Complete Short Stories

  ‘Search me,’ replied your correspondent gravely, signing to the tapster, who at once refilled the Prebendary’s glass. ‘Perhaps the decision would be better left to the individual conscience?’

  ‘These are indeed thorny problems,’ declared Prebendary Palk, ‘but they must be resolutely faced, and not only by the Protestant Churches. Heaven knows what the Vatican reaction will be, but only yesterday I was talking to a Greek Orthodox dignitary – the Lesbian Patriarch in point of fact…’

  ‘Off record,’ interrupted your correspondent boldly, ‘what counsel would you give to a legalized ex-man if he were to fall honourably in love with his deceased grandmother’s husband and find his feelings tenderly reciprocated?’

  ‘Strictly off record,’ the Prebendary answered, venting a non-ecclesiastical chuckle, ‘I should advise him to get on with it while the going is good, publish the banns in a remote parish, and not disclose the relationship to the officiating priest. It is, after all, as the Chief of Sinners pointed out, better to marry than to burn; and whatever legislation may be called for will not retrospectively illegitimize the offspring of such a union – we can promise your friend that.’

  ‘I assure you, the case is quite hypothetical,’ your correspondent stammered, meeting the Prebendary’s shrewdly curious gaze with some embarrassment.

  An Appointment for Candlemas

  HAVE ITHE honour of addressing Mrs Hipkinson?

  That’s me! And what can I do for you, young man?

  I have a verbal introduction from – from an officer of your organization. Robin of Barking Creek was the name he gave.

  If that isn’t just like Robin’s cheek! The old buck hasn’t even dropped me a Christmas card since the year sweets came off the ration, and now he sends me trouble.

  Trouble, Mrs Hipkinson?

  Trouble, I said. You’re not one of us. Don’t need to do no crystal gazing to see that. What’s the game?

  Robin of Barking Creek has been kind enough to suggest that you would be kind enough to…

  Cut it out. Got my shopping to finish.

  If I might perhaps be allowed to carry your basket? It looks as if it were rather heavy.

  O.K., you win. Take the damn thing. My corns are giving me gyp. Well, now, out with it!

  The fact is, madam, I’m engaged in writing a D. Phil. thesis on Contemporary Magology…

  Eh? What’s that? Talk straight, if you please!

  Excuse me. I mean I’m a University graduate studying present-day witchcraft; as a means of taking my degree in Philosophy.

  Now, that makes a bit more sense. If Robin answers for you, I don’t see why we couldn’t help – same as I got our Deanna up into O level with a bit of a spell I cast on the Modern School examiners. But don’t trouble to speak in whispers. Them eighteenth-century Witchcraft Acts is obsolescent now, except as regards fortune-tellers; and we don’t touch that lay, not professionally we don’t. Course, I admit, we keep ourselves to ourselves, but so do the Masons and the Foresters and the Buffs, not to mention the Commies. And all are welcome to our little do’s, what consent to be duly pricked in their finger-tips and take the oath and give that there comical kiss. The police don’t interfere. Got their work cut out to keep up with motoring offences and juvenile crime, and cetera. Nor they don’t believe in witches, they say; only in fairies. They’re real down on the poor fairies, these days.

  Do you mean to say the police wouldn’t break up one of your Grand Sabbaths, if…

  Half a mo’! Got to pop into the Home and Commercial for a dozen rashers and a couple of hen-fruit. Bring the basket along, ducks, if you please…

  As you were saying, Mrs Hipkinson?

  Ah yes, about them Sabbaths… Well, see, so’s to keep on the right side of the Law, on account we all have to appear starko, naturally we hire the Nudists’ Hall. Main festivals are quarter-days and cross quarter-days; them’s the obligatory ones, same as in Lancashire and the Highlands and everywhere else. Can’t often spare the time in between. We run two covens here, used to be three – mixed sexes, but us girls are in the big majority. I’m Pucelle of Coven No. 1, and my boy-friend Arthur o’Bower (radio-mechanic in private life), he’s Chief Devil of both. My husband plays the tabor and jew’s-trump in Coven No. 2. Not very well up in the book of words, but a willing performer, that’s Mr H.

  I hope I’m not being indiscreet, but how do you name your God of the Witches?

  Well, we used different names in the old days, before this village became what’s called a dormitory suburb. He was Mahew, or Lug, or Herne, I seem to remember, according to the time of year. But the Rev. Jones, our last Chief Devil but two, he was a bit of a scholar: always called the god ‘Faunus’, which is Greek or Hebrew, I understand.

  But Faunus was a patron of flocks and forests. There aren’t many flocks or forests in North-Eastern London, surely?

  Too true, there aren’t; but we perform our fertility rites in aid of the allotments. We all feel that the allotments is a good cause to be encouraged, remembering how short of food we went in the War. Reminds me, got to stop at that fruit stall: horse-radish and a cabbage lettuce and a few nice carrots. The horse-radish is for my little old familiar; too strong for my own taste… Shopping’s a lot easier since Arthur and me got rid of that there Hitler…

  Please continue, Mrs Hipkinson.

  Well, as I was saying, that Hitler caused us a lot of trouble. We don’t hold with politics as a rule, but them Natsies was just too bad with their incendiaries and buzz-bombs. So Arthur and I worked on him at a distance, using all the strongest enchantments in the Book of Moons and out of it, not to mention a couple of new ones I got out of them Free French Breton sailors. But Mr Hitler was a difficult nut to crack. He was protected, see? But Mr Hitler had given us fire, and fire we would give Mr Hitler. First time, unfortunately, we got a couple o’ words wrong in the formula, and only blew his pants off him. Next time, we didn’t slip up; and we burned the little basket to a cinder… Reminds me of my great-grandmother, old Mrs Lou Simmons of Wanstead. She got mad with the Emperor Napoleon Bonapart, and caused ’im a horrid belly-ache on the Field of Waterloo. Done, at a distance again, with toad’s venom – you got to get a toad scared sick before he’ll secrete the right stuff. But old Lou, she scared her toad good and proper: showed him a distorting looking-glass – clever act, eh? So Boney couldn’t keep his mind on the battle; it was those awful gripings in his stomjack what gave the Duke of Wellington his opportunity. Must cross over to the chemist, if you don’t mind…

  For flying ointment, by any chance?

  Don’t be potty! Think I’d ask that Mr Cadman for soot and baby’s fat and bat’s blood and aconite and water-parsnip? The old carcase would think I was pulling his leg. No, Long Jack of Coven No. 2 makes up our flying ointment – Jack’s assistant-dispenser at the Children’s Hospital down New Cut. Oh, but look at that queue! I don’t think I’ll trouble this morning. An aspirin will do me just as well as the panel medicine.

  Do you still use the old-style besom at your merrymakings, Mrs Hipkinson?

  There’s another difficulty you laid your finger on. Can’t get a decent besom hereabouts, not for love nor money. Painted white wood and artificial bristles, that’s what they offer you. We got to send all the way to a bloke at Taunton for the real thing – ash and birch with osier for the binding – and last time, believe it or don’t, the damned fool sent me a consignment bound in nylon tape! Nylon tape, I ask you!

  Yes, I fear that modern technological conditions are not favourable to a spread of the Old Religion.

  Can’t grumble. We’re up to strength at present, until one or two of the older boys and girls drop off the hook. But TV isn’t doing us no good. Sometimes I got to do a bit of magic-making before I can drag my coven away from that Children’s Hour.

  Could you tell me what sort of magic?

  Oh, nothing much; just done with tallow dolls and a bit of itching powder. I raise shingles on their sit-upons, that’s the principle. Ma
in trouble is, there’s not been a girl of school-age joined us since my Deanna, which is quite a time. It’s hell beating up recruits. Why, I know families where there’s three generations of witches behind the kids, and can you guess what they all say?

  I should not like to venture a guess, Mrs Hipkinson.

  They say it’s rude. Rude! That’s a good one, eh? Well now, what about Candlemas? Falls on a Saturday this year. Come along at dusk. Nudists’ Hall, remember – first big building to the left past the traffic lights. Just knock. And don’t you worry about the finger-pricking. I’ll bring iodine and lint.

  This is very kind of you indeed, Mrs Hipkinson. I’ll phone Barking Creek tonight and tell Robin how helpful you have been.

  Don’t mention it, young man. Well, here’s my dump. Can’t ask you in, I’m afraid, on account of my little old familiar wouldn’t probably take to you. But it’s been a nice chat. O.K., then. On Candlemas Eve, look out for three green frogs in your shaving mug; I’ll send them as a reminder… And mind, no funny business, Mister Clever! We welcome good sports, specially the College type like yourself; but nosy-parkers has got to watch their step, see? Last Lammas, Arthur and me caught a reporter from the North-Eastern Examiner concealed about the premises. Hey presto! and we transformed him into one of them Australian yellow dog dingoes. Took him down to Regent’s Park in Arthur’s van, we did, and let him loose on the grass. Made out he’d escaped from the Zoological Gardens; the keepers soon copped him. He’s the only dingo in the pen with a kink in his tail; but you’d pick him out even without that, I dare say, by his hang-dog look. Yes, you can watch the dingoes free from the ‘Scotsman’s Zoo’, meaning that nice walk along the Park railings. Well, cheerio for the present!

  Good-bye, Mrs Hipkinson.

  The Five Godfathers

  DEAR AUNTIE MAY,

  About that christening. The baby’s father, Don Onofre Tur y Tur, was a lawyer; but that doesn’t mean much here in Majorca. Only a few lawyers have offices and clerks and things. The rest take law degrees because their fathers want to make gentlemen of them that way; though there isn’t enough law work to go around among them all. And once they become gentlemen they are ashamed to sell melons in the market, or plough olive terraces with a mule-plough; so most of them waste their time in cafés, or make love to foreign lady-tourists who look lonely.

  Onofre’s father, Don Isidoro, had earned lots and lots by selling icecream outside the boys’ colleges in the summer and doughnuts in the winter. Afterwards he bought a dance-house called ‘The Blue Parrot’ and a souvenir shop called ‘Pensées de Majorque’, and thus became immensely rich, like Charles Augustus Fortescue in the Cautionary Tales. But Onofre fell in love with Marujita, one of the taxi-girls at ‘The Blue Parrot’ and secretly married her. (The taxi-girls’ job is to dance with the customers and make them buy gallons of expensive drink, and then sit in corners and cuddle them all night.) Don Isidoro was furious when he found out; he banished Onofre to Binijiny with an allowance of a hundred pesetas a day, telling him never to show his face in Palma again.

  Of course, everyone at Binijiny knew the story; and the mayor’s wife and the secretary’s wife were awfully catty to Marujita. But Onofre said she mustn’t pay any attention to these low people. He managed to be quite happy himself: he had a motor-bicycle, and an apparatus for spearing fish under water, and a gun for shooting rabbits, and a quail for decoying quail, and a net for netting thrushes. He also used to play poker every day with two American abstract painters and one New Zealand real painter. Marujita may have been a bit lonely, but she loved having a home of her own, after being a taxi-girl, and a hundred pesetas a day seemed like riches.

  One day the rumour went round that Marujita was ‘embarrassed and soon going to give light’, meaning she expected a baby, and presently Onofre asked mother to arrange things with the midwife, a kind woman from Madrid who thinks Binijiny very rustic. So mother did. Marujita couldn’t manage the housework towards the end, but the neighbours pretended to be too terribly busy to look in, and we live on the other side of the valley. So, because a Spanish man doesn’t help in the house, especially if he’s a gentleman like Onofre, Marujita cabled for her younger sister Sita. Don Isidoro had dismissed Sita from ‘The Blue Parrot’, where she was dancing too, for fear the men customers found out that she was his relative; he gave her a day’s notice and her boat fare, third-class, to Valencia. Wasn’t that mean? Well, Sita turned up in Binijiny a month before the baby was expected, and though she seemed scared of mother and us at first, as though we’d certainly be unkind to her, we liked her awfully. The two sisters were always crying over each other and kissing, and saying rosaries; and Sita knitted vests and socks all day.

  Anyhow, the baby got safely born, and because it was a boy Onofre simply had to call it after the grandfather; that’s a rule here, just as the second son has to be called after the other grandfather. Sita was splendid. She helped the midwife with Marujita, and didn’t scream or run in circles like the Binijiny women do; but she made the baby feel at home, and washed it and changed it and sang it lovely Flamenco songs. She also cooked the meals and did all the other housework. Onofre had told her on the first day: ‘Sister-in-law, you’re a very good girl; you shall be godmother.’ When the New Zealand painter was asked to be godfather he answered, ‘Look here, I’m a Protestant.’ But Onofre said, ‘No matter, it’s all the same. Priests are priests everywhere.’

  Of course, Onofre had announced the birth to the grandparents, first with a respectful telegram, and then with a flowery letter, enclosing an invitation card to the christening. He never expected to get any answer; it was just to keep his allowance safe.

  Well, on the day of the christening, Sita put on her Sunday dress and wiped off her make-up and arranged the drinks and cakes and biscuits and tapas for the baptismal party in the sitting-room. Then she wrapped the baby like a mummy in four or five thick shawls and Doña Isabel the midwife accompanied her because she had never been a godmother before. Marujita wasn’t well enough to go, so she stayed in bed. Onofre had sent out a whole packet of invitations to the christening, but nobody else came at all except mother and father and me and Richard, and the two American abstract painters and the New Zealand real painter.

  The priest was waiting at the church door but the acolytes hadn’t arrived. We waited about for nearly an hour talking and joking, while the baby slept. At last the priest said he had other business to do and he must start without the acolytes, and perhaps Onofre would condescend to assist? So he did, to save time. Sita already had the lighted candle in her hand, which every godmother carries, when a large, splendid car drew up in the Plaza, and Don Isidoro and Doña Tecla entered. Onofre turned pale, and the beastly old man said at once: ‘I am godfather here and no one else, understand, Onofre? What’s more, this immodest woman is not going to be godmother by my side. Unless she goes away I’ll cut off your allowance and the child will starve.’ Onofre turned paler still, but Sita kept calm. She said to the priest: ‘Father, I renounce my rights. Nobody will ever say that I prejudiced the good fortune of this precious infant.’ Then she handed the candle to Doña Isabel and went home to tell Marujita. The New Zealand painter also gave up, of course, so the priest started; but as soon as he turned his back and bowed to the altar Doña Tecla seized the baby from Doña Isabel, and said ‘I am godmother here, woman, and no one else, understand?’

  But Doña Isabel hung on to the candle, and told the grandparents in a loud whisper that Sita was worth forty basketfuls of canaille like them. Doña Tecla screeched back at her, cackling like an old hen, which made the priest lose his place in the book and start reading prayers for missionaries in foreign parts. He had just found out his mistake and said ‘Caramba, what a folly!’ when in ran the acolytes without their surplices and laughing fit to burst. The manager of the hotel had sent them to fetch Doña Isabel at once, because two Belgian ladies insisted on sunbathing naked by the fishermen’s huts, and if the Guardias caught them he’d be fined two
hundred and fifty pesetas for each woman, because they were guests in his hotel, and that is the law. Doña Isabel asked ‘Why me?’ And they answered ‘Because you are accustomed to deal with undressed women.’ So Doña Isabel said ‘Patience, in a moment!’

  The priest took the baby and put the usual salt in its mouth to drive out the Devil, but for some reason or other it didn’t cry. Perhaps it liked the taste. So Don Isidoro said ‘Put in more, man; the Devil’s still inside!’ and Doña Tecla reached forward under the shawls and pinched the poor little baby on purpose to make it yell. Onofre noticed that and said in a loud voice ‘Mother, you may insult my sister-in-law, and the certificated midwife of this village; these are women’s affairs in which I don’t meddle. But you will not pinch my son’s bottom.’

  The priest hurriedly made the sign of the cross on the baby’s forehead, and called it Onofre, by mistake for Isidoro. Then Onofre took it from him and gave it to mother, who hurried it out of church before worse could happen. Doña Isabel went with her, still holding the candle.

  Naturally Don Isidoro disowned Onofre, and Doña Tecla slapped his face before they stamped out of the church and drove off in their large splendid car. The rest of us trailed along to the baptismal party. Onofre did his best to be cheerful, and said ‘Come along, friends, and help me drink up the brandy, because tomorrow we’re all beggars.’

  Sita was there when we arrived, rocking the baby and looking very pretty and pale without her make-up. Everyone began at once to drink and dance. Our family went away early because Richard had eaten too much cake and drunk half a glass of anís; but presently another guest invited himself in, an officer of the Spanish Blue Division whom the Russians had just let out of prison after fourteen years. He had no friends left and wanted to celebrate his return. Doña Isabel also came. She had frightened the Belgian women into putting on their clothes and then gone back to the church, where she found that Doña Tecla hadn’t signed the register as the baby’s godmother. So she signed it herself; because, after all, she’d held the candle. And the name would be Onofre, she said, not Isidoro, and that was God’s will.