The Pull of the Moon (7 page)

My first theory was that Trudie was organizing these little disturbances to draw attention to herself and her ‘gifts’, which had not been taken particularly seriously by anyone to
date. Then I began to wonder whether it was all an elaborate scheme to cover up the fact that she had broken the teapot and was too afraid to own up to it. When I noticed the disappearance of a
glass paperweight from the library, I developed a new idea. Trudie never seemed to be short of cash and I speculated that some of the household ornaments and china might be finding their way to the
antique shops in Leominster. Whenever Simon drove into town, Trudie invariably went along, usually with her Greek bag slung over her shoulder.

I put this theory to Danny as we lay in bed one night, but he didn’t rate it very highly. Danny had taken to Trudie and he was always loyal to people he liked; besides which, he lacked my
feminine curiosity. The fact that Trudie managed to sidestep all my casual enquiries about who she was and where she came from had apparently passed him by completely. Whenever I drew this to his
attention he only speculated that perhaps she was being deliberately mysterious – ‘She may not want to admit she’s younger than us and hasn’t been around much
yet.’

‘All the same, those things haven’t grown legs and walked away by themselves. Don’t you think we ought to say something to Simon?’

‘Trudie says it’s the ghost of Murdered Agnes, trying to attract our attention,’ said Danny, mischievously.

I snorted. ‘Murdered Agnes, my foot. It only started after Trudie arrived. I think we should ask Simon if she went off on her own at all, when they went to Leominster together the other
day. There’s going to be hell to pay if his uncle gets back and finds loads of stuff missing.’

Danny was in an infuriating mood and pretended to snore. I was not going to be deflected. ‘I’m going to tell Simon tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Tell him what?’

‘What I think.’

‘Anyone would think you don’t like Trudie,’ he said.

‘Of course I like her,’ I said. ‘That’s not the point.’ Or maybe it was the point. I pondered this as I lay in the darkened bedroom, watching the place where the
curtains made a paler patch against the wall. Ever since her arrival, Trudie had joked and flirted with Danny and I had had to pretend not to mind. While I had no objection to the presence of
someone who would get Simon out of our hair, maybe I wasn’t so keen on the idea of an unattached Trudie floating around. I told myself it was nonsense of course – in spite of her
various idiosyncrasies, I couldn’t help liking Trudie. She was warm and friendly and very easygoing. She did more than her share of the cooking and washing-up and was happy to fall in with
whatever anyone suggested by way of recreation. She just happened to be one of those people who habitually throws an arm around someone’s shoulders, or ruffles their hair – there was
really nothing in it – and anyway Danny never took the slightest notice. I wasn’t jealous of her, if that was what he meant.

Although the pond excavation had ascended our list of priorities, we still enjoyed a lie-in every morning. It was almost eleven when I got up the next day and no one else was stirring. The first
thing I saw on entering the kitchen was the paperweight from the library. Like a number of other items, it had reappeared in the centre of the kitchen table, rather than the spot from which it had
originally vanished. I knew Trudie must have put it there, but it spooked me all the same. I comforted myself with the thought that it was safe and sound. Hopefully everything would be returned in
due course – then no one would get into any trouble over missing valuables. The fact that I had threatened to voice my suspicions to Simon the night before made me feel hot with
embarrassment.

Although I think we were all secretly convinced that Trudie was behind the missing objects, we more than half pretended to go along with her talk of restless spirits and poltergeists. It was a
bit of a laugh and there was no point getting into a direct confrontation over it. The items were mostly trivial and invariably reappeared; and besides, there was no hard evidence of Trudie’s
involvement. If challenged she could have argued that any one of us might equally be responsible. Pushing the point was tantamount to accusing her of telling lies, so we kept schtum – which
in turn developed into a sort of vague acceptance of the presence of Agnes Payne.

All of us were pretty light-hearted about this – even Trudie, who affected to believe herself more closely in tune with these matters than the rest of us. It was a sort of running joke
– when anything at all was mislaid (a not infrequent occurrence in a household as disorganized as ours) someone would incline their head and say knowingly, ‘Agnes again . . .’ But
although Agnes managed to defuse the difficulties which stemmed from our general untidiness, there was no conveniently insubstantial scapegoat for the various other problems which cropped up with
depressing regularity: when one or other of us rose with a head throbbing from the previous night’s over-indulgence to discover something disgusting blocking the sink, or when our bare feet
encountered dried mud which had been trodden in the day before.

The day the paperweight made its reappearance was particularly hot and sticky, so all of us were grateful for the onset of evening when the temperature reduced to a more tolerable Regulo 3. It
was still stuffy indoors, so we had carried our food outside and were all sitting on the parched grass, nursing plates of fish fingers and beans (I had taken a turn to provide our meal), when there
was an almighty crash behind us. I shrieked, Danny swore, Simon and Trudie both jumped up.

‘Jesus-Moses, what the hell was that?’ exclaimed Danny.

Simon was standing up, looking towards the house. ‘There’s something on the terrace,’ he said.

The terrace was a paved area which ran along one side of the building. There was grass growing between some of the slabs, but apart from that it was uniformly grey. We could all see the garish
splash of yellow and purple which had appeared on the stones, where Simon was pointing.

We abandoned our plates on the lawn before approaching the spot uncertainly, with no one apparently in any hurry to get there first. It was an anticlimax. A jagged chunk of pottery was lying a
few inches from the wall of the house. It was a fragment of the ugly vase which had previously stood on the kitchen window sill. The thing had evidently smashed with considerable force, because the
other pieces had flown several feet across the paved area and beyond.

‘There’s no one around,’ said Simon. ‘Where the heck has it come from?’

We all looked up. Trudie’s open bedroom window was immediately above the point where the vase had fallen.

‘It’s been open all day,’ she said, in answer to an unasked question.

‘Do you think someone’s got into the house?’ I asked.

After a brief debate, the boys decided to undertake a thorough search of the premises, having first stationed Trudie and me at the front and back doors respectively. I stood in the kitchen,
hopping from one foot to the other and straining to catch any sound from elsewhere in the house. As usual I had fallen in without demur: biddable Katy who always goes along with everything, then
ends up standing with her heart in her mouth, waiting for the Mad Axe Man to appear.

But it was Simon who eventually entered via the door from the hall, to report that there was no sign of any intruder.

‘I don’t believe there was anyone else here,’ Trudie announced, when we had reassembled on the back lawn. ‘I think it was a sign that Agnes is getting more restless.
Maybe she wants us to do something for her – hold a seance or something.’

Danny was poking at his congealed beans with his knife. ‘I’m a Catholic,’ he said. ‘We don’t go in for that sort of shit’

‘I don’t think we ought to start messing around with stuff like that,’ I said. I couldn’t help thinking that the way the vase had made its dramatic entrance – right
under Trudie’s open window – was highly suggestive. She couldn’t have thrown it out herself, because she had been sitting with the rest of us in plain view: but maybe she had
found some way of rigging it, so that the vase would inevitably topple out of the window at some point during the evening.

‘If we go on ignoring her, things may get worse,’ Trudie persisted.

‘Well,
I
don’t want to do it,’ I said, confidently expecting Danny to second this opinion; but he was preoccupied with organizing the plate in his lap, and didn’t
appear to hear me.

‘I don’t mind giving it a go,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t see what harm it could do.’

‘Well, if everyone else wants to do it, I don’t mind joining in,’ said Danny. Ignatius Loyola he certainly wasn’t.

‘You’re not scared, are you, Katy?’ Simon asked. ‘I thought you said you didn’t believe in ghosts and all that sort of stuff, when we were talking about it the
other night.’

I sensed the mockery in his voice. I hated being teased. ‘No, I’m not, and no, I don’t.’

‘Looks like three to one anyway,’ said Simon. ‘Democratic decision of the majority.’

‘You don’t have to be there if you don’t want to,’ said Danny, in a vaguely conciliatory tone. I tried to catch his eye, but he was still poking at his plate and
didn’t notice. He had to be joking. There was no way I was going to sit somewhere on my own in that big empty house, while the other three had a shot at calling up the spirits. I was about to
say something else when he burst out: ‘Bloody hell. There’s a bug in my food.’

Trudie leant across, so that her hair draped over his shoulder. ‘It’s not,’ she said. ‘It’s just a bit of burnt breadcrumb.’

‘It’s obvious Trudie fixed the vase to fall out of the window,’ I said crossly.

She rounded on me at once. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What I said. It’s just another of your little stunts – to draw attention to yourself.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Simon said. ‘How could Trudie possibly have made the vase fall out of the window when she was sitting here with us?’

‘There are ways of doing it.’

‘All right then, name one.’ Simon threw out the challenge with a triumphant sideways glance in Trudie’s direction.

‘I don’t know. I’m not a member of the Magic Circle.’

‘Well, neither is she.’

‘How would you know? We don’t know anything about her.’

Danny put his plate on the grass before reaching over to squeeze my knee. ‘Come on, Katy,’ he said. ‘Let’s not make a big deal out of it.’

‘Well, I’m fed up with all this silly Agnes business. Things disappearing and everyone pretending to believe in it all. Simon doesn’t really believe in it. He’s only
pretending he does now to be provocative—’

‘How would you know what I believe?’ Simon interrupted.

‘You’re only backing Trudie up because you always disagree with me about everything on principle.’

‘Maybe that’s because you’re always wrong.’

‘Come on, guys,’ Danny pleaded. ‘You’re ruining the whole evening.’

‘You know what I think?’ asked Simon. ‘I think you’re just plain scared – you’re accusing Trudie because the idea of calling up the spirits scares the hell
out of you.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Danny smoothly. ‘You’re not really bothered, are you, Katy? You’ll join us for a bit of the old voodoo and magic if it makes
everyone happy?’

He had edged across, so that he could put his arm around me. He obviously hadn’t a clue how much the whole idea put the wind up me – I knew he would never have pushed it if he had
– but unless I was prepared to invite Simon’s ridicule by making any more fuss, I could see I was cornered. ‘I don’t mind,’ I said, as casually as I could.
‘I’m in, if everyone else wants to do it.’

EIGHT

Marjorie’s friend Pam has started swimming again. The knee op went well apparently, so the surgeon has given her the all clear. While this does afford me a bit of
breathing space from Marjorie, it also introduces another torment, because all the time I’m swimming, I’m constantly aware of their voices echoing off the roof of the pool, like two
birds shrieking in an aviary (either that or a jungle), an impression enhanced by the unexpected appearance of plastic ivy and imitation banana trees which sprouted overnight around the pool on
Thursday last. (The Leisure Services committee evidently has a year-end surplus.) The miniature tree ferns (which Pam thinks are pineapples) don’t survive the week, on account of their
resemblance to oversized hand grenades, which the local youths are briefly able to lob at one another until an edict from Health and Safety intervenes. However, the plastic creepers have been
allowed to stay, so with Pam and Marjorie supplying the sound effects, we only need a monkey or two swinging from the rafters to complete the tropical illusion.

It’s just three days until I am due to keep my appointment with Mrs Ivanisovic. I’m going to book the Travelodge when I get home after swimming – something I’ve put off
until now, vaguely hoping that if I don’t make any firm arrangements the trip to Sedgefield won’t happen. I have waited in vain for some word from Mrs I to say that the 25th is
inconvenient, but there’s been nothing. Silence. Just an ominous silence.

By poor timing, I find myself in the changing room with Marjorie and Pam.

‘He didn’t!’ Marjorie is saying.

They both affect mock horror at whatever it is ‘he’ did, but this is followed by a lot of inappropriately girlish laughter and shrieking, indicative of delight rather than
disapproval. I eventually work out that ‘he’ is a man who has been making advances to Pam. ‘Honestly,’ she says. ‘I said to him – at
our
age . .
.’

It is obvious that for all her protestations Pam is thrilled by this attention – like a fourteen-year-old the morning after her first date, recounting her experiences behind the bike
sheds. Don’t some women ever grow out of this terrible susceptibility to male attention? Just before I activate the shower, I overhear Pam proclaiming shrilly, ‘I was all of a
flutter.’

All of a flutter. How well that describes it. I can still remember the moment when Danny first asked for my phone number. False modesty aside, I suppose I must have been quite pretty by the time
I got to college. By then I’d got the braces off my teeth and lost most of the spots; but shyness and lack of confidence still bedevilled me. My parents kept me on a tight rein, and after an
all girls’ school I went to a training college where female students outnumbered the males by six to one, so I hadn’t exactly been overrun with offers of dates.