The Moon Spun Round (2 page)

Climbing the twisting staircase, she finds three identical doors. Feeling like Alice in Wonderland, she tries the door ahead, thinking it must be the main bedroom. She guesses the one to the left is the bathroom, the one on the right a spare room with an unmade bed and discarded boxes.

She enters the bedroom and stands gazing into the dressing-table mirror. Her face is pale and drawn, almost white against her straight, dark hair. Her hazel eyes are ringed with dark smudges. Poor little Sally, as Jonathan calls her. She looks as tired as she feels and even younger than usual, despite the slick tailored jacket with the La Croix brooch on the collar. It’s made of silver and amber and doesn’t suit her at all, but she’s wearing it because it was a present from Jonathan.
As a tentative peace offering it probably cost more than her father earned in a week. Sally and the brooch are reflected in the glass, with the room behind her, a tableau in which she has now taken her place. She watches herself move around the bed, her hand smoothing the quilted spread, touching small china ornaments and lace covers. It feels like home.

A shiver runs through her. She pulls herself back to reality. ‘What do I know about country cottages? Perhaps they make them to a standard pattern and that’s why this one seems to feel so familiar. A sort of
déjà vu
? What I need is a cup of tea.’

She stands at the kitchen sink, filling the kettle and looking out of the window and across the fields. In the distance she can make out what must be the main highway she’d turned off to reach the village, a ribbon of dull grey stitched in broken lines between semi-bare trees. Toy cars speed to and fro. She wonders if she will be able to see Jonathan’s car in the morning. Then she feels certain that she will. And everything will change. The conflict, the distrust, the hurting—all that will be over. Everything will be so simple.

She flips the switch. No little red light. No hiss of heating element. She crosses the room and tries the light switch. Nothing. For the first time she notices there’s no gentle hum of household gadgets going about their automated business. But there’s a chill in the room, and it will grow even colder later when the sun goes down. She locates the electric meter and her heart sinks. The main switch is on, the fuses are intact, but nothing is happening. Even the Aga needs power to ignite the gas.

‘Oh, shit!’ She slumps down into the rocker, pushing her hair from her face. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’ Had she passed a motel on the way in? All she could remember was trees. ‘Damn you, Jonathan Crawford. If I survive till morning I think I’m going to kill you. No, that’s unfair. You didn’t plan for this.’

But now something is humming. A soft throbbing drone, at first barely audible, then seeming to surge, resonating like a hundred angry bees. Looking around the kitchen, she sees a small grey object on the rug in front of the fire. Sally stares for a moment, not comprehending. The cat waits to be acknowledged.

‘Where did you come from?’ The place had been locked when she arrived, although the owner had been in yesterday to make it ready for them. ‘Surely you haven’t been shut in here all night? No, you would have shot out as soon as the door opened.’ She would have seen the cat if it had tried to sneak in with her. It must have been hiding somewhere in here all the time, even though Sally has been through every room and everything had been left secure. ‘Thinking of moving in, are you?’

The cat waits, unblinking.

‘Look, I don’t wish to appear anti-social, but you can’t stay here. I don’t actually like cats, and Jonathan will boot you out as soon as he arrives.’ The cat stops purring and regards Sally down the length of its nose as if she were an insolent child.
She
is the interloper, after all. The animal probably lives here and is being pretty tolerant under the circumstances. Oh hell, Sally thinks, I’d give anything for a cup of tea. There’s that bottle of wine in the box of groceries. Perhaps not. Or there’s some milk—better than nothing; there must be a glass somewhere. A few moments later she finds herself bending down to place an overflowing saucer in front of the cat.

‘What the hell am I doing this for?’ Don’t stroke a cat in the street, her father used to warn her. It’ll follow you home and we’ll never get rid of it. ‘But I didn’t stroke it, and I certainly didn’t decide to feed it. I don’t even remember finding the saucer. Jonathan’s right, I really do need this break.’ She sits down again and watches the cat as it sets about the business of drinking, crouching low, long neck extended. It looks awfully thin, but its table manners are impeccable. ‘The cat that got the cream, eh?’ The creature ignores her. Hadn’t the woman in the shop said something about a cat?

‘Just here for the weekend, are you? Well, you’ll be needing some bread, potatoes…How about milk, nice fresh eggs for your breakfast?’

Sally had only wanted directions, but since she was there…Well, they
would
need some basics, and there was dinner for the evening. There was always the takeaway, or perhaps one of the pubs did meals. No, let’s do this properly. There would be plenty of time to cook and little else to do. She took a wire basket and looked around.

The shop was a sort of mini-supermarket which seemed to sell a little of everything, including the morning newspapers and dairy produce. A bank of shelves was stacked high with fresh vegetables, probably straight from those fields. The dividing wall was missing, exposing the studs that formed an opened divider to the next-door teashop; a glimpse of checked tablecloths and copper kettles, local enterprise.

‘Staying at Trevor’s place then, are you?’

‘Yes, I expect so.’

‘Well, it’s nice to see it being used again, even if it is only for holidaymakers.’ There were no other customers in the shop so the woman was finding odd things to tidy up as a blatant excuse to follow Sally around the shelves. ‘Mind you, I
don’t know that old Martha would approve of all those alterations. Husband not with you?’

‘He’ll be along later. Who’s Martha?’ The name rang a bell.

‘Well, that’s nice. Probably not used to being on your own, are you? Martha? But of course, you wouldn’t know. Yes, lived there all her life. Quite old she was when she died. Trevor—he was related to her on his mother’s side—he found her one morning. Must have passed in her sleep. He was the only one she would have anything to do with, except her cats, of course. I think they got shipped off to the RSPCA. All except that grey one, it was nowhere to be found.’ She drew breath. ‘Now, anything else I can get you?’

‘You wouldn’t have any wine, I suppose?’

‘Certainly, my dear, I’ve got red and white.’ A proud flourish revealed half a dozen bottles of each. ‘Only three pounds a bottle. My Jack got it cheap at the wholesaler’s. Has a good eye for a bargain, does Jack. You can easy pay ten for a bottle like that in Newmarket, you know. Which would you prefer?’

I’m going to regret this, thought Sally, unable to offend by refusing.

‘Oh, er, red, I think.’ The label was unreadable. Probably ‘Produce of Outer Mongolia’.

‘Now, you don’t want one of those frozen birds,’ Sally had been rummaging in the freezer chest, ‘all water and chemicals, they are. I’ll get Jack to find you a nice fresh one. Jack…’ The woman bustled away before Sally could protest, but was back a moment later. ‘He’s just sorting you out a nice plump bird. That’s Jack’s side of the business—he’s got a free-range barn out the back. We sell no end of eggs through the shop, and he always has a few of the hens all cleaned and oven-ready for our weekend customers. Now you’ll need some fresh vegetables to go with that. What about carrots and some peas? Couldn’t get any fresher if you jumped the hedge and picked them yourself.’ Plans for dinner, it seemed, had been taken out of Sally’s hands. ‘My name’s Ruth, by the way, since you’ll be coming in here again.’ She began sorting through the piles of vegetables and loading them into brown paper bags. ‘Yes, funny thing about that cat. Her favourite it was, practically worshipped each other. Then it just disappeared. Perhaps it knew she’d passed on. Cats are like that, aren’t they? Sometimes know things we don’t. Still, I don’t suppose you’ve got any animals yourself, living in the city and all.’

The saucer licked clean, the cat returns to its place on the rug and begins its after-dinner wash. This is a creature who maintains standards even in hard
times. The dull, grey fur and crumpled ear disguise traces of a more aristocratic ancestry. The paws are dainty, the bones long and delicate.

‘Well, cat, what the hell do I do now? Try to find this Trevor, I suppose. Can’t call Jonathan—he’s still in his blessed meeting. Might be easier to go back to Newmarket and find a hotel. I could ring Jonathan from there, then he can pick me up in the morning and we can sort out Trevor and his damn cottage then. What do you think?’

The cat tidies a few stray hairs in its tail, then looks straight at her. Only now does Sally become aware of the creature’s eyes. Two orbs, clear as iced moonlight, search out her own, piercing her with their gaze and pinning her to the chair. The purring begins again, slow and soothing. Then somehow the cat is on her lap, and her hand, obedient to some primitive instinct, is moving down the length of its back. Long strokes, soothing, caressing, in rhythm with the pulsating song. Sally begins to drift down a long, dreamtime tunnel. From somewhere, a long way away, she hears the voice of a woman singing an old nursery rhyme.

Her body jerks her awake. The cat is sitting alert, ears pricked forward. The late afternoon sunshine has completed its journey across the floor and the room is in semi-darkness.

‘Oh, God, what the hell time is it? Come on, I’ve got to get out of here. Where are my car keys?’

The cat leaps to the floor, bounds across the kitchen and lands on top of the Aga. At a flourish of the cat’s tail, the boiler emits a low-throated
boom
. At the same time, flashes of blue lightning strike Sally’s still-sleepy eyes and neon strips flood the kitchen with light. The gas fire kicks into life.

‘Oh, thank God. That’s one hell of a party trick, Puss. What do you do for an encore?’ Then her smile withers. It is just coincidence. Must be. Or perhaps cats feel power surges in the wire or something? What the hell, just be thankful. A reassuring red light signifies the approach of tea. At the same time a car pulls up outside.

S
TRANGE ABOUT THE POWER CUT
, though.’ Abbie frowns. ‘You can practically guarantee that it will go off in a storm or high winds. Nothing unusual. But there’s no reason it should have gone off today. Ours certainly didn’t.’

‘Well, everything seems to be working OK now, thank goodness.’ Sitting comfortably in the rocker, Sally is enjoying her hard-won mug of tea.

Abbie prefers to sip hers perched on the edge of the table. She’s older than Sally, at least forty judging by the grey streaks in her sun-bleached hair and the way her pale blue eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles. Her face and hands are tanned with large freckles running into blotches. And yet her skin looks healthy, as if she spends time in the open air. Not like Sally’s indoor, fluorescent-tube complexion.

‘So you own a horse, do you?’ Sally asks.

‘Several, actually. I run a small riding school. The paddocks behind this place are ours—you can see the horses from your bedroom window. I hire them out and give lessons to the local kids. Do you ride?’

‘God no, I’ve never been near a horse.’

‘Pity. There are some lovely bridle paths around here. Great way to see the countryside. I do take beginners out, though. Not a proper lesson, just a gentle saunter across the fields. Perfectly safe.’

‘I think we’d better stick to walking, thanks all the same. But I would like to do some exploring over the weekend. That’s assuming Jonathan ever gets here.’

‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right here tonight?’ Abbie seems genuinely concerned.

‘Yes, I’m sure I’ll be fine. I feel perfectly at home already. And there’s always the cat for company.’