The Pull of the Moon (11 page)

Danny squeezed my hand, whether in reassurance or to share the joke, I never knew. I didn’t look at him.

Trudie began to speak in a low, dreamy voice. In spite of our proximity, I could barely hear her. ‘She’s going into the wood. She isn’t afraid – in fact she’s
laughing and happy . . . It’s getting dark among the trees, so I can’t see her very well – wait, Agnes – don’t go so fast . . . There’s a man – a man with
dark hair and a beard . . .’

So much for that, I thought. It’s exactly what was printed in the magazine.

‘He’s her friend, so Agnes isn’t afraid. Wait . . .’ I felt the hairs rising on the back of my neck in direct parallel with the increasing tension in Trudie’s
voice. ‘He’s not with her – she’s on her own – looking around – lost in the dark – dark all around . . .’ Trudie’s voice rose. I calmed myself
with the thought that she was one hell of an actress.

‘No!’ She almost shouted the word. ‘Agnes – he’s come up behind her – Agnes – I see her now – clearly. She has long dark hair – she looks
like me—’ Trudie burst into noisy sobs. ‘It is me – she has my face.’

As I broke away, I realized that my nails must have been digging into the backs of Simon’s fingers. I scrambled round behind Danny to reach Trudie, putting my arms around her and holding
her, cradling her back and forth like a child while the candles, which had been disturbed by these sudden movements, sent our shadows gyrating wildly across the walls and ceiling. ‘It’s
all right,’ I said. ‘It’s all right.’

‘You shouldn’t have broken the circle,’ she whispered through tears.

Simon stood up and switched on the lights. Danny retrieved his crucifix and snuffed out the candles. As Trudie clambered to her feet, the first rumbles of thunder reverberated through the house.
Simon took over as comforter. I heard him offering to sleep in Trudie’s room with her, to which she mumbled her thanks.

The storm which had been so slow in coming intensified in the space of a moment, the thunder bouncing off the roof, chasing us on to the landing. While Simon escorted Trudie to her room, his arm
draped protectively around her shoulders, Danny and I almost ran into our own little sanctuary, shutting the door behind us as if barring the way against foes unseen, then laughing nervously at
each other while throwing our clothes off in an unspoken contest to be first into bed. Meantime the storm continued at full tilt – B movie thunder, with lightning illuminating the room at
regular intervals.

Our familiar bed was an island of normality, a safe haven from Trudie and all her nonsense. Once naked under the sheets I huddled against Danny, feeling the cool shape of his crucifix imprinting
itself in my cheek. He planted a couple of kisses on the top of my head, before asking: ‘Do you think she really saw anything?’

‘Well, she thinks she did: but she was very worked up beforehand. The whole thing is probably a product of her own imagination.’

‘More than likely,’ agreed Danny. He sounded relieved. I had never thought of him as superstitious. Maybe it was his Catholic upbringing – the constant presence of all those
long-dead saints, hovering about in the ether, awaiting the intercessions of the faithful.

‘If she suggests doing anything like this again, I don’t think we should agree to it,’ I said.

‘No,’ he agreed at once. ‘She’ll only get upset.’

I lay in his arms, mentally reliving Trudie’s distress. Trudie had become altogether too wrapped up in the story of Murdered Agnes. Was it right to allow a schoolgirl to frighten herself
half to death? I had somehow acquiesced to keeping Trudie’s secret by default, but now I began to question the rightness of it afresh.

A flash of lightning all but coincided with a thunderclap.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘The storm must be almost directly overhead.’ Another simultaneous flash and bang confirmed the truth of this, half deafening me and causing both of us to
jump involuntarily, then laugh at each other.

‘There’s a way of calculating how far away the storm is,’ Danny said. ‘You count the number of seconds between seeing the flash and hearing the bang; then multiply it by
one number and divide by another and it gives you the distance in miles.’

The moment for a tête-à-tête about runaway schoolgirl Trudie Finch had passed: lost in the tumult of the storm.

I assumed Simon’s overnight stay in Trudie’s room would prove the catalyst in their relationship, but after that one night Simon went back to sleeping alone. There was no upping of
the tempo between them, but there was no obvious awkwardness either. I confess that I was baffled. Trudie seemed to grow daily ever more beautiful. How could Simon possibly be immune to her? As the
days passed I caught myself admiring her more and more. I started hauling my T-shirt up and knotting it under the bust, but somehow it never looked so good on me. Maybe Simon found her a bit too
immature, with her imaginings and amateur dramatics – although there could be no doubt that her fear on the night of the seance had been real. I decided it would be a kindness to find ways of
distracting Trudie from her unfortunate preoccupation with the late Agnes Payne.

Nor was Trudie the only one who needed distractions. My initial euphoria at being perpetually on holiday was gradually beginning to wane. The heat pressed down on us, day after day, its
heaviness infecting everything: even time slowed to a crawl, making our days stretch out endlessly, each a little longer than the one before. We were effectively stranded at the house unless Simon
was available to drive us – but Simon and Danny were focusing on their work in the garden, keeping their bargain with Simon’s uncle. Once or twice I caught myself wondering if it
wouldn’t have been more fun going to France with Cecile – thoughts which I banished at once, not only because they felt disloyal to Danny, but also because they made mock of my own
choices. No one had forced me to go to Herefordshire.

At the outset, of course, I had anticipated a much livelier household altogether. I didn’t realize until the last minute that the party would be confined to the three of us, and by then I
was so excited that it didn’t seem to matter. There had been such a sense of enthusiasm and purpose at the beginning – a week before departure day we met for an evening in a pub, where
we drew up shopping lists and Simon showed us sketches of the proposed new garden features, which we discussed with a zest which was never quite recaptured once the actual digging began. By the end
of that evening, no one could have faulted our team spirit or total commitment to the endeavour. It never occurred to me to question whether Simon and I could spend the whole summer cooped up in
the same house. I blithely assumed that our mutual fondness for Danny would give us enough in common.

The house itself provided its own set of disappointments and frustrations. There was no mains gas, so we relied on an ancient electric cooker whose rings took an age to warm up, then burned
everything the instant I turned away. Needless to say the saucepans were not non-stick, so they invariably required a sustained attack with a Brillo pad. I was engaged in one such session when
Simon walked into the kitchen, a couple of days after the seance.

‘I hate this bloody house,’ I said, flinging the dirty pan into the suds with enough force to send a miniature tidal wave across the big white sink.

‘Well, go home then,’ Simon retorted crossly.

‘You know perfectly well that I can’t go home,’ I began, but he had already gone.

Wounded, I abandoned the washing-up and sought out Danny, who was kneeling in the excavation, attacking some old tree roots with a pair of secateurs. He stopped work and squinted up at me.
‘What’s up?’

‘Simon has just been horrible to me, in the kitchen.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘He said if I didn’t like it here, I should go home.’

Danny hesitated a second, before saying, ‘Well . . . that’s not unreasonable . . .’

‘He snapped at me.’

‘I’m sure it was nothing to get upset about. He won’t have meant anything. Si’s the nicest guy in the world.’

‘Whose side are you on?’

‘I’m not on anyone’s side,’ said Danny, evenly. ‘But it’s a hot day and Si’s probably tired. We all have to make occasional allowances for one another.
There’s sure to be a few disagreements. You’re too sensitive, sweetie, that’s the trouble. Just forget about it, okay?’

Danny was right of course. We all had to make an effort not to provoke unnecessary arguments. I didn’t encounter Simon again until the end of the afternoon, when neither of us referred to
the exchange in the kitchen. By then Danny was in a particularly ebullient mood, determined to keep us all laughing, topping up our glasses before we had emptied them. I knew I ought to try harder
for his sake – he so much wanted Simon and me to get along – but his refusal to choose between us kept drifting back into my thoughts. I recalled the balloon debates my school had been
fond of holding, where the premise was that someone had to be voted out of the basket in order to keep the balloon in the air. Suppose Danny were faced with a choice between me and Simon –
who would he vote to save?

Danny and I were up unusually early next morning. I made some tea and toast and by the time we had eaten it the others still weren’t stirring, so we went for a walk outside. The grass was
still damp and my sandals flicked dew drops on to my toes where they glistened like tiny jewels. Alongside the rose bed there was an old stone bench where it was dry enough to sit down and we
paused there, listening to the birds.

‘You look incredibly beautiful this morning,’ he said. ‘The roses are framing your face, like a halo. No, don’t move,’ he added, as I turned to look at the flowers.
‘Just stay exactly as you are. God, I wish I’d remembered my camera.’ Another thought struck him. ‘Wait there – stay exactly as you are. I’ll be back in a
minute.’

He headed off for the house without waiting for me to answer. I sat obediently as instructed, like a sitter for a portrait, until he returned carrying his guitar. Without a word he sat
cross-legged at my feet and began to play. I recognized the tune at once and when he began to sing the lyrics a lump rose in my throat and I knew that whatever happened I would remember the moment
for ever – the brightness of the morning, the hazy scent of the roses and Danny on the grass at my feet.

He had just reached the final verse when a thin stream of water hit him. The song ended in an abrupt discord. We both turned to see Trudie in the act of discharging a second stream from the
plastic water pistol in her hand, before she raced away round the side of the house. Danny leapt off in pursuit, leaving his guitar on the grass. I picked it up and began walking after them. When I
caught up I found them facing one another, both white-faced and angry. The water pistol lay crushed at their feet.

‘You’ve hurt my wrist,’ Trudie said accusingly. ‘And you have no right to break my things.’ She marched off in high dudgeon.

I linked my arm through his. ‘She’s so childish,’ I said. ‘Take no notice.’

‘But she ruined it.’

‘No, really, it was beautiful.’

‘No,’ he said obstinately. ‘She spoiled our moment.’

‘We’ll have lots of other moments.’

Just then Simon’s head appeared from an upstairs window, calling to Danny that he would be down in a minute. Although I was vaguely cross with Trudie, I knew she had only intended it as a
joke, so once the guys started work I deliberately sought her out, in the interests of peacekeeping.

After we had undertaken a bit of half-hearted tidying up, Trudie raised the question of going down to the wood. Although the wood was only a couple of fields away and a footpath which ran along
one side of the garden took you straight into it, we had never got round to going there. It would be fair to say that none of us had taken the least interest in the wood until Trudie became fixated
on the Agnes Payne story, since when she had regularly suggested we explore it together. Fortunately there had always been some good reason for putting the idea on hold – we needed to drive
into town for some milk, or there wasn’t enough time before we had to start preparing the evening meal: but when she raised it on the day of the water pistol incident I couldn’t think
of a single excuse, so I fell back on ‘I’d much rather stay here and read,’ which sounded lame even as I said it.

‘Oh, come on, Katy,’ she said. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

She had unknowingly hit upon the magic formula with which my elder brother had habitually goaded me into all manner of rash actions throughout my childhood.

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I’d just rather stay here, that’s all.’

‘You
are
scared.’ Trudie was obviously amused.

‘No I’m not.’ I made a great show of marking my place and putting my book to one side. ‘I’ll come if you really want to go down there.’

I couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone use the footpath which ran along the side of the property, and it was decidedly overgrown. As we picked our way along it in single file, I privately
reassured myself that my reluctance to visit the woods was actually on Trudie’s account. She was so imaginative and highly strung, and would only start rabbiting on about the whole murder
business. However, if she insisted we go, then I might as well humour her. Once her curiosity was satisfied, she might even start to lose interest in the wretched business.

From a distance Bettis Wood had appeared dark and dense, but, as we got closer, I could see it was a far less daunting prospect than it first appeared. The trees were well spaced and mostly
deciduous, providing lacy green curtains of shade which opened out on to occasional windows of clear blue sky. Within yards of the entrance the path became a tangle of interconnected routes, worn
by the random passage of rabbits and other explorers. We walked across threadbare carpets of dried-up leaves, which were the same faded orange as the hard sandy ground underneath them.

We had not gone very far into the wood when we reached a clearing which local children had evidently transformed into something approximating an adventure playground. In addition to a rope swing
and a plank resting across a fallen log for a see-saw, there had been an attempt to construct an ambitious scramble net suspended between two trees, using a variety of bits of old rope and a couple
of plastic-coated washing lines.