The Planet Dweller Read online

  ‘Now look, Mog,’ said Eva firmly, ‘I’ve had the same trouble with Yuri. We can’t go swivelling the dishes about at the whim of someone who hears voices from outer space. We have to work to a programme. And even if we could be sure you were receiving a signal from “out there”, we would at least have to know that it was coming from more specific coordinates than the general direction of “up”.’

  ‘You don’t believe me,’ Diana accused.

  ‘You obviously believe it. That will have to be enough. Though I’ve no doubt Yuri would find some sympathy with the condition if he could stop entertaining his own fantasies for five minutes.’

  ‘There’s no need to be so mean about him,’ Diana warned. ‘He may not be right in the head, but we don’t know what made him like that in the first place, do we?’

  ‘It’s a pity someone doesn’t confiscate that reflector of his. I’m just thankful he busted the camera so he can’t take any snaps of planets colliding.’

  ‘It keeps him happy, and I’m sure he’s not so stupid. He’d probably be away with the little green fairy if he didn’t have that telescope.’

  ‘Him – no. Gin will always be his poison.’ Eva smiled. ‘And he’s already a perfect example of matter over mind. Do you know what he told me?’

  ‘No. And I don’t want you to tell me either. If he does ever want to let me know anything, I prefer him to tell me in his own way. I don’t want you sneering to me about it before he has the chance. Anyway, he does look after himself.’ Then, as an afterthought, she remembered the state he had been in that morning. ‘Most of the while.’

  Realising that her irrational friend was prepared to defend the crazy Yuri beyond the bounds of any reason she was liable to entertain, Eva asked innocently, ‘What does the voice say then?’

  Diana looked at her hard and long before replying, ‘Moosevan.’

  ‘Moo-se-van,’ repeated Eva objectively. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What this voice keeps saying,’ Diana said stubbornly, knowing she was wasting her breath in trying to convince Eva of anything.

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing else. Just “Moosevan”.’

  ‘Oh, good grief...’ muttered Eva under her breath. ‘Don’t you think you should have some time off?’

  ‘I am. Julia breaks up in a couple of days. No more parties of sticky little urchins coming down here and wanting to look through your radio telescopes for at least a week. Just think of that. You can hunt Bert Wheeler in peace, and roll those outsize ears up and down to your heart’s content without needing to bother whether there are any bodies on the track. But if they do come across Moosevan in the process, just remember who heard it first.’

  ‘Why don’t you keep tuned in and let me know if it ever says anything else?’ asked Eva mischievously. ‘We’ll let you have the credit for discovering it.’

  ‘Oh really..?’

  ‘Why not? There are some things radio astronomy shouldn’t have to take the blame for,’ and before she could say any more there was the report of a shotgun in the distance. ‘Bert Wheeler!’ Eva screeched with renewed vigour, and was off before Diana could tell her that a flock of starlings were showing interest in the furthest radio dish.

  Strolling leisurely back to the Tudor hall, Diana felt the thankful mists of numbness creep over her. It was more bearable than hot flushes and messages from outer space. A refreshing summer breeze brought back the recollection of the balmy, almost carefree, days of her long-lost youth and the bright-eyed, smiling child the convention of that time would not allow a sixteen-year-old unmarried mother keep. Eva was right about looks. She had managed to appear so dowdy the boys allowed her to continue her studies in peace. Diana had been all high heels and lipstick and was consequently flattered into believing attraction was all, until she had the rewards of that attraction taken from her. From that time, caution had been her second name. Never to want marriage, yet determined to have a replacement for her lost offspring. Just as she thought it was becoming too late, a man discovered that she was the girl of his dreams. Thinking a woman in her late thirties would be easy to hold, he slackened his grip by not insisting on marriage only to find his ladylove and daughter had flown within a year. Diana should have felt guilty about the deception but all she could do was smile at the man’s self-confidence.

  ‘Come and meet the new temps,’ sang out Mr Lowe as Diana entered the cool timbered hall. ‘They’re both from college so will need some local digs. Know of anyone who could put them up?’

  Diana was about to recommend Flora and Irene who were sisters with a house too large for their prim activities. Then she set eyes on the students. Both looked as though they could not only have been happy to live in the iron-age farm, but blend in quite convincingly with its surroundings. One face was concealed by an outgrowth of beard unnatural on one so young and the other looked angelic enough for Diana not to be able to distinguish its gender.

  ‘We’re very lucky,’ Mr Lowe babbled. ‘They’re both studying anthropology and know something about archaeology.’

  Noting Diana’s reluctance to say anything in haste, the bearded student mumbled something in an amiably low voice to which she managed to smile non-committally.

  Then she remembered something. ‘Do you like farms?’

  Mr Lowe’s eyebrows shot up towards his bald pate (he had obviously drawn the same conclusion about the iron-age village as she had) then they relaxed as she went on.

  ‘One of our local farmers, Mr Cooper, has converted a stable to put up hikers. It has running water, and Mrs Cooper will cook if you don’t mind eating with the farm hands. If you like the idea I know she won’t charge you much.’

  As though she had just described a palace, the students’ eyes lit up in enthusiasm. Diana sighed in relief that she had stopped herself from mentioning Irene and Flora in the nick of time. Although they had known her for years, the sisters still insisted she should refer to herself as ‘Mrs’, as though illegitimacy was still a word not to be found in any dictionary. As they were coming to tea in a couple of days, guiding two inoffensive, but visually amazing, students to their doorstep might not have endeared her to them.

  ‘What do I call you?’ Diana suddenly thought to ask.

  ‘My name’s John,’ announced the beard gravely.

  ‘My name’s Fran,’ announced the other in a voice that still gave Diana no clue as to what gender its owner was.

  ‘I’m Diana. Most people call me Di.’ She was about to add that that was because she often felt like death, but decided it would have been in extremely bad taste and broken up the good-natured atmosphere. ‘I hope you enjoy your stay here. If you’re interested in astronomy, I know one of the doctors at the observatory. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind showing you around.’

  Although the heads nodded in gratitude, Diana could see acute disinterest register in the eyes. She wondered how they would cope with the questions that were bound to be fired at them about the perambulating monsters at the bottom of their garden; not to mention the occasional enraged astronomer chasing Bert Wheeler whenever he had the urge to chase crows.

  ‘Yes,’ continued Diana, smiling inwardly at the thought of what delights awaited them, ‘I’m sure you’re going to enjoy yourselves here.’

  ‘Sure,’ murmured John shaking his head knowingly. ‘This is our thing. Old places really appeal to us.’

  ‘People too,’ agreed Fran in a way that sent irritable prickles down Diana’s back at the unintended faux pas.

  ‘You won’t mind showing John and Fran around, will you Di?’ asked Mr Lowe. ‘I’ll have to finish these plans for the bridge before teatime.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Diana smiled as she choked back a bad taste in her mouth brought on by sudden nausea and the unwelcome awareness of ageing. ‘I’ll show them the way to Mr Cooper’s afterwards if you like?’

  ‘Marvellous idea,’ agreed Mr Lowe. ‘You can go straight home after that.’

  Diana needed no second biddi
ng. Seizing a handful of literature about the exhibits, she led them outside. John and Fran followed, laden with knapsacks like two obedient yaks. The students drank in every word she uttered with rapt attention as they examined the reconstructed antique world they had such affinities with. Being more modern in outlook, Diana found their fascination baffling. She had genuine terrors of fires in thatched roofs and bats in belfries. Until meeting these two, she had thought of her work as being little more than a matter of economics. Their reverent, lulled tones echoing about the empty living spaces made her feel quite guilty, and for the first time she actually found herself concentrating on the wonder of it all.

  As she looked up with Fran and John into the silent timbers of a fourteenth-century barn, a faint familiar click sounded in the back of her mind. Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, she froze for fear of letting out some exclamation as the soft melodious voice broke into her thoughts.

  ‘Moosevan,’ it whispered. ‘This is Moosevan.’ then nothing for a few seconds before it seemed to fade with a sigh and distant click.

  Fran and John must have taken her taut expression as being one of rapture and waited patiently while she reorganised her attention sufficiently to lead them on to the next exhibit. Although they hardly glanced at the huge dishes gleaming in the sunlight, Diana found herself glaring at the nearest of them with an expression of suspicion and resentment at its smug indifference to her voice. When she was able to hear this creature so clearly, it seemed an almighty waste of time and money that they between them could not.

  Diana was relieved to be able to return home early and have a quiet half-hour in the privacy of the bedroom she had papered in peaceful pastel posies.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘No, no, not there,’ Julia bullied the small Chinese twins as they insisted on sitting next to each other and not in their allocated places around the fairy ring. ‘If we go and leave gaps like that the giant can easily reach in and snatch one of us.’

  Tom, most of his face covered by a battered old top hat, warned, ‘And he’s got claws like a crab which will bite you in half,’ thinking more of horror comics than fairies.

  ‘We eat crabs.’ Lin’s mind was more on his parents’ cooking than the game in hand.

  ‘I like your parents’ food,’ piped up the small voice of Vicky sitting opposite the twins. ‘We’re going to have sweet and sour pork on Friday with beanshoots and spring rolls and lotus root.’

  ‘We picked mushrooms here this morning,’ Kitty, Lin’s twin, told her. ‘There were at least fifteen around this ring.’

  ‘Really?’ Vicky was wide-eyed with amazement. ‘Did the fairies put them there?’

  ‘Oh no. This ring is made by mushrooms growing under the ground,’ said Kitty.

  ‘Oh I do hate clever kids,’ sneered Tom, who would rather it had been a magic barrier against the claw-fisted giant.

  ‘We usually have dried mushrooms, but I like fresh ones much better,’ Kitty added. ‘Fairies may live here too.’

  ‘If there are any giants about, we’ll be in trouble if they don’t,’ Julia reminded them with the authority of the eldest. ‘Mind you, it is a very big ring to try and surround, I suppose. Perhaps as long as we sit inside it they won’t bother us.’

  ‘I’ve never seen a fairy ring as big as this before.’ Vicky lay on her stomach and tried to unsuccessfully reach across it. ‘It’s really huge.’

  ‘I suppose there must be a fairy palace underneath it,’ pondered Tom, taking off his top hat to lie flat and put his ear to the ground. ‘It would only come up at night though. People would frighten them off.’

  ‘What about Yuri and his telescope?’ Kitty reminded him.

  ‘Oh, Yuri wouldn’t frighten anyone,’ Vicky told her. ‘The fairies probably like him.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him if he’s seen any?’ Lin suggested.

  ‘I’ll do that when I go back,’ Julia said. ‘He called in to see Mum. I don’t think he sees fairies though. He’s always looking at the stars. He knows a lot about the stars and planets.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Tom still had his ear pressed to the soft grass.

  ‘Did you know that, apart from the big planets like Mars and Saturn, there are thousands and thousands of much smaller ones going round the sun as well?’ Julia told them.

  ‘Never,’ scoffed Tom.

  ‘Well, there are. There must be because Yuri told me, and he can see them. They are so tiny he has to make this complicated map of where they are, then make another several hours later to see if they‘ve moved. If they don’t move then they’re stars, if they do they’re small planets.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Lin in wide-eyed wonderment.

  ‘Why?’ echoed Julia. ‘I don’t know why, but he’s got piles and piles of books full of writing and sums which tells him where they are.’

  Vicky giggled. ‘Why bother to look at something so difficult to find?’ She rolled over and pressed her ear to the ground as well.

  ‘He must be very clever,’ pondered Kitty, and her twin shook his head in agreement.

  ‘He must be,’ added Lin, ‘because he isn’t like other adults.’

  They were suddenly silenced by Vicky’s shrill cry, ‘I can hear them! Listen, listen,’ and she pushed her ear closer to the ground.

  ‘So can I, so can I!’ whooped Tom, ignoring Julia’s disbelieving scowl.

  Kitty and Lin immediately put their ears to the ground as well and laughed at the sound they fancied they heard beneath it.

  ‘Oh really.’ Julia sighed, sure they were only doing it to try and get her to join them.

  Their fascination with the sound was too deep and sustained to be a practical joke. Cautiously, Julia bent down and listened.

  There was something sinister down there, a low tuneful hum. Too old to believe it could have been fairies like the other four, Julia felt an odd tingling on her scalp.

  The others remained in rapturous silence until it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Then they sprang up, joined hands, and danced in a circle around the mystified Julia and Tom’s top hat.

  ‘Oh, you are clumsy,’ scolded Diana as she mopped the tea from Yuri’s sweater. ‘I’ve only just scrubbed Julia’s experimental toffee off the kitchen floor. I don’t want another mess on it. Why can’t you hold the cup straight?’

  ‘I do. I just have trouble getting it to my mouth,’ protested Yuri. ‘My hand will shake so much lately.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. After the way I found you the other morning it’s a wonder that’s all that shakes.’

  ‘But I only drink the gin to stop my hand shaking.’ Yuri smiled so disarmingly, Diana almost believed him.

  ‘You shouldn’t touch that stuff at all. How on earth do you manage to hold your telescope still?’

  ‘Oh, I do not need to. The equatorial mounting makes it still or the motor will drive it.’

  ‘Oh ... Do you want another cup of tea?’

  ‘No thank you. I still have some left in this to spill.’

  Diana poured herself another cup and stood pondering over the top of Yuri’s head, which was covered in crinkly grey curls that had somehow managed to grow outwards at different rates.

  ‘Yuri?’ she said eventually.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve been having a little trouble lately.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘I hear a voice in my head.’

  Yuri was silent for a moment. ‘That is very odd.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard voices in your head?’ she inquired hopefully.

  ‘Never,’ he assured her. ‘I talk to myself, but I never listen.’ Then he added thoughtfully, ‘You should not hear voices. You are healthy woman ... as far as woman your age can be healthy.’

  ‘Thank you,’ snarled Diana.

  ‘I meant... because...’ Yuri couldn’t think of the right words.

  Diana finished them for him. ‘Because I am a menopausal female, hearing voices should be a natural pastime for me.�
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  ‘I did not mean that.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘If you hear a voice, it is either because you are imagining it,’ he could tell by her expression that was dangerous territory, ‘or because there is someone talking to you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘If there is someone talking to you from great distance away, that means you are either telepathic,’ Diana didn’t seem very enthusiastic about that either. Yuri was relieved because he wouldn’t have believed it, ‘or that they have transmitter, and you have receiver tuned in to their frequency.’

  ‘My head?’

  ‘If that is where you hear voice, where else?’ shrugged Yuri, not taking into account the reorganisation going on elsewhere in Diana’s body. ‘I would not say it is impossible, but telepathy is much more fashionable nowadays. Old-fashioned things like transmitters and receivers take the mystery out of unexplained messages.’

  ‘I can do without those sort of mysteries, thank you; I prefer a more conventional explanation.’

  ‘There is much money in being telepathic.’

  ‘If I had to choose a dishonest way to make money, I’d sooner see fairies. Even if they aren’t so fashionable.’

  ‘Unfortunately one cannot choose the way to go mad. It is something that suddenly thrusts itself upon you.’

  ‘You make that sound like the voice of experience. You can’t really make up your mind whether you’re crazy or not, can you?’

  ‘If I could choose,’ said Yuri intensely, ‘then I would choose to be crazy.’

  For a moment, Diana began to have doubts about his derangement and, not wishing any of his fantasies to ever prove themselves facts, she ordered him, ‘Come into the garden and see the roses.’

  Obediently, Yuri followed her through the French windows, quickly trying to swallow the rest of his tea and spilling it down his sweater. Diana didn’t comment as she saw him attempting to brush it off with his sleeve, merely signalled him to remove it altogether. He did so and revealed a striped sweater beneath it. Wondering whether his dress habits had been learnt in Siberia, she pegged the tea-soaked sweater to the washing-line, watched it hang limply for a few seconds, then took it down again.