Free Squelch by John Halkin

control, while six-year-old Frankie listened bright-eyed to Ginny’s news that their Mummy had gone away for the night and immediately wanted to know if she was going to get a divorce.
    ‘No, of course not!’ Ginny laughed. ‘What a ridiculous idea!’
    ‘Susie’s Mummy left like that without saying goodbye and she’s getting a divorce. Susie told me. Everybody gets a divorce sometimes.’
    ‘What’s a divorce?’ asked Wendy. ‘Can I have one?’
    But at last they were all in bed and asleep. Phuong went to her room, while Ginny stayed in the lounge with the television on, though hardly watching it, waiting for a phone call from Bernie.
    It was then she found herself thinking about the giant moths once more, wondering uneasily what connection there might be between them and these new killer caterpillars. Those moths –
her
moths – had seemed so elegant and gentle, yet…

4
    ‘Killed by what? A caterpillar? You must be joking!’ He was standing up against the bar, wide-legged, as though he owned the place. His face was redder than it used to be and he had a bald patch. He turned and saw her. ‘D’you hear that, Liz? Eh, Lizzie Kinley! Why are you sittingthere in the corner? Come up here an’ be sociable.’
    She took another sup of Guinness and ignored him. That Harry Smith always did have a loud voice
and
a laugh to match, the noisy bugger. Remembered him from way back when they both went to the same school, only he hadn’t got that beer gut then. Had the voice though. When he’d whispered to her that time on the back row, the whole village heard it. But he was a Red Lion man usually, so what was he doing here in the Bull?
    ‘Beer gone off in the Red Lion, then?’ She emptied her glass and banged it down on the little round table. ‘Can’t say you’re welcome in here. Keeps a decent house, does Charlie.’
    ‘Did you hear what he just told me?’ Another deep laugh rumbled out of him. ‘No, Charlie, you’re having me on! Go on, pull the other one!’
    ‘Kid o’ nineteen,’ the landlord confirmed. He was polishing the glasses he’d just washed: a burly, slow-moving man who prided himself on his glasses, which was one reason she always came in here, the other being that the Red Lion refused to serve her these days. ‘They’ve got these agricultural apprentices down that place, an’ it was one o’ those lads. A caterpillar bite!’
    ‘Sure it wasn’t a wasp?’
    ‘No, the other lads saw it. A long green caterpillar, they said. Long as your hand.’
    ‘Must’ve been an adder then. Who ever heard of a caterpillar biting anybody? Come on, Charlie – have you?’
    ‘They’ve ruined my lettuce this year. Made a right mess o’ the whole bloody garden.’
    ‘Ay, but that’s not the same as biting people. What d’you say, Liz? You’ve had plenty o’ little nibbles in your day. Ever had it with a caterpillar?’
    ‘You watch your mouth,’ she told him. ‘You always did shoot off your mouth, didn’t you, Harry Smith?Always the big mouth.’
    Another laugh exploded out of him, loud enough to rattle the glasses on the shelves.
    ‘Ah, no offence, Liz! Come on. Come up to the bar an’ I’ll buy you another Guinness. I’ve only got a minute. Meeting someone.’
    ‘I’ll have it here,’ she said, not budging.
    ‘It’s her leg,’ Charlie explained, reaching to the shelf behind him for a bottle of Guinness. ‘Months now since she came out of hospital, but it’s still not right.’
    ‘Knocked off me bike by a bloody moth, you wouldn’t credit it. Now here I am on sticks for the rest o’ me bloody life. And I wasn’t even drunk.’
    ‘You’d had a few.’ Charlie brought her the bottle, taking the empty back to the bar with him. ‘You’ve had more’n you should today as well. That’s your last one, Liz.’
    ‘Fuck off!’ She concentrated on the Guinness, pouring it in against the side of the glass with a skill born of long practice, her hand as steady as a rock despite