmares?'}

^{'By telling her the devil will get her if she doesn't confess every silly little wrong she does. Why, they even wanted her to tell Miss Kramer she'd fallen asleep one night before saying her prayers. I admire Miss Kramer and I know she wouldn't want to hear that sort of thing. They've got Kirsty having nightmares about something walking down the moonlight and growing bigger and heaven knows what else. That's not what she comes to school to learn.'}

^{'If I could just explain,' one of Mann's followers said. 'We believe in helping one another. A sin confessed is a burden shared. Our children are only trying to help yours. Maybe you should ask yourself if God is sending your child nightmares to show where she's gone wrong.'}

^{'I'll tell you what, I know my child a damn sight better than your children do, and I don't think I'm the only one who feels that way.' He glanced quickly about the noncommittal faces. 'Isn't that so?'}

^{The murmurs of assent were muted and difficult to locate. Mrs Scragg smirked at him. 'You'll have to face up to it, not all children are as perfect as yours. I reckon I'm speaking for most of us here when I say that anything we can do to improve them is worth doing.'}

^{'Not much chance of improvement with the size of your classes now,' Jeremy Booth said. 'You can't expect children to do their best when they're sitting two to a desk.'}

^{'They cope well enough in my class and my husband's.' Mrs Scragg craned her neck, and found him. 'You aren't even a parent. What do you mean by pretending you are?'}

^{'He's here on behalf of Andrew's parents,' Diana said.}

^{Mrs Scragg didn't even glance at her. 'Let's be hearing from someone who's got the right to speak. Who's going to speak up for the school? Our new friends will be thinking they were wrong about us.'}

^{'You have to have rules,' Mr Clegg, the greengrocer, said shyly, 'even rules that don't make sense. When the children grow up they'll have to obey laws that may not make sense to them either.'}

^{Diana thought of some of the Scraggs' rules - no trousers for girls in the winter; no juice for the children to drink at lunchtime, only hot water. 'Aren't you talking about training people never to want to change anything? Too much of that and we'd be training them not to think.'}

^{'They aren't here to think, they're here to learn.' Mrs Scragg looked pleased with her turn of phrase. 'I want a show of hands now; you've all heard the arguments. You know people who aren't even brave enough to show their faces are doing things you never thought you'd see in our town, just because they don't want .to be told they're sinners like the rest of us. Now then, with all that going on, who wants to see less discipline here at the school?'}

^{'That wasn't what we were talking about,' Kirsty's father protested.}

^{'It may not be what you wanted to talk about, but there are other children besides yours to be considered. If she keeps on having nightmares you'd best get her to the doctor. Now then, does anybody want to make our}

^{new friends feel unwelcome because they act like Christians?' Mrs Scragg snorted when there was no response. 'So who isn't happy about the discipline?'}

^{Kirsty's father and Jeremy raised their hands at once; a few others went up tentatively. Parents were glancing surreptitiously about to see if there was enough of a response for their own not to be singled out and deciding against responding. 'Not many of you,' Mr Scragg said, slapping his small hands together. 'If anybody wants a word with me afterward, I'll be waiting.'}

^{But after the meeting, the rest of which was uneventful, several parents came into Diana's classroom to tell her how much they preferred her teaching to the rest of the school. Presumably they were too afraid for their children to have spoken up at the meeting. 'We were thinking of moving to Manchester anyway,' Kirsty's father told her, and suddenly that seemed a world away.}

^{She walked home feeling slow and dull. The moon was out of sight behind a sharp-edged frieze of chimneys. Beyond the forest an airliner glinted like a fly, its sound out of all proportion to its apparent size. She let herself into her cottage, away from the rumbling dark, and made for bed.}

^{She slept dreamlessly, wakened feeling refreshed and optimistic. After all, Mann and his followers would move on once he'd achieved his token victory over paganism, and she could carry on treating her pupils the way she felt they should be treated once Mann's young mouthpieces weren't there to tell tales. She'd already achieved quite a lot with her regular class, despite the Scraggs. She felt far more capable as the sun chased the shadows back under the cottages, and when she saw Mr Scragg beckoning her curtly from the window of his office, she marched straight in,}

^{He pushed a typewritten sheet across his desk to her. 'For your immediate attention.'}

^{It was an undertaking not to teach moral or religious matters except in the manner specified by the headmaster. The teaching generally should take a Christian view of history and life today, should ensure that the children behaved like Christians to one another. . . She read on, noting misspellings and jumping letters. 'What do you want me to do with this?' she said. Mr Scragg gazed blankly at her. 'Sign it, please.' 'I don't think you can ask me to do that. It isn't in my contract of employment.'}