No, Beryl Ormerod could wait. There was a flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a rumble of distant thunder. Madame Tracy felt rather proud, as if she had done it herself. It was even better than the candles at creating ambulance. Ambulance was what mediuming was all about.
"Now," said Madame Tracy in her own voice. "Mr. Geronimo would like to know, is there anyone named Mr. Scroggie here?"
Scroggie's watery eyes gleamed. "Erm, actually that's my name," he said, hopefully.
"Right, well there's somebody here for you." Mr. Scroggie had been coming for a month now, and she hadn't been able to think of a message for him. His time had come. "Do you know anyone named, um, John?"
"No," said Mr. Scroggie.
"Well, there's some celestial interference here. The name could be Tom. Or Jim. Or, um, Dave."
"I knew a Dave when I was in Hemel Hempstead," said Mr. Scroggie, a trifle doubtfully.
"Yes, he's saying, Hemel Hempstead, that's what he's saying," said Madame Tracy.
"But I ran into him last week, walking his dog, and he looked perfectly healthy," said Mr. Scroggie, slightly puzzled.
"He says not to worry, and he's happier beyond the veil," soldiered on Madame Tracy, who felt it was always better to give her clients good news.
"Tell my Ron I've got to tell him about our Krystal's wedding," said Mrs. Ormerod.
"I will, love. Now, hold on a mo', there's something coming through . . ."
And then something came through. It sat in Madame Tracy's head and peered out.
"Sprechen sie Deutsch?" it said, using Madame Tracy's mouth. "Parlez‑vous Franrais7 Wo bu hui jiang zhongwen?"
"Is that you, Ron?" asked Mrs. Ormerod. The reply, when it came, was rather testy.
"No. Definitely not. However, a question so manifestly dim can only have been put in one country on this benighted planet‑most of which, incidentally, I have seen during the last few hours. Dear lady, this is not Ron. "
"Well, I want to speak to Ron Ormerod," said Mrs. Ormerod, a little testily. "He's rather short, balding on top. Can you put him on, please?"
There was a pause. "Actually there does appear to be a spirit of that description hovering over here. Very well. I'll hand you over, but you must make it quick. I am attempting to avert the apocalypse."
Mrs. Ormerod and Mr. Scroggie gave each other looks. Nothing like this had happened at Madame Tracy's previous sittings. Julia Petley was rapt. This was more like it. She hoped Madame Tracy was going to start manifesting ectoplasm next.
"H‑hello?" said Madame Tracy in another voice. Mrs. Ormerod started. It sounded exactly like Ron. On previous occasions Ron had sounded like Madame Tracy.
"Ron, is that you?"
"Yes, Buh‑Beryl."
"Right. Now I've quite a bit to tell you. For a start I went to our Krystal's wedding, last Saturday, our Marilyn's eldest . . ."
"Buh‑Beryl. You‑you nuh‑never let me guh‑get a wuh‑word in edgewise wuh‑while I was alive. Nuh‑now I'm duh‑dead, there's juh just one thing to suh‑say . . ."
Beryl Ormerod was a little disgruntled by all this. Previously when Ron had manifested, he had told her that he was happier beyond the veil, and living somewhere that sounded more than a little like a celestial bungalow. Now he sounded like Ron, and she wasn't sure that was what she wanted. And she said what she had always said to her husband when he began to speak to her in that tone of voice.
"Ron, remember your heart condition."
"I duh‑don't have a huh‑heart any longer. Remuhmember? Anyway, Buh‑Beryl . . . ?"
"Yes, Ron."
"Shut up," and the spirit was gone. "Wasn't that touching? Right, now, thank you very much, ladies and gentleman, I'm afraid 1 shall have to be getting on. "
Madame Tracy stood up, went over to the door, and turned on the lights.
"Out!" she said.
Her sitters stood up, more than a little puzzled, and, in Mrs. Ormerod's case, outraged, and they walked out into the hall.
"You haven't heard the last of this, Marjorie Potts," hissed Mrs. Ormerod, clutching her handbag to her breast, and she slammed the door.
Then her muffled voice echoed from the hallway, "And you can tell our Ron that he hasn't heard the last of this either!"
Madame Tracy (and the name on her scooters‑only driving license was indeed Marjorie Potts) went into the kitchen and turned off the sprouts.
She put on the kettle. She made herself a pot of tea. She sat down at the kitchen table, got out two cups, filled both of them. She added two sugars to one of them. Then she paused.
"No sugar for me, please, " said Madame Tracy.
She lined up the cups on the table in front of her, and took a long sip from the tea‑with‑sugar.
"Now," she said, in a voice that anyone who knew her would have recognized as her own, although they might not have recognized her tone of voice, which was cold with rage. "Suppose you tell me what this is about. And it had better be good."
– – -
A lorry had shed its load all over the M6. According to its manifest the lorry had been filled with sheets of corrugated iron, although the two police patrolmen were having difficulty in accepting this.
"So what I want to know is, where did all the fish come from?" asked the sergeant.
"I told you. They fell from the sky. One minute I'm driving along at sixty, next second, whap! a twelve‑pound salmon smashes through the windscreen. So I pulls the wheel over, and I skidded on that, " he pointed to the remains of a hammerhead shark under the lorry, "and ran into that." That was a thirty‑foot‑high heap of fish, of different shapes and sizes.
"Have you been drinking, sir?" asked the sergeant, less than hopefully.
"Course I haven't been drinking, you great wazzock. You can see the fish, can't you?"
On the top of the pile a rather large octopus waved a languid tentacle at them. The sergeant resisted the temptation to wave back.
The police constable was leaning into the police car, talking on the radio. ". . . corrugated iron and fish, blocking off the southbound M6 about half a mile north of junction ten. We're going to have to close off the whole southbound carriageway. Yeah."
The rain redoubled. A small trout, which had miraculously survived the fall, gamely began to swim toward Birmingham.
– – -
"That was wonderful," said Newt.
"Good," said Anathema. "The earth moved for everybody." She got up off the floor, leaving her clothes scattered across the carpet, and went into the bathroom.
Newt raised his voice. "I mean, it was really wonderful. Really really wonderful. I always hoped it was going to be, and it was."
There was the sound of running water.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Taking a shower."
"Ah." He wondered vaguely if everyone had to shower afterwards, or if it was just women. And he had a suspicion that bidets came into it somewhere.
"Tell you what," said Newt, as Anathema came out of the bathroom swathed in a fluffy pink towel. "We could do it again."
"Nope," she said, "not now." She finished drying herself, and started picking up clothes from the floor, and, unselfconsciously, pulling them on. Newt, a man who was prepared to wait half an hour for a free changing cubicle at the swimming baths, rather than face the possibility of having to disrobe in front of another human being, found himself vaguely shocked, and deeply thrilled.
Bits of her kept appearing and disappearing, like a conjurer's hands; Newt kept trying to count her nipples and failing, although he didn't mind.
"Why not?" said Newt. He was about to point out that it might not take long, but an inner voice counseled him against it. He was growing up quite quickly in a short time.
Anathema shrugged, not an easy move when you're pulling on a sensible black skirt. "She said we only did it this once."
Newt opened his mouth two or three times, then said, "She didn't. She bloody didn't. She couldn't predict t
hat. I don't believe it."
Anathema, fully dressed, walked over to her card index, pulled one out, and passed it to him.
Newt read it and blushed and gave it back, tight‑Tipped.
It wasn't simply the fact that Agnes had known, and had expressed herself in the most transparent of codes. It was that, down the ages, various Devices had scrawled encouraging little comments in the margin.
She passed him the damp towel. "Here," she said. "Hurry up. I've got to make the sandwiches, and we've got to get ready."
He looked at the towel. "What's this for?"
"Your shower."
Ah. So it was something men and women both did. He was pleased he'd got that sorted out.
"But you'll have to make it quick," she said.
"Why? Have we got to get out of here in the next ten minutes before the building explodes?"
"Oh no. We've got a couple of hours. It's just that I've used up most of the hot water. You've got a lot of plaster in your hair."
The storm blew a dying gust around Jasmine Cottage, and holding the damp pink towel, no longer fluffy, in front of him, strategically, Newt edged off to take a cold shower.
– – -
In Shadwell's dream, he is floating high above a village green. In the center of the green is a huge pile of kindling wood and dry branches. In the center of the pile is a wooden stake. Men and women and children stand around on the grass, eyes bright, cheeks pink, expectant, excited.
A sudden commotion: ten men walk across the green, leading a handsome, middle‑aged woman; she must have been quite striking in her youth, and the word "vivacious" creeps into Shadwell's dreaming mind. In front of her walks Witchfinder Private Newton Pulsifer. No, it isn't Newt: The man is older, and dressed in black leather. Shadwell recognizes approvingly the ancient uniform of a Witchfinder Major.
The woman climbs onto the pyre, thrusts her hands behind her, and is tied to the stake. The pyre is lit. She speaks to the crowd, says something, but Shadwell is too high to hear what it is. The crowd gathers around her.
A witch, thinks Shadwell. They're burning a witch. It gives him a warm feeling. That was the right and proper way of things. That's how things were meant to be.
Only . . .
She looks directly up at him now, and says "That goes for yowe as welle, yowe daft old foole. "
Only she is going to die. She is going to burn to death. And, Shadwell realizes in his dream, it is a horrible way to die.
The flames lick higher.
And the woman looks up. She is staring straight at him, invisible though he is. And she is smiling.
And then it all goes boom.
A crash of thunder.
That was thunder, thought Shadwell, as he woke up, with the unshakable feeling that someone was still staring at him.
He opened his eyes, and thirteen glass eyes watched from the various shelves of Madame Tracy's boudoir, staring out from a variety of fuzzy faces.
He looked away, and into the eyes of someone staring intently at him. It was him.
Och, he thought in terror, I'm havin' one o' them out‑o'‑yer‑body experiences, I can see mah ane self, I'm a goner this time right enough . . .
He made frantic swimming motions in an effort to reach his own body and then, as these things do, the perspectives clicked into place.
Shadwell relaxed, and wondered why anyone would want to put a mirror on his bedroom ceiling. He shook his head, baffled.
He climbed out of the bed, pulled on his boots, and stood up, warily. Something was missing. A cigarette. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, pulled out a tin, and began to roll a cigarette.
He'd been dreaming, he knew. Shadwell didn't remember the dream, but it made him feel uncomfortable, whatever it was.
He lit the cigarette. And he saw his right hand: the ultimate weapon. The doomsday device. He pointed one finger at the one‑eyed teddy bear on the mantelpiece.
"Bang," he said, and chuckled, dustily. He wasn't used to chuckling, and he began to cough, which meant he was back on familiar territory. He wanted something to drink. A sweet can of condensed milk.
Madame Tracy would have some.
He stomped out of her boudoir, heading toward the kitchen.
Outside the little kitchen he paused. She was talking to someone. A man.
"So what exactly do you want me to do about this?" she was ask ing.
"Ach, ye beldame," muttered Shadwell. She had one of her gentlemen callers in there, obviously.
"To be frank, dear lady, my plans at this point are perforce somewhat fluid."
Shadwell's blood ran cold. He marched through the bead curtain, shouting, "The sins of Sodom an' Gomorrah! Takin' advantage of a defenseless hour! Over my dead body!"
Madame Tracy looked up, and smiled at him. There wasn't anyone else in the room.
"Whurrizee?" asked Shadwell.
"Whom?" asked Madame Tracy.
"Some Southern pansy," he said, "I heard him. He was in here, suggestin' things to yer. I heard him."
Madame Tracy's mouth opened, and a voice said, "Not just A Southern Pansy, Sergeant Shadwell. THE Southern Pansy."
Shadwell dropped his cigarette. He stretched out his arm, shaking slightly, and pointed his hand at Madame Tracy.
"Demon," he croaked.
"No," said Madame Tracy, in the voice of the demon. "Now, I know what you're thinking, Sergeant Shadwell. You're thinking that any second now this head is going to go round and round, and I'm going to start vomiting pea soup. Well, I'm not. I'm not a demon. And I'd like you to listen to what I have to say. "
"Daemonspawn, be silent," ordered Shadwell. "I'll no listen to yer wicked lies. Do yer know what this is? It's a hand. Four fingers. One thumb. It's already exorcised one of yer number this morning. Now get ye out of this gud wimmin's head, or I'll blast ye to kingdom come."
"That's the problem, Mr. Shadwell," said Madame Tracy in her own voice. "Kingdom come. It's going to. That's the problem. Mr. Aziraphale has been telling me all about it. Now stop being an old silly, Mr. Shadwell, sit down, and have some tea, and he'll explain it to you as well."
"I'll ne'r listen tae his hellish blandishments, woman," said Shadwell.
Madame Tracy smiled at him. "You old silly, " she said.
He could have handled anything else.
He sat down.
But he didn't lower his hand.
– – -
The swinging overhead signs proclaimed that the southbound carriageway was closed, and a small forest of orange cones had sprung up, redirecting motorists onto a co‑opted lane of the northbound carriageway. Other signs directed motorists to slow down to thirty miles per hour. Police cars herded the drivers around like red‑striped sheepdogs.
The four bikers ignored all the signs, and cones, and police cars, and continued down the empty southbound carriageway of the M6. The other four bikers, just behind them, slowed a little.
"Shouldn't we, uh, stop or something?" asked Really Cool People.
"Yeah. Could be a pile‑up," said Treading in Dogshit (formerly All Foreigners Especially The French, formerly Things Not Working Properly Even When You've Given Them a Good Thumping, never actually No Alcohol Lager, briefly Embarrassing Personal Problems, formerly known as Skuzz).
"We're the other Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," said G.B.H. "We do what they do. We follow them."
They rode south.
– – -
"It'll be a world just for us," said Adam. "Everything's always been messed up by other people but we can get rid of it all an' start again. Won't that be great?"
– – -
"You are, I trust, familiar with the Book of Revelation?" said Madame Tracy with Aziraphale's voice.
"Aye," said Shadwell, who wasn't. His biblical expertise began and ended with Exodus, chapter twenty‑two, verse eighteen, which concerned Witches, the suffering to live of, and why you shouldn't. He had once glanced at verse nineteen, which was about putting
to death people who lay down with beasts, but he had felt that this was rather outside his jurisdiction.
"Then you have heard of the Antichrist?"
"Aye," said Shadwell, who had seen a film once which explained it all. Something about sheets of glass falling off lorries and slicing people's heads off, as he recalled. No proper witches to speak of. He'd gone to sleep halfway through.
"The Antichrist is alive on earth at this moment, Sergeant. He is bringing about Armageddon, the Day of Judgement, even if he himself does not know it. Heaven and Hell are both preparing for war, and it's all going to be very messy."
Shadwell merely grunted.
"I am not actually permitted to act directly in this matter, Sergeant. But I am sure that you can see that the imminent destruction of the world is not something any reasonable man would permit. Am I correct?"
"Aye. S'pose," said Shadwell, sipping condensed milk from a rusting can Madame Tracy had discovered under the sink.
"Then there is only one thing to be done. And you are the only man I can rely on. The Antichrist must be killed, Sergeant Shadwell. And you must do it."
Shadwell frowned. "I wouldna know about that," he said. "The witchfinder army only kills witches. 'Tis one of the rules. And demons and imps, o'course."
"But, but the Antichrist is more than just a witch. He‑he's THE witch. He's just about as witchy as you can get."
"Wud he be harder to get rid of than, say, a demon?" asked Shadwell, who had begun to brighten.
"Not much more," said Aziraphale, who had never done other to get rid of demons than to hint to them very strongly that he, Aziraphale, had some work to be getting on with, and wasn't it getting late? And Crowley had always got the hint.
Shadwell looked down at his right hand, and smiled. Then he hesitated.
"This Antichrist‑how many nipples has he?"
Good Omens Page 25
