by Shelley Day
Gareth was shouting through. ‘What’s going on in there? Stella, what are you doing?’
Stella does up the lock inside the bathroom door.
In Grandpa Worthy’s room there was a long mirror. It was in the wardrobe door in the room they moved him to when he was taken poorly – the room where, not long after, Grandpa Worthy died.
It was a Wednesday. Muriel had collected Stella from the ballet class. She’d rushed Stella home because her father lay dying. She’d rushed out again, almost straight away.
‘You stay with your Grandpa while I go and fetch Dr Burdon.’ Stella listened as Muriel clattered down the stairs. ‘Don’t you budge from there,’ Muriel shouted from the passage. ‘Don’t you so much as move an inch.’ The porch door slammed and then the front door and then the gate.
The house went quiet. Apart from her grandfather’s rasping breath, all Stella could hear was her own heart thumping. The eiderdown rose and dropped with each noisy heave of Grandpa Worthy’s chest. As she watched, he pulled at his oxygen mask, clearly trying to get it off his face, Stella watching it all in the big long mirror. She watched it in the mirror because she did not want to look and see what was real, she did not want to bear witness to Grandpa Worthy’s soul, which she knew was gathering itself, gathering itself up, his soul was rising out of him, and then it was flowing away. Even as Stella knew her dear Grandfather’s death was happening, she could not bring herself to intervene to help him, to put the oxygen back on his face. She could not even bring herself to bear witness.
The long mirror in Grandpa Worthy’s room had a crack in it – the start of a crack – in the bottom corner. Stella stared at it, she stared at it and as she stared she made it into a bigger one, and bigger, and bigger, until diagonally it cracked right across while Grandfather Worthy fumbled with unsteady fingers to pull at the elastic that kept the breathing mask on. By the time Muriel came back with Dr Burdon, Stella had made the crack in the mirror open up wide as a canyon, she had slipped inside, in through the crack, and she had disappeared.
Dr Burdon said they were too late. Where was Stella? Why didn’t she put the mask back on? They said they didn’t understand. They said they would never forgive her.
In the bathroom at the Beach Hut, Stella throws herself at the mirror. Gareth is banging on the door. Stella hears him shouting her name. He’s banging the door with a chair or something. Stella throws herself at the mirror again and again. She wants to drown out the sound of Muriel clattering up the back stairs with Dr Burdon, to drown out the sound of Muriel in hysterics screaming for her father, cursing Stella’s name.
Then Gareth’s voice is receding until all Stella can hear are echoes of her name as though down a thousand empty corridors. Stella has slipped in through the crack and is streaking fast along corridors of mirrors, losing herself among multiple images, multiple echoes, all clashing and collapsing into each other. In the distance, a baby is wailing. If Stella runs hard enough, she will run past the sound, she will run straight through it, she will leave behind a thousand fragments of Stella Moon in endless shards of mirror, all the Stellas running alongside her, all keeping pace with her, the baby’s wailing echoes off the walls.
The baby wailing is the noise of Stella Moon. Stella falls to the bathroom floor, exhausted, bleeding.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Gareth has to go round the outside of the hut and smash the bathroom window in. He has to squeeze his body through the hole where there are still shards of glass that tear at his clothes and at the skin on his arms and make striations on his chest as if a lion has gouged him with its claws. He grabs hold of Stella and shakes her, yelling at her to stop the screaming, as if she could, by sheer force of will, stop the noise from coming out. Gareth says afterwards it was a wailing that came from somewhere he didn’t know existed. He never wanted to know that place again, it scared the wits off him.
Gareth carries Stella into the main room while she is still screaming. She doesn’t resist. He pulls a mattress through, lays her down on it and covers her over with the damp tartan blanket. She lies there with her mouth open, she keeps opening it wider, straining to get the sound out, the sound that needed to come out, till there was nothing left and she quiets and starts to sob, her body convulsing. He’d never seen a case like it. Stella would have said she wasn’t a case if she’d had any voice left. Gareth tells her to sleep. She needs sleep. Says that he will wait up all night. Longer if he has to.
Now Stella’s in bed, in her old room, in her old bed that creaks. Gareth had aired some sheets by the fire and made up the bed. He’s stood Muriel’s wellies side by side in the corner. He’s put Stella’s little blue suitcase at the bottom of her bed. She should be grateful. Snow still falling, lighter now. Everything quieted, just the soft sound of the sea, down beyond the dunes.
* * *
One winter, the snow came up high as the windows. You couldn’t see out. It was like living on a cloud. Muriel was gleeful, more so when Grandma Willoughby couldn’t get to the Beach Hut to fetch Stella back. They lived happily together that time, Stella and Muriel, eating ancient porridge with black treacle on when the Carnation milk ran out, and cheese footballs, gone tasteless, left over from some forgotten Christmas. Muriel trudged out up to her thighs in snow and had to dig her trapped pheasants out of the drifts. She didn’t stuff those ones. She hung them by their scrawny feet from that beam there, in a line, then roasted them on a spit Frank Fanshaw had concocted out of an old bit of sheep wire.
* * *
Gareth’s given Stella too many blankets. They weigh heavily, and the paraffin heater’s too close to the bed for safety. But still, Stella cannot get warm. She’s frozen inside her body. She’s made of ice. Gareth has patched and wrapped her up, even though he too was cold and bleeding. This is the second time he’s rescued her. She should be grateful. Stella wouldn’t let him in. She couldn’t. She needs to sleep. She’ll think about everything tomorrow.
Gareth has had a glimpse of the real Stella Moon, the one who screams though no sound comes out. He’s had a glimpse and he has not gone away.
Tell Gareth this, though. Tell him the real Stella Moon is worthless and selfish and evil and made of nothing but shame.
Stella Moon went with Frank Fanshaw. She betrayed herself and everyone. She’s dirty and full of shame.
And she’s an evil killer. Not once but twice. Not twice, but three times.
Stella Moon let her grandfather die a desperate death while she stood there looking into a crack in the mirror. She broke her grandmother’s heart. She broke Muriel’s heart.
Stella Moon killed an innocent baby and broke its mother’s heart.
Stella Moon killed her own mother and broke her own heart.
Stella Moon is worthless and full of shame and guilty of crimes.
Stella writes it all down. She writes it in Marcia’s lovely blue notebook. She laughs when she thinks that she might tell all that to Gareth. Tell him, Stella. See if he still stays on to look after you.
It’s Gareth’s job to stay. The snow keeps him at the Beach Hut. He’s curious about Stella. He’s fascinated. He’s involved. He’s in too deep. Whatever. He’s not going away.
Stella doesn’t know if she wants him there or not. Let him decide. Whatever. Sleep won’t come, not proper sleep. She writes some more for Marcia. Writing it down for Marcia brings Marcia close.
Gareth brings Stella a mug of Cup-A-Soup. He says he’s sorry, but there’s no croutons to go with it. He laughs, sort of. Stella opens her eyes. She is resolved to turn herself in. She deserves to be punished. No punishment is big enough for Stella Moon. She will die of self-loathing. She deserves to rot in hell.
‘No, no,’ Gareth says. ‘There now, there now. We can sort it out.’ She turns away from him and faces the wall. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re exhausted, and you’ve been ill. It’s all been too much for you.’ H
e nudges up beside her on the bed, he pushes hair back from her damp forehead. He kisses her temple. The Cup-A-Soup goes cold.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Stella is still in bed. Still sleeping, thank God. Gareth is looking after her. He’s made up his mind to do whatever it takes to rescue Stella Moon. Like Harry Callahan, Gareth will do whatever it takes. It’s all down to him that she’s calmer now. He walks over to the window, rubs a pane clear and looks out. It’s stopped snowing but the sky’s still heavy and there’s a wind getting up. There’ll be drifts – big ones. Gareth could be stuck here for the duration. In caring mode. Oh well. He hasn’t got much option. It doesn’t have to be all bad.
Gareth pulls the chair up close to the stove and sits, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, listening to the roar of the fire as it rushes up the flue. By rights, he should be weary, exhausted, full of shame himself. But he’s strangely awake, almost perky. He should take his chance now and sleep as well, but he won’t. He needs to think, get things back in perspective. If Stella’s mental state – or the snow, for that matter – keeps him at the Beach Hut, maybe for days, what will happen? What about supplies? What if the water freezes? Or the paraffin runs out? There’s hardly any firewood left, not enough food – not enough of anything. Except Stella’s madness: there’s plenty of that. Gareth sees that now, now it’s too late, way too late.
Fact is Gareth Davies, Probation Officer, Newcastle upon Tyne Probation Service, has committed the worse possible kind of error of judgement. Let’s not say at this stage it’s anything worse than an error of judgement. It could cost him his career. He’s got to be careful – very, very careful – work out what’s the best way forward.
Bottom line: Gareth’s snowed up in a beach hut miles from anywhere with a madwoman who thinks she can talk to the dead and now says she’s a multiple killer, having added a grandfather and some baby or other to her list of homicides. She’s told him all of it. They’d been lying there, just lying there afterwards and smoking, like you do, and out she’d come with it. Gareth had laid there, hands under his head on the pillow. He’d just laid there, taking it all in, waiting for the full horror of his situation to sink in, while he acted like what she was saying was normal, like what she’d done was ordinary, his Master’s in Criminology training kicking in, unfortunately way too late.
Bang goes the possibility of his Case Study on Matricide. What’s done is done and can’t be undone. Gareth’s brain whirled, his body physically recoiled as he edged away so his shoulder was no longer touching her shoulder. He’d shifted his head on the pillow so that wild hair of hers was no longer dowsing his cheek, as his very self shrank with revulsion, for himself as well as for Stella.
Gareth Davies. What an idiot.
Gareth gets up and pours another whisky. He swishes it round his mouth till it burns his gums. He swallows the lot in a single gulp and pours another.
What a stupid bastard. He should never have touched her. Fuck knows what he was thinking of. There’s no going back now, he shouldn’t have done it. But he has and he did and now…
His defences were down, he’d had a drink, it was cold in that room, he’d felt sorry for her, she’d got his defences way down with those eyes of hers, and all that weeping, and those skinny little arms reaching out, reaching out for someone, anyone. Gareth isn’t kidding himself that it was anything personal to do with him. All he’d done was respond to her, respond to her need. She’d wanted it. It had been her that wanted it.
Come on, Gareth. You’ve overstepped the mark. You’re making lame excuses. The very moment Gareth most needs his professional self, it will not be summoned. This is as bad as it gets.
Gareth had fucked Stella with a desperation he didn’t recognise belonged to him. He’d never been like that before. Stella had screamed for Marcia. Who the hell’s Marcia? Someone else she’s done away with? Gareth hasn’t heard of any Marcia. She’d whimpered and pleaded for Gareth to hold her, and so he had. He’d held her for a long time while she shook and she sobbed and shrieked for Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. He’d felt the thin bones of her back through the thick sweater that smelled of mould and dust. Those bones had put him in mind of some little animal – half skinned, half alive, like one of her mother’s taxidermy specimens, he couldn’t tell what it was. Some skin-and-bone thing Gareth had rescued from a trap when he was ten. It was twitching. He didn’t know what to do with it, he’d got sick of carrying it and he’d thrown it into the hedge before he got home. Now Stella reminded him of that lame, nameless thing.
Gareth had climbed into the single bunk next to Stella and squeezed himself up against her, holding her while she shook. The bed was damp, she was shivering cold, and he’d tried to warm her. She must have got the wrong idea. It was she who turned and kissed him first. She’d kissed like she meant to devour him. Her face was damp and hot and her hair was everywhere. His hands were caught up in it and he’d tried to pull her head back to get her off him. Then he’d felt his body responding. Gareth was shocked to find himself so full of desperation. It must have been the drink. They’d both had a drink. He’d unzipped his flies, tugged at her damp jeans till he got them half way down and registered she had no knickers on. It was over in seconds. She never stopped crying for Marcia.
Then, afterwards, he’d done his best to normalise. That’s what they’re always telling you in the training. Normalise. Normalise. So he’d lit them both a smoke and they’d laid there till, calm as anything, she’d told him all that shit. Multiple fucking murders.
Rule number one: don’t get involved with clients. Emotionally or otherwise. Keep your distance.
These people are dangerous. They are mostly unhinged.
They can sue you if you’re negligent or if you overstep the mark.
Keep the boundaries in place. Always keep the boundaries uppermost in your mind.
Gareth’s career is over. Or soon will be. Stella wants to give herself up, she’s intent on it. She’ll confess to killing the baby, that’s what she says she’ll do. She needs to be punished, that’s what she says, she wants to be punished, and it’s what she deserves. Don’t try and dissuade me, she says. It’ll all come out, the whole rotten business. Plus, the press could come knocking on that door any minute; the minute the snow’s gone they’ll be knocking, and misdemeanors by Probation Officers, the very thing they’ll be in ecstasies over. They’ll think they’ve died and gone to bloody heaven.
Dirty Harry Callahan threw his badge away at the end of the first film. He’d achieved the end he was after, but he’d done it all wrong: he’d not done it by the book, and the means he’d used to get where he wanted to be were downright contrary to ordinary ethical principles. That’s going to be Gareth. Throwing his metaphorical badge in the trash.
Gareth pours another drink, swishes it round in his mouth and gulps it down. He leans back in the chair and closes his eyes. He should go to sleep. Maybe it’ll all look different after he has a rest. Maybe Stella will forget what’s happened and they can carry on as before. He’ll make an extra effort to be nice to her. Care for her till she gets well again. As long as it takes. If she doesn’t forget, maybe she’ll forgive.
Gareth wakes with a start, disoriented, thirsty and groggy with drink. How long has he been asleep? He has no idea. The paraffin lamp is still flickering and the stove still warm, but down to embers. It’s pitch dark outside. The door is rattling. Gareth goes to the window. It’s snowing again. Someone’s knocking, banging, harder – a man’s voice, Geordie accent, shouting for Stella.
The press. They’ve found her. In the middle of the fucking night. Gareth freezes, his head, still fuzzy with drink and asleep a moment ago, suddenly alert, suddenly sober. He wets his lips and swallows. His mouth is parched. Who is it and what do they want? Whoever it is, it sounds like they’re going to have the damn door off its posts. Gareth rushes round the room, pulling curtains, not having them looking in this goldfish bow
l. Now they’re banging on the window, demanding to be in. Gareth will have to do something, say something. What should he say? They’re shouting for Stella. Open the door, open the bloody door before they kick it in. It can’t be the press. They wouldn’t kick the door in, surely? Police. It’s the fucking police.
‘Who is it?’ Gareth stands behind the door and shouts. ‘What do you want?’
‘It’s Fanshaw,’ says the voice, ‘Frank Fanshaw. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you can tell Stella I’m here to see her. I know she’s in there. Just tell her. She’ll know what you’re on about.’
Fanshaw. That’s that weirdo bloke at the boarding house Stella told him about, all spittle and fingernails, can’t keep his hands to himself. The one she’s getting away from. No way is Gareth opening that door.
‘What exactly do you want?’ says Gareth.
‘None of your business. Just open the door. And be quick about it.’
Gareth’s brain won’t think. Frank Fanshaw, banging on the door in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, about to kick the door in. God knows how he’s got here, through all that snow. He must be desperate. Or determined. What for, though? Kicking at the door…
‘I know you’ve got her in there, whoever you are,’ he’s saying. ‘Well, you can tell her I’ll be straight to the papers, I’ll tell them where she is if she doesn’t open this bloody door and open it fast, cause I’m not standing here freezing my balls off, not for nobody.’
‘Stella Moon is in my care, for the time being’, says Gareth in his most professional voice. ‘I am her Probation Officer. And frankly, after what she’s told me about you…’
‘I don’t care if you’re the monkey’s bloody uncle. She’s not a bloody kid any more. She’s a grown woman and fully capable of looking after herself and making up her own mind. Just tell her from me I’ve seen her grandmother and she’s sent me here, so you’d better let me in. I don’t intend to go on freezing my arse off out here to please some poncey Probation Officer.’ Frank Fanshaw kicks the door so hard the wood in the bottom panel cracks. ‘I mean it, I’ll have this effing door in if you don’t open it.’