John Halkin - Squelch

The impact must have knocked him unconscious. He’d not heard the police car approaching, yet there it was when the mist cleared from his eyes. One of those pale blue panda jobs.

‘You all right?’

A burly police constable gazed in at him. Jack gazed back. Obviously a wow with the old ladies, this one. He wore a solid reliable air as if it was part of his uniform.

‘Passed out, did you?’

‘Banged my head.’ He winced as his fingers found the swelling on his right temple. ‘Where are all the moths?’

‘Moths, sir?’

‘Cab was full of moths. Couldn’t see where I was going.’

‘That so?’ His tone indicated that he had heard it all before. ‘You do have your driving licence with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then perhaps you might let me see it. Sir.’

To extract his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans Jack had to pull himself out of the cab. No bones broken, it seemed, though his head spun unpleasantly. He steadied himself against the side of the van, watching the policeman’s every move. It was a scene he’d played a dozen times in one TV series or another.

After examining the licence, checking its details conscientiously against me Contract of Hire for the van, the constable began to enter it all up in his notebook. He took his time over it too, asking a few routine questions along the way, but showed no interest in the moths.

‘Now let’s get this straight, sir. You helped your friend move house.’

‘Yes.’

‘Lugging furniture about can be thirsty work, specially on a warm day. She must have offered you a drink. Hit the vodka bottle, did you? A house-warming libation, you might say?’

‘I don’t drink vodka.’

‘Oh? I’d have taken you for a vodka-and-tonic type.’

‘No.’

‘That shows how wrong one can be. But we’ll just check if you don’t mind. Sir.’ He fetched his breathalyser kit from the panda and instructed Jack to blow into the little tube. ‘A long steady breath. I’ll tell you when to stop.’

The result was negative. Obviously. His tongue had been hanging out all day but all Ginny had offered was tea, brewed on her camping stove.

The policeman seemed disconcerted, to say the least. Muttering under his breath about having the machine overhauled the moment he got back, he packed it away, then enquired if Jack felt up to driving after that knock on the head.

‘I feel fine. But you haven’t asked about the moths.’

‘Ah, the moths!’

‘You can see on the road where the tyres ran over them. Look here… and here…’

He pointed to what remained of their fat, sausage-like bodies, squashed flat against the tar together with fragments of their wings, as delicate as ash, which disintegrated at a touch. The policeman squatted down to examine them.

‘Must be the weather,’ he mused philosophically when he stood up again. ‘Brings out a lot of insects, this weather. They like the warmth, d’you see?’

‘I think I heard one squealing like a bat.’ Jack tried to recall those last seconds before the crash.

‘Could have been your brakes.’

‘I remember them coming at me, trying to settle over my eyes, almost as though they deliberately wanted to blind me. It was an odd experience, I can tell you.’

The policeman shook his head doubtfully. ‘Can’t say it would stand up in court, not that story. Not as a defence for losing control of the vehicle. Wasps might, but moths? Never.’

‘Court? Is there any question of —?’

‘You can set your mind at ease, sir. Nobody was hurt. Nothing on the breath. The landowner might claim something for damage to his tree, but otherwise…’ He shrugged, then turned his attention to the van. ‘Bodywork’s taken some punishment. Couple of bad dents here. But you should be able to get home all right. You’ve been lucky.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

Something in his voice must have alerted the policeman’s sense of duty. ‘If you’d like someone to give you the once-over our nearest hospital is fifteen miles from here in Lingford, but we’ve a doctor in the village who may be able to help.’

That would be Ginny’s brother-in-law, Jack thought. He said he was okay. A couple of paracetamol before creeping into his lonely bed, that’s all he needed. Certainly no doctor. But those moths –

‘The size of them,’ he persisted. ‘Surely you don’t often get them that big?’

‘Discover something new every day, that’s the countryside for you. Not like London down here. Now that cottage your friend’s bought — that would be straight through the village, third lane on the left after you pass the Plough?’

‘Let me guess. You’ve got second sight.’

‘Not many cottages changing hands these days. Old Mrs Beerston lived there — oh, as long as anyone can remember. Died a couple o’ months back. She’ll get a lot more insects round that cottage than up on the hill.’

‘Better her than me, then.’

Jack got back into the van. The engine groaned into life, sounding much the same as before the accident. His headlights illuminated the damage to the thick tree-bole, but where the hell were the moths?

‘Thanks for your help!’ he called out as he reversed on to the road.

The breeze through the open window as he drove should have worked wonders for his aching head but it didn’t. All the way back to Chiswick the pain over his eyes nagged him relentlessly.

Then — once back at the flat — the unaccustomed silence scratched at his nerves. Even when Ginny had taken to sleeping in the next room there had always been some sound to remind him she was still about. A creaking board. A tap turned on, or left dripping. A cupboard opened.

Now there was nothing.

Emptiness.

He hunted for the paracetamol, couldn’t find it, assumed she must have packed it with her things, so poured himself a large Scotch instead. Ice from the fridge. Two lumps in his glass. The rest he wrapped in a shower cap she’d left behind. Sinking back into an armchair, he balanced it over the swelling on his temple.

Bloody moths.

It was a rum story all right. Constable Chivers sat on the edge of his bed the following morning, lacing up his shoe and thinking it over. The evidence was there on the road too. After the man had gone he’d scraped up the remains of one moth and popped it in a transparent plastic bag for examination. But then actors could spin a few when they were in the mood!

‘George! Your breakfast is getting cold!’

‘Ay, all right!’ he called back, reaching for the other shoe.

He was about to put it on when he spotted the caterpillar: a hairy green thing, five or six inches at least. With the shoe in his hand he clumped downstairs.

‘Here, Sue — take a look at this!’

‘Urgh, how did that get in the bedroom? I only cleaned there yesterday. You’d better kill it.’

‘It’s not harming anyone.’

Placing his shoe on the tiled kitchen window ledge where he could keep an eye on it, he sat down first to eat his bacon and fried bread. When he’d finished, he pulled on his gumboots and took the shoe out through the garden gate into the field beyond where he tipped the caterpillar out into a nettle patch.

A fortnight or more passed before Ginny plucked up enough courage to discuss the moths with her sister Lesley. She tried explaining how a visitation like that had to be a good omen.

‘A visitation? Moths ?’ Lesley snorted, her laughter erupting uncontrollably. ‘Oh Ginny, you’re not serious?’

Lesley had that impulsive way of blurting out whatever came into her head, sweeping across other people’s sensitivities like a gust of cold wind. Not that anyone took offence, ever. She was completely frank and open, and had a generous, warm laugh. It was impossible not to like her. Three years older than Ginny, too. Taller — and louder — she was endowed with beautiful auburn tresses which she left to tumble freely over her freckled shoulders, though sometimes she’d put them up for formal occasions.