‘On the subject of witchcraft,’ said Letice, with the born chairwoman’s touch for the enforced segue, ‘I thought I might raise with you the question of your participation in the Trials.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you … ah … don’t you think it is unfair to other people that you win every year?’
Granny Weatherwax looked down at the floor and then up at the ceiling.
‘No,’ she said, eventually. ‘I’m better’n them.’
‘You don’t think it is a little dispiriting for the other contestants?’
Once again, the floor-to-ceiling search.
‘No,’ said Granny.
‘But they start off knowing they’re not going to win.’
‘So do I.’
‘Oh, no, you surely—’
‘I meant that I start off knowing they’re not goin’ to win, too,’ said Granny witheringly. ‘And they ought to start off knowing I’m not going to win. No wonder they lose, if they ain’t getting their minds right.’
‘It does rather dash their enthusiasm.’
Granny looked genuinely puzzled. ‘What’s wrong with ’em striving to come second?’ she said.
Letice plunged on.
‘What we were hoping to persuade you to do, Esme, is to accept an emeritus position. You would perhaps make a nice little speech of encouragement, present the award, and … and possibly even be, er, one of the judges …’
‘There’s going to be judges?’ said Granny. ‘We’ve never had judges. Everyone just used to know who’d won.’
‘That’s true,’ said Nanny. She remembered the scenes at the end of one or two trials. When Granny Weatherwax won, everyone knew. ‘Oh, that’s very true.’
‘It would be a very nice gesture,’ Letice went on.
‘Who decided there would be judges?’ said Granny.
‘Er … the committee … which is … that is … a few of us got together. Only to steer things …’
‘Oh. I see,’ said Granny. ‘Flags?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Are you going to have them lines of little flags? And maybe someone selling apples on a stick, that kind of thing?’
‘Some bunting would certainly be—’
‘Right. Don’t forget the bonfire.’
‘So long as it’s nice and safe.’
‘Oh. Right. Things should be nice. And safe,’ said Granny.
Mrs Earwig perceptibly sighed with relief. ‘Well, that’s sorted out nicely,’ she said.
‘Is it?’ said Granny.
‘I thought we’d agreed that—’
‘Had we? Really?’ She picked up the poker from the hearth and prodded fiercely at the fire. ‘I’ll give matters my consideration.’
‘I wonder if I may be frank for a moment, Mistress Weatherwax?’ said Letice. The poker paused in mid-prod.
‘Yes?’
‘Times are changing, you know. Now, I think I know why you feel it necessary to be so overbearing and unpleasant to everyone, but believe me when I tell you, as a friend, that you’d find it so much easier if you just relaxed a little bit and tried being nicer, like our sister Gytha here.’
Nanny Ogg’s smile had fossilized into a mask. Letice didn’t seem to notice.
‘You seem to have all the witches in awe of you for fifty miles around,’ she went on. ‘Now, I dare say you have some valuable skills, but witchcraft isn’t about being an old grump and frightening people any more. I’m telling you this as a friend—’
‘Call again whenever you’re passing,’ said Granny.
This was a signal. Nanny Ogg stood up hurriedly.
‘I thought we could discuss—’ Letice protested.
‘I’ll walk with you all down to the main track,’ said Nanny, hauling the other witches out of their seats.
‘Gytha!’ said Granny sharply, as the group reached the door.
‘Yes, Esme?’
‘You’ll come back here afterwards, I expect.’
‘Yes, Esme.’
Nanny ran to catch up with the trio on the path.
Letice had what Nanny thought of as a deliberate walk. It had been wrong to judge her by the floppy jowls and the over-fussy hair and the silly way she waggled her hands as she talked. She was a witch, after all. Scratch any witch and … well, you’d be facing a witch you’d just scratched.
‘She is not a nice person,’ Letice trilled. But it was the trill of some large hunting bird.
‘You’re right there,’ said Nanny. ‘But—’
‘It’s high time she was taken down a peg or two!’
‘We-ell …’
‘She bullies you most terribly, Mrs Ogg. A married lady of your mature years, too!’
Just for a moment, Nanny’s eyes narrowed.
‘It’s her way,’ she said.
‘A very petty and nasty way, to my mind!’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Nanny simply. ‘Ways often are. But look, you—’
‘Will you be bringing anything to the produce stall, Gytha?’ said Gammer Beavis quickly.
‘Oh, a couple of bottles, I expect,’ said Nanny, deflating.
‘Oh, homemade wine?’ said Letice. ‘How nice.’
‘Sort of like wine, yes. Well, here’s the path,’ said Nanny. ‘I’ll just … I’ll just nip back and say goodnight—’
‘It’s belittling, you know, the way you run around after her,’ said Letice.
‘Yes. Well. You get used to people. Goodnight to you.’
When she got back to the cottage Granny Weatherwax was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor with a face like an unmade bed and her arms folded. One foot tapped on the floor.
‘She married a wizard,’ said Granny, as soon as her friend had entered. ‘You can’t tell me that’s right.’
‘Well, wizards can marry, you know. They just have to hand in the staff and pointy hat. There’s no actual law says they can’t, so long as they gives up wizarding. They’re supposed to be married to the job.’
‘I should reckon it’s a job being married to her,’ said Granny. Her face screwed up in a sour smile.
‘Been pickling much this year?’ said Nanny, employing a fresh association of ideas around the word ‘vinegar’, which had just popped into her head.
‘My onions all got the screwfly.’
‘That’s a pity. You like onions.’
‘Even screwflies’ve got to eat,’ said Granny. She glared at the door. ‘Nice,’ she said.
‘She’s got a knitted cover on the lid in her privy,’ said Nanny.
‘Pink?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nice.’
‘She’s not bad,’ said Nanny. ‘She does good work over in Fiddler’s Elbow. People speak highly of her.’
Granny sniffed. ‘Do they speak highly of me?’ she said.
‘No, they speaks quietly of you, Esme.’
‘Good. Did you see her hatpins?’
‘I thought they were rather … nice, Esme.’
‘That’s witchcraft today. All jewellery and no drawers.’
Nanny, who considered both to be optional, tried to build an embankment against the rising tide of ire.
‘You could think of it as an honour, really, them not wanting you to take part.’
‘That’s nice.’
Nanny sighed.
‘Sometimes nice is worth tryin’, Esme,’ she said.
‘I never does anyone a bad turn if I can’t do ’em a good one, Gytha, you know that. I don’t have to do no frills or fancy labels.’
Nanny sighed. Of course, it was true. Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them. But Nanny knew that people don’t always appreciate right. Like old Pollitt the other day, when he fell off his horse. What he wanted was a painkiller. What he needed was the few seconds of agony as Granny popped the joint back into place. The trouble was, people remembered the pain.
You got on a lot better with people when you remembered to put frills round it, and
took an interest, and said things like, ‘How are you?’ Esme didn’t bother with that kind of stuff because she knew already. Nanny Ogg knew too, but also knew that letting on you knew gave people the serious willies.
She put her head on one side. Granny’s foot was still tapping.
‘You planning anything, Esme? I know you. You’ve got that look.’
‘What look, pray?’
‘That look you had when that bandit was found naked up a tree and cryin’ all the time and goin’ on about the horrible thing that was after him. Funny thing, we never found any pawprints. That look.’
‘He deserved more’n that for what he done.’
‘Yeah … well, you had that look just before ole Hoggett was found beaten black and blue in his own pigsty and wouldn’t talk about it.’
‘You mean old Hoggett the wife beater? Or old Hoggett who won’t never lift his hand to a woman no more?’ said Granny. The thing her lips had pursed into may have been called a smile.
‘And it’s the look you had the time all the snow slid down on ole Millson’s house just after he called you an interfering old baggage …’ said Nanny.
Granny hesitated. Nanny was pretty sure that had been natural causes, and also that Granny knew she suspected this, and that pride was fighting a battle with honesty—
‘That’s as may be,’ said Granny, noncommittally.
‘Like someone who might go along to the Trials and … do something,’ said Nanny.
Her friend’s glare should have made the air sizzle.
‘Oh? So that’s what you think of me? That’s what we’ve come to, have we?’
‘Letice thinks we should move with the times—’
‘Well? I moves with the times. We ought to move with the times. No one said we ought to give them a push. I expect you’ll be wanting to be going, Gytha. I want to be alone with my thoughts!’
Nanny’s own thoughts, as she scurried home in relief, were that Granny Weatherwax was not an advertisement for witchcraft. Oh, she was one of the best at it, no doubt about that. At a certain kind, certainly. But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself, ‘Is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end of it was hard work and self-denial?’
Granny wasn’t exactly friendless, but what she commanded mostly was respect. People learned to respect stormclouds, too. They refreshed the ground. You needed them. But they weren’t nice.
Nanny Ogg went to bed in three flannelette nightdresses, because sharp frosts were already pricking the autumn air. She was also in a troubled frame of mind.
Some sort of war had been declared, she knew. Granny could do some terrible things when roused, and the fact that they’d been done to those who richly deserved them didn’t make them any the less terrible. She’d be planning something pretty dreadful, Nanny Ogg was certain.
She herself didn’t like winning things. Winning was a habit that was hard to break and brought you a dangerous status that was hard to defend. You’d walk uneasily through life, always on the lookout for the next girl with a better broomstick and a quicker hand on the frog.
She turned over under the mountain of eiderdowns.
In Granny Weatherwax’s worldview there was no place for second place. You won, or you were a loser. There was nothing wrong with being a loser except for the fact that, of course, you weren’t the winner. Nanny had always pursued the policy of being a good loser. People liked you when you almost won, and bought you drinks. ‘She only just lost’ was a much better compliment than ‘she only just won’.
Runners-up had more fun, she reckoned. But it wasn’t a word Granny had much time for.
In her own darkened cottage, Granny Weatherwax sat and watched the fire die.
It was a grey-walled room, the colour that old plaster gets not so much from dirt as from age. There was not a thing in it that wasn’t useful, utilitarian, earning its keep. Every flat surface in Nanny Ogg’s cottage had been pressed into service as a holder for ornaments and potted plants. People gave Nanny Ogg things. Cheap fairground tat, Granny always called it. At least in public. What she thought of it in the privacy of her own head, she never said.
She rocked gently as the last ember winked out.
It’s hard to contemplate, in the grey hours of the night, that probably the only reason people would come to your funeral would be to make sure you’re dead.
Next day, Percy Hopcroft opened his back door and looked straight up into the blue stare of Granny Weatherwax.
‘Oh my,’ he said, under his breath.
Granny gave an awkward little cough.
‘Mr Hopcroft, I’ve come about them apples you named after Mrs Ogg,’ she said.
Percy’s knees began to tremble, and his wig started to slide off the back of his head to the hoped-for security of the floor.
‘I should like to thank you for doing it because it has made her very happy,’ Granny went on, in a tone of voice which would have struck one who knew her as curiously monotonous. ‘She has done a lot of fine work and it is about time she got her little reward. It was a very nice thought. And so I have brung you this little token –’ Hopcroft jumped backwards as Granny’s hand dipped swiftly into her apron and produced a small black bottle ‘– which is very rare because of the rare herbs in it. What are rare. Extremely rare herbs.’
Eventually it crept over Hopcroft that he was supposed to take the bottle. He gripped the top of it very carefully, as if it might whistle or develop legs.
‘Uh … thank you ver’ much,’ he mumbled.
Granny nodded stiffly.
‘Blessings be upon this house,’ she said, and turned and walked away down the path.
Hopcroft shut the door carefully, and then flung himself against it.
‘You start packing right now!’ he shouted to his wife, who’d been watching from the kitchen door.
‘What? Our whole life’s here! We can’t just run away from it!’
‘Better to run than hop, woman! What’s she want from me? What’s she want? She’s never nice!’
Mrs Hopcroft stood firm. She’d just got the cottage looking right and they’d bought a new pump. Some things were hard to leave.
‘Let’s just stop and think, then,’ she said. ‘What’s in that bottle?’
Hopcroft held it at arm’s length. ‘Do you want to find out?’
‘Stop shaking, man! She didn’t actually threaten, did she?’
‘She said “Blessings be upon this house”! Sounds pretty damn threatening to me! That was Granny Weatherwax, that was!’
He put the bottle on the table. They stared at it, standing in the cautious leaning position of people who were ready to run if anything began to happen.
‘Says “Haire Reftorer” on the label,’ said Mrs Hopcroft.
‘I ain’t using it!’
‘She’ll ask us about it later. That’s her way.’
‘If you think for one moment I’m—’
‘We can try it out on the dog.’
‘That’s a good cow.’
William Poorchick awoke from his reverie on the milking stool and looked around the meadow, his hands still working the beast’s teats.
There was a black pointy hat rising over the hedge. He gave such a start that he started to milk into his left boot.
‘Gives plenty of milk, does she?’
‘Yes, Mistress Weatherwax!’ William quavered.
‘That’s good. Long may she continue to do so, that’s what I say. Good day to you.’
And the pointy hat continued up the lane.
Poorchick stared after it. Then he grabbed the bucket and, squelching at every other step, hurried into the barn and yelled for his son.
‘Rummage! You get down here right now!’
His son appeared from the hayloft, pitchfork still in his hand.
‘What’s up, Dad?’
‘You take Daphne down to the market right now, understand?’
‘What? But she’s our best milk
er, Dad!’
‘Was, son, was! Granny Weatherwax just put a curse on her! Sell her now before her horns drop off!’
‘What’d she say, Dad?’
‘She said … she said … “Long may she continue to give milk” …’ Poorchick hesitated.
‘Doesn’t sound awfully like a curse, Dad,’ said Rummage. ‘I mean … not like your gen’ral curse. Sounds a bit hopeful, really,’ said his son.
‘Well … it was the way … she … said … it …’
‘What sort of way, Dad?’
‘Well … like … cheerfully.’
‘You all right, Dad?’
‘It was … the way …’ Poorchick paused. ‘Well, it’s not right,’ he continued. ‘It’s not right! She’s got no right to go around being cheerful at people! She’s never cheerful! And my boot is full of milk!’
Today Nanny Ogg was taking some time out to tend her secret still in the woods. As a still it was the best-kept secret there could be, since everyone in the kingdom knew exactly where it was, and a secret kept by so many people must be very secret indeed. Even the king knew, and knew enough to pretend he didn’t know, and that meant he didn’t have to ask her for any taxes and she didn’t have to refuse. And every year at Hogswatch he got a barrel of what honey might be if only bees weren’t teetotal. And everyone understood the situation, no one had to pay any money, and so, in a small way, the world was a happier place. And no one was cursed until their teeth fell out.
Nanny was dozing. Keeping an eye on a still was a day-and-night job. But finally the sound of people repeatedly calling her name got too much for her.
No one would come into the clearing, of course. That would mean admitting that they knew where it was. So they were blundering around in the surrounding bushes. She pushed her way through and was greeted with some looks of feigned surprise that would have done credit to any amateur dramatic company.
‘Well, what do you lot want?’ she demanded.
‘Oh, Mrs Ogg, we thought you might be … taking a walk in the woods,’ said Poorchick, while a scent that could clean glass wafted on the breeze. ‘You got to do something! It’s Mistress Weatherwax!’
‘What’s she done?’
‘You tell ’er, Mr Hampicker!’
The man next to Poorchick took off his hat quickly and held it respectfully in front of him in the ai-señor-the-bandidos-have-raided-our-villages position.
A Blink of the Screen: Collected Short Fiction Page 19
