Hungry Moon (11 page)

^{It must have been, she told herself. They couldn't have been glowing with their own pale light, even though the moonlight hadn't yet reached the church. Perhaps the light had reflected from a window opposite the churchyard and caught the birds where they stood pecking at the graves. She didn't like to wonder what they'd carried in their beaks as the three of them had risen in unison and flapped toward the moor. The moonlight must have caught them directly then, for as soon as they took flight they'd seemed even brighter. Everything was explicable, there was no reason for her to feel nervous, and yet she knew that wherever she and Jeremy continued their evening walk, she would rather that it wasn't on the moor.}

^FIFTEEN

^{The man at the reception desk assumed that Moonwell was a company. 'No, it's where I live,' Diana said. 'Tell him I want to take up his offer.'}

^{Nick looked puzzled until he caught sight of her, and then he smiled broadly, his round face and large dark eyes relaxed. 'I owe you lunch. Where shall we go?'}

^{'A pub would be good. I've quite a lot to tell you.'}

^{'About Mission Moonwell?'}

^{'Operation Moonwell would be more like it.'}

^{He frowned, rubbing his squarish chin as if he could erase the grey tinge that made it look less than shaved. 'Give me ten minutes to finish a story and we'll go.'}

^{They went to a pub near the Gothic town hall, off a wide street where the buildings looked laundered by sunlight above the glacier of lunchtime traffic. They found stools near the back of the long, narrow dark-panelled room and sat down with drinks. 'So what's been happening?' Nick said. 'More of the same?'}

^{'I don't know if you realized how organized it was. Mann's after the children now, with the help of the school. The headmaster tried to make me sign an undertaking not to teach anything Mann wouldn't approve of, and when I wouldn't sign, they fired me.'}

^{'Can they do that?'}

^{'Not here in Manchester they couldn't, but you can get away with a lot in a town that takes more than an hour to reach, I guess. I've just been to my union headquarters this morning, and they don't hold out much hope.'}

^{'You're kidding. What, because they'd have to drive up there to help you?'}

^{'No, because of something I didn't do. See, the union called a strike when I'd been at the school about six months and I didn't join the strike. I thought, come on, I'm on probation here and besides, if I strike they'll bring in someone who'll treat the kids worse. I mean, I really wanted that job when I happened to read it was up for grabs, but I nearly didn't get a work permit in time. And I want to keep it all the more now because I'm a foreigner and I haven't been here long enough, only I think it's because they haven't forgiven me for staying at work.'}

^{'I've got friends in the education offices. I can let you know in advance of any teaching jobs in Manchester.'}

^{'That's kind of you, Nick, but I was hoping you might be able to publicize what the school is trying to do to me.' She drained her glass of beer. 'My round.'}

^{When she carried the drinks to the table, Nick was looking uncomfortable. 'I'll do what I can, of course,' he said. 'I'd certainly like to help.'}

^{'I think you'll have a story by the time I've finished.' She told him about Eustace Gift's show, the book-burning, Father O'Connell's doubts. 'And now Mann's going from house to house so nobody can sit on the fence. I told you it was systematic'}

^{'The priest said he was willing to be quoted, did he? That may be the clincher. Let's eat and then I'll talk to my editor.'}

^{She waited in the lobby of the newspaper building fifteen minutes before he reappeared. She jumped up, her mock-leather chair reflating. 'Do you need me?'}

^{'Diana, I'm really sorry, not to say embarrassed. I didn't have much success.'}

^{'Maybe I should talk to him.'}

^{'I'd take you up if I thought it would do any good. You see, I did a series on Billy Graham and the rest of this fundamentalist backlash last year, and my editor's taking the line that it's last year's news - doesn't seem to see it's getting worse. He did raise an eyebrow when I mentioned your priest, though. Listen, are you free for dinner? I owe you more of an explanation, but I'd rather not go into it here.'}

^{'You needn't feel you owe me,' Diana said gently.}

^{'Well, anyway, I'd like to buy you dinner. I finish work at six.'}

^{'We'll decide who pays when they bring us the bill. I still need to go to the library.'}

^{But in the high-domed reading room, where she had to apply at the desk for any book she wanted, there seemed to be no information that she needed, nothing to give her an insight into Mann's obsession with the cave. Indeed, she could find very few references to Moonwell. Then, as she leafed through the catalogue again more studiedly, she found an author's name she knew.}

^{The subject entry was for Lutudarum. The book proved to be an undated yellowing pamphlet, bound in plastic by the library. It was an essay about a lost Roman lead mine, which the writer located on a sketch map, showing Lutudarum where Diana would have looked for Moonwell. The writer's name was Nathaniel Needham.}

^{‘I should have thought of him,' she told Nick over dinner in Chinatown. 'He lives on the moors. If anyone but Mann knows what's supposed to be so important about the cave, he should.'}

^{'Assuming it means much to anyone but Mann. This whole idea of a deep, dark, evil well sounds pretty Freudian, don't you think?'}

^{Her quick smile faded. T think there's more to it. There are certainly enough stories about the cave.'}

^{'None about Mann though, I'm afraid, at least none he doesn't tell himself. His father's real name was Maniple, and I don't blame anyone for changing that.'}

^{'So tell me why you're having problems at the paper.'}

^{'Do you ever hear Radio Freedom? No, the evangelical station blots it out in your area. It's a pirate radio station I used to broadcast on, say things the paper wouldn't let me say. Only when I came back from your town I couldn't have disguised my voice enough, because my editor realized who I was.'}

^{'Oh, shit.'}

^{'He put it rather more strongly. I'm lucky still to be working there, I can tell you. And then the woman who runs Radio Freedom said I should broadcast who I was and work for the station if I cared about the truth, and that was the end of quite a good relationship, and maybe of my chance to help you. Do keep in mind what I said about finding you a job.'}

^{'I ought to take you up on that, shouldn't I? I ought to get out of Moonwell, since the parents have got what they seem to want.'}

^{He looked taken aback by her sudden bitterness. 'Is it really that bad?'}

^{'Nick, when I started teaching at that school the kids were terrified of me because they thought I'd be like the other teachers. Is that bad?'}

^{'And when you weren't they started getting out of hand, I imagine.'}

^{'Sure, until they saw I wasn't going to hit them or send them to the headmaster for a caning. We didn't cane kids in New York, we don't need to do it here. It really pisses me off to hear parents saying it never did them any harm. I think people forget how it was for them at a school like that; otherwise they couldn't bear to send their children. And they're scared to be singled out as troublemakers even now they're grown up.'}

^{'The kind of fear Mann plays on.'}

^{'That's another thing that worries me. My kids won't say they believe his scare stories if they don't, and I'm afraid he or his followers may start some crap about how the kids are against him.'}

^{Nick drew a deep breath and stood up. 'I may not be broadcasting any more, but I can still give Radio Freedom the story. Let me call Julia now.'}

^{He came back looking frustrated. 'I can't get through. I'll try again in a few minutes. Julia may want to run an interview with you.'}

^{'Don't let your meal get cold. Nick, I think it'd be best if I don't go on the air. We both of us know what I really ought to do.'}

^{'Do we?' Nick said doubtfully.}

^{'Sure. I ought to go back to the school and sign the son of a bitch of a form so that at least I'll be there to look after my kids.'}

^{Saying it made her feel even more certain, made her instincts feel as keen as they had the night they'd wakened her with the glimpse of the airplane. This time she wouldn't fail them, she promised herself. After dinner Nick suggested coffee at his apartment, but she was afraid that a sudden mist might wipe out the road back to Moonwell. She knew that if she went home with Nick, she might end up spending the night with him. In other circumstances she might have wanted that as much as she sensed he did.}

^{She drove out of Manchester, onto the steep dark roads. Clouds hung over Moonwell, weighing down the night. She had it in her to dispel the sense of darkening and heaviness she felt as she drove toward the town, she reminded herself. The day must have exhausted her, for though moonrise wasn't due for hours, she thought she glimpsed whitish movements on the clouds above the cave. She went quickly to bed, to rest and be ready for the Scraggs in the morning.}

^{Mrs Scragg was at the schoolyard gate and glared at Diana as if she had no right even to step over the threshold. Some of the parents looked glad to see her, and some of the children certainly did. She had to sign. Nicholas Nickleby might have stormed into Mr Scragg's office, but life didn't work like that, life just went on in its usual unsatisfactory way. She hurried into the school and knocked on Mr Scragg's door.}

^{The headmaster stared blankly at her. 'I'm sorry I was}

^{hasty when you asked me to sign that disclaimer,' she said, managing to smile. 'I'll sign it now if I may.'}

^{'I'm glad you listened to your conscience. I hope you'll find it is its own reward.' He began to shuffle papers on his desk. 'But as far as your job is concerned, I'm afraid you've changed your mind too late. The post has already been filled by two of our new friends, who don't even want to be paid.'}

^SIXTEEN

^{Andrew's head felt big and aching, his nose and eyes stuffed with tears. 'But you said I could last year,' he whined. 'Said it was good for me.'}

^{'Well, we were wrong.' His mother stuck out her hand for a clothespeg from the bag he was holding, a canvas bag with a little girl holding a handful of pegs stitched on it. 'I've said no and that's all there is to it.'}

^{'But it's at the church. Father O'Connell doesn't mind.'}

^{'There's too many things he doesn't mind when he's supposed to be a man of God. You're not to go near the church without me or your father, do you hear? You're not to have anything to do with Mrs Wainwright or dressing the cave.'}

^{'But you promised you and Daddy would come and see me doing it this year.'}

^{'I was wrong, can't you understand? God sent Godwin Mann to show us where we'd gone wrong. Give the bag here if you're going to be stupid, I'll get the peg myself.'}

^{As she grabbed the bag she dropped her armful of washing on the lawn. 'Now look what you've made me do, you little devil. Just you kneel down and ask God for forgiveness.'}

^{Grass blades poked Andrew's bare knees. 'Please God forgive me,' he muttered, and had to repeat what his mother said, 'for being such a trial to my father and mother.'}

^{'Now go up to your room and close the door,' his mother said, 'and don't come down till you're worth knowing.' Andrew felt as if that might be never. He stumbled to his feet, glancing nervously about in case anyone had heard him confessing, and saw his father fn the kitchen, watching him. His father looked away quickly as if the fat grey sky meant something to him. 'Just you read that story about how to obey your parents,' Andrew's mother cried.}

^{Andrew sat on his bed and stared at his room that no longer felt much like his. The bareness seemed chilly now that he couldn't have Maurice Sendak posters on the walls. He wasn't allowed to see Geraldine or Jeremy or even Miss Kramer now that she wasn't at the school, and he didn't want to play with the new children his mother liked so much, who made him feel he hadn't confessed enough. He felt even clumsier and more of an embarrassment to his parents than ever.}

^{He began to tear the pamphlet about Abraham and Isaac, tiny pieces from the edges of the pages. He didn't dare hate God, but he hated Godwin Mann. His mother hadn't really changed except for talking so much about God, but his father had changed somehow since Godwin Mann had come to town - Andrew didn't want to think how. He couldn't help flinching when his father came into the room.}

^{'Don't do that, son.' His father collected the tom scraps of paper and flushed them down the toilet beneath the plaque that said 'God Loves You.' 'Put that}

^{away before your mother sees what you've done to it, and we'll go out for a bit. You shouldn't be shut up on a day like this.'}

^{'Please may we go to the fair?'}

^{'You don't call that a fair, do you? You wait and I'll give you a surprise.'}

^{People weren't supposed to have secrets once they'd confessed to God; hadn't Mr Mann said something like that? But once they were in the street his father said, 'I don't see why you shouldn't go to the church. I'll be taking you, so it's not as if you'll be disobeying your mother. No need to tell her, though, in case she doesn't see it that way.'}

^{A butcher's boy cycled along the High Street, the basket on his handlebars piled with raw deliveries. Andrew wanted to do that one day, cycle through the town like that, whistling and taking his hands off the handlebars to comb his hair. Perhaps then his parents would be proud of him.}

^{If he wouldn't be disobeying his mother, why couldn't he tell her so that she would come and admire his bit of the cave-dressing? Sometimes thinking felt like trying to lift a weight that just grew heavier, especially when people were impatient with him. He was trying to put words straight in his head so as to ask his father in a way that wouldn't make him angry when they came abreast of Roman Row. 'I'd better check with Mrs Wainwright that someone's at the church,' his father said.}

^{Mrs Wainwright was trimming the vines on the arch above her gate. Andrew ran to her, then faltered, for she looked as if she wanted to cry. 'I'm sorry, Andrew,' she said, staring at the vines. 'We won't be dressing the cave this year.'}

^{Andrew's father caught up with him. 'Why not? I thought you were going ahead anyway.'}

^{'There won't be enough people.' Her eyes were so bright and blank they made Andrew's ache. 'Anyway, I've more to worry me than dressing the cave, but I can't talk about it in front of the boy. The cave doesn't matter now.'}

^{'It does matter,' Andrew blurted as she turned awkwardly and almost ran into her house. Her door slammed, and he saw that her next-door neighbour, a toothless old woman with a moustache, had been standing hands on hips in her front doorway. 'Good riddance to her. The less we see of her the better,' she mumbled loudly, working her lips over each other between phrases.}

^{'Why, what's happened?' Andrew's father demanded.}

^{'Haven't you heard? She lost a baby last night, and do you know why? Because the mother wouldn't have her sort in the room. "I won't have my baby delivered by that godless woman," that's what I was told she said. You'd think a midwife would have knelt down by the bed if it was that or lose a baby, but not Mrs High and Mighty Wainwright. So the father tried to deliver the baby himself, and all I can say is if there's any justice that baby went straight to heaven and you know where Mrs Wainwright ought to go.'}

^{That didn't seem quite fair to Andrew as he watched the old woman chewing her words as if she liked the taste. His father pulled him away. 'Come on, I'll take you to the fair.'}

^{It was down by the playing field. Children threw quoits or rolled balls for prizes. The only ride was a roundabout, old pedal cars and bicycles bolted to a stage under a canopy like an umbrella whose canvas had blown off. Andrew sat on a rusty bicycle and pretended he was a delivery boy as the fairground man turned the rusty handle that made the stage creak round. 'Look at me, Dad,' he shouted every time his fatherwent by, because every time his father was staring at the sunless sky above the moor as if it meant something to him or he wished he were somewhere else.}

^{The fair didn't make up for his not being able to help}

^{Mrs Wainwright. When they went home, he could tell that his mother sensed he was still disappointed, for she let him say grace before dinner. All too soon, long before dark, it was time for bed.}

^{He lay watching shapes form and dissolve inside his eyelids, and listened to the murmur of his parents downstairs. He was waiting for his mother to demand what his father was hiding, but now that Andrew was in bed they didn't seem to be saying much. Their sounds and the long silences between felt like a storm gathering under the puffy sky. He pulled the blanket over his ear that felt swollen with trying to listen, and remembered last year -remembered fitting the lines of petals, overlapping like feathers on a bird, into his piece of the screen until there wasn't room for a single extra petal. He remembered seeing his work snap into place, his piece of blue sky taking its place above the head of the man with the sword. Light surrounded the calm face as if the head were the sun, shining like the sword he held up in one hand, the other arm hidden inside his tunic made of leaves. Andrew felt cool as the church now, no longer aware of the weight of muggy heat and blankets, and he didn't notice when he fell asleep.}

^{His dream felt peaceful too, at first. He was following the picture he'd helped create up to the cave. He couldn't see who was carrying it, not in sections as usual but put together so that it was several times as tall as he was. He ran through the dark toward the cave, over ground that felt more like ash than stone. Just as he reached the top, the moon came swooping over the jagged horizon, and he saw that the picture of the swordsman was standing over the cave. Andrew felt safe until the moon began to laugh.}

^{It was only a fairy tale, he tried to tell himself. It was only in those books that the moon had a cartoony face with a big grin that could open and show its teeth. But it was laughing at the way the swordsman was tottering drunkenly at the edge of the cave as if he'd been moved too close. He was only a picture, Andrew told himself, and Mrs Wainwright had said he didn't matter. The swordsman fell forward into the yawning dark, and Andrew heard him scream as he'd never heard anyone scream in his life.}

^{Andrew lurched awake and almost screamed himself at the tarry dark. He struggled out of bed, stumbled toward the landing. Whoever he woke up would shout at him, but he couldn't bear to be alone with the dream. He inched open the door of his parents' room, and then he halted, gaping at the white statue that lay next to his mother in the bed.}

^{The moon was shining directly on his father's face. He looked as if he were bathing in the light, soaking it up. Andrew wanted to run to him and shake him, because if the moon shone on your face while you were asleep it was supposed to drive you mad. His mother had told him that was just a story, but she always drew his curtains tight when there was going to be a moon. He would have cried out to her now, except that he was growing afraid of seeing his father's eyes open full of moonlight. Then his father's face writhed into an expression Andrew wouldn't have dreamed it could wear, and he fled back to his bedroom, hid in bed.}

^{His father must have been having a nightmare. Only mightn't you look as terrified as that if you were going mad? What would his father do then? Something worse than the way men at football games screamed at one another, worse than making Andrew's mother sound as if he was hurting her when they thought Andrew was asleep. Andrew hadn't heard her make those noises since Mr Mann had come to Moonwell, but now the waiting silence made him more nervous than the noises had.}

^{He ground his knuckles into his ears. His mother always told him in the summer that he'd better be asleep before it was dark. Now he felt as if he was finding out why - finding out that everything changed for the worse.}

^{He couldn't bear waiting, couldn't bear not knowing what was happening in his parents' room. But when he made himself get out of bed and tiptoe back across the landing to ease their door open, he almost screamed. His father wasn't in the bed.}

^{His mother was still huddled in the blankets, her back to the moon. As Andrew tried to nerve himself to wake her, he heard the front door close quietly. Suddenly he could move. He tiptoed across his parents' bedroom, knowing instinctively that he wouldn't bump into anything, and peered into the thin moonlight. His father was across the main road and loping up the nearest side street that led to the moors.}

^{At once Andrew knew that his father had meant to leave him at the church and go wherever he was going now. Andrew wouldn't have been able to tell his mother without giving himself away. He backed out of the room and managed to close the door with his stiff, shaky hands. If his mother found out what was happening to his father, whatever it was, she might make it worse. Andrew dressed quickly and crept downstairs, put the door on the latch, and slipped out of the house.}

^{His body heat seemed to flood out of the top of his head toward the cloudless sky. As he dodged across the High Street, the clock above the assembly rooms struck two. He ran along the side street and up the zigzag path, both exhilarated to be out so late and afraid of what he might see when he caught up with his father.}

^{At the top of the path he poked his head gingerly over the edge. His father was loping toward the cave, ash softening his tread, under the waning moon that made Andrew blink. As Andrew ran after him, the boy couldn't hear himself. Running on the moon must be like this, running in silence, hardly feeling your own footsteps. His father was at the rim that surrounded the cave, and Andrew threw himself face down in the ash, because his father was pacing round the rim to a point almost opposite him. But his father was too intent on whatever was beyond the rim to notice Andrew.}

^{Though he felt exposed by the moonlight and the charred landscape, Andrew began to crawl through the ash. He crawled until he was almost abreast of his father, just able to see him by raising his head. He hid his face in his hands to clear his throat, and when he looked up again, his father had gone over the rim. Suddenly terrified that he meant to throw himself into the cave, Andrew scrambled up to the edge.}

^{The moon was almost overhead. It glared into the stone bowl and made the lip of the cave appear to glow. Beyond that, the cave looked as black and deep as the sky. Halfway between the cave and the edge of the bowl, one of Mr Mann's helpers was kneeling, fingers interlocked, eyes closed. He must be guarding the cave, Andrew thought. Behind him, so stealthily Andrew couldn't see him move, Andrew's father came creeping. His face was a smooth, luminous white mask.}

^{His shadow inched in front of him, as silent as he was. The praying man must see it if he opened his eyes - but no, the shadow was directly behind him, touching him now. Suppose he felt it, and turned? Andrew was as terrified for his father, terrified that his father would be found out, as he was of seeing what would happen when his father reached the man.}