Squelch (3 page)

Or to warn of impending disaster.

That first moth she’d saved from the flame: might it not, in reality, have been the restless soul of the old woman who had died in the cottage not many weeks earlier? The woman whose death she’d so callously welcomed because it meant the cottage was available at last. Freehold. With vacant possession.

The mere thought set her flesh tingling. She clattered down the bare wooden stairs, deliberately making as much noise as she could. Lighting both oil lamps, she searched the living room and the lean-to kitchen to satisfy herself that the last moth had left. Visitation from the ‘other side’ or not, she did not want them fluttering around her in the night.

But there was no sign of them anywhere. They might never have been there at all.

Through the open window came the busy murmur of other insects, grating on her nerves. To blot out the sound, she switched on her radio and filled the cottage with the jungle beat of the week’s new Number One which she hated. At least it chased the ghosts away.

Jack found driving that van more cumbersome than he
had anticipated when hiring it. For one thing, the gears were not arranged in the familiar order of his own red Ferrari; for another, the steering was heavy, slow to respond, while the turning circle was so cramping, it was practically arthritic. As for acceleration, that word had been erased from the instruction manual, and with reason.

All this added up to a slow drive back, as he realised only too well before he left the cottage. It probably also saved his life.

Thinking it over as he turned into the main road which led through the village, he felt pleased Ginny had at least accepted his help with the move. She’d been in an odd mood all year. Post-termination depression syndrome, their platinum blonde doctor had called it when Jack – behind Ginny’s back – had decided to consult her. As a diagnosis it stank. Ginny had been behaving that way since long before the abortion; since before they knew she was pregnant, in fact. But before he had a chance to argue the point, the doctor was already conveying him to the door.

Jack hadn’t approved of the abortion either, which naturally led to a quarrel. He’d pleaded with her that a baby needn’t mess up anyone’s career if they were sensible about it. As an actor, he frequently spent long weeks at home waiting for the phone to ring, so most of the time he could look after it. Having at least one parent available all day long was more than many babies enjoyed.

‘I’d be tied to you!’ she’d objected vehemently. ‘I don’t intend being tied to anyone. I want to be free. I must be.’

He remembered it as clearly as if it were yesterday – a straight-from-the-shoulder, brutal declaration, muffled by the towel as she dried herself after washing her hair. She probably did not even realise the effect it had on him. Water trickled down over her breasts, gleaming in the yellow light of their dingy bathroom, and he’d wanted
her more than ever. His whole body yearned for her.

Oh shit!

Pulling off the road into a service station on the far edge of the village, he bought petrol, checked the oil and tyres, and spent some minutes testing the plugs, suspecting he might have been driving on three cylinders only, though he found nothing obviously wrong. The lad behind the counter was reading
New Musical Express
. He didn’t even look up when Jack went to pay.

Once he’d left the village, the A-road became a simple, twisting tarmac strip with an intermittent white line painted down the centre and high hedges on either side blocking the view. He drove slowly; not that he had much choice with the van in the state it was.

Ginny had gone, he told himself, though his mind seemed too dull to take it in. After more than three years together with eyes for no one else, resenting every minute they had to be apart, after all that they had split up. Of course the real break had happened weeks earlier, but until today at least she’d stayed on in the flat; now even that was over.

He could almost pinpoint the day. It was soon after she started work on that big drama production. It all followed from that, he thought bitterly, working at the wheel as the road took an unexpected sharp turn. She had plunged into it so wholeheartedly, she’d never come back. Location shooting, outside rehearsal, long days in the studio: he might have been living with a stranger during those weeks. The quickie abortion was slipped in between recording and editing; only she’d been kept in hospital a few days longer than she’d reckoned, which messed up her timetable.

Then she blew it.

Her own fault too. She’d been too intense over the whole thing, and he’d told her as much. All right, so her TV bosses had wanted to cut a scene! Don’t they always? Of course she was furious, understandably, but that was
no reason to throw up her job. Work wasn’t that easy to come by. Ask any actor.

Another bend in the road and suddenly the trees were higher, blocking out much of the remaining daylight. The gloom matched his mood so exactly, he switched on his headlights only reluctantly. Something touched his cheek. Just a slight irritation: a midge perhaps, or a hair, even. He brushed it away with the side of his hand, hardly thinking.

It fluttered close to his ear, then settled on his neck.

‘Oh hell!’ he exclaimed, annoyed. ‘Bloody insect!’

He slapped his hand over it, merely wanting to get rid of the thing, whatever it was. It was only when he felt it struggle to get free that he realised the size of it. A bird – was it?

No, it couldn’t be. His fingers closed over its wafer-thin wings: no feathers there. No bones. Just a thin, pulsating membrane which left dust on his fingertips.

A moth?

He almost laughed, relieved that at least it wasn’t dangerous. In the next second he saw the swarm in the headlights; so many, they obscured the road ahead. They massed over the van, bouncing and skimming against the windscreen, dropping back on to the short bonnet, and some – a dozen at least – penetrating the cab itself to flutter crazily about his head as they persistently attempted to settle on his face.

Over his eyes, even.

Swearing, he tried to brush them aside with his left hand while steering with his right, bullying the reluctant accelerator in the hope of driving straight through the swarm. Suddenly he was blinded when a moth on his face succeeded in blotting out everything with its spreading wings. And squealing in triumph.

In a panic he seized it, crumpling it up in his fist and throwing it aside. Straight ahead was another of those unexpected bends. He jammed his foot on the brake.

The van went into a skid. He could sense how the tyres were crunching the life juice out of those moths’ fat, slug-like bodies. It was like waltzing on thick slime until – jolting – it mounted the soft verge and embraced the nearest tree. His head hit the side of the door.

The impact must have knocked him unconscious. He’d not heard the police car approaching, yet there it was when the mist cleared from his eyes. One of those pale blue panda jobs.

‘You all right?’

A burly police constable gazed in at him. Jack gazed back. Obviously a wow with the old ladies, this one. He wore a solid reliable air as if it was part of his uniform.

‘Passed out, did you?’

‘Banged my head.’ He winced as his fingers found the swelling on his right temple. ‘Where are all the moths?’

‘Moths, sir?’

‘Cab was full of moths. Couldn’t see where I was going.’

‘That so?’ His tone indicated that he had heard it all before. ‘You do have your driving licence with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then perhaps you might let me see it. Sir.’

To extract his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans Jack had to pull himself out of the cab. No bones broken, it seemed, though his head spun unpleasantly. He steadied himself against the side of the van, watching the policeman’s every move. It was a scene he’d played a dozen times in one TV series or another.

After examining the licence, checking its details conscientiously against me Contract of Hire for the van, the constable began to enter it all up in his notebook. He took his time over it too, asking a few routine questions along the way, but showed no interest in the moths.

‘Now let’s get this straight, sir. You helped your friend move house.’

‘Yes.’

‘Lugging furniture about can be thirsty work, specially on a warm day. She must have offered you a drink. Hit the vodka bottle, did you? A house-warming libation, you might say?’

‘I don’t drink vodka.’

‘Oh? I’d have taken you for a vodka-and-tonic type.’

‘No.’

‘That shows how wrong one can be. But we’ll just check if you don’t mind. Sir.’ He fetched his breathalyser kit from the panda and instructed Jack to blow into the little tube. ‘A long steady breath. I’ll tell you when to stop.’

The result was negative. Obviously. His tongue had been hanging out all day but all Ginny had offered was tea, brewed on her camping stove.

The policeman seemed disconcerted, to say the least. Muttering under his breath about having the machine overhauled the moment he got back, he packed it away, then enquired if Jack felt up to driving after that knock on the head.

‘I feel fine. But you haven’t asked about the moths.’

‘Ah, the moths!’

‘You can see on the road where the tyres ran over them. Look here… and here…’

He pointed to what remained of their fat, sausage-like bodies, squashed flat against the tar together with fragments of their wings, as delicate as ash, which disintegrated at a touch. The policeman squatted down to examine them.

‘Must be the weather,’ he mused philosophically when he stood up again. ‘Brings out a lot of insects, this weather. They like the warmth, d’you see?’

‘I think I heard one squealing like a bat.’ Jack tried to recall those last seconds before the crash.

‘Could have been your brakes.’

‘I remember them coming at me, trying to settle over my eyes, almost as though they deliberately wanted to
blind me. It was an odd experience, I can tell you.’

The policeman shook his head doubtfully. ‘Can’t say it would stand up in court, not that story. Not as a defence for losing control of the vehicle. Wasps might, but moths? Never.’

‘Court? Is there any question of –?’

‘You can set your mind at ease, sir. Nobody was hurt. Nothing on the breath. The landowner might claim something for damage to his tree, but otherwise…’ He shrugged, then turned his attention to the van. ‘Bodywork’s taken some punishment. Couple of bad dents here. But you should be able to get home all right. You’ve been lucky.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

Something in his voice must have alerted the policeman’s sense of duty. ‘If you’d like someone to give you the once-over our nearest hospital is fifteen miles from here in Lingford, but we’ve a doctor in the village who may be able to help.’

That would be Ginny’s brother-in-law, Jack thought. He said he was okay. A couple of paracetamol before creeping into his lonely bed, that’s all he needed. Certainly no doctor. But those moths –

‘The size of them,’ he persisted. ‘Surely you don’t often get them that big?’

‘Discover something new every day, that’s the countryside for you. Not like London down here. Now that cottage your friend’s bought – that would be straight through the village, third lane on the left after you pass the Plough?’

‘Let me guess. You’ve got second sight.’

‘Not many cottages changing hands these days. Old Mrs Beerston lived there – oh, as long as anyone can remember. Died a couple o’ months back. She’ll get a lot more insects round that cottage than up on the hill.’

‘Better her than me, then.’

Jack got back into the van. The engine groaned into
life, sounding much the same as before the accident. His headlights illuminated the damage to the thick tree-bole, but where the hell were the moths?

‘Thanks for your help!’ he called out as he reversed on to the road.

The breeze through the open window as he drove should have worked wonders for his aching head but it didn’t. All the way back to Chiswick the pain over his eyes nagged him relentlessly.

Then – once back at the flat – the unaccustomed silence scratched at his nerves. Even when Ginny had taken to sleeping in the next room there had always been some sound to remind him she was still about. A creaking board. A tap turned on, or left dripping. A cupboard opened.

Now there was nothing.

Emptiness.

He hunted for the paracetamol, couldn’t find it, assumed she must have packed it with her things, so poured himself a large Scotch instead. Ice from the fridge. Two lumps in his glass. The rest he wrapped in a shower cap she’d left behind. Sinking back into an armchair, he balanced it over the swelling on his temple.

Bloody moths.

It was a rum story all right. Constable Chivers sat on the edge of his bed the following morning, lacing up his shoe and thinking it over. The evidence was there on the road too. After the man had gone he’d scraped up the remains of one moth and popped it in a transparent plastic bag for examination. But then actors could spin a few when they were in the mood!

‘George! Your breakfast is getting cold!’

‘Ay, all right!’ he called back, reaching for the other shoe.

He was about to put it on when he spotted the caterpillar:
a hairy green thing, five or six inches at least. With the shoe in his hand he clumped downstairs.

‘Here, Sue – take a look at this!’

‘Urgh, how did that get in the bedroom? I only cleaned there yesterday. You’d better kill it.’

‘It’s not harming anyone.’

Placing his shoe on the tiled kitchen window ledge where he could keep an eye on it, he sat down first to eat his bacon and fried bread. When he’d finished, he pulled on his gumboots and took the shoe out through the garden gate into the field beyond where he tipped the caterpillar out into a nettle patch.

2

A fortnight or more passed before Ginny plucked up enough courage to discuss the moths with her sister Lesley. She tried explaining how a visitation like that had to be a good omen.

‘A visitation?
Moths
?’ Lesley snorted, her laughter erupting uncontrollably. ‘Oh Ginny, you’re not serious?’

Lesley had that impulsive way of blurting out whatever came into her head, sweeping across other people’s sensitivities like a gust of cold wind. Not that anyone took offence, ever. She was completely frank and open, and had a generous, warm laugh. It was impossible not to like her. Three years older than Ginny, too. Taller – and louder – she was endowed with beautiful auburn tresses which she left to tumble freely over her freckled shoulders, though sometimes she’d put them up for formal occasions.

In reality they were only half-sisters, but as children they had been so close, it was unbelievable. Their mother had been twice married: first to Lesley’s father who was
killed in a climbing accident a few months after the wedding, then to a faintly-remembered solicitor who lasted just long enough to sire Ginny before being discarded. His considerable trust fund had made it possible for her to buy the cottage, but the man himself had died of lung cancer years earlier. Ginny had never met him. Now her mother had moved to Australia, she scarcely ever saw her either.

‘I’m not saying I believe it but –’

‘I should hope not!’ Lesley retorted.

‘ – that’s just the effect those moths had on me. You didn’t see them.’

‘I wish I had.’

‘They were really massive. I never thought moths existed that size. And so many! You know how small the garden is – well, there must have been a hundred at least crowded in there. Great shadowy forms fluttering about in the dark. And that squealing! I thought at first they were bats.’

‘It’s understandable you were scared,’ her sister conceded.

‘But I wasn’t, that’s what is so strange. Then I remembered old Mrs Beerston had died only a few weeks ago and it
was
her cottage. That made some sort of sense. The souls of the dead – why not? A village is a community after all, and here am I, the intruder…’

‘Moths are arthropods, Ginny,’ Lesley instructed her in a flat, down to earth manner. ‘Not spirits or ghosts or devils out of hell. Simply arthropods.’

Ginny laughed. ‘I don’t even know what that means.’

‘It means they are living animals. Oh – like lobsters or prawns, with a hard skeleton on the outside. But
alive
. Can you imagine old Mrs Beerston coming back as a flying prawn?’

‘I never met her. And a lot of people do believe in reincarnation. Buddhists do.’

‘Old Mrs Beerston didn’t, you can be sure of that. Ask the vicar, he knew her better than anyone. In her young days she used to go stomping around the country preaching atheism and the like. One of Bertrand Russell’s early lays, he says, though I think that’s just his dirty mind. Anyway, she’d be the last to want to come back haunting people.’

‘Oh, you’re obviously right,’ Ginny admitted, tiring of the argument. ‘It’s common sense. But can’t you feel the mystery of it? No, I don’t suppose you can.’

‘You were hungry, that’s all. You hadn’t eaten anything all day, I’ll bet.’

‘I had!’

‘What? Two nuts and a yoghurt? You picked up some lousy habits in that television job. Don’t think I don’t know, sister mine.’ She shook her head, disapproving. ‘Now Ginny, if I bring some books of pictures, d’you think you could remember the markings on the wings well enough to identify those moths? Because they do sound unusual.’

‘Isn’t that what I was trying to tell you?’

A peal of laughter. ‘Ginny, you’re impossible! Can’t you be serious even for one minute?’

Perhaps she should never have brought the subject up, Ginny thought ruefully. The experience of watching those moths from her bedroom window on that first evening in the cottage now seemed like a moment of sheer poetry which she had no wish to destroy. Lesley would trample over it if Ginny let her, and not even understand what she was doing.

And it was odd how Jack had also encountered the moths on his drive back. ‘Obviously seeing you off the premises,’ she had teased when he described it to her. Much to her annoyance he had turned up on her doorstep days before she’d expected him. ‘I think they’re watching over me,’ she’d added. ‘Protecting me from predatory
males.’

In a strange way she had meant it, too.

With her sister Lesley creepie-crawlies had always been something of a passion. As a girl – much to Ginny’s horror – she had collected caterpillars in empty matchboxes. Later, at London University, she had chosen to study zoology, aiming for a career in science until the day came when she found herself pregnant and gave it all up to marry the medical research student responsible.

Of course everybody told her she was stupid to throw away her career like that, but the truth was – she’d confessed to Ginny – she had begun to hate the whole business of slicing up living creatures to discover how they functioned. What she loved was observing them alive, unharmed, in natural surroundings.

She was also in love.

Head-over-heels.

So hopelessly in love, it was impossible to get any sense out of her.

After the wedding, her husband Bernie left his university research project and took over his father’s general practice in the village. Old Mrs Beerston had been one of his patients: well over ninety and seemingly destined to live for ever. She might have succeeded too if one day, some six years later, she hadn’t developed bronchitis after pottering in her garden too long in the rain. Within twenty-four hours Lesley was phoning Ginny to say the cottage could be hers if she moved fast.

Which she did.

Before the local estate agent had even realised what was going on, she had spoken to the old woman’s solicitor – he played golf with Bernie – and clinched the deal, cash on the table.

‘I’ll hunt out a couple of books then,’ Lesley said, preparing to leave. ‘Moths have never really been my subject, but it would be interesting to know what you’ve
seen. This squealing you mentioned should narrow down the possibilities.’

‘I never knew before that moths could make that kind of sound.’

‘Some do. The Death’s Head Hawk moth for one – though they are very rare. Oh, don’t worry!’ she laughed, obviously seeing the dismay on Ginny’s face. ‘They’re quite harmless! I know who you should talk to – the Reverend Davidson! Why didn’t I think of him? He’s scatty about moths.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Vicar of St Botolph’s – that’s about fifteen miles away. Not far to drive. They say he even preaches moths in his sermons. Not that his congregation objects. I’m told he only ever gets two old ladies and they’re both deaf. That’s one thing about being a doctor’s wife in the country – you do learn what goes on!’

‘But does he really know anything about them?’

‘Moths? He breeds them! Anyway, I’ve got to rush to collect Frankie from school. Why don’t you drop in for Sunday lunch? The children would love to see you.’

‘I might.’ She accompanied Lesley out to her Mini.

‘It’ll be roast lamb with potatoes and veg from our own garden. Apple pie to follow.
Our
apples. You look like you need feeding up!’

Ginny found St Botolph’s on the map and drove there that same afternoon. The church was tucked away among the trees, a simple barn-like structure with a square tower and a remarkable Norman doorway. The community it served was not so much a village as a scattering of isolated houses, the most impressive of them being the vicarage, a mature Georgian building in brick. She rang the bell but there was no answer, so she investigated the back of the house and found the vicar working in the garden.

He was a thin, frail man of medium height with a scholarly stoop and an untidy fringe of grey hair around his otherwise bald head. Well over seventy, Ginny judged.

‘Ah yes, I know Dr Rendell!’ he exclaimed enthusiastically when she had introduced herself. ‘And his lovely wife! So you are her sister? Well, well. You’d like to see the church, I expect. A fine building!’

‘I’ve really come to ask about some moths I saw.’ She tried briefly to describe them. ‘Nobody else seems to know what they are.’

‘Are you sure about the size?’

‘Oh yes. The first one that came into the room was as close as I am to you. And they whistled like bats.’

‘And they weren’t frightened? Some species do that as a sign of fear. It’s the expulsion of air through the proboscis. I think we’d better go into the house and I’ll take some notes. Perhaps you’d care for a cup of tea?’

Sipping her tea, she had to admit her total ignorance of the subject of moths or butterflies or any other insects, but she tried her best to answer his questions. No, unfortunately she hadn’t noticed the antennae; nor had she actually
seen
any curled-up proboscis.

‘It’s a tube-like tongue used for sucking up nectar out of flowers,’ he explained, taking pity on her. ‘Not all lepidoptera are equipped with one.’

‘D’you have at least some idea what my moths were?’

‘Not native to this country, I imagine. But so many species are imported these days for study, or for zoos, some are bound to escape. Moths of that size are not impossible, specially in very hot countries.’ He thought for a moment, sucking irritatingly at his teeth. ‘This could be very interesting. You saw a swarm of them in your garden, you say? Some could have been laying eggs. You may find caterpillars in the spring.’

‘I never thought of that.’ She grinned shamefacedly. ‘I
really don’t know anything, do I?’

‘The moths you saw would include both male and female. They copulate much as we do.’ He paused, then added with a slight laugh: ‘Though I’m afraid that doesn’t apply to me any longer. Too old, more’s the pity!’

‘Never say die!’ she retorted.

He smiled regretfully. ‘Then the female lays her fertilised eggs on some suitable food plant where they’ll have a chance of survival when they hatch out. Of course they have natural enemies. If they hadn’t – most people don’t realise this – a single pair might produce as many as three million caterpillars in one season.’

Ginny was fascinated. ‘Then if they
are
new to this country –?’

‘In the right circumstances they could soon be as commonplace – and as numerous – as bees. I don’t actually think that will happen, of course. Not in our climate.’ He stood up and shut his notebook. ‘Now let me show you where I breed.’

He took her into what had once been the vicarage dining room, but was now, he said, his ‘work station’. It contained a laboratory bench with a microscope and other items of equipment, together with three Victorian-looking cabinets whose tray-like drawers were filled with carefully classified specimens. On rough shelving along one wall were several rows of transparent plastic cylinders containing varying types of vegetation: his ‘cages’, he explained, in which he was breeding caterpillars which would eventually become moths.

‘Best way to study them,’ he commented, holding one up for her to see the little brown larvae inside. ‘You know, my dear, when I was first appointed to a country living, I thought – what luck! I saw myself as a famous naturalist like Gilbert White of Selborne. Instead, here I am, a moth-eaten lepidopterist. Of course I’ve parish duties, but not onerous. More funerals than christenings
these days. The souls in these parts are so set in their ways, they’ll go straight to heaven or the other place regardless of what I say.’

‘How can I find out more about my moths?’ Ginny interrupted his musings. ‘If I want to write a script about them, for instance?’

‘Tell you what – I’ll set a trap tonight, just in case there are any more about.’

‘A trap?’

‘Yes, a mercury vapour trap. The night is full of insects, far more than we imagine. The mercury vapour lamp attracts them and they get caught in the trap. Specially moths. You’ll see in the morning.’

‘So if I come back tomorrow?’

‘First thing. I’ll be waiting for you.’ He went with her to her car, then gently put a hand on her arm as if trying to tell her something. ‘Stay the night if you can’t face the drive. Plenty of room.’

‘That’s very sweet of you, but I have to get back.’ The randy old goat, she thought as she put the key in the ignition. But then she looked up and caught the look of haunted loneliness on his face. ‘See you in the morning!’ she called out.

In the morning she telephoned from the call box instead of driving back there, telling him – a white lie – that she had some trouble with her car. Any news about her moths? As she half-expected, he explained that the haul was excellent – one of the most varied yet, not merely Broad-Bordered Yellow Underwing as was so often the case recently – but unfortunately they had caught none of her beautiful, ethereal giants. Perhaps she could drop by again when her car had been fixed? She’d be welcome any time.

The warm weather gave way to long bouts of cold rain and high gales which brought down the leaves in a rush
and made the country lanes treacherous to drive along. Ginny found it oddly exhilarating after all the tensions of her old life in London. At last she felt truly free of it all!

Of course sooner or later she would get back into television, that was obvious. She began to work on an idea, something that would get the companies excited.
City girl goes to live in country cottage previously occupied by old woman with supernatural powers – pact between them – girl returns to London now able to influence events to her own advantage…

Ginny cleared the oil lamp from her round table, took some A4 typing paper and sat down to scribble her random thoughts. She had written one sentence, crossed it out, and was starting again when she heard a car drawing up outside.

She went to the door, expecting to find Lesley; to her surprise, it was a mud-spattered Rover 3500 in front of the cottage. Bernie’s car. He hurried the few steps through the pouring rain to the shelter of her porch.

‘Hoping I’d find you in. Not disturbing you, am I?’

‘Come in,’ she invited, not unwillingly.

Bernie had changed since the days when Lesley had brazenly introduced him to all their relations as the putative father of her unborn child, declaring that they had not yet decided whether to marry or not: before making up their minds they intended to inspect each other’s families. At that time he’d been a tall, gauche, slightly bewildered student dressed, typically, in faded jeans, sweater and CND badge. Now he was crisply-spoken, with sympathetic blue eyes and a doctor-patient manner to inspire confidence. With the years, plus Lesley’s cooking, he’d filled out a little too, and his face was weather-tanned from the regular weekends and holidays he and the family spent sailing at Chichester. The jeans now appeared only for gardening or tinkering with the car; his normal dress when calling on patients
was a light tweed suit.