The Moon Is Out Tonight Read online

The Moon Is Out Tonight

   

  Paul Whybrow

   

   

  Copyright 2013 Paul Whybrow

   

   

  Published by Paul Whybrow

  (Originally written and published under the pen-name

  Augustus Devilheart)

   

   

  Cover Art: mabaxter at deviantART

   

   

  The Moon Is Out Tonight

   

   

  License Notes

   

   

   

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

  or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

  please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did

  not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and

  purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

   

  The Moon Is Out Tonight

   

   

  Disclaimer

   

   

  This book is a work of fiction. While some of the place names are real, characters are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

   

  This story contains scenes of game-bird poaching, so is not suitable for those younger than 16.

   

   

  The Moon Is Out Tonight

   

   

  Dedicated to those we haven't met yet.

   

  A Face in The Crowd

   

  'Before all of this ever went down

  In another place, another town

  You were just a face in the crowd

  You were just a face in the crowd

  Out in the street walking around

  A face in the crowd

  Out of a dream, out of the sky

  Into my heart, into my life

  And you were just a face in the crowd

  You were just a face in the crowd

  Out in the street, thinking out loud

  A face in the crowd

  Out of a dream, out of the sky

  Into my heart, into my life

  And you were just a face in the crowd

  You were just a face in the crowd

  Out in the street, walking around

  A face in the crowd

  Face in the crowd

  A face in the crowd

  A face in the crowd'

  Songwriters

  Jeff Lynne/Tom Petty

  From the album 'Full Moon Fever' by Tom Petty

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_umeMtV4QU

  Contents

  Chapter 1—Home Again

  Chapter 2—Needs Must

  Chapter 3—New Morning

  The End

  About The Author

  Also by Paul Whybrow

  Novellas

  Short Stories

  Song Lyrics

  Poetry

  Novels 

  Connect with the author

   

  The Moon Is Out Tonight

  Paul Whybrow

   

  Chapter 1—Home Again

   

  Clarissa draped her car-keys into a Murano glass trinket-tray on the coffee-table. The motto on the key-fob mocked her for the umpteenth time:

  'Life without love is nothing, Moon Maiden'

  Wasn't that the truth? Another lonely weekend to get through. There were so many things that she should do, but she knew that few would be accomplished. One of her mother's favourite pieces of advice was 'to make sure that you do something each and every day that you don't want to do, as it probably really needs doing.' But her mother said a lot of things—she was a talking compendium of old-wives' tales, superstitions and handy-tips. She was the reason that Clarissa no longer kept her car-keys on the hall-table—to prevent thieves from snagging them with a fishing-rod through the letter-box.

  Clarissa sank onto the sofa and looked around, listening to the house. Nothing—apart from a muffled whoosh from the central-heating boiler, followed by a quiet ticking as the radiators responded to their task-master. Outside a jackdaw was 'chacking' in an enquiring tone, while a pheasant clattered away in alarm emitting a raucous creak. Well, she wanted the peace of country-living, so what did she expect?

  Where was her daft cat Monty? Somewhere warm, of course. That was the thing with cats, they didn't come running to welcome you home like dogs—unless they were hungry, of course. And that was unlikely with Monty, who was enjoying being out in the sticks to hone his hunting-skills. Clarissa hoped that there wasn't another dead mouse offering on the kitchen-floor.

  Get up, Clarissa—at least the cat was having fun. If she sat here any longer she'd drop-off. It had been a busy week in the shop, and she'd been obliged to do the change-over at her holiday-letting cottage this evening, as her cleaner was nursing a broken ankle. What was Mary doing skate-boarding at 50 anyway? What was she doing moaning about a real sweetheart, who was ten years older than her and simply enjoying life? She should take up something, anything, to fill the time. How did she get to be this old and so alone?

  Monty was asleep in the middle of her bed—the only male who'd been there since she moved to Manor Lodge a year ago. He rolled over onto his back, with a gentle throaty chirrup of greeting inviting her to caress his stomach. She was definitely coming back as a cat in her next lifetime. He was absolutely shameless. She hadn't found any dead animal gifts, as yet, but that didn't mean anything, for Monty sometimes brought her live rodents and birds. The worst was an immature starling, which she found exhausted and panting on the sitting-room curtain-rail when she got home one day—the room was copiously splattered with guano. Monty was asleep in the airing-cupboard, his tummy full of Brekkies. She caught the poor bird in a tea-towel and released it back into the wild.

  Clarissa took a shower in her wet room, enjoying the invigorating blasts from the pulsating massage jets and finishing off with some gentle mist. Her luxury bathroom matched the quality of the kitchen. Her bedroom and sitting-room were comfortable, but she was happiest in the rooms with tiles on the walls. What would a psychologist make of that, she wondered?

  Monty was gone—probably downstairs, waiting for her to open a sachet of cat-food. It was true what they said, or rather what her mother said: 'Dogs have masters. Cats have slaves.'

  She worried that she was turning into her mum whose home was full of tapestry-samplers with mottoes on, sentimental T-towels, embroidered cushions, cute figurines and stuffed toys. It was undoubtedly the pervasive influence of her upbringing which led her into retail, for her shop 'Something Special' specialised in cute knick-knacks for the house—mug-holders with painted flower motifs, brass labels for the vegetable-patch, scented candles and cuckoo-clocks from which popped a variety of species, including seagulls. She liked to think that they were more tasteful than her mother's choices, but all the same Clarissa steadfastly refused to have any of her own stock at home.

  The keyring fob was a chance find in a charity-shop. The Moon Maiden name on it jumped out at her and the message was so appropriate. She was 'Moon Maiden' on a computer-dating site she joined six months ago. She was fascinated by the Moon, and its effect on the world and her moods. Her last lover, Joseph, reckoned that she was part werewolf, so fierce did she become at full-moon. She feared it was more likely to be early signs of the menopause. Great, there went the last chanc
e of ever having a baby. She still wasn't sure that she wanted to be a mother herself, but it would be nice to still have the choice. No point fretting over what you can't change. Clarissa wrapped herself in a thick towelling robe, which was the closest that she would come to receiving a hug any time soon, fluffed-up her shaggy brunette hair to help it air-dry and bounced down the stairs.

  The field marshal was waiting for her next to his bowl, and went into a blatant display of affectionate coercion rubbing his body against her legs. Clarissa bent and picked all twenty-five pounds of Monty up to go through their evening ritual of him choosing what flavour of cat-food he wanted from the cupboard. She felt a bit nutty doing this, but her cat enjoyed the build-up in anticipation, shivering in her arms as she showed him one sachet after the other.

  She'd told Mary about this routine, making a joke of how Monty could read the labels, but let himself down by moving his lips—though she wasn't sure that her cleaner understood the humour, and she gave her a look as if she thought her employer needed to get out more. Mary was owned by several cats herself, an assorted clowder who came and went as they pleased. She frequently needed to find homes for the kindles of kittens that she found around her smallholding. Clarissa resisted these little mites—she was already turning into a crazy cat-lady as it was, and didn't need to confirm the image.

  Monty was a pedigree Maine Coon, but his beautiful odd-coloured eyes, one green, the other gold, made him unsuitable for competition. His Maine Coon Cat Club registered name of Montmorency Montefiore of Monte-Cristo gave him an illusion of grandeur that was at odds with his ragamuffin character. 'Monty' was a better summation of his true nature, for Clarissa reckoned he was a bit of a wide-boy, a rough-diamond who would have been a raffish card-sharp and pool-hustler in human form. He'd have been a real ladies man as well, but that wasn't going to happen in feline form, for she'd had him 'done'. When Clarissa took Monty to the animal welfare clinic for the operation, she'd been forced to bite her tongue as she'd almost asked the vet if he could do a job-lot and sterilise her too, so dead was her sex-life.

  Joseph moved to New York two years ago, through promotion within his auction-house. She was happy for him, as there was no chance of betterment in the small rural office. Perhaps the enforced separation was timely, for though neither of them wanted to admit it, their relationship felt like a marking-time arrangement of convenience. Joseph was divorced and rebuilding his life after losing the marital home to his ex-wife. He rarely saw his adult children, and was wary of making any commitments in relationships.

  Clarissa felt distinctly broody at times, especially when young mothers came into her shop with their babies. She knew that Joseph wasn't interested in further fatherhood, so felt doubly frustrated. She visited him in New York, a few months after he'd left, but it wasn't the same, and from the way that he frequently mentioned the name of a female colleague she could sense that he was moving on from her.

  Her romantic history could well be described as chequered. After seeing the struggles that her mother went through in bringing her up as a single parent Clarissa was wary of repeating the experience. She knew that such patterns happened within families—her granny raised her brood including mum, on her own after grandfather was killed in an air-raid on the docks by a German bomber. No one could have predicted that, but Clarissa was becoming more doom-laden with age and didn't want to become another family member who was the sole provider for the next generation.

  It wasn't out of any sense of shame that she felt this way, but more a stubborn determination to continue to follow her own path through life. Clarissa thought that living involved trying to achieve an acceptable balance between accomplishments and sacrifices. She knew that she'd been successful in some ways, and wished that she appreciated it more, for the shadows of what she'd given up grew large sometimes. It wasn't that she expected happiness as a right, but she realised one day that she'd settled on a default mode of seeking ways of not being unhappy, which was a sad compromise.

  Filling her spare-time with rambling-club walks, gallery-showings, edifying trips to local museums and yoga classes were all part of her schedule—things that she did to get through life, and which were supposedly good for her, but which she didn't really enjoy a huge amount. After attending a local gallery-opening one night Clarissa walked alone through town. She popped into a couple of pubs, and even drifted into an open house where a party was taking place, animated groups of revellers chatting around her. It was as if she was invisible, unworthy of being noticed. Was it her age? Or was her air of loneliness becoming a palpable shield which forced people away from her?

  Clarissa visited her doctor, who was surprised to see her as it was several years since her previous visit. Tests for the early onset of menopause, which her mother went through, were inconclusive. Feeling pathetic, Clarissa described her melancholy to the doctor and accepted a low-dose SSRI anti-depressant prescription. Unused to taking any medication at all, apart from her contraception pill, Clarissa felt like she was inhabiting a six feet thick ball of cotton-wool on Seroxat.

  She wasn't feeling so down about life, but she wasn't feeling anything anymore, and was wandering through life like a zombie. After almost being run over when she stepped off a pavement without a care, she decided to stop taking the capsules. She tapered-off their use until she was back to normal—which felt like returning to a familiar dreary landscape after being lost at sea in a fog on a rudderless ship.

  A local painter, who she liked and respected, listened with empathy to Clarissa's woes. She experienced similar unease in mid-life, after divorce and children leaving home, but found salvation in taking up painting again, something she'd abandoned on getting married. The artist recommended learning something new as a cure for the blues, or at least taking a back-to-the-future leap, like her, by reviving old interests that Clarissa once found stimulating.

  Thinking back to her solitary childhood, Clarissa remembered the stories that she used to write. With a wry smile she recalled that she'd attempted to compile her own dictionary at the age of eight, She'd given up at the letter 'D', amazed at how many words there were in the world. She almost took English at university, but mindful of employment opportunities for graduates did a business and marketing degree instead.

  Her interest in writing remained though, and she read more than anyone that she knew. She'd always been this way, through the influence of her mother who saw the library as a temple of learning, and who never quibbled at spending hard-won cash on used books in charity-shops and car-boot sales. Her mum insisted that Clarissa write a short book-report for each story she read, which she examined and discussed with her daughter.

  Clarissa started to jot down ideas for stories, carrying a small note-book with her at work, as well as recording plots in a file when she was online using the shop-computer. She started to feel like she wasn't really there all of the time, as her mind strayed into a story that she was mentally composing. She'd always been observant about people, and could readily summon up anecdotes, jokes and sayings to entertain friends, so it would be shame to waste this talent. But it paid to be circumspect while eavesdropping on conversations in the shop, for customers gave her strange looks when she appeared to be recording what they'd just been saying.

  Her early attempts at writing were, as literary critics always said, largely autobiographical. But what the devil were you supposed to write about other than what you knew? It wasn't as if she could speak in the voice of a 19th-century Indian dish-wallah. Ooh, that gave her an idea for a story—better make a note of it somewhere.

  Clarissa's painter-friend Jodie was a willing and helpful early reader of her short-stories. Emboldened by her encouragement, Clarissa emailed a few pieces to friends, including Joseph. He took a while to respond, though his reaction was warm and positive when it came—he was getting married next spring, so had obviously been busy. Obviously, Clarissa thought, as she returned to the companionship of her keyboard.

  To her amusement, her mothe
r presented her with some of her old school essay-books, as well as her naïve dictionary, all of which she'd kept in a box in the loft. Clarissa couldn't remember writing any of these happy tales, though one rendering of a nightmare made her shudder for it was about a repetitive dream she'd experienced several times in her adult-life. In it, vast Stonehenge columns of granite toppled like dominoes against each other, falling eventually on a little girl-child who was picking a blue flower. The nightmare always ended before the girl was crushed, though the look of fear on her face was heart-wrenching.

  Clarissa wasn't sure what this apocalyptic scene was meant to signify. She'd played with dominoes as a child in such a way, but didn't visit the actual ancient monument until two years ago, while driving back from Heathrow. She couldn't remember ever being smacked when little, but the way that the stones in the dream loomed over the girl made her think of being in the shadow of some malevolent adult.

  Clarissa's father went missing when she was six, after 'popping out for some cigarettes.' They couldn't trace him, despite many searches over the years. The essay dated from a few months after his disappearance, and the last time that she recalled having the nightmare was when Joseph left for America. Perhaps it was simply a nocturnal admission that some things were beyond our control to alter. Life crushes us all sooner or later.

  Clarissa saw that she gave up on her dictionary definitions at the word 'Death', which would be enough to stump most youngsters. All of the loopy writing was in lead-pencil, and she was surprised to see that there were many drawings of a large furry cat, including one that was inserted into a nativity-scene. She couldn't remember them having a cat, just a few budgerigars and goldfish, and when she asked her mum about this it turned out that she'd always wanted one, and used the drawings as a means of pestering her. Though, as her mum archly said, she'd got what she wanted eventually hadn't she? She always did.

  Clarissa's first volume of short-stories, 'Looking Under Stones' was self-published online for sale to users of e-book readers. It sold respectably, partly due to competitive pricing and some attractive illustrations, including the book-cover, made by Jodie. She found the adversely critical comments left by some buyers to be wantonly cruel, but knew that some of this was down to manipulative sniping by rivals, as well as the nasty cowardice of internet trolls.

  As for any praise, Clarissa thought that they must be talking about someone else. Mind you, it wasn't as if we were ever in a position to be publicly criticised normally. Customers often said things like 'You've got a lovely shop here'. But when did the reticent British ever offer praise, unless it was something anodyne about your hairdo or a pretty brooch that you'd worn a hundred times, but which they'd only just noticed.

  'Engravings On The Heart', her first novel was positively-reviewed and sold well enough to provide funds for an extension on the holiday-letting cottage. She wanted to turn this story into a film-script, but wasn't sure how to adapt it as yet, so had signed-up for an online course, as well as registering for an intensive three-day tutorial at the next Hay-on-Wye festival.

  Keen to keep the impetus going, and under pressure from her new publisher, who had released her novel in paperback format, she put together a hodgepodge of short stories titled 'Crumbs From The Bread-Bin'. It was early days yet for sales of this volume, but things looked OK. Clarissa was starting to feel a bit stale in her writing, and feared becoming repetitive.

  One stimulating development, which came via a surprising discovery about her mother, was the release of 'Engravings on the Heart' as a talking-book. Clarissa was rather hurt by her mother's guarded response to her writing, as she avoided chatting about the story lines. Her mum used the excuse that she was too busy to read—but Clarissa knew that she wasn't. Or that she needed new glasses, though Clarissa didn't think that this was so. Eventually, she made a recording of the novel onto a Sony Walkman, and presented it to her mum to “listen to in bed”. This present brought a delighted response and a stumbling admission from her mum that she'd never been able to read properly.

  She was largely illiterate, for schooling was interrupted by the war and losing her father meant that she started work at a young age. Clarissa was stunned at how well her mother concealed her difficulties, thinking back to the book-reports that she insisted her daughter write and which she offered comment on. She realised that she'd got away with it by talking around the topic, while offering valuable support to her studiously eager daughter. All of the kitschy accoutrements with their corny messages that decorated her home were something of a bluff too, though mum could recognise many of the basic word-shapes.

  Prompted by this revelation, Clarissa nagged her publisher into getting a talking-book version of her novel released. This was narrated by a well-known comedy-actress who owned a second-home near to Clarissa's gift-shop, who she approached about the project. Sales of this were going extremely well, so much so that Clarissa wondered at the illiteracy-levels of the public. But she knew that many folk went around now wired-for-sound, constantly listening to something-or-other, and some people preferred literature to music when they were driving.

  It helped her too, in being able to hear her words spoken in another voice, as a piece of entertainment. New meanings came through, depending on the inflection and rhythm of the narrator's voice, which were sometimes surprising. Writing anything was a job of work, and though Clarissa delighted in the creative process, she wasn't always sure what she was making while she was making it, and how it would be perceived. In this, she knew it was like anything, for people had different tastes as well as varying takes on something.

  She never aimed anything at a particular demographic, but, if pushed would think that her stories would appeal to women of a 'certain-age', who related to the experiences of the characters in her stories. But what did she know? She'd seen a twenty-something male biker reading 'Crumbs From The Bread-Bin' as he sat on his motorcycle seat, overlooking the harbour, his fish-and-chip supper resting on the petrol-tank in front of him.

  Buying Manor Lodge was a conscious decision to separate herself from the past and from work. She loved living in town, for it was a bustling port with a college community and a strong artistic and literary colony, but this was part of the problem for her writing—there were too many distractions. Also, living in the flat above the shop meant that she never really left work, and always felt like she was on-call. She employed three staff, a manager and two part-time shop-assistants, so didn't need to be there all of the time. She still saw Joseph everywhere that she walked in town, but the sensation was passing.

  A short ride across the river on the passenger-ferry, and a ten-minute drive to the far side of the village and she was home. No one to disturb her, except for Monty. And here she was on a Friday night still standing in her kitchen in her pink towelling-robe, her bottom resting on the cutlery-drawer and staring at an empty cat-food bowl. Monty clattered through the cat-flap ten minutes ago—what was she doing ruminating on her life like some sad lonely old cow munching on a hedge? Make something to eat and get on with things, Clarissa—you're only middle-aged once—she hoped….

  Preparing a salad to accompany some fresh pilchards, bought at the quayside, Clarissa pondered what she could write about next. She thought of titles without difficulty, and could have made a living coming up with catchy song-titles in Motown or Nashville, while her store-cupboard for short-story ideas was crammed. But she wanted to create something different to what she'd done before, something big, that made comment on contemporary society.

  Things had changed so much in recent years, with the collapse of the economy. The rich were still prosperous, and many were wealthier than ever, while the poor were even more put-upon and hopeless. Clarissa saw an increasing number of homeless people around town, and two corpses were found last winter in the old bus-depot—rough-sleepers who succumbed to hypothermia. This shouldn't be happening in the 21st century.

  Clarissa knew that she was comfortably-off, and coming from poverty she counted he
r blessings every day. That hard work brought her success was irrefutable. She'd always worked, but didn't think that made her more virtuous than others. And there needed to be jobs going, or sufficient prosperity for the self-employed to make a living for people to work. Learning her trade in the prosperous eighties, Clarissa made a few mistakes, but was resilient enough to not give up. Seeing the way that computer-use was rocketing at the beginning of the new millennium, she used her marketing-skills to assist start-up businesses sell their wares online.

  Offered the chance of buying the bankrupt stock of a fancy-goods retailer, Clarissa opened a shop in her home-town. Online sales accounted for 60% of her business, but she believed in the personal touch and could see that the quayside area of town was due for a revamp, going upmarket to draw the tourists in, as commercial use of the docks declined. Clarissa bought and converted an old harbour-side tobacconists into a holiday-letting property. She did much of the work herself, with the assistance of her mother, who proved to be a dab hand with wood-working tools, paint-brushes and a sewing-machine—mend and make-do having always been the way for her.

  She was blessed with so much. She was in good-health and well-respected, but she knew that people saw what they wanted to see. Most probably thought that she came from money and needed for nothing. Her name helped that misconception—in that, her mother made a shrewd choice. Calling her daughter 'Clarissa' was a deliberate attempt to raise her status with a classy forename, that in association with her surname of DeCourcy probably opened more doors than if she'd been called Dora Higginbottom.

  But Clarissa was such a mouthful to have to say each time, and there was no way to pronounce it without sounding snooty, unless she hardened all of the vowels, imitating a Liverpool accent. Shortening it to 'Clar' definitely didn't work, sounding like wilful laziness, so it had to come out as if she were all hoity-toity. But people didn't know that her father, a French sailor who her mum met in a harbour-side pub, ran away abandoning his family and was about as posh as a wharf-rat.

  Was it any wonder she was so hopeless with men—with him as father-figure? Clarissa saw spinsterhood reaching bony liver-spotted hands her way. Her strength of will and independent spirit ensured that she got through life, but they weren't qualities that necessarily attracted men to her. She wasn't interested in little mummy's boys, while sexist pigs were swiftly fried to so much scorched crackling by her fiery tongue.

  One lover accused her of being a 'man-hater', because of how her daddy had left her, but she knew that she wasn't. What she hated were men who hated women—and there were plenty of those around, including that little prick. He'd been close to one truth though, for Clarissa felt drawn to distant men who offered her no sense of permanence, drifters and laconic users who took what they wanted, promising nothing, and who always moved-on—away from her. Was she condemned to endlessly repeating this self-destructive pattern?

  A startling realisation hit her as she sat on the sofa eating her healthy dinner, with a not-so-healthy large glass of Sancerre—her cat Monty was just like all of the men she'd known, including her father! She knew that people were supposed to resemble their dogs and vice-versa, but had she just discovered a new theory about women and their cats?

  If she lived in America she could probably parley this into a career, go on the Oprah Winfrey show to discuss it, but here all she could do would be to have a giggle with Jodie and Mary. Did the theory work with them? Jodie's two Siamese, Monet and Manet, were as demanding and fussy as her art-collector lover apparently was, while Mary's vagabond feral felines were an accurate reflection of her own no-strings pack of lovers. She had something! Maybe she could work it into a short-story. Where was her stupid cat? He'd better come back….

  Perhaps she'd go online later and have a couple of hours of cyber dating. There were a few men that she liked the look of facially, but that was as reliable a way of finding a mate as looking for a good meal by believing the label on a tin. She needed somebody who could string a sentence together, without the use of text-speech and who had some familiarity with spelling and grammar—that was non-negotiable. Clarissa knew that there were lots of liars on the sites, and spotted one of her regular customers, a man she knew to be married, with a profile that proclaimed he was single. How did people get away with such dishonesty—surely people recognised him? Or perhaps his marriage was an open arrangement, and she was doing the same thing—she wasn't going to check for the wife's profile—things were confusing enough already.

  Many men made her their 'favourite', though most lived at least 100 miles away. That was one of the problems with living in an isolated county with a small resident population—the choice of available and desirable men was a lot smaller than in a city. Some local men were showing an interest in her, but most were smokers or obsessed with pubs, cars and football and couldn't be bothered with reading, so wouldn't be compatible.

  There were a couple of oddball characters who interested her, but she resisted making them her 'favourites'. At least they were artistically-inclined and one mentioned that among his favourite books were Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind In The Willows, Richard Mabey's 'Food for Free', and the writing of Richard Brautigan, which showed free-thought, boldness and good taste—they were all writers she admired and whose books she owned. He had potential, though his stated occupation of 'freelance artist' was rather vague, but at least he was clean-living, with no vices. He looked familiar somehow, but Clarissa couldn't think from where—perhaps she'd seen him at a gallery exhibition—she could ask Jodie if she knew his face.

  Where was her story-ideas notebook? Upstairs, probably, as she'd used it while in bed last night. Putting her plate in the sink to soak the fishy aroma away, Clarissa took the cocoa container out of a cupboard and placed it on the counter-top. She'd fancied some earlier—what with the increasingly crisp nights, it seemed like the right beverage to offer comfort. She'd forgotten to buy some more chocolate before leaving town, so the cocoa would have to do. She really was getting absent-minded. At least she'd remembered to buy some full-fat milk in the Waitrose supermarket, and there were some Bourbon biscuits left too, for dunking—how decadent.

  Sure enough, her notebook was on the bedside table. Clarissa once tried to keep a dream-diary, but found that recording all that she could remember in the middle of the night woke her up so much that she couldn't get back to sleep. If she tried to make quick entries, the scrawl resembled a seismograph chart and was illegible. She wasn't sure that her dreams were of any use to creativity anyway, as most appeared to be about sorting and organising things—stock in the shop and bookings for the cottage.

  Clarissa crossed over to the window to close the curtains. Her telescope stood on its tripod pointing at the moon. It was the autumnal equinox tonight, so she might do some viewing of La Luna later. It looked like there was somebody out in the park already doing some star-gazing, for there was a man under the trees with his binoculars raised. Clarissa wished that she knew more about the galaxy, and used a book on astronomy to consult as she clumsily navigated the twinkling darkness. When would there be a woman on the moon?

  It was getting dark so much earlier now. It was fully night by 7:30, and it wouldn't be long before she'd be changing her shop-window display to Christmas gifts. Would she still be alone then? The last two years she spent more time with her mum, which she didn't begrudge as she was 79 now, and there might not be many more festivities to share. But even she was dropping hints about Clarissa not getting any younger, and she'd deliberately left the sweetest pair of yellow and white bootees on display on the arm of her sofa. She pretended that they were for the granddaughter of a friend, but Clarissa got the message. Perhaps she'd have a look at artificial insemination sites later—wouldn't making her mum a granny be a great surprise-gift!

  Clarissa made herself a mug of cocoa, and with a plate of Bourbon biscuits settled down on the sofa. She zapped her remote-control fake-log fire into operation, and right on cue Monty appeared—he really was a heat-seeking m
issile. She dabbed his nose with a bubble of cocoa-froth, and he blinked his love at her, before curling up in her lap. What else did she need for contentment?

  Clarissa left the room dimly-lit, so that she could do some moon-gazing. Her favourite planet looked huge tonight, a creamy-gold cracker, lonely and discarded on a black tray of night-sky.

  It looked cold out. She was glad she'd stayed in.