The Triple Goddess (162 page)

‘What’s she doing now?’

‘Telemarketing for one of the spell chains.’

A chime sounded thrice.

‘Oh my goodness,’ said Hecate, ‘is that the time already?’

‘Your clock’s way off,’ said Jenny, ‘it’s much later than three. Old Jock McJoist, the Clerk of Works who came upstairs with me to help look for the windows, is well into his evening neaps and tatties and jar by now.’

‘Nonsense. This is my world up here, and I tell you it’s three
post meridiem
.’ Hecate looked perturbed. ‘Fie on me for being such a gabby old woman! Spell surgery’s Wednesday, and I haven’t even begun to prepare. There are over a hundred orders to fill, none of them lucrative, natch, and some are left over from last week because the ingredients didn’t come in time. There’s a tracking spell for Eudora’s aunt who never returned from the chiropodist, and Dorothy is bugging me for a sea urchin compote
.
’

‘What does the compote cure?’

‘Nothing, it’s for a dinner she’s serving for a few friends at the weekend. When you’re as involved with spell recipes and ingredients as I am, it’s difficult not to become at least a passing good cook. Dorothy couldn’t boil an egg.’

‘Where is the clock? It sounds close but I don’t see it.’

Jenny followed Hecate’s look upwards. There being so much else to attend to, she had not noticed that suspended by wires from the ceiling, well away from Volumnia the vulture’s cage, was the model of a witch, almost as big as Hecate and very lifelike. The figure was holding a wand with a felt-covered ball on the end, like a drumstick, with which she had just struck a still-swaying tubular bell.

‘What a fun clock.’

‘It’s not a clock,’ said Hecate, nettled; ‘it’s Joy Almond.

‘Joy Almond?’

‘She bequeathed herself to me in her will. “Trouble with you, Hecate,” Joy used to say, “is that you’ve no concept of time. Instead of watching it, and saving it, you just spend it.” “Well, Joy,” I would reply, “my problem is that I conceive of time too well. I’ve seen as much of it as I care to, and if I saved it I’d have nowhere to put it. Space is limited.” “Unacceptable,” said Joy; “when I’m gone I’m going to ensure that you’re punctual.”

‘She has, too; ever since she passed away I’ve been a punctiliously punctual procrastinator.’

Jenny looked warily at Joy Almond. There was a scintilla of life in the old witch’s blackcurrant eye, which seemed to be scrutinizing her with an expression that was not indicative of approbation.

‘Hecate, about your spell surgery: it would be wonderful if you would take me on part-time to give you a hand with general work and spell preparations…just the simplest ones, of course. I’m a quick learner, and have a willing pair of hands, so if you’d care to teach me the rudiments I’m sure I could be of use. I have the advantage of living downstairs, so I can be on call. I would treat everything as confidential, and promise not to try and get the chores done by magic like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice
…
Der Zauberlehrling—
in Goethe’s poem
.’

‘Out of the question. As I said, I’ve never done well with apprentices, and I very much doubt that Eugénie Beauvais Plantagenet is cut out to be any better than the others. No offence intended. I appreciate the offer, but being an apprentice is hard work, the hours are long, and I’m not the easiest taskmistress. No, I’ll go back to the well for a helper: there are a few good eggs in the Guild’s pool of witch wannabes. I don’t hold it against them that they failed their Chartered Institute exams—I did myself when I sat them as mocks a few years ago.’

‘I can assure you that...’

Hecate’s expression softened, as leather yields to the influence of Dubbin or saddle-soap. ‘Take it from me, dear, you don’t have either Time with a capital T or the time with a small one…there’s a subtle but major difference, which I won’t go into.

‘The dry ingredients, which I keep in here,’—she pointed to the green curtain—‘still have live properties, and they need to be talked to ...intelligently...and played music to...Bach mostly...in order to keep them in spell condition. Of course you could do that, but it takes hours every day. There was one odd girl I had, Clothilda Eyre, who, in addition to having a Cockney accent, read them Jean-Paul Sartre while playing Bartok’s
Mikrokosmos
on the Gramophone talking machine, both at once, all afternoon while I was at the Cash-and-Carry. When I got back I had to throw a lot of stuff away, which was a disaster, because all dry ingredients are expensive, not just P.D.T., and I can’t afford waste.

‘When I’m ready to make a spell they have to be ground very fine by hand, and mixed in strict accordance with the recipe. My eyesight isn’t what it was and I’m not good with small print, being too vain to wear glasses.’ Jenny could not suppress a smile at this. ‘Once I put double concentrate
Amanita muscaria
, that’s fly agaric, instead of nasturtium oil into Winnie Ramsay’s lumbago syrup. It was for her own consumption, not a client’s, after she’d been referred to me by her doctor. It was touch and go as to whether poor old Winnie would survive. If she hadn’t, I would have joined Bathsheba Birthstrangle in the ranks of the unemployable, and that would have been a sorry end to an illustrious career.’

Hecate sighed. ‘At least it wasn’t the
phalloides
death cap, or an excess of
Strychnos nux-vomica
, in which case it would have been Goodnight, Winnie. But enough of my troubles. Though I’m politely declining your offer of assistance, if you’d like to know some more about what we do...’

‘Oh, yes, please!’

‘Very well. Before we get to that, consider yourself invited to my open house tonight. I’ll take your word for it that it is Tuesday, not Monday as I thought. Tuesdays are my weekly open house. Are you free?’

‘Absolutely!’

‘It’s for the witches. More of a party, really, which just goes to show that I still have some pull in this business. Though the prospect of free food and drink alone is enough to guarantee a good turnout.’

‘A party…in here?’

‘Where else?’

‘Thank you, Dame Hecate! I shouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Hecate looked at Jenny curiously. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. It’s settled then: six o’clock.’

Jenny looked down at herself and the dust on her clothes. ‘But I can’t come looking like this, ma’am, all dirty and covered in cobwebs. I’ll have to go downstairs to take a bath and change.’

‘Don’t worry about that, you can wash and brush up here, and I’ll find you something suitable to wear from my wardrobe.’

Jenny looked at Hecate’s shawl cardigan and wondered what colour it had once been; also, the triple goddess was a good foot and a half shorter than she was.

‘Now then,’ said the old lady briskly; ‘come upstairs and meet B.J. and the Ingredients. The
fresh
Ingredients.’

How strange, thought Jenny; as if an ingredient were a person or live thing. Greatly looking forward to the next stage of her adventure, she picked up her satchel, and followed the little bent figure towards the open iron staircase in the middle of the room.

”

Chapter Thirty-One

“

When they mounted the narrow circular steps and emerged at the top, the light in the circular turret, which was unexpectedly spacious, was so bright compared to the room below that Jenny had to hold up her hand to shield her eyes against the glare. As they adjusted and she was able to look outside, as if from the lantern room of a lighthouse, the all-around panorama of moors, rocks, sea, and sky, was like a view from Valhalla.

Silent waves, white-capped from the horizon, dashed themselves against the cliffs, and silent seabirds were tautly pinioned against the rack and buffet of the wind, in a picture that was as fresh as if it were a dress rehearsal for reality.

A moment later the peace was broken by a cacophony of screeching, whistling, and barking. Jenny spun around and took in a second extraordinary sight: under a wide high sill that ran round the base of the window glass like a counter, the space was filled with a miscellany of kennels, hutches, cages, and baskets ranged and stacked against the wall.

Across the wide bare floorboards, grain spilled from sacks, and there was a litter of different kinds of leaves and grasses. Feed and water bowls were scattered about, and cans and boxes with labels identifying themselves as dog and cat food, mushy peas, cocktail sausages, oxtail soup, Hamburger Helper, and pizza with a variety of toppings. Pet toys, bones both real and artificial, chocolate wrappers...the place was a mess.

Although Jenny glimpsed shapes and forms scrambling and flapping inside the hutches and cages, her overriding sensation was that of an unpleasant combination of odours, some of them soft and perfumed like musk, and others acrid enough to make her breathe through her mouth.

It was very warm. Despite the fine weather, a pot-belly stove in the middle of the room was giving off considerable heat, and because the windows didn’t open there was no ventilation to dissipate either warmth or smell. There were some bundles of kindling on the stove’s fire-brick surround, a coal-scuttle, a scoop shovel, a poker, and a riddling iron.

Perched on a high three-legged stool against the windowsill was a rotund and avuncular-looking man with short legs, who was frozen in the act of raising a battered crust of fried fish to his mouth, presumably a very late lunch. Draped over a coat-hanger stand behind him was a dirty shaggy overcoat that looked several sizes too large for him. The person’s head was bald except for a fringe of grey hair, like the corolla surrounding a monk’s tonsure. He was wearing old-fashioned round National Health spectacles, of which one of the arm springs of the frame was curled behind an ear, and the other wasn’t.

The crumpled open newspaper before him contained the remains of the man’s portion of fish and chips, and next to it was a bottle of Sarson’s malt vinegar. A sugar caster, decorated with a faded and scratched transfer depicting some seaside resort, presumably contained salt. The aluminium top was off owing to the dampness of the contents, to which grains of white rice had been added in an unsuccessful attempt to keep them dry. Lumps of the salt were on the counter and a quantity more had spilled onto the floor.

When Hecate raised her arm, the noise and flurry from within the cages was stilled, as if the needle had been taken off the record on a turntable. The manurial and ammoniacal stench vanished and Jenny was able to resume breathing normally.

‘Jenny, I want you to meet B.J.: B.J., as in Blaspheming Jew, Wegner. B.J., this is Jenny. Where are my manners? Rather I should be introducing Lady Otto Huntenfisch.’

‘I prefer plain Jenny.’

‘Very well,’ said Hecate, ‘B.J., Jenny has done us the honour of paying us a call from downstairs. But
Doctor
Wegner, I should have said. B.J. is Chief Pharmacist and Ingredient Curator of the Witches’ Guild, and he has a PhD. in chemistry. He is a witch doctor. Actually, he’s the only pharmacist, just as I’m the only official spell-maker. Regarding the blaspheming Jew bit, that’s a misnomer because to my knowledge he’s never uttered anything stronger than a mild oath, usually consequent upon some nuisance committed by that avian millstone around our necks, the vulture Volumnia.

‘Beej, I hope you weren’t going to give Volumnia any of that unhealthy lunch of yours, she’s got such a delicate stomach.’ Hecate raised her eyebrows at Jenny. ‘Unusual in a vulture, but there it is.’

The coat-hanger behind B.J. raised a bald and wrinkled head above its shoulders. It was the largest and ugliest bird Jenny had ever seen. By way of a greeting Volumnia shuffled her feet, opened her beak, and threw up onto a plastic mat, which seemed to have been placed before her for the purpose. She then wriggled her backside and made a large liquid deposit on another mat behind her, and assumed a look of great satisfaction.

B.J. lowered his hand holding the scrap of fish onto the newspaper, scrunched it up, and lobbed it into a waste-paper basket across the room; whereupon the remaining pungent odour in the room, that of batter and vinegar, disappeared, leaving a sweet smell of straw. He stood up, took some napkins out of a drawer, wiped his fingers, and tossed the napkin ball to join the remains of his lunch.

‘Pleased to meet you, Jenny. Welcome. Pardon me if I don’t shake hands, they’re still a bit greasy.’

‘Now then,’ said Hecate. ‘B.J., I want you to tell Jenny what goes on in our little world, and introduce her to the Ingredients. When you’re done bring her downstairs and show her the laboratory. Also, she’s going to join us this evening. I’ll ask Joy to remind you when it’s time to get ready, because I’ll be out. There are some herbs I need to order for gathering during tonight’s planetary conjunction, or they’ll be good for nothing but cooking.’

Doctor Wegner grunted.

From the pendulous sleeve of her cardigan, Hecate removed a linen square with a coloured bead hanging edge to it as on the cover for a jug of lemonade, which is what it was, and wiped her nose. Then she was gone. B.J. motioned Jenny to an upturned crate, on which, after removing her satchel and laying it on the floor beside her, she sat down.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but it’s all there is; no one comes up here except Hec, and the authority figure always prefers to stand, all four feet and so many inches of her.’ He returned to his stool, cleared his throat, and was about to speak again when there was a ear-splitting scream from behind him.