The Witches Read online

  ‘Tell me what those English witches do, Grandmamma,’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ she said, sucking away at her stinking cigar, ‘their favourite ruse is to mix up a powder that will turn a child into some creature or other that all grownups hate.’

  ‘What sort of a creature, Grandmamma?’

  ‘Often it's a slug,’ she said. ‘A slug is one of their favourites. Then the grown-ups step on the slug and squish it without knowing it's a child.’

  ‘That's perfectly beastly!’ I cried.

  ‘Or it might be a flea,’ my grandmother said. ‘They might turn you into a flea, and without realizing what she was doing your own mother would get out the fleapowder and then it's goodbye you.’

  ‘You're making me nervous, Grandmamma. I don't think I want to go back to England.’

  ‘I've known English witches,’ she went on, ‘who have turned children into pheasants and then sneaked the pheasants up into the woods the very day before the pheasant-shooting season opened.’

  ‘Owch,’ I said. ‘So they get shot?’

  ‘Of course they get shot,’ she said. ‘And then they get plucked and roasted and eaten for supper.’

  I pictured myself as a pheasant flying frantically over the men with the guns, swerving and dipping as the guns exploded below me.

  ‘Yes,’ my grandmother said, ‘it gives the English witches great pleasure to stand back and watch the grown-ups doing away with their own children.’

  ‘I really don't want to go to England, Grandmamma.’

  ‘Of course you don't,’ she said. ‘Nor do I. But I'm afraid we've got to.’

  ‘Are witches different in every country?’ I asked.

  ‘Completely different,’ my grandmother said. ‘But I don't know much about the other countries.’

  ‘Don't you even know about America?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really,’ she answered. ‘Although I have heard it said that over there the witches are able to make the grown-ups eat their own children.’

  ‘Never!’ I cried. ‘Oh no, Grandmamma! That couldn't be true!’

  ‘I don't know whether it's true or not,’ she said. ‘It's only a rumour I've heard.’

  ‘But how could they possibly make them eat their own children?’ I asked.

  ‘By turning them into hot-dogs,’ she said. ‘That wouldn't be too difficult for a clever witch.’

  ‘Does every single country in the world have its witches?’ I asked.

  ‘Wherever you find people, you find witches,’ my grandmother said. ‘There is a Secret Society of Witches in every country.’

  ‘And do they all know one another, Grandmamma?’

  ‘They do not,’ she said. ‘A witch only knows the witches in her own country. She is strictly forbidden to communicate with any foreign witches. But an English witch, for example, will know all the other witches in England. They are all friends. They ring each other up. They swap deadly recipes. Goodness knows what else they talk about. I hate to think.’

  I sat on the floor, watching my grandmother. She put her cigar stub in the ashtray and folded her hands across her stomach. ‘Once a year,’ she went on, ‘the witches of each separate country hold their own secret meeting. They all get together in one place to receive a lecture from The Grand High Witch Of All The World.’

  ‘From who?’ I cried.

  ‘She is the ruler of them all,’ my grandmother said. ‘She is all-powerful. She is without mercy. All other witches are petrified of her. They see her only once a year at their Annual Meeting. She goes there to whip up excitement and enthusiasm, and to give orders. The Grand High Witch travels from country to country attending these Annual Meetings.’

  ‘Where do they have these meetings, Grandmamma?’

  ‘There are all sorts of rumours,’ my grandmother answered. ‘I have heard it said that they just book into a hotel like any other group of women who are holding a meeting. I have also heard it said that some very peculiar things go on in the hotels they stay in. It is rumoured that the beds are never slept in, that there are burn marks on the bedroom carpets, that toads are discovered in the bathtubs, and that down in the kitchen the cook once found a baby crocodile swimming in his saucepan of soup.’

  My grandmother picked up her cigar and took another puff, inhaling the foul smoke deeply into her lungs.

  ‘Where does The Grand High Witch live when she's at home?’ I asked.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ my grandmother said. ‘If we knew that, then she could be rooted out and destroyed. Witchophiles all over the world have spent their lives trying to discover the secret headquarters of The Grand High Witch.’

  ‘What is a witchophile, Grandmamma?’

  ‘A person who studies witches and knows a lot about them,’ my grandmother said.

  ‘Are you a witchophile, Grandmamma?’

  ‘I am a retired witchophile,’ she said. ‘I am too old to be active any longer. But when I was younger, I travelled all over the globe trying to track down The Grand High Witch. I never came even close to succeeding.’

  ‘Is she rich?’ I asked.

  ‘She's rolling,’ my grandmother said. ‘Simply rolling in money. Rumour has it that there is a machine in her headquarters which is exactly like the machine the government uses to print the bank-notes you and I use. After all, bank-notes are only bits of paper with special designs and pictures on them. Anyone can make them who has the right machine and the right paper. My guess is that The Grand High Witch makes all the money she wants and she dishes it out to witches everywhere.’

  ‘What about foreign money?’ I asked.

  ‘Those machines can make Chinese money if you want them to,’ my grandmother said. ‘It's only a question of pressing the right button.’

  ‘But Grandmamma,’ I said, ‘if nobody has ever seen The Grand High Witch, how can you be so sure she exists?’

  My grandmother gave me a long and very severe look. ‘Nobody has ever seen the Devil,’ she said, ‘but we know he exists.’

  The next morning, we sailed for England and soon I was back in the old family house in Kent, but this time with only my grandmother to look after me. Then the Easter Term began and every weekday I went to school and everything seemed to have come back to normal again.

  Now at the bottom of our garden there was an enormous conker tree, and high up in its branches Timmy (my best friend) and I had started to build a magnificent tree-house. We were able to work on it only at the weekends, but we were getting along fine. We had begun with the floor, which we built by laying wide planks between two quite far-apart branches and nailing them down. Within a month, we had finished the floor. Then we constructed a wooden railing around the floor and that left only the roof to be built. The roof was the difficult bit.

  One Saturday afternoon when Timmy was in bed with flu, I decided to make a start on the roof all by myself. It was lovely being high up there in that conker tree, all alone with the pale young leaves coming out everywhere around me. It was like being in a big green cave. And the height made it extra exciting. My grandmother had told me that if I fell I would break a leg, and every time I looked down, I got a tingle along my spine.

  I worked away, nailing the first plank on the roof. Then suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a woman standing immediately below me. She was looking up at me and smiling in the most peculiar way. When most people smile, their lips go out sideways. This woman's lips went upwards and downwards, showing all her front teeth and gums. The gums were like raw meat.

  It is always a shock to discover that you are being watched when you think you are alone.

  And what was this strange woman doing in our garden anyway?

  I noticed that she was wearing a small black hat and she had black gloves on her hands and the gloves came nearly up to her elbows.

  Gloves! She was wearing gloves!

  I froze all over.

  ‘I have a present for you,’ she said, still staring at me, still smiling, still showing her teeth
and gums.

  I didn't answer.

  ‘Come down out of that tree, little boy,’ she said, ‘and I shall give you the most exciting present you've ever had.’ Her voice had a curious rasping quality. It made a sort of metallic sound, as though her throat was full of drawing-pins.

  Without taking her eyes from my face, she very slowly put one of those gloved hands into her purse and drew out a small green snake. She held it up for me to see.

  ‘It's tame,’ she said.

  The snake began to coil itself around her forearm. It was brilliant green.

  ‘If you come down here, I shall give him to you,’ she said.

  Oh Grandmamma, I thought, come and help me!

  Then I panicked. I dropped the hammer and shot up that enormous tree like a monkey. I didn't stop until I was as high as I could possibly go, and there I stayed, quivering with fear. I couldn't see the woman now. There were layers and layers of leaves between her and me.

  I stayed up there for hours and I kept very still. It began to grow dark. At last, I heard my grandmother calling my name.

  ‘I'm up here,’ I shouted back.

  ‘Come down at once!’ she called out. ‘It's past your suppertime.’

  ‘Grandmamma!’ I shouted. ‘Has that woman gone?’

  ‘What woman?’ My grandmother called back.

  ‘The woman in the black gloves!’

  There was silence from below. It was the silence of somebody who was too stunned to speak.

  ‘Grandmamma!’ I shouted again. ‘Has she gone?’

  ‘Yes,’ my grandmother answered at last. ‘She's gone. I'm here, my darling. I'll look after you. You can come down now.’

  I climbed down. I was trembling. My grandmother enfolded me in her arms. ‘I've seen a witch,’ I said.

  ‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘You'll be all right with me.’

  She led me into the house and gave me a cup of hot cocoa with lots of sugar in it. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said.

  I told her.

  By the time I had finished, it was my grandmother who was trembling. Her face was ashy grey and I saw her glance down at that hand of hers that didn't have a thumb. ‘You know what this means,’ she said. ‘It means that there is one of them in our district. From now on I'm not letting you walk alone to school.’

  ‘Do you think she could be after me specially?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I doubt that. One child is as good as any other to those creatures.’

  It is hardly surprising that after that I became a very witch-conscious little boy. If I happened to be alone on the road and saw a woman approaching who was wearing gloves, I would quickly skip across to the other side. And as the weather remained pretty cold during the whole of that month, nearly everybody was wearing gloves. Curiously enough though, I never saw the woman with the green snake again.

  That was my first witch. But it wasn't my last.

  Summer Holidays

  The Easter holidays came and went, and the Summer Term began at school. My grandmother and I had already planned to take our summer holiday in Norway and we talked about almost nothing else every evening. She had booked a cabin for each of us on the boat from Newcastle to Oslo at the earliest possible moment after my school broke up, and from Oslo she was going to take me to a place she knew down on the south coast near Arendal where she had spent her own summer holidays as a child nearly eighty years ago.

  ‘All day long,’ she said, ‘my brother and I were out in the rowing-boat. The whole coast is dotted with tiny islands and there's nobody on them. We used to explore them and dive into the sea off the lovely smooth granite rocks, and sometimes on the way out we would drop the anchor and fish for cod and whiting, and if we caught anything we would build a fire on an island and fry the fish in a pan for our lunch. There is no finer fish in the world than absolutely fresh cod.’

  ‘What did you use for bait, Grandmamma, when you went fishing?’

  ‘Mussels,’ she said. ‘Everyone uses mussels for bait in Norway. And if we didn't catch any fish, we would boil the mussels in a saucepan and eat those.’

  ‘Were they good?’

  ‘Delicious,’ she said. ‘Cook them in sea-water and they are tender and salty.’

  ‘What else did you do, Grandmamma?’

  ‘We used to row out and wave to the shrimp-boats on their way home, and they would stop and give us a handful of shrimps each. The shrimps were still warm from having been just cooked, and we would sit in the rowing-boat peeling them and gobbling them up. The head was the best part.’

  ‘The head?’ I said.

  ‘You squeeze the head between your teeth and suck out the inside. It's marvellous. You and I will do all those things this summer, my darling,’ she said.

  ‘Grandmamma,’ I said, ‘I can't wait. I simply can't wait to go.’

  ‘Nor can I,’ she said.

  When there were only three weeks of the Summer Term left, an awful thing happened. My grandmother got pneumonia. She became very ill, and a trained nurse moved into the house to look after her. The doctor explained to me that pneumonia is not normally a dangerous illness nowadays because of penicillin, but when a person is more than eighty years old, as my grandmother was, then it is very dangerous indeed. He said he didn't even dare to move her to hospital in her condition, so she stayed in her bedroom and I hung about outside the door while oxygen cylinders and all sorts of other frightening things were taken in to her.

  ‘Can I go in and see her?’ I asked.

  ‘No, dear,’ the nurse said. ‘Not at the moment.’

  A fat and jolly lady called Mrs Spring, who used to come and clean our house every day, also moved in and slept in the house. Mrs Spring looked after me and cooked my meals. I liked her very much, but she wasn't a patch on my grandmother for telling stories.

  One evening, about ten days later, the doctor came downstairs and said to me, ‘You can go in and see her now, but only for a short time. She's been asking for you.’

  I flew up the stairs and burst into my grandmother's room and threw myself into her arms.

  ‘Hey there,’ the nurse said. ‘Be careful with her.’

  ‘Will you be all right now, Grandmamma?’ I asked.

  ‘The worst is over,’ she said. ‘I'll soon be up again.’

  ‘Will she?’ I said to the nurse.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the nurse answered, smiling. ‘She told us she simply had to get better because she had to look after you.’

  I gave her another hug.

  ‘They won't let me have a cigar,’ she said. ‘But you wait till they're gone.’

  ‘She's a tough old bird,’ the nurse said. ‘We'll have her up in another week.’

  The nurse was right. Within a week, my grandmother was thumping around the house with her gold-topped cane and interfering with Mrs Spring's cooking. ‘I thank you for all your help, Mrs Spring,’ she said, ‘but you can go home now.’

  ‘Oh no I can't,’ Mrs Spring said. ‘Doctor told me to see that you take it very easy for the next few days.’

  The doctor said more than that. He dropped a bombshell on my grandmother and me by telling us that on no account were we to risk the journey to Norway this summer.

  ‘Rubbish!’ my grandmother cried. ‘I've promised him we'll go!’

  ‘It's too far,’ the doctor said. ‘It would be very dangerous. But I'll tell you what you can do. You can take your grandson to a nice hotel on the south coast of England instead. The sea air is just what you need.’

  ‘Oh no!’ I said.

  ‘Do you want your grandmother to die?’ the doctor asked me.

  ‘Never!’ I said.

  ‘Then don't let her go on a long journey this summer. She's not yet strong enough. And stop her smoking those vile black cigars.’

  In the end, the doctor had his way about the holiday, but not about the cigars. Rooms were booked for us in a place called the Hotel Magnificent in the famous seaside town of Bournemouth. Bournemouth, my grandmo
ther told me, was full of old people like herself. They retired there by the thousand because the air was so bracing and healthy it kept them, so they believed, alive for a few extra years.

  ‘Does it?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘It's tommyrot. But just for once I think we've got to obey the doctor.’

  Soon after that, my grandmother and I took the train to Bournemouth and settled into the Hotel Magnificent. It was an enormous white building on the sea-front and it looked to me like a pretty boring place to spend a summer holiday in. I had my own separate bedroom, but there was a door connecting my room with my grandmother's room so that we could visit each other without going into the corridor.

  Just before we left for Bournemouth, my grandmother had given me, as consolation, a present of two white mice in a little cage and of course I took them with me. They were terrific fun, those mice. I called them William and Mary, and in the hotel I set out right away teaching them to do tricks. The first trick I taught them was to creep up the sleeve of my jacket and come out by my neck.

  Then I taught them to climb up the back of my neck on to the top of my head. I did this by putting cake crumbs in my hair.

  On the very first morning after our arrival, the chambermaid was making my bed when one of my mice poked its head out from under the sheets. The maid let out a shriek that brought a dozen people running to see who was being murdered. I was reported to the Manager. There followed an unpleasant scene in the Manager's office with the Manager, my grandmother and me.

  The Manager, whose name was Mr Stringer, was a bristly man in a black tail-coat. ‘I cannot permit mice in my hotel, madam,’ he said to my grandmother.

  ‘How dare you say that when your rotten hotel is full of rats anyway!’ my grandmother cried.

  ‘Rats!’ cried Mr Stringer, going mauve in the face. ‘There are no rats in this hotel!’

  ‘I saw one this very morning,’ my grandmother said. ‘It was running down the corridor into the kitchen!’