The Pull of the Moon

by Diane Janes

  ‘But baby . . .’ He advanced, still smiling, ready for an embrace.

  I dodged again, moving across towards the pantry. If anything his whole demeanour only served to increase my fury. ‘How dare you,’ I spluttered. ‘How dare you just assume I’ll marry you – and talk to them about it, before talking to me.’

  He stopped smiling. ‘Just because you have a problem with your parents, doesn’t mean everyone else does. I’m close to my folks, so I tell them stuff, savvy?’

  ‘Not stuff about you and me.’ I was yelling now. ‘Not stuff that hasn’t been decided. How can you say we’re getting married? How can you possibly say that when you haven’t asked me?’

  ‘I always get what I want.’ He tried to reassert the smile, but it didn’t quite come off. He was annoyed because I was shouting at him.

  ‘Don’t be so fucking arrogant,’ I yelled.

  ‘Don’t swear at me, you bitch.’

  Simon appeared in the doorway, his face anxious. ‘What gives?’

  I folded my arms defensively around my dressing gown: standing half naked in front of Simon would do nothing for my dignity. Inwardly I was reeling. Danny and I had never really quarrelled before. I had expected understanding and contrition. I hadn’t anticipated that he would bite back.

  ‘A lovers’ tiff,’ said Danny. ‘It’s nothing. Katy has got herself upset over something. Wrong time of the month, I guess.’

  ‘I’m going upstairs,’ I snapped.

  Danny turned his back, affecting to be busy with something by the sink.

  ‘Danny, come upstairs, please.’

  ‘Don’t order me around, okay?’ He tossed the words over his shoulder. ‘I’ll come up when I’m ready.’

  I stood in the doorway a moment longer, but neither of them were looking my way so I returned to our room to wait him out. I thought he would have to come upstairs for some clothes and shoes, but after a while I realized he and Simon must have gone outside to work. The boots they wore in the garden were kept in the back porch, but even so Danny must have put his on without any socks, in order to avoid coming back upstairs. I hope he gives himself blisters, I thought.

  After half an hour or so I was driven downstairs again by hunger. I remembered the strawberries Mrs Ivanisovic had brought the day before and wondered if the others would mind me taking my share for a late breakfast; but when I looked in the fridge there was no sign of them. Then I spotted the empty punnets, tossed alongside the plastic pedal bin which was overflowing as usual. Trudie chose this moment to enter via the back door.

  ‘Where have all the strawberries gone?’ I asked.

  ‘We ate them last night,’ Trudie said. ‘After you’d gone to bed.’

  She didn’t even bother to say sorry.

  ‘You rotten greedy pigs.’ The words emerged much louder than I had intended.

  Simon had appeared behind Trudie. ‘Now what’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Katy’s got a strop on, because we didn’t save her any strawberries,’ said Trudie.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ muttered Simon. ‘Here, Trudie, you take the bottle opener and I’ll carry the beer.’

  They left me on my own in the kitchen. After a moment I resumed my search for something to eat, eventually resorting to bread and jam: slamming the jam pot and knife down on the table and deliberately not bothering to clear up after myself. The washing machine had already finished, so once I had swilled the jam from my fingers, I transferred my first lot of washing into the spin-dryer and started the second lot in the wash tub. Only now did a fresh problem occur to me: I couldn’t go and hang the washing out in my dressing gown, because reaching up to peg things on the line was absolutely out of the question. Moreover I had burnt my boats – I couldn’t slip into some dirty knickers just for the duration of a trip to the washing line, because every stitch of clothing I had with me was now in one or other half of the twin tub.

  As I hauled the tangle of clothing out of the spin-dryer, unravelling the socks and bras, shaking the worst creases out of the larger items, I was all but crying with frustration. My bikini bottoms emerged somewhere around the middle of the load. That was it. I would put on my bikini. It didn’t really matter that it was damp – it would only be the same as getting out of the sea after a swim.

  Once outside, I discovered there was a cool breeze which didn’t particularly favour swimwear. The washing line was strung between two metal posts in clear view of the pond, but far enough away to make conversation impractical. Danny was at work inside the hole, but I deliberately avoided looking in his direction, keeping my back to him while I steadily worked my way through the basket of damp clothes.

  When everything was pegged out I returned to the house. I reckoned the sun combined with the breeze wouldn’t take too long to dry some of the lighter things. In the meantime, I decided to make myself another snack and a cup of tea to have sitting up in bed, where I could abandon the damp bikini in favour of my dressing gown, while I read Frenchman’s Creek. My discussion with Danny would just have to go on hold until I was in a more favourable position to conduct it on my terms.

  I peeled off the bikini as soon as I got upstairs. The dressing-table mirror was flanked by two wooden poles topped with circular finials, and I hung my bikini top and bottoms one from each of them. I was back in my dressing gown and about to hop into bed, when it came to me that with the laundry mountain gone I could greatly enhance the appearance of our bedroom by effecting one or two other minor improvements. I collected up the pages of an old Sunday newspaper which Danny and I had discarded sheet by sheet after reading them in bed, balled the whole lot and tossed it on to the landing, ready to be taken downstairs. Between bites of jam sandwich and sips of tea, I gathered up my hairdryer and various scattered shoes, then tidied the top of the dressing table, which I dusted with a paper tissue. I was just pausing to survey the results when a footfall on the landing made me jump.

  ‘Hey there,’ said Danny. He advanced across the room and hugged me, before I could say or do anything. ‘Better now?’ he asked.

  I twitched his arms away. ‘What do you mean? Better now?’

  ‘I mean tantrum over. Ready to make love not war.’ The impish smile, which normally melted me, only contrived to make me feel a whole lot madder.

  ‘Danny,’ I said, ‘this is not over. You have done something wrong here and you have to acknowledge it.’

  ‘Come on, Katy.’ He advanced a step forward, as I took a step back. ‘We know how this is going to end. Come to Danny. You know you want to . . . Coming into the garden like that, flaunting yourself in front of me.’

  ‘I was not!’ I burned with indignation. I had never flaunted myself in my life.

  ‘Come off it.’ He took hold of the bikini bottoms between finger and thumb. ‘They aren’t even dry.’

  ‘I didn’t have anything else to wear,’ I said coldly.

  ‘You were coming on to me. Trying to get me to follow you upstairs.’

  ‘I was not. But since you are here, you can start by apologizing for the various things you’ve done – like calling me a bitch this morning – and telling your parents I’m going to marry you – which incidentally I am not.’

  His composure snapped abruptly. ‘What is wrong with you today?’ he yelled. ‘You’re just not making sense, Katy. All you want to do is fight with me. I don’t understand what’s got into you. I thought you loved me. You’re right. This isn’t over.’ With that he turned and walked out of the room.

  I watched him go in silence. As I listened to him descending the stairs I found that I was shaking. In my idealized vision of our rural love nest, I had not troubled to anticipate what might happen if we had a major row: I was unexpectedly adrift without coordinates to steer by. I heard the sound of his feet along the hallway and the dull thud of the kitchen door. In the silence which followed I fell on to the unmade bed and wept.

  NINETEEN

  Danny had scarcely been gone more than a minute before Trudie arrived in the r
oom. She immediately sat next to me on the bed and put her arms around me. She was wearing the cut-down denims and bikini top of the day before, and she smelled of sunshine and crushed rose petals.

  ‘He’s made you cry, the bastard,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t cry, darling. He’s not worth it. You’re too good for him, far, far too good.’

  She stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head, which was rather more demonstrative than would have been the norm between Cecile and me, but didn’t seem odd coming from Trudie.

  ‘He told his parents we were getting married,’ I sobbed. ‘I couldn’t believe it. He’s never even asked me. Then when I told him off about it, he called me a bitch.’

  ‘Don’t cry over him; he isn’t worth it. You’ll never marry him,’ said Trudie, using the tone of certainty she employed for all her predictions.

  I realized that my dressing gown had come adrift at the front; one of Trudie’s hands had wandered inside, comforting and caressing.

  ‘Tru-die,’ I murmured. ‘My dressing gown . . .’ I got no further. She kissed me full on the lips and I don’t know what surprised me more – the fact that she had done so, or how much I liked it.

  When she drew back, her eyes were full of mischief, like we were engaged in some massive practical joke. Her hands were still inside my dressing gown.

  ‘Look, Trudie,’ I said. ‘I’m not – I mean – I’m Danny’s girlfriend – and – and you’re Simon’s.’

  She actually laughed at this – a warm sound – not mocking, but rather inviting me to join the fun. ‘Simon’s friend,’ she corrected. ‘Not his girlfriend. Simon doesn’t like girls. Not in that way.’

  I gaped at her. My knowledge of homosexuality was restricted to an almost comic-book perception of mincing, effeminate men. There had been rumours, no more, about a bachelor schoolteacher once – but I hadn’t believed them, vaguely assuming that homosexual men inhabited some other, utterly separate parallel universe. The idea that such a man might have been living right under my nose was astonishing – and yet, as soon as she said it, I knew instinctively that she was right.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be convenient if Danny felt the same way Simon did,’ she said. ‘Then you and I . . .’ Her words trailed off as she bent forward to kiss my neck.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You see, I’m not.’

  Trudie looked up. ‘Not what? Not a lezzie, do you mean? It’s not an exclusive club, you know,’ she chided, gently. ‘You don’t have to get a certificate or anything – to say you can join in.’

  I thought of the splash patch on her shorts. Try it, you’ll like it.

  Trudie shrugged out of her top in a single movement. Her bare skin was against mine. I let my hands delve into her thick soft hair. It didn’t feel wrong. In some vague sense, it didn’t seem to count as cheating on Danny – how could you cheat with a girl? My dressing gown had fallen away completely and next thing I knew, Trudie was sliding out of her shorts. There was something incredibly graceful about the way she removed her clothes – and underneath she was so very beautiful, golden brown all over, except for the pale, delicate areas which never saw the sun. I made no further protests.

  Afterwards we lay facing one another with the sheet pulled up to our waists and our legs casually entwined beneath it, talking as easily as if we hopped into bed together every day.

  ‘How did you find out about Simon?’ I asked. (I was naïve still – assuming Trudie had spotted some secret signal I had missed.)

  ‘He told me,’ Trudie said. ‘We talk a lot.’

  I was mildly stung by this. I had known him longer than Trudie, but he had never confided in me.

  ‘Did you mind?’ I asked. ‘That he didn’t fancy you?’

  Trudie flicked aside a long strand of hair which had fallen across her face. ‘Course not. I don’t mind going out with lads – but I prefer to do it with girls.’

  I tried to keep my face from registering shock. In spite of all that we had just engaged in, I found the idea rather difficult to absorb. ‘But you don’t mind boys?’ I was still trying to make sense of it, searching for some context.

  ‘It depends on the boy. I’d go out with Simon or Danny if they asked me – but not somebody like that awful Josser. Did I tell you I saw him in town again yesterday? He tried to speak, but I just ignored him.’

  ‘I keep hearing a bike in the lane,’ I said. ‘I hope it isn’t him – snooping around.’

  ‘Anyway, I prefer to have girls,’ Trudie reiterated. ‘That’s why they threw me out of school. Me and another girl. They got our parents in and agreed between themselves that we had to be separated. I’m supposed to be starting a new school in September and I’m never to make contact with Bev again. That’s why I ran – left.’

  ‘Trudie – how old are you?’ I was propped up on one elbow, looking straight at her. She had her back to the bedroom door, which was ajar, and for a second I thought I saw the gap darken, signifying the presence of someone on the landing. ‘Who’s there?’ I said sharply.

  Trudie turned immediately, but there was no answer and nothing to be seen. ‘It’s only Murdered Agnes,’ she said cheerfully. It was her stock answer to any creak of the floorboards or fleeting shadow.

  ‘Suppose it was Simon or Danny.’ I spoke without conviction: it had been no more than a shadow at the periphery of my vision. I wasn’t confident there had been anything there at all.

  ‘It won’t have been,’ she assured me. ‘They’re both working flat out to be in time for the builder – anyway, what if it was?’

  Trudie’s casual attitude to our being discovered in bed together was a wake-up call. I was supposed to be Danny’s girlfriend. I might be mad at him and I might not think what I had just done with Trudie constituted quite the same level of infidelity as going with another man; but I couldn’t kid myself that he would be exactly delighted to find me in bed with our female housemate. Bottom line here – this was not on the same level of friendship as going shopping with Cecile.

  ‘Look, Trudie,’ I said. ‘This was great and everything, but I don’t think we should say anything about it to Danny – or Simon. Not yet, anyway.’ (Not ever, said a voice in my head. This is bent, for goodness sake – this is an episode you don’t share with anyone – end of story.)

  ‘Okay.’ Trudie wasn’t in the least perturbed. ‘I can keep a secret.’

  ‘Good. I need to sort things out, you see, between me and Danny.’

  ‘Of course.’ Trudie leaned forward to brush her lips against my forehead. ‘I won’t say a word. Not until everything is sorted out – then maybe you could move into my room?’

  ‘We’d better get up now,’ I said quickly. ‘They’ll wonder where we’ve been – and what we’ve been doing.’

  ‘Oh, tell them we’ve been cleaning up,’ said Trudie, airily. ‘They’ll never notice any difference.’

  Trudie dressed almost as swiftly as she had shed her clothes and having done so she went down to retrieve the dry washing for me. Then she hung about while I got into some clothes – a pair of cut-downs and a cheesecloth top, still warm from the line – and gave me another kiss before we walked downstairs together. My heart was pounding as we entered the kitchen, but the boys were still outside. I set up the ironing board and began to work my way through the basket of dry washing, focusing on the job in hand as if my life depended on it, while Trudie glided around the kitchen making our evening meal.

  Her proximity unnerved me. She kept singing to herself – little snatches of songs, while the sunshine danced across the ceiling whenever she moved a knife or some other utensil. She fetched me a glass of water without my having to ask, smiling as she put it down beside me. I tried to smile back, but all the time I was wondering about Danny. Our earlier fight had yet to be resolved. And what on earth would he say if he found out about me and Trudie? Then there was Trudie herself: as the glow of our sojourn in bed faded, I was beginning to question what madness had possessed me. Talk of moving into her bedroom was nothing short of crazy.
I had come here as Danny’s girlfriend – I was still Danny’s girlfriend. Normal girls didn’t move into a double bed together. What the hell had I been thinking, letting her climb into my bed, encouraging her to do those things?

  The guys worked outside until approaching eight o’clock, which gave me time to both finish all the ironing and work up a positive fever of nerves. We ate at the kitchen table that night. I am not sure whether anyone else sensed that the atmosphere was edgy. Perhaps it was only me, preoccupied by competing uncertainties, desperate to avoid catching Trudie’s eye lest I inadvertently betray myself to the others. I kept glancing in Danny’s direction, but he was concentrating on his meal. We weren’t exactly not speaking, but we didn’t say a lot to one another either – which left most of the talking to Simon and Trudie.

  ‘What’s the plan for tonight?’ Simon asked as we were finishing our meal.

  ‘Maybe Danny could play for us,’ I suggested, by way of an olive branch.

  ‘I don’t feel like it,’ said Danny. ‘How about our little wager, Trudie? It’s a fine dry night.’

  ‘There’s not much moonlight,’ said Trudie.

  ‘You never said there had to be any.’ There was a faint sneer in Danny’s voice. ‘Not backing down, are we?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Trudie. ‘I was just thinking about seeing our way in the dark, that was all.’

  ‘There’s a torch in my car,’ said Simon.

  ‘One torch between four,’ I interposed – but Danny was way ahead of me.

  ‘There’s a flashlight in the pantry,’ he said. ‘And a small torch.’

  ‘Oh honestly,’ I tried to sound dismissive. ‘Who wants to go stumbling round the woods by torchlight?’

  ‘We do, don’t we, Si?’ said Danny. ‘Been looking forward to it all day. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’ He stood up to get another beer, passing close behind my chair. ‘Chicken,’ he said, in a voice too low for the others to catch.