CHAPTER 6
Diana left her cottage where Julia and one of her friends were sitting mesmerised in front of the television, and slipped out across the meadow to check on Yuri. In the midsummer dusk, she saw two shapes standing by his cottage. One was very distinctive, had two heads, four legs, and created a sinister silhouette against the setting sun. The other was equally recognisable. It was small, agitated and making the motions of an enraged Eva. The words of the conversation not so much drifted down, they were blasted towards Diana. She could tell by the tenor of the voices that she should approach with extreme stealth, if at all. It was only concern for what had happened to Yuri that didn’t drive Diana back inside to mind her own business. She knew Daphne Trotter’s attitude towards the astronomer, and was partially convinced that Eva’s was little better. To have the two women descend on him in his present condition could well make him permanently dependent on tranquillisers and gin.
Fortunately the two women were so involved in their own exchange of opinions they didn’t hear her creep closer with the concealing help of some wild rose bushes.
‘Don’t tell me how to run my affairs, lady muck!’ Eva was advising the booted figure towering above her on the black horse. ‘I own the lease to this land and am selling it to no one, so there’s no need to try any more devious little deals with my solicitor.’
‘Be careful how you talk to me,’ Daphne threatened darkly.
‘Oh, but I am, and I’m enjoying every moment of it. If I catch you on this land, whether it’s knocking gates off their hinges or frolicking about in the stinging nettles, I’ll have you bound over so fast you won’t even have time to recognise yourself in the local rag. I would consider it the crowning achievement of my career to see your fat arse kicked about this county by every person your malevolent claws have sunk themselves into.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ Daphne just managed to chip in.
Not for long: Eva had only stopped for breath.
‘No chance, you racist, blue-bottomed turd. I’m not one of your locally intimidated parishioners. You’re likely to have one hell of a job if you start poking around in our territory, up or down, so don’t try threatening me again!’
‘You and your friend Diana should camp out here together. You’re obsessive about your little plot of land and I think she’s in love with that mental Russian. She never seems to keep away from him. I don’t know, perhaps the feeling’s mutual. I’m sure that whatever it is, we’re not likely to hear wedding bells. She’s always taken care never to marry before.’
‘Leave her name out of this, flint features. Just because your husband made a mistake and thought the dowry was worth it, doesn’t make you morally superior. If a good thought ever did cross your mind it would never get any further than your backside and then it would escape through the hole in your knickers!’
A strangled sound escaped from the larger silhouette. It could either have been Daphne gurgling in rage or the horse passing wind.
‘You are mad, woman!’ Daphne’s shrill voice shrieked. ‘You have no right to talk to me like this!’
‘Do something about it then, you whining fox tormentor, but just be careful someone doesn’t come knocking at your stable door for the damage the hunt do to the telescope tracks.’
‘You can’t prove that.’
‘We will when we electrocute one of you bleeders.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Next time your little party of obese businessmen and stuck-up nouveaux riches come trip-trapping over our bridge there’ll be a few volts running through the track.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘Oh, not enough to hurt the animals or give you an excuse to close us down - just enough to make a horse wonder what made its shoes tingle. And even I know what horses do when their tiny inbred brains can’t give ready enough explanations.’
‘You scruffy, despicable little female!’ Daphne started to storm, then rage made the words stick in her throat.
‘Some of us have this sense of self-preservation brought about by secondary school education. Our telescopes are more important than your Sunday excursions to assassinate the dwindling wildlife in this neighbourhood. If your wretched building contractors don’t build on some poor little bleeder’s nesting area, one of you are liable to come after it with a gun. Just like that thug Bert Wheeler. If you two had the same accents I wouldn’t be surprised if you wore each other’s boots.’
Diana had just started to wonder which one was playing the part of Godzilla and which King Kong when Daphne’s horse started to show signs of shell shock. It flicked its tail and swivelled its ears in a spasm of annoyance before advancing sideways down the meadow with Eva shouting after it and its rider.
‘And just remember what I said about trespassing on this land, you jack-booted crow!’
The horse beat a hasty retreat and took Daphne out of earshot before she could add any more.
Remaining concealed, Diana pondered why Eva had never mentioned the fact that she had the lease of Yuri’s cottage. She was even more mystified when the astronomer turned and walked through the open front door. Never having spied on anyone before, Diana silently made her way past the partially dismembered gate and into the hall where she peered into the living room. Eva was still steaming with the exertion of combat and Yuri was too drunk to notice her.
Diana watched in amazement as Eva prised a gin bottle from Yuri’s vice-like grip and poured herself a substantial swig of the stuff in an enamel mug.
‘You disgusting, addled little astronomer,’ Eva commented in an affectionately exasperated way, then hiccupped at having drunk the gin too rapidly. ‘Hell,’ she sighed, ‘what on earth possessed you to believe that stupid woman? The one about the apparition in the fairy ring had more sense - are you listening to me?’ she demanded at the top of Yuri’s head which was slumped on the table.
The grey frizzy locks lifted themselves briefly so their owner could say, ‘It does not matter... nothing matters...’ Then gravity took over and his head hit the table with a thump.
‘Couldn’t you think up something more cheerful than the end of the world?’ Eva went on. ‘If I have to come and spend hours listening to you babbling on, I’d occasionally like to hear something with laughs in it.’
Again Yuri endeavoured to sit upright. When he had partially succeeded, Diana could see the bleary expression on his face; the one he usually only wore when he was unconscious.
‘You are practical,’ he murmured. ‘Why not laugh at the thought of the world being blown apart?’
‘Are you trying to drive me crackers as well? When you’re like this you really have to be taken in small doses. If Spalding ever had a case of incurable optimism on his hands, he could prescribe you.’
‘Still you will not believe me.’ Yuri smiled with drunken cynicism. ‘I wish I could think myself as crazy as you do. I would not have to believe it then.’
‘But it isn’t true, Yuri. You’re tormenting yourself over nothing. It’s all such a pointless waste.’
‘To you I owe everything ... I am nothing but albatross round your neck, but you treat me good. All this I would surrender if you would just this once believe me. Check my findings,’ he pleaded, ‘you are one of few who could.’
‘I thought it was too late by your calculations? Isn’t the world going to be shattered by this infernal device the day after tomorrow or something? What benefit would anyone, human or alien, gain by reducing the Earth to rubble, for pity’s sake?’
Yuri rolled his head in a drunken stupor as though no longer wanting to hold onto the reality of the conversation. He lurched out of his chair to snatch up a handful of exercise books.
‘Everything! Everything! Mrs Daphne, little Julia, big Diana, radio telescopes, Dr Eva, me, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Albert Hall, Siberia, all the camels in Egypt, and the pyramids…’
‘Stop it, Yuri,’ Eva warned.
He carried on regardless. ‘All the whisky in Scotland, Royal family, all th
e foxes they chase, Ukrainian wheat harvest, Big Wheel in Vienna, all the reindeer in Lapland, the Sahara Desert, English Channel, Chinese take-away shop, all the igloos in Greenland…’ At this point Eva rose to go to him. ‘…All the pretty dresses in Paris; fountains in Rome…’
She slapped his face with enough force to convince him she had meant what she said.
‘Eva!’ Diana protested.
Hardly surprised at her sudden appearance, Eva calmly told her, ‘He’ll only get worse if I let him go on.’
Yuri collapsed back into the chair still clutching the exercise books and looking as though he was likely to topple to the floor at any moment.
‘He doesn’t get like this very often. He should have the chance to sleep it off.’
‘When I arrived he’d been using most of the time to drink it off.’
‘He was all right when I left him. Did you know he collapsed earlier on?’
‘No. It doesn’t surprise me after what he’s been ranting on about, though.’
‘Apparitions in fairy rings?’ inquired Diana.
‘That’s the latest. At least it makes a change from accreting planetoids, I suppose. Getting a message from the switchboard to say he wants to see me about apparitions in fairy rings does not exactly work wonders for your prestige when you know it’s been passed round to everyone else before you see it.’
‘He phoned you about it?’
‘Partly my fault, I suppose. It was my idea to have the phone installed.’ Eva looked straight at her friend. ‘I had to marry him.’
Amazement that her logical friend could have made such a miscalculation showed in Diana’s expression.
‘To save him from being deported.’ Eva explained.
‘What, you?’ Diana gasped in disbelief at the thought she was capable of such tender emotions.
‘Nobody else would. Three of us agreed to draw straws. The other two chickened out when they discovered his brain was as soft as his looks. He came over with a group of scientists years ago. They all decided to ask for political asylum and it was granted, all barring Yuri’s. He didn’t know anything strategic enough to make him worth the while, you see. The only thing he had to worry about in going back was spending the rest of his life in an asylum. He was a bit eccentric even then. Had some strange ideas in those days as well. You got strange ideas where he came from and they put you away for it.’ Eva shrugged. ‘He’s always been totally harmless, though. Only wanted his reflector and somewhere to watch the sky. Barring a few minor outbursts he’s always been well behaved … until recently. Now he’s developing into a right headache.’
‘Eva ... there couldn’t be anything in what he says, could there?’
‘No, no, no,’ groaned Eva. ‘It’s you and your voice next is it?’
‘It was just a thought.’
‘For pity’s sake leave them to Yuri. One day he might find a real use for them. If I spend the night here, will you call in some time tomorrow morning?’
‘Of course. He’ll have calmed down by then, though.’
Eva sighed. ‘I don’t know. This time he really believes it’s the end of the world. As if that Trotter woman wasn’t enough already.’
‘What was she up to then?’ asked Diana, not wanting to admit she had heard their reverberating conversation.
‘Because her horse dumped her in our stinging nettles, she thought she would try some underhand dealings with my solicitor to get the lease on this property. I bought it years ago for Yuri so I could keep an eye on him and he could have a clear view of the sky. My solicitor is straight, though. I thought it was about time that Trotter woman stopped terrorising Yuri, so he told her to come here, only she didn’t expect to see me.’
‘Oh?’ asked Diana innocently.
‘It’s unlikely she’ll be bothering us again. Now all we have to do is exorcise his fairy apparitions.’ Eva thought carefully for a few seconds as a wicked idea crossed her mind. ‘You wouldn’t like to marry him, would you Mog?’
Never having regarded Yuri as anything but amiably crazy, the invitation took Diana by surprise. ‘But there wouldn’t be any point, would there?’ she stammered. ‘It’s not as if...’
‘No, you’re right there. I’ve never had any passionate encounters with him over the past fifteen years. He’s always been too busy wondering about close encounters, when the stars were going to collide and the end of the world.’
‘Then why didn’t you divorce him?’
‘Because I’m not so passionate myself and the Mrs Trotters of this world would have put him in an asylum long before now if I had stopped supporting him. He can’t be left to his own devices for long. You know what happens if he is.’
‘Fancy not saying anything about this to me for all these years, though. How on earth did you manage to look after him without me seeing you?’
‘Practised stealth. I didn’t want anyone to know I was married to him. I’ve got a career to think about, you know.’
‘I didn’t believe you thought about anything else.’ Diana laughed. ‘Fancy you being married.’
Eva was obviously not as overjoyed at the arrangement as her friend. ‘Shut up, Mog, and help me put him to bed.’
‘Though come to think of it, it isn’t all that surprising after all. You’re both right little scruffs.’
‘That’s as may be. But we’re clean. I make sure his clothes are washed and dry before he puts them on, and you wash them again when he’s wearing them.’
Unable to deny that, Diana helped to humour and put to bed their mutual problem. When that was done, she would have left Eva drinking the rest of the gin out of the enamel mug, but retreat wasn’t that easy.
‘Put the cover over the reflector as you go out, will you, Mog?’ Eva called after her,
‘All right,’ sighed Diana, anxious to escape before she stumbled on something else that would keep her awake all night. She spent the next twenty minutes looking for the tarpaulin in the twilight garden, unravelling it into submission and hurling it over the telescope with the expertise she used to make beds.
The revelation of Eva’s unlikely marriage quite usurped the concern for Yuri’s condition from Diana’s mind. It wasn’t until she was lying in bed that night that she realised how fragile the balance of anyone’s mind could be. In the warm midsummer night air she suddenly felt the surge of another flush which she knew would leave her with a wringing wet nightdress. Unable to ignore it by lapsing into sleep and too tired to get up and wash it away with the half-bottle of sherry left over from a cake she had baked, Diana fixed her gaze on the darkened ceiling. The pretty pastel posies about her were still visible, though withered into shades of grey. The creams, sprays, and make-up on the dressing table created a sinister outline, and the bedclothes became an aggravating encumbrance. Then came the flashes of kaleidoscopic colours, followed closely by a buzzing more aggressive than a hive of enraged bees. As though those symptoms weren’t enough, there followed the inevitable, ‘This is Moosevan … Why won’t you answer?’
Suddenly Diana was sitting bolt upright. In the unfamiliarity her bedroom had assumed, the message was chilling and real.
‘I am ready now...’ it went on inside her mind. ‘This is Moosevan... There is little time left... You must respond...’
‘Why? Why? Why?’ Diana suddenly found herself calling out in exasperation, then clamped her hand over her mouth for fear of waking Julia. As she did so, she realised that the words weren’t coming from her throat. ‘What do you want?’ her mind was calling back to the intruder. ‘Who are you?’
That took the intruder by surprise. She could sense the faint crackle of its presence before the voice eventually came back.
‘My name is Moosevan,’ it said, as though she should have known that already. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Diana,’ she replied with a part of her brain she never realised she had before. ‘What do you want?’
‘I must have my world very soon, or it will be too late,’ was the str
ange answer.
‘I haven’t got your world.’
‘Something is stopping it from coming together.’
‘What could that be?’
‘You must tell me. I will perish without it.’
‘If there is something stopping it from coming together, there must be a reason. But I don’t know it.’ Diana began to think hard, despite the absurdity of the conversation. ‘Or do I?’
‘Think, Diana,’ Moosevan purred persuasively.
‘Yuri told me - but I didn’t understand.’
‘Sleep. I will take it from your mind.’
‘I can’t. I have trouble sleeping.’
‘You are hot, Diana. This is not right.’
Unable to give the reply her tongue might have used, Diana’s mind replied, ‘I’m not well.’
‘Why are you a living entity?’ The voice sounded confused. ‘And this language is alien to me.’
‘Am I still living?’ Diana asked.
There was a ponderous pause again before the voice came back, ‘May I reach into your mind?’
‘Yes,’ replied Diana, ‘I want to sleep.’ No sooner had she thought the words than her eyelids closed and she sank onto the feather pillow.