The Confession of Stella Moon Read online

  Praise for The Confession of Stella Moon

  ‘A timely and intelligent book. This work has passion, insight and a real understanding of both risk and mercy. Shelley Day delicately explores the tangled layers of family grief and guilt and what it is to be a daughter. AL Kennedy

  ‘Shelley Day’s voice is exciting and unique ... and her fiction thematically rich.’ Jackie Kay MBE

  “I loved Stella Moon! It’s the kind of story where the mood stays with you.” Helen Ivory

  SHORTLISTED, Dundee International Book Prize

  LONGLISTED, Bath Novel Award

  The Confession of Stella Moon

  Shelley Day

  Contents

  Praise for The Confession of Stella Moon

  The Confession of Stella Moon

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  “My very chains and I grew friends,

  So much a long communion tends

  To make us what we are...”

  Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon

  Prologue

  In the NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Crown Court

  Case Number 70/003394

  R v Stella Moon

  Voluntary Statement by the DEFENDANT STELLA MOON relating to death of MURIEL WILLOUGHBY MOON.

  My name is Stella Moon. I confess to the killing of my mother Muriel Willoughby Moon on 14th October 1970. I sincerely regret what I have done.

  The day I killed my mother was the day I turned eighteen and the day I ceased being a Ward of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. It was also the day I ceased being in the Custody, Care and Control of my grandmother, Ruby Willoughby. It had always been my plan, as soon as it was legal, to go and be with Muriel (I always called my mother Muriel).

  That day I went to where she lived, which was at the Beach Hut on the dunes between Beadnell and Embleton. It was late afternoon. Muriel wasn’t there, but the door was open and I went in. Straight away I saw the place had been ransacked. There was stuff all over the place, broken and spilled. Muriel’s specimens – she was a taxidermist – had been attacked and mutilated. They’d been pulled apart, limb from limb, and lay in bits all over the floor. There were splatter marks in the distemper as though the half-preserved skins had been thrown against the walls. Bottles and jars of chemicals that Muriel used for preserving were smashed, and their contents tipped out and scattered. The place stank of formaldehyde, which is a preserving liquid and is volatile and pungent, and gets on your chest.

  I am asked whether Muriel would have created that havoc herself and my answer is no. Anyone will tell you that Muriel valued her specimens above all else – she cared for dead things better than most people care for the living.

  I went through to the back. A few years ago, Muriel had pulled an old lean-to down and Frank Fanshaw had built a new kitchen on. Now I saw it was all spoiled and there was a hole about three feet in diameter in the kitchen floor. Broken floorboards and piles of sand had been pushed to the sides.

  The state of the place made me panic about Muriel. I was afraid something had happened to her. She would have been expecting me at the Beach Hut. I’d written to her to tell her what day I was getting out of the Home and said I would come straight from there to hers, so I was surprised she wasn’t there. I shouted for her but there was no reply. I went out onto the dunes in case she was out there, setting her traps. I didn’t find her. So I decided to go to the Saddle Rock. That was a place along the dune path just before you get to the castle ruin. Muriel especially liked that place. I don’t know why, but she often went there: when she was feeling down or just wanted to think, that’s the place she would go. The Saddle Rock is a ten-minute run from the Beach Hut. The tide was coming in that night, so I was against the clock. The Saddle Rock disappears under the water when the tide is in. It was already starting to get dark when I left the Beach Hut.

  Muriel had always been prone to sudden slumps in mood. She would go off to be by herself, sometimes for weeks on end. Her own needs always came first. I was hurt that she hadn’t thought me important enough to wait in for.

  I ran along the dune path and cut across the golf course. As I came over the ridge I could see Muriel sitting there on the Saddle Rock, with the incoming tide lashing about around her. I shouted but it was stormy and the sea and the wind were too loud. Muriel was sat there like a statue. I ran down and came right up to her. She was soaked from the sea spray, her hair was stuck to her face and whipping out in the wind like snakes.

  If I had been a normal daughter and if Muriel had been a normal mother, we’d have put our arms around each other. It was a good two years since I had seen her. But Muriel and I weren’t a normal mother and daughter. When I looked into her face, she turned away. I pleaded for her to come back with me, but she wouldn’t. Muriel was stubborn. She just kept staring out to sea, acting like I wasn’t there. I was her daughter – her only daughter – it was my eighteenth birthday, and she was acting like I wasn’t there.

  I kept on talking. I wanted to prove to Muriel that I could speak. I wanted to convince her things between us could be put right. I wanted us to be normal, to put the whole ugly past behind us and start again. But at the same time I knew that wasn’t going happen.

  The tide was getting closer and I pulled at Muriel’s coat to try to make her come away. The way she looked, it was like she was accusing me, as if I was the cause of whatever it was that was making her weird. A deep sigh shuddered out of her. Then she suddenly got to her feet, almost knocking me over as she pushed past me, and stormed off up the cliff path. She’d left a small grey haversack on the rock so I picked it up and went after her. I followed her along the cliff path, keeping up the best I could. Then we were in the lea of the castle, away from the open sea, and it was quieter and more sheltered.

  It was then that she told me quite calmly to go back. Her voice was weary but insistent. I knew that tone. I shook my head. I told her I wasn’t going anywhere without her. She began losing patience when I would not do as she said. She kept telling me to go away, to go while I still had the chance. She made it quite clear she wanted rid of me. It was very hurtful, the way she spoke to me. She started swearing and calling me bloody awkward and insisting that I
go away and never come back. She was treating me like I was a little kid. I said I would go back to the Beach Hut, but only on condition that she came with me. She flatly refused.

  Then she was yelling and screaming and saying I had no idea about anything, and the whole bloody mess was all my fault. She got weepy and starting saying odd things about a baby being gone and she lost her temper totally when I said I didn’t know what she was talking about. She said everything had gone wrong and it was all my fault. I honestly didn’t know how I’d upset her so much. I was there trying to help her. But she kept on blaming me, and going on about a baby being taken away. I couldn’t make sense of it because the only baby Muriel ever had was me.

  Eventually she flew into a full-on rage, screaming that I was pig-ignorant and stupid and useless. She said she had never wanted me, she cursed the day I was born, it would be better if I had never existed…etc, all of which I had heard before many times, because that is how she was. In the middle of it all she turned and went fast up the steep sheep track. By then it was dark and a gale was howling. My chest was burning and my heart thumping all over the place with the emotion and with all the effort of trying to keep up with Muriel. I stumbled over the rough ground: I wanted to make her stop. I wanted her to say she was sorry. I wanted to tell her I never asked to be born. It wasn’t my fault her life had turned out such a mess, that everything was a terminal disappointment. I grabbed her jacket from behind but she wrenched herself away from me. She screamed for me to get away from her.

  I refused to believe she was telling me to leave her alone – after all this time, after all that had happened. I couldn’t take it in that she just wanted rid of me.

  Anger took me over. Years of my mother’s rejection and contempt, her ridicule and neglect – it all condensed in that moment. It made me desperate with need for her and full of hate for her, all at the same time. Everything was all mixed up and nothing was real. Things started happening in slow motion. My limbs no longer obeyed me. I felt myself grab Muriel by the hair. I clung on, refusing to let go as she struggled to pull away, and clumps of her hair were coming out in my hands. There was a fight. We grabbed at each other, we punched and kicked, each of us as desperate and determined as the other. Our feet slid about in the mud. Muriel had me by the back of the neck, like she used to. She was forcing my head down, forcing me by the neck to the ground. As she scrambled to get up, I pushed her. I pushed her hard, as hard as I could. Her hand left my neck and then she was gone. Muriel had gone over the edge of the cliff. I pushed her right over into the sea. I killed her. I killed my mother. She didn’t scream. I don’t remember anything after that.

  This is the statement of the DEFENDANT STELLA MOON made under caution 18th October 1970 at Bolam St Police Station, Newcastle upon Tyne. Interviewed by Senior Investigating Officer: Detective Superintendent Anthony Hutchinson. Present: Detective Sergeant Nicholas Webber

  SIGNED: Stella Moon

  Dated: 18 October 1970

  Chapter One

  Stella Moon shivers in the draughty queue. The clothes she has chosen for this occasion – the faded silk dress, once a pale sage-green, the fine lacy cardigan of almost the same colour, the gold lamé sandals with the kitten heels, all old-fashioned, all a size too big – are entirely inappropriate for the season, for the weather, for everything. Marcia had advised against it. She should have listened to her. But Stella had been determined, and hadn’t been much in the mood for listening. Yesterday, Marcia had helped her pack her things into the little blue suitcase and Stella had gotten carried away with the sudden luxury of choosing, being quite out of the habit: out of the habit too, of taking account of the weather – out of the habit of most things. Marcia had watched her laying aside the dress and the cardigan and the shoes for the morning.

  ‘You might as well go the whole hog,’ she’d said, a strange rasp to her voice, ‘go the whole bloody hog. Put her knickers on while you’re at it.’ It wasn’t like Marcia to say hurtful things. ‘I’m gonna miss you, Stell,’ she’d said straight after. Had almost hugged her.

  Stella shuffles into a window seat, glad of the fuggy warmth of the coach. Other passengers are dumping their bags, heaving stuff onto the luggage racks, jamming it under seats, but not Stella. She keeps a tight hold of hers, up-ends the little blue suitcase on her lap, her fingers gripping the handle gone shiny with wear. A bit battered now, this suitcase would have been the very thing in the fifties, when Muriel spent half her wages on it for her three-day honeymoon on Skye. It’s Stella’s now. She lays it down flat, smoothes her hands across the soft blue leather and brings them to rest, fingers splayed, palms flat.

  The window is too steamed up to see out. Stella tugs down the cuff of the cardigan and clears a patch. The window’s dirty on the outside too. London grime. Seven or eight hours and she’ll be in Newcastle. Plenty of time to make proper plans.

  The doors fold shut, the engine whines and the coach judders a bit as it starts to pull away. Stella sits up straight and makes a determined effort to see out, to see past her own reflection. No-one has sat next to her. She pushes her hair back from her face but it won’t stay there: it just springs back again. The coach edges its way through streets solid with traffic; tall red buses, squat black taxis, motorbikes, scooters, cyclists weaving in and out. Look at all those people. Going about their lives. Ordinary people. Ordinary lives. Each avoiding everyone else’s eyes. Lean back in your seat, Stella. Relax. Rest your eyes, soften your mouth, be aware of your hands. Breathe out. Come on. Right out. In again. And out. In. Out. Stella has never been good at relaxing. The flat of Marcia’s hand between her shoulder blades. Steady now. In. Out. That’s it. Keep going.

  Stella pushes her hair back from her face again. People will recognise her by the hair: wild, red, very curly hair. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She pulls an elastic band from round her wrist, scrapes her hair back from her face and fastens it tight. The clothes as well, they make her stand out. She shouldn’t have worn the clothes. What was she thinking of, wearing clothes that don’t even fit? She looks ridiculous. She should have listened to Marcia. She should have put on the normal jeans, the plain black jersey, the baseball boots – not this stupid dress, not these stupid kitten heels. Marcia had warned her she would feel conspicuous.

  ‘It’s normal,’ she’d said, shrugging, laughing. Everyone feels like they’re the only one. ‘Don’t think about it – you’ll get used to it and it’ll go away.’

  It will go away. If you refuse to think about things, they do go away. This is a whole new life now, Stella. Get out there and make the world your own.

  She’ll have her hair cropped like Mia Farrow in Peyton Place, she’ll dye it black and she’ll cover up her freckles with Pan-stick. There will be No Looking Back.

  ‘There’s no point in dwelling, Stella,’ Marcia had said, ‘Put the past behind you. And pray to God it stays where you put it.’

  OK. But some of the women – those who’d been in and out a few times – had said it wasn’t that easy, and freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Stella hadn’t understood. Surely, she’d thought, surely you can’t wait to be your own person? But she’s getting a sense now of what they must have meant. Is it elation or terror that is making her hot and queasy? She’s forgotten what sensation belongs to what. She pulls at the neck of the cardy. She can feel sweat running down her back, down between her breasts, and she’s glad she hasn’t got that big black jumper on after all. It’s started to rain. She rubs the window again with her cuff but still can’t see much. Stella needs a smoke but she’s not sure if it’s allowed. She looks around. No-one else is smoking. Maybe you’ve got to go up the back, like on the school bus. She’s no idea. After seven years, she’s got no idea how normal people do normal things. She’ll get her ciggies out all the same, keep them handy, light up if anyone else does.

  Stella undoes the catches of the little blue suitcase, letting them click open. She lifts the
lid. There, lying on the top, the present from Marcia, neatly wrapped in pale blue crêpe paper. Stella scratches at the edge of the Sellotape with her nail – it’s a shame to spoil the lovely paper. She teases the parcel open. Inside, a beautiful notebook with a cover of fine turquoise Indian silk, embroidered with tiny coloured glass beads and silver and gold sequins. Stella lifts the book to her face and breathes in the soft, clean smell of the silk. She holds it against her cheek.

  The last person to touch this book was Marcia. Stella thumbs through soft blank pages of handmade paper. They’re thick, they feel almost like cloth. They’re torn rough around the edges. Marcia has slipped a card inside the front cover – a postcard, a retro photo, a line of women in long baggy shorts holding onto their sit-up-and-beg bicycles, fists raised in the air. The women are beaming smiles out of broad, healthy-looking faces. ‘We have nothing to lose but our chains,’ it says across the top. Typical Marcia. Stella smiles. She turns the card over. On the other side, Marcia has written in her curly script,

  You know what this notebook is for, and there’s a pen to go with it, and a letter you’re not to open till you’ve done what you promised you’d do. Meanwhile, all love and luck, Marcie xx

  Stella feels about inside the crepe paper packaging. Yes, here’s the pen, a dark green Parker ‘Lady’ fountain pen. And yes, there’s a letter too, in a slim blue airmail envelope. The envelope is sealed. For a brief moment, Stella is tempted to tear the envelope open, but she doesn’t, and she won’t. It’s a question of trust. Respect. Trust and respect. They’d talked a lot about that. The bedrock of any relationship worthy of the name, Marcia said. Stella fingers the edges of the card, looks down at Marcia’s writing on the back of it for a long time before she slips it back between the pages, claps the book shut, and sits with her palms flat against the beaded cover. Stella looks out the bus window through the grime, watching London going by.

  She’s on her way now, the journey has begun. A pale autumn sun is trying to shine through uniform grey drizzle. The whine of the bus’s engine, the rhythmic scrape of the wipers, the faint sound of Radio One playing in the driver’s cab, all around her the smell of damp people.