The Confession of Stella Moon

by Shelley Day

  ‘Well?’ Gareth says, ‘where do you suggest we go?’

  ‘D’you mind if I have a cigarette?’ Stella says. ‘Only I haven’t had one since I was sick before, and I’m gasping.’

  Gareth has long since given up on the nicotine and he can’t stand people smoking in the car. Plus she’s already complained of it being smelly. ‘Go ahead,’ he hears himself say, ‘do what you like.’

  ‘You want one?’ Stella lights one and is handing him the packet and the box of matches. ‘Sorry, they’ve got a bit bashed.’

  ‘Might as well,’ says Gareth. What the hell? Having a drunken fag with a murderer in the car in the middle of the night suddenly seems all in a day’s work. He lights one, inhales and tries unsuccessfully to stifle a cough. What the fuck? Gareth is smoking when he doesn’t smoke any more. He’s driving when he’s had an excess of drink. He’s parading about in the middle of the night with a client that’s not even his. A murderer. What the fuck is going on?

  But she has that effect on him, he realises. She shifts the boundaries. She puts them where she wants them. She makes him act against his will. She definitely would make an excellent Case Study. Gareth needs to rethink that one. He’s supposed to have his proposal in by the end of term, so there’s still a bit of time. Gareth winds his window down and the two of them sit smoking, inhaling and blowing smoke out into the cold night air. Smoking is a bonding activity, it occurs to Gareth, mutually supportive doing-yourselves-in. Crazy. He throws the half-smoked fag out.

  It’s stopped raining, but it’s still cold and wet. Nobody about. Just the occasional car swishes past on the main road. He waits for Stella to finish her cigarette.

  ‘The Beach Hut,’ Stella says suddenly, flicking her fag end out the window and winding it up. ‘We can go to the Beach Hut. I’ve got the keys. They’re in here somewhere…’

  She’s suddenly come to life. She opens the suitcase and feels around for the keys.

  ‘Yeah. Got them.’ She holds the keys up and dangles them by Gareth’s ear.

  Gareth has read about the Beach Hut in the file and feels completely disinclined to go anywhere near the place. It’s isolated. It’s miles away. Not to mention that it might not still be standing. He’s heard of places like that getting buried in sand blown up by the wind, or the wood simply rotting and collapsing and blowing away.

  ‘Doesn’t that place have a lot of…er…memories? I would’ve thought you’d had a guts-full of that type of thing for one night.’

  Stella is shaking her hair free from its band. Her eyes are brighter than Gareth has seen them, shining out at him from the dark of the mirror. Her hair is like snakes.

  ‘No need to be s-c-a-r-e-d, Mr Social Worker,’ she mocks, animated. ‘Just take me as far as the road. You don’t have to come in.’

  Gareth, trapped between the living, breathing Stella – he can feel and smell the heat and the damp of her – and the cold likeness in the mirror, whose bright stare seems to be looking straight through him. That stare’s making him choose between being a man or a mouse.

  ‘Believe me, Gareth,’ she’s saying, ‘the Beach Hut has nothing, and I mean nothing, on what is in there,’ Stella nods towards the boarding house. Gareth watches her reflection in the mirror. ‘Thank God we’ve got out of it. I’ll tell you one day. Let’s just go now. I want to get away from here. Please, Gareth.’

  ‘I’d rather find you one of those all-night hostel things. Or a hotel.’

  ‘I can’t afford a hotel, Gareth.’

  ‘I know you can’t, but I can lend you. I’ll pay. You don’t have to pay me back…’

  ‘I’m not taking money off you. I’m not a fucking charity case. Just take me to the Beach Hut. I’ll be fine.’

  She’s evidently not going to budge from that opinion.

  ‘Anyway,’ she adds, in that smaller, little-girl voice, ‘let’s face it, Gareth, I’ve nowhere else to go.’

  ‘Alright, if that’s what you want.’ Gareth is going against his own better judgment. ‘If you’re certain. It’s just, you were in a terrible state back there. I don’t want to make things worse than they already are.’

  ‘I know. You’ve rescued me. And I’m grateful, but you don’t have to rub it in. Just take me to the Beach Hut, and your job’s done. Then you can wash your hands of me.’

  The fact is, she does have to go somewhere, and Gareth actually doesn’t want to shoulder the responsibility of Stella Moon a moment longer than he has to. What the fuck? His brain can’t think straight.

  ‘I’m game for anything,’ he says, putting the Zodiac into gear. Listen to yourself, Gareth. ‘I can’t wait to see the Beach Hut, after everything you’ve told me,’ he says, driving off.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Stella says. ‘I never told you anything.’

  Slightly panicked, Stella suddenly remembers Marcia’s letter. Please, God, it’s still in the bag. She’s terrified of losing it before she’s even read it. She flips open the case and rummages around in the dark. It’s there. Thank God for that. She keeps her fingers on it for a few moments, then slips it into the cover of the blue silk notebook and closes the case quietly. Panic over.

  ‘Did you want something?’ Gareth asks.

  He’s heard her fiddling about in the case.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Stella says. ‘I was just checking something. I keep having a panic in case I lose it. I keep imagining I’ve lost it.’

  ‘It must be something precious?’

  ‘It’s just a letter,’ Stella says. ‘Only I haven’t read it yet.’

  ‘Put the light on if you like – it’s just there, to the right of your head.’

  ‘No, no. I don’t want to read it. Not just yet.’

  Gareth keeps on driving. He’s not even going to ask what the fuck’s going on there. The lights change and Gareth turns right onto the Great North Road at Gosforth High Street. It’s going to be nearly an hour till they get to the Beach Hut. Gareth hopes Stella will fall asleep and stay asleep. Right now, that’s all he asks.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Stella’s never going to be able to open Marcia’s letter because she’s never going to be able to write anything in the lovely blue silk notebook. She’s never going to sully those lovely clean pages with her grim little story. She might as well open the letter now and find out the worst. Find out it was all a big mistake and Marcia’s sorry, but she actually doesn’t want to know.

  What if the whole thing is a figment of Stella’s deranged imagination? Marcia just believing – really, really believing – in the Sisterhood thing, and putting her beliefs in Sisterhood into action. Stella should look at the letter. What’s written in there is more reliable than Stella’s memory, which anyway is full of crap and always has been.

  But part of Stella doesn’t want to know the truth, doesn’t anyway trust the truth, or that which masquerades as truth. Memory may be fallible, but so is everything else. Truth is personal to each of us and is not to be equated with facts. There are things that happen inside of us which are real and true, yet cannot be seen and cannot be told and possibly – probably – will not be remembered. This doesn’t mean they’re not true. Of that much, Stella is certain.

  What Stella remembers most is the feel of Marcia’s hands, and how she could feel the touch of them before they actually made contact with Stella’s skin. She could feel Marcia’s touch with her eyes closed, her skin felt it before Stella did which, granted, makes no sense at all, but that’s how it was. That was real. There’s no way that kind of skin-knowing isn’t real.

  As Stella’s key worker, Marcia was the person who once a week drove Stella through the prison gates and into the outside world. In the unmarked Transit, Marcia drove Stella through the streets of North London to her therapy sessions at the Tavistock Clinic in Belsize Park. Stella was considered to be some kind of special case and had dispens
ation to go to the Tavistock, where a Dr Porpora was an expert on Matricide. Stella could never tell him very much because she couldn’t remember very much. They’d even tried hypnosis, but that just made her go mute and shake.

  Marcia would always wait outside, and she’d be there when Stella came out, waiting, and she’d step forward, no words, just put her arms around Stella and would hold her – just stand there holding her – for as long as it took. No questions, no answers. Marcia just held her, that’s all. Now Stella remembers the feel of Marcia’s large breasts pressing up against her, how she felt the strength of Marcia seeping into her, how she breathed in the essence of the strength of Marcia, deep into her lungs and held it there. In those moments, Stella had felt something pass silently and surely between them: an exchange – yes, it was two-way, Stella was convinced of that – an exchange of something deep and strong and thick and sweet, like the soul of her was being tugged free of its bearings.

  All of which now sounds delusional. Things like that don’t happen in real life. But at the time, Stella had believed – and Marcia had believed. Marcia too, hadn’t she? She believed that there was a reciprocal exchange of…what? Stella didn’t know what it was, but maybe, surely… Was it the beginnings of… Was it love she’d felt for Marcia? Marcia had felt for her?

  Stella won’t think about the letter, not for a long time. Respect for what she’d promised Marcia must take priority over Stella’s desire for instant gratification, her need for truth – whatever truth was. Marcia’s conditions will be fulfilled before the letter will be opened.

  From the start, Marcia had encouraged Stella to write things down. She was always counselling against ‘dwelling’ on things, against gazing at your navel instead of doing something about whatever it was that was getting to you. Marcia was a great one for Action. She said the best and the quickest way to get over stuff was to write it down. Writing was a form of Action of which Marcia thoroughly approved. It helped you see the wood for the trees. It helped you find out what you thought about something, helped you see what was and was not important. And as for memories, you didn’t have to let them imprison you. Put them on the page, Marcia said, write them down, set them free: it’s up to you to put the past behind you.

  Stella had tried, but found that writing anything – let alone anything about yourself or your life story – was nowhere near as easy as Marcia seemed to think. No way at all. In fact, it was impossible. It wasn’t that Stella was afraid of the blank page. She wasn’t afraid of it. It wasn’t that she couldn’t think of anything to write. She could think of plenty. It wasn’t that she didn’t have time. She had plenty of time. No, it was something else, something worse, much worse: something deep, incomprehensible and inaccessible, something that wanted to stay hidden away. It caused a horror at the very thought of putting words on paper. Phrases, sentences, whole paragraphs would form themselves inside Stella’s head, they’d repeat themselves over and over with the greatest insistence till Stella thought her brain would explode, but she couldn’t write them down. The antagonism she felt to writing was visceral, it came from the depths not of her mind but of her body, it was a loathing, it was palpable disgust.

  So no, Stella was not going to be writing anything down, not just yet, not for Marcia, not for herself, not for anyone.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Stella doesn’t wake when Gareth stops for petrol half way up the A1. He buys milk, coffee, biscuits and Wine Gums in the 24-hour services. She doesn’t move when he gets back into the car, bangs the door shut and starts the engine. She’s motionless until he’s passed the Alnwick turn and he shouts to wake up because he doesn’t know where he’s going.

  ‘Where are we?’ Stella says, her voice coarse with sleep.

  ‘We just passed Alnwick.’

  Stella pushes herself up into a half sitting position and strains to look out of the window.

  ‘Turn off the next one. It’ll say Seahouses or Beadnell or something.’ Stella rubs her eyes and pushes her hair back from her face, but it only flops forward again.

  Gareth watches in the rear-view mirror, as though he’s checking for traffic. Wild hair snaking all over the place from behind those pale little hands. She’s like the Medusa. But the smallness, the whiteness, those fragile little hands. Unbelievable to think that those thin, little hands killed a full-grown woman – pushed her over the cliff to her death. Gareth is in the car in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night with a tiny-handed killer with bright, staring eyes. Careful of the mirror, Gareth. Gaze directly upon her and you’ll turn to stone. Gareth looks away. What on earth is he thinking of? He feels his life tipping sideways.

  ‘Your hair’s escaping,’ he hears himself say, realising a moment too late the intimacy of the comment. Her repeated gestures to keep the snake hair back from her face are futile. Then she’s leaning forward, resting her right hand on his shoulder. For a brief moment, her hair is brushing against his face, her fingers digging into his flesh. He can smell her musky smell.

  ‘This is it,’ she’s saying, ‘this is the turn.’

  If he breathes in now, he’ll breathe in her breath. She’s lifting her hand from his shoulder. She’s perched on the edge of the back seat, her left hand gripping the back of Gareth’s seat now as he steers left off the main road, taking the corner a little too fast, a little too wide. Nearly came off the road there. He needs to concentrate.

  They leave the main road and they’re bumping along on a smaller lane, the headlamps picking out potholes, hedges and trees, bare now, racing by on either side with Stella directing the way. She keeps leaning forward to look over Gareth’s shoulder, her hand pressing into his shoulder, her breath on his neck. Away from the boarding house, she’s come alive, giving off an energy that wasn’t there before. She smells different. Then she’s scrambling over into the front seat, arms and legs everywhere, nearly knocking them off course again.

  ‘Oops, sorry…’ Stella says, laughing, as she plumps down into the front seat.

  ‘Hey, steady on,’ Gareth says, ‘you’ll have us in the ditch in a minute,’ knowing as he says it he doesn’t mean a word of it. Stella Moon can scramble where she likes. It feels right to have her sitting up front beside him. Gareth and Stella.

  What the hell is he thinking of? The sooner he drops her off, the better. She’s too weird for words. She’s lighting a cigarette but doesn’t offer Gareth one. She winds down her window to half way, sucks in the air, inhales the smell of the sea.

  ‘I love the sea,’ Stella says, inhaling deeply again. ‘I love the sound of it and the smell of it and the taste of it and the power of it, and…’

  She stops abruptly, takes another drag on her cigarette. Somehow Gareth knows what she’s thinking. She’s thinking of Muriel, the night she died, the sea at the Saddle Rock, the sea at the foot of the cliffs. The sea. The sea, it’s reminding her, how it swallowed her mother up.

  Gareth winds his window down as well and breathes in the freshness of the night air. He speeds up: he wants to enjoy the feel of the rushing wind in his hair, the way the noise of it drowns out everything. He wants to share something with Stella. But the moment’s passed. Stella has thrown her cigarette out and is winding up her window.

  ‘At least it’s not raining,’ she says, sitting back in her seat.

  Gareth can’t fathom this girl. She’s a mystery. One thing one minute, something else the next. He can’t read her moods from her face. He turns to look at her. She returns his gaze, smiles, looks ahead again.

  Her teeth are a little crooked. Gareth imagines her wearing a brace to straighten them up when she was a girl. How little he knows about her. He wants to know about her, things that aren’t written in the file.

  ‘Not far now,’ she says as they continue along the uneven road, her hands gripping the dashboard.

  Gareth keeps looking at those little killer hands.

  * * *


  It’s three in the morning when Gareth pulls in behind The Fisherman’s Arms at Low Newton. He’d meant to leave Stella at the top of the road and get back to Newcastle. But it’s cold. And it’s pitch black. And she’d been really ill only a couple of hours ago. And what the hell if Gareth does set foot inside the Beach Hut – is he a man or a mouse? Dirty Harry Callahan would relish every minute of this, not be wanting to back off like a chicken. Gareth will walk as far as the Beach Hut with her, make sure she gets there and make sure she gets in, if the place is still standing.

  Gareth offers Stella the old Barbour jacket he keeps in the boot of the Zodiac. It’s miles big, but she doesn’t seem to mind. He sort of admires that. Bit different from Clara. Gareth had taken Clara out a couple of times, and she wouldn’t be caught dead in Gareth’s musty old coat. Gareth imagines Clara, tottering her way up the dune path in her high heels as he follows Stella in her baseball boots by the light of the torch. He should have got some batteries when they stopped for petrol – too late now. Uncannily, Stella says, ‘There should be some paraffin lamps, for when the torch runs out. At least stay for a coffee, Gareth. God, I hope there’s some Calor Gas.’

  Gareth follows Stella along the steep, winding, narrow path up into the dunes, his feet slipping about and half sinking in the sand. She’s got the torch and she’s leading the way, so he has no idea where he is, where he’s heading or whether he’ll be able to find his way back. He’s ended up having to trust her. He must be mad. He’s pulled two ways. Sense tells him just leave her at the door and go. Duty requires nothing more than that.

  Stella has stopped outside one of the little wooden huts close to the top of the dune ridge. Gareth had imagined something a bit more grandiose, but this thing, it really is hardly more than an overgrown shed – and a dilapidated one at that. He can’t see much in the dark, but its roofing felt is flapping, and the wood of the veranda is obviously rotted and dropping to bits.