by John Halkin
‘Are you sure about the size?’
‘Oh yes. The first one that came into the room was as close as I am to you. And they whistled like bats.’
‘And they weren’t frightened? Some species do that as a sign of fear. It’s the expulsion of air through the proboscis. I think we’d better go into the house and I’ll take some notes. Perhaps you’d care for a cup of tea?’
Sipping her tea, she had to admit her total ignorance of the subject of moths or butterflies or any other insects, but she tried her best to answer his questions. No, unfortunately she hadn’t noticed the antennae; nor had she actually seen any curled-up proboscis.
‘It’s a tube-like tongue used for sucking up nectar out of flowers,’ he explained, taking pity on her. ‘Not all lepidoptera are equipped with one.’
‘D’you have at least some idea what my moths were?’
‘Not native to this country, I imagine. But so many species are imported these days for study, or for zoos, some are bound to escape. Moths of that size are not impossible, specially in very hot countries.’ He thought for a moment, sucking irritatingly at his teeth. ‘This could be very interesting. You saw a swarm of them in your garden, you say? Some could have been laying eggs. You may find caterpillars in the spring.’
‘I never thought of that.’ She grinned shamefacedly. ‘I really don’t know anything, do I?’
‘The moths you saw would include both male and female. They copulate much as we do.’ He paused, then added with a slight laugh: ‘Though I’m afraid that doesn’t apply to me any longer. Too old, more’s the pity!’
‘Never say die!’ she retorted.
He smiled regretfully. ‘Then the female lays her fertilised eggs on some suitable food plant where they’ll have a chance of survival when they hatch out. Of course they have natural enemies. If they hadn’t – most people don’t realise this – a single pair might produce as many as three million caterpillars in one season.’
Ginny was fascinated. ‘Then if they are new to this country –?’
‘In the right circumstances they could soon be as commonplace – and as numerous – as bees. I don’t actually think that will happen, of course. Not in our climate.’ He stood up and shut his notebook. ‘Now let me show you where I breed.’
He took her into what had once been the vicarage dining room, but was now, he said, his ‘work station’. It contained a laboratory bench with a microscope and other items of equipment, together with three Victorian-looking cabinets whose tray-like drawers were filled with carefully classified specimens. On rough shelving along one wall were several rows of transparent plastic cylinders containing varying types of vegetation: his ‘cages’, he explained, in which he was breeding caterpillars which would eventually become moths.
‘Best way to study them,’ he commented, holding one up for her to see the little brown larvae inside. ‘You know, my dear, when I was first appointed to a country living, I thought – what luck! I saw myself as a famous naturalist like Gilbert White of Selborne. Instead, here I am, a moth-eaten lepidopterist. Of course I’ve parish duties, but not onerous. More funerals than christenings these days. The souls in these parts are so set in their ways, they’ll go straight to heaven or the other place regardless of what I say.’
‘How can I find out more about my moths?’ Ginny interrupted his musings. ‘If I want to write a script about them, for instance?’
‘Tell you what – I’ll set a trap tonight, just in case there are any more about.’
‘A trap?’
‘Yes, a mercury vapour trap. The night is full of insects, far more than we imagine. The mercury vapour lamp attracts them and they get caught in the trap. Specially moths. You’ll see in the morning.’
‘So if I come back tomorrow?’
‘First thing. I’ll be waiting for you.’ He went with her to her car, then gently put a hand on her arm as if trying to tell her something. ‘Stay the night if you can’t face the drive. Plenty of room.’
‘That’s very sweet of you, but I have to get back.’ The randy old goat, she thought as she put the key in the ignition. But then she looked up and caught the look of haunted loneliness on his face. ‘See you in the morning!’ she called out.
In the morning she telephoned from the call box instead of driving back there, telling him – a white lie – that she had some trouble with her car. Any news about her moths? As she half-expected, he explained that the haul was excellent – one of the most varied yet, not merely Broad-Bordered Yellow Underwing as was so often the case recently – but unfortunately they had caught none of her beautiful, ethereal giants. Perhaps she could drop by again when her car had been fixed? She’d be welcome any time.
The warm weather gave way to long bouts of cold rain and high gales which brought down the leaves in a rush and made the country lanes treacherous to drive along. Ginny found it oddly exhilarating after all the tensions of her old life in London. At last she felt truly free of it all!
Of course sooner or later she would get back into television, that was obvious. She began to work on an idea, something that would get the companies excited. City girl goes to live in country cottage previously occupied by old woman with supernatural powers – pact between them – girl returns to London now able to influence events to her own advantage…
Ginny cleared the oil lamp from her round table, took some A4 typing paper and sat down to scribble her random thoughts. She had written one sentence, crossed it out, and was starting again when she heard a car drawing up outside.
She went to the door, expecting to find Lesley; to her surprise, it was a mud-spattered Rover 3500 in front of the cottage. Bernie’s car. He hurried the few steps through the pouring rain to the shelter of her porch.
‘Hoping I’d find you in. Not disturbing you, am I?’
‘Come in,’ she invited, not unwillingly.
Bernie had changed since the days when Lesley had brazenly introduced him to all their relations as the putative father of her unborn child, declaring that they had not yet decided whether to marry or not: before making up their minds they intended to inspect each other’s families. At that time he’d been a tall, gauche, slightly bewildered student dressed, typically, in faded jeans, sweater and CND badge. Now he was crisply-spoken, with sympathetic blue eyes and a doctor-patient manner to inspire confidence. With the years, plus Lesley’s cooking, he’d filled out a little too, and his face was weather-tanned from the regular weekends and holidays he and the family spent sailing at Chichester. The jeans now appeared only for gardening or tinkering with the car; his normal dress when calling on patients was a light tweed suit.
‘You’ve certainly altered this place!’ he commented approvingly, glancing around her living room. ‘Mrs Beerston would never recognise it.’
‘D’you think she’d approve?’
‘Oh, I think so. She had a very young mind in that poor old body of hers. She hated old age, you know.’ His eyes fell on the sheets of A4 and the felt-tip. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. You’re working.’
‘You’re welcome any time, Bernie.’
‘I really wanted a word about your moths. How are you getting on with identifying them?’
‘Well, I went to see the Reverend Davidson, then Lesley brought me these two books which I’m working through. No luck yet though. But she said she’d try to get hold of something more comprehensive if there is such a thing.’
‘I said nothing when you came to lunch on Sunday, but I’ve a patient in Lingford Hospital who claims she was attacked by giant moths. About the same time you saw them.’
‘D’you mean they stung her, or what?’
‘It may be just in her mind, you understand. History of depression and quite a heavy drinker. She was found unconscious on the road. Fractured leg, bruises, ribs damaged. If you could have a talk with her it might help.’
‘Are you sure she wasn’t knocked down by a car?’
‘The bike wasn’t damaged. We think she simply lost her balance. Th
ere was some roadwork going on and she fell awkwardly across a pile of kerbstones with one leg twisted through the frame. Must have been lying there in the dark for an hour before they found her.’
‘Naturally I’ll talk to her if you think it’ll do any good,’ Ginny said doubtfully.
‘Shall we say four o’clock at the hospital?’ He got up, glancing at his watch. ‘Ask for me at Reception. And don’t look so nervous! I think your visit will cheer her up.’
At the door he kissed her on the side of the mouth and said he was grateful she’d agreed to help. Was he merely trying to involve her in good works, she wondered. Well, she’d soon put a stop to that. She waited as he made a dash for his car, then waved and closed the door, glad to shut the weather out.
By afternoon the rain had blown over, leaving sodden roads. Diversion signs indicated that her usual route was closed because of flooding; as a result, she arrived in Lingford late.
The hospital consisted of a network of one-storey wards radiating like spokes from an elegant country house which accommodated the administration and outpatient departments. Ginny parked at the side on the patch marked ‘Doctors Only’ and went in. Bernie was waiting in the entrance hall, talking to a white-coated young man whom he introduced as Dr Sanderson.
‘Afraid I have to rush, Ginny, but Dr Sanderson will look after you,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop by the cottage later.’
Dr Sanderson had that sanitised look about him, familiar from American TV hospital series. He wore his white coat buttoned high at the neck, plus frameless glasses. Ginny disliked him immediately. He said very little to her, but walked slightly ahead as he guided her through the maze of corridors linking the wards; though he did suggest she should not raise the subject of moths herself, but wait for Mrs Kinley to bring it up. It was obvious he thought her some sort of mental case. Or lying.
When they reached the ward, she was not in the main room where a lively conversation was going on, but by herself in one of the alcoves near the entrance.
‘You’ve a visitor, Mrs Kinley!’ he announced from the foot of the bed. ‘Someone to see you. All right now?’
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and departed, leaving Ginny face to face with the patient. She was a woman in her late fifties with greying hair which had once been black, and dark, scowling eyes. Her right leg – in plaster – was held up two or three feet above the bed by means of a sling around her ankle.
‘Who are you? From the Welfare?’
‘No.’ Ginny fetched herself a chair.
‘They said to expect someone from the Welfare.’
‘My name’s Ginny,’ she explained, sitting down. ‘Dr Rendell asked me to drop by. He’s my brother-in-law.’
‘He’s a gentleman, is Dr Rendell,’ the woman said. ‘Listens to you, he does. He’s what I call a real doctor, not like that bugger who brought you here, with his fancy glasses and his silly coat. I told the nurse, he’s a gelding if I ever saw one. Know what I mean? Doctor?’ Her voice spat scorn. ‘He’s the one who’s been doctored, ask me.’
‘D’you like grapes?’ Ginny fished in her shopping bag. She’d felt she ought to bring something. ‘Got ’em cheap at the supermarket. I suppose we ought to wash ’em first. Should I ask the nurse?’
‘I’d leave her. She’s having her tea.’
‘Okay. Have some.’
‘It’s all clean dirt, innit?’ She separated a couple from their stalks and put them in her mouth. They were large, purple, and bursting with juice which spurted on to her nightie as she bit into them. ‘Years since I last tasted grapes. Seems you’ve gotta come in here before anyone gives you grapes. Did Dr Rendell explain what happened to me? You wouldn’t credit it.’
‘He said you’d had an accident on your bike,’ Ginny answered cautiously, taking another grape for herself.
‘An accident? This was no bloody accident. It was deliberate, I can swear to that. I was riding me bike, not doing any harm to anyone, when all of a sudden they just come at me.’
‘Who did?’
‘Bloody moths.’
‘Moths? You’re sure?’
‘Big bastards, like I’ve never seen before, and I’ve lived all my life in these parts. Thought they was bats at first, but I know bats. These was moths all right. Vicious buggers.’
‘What kind of sound did they make?’
‘What d’you mean – sound?’ Mrs Kinley stopped chewing and stared at Ginny suspiciously. ‘Why have you come here?’
‘I told you, Dr Rendell asked me to drop in,’ Ginny repeated calmly. ‘So what kind of sound did they make? Why did you think they were bats?’
‘That squeaking noise. And if you want to know, they was attacking me – in me hair, flying into me face, me eyes, everywhere. I was on the bike, you see, trying to keep me balance, but I got into such a tizzy with these things, over I went. Which is why I’m in here, innit?’
She stopped and eyed Ginny cunningly. ‘Didn’t tell them nothin’. Not about the squeakin’.’
‘The doctors?’
‘Them bloody doctors. That gelding thinks I’m mental. I heard him. It’s all fantasy in her head, he said. From the drink.’ Unexpectedly the tears began to roll down her strained cheeks. ‘I dunno. Sometimes I saw them moths, sometimes I think I’m making it up. Maybe I really am going off me rocker, then they’ll keep me locked up, won’t they? That’s what they do, you know, to the likes o’ me.’
‘I’m going to talk to Dr Rendell, so don’t you worry,’ Ginny stated firmly. ‘You did see the moths.’
‘You’re just saying that.’
‘Oh, I don’t accept that they attacked you, but you certainly saw them.’ Briefly, Ginny tried to describe her own experience of them on that first evening, stressing how beautiful they were, and how gentle. ‘So you understand, I saw them too. They do exist. When you rode into them in the dark like that, they were probably just as frightened as you were.’
‘They didn’t have a go at you though, did they?’ Mrs Kinley sniffed. She groped under her pillow and produced a grubby handkerchief with which she dried her eyes. ‘Them moths is bloody vicious, so you watch out for ’em. Watch yourself.’
‘I’ll tell the doctor they’re real anyway, not just in your head.’
‘They’ll be back, young miss. You mark my words.’
Somehow she seemed to have offended the woman rather than reassured her, Ginny thought. She stood up and returned her chair to its allotted place by the wall. Then she paused at the bedside, feeling dissatisfied.
‘Can I come again?’ she asked.
‘You’ve better things to do than waste your time with me.’ Mrs Kinley’s dark eyes were suddenly alive with mockery. There was no trace of self-pity. ‘You’ve done your bit o’ charity. I’m not saying I’m not grateful.’
‘I’d like to bring a friend.’ She was thinking of Jack. ‘He had a similar experience to yours.’
‘You’d be more welcome if you brought a half-bottle of gin. You’ve got nothing to drink in your shopping bag, have you?’
‘Only a carton of milk. Sorry. I should have thought.’
‘You just make sure Dr Rendell gets me out of here, that’s all I ask. Away from that bloody gelding. It turns my stomach to have him near me.’
Ginny laughed. ‘Is he really that bad?’
‘Oh, I know I’m not much to look at these days, but when I was younger, he’d never have got near me for the crush, doctor or no doctor. So now you know.’
Ginny found her own way back to the main building. She sought out Dr Sanderson in his office but ignored his invitation to sit down. There was nothing to report really, she informed him coldly. His patient had ridden into a swarm of moths, panicked and fallen off her bike. Why did he think she was making it up?
‘Those moths actually exist? That size? In the tropics perhaps – but here?’
‘They match the ones I saw, so they obviously do exist. She was frightened, don’t you understand? Anyway, I must be off now. Y
ou’re the doctor, so you sort her out.’
Outside, it was raining again.
She had genuinely intended to pay Mrs Kinley a second visit, but what with one thing and another she never got round to it.
Jack, when she rang him from the call box in the village, turned out to be on the point of flying to Spain for a fortnight’s filming. Needed the money, he said cheerfully, after that massive penalty he’d had to pay for damaging the van. What about joining him for a few days on the sunny Costa del Sol? No? Well, he’d be in touch when he got back. Missed her though, he added.
When she mentioned it to Bernie, he didn’t think Mrs Kinley really expected to see her again. In his view, that one brief chat had amply served its purpose in restoring her self-confidence. Dr Sanderson, he implied – though he voiced no open criticism – had got her into such a state that she’d no longer felt sure whether what she remembered was dream or reality. And not only about the moths, either.
But if Ginny really wanted to go back, he suggested, there was no reason why she shouldn’t.
Before she could make up her mind, the man came to rewire the cottage. For the best part of a week she had to endure stale cigarette smoke, non-stop music from his cheap, tinny radio, and several clumsy attempts to chat her up. She was tied to the place, for she was certainly not going to leave him there on his own to poke around among her belongings. She tried to work, but ended up throwing away most of what she’d written on the witchcraft idea. The electrician’s undisguised curiosity irritated her.
But at last he finished and power was connected. She celebrated by opening every door and window to give the rooms a thorough airing, then drove into Lingford where she bought a trendy cream-coloured television and ordered some storage heaters. The telephone would take longer, they informed her when she called in to ask why nothing had happened yet. Six months at least, they estimated.
It rained most of the winter, though it was never really cold. She found herself beginning to long for the sun. And, of course, for a decent bathroom. She had to go to Lesley’s for a proper bath, which she was forced to share with the assortment of plastic ducks, fishes, submarines and other flotsam belonging to her three nieces. The only alternative was to strip off and wash in her own tiny lean-to kitchen.