The Confession of Stella Moon

by Shelley Day

  Muriel took Stella by the shoulders and tried to lift her up from the table. But as soon as she let go, Stella fell forward again, her body limp.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Muriel demanded. ‘What have you done to her this time?’ She bent down and looked into Stella’s face. It was ashen, her eyes still wide and staring, her breathing fast and shallow. ‘What in God’s name have you done to her?’ Muriel shook Stella’s shoulder gently. ‘Stella, can you hear me? It’s me, Muriel, your mother…’ Stella remained motionless. She could hear her mother, but she couldn’t speak.

  Muriel looked around at the assembled company. The Ladies were already fidgeting as if making to leave but unsure of the protocol.

  ‘You’re evil, the lot of you, that’s what you are. You should be ashamed of yourselves, and her just a kid. Stella?’ Muriel shook Stella by the shoulder again. Still Stella lay slumped across the table.

  Muriel strode across the room and turned the main light on. She looked around and took in the burnt embers of the felt cloth about the fireside, the broken mirror in pieces on the floor.

  ‘What the hell’s been going on?’

  Muriel bent down and touched Stella’s arm. ‘Stella, it’s your mother, can you hear me?’ She felt the pulse on Stella’s wrist. ‘It’s racing. What have you done? Go and phone for an ambulance,’ she said to Ruby, ‘and be quick about it.’

  ‘Muriel…’

  ‘Get a doctor, I said. What’s the matter with you? She’s hardly breathing, she needs a bloody doctor.’

  ‘Muriel. Get a hold of yourself,’ said Ruby, smiling a weak smile at the Ladies before going on. ‘Stella doesn’t need a doctor. She’s alright. She was in a trance, that’s all. She’ll be alright in a minute or two, isn’t that right, Mrs Bradley? Best just to let her be.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Mrs Bradley chimed in, ‘There’s really no need to worry, Muriel. She just needs to rest for a bit. This can happen before the… er… visitation leaves. I’ve seen this happen before. They really are best left alone…’

  ‘You coming bursting in like that,’ said Ruby to Muriel, ‘breaking the circle…’

  ‘I’ll break your bloody circle!’ Muriel yelled, ‘I’ll break your bloody necks. Get out, get out the lot of you. Get out of this house and never come back.’

  ‘Now, now, Muriel,’ said Ruby, ‘this is my house, and I’ll give the orders…’

  The Ladies and Mrs Bradley were already on their feet, peeling off the white gloves and laying them down, gathering up their handbags and prayer books, saying they’d best be off and leave the family to sort out their own business. Frank stood up and made as if to leave with the rest of them.

  ‘You’d better stay behind a bit, Mr Fanshaw,’ said Ruby, ‘if you don’t mind helping to clear things up.’

  Frank nodded, went to the fireplace and pushed at the bits of broken mirror with his foot. The Ladies congregated by the door, putting on coats and adjusting their hat-pins.

  Ruby closed the front door and returned to the sitting room. ‘That’s them away,’ she said to Frank.

  Muriel and Frank had carried Stella to the sofa and covered her with the tartan blanket.

  ‘I’ve given her some chloral,’ Muriel said, edging herself onto the sofa beside Stella and putting her hand to Stella’s brow. ‘She should sleep.’

  ‘Oh, Muriel,’ Ruby said, ‘you’ve no idea what trouble we’re in.’

  ‘Since when have your troubles been any concern of mine?’

  ‘This does concern you, Muriel. It’s baby Keating,’ said Ruby. ‘Somehow or other, our Stella knows . She knows the baby wasn’t kidnapped… And now everyone knows.’

  ‘What’s baby Keating got to do with anything? ’ said Muriel.

  ‘Oh, our Muriel,’ Ruby said. ‘It was Stella who got the visitation. We couldn’t stop her, it all happened so quick…’ Ruby said. ‘And, well, at the end, when you came in, Stella blurts out that the baby’s dead and tells them where Frank buried his body.’

  ‘You’ll have to do something, Frank,’ Muriel said. ‘You’re going to have to do something, Frank, and do it quick.’

  ‘Do like what?’

  Ruby was decisive. ‘Go and get the baby. Take it somewhere else. Somewhere it won’t be found. There’s no other way. Otherwise, if they start making their mags go…’

  ‘Christ all-bloody-mighty, not that again. Why have I got to do it?’

  ‘There’s no-one else,’ Ruby said, ‘You buried it in the first place. You know where it is.’

  ‘Do it for Stella,’ said Muriel, ‘if you call yourself a man. It’s Stella who’ll suffer the most if this all comes out.’

  ‘Stella?’ said Frank, looking at the sleeping child on the sofa, her hair all over the place, her face very pale.

  ‘Now, now,’ Ruby said, ‘that’s enough. We’ve been through all that, and we none of us can be certain what happened, so let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘I know you like to think in your warped imagination that it was me who killed Baby Keating,’ Muriel said, ‘but let me remind you, Ruby Willoughby, it was you who made up the drink. It may have been our Stella who gave him the bottle. But it was you who made it up. I had nothing to do with any of that. The only thing I’m guilty of was trying to keep him breathing…’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Muriel. It wasn’t the chloretone that killed him.’

  Stella stirred on the couch, pushing the blanket to the floor. Frank picked it up and covered her over again.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll go and get done what needs to be done… Muriel?’

  ‘I’m having nothing more to do with it.’

  ‘It’s time you got off your high horse, our Muriel,’ said Ruby, losing patience, ‘you’re going to help Frank whether you like it or not. Get the baby, take him to the Beach Hut and put him under where the new kitchen’s going. It’s the only way. Do as I say, or live to regret it.’

  Muriel went over to the couch. Stella opened her eyes a little and looked up at her mother.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill Baby Keating,’ she said, ‘really, I didn’t.’

  Those were the last words Stella Moon spoke for more than two years.

  * * *

  Is Stella having another breakdown? Is it the workings of the deranged imagination of strange precocious Stella Moon taking over? That’s what they said the first time. That she’d brought it all on herself by an over-active imagination that amounted to hysterics, plain hysterics.

  The séance had gone wrong and she’d wanted to scream, but the scream had got stuck somewhere deep inside her and Stella had closed her mouth and kept it there and hadn’t uttered a single word for a full two years.

  And now it’s happening again. A re-run. An action replay, from half a lifetime ago.

  Stella must get away from this house. Like Marcia says, she has to get back to now. But she can’t even lift herself up off the floor. The house hasn’t finished with her, not yet. It wants to tell its all to Stella Moon. The house will make her listen.

  Chapter Twenty

  All her life before now, in that rocking silence, Stella had found a peace, of sorts. But not any more. It’s no longer working. And she starts to see now, that silence, it wasn’t peace at all: it was just a way of going on living, a way of living with herself, with Grandma Willoughby, with Frank Fanshaw, without Muriel – a way to survive. Stella’s silence had caused even Ruby and Muriel to set aside their differences in their joint efforts to get her well.

  It was the shock, they said – she’d get over it. But Stella didn’t get over whatever it was. They gave her chamomile tea and valerian, they talked kindly and brushed her hair, but still Stella had remained locked inside somewhere, where words no longer mattered. The shock, they said, had been too much for the child, a nervy child at the best of times. And there’s no telling what a m
ischievous spirit will do, hell-bent on creating chaos and destruction, and see how it had gone and put all those silly ideas into her head about the baby, see how it made her tell all those lies, those terrible, terrible lies. Just give the poor child peace and quiet and she’ll get over it, she’ll soon be over it. Stella heard it all and registered not a flicker.

  Time went by and they ran out of excuses and then they began to run out of hope. Ruby and Muriel started blaming each other openly, they each blamed themselves secretly, they alternately cursed Worthy for letting such a dreadful thing happen and begged and pleaded with him to come back from beyond his grave and put things right. They promised him such a thing would never happen again. They took turns, Ruby and Muriel, to watch Stella closely, watching and waiting for some sign, any sign, of change, however small. Ruby sat with her crochet and Stella rocked to the rhythm of it. Muriel paced the floor in stockinged feet and bit her nails and had to have false ones stuck on. But still Stella didn’t speak.

  Ruby determined out loud not to panic. She upped the doses and when that didn’t work, she resorted to the laudanum and took a double dose herself. Stella shook and shivered, but still not a word passed her lips. Hot bottles, cold compresses, baths and inhalations, nothing made any difference. Then holy water and incantations and the laying on of hands by kind Father Headley – all had no effect. Still Stella rocked and rocked and no sounds came.

  Then one night when Muriel was away, Ruby took the plunge and brought in the medium Mrs Bradley. But the very appearance of the woman at the bottom of the stairs, before she’d even removed her hat, had Stella hysterical, her arms flailing, her eyes staring and her mouth wide open a long, long time with nothing coming out but that terrible silent screaming. They’d had to slap her and slap her to make her stop and Mrs Bradley had hurried away before Muriel came back. As she left, Ruby had slammed Stella’s door so hard bits of putty had fallen out the glass and Ruby announced as she thundered down the stairs that she couldn’t stand it any more and she shouldn’t be expected to cope and why was it always she who had to pick up the pieces, see to the mess of Muriel’s damnable creation? Ruby Willoughby was washing her hands of the whole damn business, so help her God.

  The temporary truce between Ruby and Muriel collapsed, as it was always going to, and Muriel went off to the Beach Hut with Frank. Ruby drove Stella to a sanitorium, a kind of convalescent place, somewhere on the Durham side, near Rowlands Gill. It was better for everyone, Ruby said. Stella hadn’t protested. The poor girl was having a breakdown, she’d taken leave of her senses, was what Ruby told the sanitorium people. Despite all Ruby’s efforts, Stella had turned out to be just like Muriel after all.

  At first they’d come every other week to see her – sometimes Grandma Willoughby, sometimes Muriel, but never together. Mr Fanshaw might come with Muriel. They’d bring grapes and barley water and tell her everything was going to be alright. Stella had stared at them and studied their faces. Nothing made sense. Stella had no words, no tears, and no dreams, just silence. People tired of her and she of them.

  The last time Muriel came she was all smiles and had brought a bunch of elderflowers, a box of Jaffa Cakes and a big bottle of Dandelion and Burdock. She’d talked excitedly about her plans for Stella to come to live with her at the Beach Hut. She’d been doing more of the taxidermy – it was going really well and she’d sold a couple of things and done a pet parrot for someone and was certain she’d soon be getting a lot more commissions. They’d be a lot better off. She’d been doing a lot less of the other thing and was trying to persuade Frank to be around a bit more. Stella had listened to Muriel’s plans and promises, she’d looked into her mother’s eyes, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t and didn’t talk. Muriel lost patience. She’d taken hold of Stella’s shoulders and shaken her, just a little bit, then harder, then out of control. She’d shaken Stella until Stella went limp, demanding that Stella agree to come away with her there and then, that very minute. She’d slapped Stella hard across the face and slapped her and slapped her, until Frank had pulled her off and Muriel had dropped to her knees and begged and begged for Stella to make even the smallest sound. Frank was standing by the door, telling Muriel they’d best get on and they’d see Stella in a week or two. Muriel dropped her hands, turned away and covered her face. She was crying as she left. Stella saw Frank put his arm around Muriel’s heaving shoulders. He closed the door quietly behind them and they never came back.

  Doctors, psychiatrists, nurses and social workers all came and went, all talking at Stella in voices that were too loud, voices that echoed and got all mixed up. They sedated her, they attached electrodes and passed currents until her body heaved and convulsed and then settled into a state even more inert than it was before. They took blood out of her veins. Stella watched impassively as it coursed along tubes and dripped into bottles. The medical people measured this and that. They peered into her face, shone sharp lights into her eyes and poked instruments in her ears. They put her on drips, they took her urine, they gave her tablets and capsules and liquids and barely warm weak tea. Nothing changed. After a while the doctors hardly came either.

  Stella cannot heave herself up off the floor. She needs a drink, desperately. In the scullery water dribbles out under the sink where Frank broke the pipe. Stella imagines herself drinking it, lying under it, the cold water dripping into her open mouth. She imagines the feel of it, the smell of it, the taste of it, like graphite from a pencil, she wants to gulp and gulp and never stop. But she’s too exhausted to do anything more than think of water. She hears it drip, drip, dripping in the scullery like a torture. She can’t even crawl towards it. She has no strength left at all. Frank’s not coming. It’s no good, he’s not coming back, he’s given up on her. Stella closes her eyes and lets herself crumple to the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Stella was dead right. Frank Fanshaw was not coming back. He’d left the boarding house in a state of extreme agitation, desperate to get to the Beach Hut.

  He had to get after Stella, but disposing of the body had to be the number one priority. Frank didn’t know how he hadn’t realised that before. He should have done it a long time ago. He’d had all those years when Stella was inside, and somehow it hadn’t seemed important. Now it’s different. Frank’s agitation had only increased when he’d had to spend the night in the bus station in Newcastle. He’d hardly slept at all. Then even more anxiety as he tried to get from the town to the Beach Hut. He had to wait over an hour for the first bus, then the blasted thing had gone the longest possible route, round and round the houses, stopping at every damned godforsaken hole. Now it’s taken him a good two and a half hours to get to bloody Alnwick, where Frank now has to wait another hour before he can get to Embleton. All the anxiety is doing his head in and rocketing his blood pressure, he can feel it thumping at his temples like a hammer.

  At this rate, Stella will have blown the whistle a hundred times over, Old Ruby – if she’s still alive – will have gone gaga, Hedy will have gone AWOL, the police will have dug up the baby’s body and slapped a murder scene cordon round the Beach Hut and put out a warrant for the arrest of Frank Fanshaw before Frank even gets on the bloody bus. Frank can’t help but wonder, in the light of everything, if it’s sensible to keep on with the public transport. Embleton is only six miles from Alnwick, he could walk. He’d get there about five or six. He’d have plenty chance to stay incognito and stake the place out a bit, make sure it wasn’t swarming with coppers before he approached too close… Frank’s not sure what to do for the best. He decides to nip into the Tanner’s Arms for a quick pie and a pint and a think about strategy.

  But Frank doesn’t get to think about anything. Neither does he get to enjoy the pie or the pint. In fact, he’s only in the place thirty seconds before he makes a hasty exit. There, on the bar, an open copy of today’s Journal shows a large picture of Stella Moon. The picture’s enough to turn Frank hot and cold all at once. He does
n’t even try to see what the article says. The landlord will think he’s daft in the head. That can’t be helped. Frank needs to make an excuse. He looks at his watch. The landlord’s at the far end of the bar, pulling Frank’s pint. He’s looking over at Frank as he pulls. Frank taps his forefinger rapidly on the face of his watch, nods his head by way of an apology, says for the landlord to keep the drink and cancel the pie, he’s mistimed himself, he has to run for the bus. The landlord shrugs, shakes his head, takes a swig of the half-pulled pint himself and tips the rest down the sink. Frank grabs his coat and his bag and dashes out into the street. His stomach can’t cope with it. He has to nip over the road to the public toilets where his bowels turn themselves inside out.

  The seriousness of his situation now weighs very heavy on Frank’s mind. He has to calm down and think rational. At least it’s not a new photograph of Stella: it’s that old one from seven years ago. Conclusion: they’re publishing this stuff without anyone having yet got close enough to get a newer pic of her. On the other hand, it’s a big spread, not just a small one. Conclusion: it’s not just a small, insignificant news item. Frank could buy his own copy of the paper and have a closer look. But no. What if it mentions him? There could be a picture of him on the next page for all he knows. Frank starts to sweat. He feels nauseous. He needs to know. But he daren’t risk buying a paper. Not in Alnwick. The last thing he wants is to draw attention to himself when there’s a cop shop just around the corner. But he needs to know what the papers are saying. They’ve got onto Stella quick enough. She hasn’t been out two minutes. He could risk getting the paper. Get it in the supermarket beside the bus station. More anonymous. Decision made. Frank finishes in the toilet, puts his collar up and practically runs along the road.