Read by Paul Clarke
It was my first night at the new house, and I couldn’t sleep. I thought moving from the city to the countryside would make things easier, but I was wrong. Gone was the strangely soothing hum of tyres on tarmac, and the low grumble of underground trains, replaced by a thick silence, pierced irregularly by the hooting and growling of unseen birds and beasts.
The next day, I went round to introduce myself. She opened the door and smiled as though she had been expecting me, before inviting me inside.
Her name was Judith. Her hair was greying, but she didn’t seem very old; a few years more senior than myself, perhaps. I told her how I’d quit my job in the city, taken early retirement, and come to live in the countryside for the first time.
“Why did you decide to move?” she asked.
I hesitated, the words catching in my throat. “My wife passed away,” I said.
She closed her eyes for a moment, as though showing respect. Then she poured the tea.
When the teapot was empty I thanked her for her hospitality. Just as I was stepping out of the door, she spoke again. “I saw you last night, didn’t I?
My mouth was open, but I couldn’t bring forth any words.
“Were you having trouble sleeping?”
I nodded.
“Well, I hope you sleep better tonight.”
I didn’t. Over the course of days, and then weeks, I settled into a strange semi-nocturnal existence, spending my nights staring at the ceiling, gazing at the world out of the window, or reading by candle light. Some mornings I lay in bed watching the sun rise, without knowing whether I’d slept at all.
A month after I first moved in, I saw Judith again in the middle of the night, walking towards the pond. This time I crept outside to watch, moving slowly along the hedge that separated our two gardens. I poked my head over the top, trying to catch a glimpse.
Without turning, she spoke. “You can come and join me over here, if you’d like.”
I could hardly refuse. With a distinct lack of grace, I mounted the hedge and dropped down the other side, snagging my dressing gown on some foliage.
Above us, the moon glowed. It left a disc of light stretched out on the pond.
Judith was silent. She held an instrument in her hand, like a wide palette knife, and she dipped it into the water, just at the edge of the moon’s reflection. With great concentration she pushed and pulled, peeling the reflection off the water. When she was done, she held the glowing disc above the pond, water sliding off its luminescent surface. Finally she turned to me. “Cup of tea?”
We entered her kitchen, and she asked if I wouldn’t mind putting the kettle on. She had an old-fashioned gas hob, and I had to scramble around for a while trying to find the matches.
When I looked at her again she was stretching the moonpeel in her hands, spinning it in the air like a pizza thrower from Naples. When it was stretched to its limit, she folded the circle in on itself, and then began to stretch it again.
“It’s better if you work it a little,” she said.
After a few rounds of stretching and folding, she laid it down on the kitchen table. She took out a knife, sliced a strip off the disc, and moulded it into a cylinder. I watched, mouth agape, as she jammed the piece into a candleholder. I passed the matches over. As soon as she lit it the whole room was engulfed in a brilliant light, before settling down into a steady glow.
I passed her a cup of tea but she ignored it for the time being, consumed by her task. She carved the moonpeel, slicing it into blocks and shapes of various sizes, arranging them in containers. One piece she placed into a mortar. She sprinkled it with salt and bashed it into a paste with the pestle. “It’s lovely on toast,” she said.
I picked up the tool she’d used in the garden. It was perfectly smooth.
“My husband made that,” she said. “We used to do it together, every full moon.” She picked up a piece of the moonpeel. “Do you want to take some back with you?”
“Oh, I’m not sure I’d know what to do with it.”
She took hold of my hand, pushed the moonpeel into my palm, and closed my fingers over it.
I thanked her, and sipped my tea.
By the time she had finished her work, the sun was just beginning to rise.
“We could do this again,” Judith said. “I mean next month, if you’d like.”
I smiled. “I’d like that.”
As I was walking out of the door I stopped. I turned around. “Actually,” I said. “What have you got planned for tomorrow?”
“Oh, you know, nothing much.”
“Would you like to come over in the afternoon? For tea, I mean.”
She paused for a moment before answering. “I’d like that.”
I went back to bed and slept until noon. I think I even dreamed.
(c) Anton Rose, 2015
Anton Rose lives in Durham with his wife and their dog. He writes fiction and poetry, and his work has appeared in a number of print and online journals. Find him at antonrose.com or @antonjrose
Paul Clarke (left) trained at the Central School and generally ends up playing bad guys or monsters. As a photographer, and occasional performer, he now tells stories of one sort or another pretty much all of the time.
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