The Confession of Stella Moon

by Shelley Day

  At the back of the house is a wall – a brick wall – eight or nine feet high. Stella used to climb over this wall when she ran away from school. Grandpa Worthy would be in the house, consulting with his clients. Or he’d be in the back kitchen, putting up his medications, in which case he wasn’t displeased to see Stella, who could help with the pouring and measuring and writing names on bottles. But if Grandpa Worthy was down in the basement doing his procedures, the back door would be locked and Stella would have to wait outside until she saw the lady going away in a taxi, and she’d have to make sure there wasn’t another waiting in the queue. It’s a long time since Stella’s climbed that wall and she’s not sure she can still get over it. Plus someone’s cemented sharp shards of broken glass all along the top. Stella finds a dustbin to stand on and pushes the case over first. She hears it drop: she’ll have to go now or say goodbye to the little blue suitcase that contains everything she owns. She starts to heave herself up the wall. It’s more difficult than she remembers, and now there’s the broken glass to contend with. The dress rides up and her bare knees and toes scrape over the bricks as her hands grip the smallest of holds between the bits of glass. Then she’s balanced on the top, lowering herself down the other side. She drops the last couple of feet, wipes her hands on the dress, pushes her straggly wet hair out of her eyes and looks about her.

  Bugger it if the back windows aren’t all boarded up as well. She might have known. In the back yard, the old coalhouse and the outside netty have big rusty padlocks. Faded green paint is peeling off the doors. Stella remembers that paint. She remembers her grandmother slapping it on with a brush that was meant for wallpaper paste, scrubbing the coalhouse out with Lysol and fitting the big padlock on and locking it up. She gave Stella sixpence for sweets and sent her down the back lane to drop the key down the drain beside the swimming baths. Then she planted geraniums in tubs and window boxes and arranged them around the yard. Where they once stood, and where seed trays of lettuce and beetroot and carrots sprouted under old panes of glass to keep the pigeons off and where the cat used to stretch out to soak up the sun, now Stella sees there is only neglect: straggly weeds barely hanging onto life between paving stones gone wonky with worms. Grandmother Willoughby must have been gone a long time, judging by the state of the place.

  Stella badly needs the toilet. Something about being here is making her even more desperate. The padlock on the netty won’t budge. She’ll have to pee in the yard. It won’t be the first time. Stella lifts up the sodden dress, pulls her pants down and squats in the corner, suddenly aware of her own heart missing beats and her own breathing: too fast, too shallow, too high up in her chest.

  If this is freedom, Stella doesn’t want it. She wants Marcia with her fat black arms and her crooked teeth and her cackly laugh and her smell of peppermints and coconut oil. Stella would never have got through that stint without her. Marcia in her rough dark uniform, her broad hips bulging in the navy trousers with the ironed crease, the giant bunch of keys dangling from the thick black belt and little pearls of sweat on the sides of her nose. It’s best not to think. It’s better to get on with things.

  No point in dwelling … Put the past behind you. C’mon, Stella, me lass – cheer up now, it might never happen.

  Stella pulls her pants up and tries the back door. Locked. Of course it’s sodding locked.

  How the fuck Marcia expects her to write, to fucking write any fucking thing when it’s going to take every ounce of everything simply to survive…

  She’ll try a window, prise a board off and smash the glass.

  Get on with it. Come on, Stella. Focus on the task in hand. Do whatever it is you have to do.

  Through the lean-to and round the side of the house, Stella stops and listens. Traffic on wet roads. In the distance, a siren. The heavy taste of coal smoke in the damp air. Then Stella stops breathing. She stops breathing because she sees it. Someone’s been here. In the pale glow from the back lane street lamp, Stella sees clearly that the board on the scullery window has been pried off. It’s lying on the ground in bits. The window’s been smashed as well, the broken glass shoved in close to the wall. Whoever did that could still be here. Or on their way back. Stella looks back at the wall. There’s nothing on this side to stand on. There’s no way she can climb back over. The only way out is through this window, along the passageway, and out again by the front door.

  But even Stella Moon hasn’t got the bottle to do that. There could be anyone in there.

  Or no-one, Stella. There could be no-one. Chances are, there’s no-one.

  OK, there’s probably been a tramp. Or a wino. Or a druggie. Rough sleepers have been here, that’s all. They’ve sheltered for the night. A night or two. And why shouldn’t they? The place is empty. They’ve been and gone. Or they’ll be off their heads. Fast asleep. They wouldn’t harm you anyway. Just remind them you’re a killer. Don’t forget you’re a killer, Stella.

  Stella listens at the window, convinced she can hear something. But it’s nothing. Her imagination in overdrive. Everything’s actually quiet. Even Stella’s own breath, quiet.

  Stella knows this house, she knows it, and it knows her. It wants her back, like she belongs. She feels the pull.

  She’ll wait a bit longer, listen a bit harder. Still nothing.

  Marcia. Go for it, Stella. You’re nothing if not a survivor.

  You have no choice, Stella. Unless you want to stay in this sopping yard indefinitely and catch pneumonia. Stella looks up at the Carsons’ back windows. No lights on, either upstairs or down.

  You’re on your own, Stella, and you’ve got to make the best of it.

  Stella climbs in at the scullery window and drops down onto the lino, the suitcase in her hand. She listens, hearing only her own blood swooshing past her ear drums.

  A flash of fascination for the circulation of blood, the pumping of the heart, the miracle of life. The way Marcia throws her head back when she laughs.

  In the scullery, Stella scans the room, her eyes adjusting to the dark. Everything is drained of its own colour and tinged a pale yellow. She knows this room, it’s just like it used to be, only it’s draped with cobwebs, sticky looking dust, dead flies and it smells rancid. The blue Formica cabinet is falling to bits. How do things, left on their own, start dropping to bits? The stove, covered in grease and dead insects. The ceramic sink chipped black along the front. Lino on the floor, styled to look like parquet, now sticky underfoot and blackened with mould where it curls up at edges just shy of the walls. The insipid light makes the room uniformly colourless. It smells of damp, of grime and rodents.

  Stella listens hard, hears the rain on the lean-to, the slosh of water escaping from a broken downpipe. The light switch doesn’t work, obviously. It’s sticky. Everything is sticky.

  The door into the back kitchen is standing open. Grandma Willoughby’s pinny is still hanging damply on its plastic hook. Stella pushes the door wide open and a pale shaft of jaundiced light falls across the floor. The maroon patterned carpet, so filthy the pattern is no longer visible. Stella remembers it new, bought with the insurance after the distraught Hedy Keating wreaked havoc that time, the day her baby went AWOL. The furniture’s all like it was, even the chenille cloth still covers the table. Stella used to hide under there, peering out at people’s feet from between the tassels, observing socks, stockings, the shapes of ankles, earwigging on conversations she couldn’t make sense of, making notes all the same and storing her secret observations inside a giant bible she’d hollowed out with Mr Fanshaw’s Swiss Army knife that week he nipped off to Skegness with his floozy and forgot to take it with him. Stella had hung onto the knife for ages, knowing he wouldn’t dare say anything.

  Stella can hear herself breathing. Breathing in the same smell of soot from the back kitchen chimney, the same clamouring smells of camphor, belladonna, pleurisy herb, chloroform and God knows what else from Grandfather W
orthy’s cupboard under the stairs. She can smell it all, though the door is tightly shut and probably there’s none of that stuff left in there now. Stella won’t go near that door. Won’t even look at it. She should not be here. She can’t think what possessed her to come back to this place. All she wants now is to get away, get along that passageway, out the front door and never come back.

  Come on, Stella. Get going. The longer you stay here the worse it will get.

  She listens hard, breathing shallow, and begins to edge along the passage, her back to the wall. Grandma Willoughby’s bedroom door swings open as Stella draws level with it. The dark figure of a man stands in the doorway.

  Chapter Five

  Mr Frank Fanshaw is a bold one – bolder, yes, than Stella remembers him.

  ‘I knew you’d come back,’ Frank says, ‘I knew it.’ He settles himself on the stair next to Stella.

  The familiar smell of his greasy hair. All the time that’s passed and the smell still the same: she’d know it anywhere. Keep your wits about you, Stella. Stella says nothing, just pulls the little blue suitcase closer in, sets it on her lap and puts her arms around it.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ Frank says, flicking his lighter on and leaning round to peer into Stella’s face.

  ‘Ah, I get it. Giving us the silent treatment, eh? The same old trick.’ Frank sniggers and comes right up close to Stella’s face. ‘Silly old Frank. He thought you’d have grown out of that.’

  His breath smells of old meat pies. Stella pulls back and tightens her arms around the case.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Frank says, leaning back. ‘I says to myself, I says, Frank, I says, if you’re not mistaken, Stella will be getting out round about now, done her time, free as a bird. Now, Frank, I says, look at it this way. Stella comes out, where does she go? And I apply a little logic.’ Frank interrupts himself to pull Stella’s face round to face him, but immediately he lets go and she turns away. ‘Why, Frankie boy, I says, she’ll come out of yon prison, and I reckon she’ll head straight to Newcastle. She’ll go straight to that grandmother of hers. That’s what I says to myself. And I was right, wasn’t I? Spot on.’

  Frank stands up and plants himself at the foot of the stairs so he’s right in front of Stella. He flicks on his lighter again.

  ‘So I comes here, and I wait. I wait patiently. Patience pays off. But you wouldn’t know much about that now, would you?’

  Stella gets to her feet, wanting to get to the bottom of the stairs, and tries to push Frank out of the way, but he grabs the banister and stands his ground.

  ‘Now you listen to me, missy,’ Frank prods Stella hard on her breastbone, hard enough to make her sit back down. ‘Now you be a good girl and listen. Uncle Frankie hasn’t finished what he was saying.’ Frank pulls a packet of Number Six out of his pocket, undoes the cellophane, lights two and hands one to Stella. ‘I usually smoke Embassy, blue,’ he says, changing his tone. He inhales deeply. ‘But I got these for old times’ sake, specially for you.’

  Stella stays silent. She accepts the lighted cigarette without looking at Frank.

  ‘Why, thank you very much, Mr Fanshaw.’ Frank mimics a high-pitched female voice. ‘That really was most kind of you. Your friendly gesture is much appreciated.’ Frank’s mimicry dissolves into snorts of laughter.

  ‘I’ve actually got a torch here,’ Frank says, pulling a heavy looking object out of his pocket and fiddling with the switch. ‘The electric’s off, in case you hadn’t noticed. No point in wasting the lighter.’ He shakes the torch and shines an uncertain beam into Stella’s face. She pushes it away with the back of her hand.

  ‘You’re looking a bit peaky, if you don’t mind me saying,’ Frank says. ‘Didn’t they feed you in yon place? I thought them places were supposed to be holiday camps.’

  Frank puts the torch under his own chin and pulls a face, but Stella doesn’t look. ‘Gargoyle,’ he says in a stupid gargly voice. ‘C’mon, kiddo. You used to laugh at that.’

  Stella snatches the torch and lays it down on the stairs, where it lights up a patch of once flower-patterned wallpaper, now scuffed into a uniform grey.

  ‘I’ve even got food,’ Frank says.

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ Stella shakes her head. ‘I’m going. I’m not stopping here…’

  ‘Ah, it talks, does it?’ Frank interrupts. He picks up the torch and shines it on Stella again. ‘Now there’s a turn up for the books. It said something. It actually said something. Go on, say something else! Prove it can talk!’

  Stella stands up and moves a step down. This time Frank doesn’t try to stop her. There’s nothing save a few yards of passageway between her and the porch door that leads out the front. But she needs to watch out. She knows Frank Fanshaw. And the inside door could be locked.

  ‘I broke the board and the window so’s you could get in,’ Frank is saying, now standing next to her at the foot of the stairs. ‘By rights, you should be saying, “Why, thank you very much, Mister Fanshaw. That was very kind of you, Mister Fanshaw.”’

  ‘You did it for yourself to get in, you mean.’

  ‘Now doesn’t that show how little you know, little Miss Clever,’ Frank snorts, ‘I happen to have the key.’

  Frank pulls a grubby bit of string out of his top pocket. A key dangles in the air, glinting in the torchlight. ‘I broke the window, I pulled the board off, I put myself in danger of getting arrested, and all on your account, my dear. And you can’t even say thank you. Ungrateful little besom. I might have known I’d get no thanks from the likes of you.’ Frank nods his head. ‘But it was all worth it. I knew you’d be here in the end. Where else has she got to go I asks myself...’

  ‘You said that before. Where’s my grandmother?’

  Stella backs off a few steps, but Frank closes in.

  ‘Old Mrs Willoughby? Now how am I supposed to know? Since when was I a mind reader? You’re the one who’s supposed to be clairvoyant,’ Frank sniggers a snorty laugh, drops his cigarette end onto the hall lino and grinds it to bits with his boot.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ Stella says. ‘It’s disgusting.’ She stubs hers out on the sole of her shoe and keeps hold of the dump.

  ‘Oh, disgusting is it?’ Frank mocks, ‘Disgusting?’ He’s imitating Stella’s voice with exaggerated scorn. ‘Still Miss High and Bloody Mighty. Just like your mother. Haven’t changed a bit, have you?’

  Frank lights another cigarette, just for himself this time. He’s standing right beside Stella now. She may have lost her chance.

  ‘I’ll tell you what Disgusting is,’ he continues, ‘you killing your own mother, that’s what I call Disgusting. That’s what most Normal people call Disgusting. You’re in no position to lecture me …’

  ‘Is that what you came here to say?’

  ‘You might as well get used to hearing it. It’s what Normal people say.’

  ‘What is it you want?’ Stella asks. ‘Why’ve you come here?’ She edges half a step further towards the porch door.

  ‘Oh no you don’t!’ Frank wrenches Stella by the arm and puts himself between her and the porch door, ‘I know your game. Sly as ever. You’ll go when Frank says. And not a minute before. And you’d better get used to that, girlie, if you and I are going to get along.’

  Frank is a big man. He gets hold of Stella’s shoulders, turns her around and marches her along the passageway to where the step goes down into the back kitchen. He pushes her into the room and shuts the door behind them. He sets the torch down on the mantelpiece.

  ‘So you want to know what I’m here for? Well, I’ve asked myself the same question,’ Frank says.

  ‘So what’s the answer? I’m all ears.’ Stella sits down on the chair by the fireside that used to be her grandmother’s. Best to act normal. Don’t rattle his cage. ‘You don’t know where my grandmother is, then?’

  �
��Dead, for all I know.’ Frank throws his half-smoked cigarette end into the fireplace. ‘Aye, dead and buried. Long since.’

  Stella feels herself flinch inside. But it’s really not wise to let on to any emotion of any kind. Keep it to yourself, Stella.

  ‘Why come here, then, if she’s dead and buried?’

  ‘I told you. I came for you! I knew you’d come back. It was only a matter of time. I knew when you’d be out. And I was waiting. Then, bang, there you were, and I says to myself, Frankie boy, you’re a genius, you’ve not lost your touch. I was there all the time. Heard you creeping along that hallway, skulking about like a sewer rat…’ Frank’s voice trails off into chesty laughter. ‘But if I may say,’ he resumes after a bout of coughing, ‘you’ve turned into one fine young woman, Stella Moon.’ He picks up the torch and shines it at Stella, moving it up and down her body, and nods. ‘Yes, one fine young woman. All that time inside must have done you good, you’re starting to fill out in all the right places…’ The beam of the torch has come to rest on Stella’s breasts, where the thin, damp dress clings to her shape. ‘What is it, seven years? That must make you the ripe old age of…what? Twenty-five?’