Hungry Moon Read Online Free

perhaps only in her imagination or somewhere like an endless dream. 'Come on, let's fix that shelf,' she said.
    When they'd secured the bookcase that had begun to sag away from the wall the day after Eddings had built it, she replaced the books while Jeremy made dinner. Halfway through dinner in the small white dining room with its view of the heathery slopes, they heard the Bevans come home. June was still scolding Andrew. 'Just you get upstairs and make sure the water's hot. What must Geraldine have thought of you looking like a little tramp? Have some thought for me if you've none for yourself.'
    'I won't be used like that,' Geraldine said with an edge to her voice, but telling June so might make it worse for Andrew. She put on a tape of Sibelius instead, music bleak as bare mountains, to blot out June's continued scolding. The tape hadn't been playing ten minutes when June rang the doorbell. 'Could you turn the music down a little? Not that we don't appreciate good music, but the boy's just gone to bed. The sooner he's asleep the sooner we'll have some peace, God willing.'
    Presumably he'd been sent to bed with no dinner. 'Send him over here if it's peace you want,' Geraldine suggested, but June was already marching away to her house. Geraldine turned down the volume and finished her meal, though her stomach felt tight. She was helping Jeremy clear up when the bell rang again. It was June's husband, Brian.
    'Is he in? Not interrupting anything, am I?' he said, and stepped over the threshold without waiting for Geraldine to invite him in. He had a soft round face with a jutting jaw that she thought he thrust forward deliberately, sallow skin tinged bluish under his eyes, curly sideburns that trailed down to the hinges of his jaw. He went into the kitchen and found Jeremy washing the dishes. 'Got you doing her jobs, has she? Listen, I hope mine didn't offend you before.'
    'Your . . .? Oh, you mean June. It was Geraldine she spoke to, actually.'
    'You know how she gets when she's on edge. Andrew was being stupid, contradicting her. Hadn't even the sense to keep his mouth shut. Anyway, listen, I wanted to ask if you were going out tonight.'
    'We weren't planning to. Why,' Geraldine said, 'would you like us to keep an eye on Andrew?'
    'I should think you'd had enough of him for one day. No, if you're not going out, come round for a drink.'
    'We're hoping to have the alarm fixed,' Jeremy said.
    'You'll hear Eddings from our house if he ever turns up. Say you'll come or she'll think she offended you. Besides,' Brian said as if this left them no option, 'we want to talk to you about Andrew.'
    When he'd gone Jeremy called Eddings, only to learn that he was still out patching up his handiwork. 'Let's brave the hospitality,' Jeremy said with a grimace. A vacuum cleaner was bumbling about the Bevans' entrance hall. 'You'd think he could have wiped his feet after coming round to see you,' June said by way of explanation, and ushered them into the front room.
    Porcelain was everywhere: shepherdesses on the mantelpiece above the grey brick hearth that surrounded the simulated coals of the gas fire, Chinese figures on shelves around the walls, a china tea set on the Welsh dresser. Geraldine couldn't see where there was room for Andrew to play, what with all that and the television and video recorder and the pine bar at which Brian was waiting to serve. 'What'll it be? Anything so long as it's Scotch, gin, or martini.'
    June handed out paper mats and slipped one beneath her tumbler of martini before she sat down, sighing. 'Maybe now I can relax after worrying about Andrew all day.'
    'What's been the matter?' Geraldine said.
    June stared as if Geraldine were being facetious. 'Don't you know where that American woman took
    them? Not just up on the moors but right by the cave. If you even set foot on the moors you should take a map and compass and food in case you get lost.'
    'I think that's only on a long walk,' Jeremy said.
    'My father said