The Moon Is Watching

by Adam Cloake

  The engine seemed to be cutting out for a couple of seconds at a time, before returning to normal for about ten minutes. She knew that, if the car stopped completely, she would be stranded on the motorway, at least an hour’s drive from her destination. Would she find herself paying an exorbitant taxi fare to complete the journey?

  On the third stall, the car seemed to jerk. Then a light appeared on the dashboard.

  Engine Failure!

  Her heart sank even further.

  Despite this negative feeling, she was relieved that this was happening now, rather than in the earlier part of the trip. At least now, she was only a few miles from her father’s farmhouse, just outside Kinnegad. If she could keep the car rolling for perhaps ten minutes more, she might be all right.

  By the time she reached the turnoff from the M6, she knew there was a serious battle taking place within the engine. She heard unfamiliar noises coming from beneath the bonnet, and she was becoming aware of a strange smell, like rotten eggs.

  Finally, about a mile from Daniel’s, the car seemed to be offering up its last painful protest. It jerked once, then appeared to coast noiselessly for a few seconds before jerking twice more. It soon became clear that the coasting was just forward momentum, and that the car was, in fact, about to stop completely.

  A few seconds later, it did just that.

  Laura had already pulled over to the side of the country lane, and had switched off the engine. She waited five seconds, then turned the key again. No response of any kind. She knew a little about car mechanics, and had fixed several problems before, but she had no intention of tackling this one right now. It was cold outside, and particularly dark. The prospect of Daniel’s log fire, and a cup of hot tea, seemed much more appealing. Once she was inside, she would simply phone the Dublin office again, to rearrange her earlier rearrangements. She knew she would still have plenty of time to complete her work project before Monday morning.

  She got out of the car and began the short journey up to the farmhouse. She hadn’t called her father from the road because she didn’t want to sacrifice any of her nervous concentration. If he was in, she could give him a nice surprise. If not, she could use her own door key. She already saw herself gratefully flicking the switch on the kettle.

  Although the driveway had been tarmacked some years earlier, Laura still felt nervous walking on it after dark. As a child, she had tripped on this path several times, often skinning her knees, so she approached the house slowly, keeping her eyes on the black surface in front of her. When she did glance up, she could see only one light in the house. Her initial thought was gratitude that Daniel was home. As she walked closer, though, she realised that something seemed strange about the light. For one thing, it was in the wrong room. Her father normally spent his evenings either in the kitchen or in the den, depending on the time of night it was, and what he was doing. A creature of habit for most of his life, but especially since Rose had died, his evenings were taken up either with reading or sending emails. Tonight, however, the glow was coming from the side of the house, from the parlour window that faced away from the road. This was the room that Laura’s mother had often used for watching television, an activity that Daniel only indulged in late at night, when he could better enjoy his old movies. Laura thought that Daniel must have changed his habits, or else found some new use for the room.

  As she drew closer, she became conscious of the sound of Glenn Miller. The music, growing louder with each step, seemed to be coming from the lit room, from the parlour. Now she noticed that the light seemed to be flickering. Daniel was burning candles. With a tingle of curiosity at the mystery of it all, Laura decided that, rather than let herself in by the front door, she would instead pop around to the side of the house.

  The curtains were closed, but there was a narrow chink at the divide. She carefully peered in through this limited space, confident that she could not be seen from inside the room.

  Daniel was there all right, wearing his most dapper clothes.

  In his arms, he held a woman.

  They were swaying together, in time to the music.

  Aghast, Laura saw how light and airy Daniel looked in the woman's arms. Her back was towards the window, so Laura could see little of her. She was tall, even in her low heels, perhaps as tall as Daniel. She wore a red satin blouse and a long black skirt. Her hair was lightly curled, raven black, and there was an attractive brooch clasping it at the back. The brooch was red and black, matching her clothing.

  Suddenly, it struck Laura that she recognised these clothes, this jewellery, and even the hair.

  They belonged to her dead mother.

  The clothes this woman wore should have been hanging in a wardrobe in the large spare room upstairs, the one never offered to guests. The brooch in her hair had been forever consigned to a silver case in a drawer in that same room; Laura had placed it there herself. She hoped that she would not see any of the other items from that special box appear in the parlour before her, being casually sported by this stranger. Surely her father, by a remarkable coincidence, had simply met a woman who owned the same brooch as Mother’s. Surely he hadn’t opened the silver case for this one.

  The woman’s head was resting on Daniel’s far shoulder. As the couple – even thinking that word made Laura feel strange – turned slowly around, Laura fought the urge to strain too far forward. She didn’t want to be seen by them. Not yet.

  Now she could clearly see the jet necklace and its matching bracelet, along with at least two familiar rings. Even the colour of the woman's nails, a red to match the blouse, reminded Laura of her mother. In fact, she realised that the ensemble was the exact one that Rose had worn the last time she had gone out socially, a few months before the throat cancer had taken her. With horror, Laura realised how much better this person looked now than Rose had looked that night, as her normally strong frame had been well on the way towards its final emaciation. This woman looked more like Rose had done in her late youth.

  A few moments later, the stranger lifted her head to laugh at something Daniel had whispered to her. Finally, Laura could see her face.

  But it wasn’t a stranger’s face!

  Under the dark fringe was a face that Laura recognised, one that she knew well.

  She was staring at the face of her boyfriend, Greg.

  Laura’s sudden shock was a mingling of many smaller shocks, not the least of which was caused by how beautiful Greg looked. More than this was the obvious happiness in his smile, and in his poise. He seemed to fit perfectly in Daniel’s arms.

  Laura stood, transfixed, watching them dance. She watched them whisper to each other; she watched them smile and laugh together.

  Then, after they had looked into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, Laura saw them lean in towards each other, and share a gentle kiss.

  The scene looked so tender and natural that Laura had to step away from the window to collect her thoughts. She had never felt this confused, and knew she would need to get away, to take some time to collect herself. She valued her rationality highly, especially when in the company of friends and colleagues who regularly allowed their emotions to flare up. She now needed to keep that rationality intact.

  The most obvious thing to do would be to walk back the way she had come, and continue along the country lane towards the village. She could spend the night in Harty’s B&B, alone with her thoughts. She could arrange for her car to be serviced in the morning, while she took a bus up to the city.

  She would then need to decide on the next phase of her life.

  These were the thoughts which occupied her as she began walking back down the driveway. She thought about solitude, which opened the door to loneliness. She thought about the wonderful life she had spent as Daniel’s caring daughter and, more recently, as Greg’s loving partner.

  She examined her feelings for each of these men.

  Daniel, the intelligent, profound man who had helped raise her, and showed her the value of re
ason and curiosity. Her childhood memories of him had recently become coupled with the emotional thunderclap that had accompanied the onslaught of Rose's illness. The lingering decay brought by the disease had afflicted not only Rose's body, but also, visibly, Daniel’s stolid resolve. She had seen him become more fragile with each day of Rose’s decline. Laura had to wait for some time after the funeral for him to come back to her. But eventually he had. And he had seemed even stronger and more profound than ever before.

  And Greg! He was the first man in her life who didn’t make any demands of her. She had always felt like herself with him. She felt no constraints from him; she was victim to no undue expectation. She had been certain of him because he made everything about her life feel real and comfortable.

  Walking slowly, considering carefully, it took Laura half an hour to retrace the mile back down the lane. Through the cold darkness, she finally caught a glimpse of her broken car, sitting inertly just up ahead.

  She stopped, finally making up her mind.

  She turned back towards the house.

  When she reached the front door, she took the keys from her bag. Taking a deep breath to give herself confidence, Laura turned the key in the lock, and stepped inside.

  She and Greg were married ten months later. The ceremony, held in the registry office on Grand Canal Street, was attended by more than a hundred people. Following their first kiss as a married couple, the new husband and wife turned towards the room to absorb the swell of applause. The first person who approached them, quite naturally, was the man standing on the edge of the front row. Daniel took them both in his arms, squeezed them, and planted a kiss on each cheek – first on Laura’s, then on Greg’s.

  “You two kids are going to be great together," he said to them.

  They both thanked him warmly, with an even bigger hug, before moving on to accept individual congratulations from the rest of the room.

  It had taken a few weeks for Laura to settle into the reality of her decision, and the impact it would have on the three of them. When she entered Daniel's house that day last winter, her anger had abated, but she still needed to discuss the situation with the two men inside. They were both shocked and embarrassed when she strode into the parlour, her keys gripped tightly in her fingers. For a moment, Greg said later, he had believed she intended using them as a weapon. To Laura's eyes, the look of horror on both their faces had been almost comical, but she needed to remain stern and resolute.

  She learned that Greg had bumped into Daniel at a party two weeks after he had first met Laura, and a relationship had grown between the two men. Greg was emphatic throughout that he was in love with Laura, and that this would not change. It was an emotion which, for him, had started early, and had developed quickly, unlike with any other woman in his life. Nevertheless, he was equally unable to stop his emerging feelings for her father. They continued to meet each other in the city, at least once a week, usually in a men’s sauna.

  Despite the potentially hurtful nature of these revelations, Laura was convinced that Greg had been honest with her about everything else. After all, they had both agreed to keep silent about all their outside liaisons.

  And, of course, she was naturally secure, as she always had been, in the honesty of her father, the man who had helped raise her.

  The three of them had discussed the situation in detail, and eventually had reached a compromise solution.

  And so, the young couple had married, confident that they would be together for life.

  A few days after the wedding, they began a two-week honeymoon in Hawaii. When they returned, Greg spent six nights of every week in the bed he shared with Laura, as excellent a lover to her as he had ever been. And every Wednesday evening – while Laura hosted Ian or Roger – Greg drove out to the farm in Meath. There, he would spend the night in Daniel’s large mahogany bed, wrapped in the older man’s arms.

  Peter The Hero

  Under the misdirected eyes – one fixed, one moving – of Mrs. Altman, the children in Peadar’s senior class had been rehearsing the show for over three months.

  “Nigel! You need to be scarier!” was the sort of thing she would say. “Let me see your Wolf claws!”

  The old teacher/choreographer sat, rhythmically slapping her left hand off her chubby thigh, as Sergei Prokofiev’s music leapt from the speakers on either side of her legs. Her young troupe of mixed talents cavorted across the floor of the school gym, their tiny shoes squeaking on the rubberized surface, like a chorus of frightened mice. “After all this work,” thought Peadar, the hero of our tale, “their performances should be almost flawless by now.” This, however, was far from the case, at least based on his own highly demanding standards.

  “Come on, Kevin! More energy! You’re a cat, remember!”

  Christmas was coming, and the senior class – as part of Killora’s annual school concert – was just days away from performing Peter And The Wolf before many of the town's residents. Peadar had been cast in the role of Peter, the principal character, the name in the title.

  Of course, he felt it was only fitting that he should play the leading role, and not just because of how highly he perceived his own acting talent. In a remarkable show of prescience on the part of his parents, Peadar had – upon his birth twelve years earlier – been endowed with the character's own name of Peter. His Mum and Dad, however, had chosen to name him in Irish, so it was pronounced “Padder”, like a person who pads. (But, in this show, it was Kevin, the Cat, who was doing the padding. And not very well, at that!) This alternative pronunciation of his name had never bothered him before, not until this role came along. Now that he was Peter, protector of old men and small birds, he had widely requested that everyone call him by his new heroic name. So far, this request had gone unheeded by all.

  Despite this setback, Peadar was itching to burst forth in the guise of the noble Russian peasant boy, his costume’s blue-and-grey simplicity belying the enormity of his Wolf-Conquering status. This was to be his first public performance, in front of his first real audience. Of course, he knew that some among their number would be more discerning than others. There would be the expected mishmash of parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, alongside the doctors, bankers, and businesspeople whom he assumed had a truer appreciation of the Arts. There might even be a talent scout or two. He wasn't sure what size the venue needed to be before such scouts took an interest, but the St. Francis Xavier Hall in Killora could seat almost three hundred, which struck him as rather a lot.

  Peadar had spent the previous months supplementing Mrs. Altman's work all by himself. He practiced his dance moves constantly, whether in his bedroom, in the living room, in the kitchen or, occasionally, in the bathroom. He was more than willing to thrust his gifts upon anyone who happened to be in the house – not just his parents and his two little brothers, but also neighbours and extended family. Whenever anyone chose to drop by for a visit, Peadar always seemed to be in the mood to show off what he could do. He didn’t need to be coaxed, or even asked.

  On these occasions, his mother wore a familiar expression on her face. Glancing sheepishly at her guests, she would sit stiffly forward, her hands clamped under her thighs. There would appear a slight downward turn at the left corner of her thin mouth, as a sort of nervous tension seemed to come over her. Peadar had spotted this expression, but had simply put it down to modesty.

  During the rehearsal period, his father seemed to spend very little time in his son’s presence. It had even become the old man’s habit to receive his visitors in the work shed outside, rather than in the comfort of his own living room. Later in life, Peadar would wonder, “Did I drive him out into the cold, or was it he did that to me?”

  December 19th finally arrived, and the troupe was about to go public. Following a few closing rehearsals in the cavernous gym, the performers were all moved up the road, into the Francis Xavier. Peadar was fully ready, fully confident. He stood in the wings, amid the melée, as calm and confident as
his alter ego – Russian Peter – would later be when called upon to act. His cheeks were covered in rosy make-up, his eyes lined with kohl. He liked this effect. He felt it intensified the pale greyness of his irises.

  Peadar’s class – made up of the oldest pupils in the school – would be the closing act of the night. The concert had started at 7.00, and most of the younger players had already performed their musical numbers and mini-pantos, and gone home to bed.

  All around him was a carnage of confused children, costumes, masks, tinsel, and crêpe. It was almost as chaotic as the Grandfather's back garden would later be, following the onslaught of the Wolf.

  As well as all this childish noise, Peadar’s concentration was equally afflicted by Mrs. Altman’s constant outbursts to the other children. “Stand perfectly still, boy! This head needs to be attached properly, or it'll fall off.” These were her barked instructions to the Wolf, as he struggled into his costume. Little Nigel, his chubby face set in tense anticipation, nervously tilted his chin up as the large, hairy head was lowered onto his sloping shoulders. The creature's slack jaw bobbed whenever Nigel moved, making him look considerably less than lupine. He stumbled around, imprisoned by the Wolf suit, capable of seeing only through a pair of narrow slits in its neck. His curved coat-hanger tail swiped at the legs of the other children. Nigel’s Wolf was truly the villain of the piece but, rather than savage terror, it was irritation he was rousing.

  Nigel’s first victim was to be Brenda, the Old Duck. Her attempts at standing upright in a pair of enormous webbed shoes were not helped by the bustle of bodies rushing around her. The Duck was due to be eaten ten minutes into the show, and Bronagh had, many times, expressed open relief at the thought of her mercifully early exit.

  Jenny the Bird, slender and pretty, would be the epitome of grace, as she always was. Despite the fact that, in the show, Peter and the Bird were good friends, Peadar considered Jenny to be his greatest rival.