Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows, One Witch (Maybe)

by Siobhán Parkinson

  Kevin was just about to explain about the seals and the mermaids, but Dymphna spoke first: ‘That’s Our Lady. As in the Madonna, you know, the BVM.’

  Gerard didn’t know, not really. He’d heard of Our Lady, of course, but he couldn’t make any connection between her and Madonna, and he had no idea what BVM stood for, unless it was some sort of expensive car. He wasn’t the sort of boy who bothered much with cars. But he nodded anyway, just to be polite.

  ‘The island used to be a place of pilgrimage,’ Dymphna went on. ‘In the old days. Before that shower bought it. I don’t think islands should be bought, do you? I think islands belong to God.’

  ‘There, I knew it!’ exclaimed Elizabeth, triumphantly. ‘I said it all along. I said it was a pilgrimage.’

  ‘Some of the old people from the mainland still come here on special feastdays. There’s a holy well. It’s supposed to cure you if you bathe in its waters. People used to leave their crutches behind, to prove they’d been cured. And bandages hanging out of the trees. And slings, things like that.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound very environment-friendly,’ sniffed Beverley. ‘Littering the place with bandages and things.’

  ‘Oh don’t say that!’ cried Elizabeth. ‘I think it’s a lovely idea.’

  ‘It’s a lot of superstitious nonsense,’ said Dymphna flatly. ‘Either that or the water has lost its powers. It never cures me of anything anyway, and I have it pumped to my sink. I should be a model of good health if there’s any truth in it. And I’m not. I get terrible arthritis and I have a chest. Did you leave your crutches?’ The last bit was addressed to Elizabeth.

  ‘No, I haven’t got any crutches,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I only twisted my ankle this afternoon.’

  ‘But why are you here then?’ Again there was a hint of menace in the question, or so Beverley thought.

  ‘We wanted to bathe the foot to reduce the swelling,’ said Elizabeth. ‘That’s all. We didn’t mean to intrude.’

  ‘But I told you, it won’t work.’ Dymphna sounded emphatic, gruff even.

  ‘I think it should,’ said Beverley, who never knew when to keep quiet and not annoy people. ‘Cold running water should at least help. And after we’ve bathed it, we should really bandage it up.’

  She looked around, wondering what she could use as a bandage. It crossed her mind to ask Dymphna for an old sheet or tea-towel or something they could tear up, but she thought anything this woman would have was unlikely to be hygienic. Also, she wasn’t sure how friendly Dymphna was. Better not give her a chance to be antagonistic.

  ‘If we were in a story,’ said Elizabeth dreamily, ‘we’d be wearing petticoats, which we could valiantly tear into strips for bandages.’

  ‘Only if it was a very old story,’ said Beverley doubtfully. ‘Girls haven’t worn petticoats for yonks. And not with jeans anyway.’

  ‘Would my shirt sleeves be any good to ye?’ suggested Kevin. ‘I could cut them off and wear the shirt like a vest, a jerkin, you know.’

  ‘Ooh – black bandages!’ said Elizabeth with distaste.

  ‘Can’t afford to turn your nose up, can you, Liz?’ said Beverley pragmatically. ‘OK, Kevin, take it off.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Dymphna, through a mouthful of shortbread and honey.

  ‘Kevin’s taking off his shirt to make a bandage for Elizabeth,’ Gerard explained.

  ‘Oh no, wait,’ said Dymphna. ‘First the lotion. Will you get it for me, Gerard? It’s upstairs in the bedroom – that’s in the attic, the stairs from the hall goes right up into it. It’ll be under the bed, in a big trunk. It’s in a bottle labelled “Lotion”, and it’s pink.’

  ‘Labelled just “Lotion”?’

  ‘Yes, of course. What else would I label it? “Whiskey”? “Paraffin Oil”? It’s lotion, so naturally I label it “Lotion”. That makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  Gerard couldn’t quite put his finger on the flaw in this argument. He looked at Dymphna thoughtfully. At least, he felt thoughtful, but to Dymphna, his face merely looked blank.

  ‘Oh look,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t matter. I’ll go for it myself. I’ll just be two ticks.’ And she disappeared so fast, in a flurry of furry tails and mews, the children could almost have sworn she flew out of the room, accompanied by two flying cats.

  As soon as the door had closed on Dymphna, a silence settled on the children. They looked at each other, but nobody uttered a sound. It was as if each one was afraid to say what he or she was thinking, in case the others agreed. At last Elizabeth said tentatively: ‘She’s a bit weird, isn’t she?’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Beverley uneasily.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ said Gerard hotly. ‘She’s nice and kind and funny. And she likes cats.’

  ‘Funny, yes, I grant you, she’s definitely funny all right,’ said Beverley. She was filling an old enamel basin she had found, to bathe Elizabeth’s foot. She’d given up on the sink idea. ‘Here, put your foot in this, Liz.’

  The water was ice-cold. Elizabeth winced as she lowered her foot into it, which Beverley took to be a good sign.

  ‘She’s not funny in that horrible way you mean,’ said Gerard. ‘Her problem is, she’s just too sensible for the rest of us. She just makes too much sense, that’s all.’

  ‘No, it’s not just that,’ said Elizabeth, lifting her foot gingerly out of the basin and letting the water drip off it in a little silvery shower. ‘She’s weird all right. I think this island is enchanted, and she’s the enchantress. She enchants people to make them tell stories, and she listens to them, because she’s a story-gatherer. Maybe she steals them!’

  ‘Leave your foot in it, Elizabeth,’ ordered Beverley. ‘The cold will do it good. And there’s no such thing as an enchantress.’

  ‘Ouch!’ said Elizabeth grumpily, but obediently put her foot back in the basin and kept it there until the water became almost luke-warm from the heat of her flesh. ‘But it’s a lovely word, isn’t it?’ she added, inconsequentially.

  ‘I think we should just try to get this foot fixed as fast as we can,’ Beverley went on, ‘and get out of here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think she’s dangerous,’ said Kevin slowly, as if trying to convince himself.

  ‘Dangerous! Jeez, I never thought of dangerous!’ said Elizabeth.

  Suddenly there came from somewhere over their heads a wild, eerie wail, an inhuman sound, like a mad cat, or a wolf baying at the moon. The sound hung in the air for what seemed like minutes and a shiver seemed to run around the room, passing quickly through each of the children and on to the next person. Gradually the sound petered away, like a siren running out of steam, and as it did, the shiver died down too. The children looked at each other sheepishly, each one wondering if it had really happened or if they had imagined it.

  ‘I said I thought she wasn’t dangerous,’ said Kevin, gingerly picking up the conversation that had been interrupted by the wailing, but not sounding so convinced any more.

  ‘Of course she’s not dangerous!’ Gerard broke in angrily. ‘And she’s not weird either. She’s cool.’

  The sound came again, almost as if to contradict him. This time it seemed to be more high-pitched than before, and this time they knew it was for real, because they could see the fear in each other’s faces. Even Gerard’s face was white and his mouth had fallen open with fright.

  The children moved uneasily.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Beverley said as the sound died down. ‘She’s mad.’

  ‘How do you know it’s her?’ asked Gerard, though he knew it must be. ‘Maybe it’s one of the cats.’

  ‘That’s no cat,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘She’s mad, I tell you,’ said Beverley. ‘I mean, why on earth does she live out here, all by herself? No, she’s mad all right. I hope she’s not bad too.’

  The sound came again, and this time there was a terrible sadness in it as well as terror and madness. It was like the sound a person in great anguish would make. The children fel
t strange aching feelings in their throats, as though they wanted to cry.

  ‘I think it’s coming from outside the house,’ Beverley whispered.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Kevin and he tiptoed to the door and slipped out of the house. The others looked at one another in dismay. Now what was going on? Beverley had a moment of panic. What if Kevin didn’t come back? What if he left them here with this deranged person? How was she going to cope? How was she going to protect the two younger ones? And how on earth was she going to get them all off this island? She had a sudden longing for her parents and a very clear conviction that she didn’t want to be the oldest. If Kevin abandoned them, she would be (not counting the crazy woman), which meant she’d have to be in charge. How could she ever have wanted to be in charge? Being in charge was awful!

  To Beverley’s intense relief, Kevin was back in a moment, and as he reappeared, the wailing moved down a key and began to trail off into a long, quiet moan.

  ‘She’s standing at the upstairs window,’ Kevin whispered. ‘The window is wide open and she’s sort of half hanging out of it and she’s just wailing at the sky.’

  Again the shiver shot around the group, bringing up a quick crop of goosebumps as it flew.

  ‘Baying at the moon,’ said Beverley, ‘like a lunatic.’

  ‘But it’s the afternoon,’ Kevin pointed out. ‘There’s no moon.’

  ‘Well, that just makes her even madder,’ said Beverley. ‘Normal lunatics only go mad at the full moon.’

  ‘She’s not mad,’ said Gerard fiercely. ‘She’s just, maybe, a bit upset.’

  ‘What would upset her enough for that sort of –?’ Beverley began, but she didn’t get to finish her question, because at that moment, there was a series of bumps and lurches in the hall, and the children all fell silent again as Dymphna came hurtling in the door, accompanied by her tail-swirling cats. The children found themselves shrinking back and putting their arms up in front of their faces, as if expecting her to attack them, but she didn’t. Instead, she waved a very large bottle, three-quarters full of a pale pink liquid and labelled, in firm black handwriting on a browning old label, “Lotion”.

  ‘Hah!’ said Dymphna, her eyes blazing, and set the bottle down on the table with a thud. ‘I knew it was there.’ She sounded defiant, as if the children had insisted there was no lotion and she had proved them wrong.

  Nobody said a word. They lowered their arms sheepishly and looked uneasily at the floor, the ceiling, the bottle of lotion, anywhere rather than look her in the eye, though she swivelled her gaze from one to the other as if looking for someone to pick on.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘You all look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Beverley quickly. ‘We haven’t seen anything, honest.’

  ‘Or maybe you heard something?’ Dymphna persisted, her eyes boring into Beverley. ‘Is that what it is? Did you? Did you?’

  ‘N-no!’ said Beverley. ‘Only the wind, I think.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Dymphna. ‘The wind is getting up all right. Yes, yes, it must be It is, yes, it’s the wind. Whoooo-oooo! Whooo-ooooo!’ And with that she lifted the hem of her raincoat on each side with the tips of her middle fingers, like a little girl in a puffy dress, and held the fabric away from her body and did a little twirl, still singing ‘Whooo-whooo!’ She twirled again, ‘Whooo-whoooo!’ and again and again, faster and faster.

  The children watched her in amazement as she whirled around her kitchen, whoo-ing and dancing, her feet flying round and round in her wellington boots, her long hair whipping the air around her face and shoulders. Then suddenly a calm seemed to descend on her, and she sat down abruptly at the table, pulled her hair back from her steaming red face, gathered one of the cats onto her knee and began to rock back and forth, crooning gently to the cat and ignoring the children.

  Chapter 17

  THE STORM

  THE CHILDREN SAT AS IF TRANSFIXED, not knowing what to do, waiting for Dymphna to make the next move. The wind really was getting up now, almost as if her wild dance had been a wind-dance, calling up the wind from the corners of the earth. The foliage at the window started to rattle, beating against the pane, the leaves fluttering into the kitchen, and the murky light in the little room started to thicken until it was almost like evening. The children still sat, thinking their thoughts, and looming at each other in the gloom. Kevin was running his hands repeatedly through his hair, as if he was trying to come up with some sort of plan to get away from Dymphna and her madness and this eerie little house and the whole damned bewitched island.

  ‘Storm coming,’ said Dymphna suddenly, tilting her knees complacently so that the cat fell right off her lap and landed with a yelp of surprise on the floor.

  She stood up and strode to the window, shoving it up with a practised wrist. Then she turned to a drawer and withdrew a wodge of cotton wool and a spool of Sellotape. With this equipment she started to create a sort of bandage for a small hole in the upper pane. She stuffed it first with cotton wool and then plastered it over several times with Sellotape. The children watched her in silence. They could see old bits of Sellotape hanging from it, trailing wisps of yellowing cotton wool. Evidently such bandaging went on regularly.

  Then Dymphna left the kitchen. They could all hear her opening the front door and calling out: ‘Dymphna, Dymphna!’

  The four children exchanged glances. Talking to yourself was one thing, wailing at the sky and doing wind-dances in your kitchen was another, but calling yourself in out of the rain took the biscuit for daftness!

  They could hear a shuffling, snuffling noise, which seemed to come in response to Dymphna’s call, and a muffled moo in the hall. Good grief! It must be the cow! Then came another, lighter, more plaintive moo.

  The children could hear Dymphna talking some more, in soft tones of endearment, and then another door, somewhere else in the house, opened and, after more snuffles and scuffles, closed.

  ‘Just bringing Dymphna in out of the storm,’ said Dymphna, coming back into the kitchen. ‘She hates getting wet.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact, utterly sane. She could have been the village shopkeeper or the parish priest’s housekeeper talking about her favourite old cat.

  So does Fat, thought Gerard. He can’t stand rain. Oh Fat, where are you? As he thought this, he felt a tightness in his chest and he leant over the table to hide the heaving in his breathing.

  ‘Where did you put her?’ asked Beverley faintly.

  ‘Parlour,’ said Dymphna.

  ‘You’ve put a cow in your parlour?’ Beverley couldn’t hide the astonishment and disapproval in her voice.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to bring her into the kitchen,’ said Dymphna seriously. ‘She might plop, you know. Cows do it all the time. Don’t know any better.’

  Dymphna registered the grim disbelief on the faces of her guests.

  ‘Of course,’ she went on reassuringly, ‘I don’t use it as a parlour any more. You might say I’ve converted it. It’s just that I still call it the parlour. Force of habit, you might say.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Beverley, as if to say it was up to Dymphna to do what she liked in her own house, but she couldn’t suppress one of her sniffs all the same.

  ‘There’s no need to be so prim,’ Dymphna retorted, to Beverley’s tone if not her words. ‘It’s not all that long ago that all the farming people shared their houses with the animals. They kept each other warm.’

  ‘Really?’ said Beverley weakly. Actually she knew that, but she thought it better to humour Dymphna. ‘Why did you call her Dymphna?’ she asked, to change the subject. Anything to make normal conversation. Anything to keep Dymphna talking and not wailing or dancing.

  ‘After myself, of course.’

  ‘Is that not a bit confusing?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I call her Dymphna. She doesn’t call me anything. That’s not confusing, is it? Anyway, lots of people call their children after themselves. Nobody th
inks that’s confusing.’

  Beverley couldn’t argue with the logic of this, though she felt there was something wrong with it.

  ‘I haven’t got any children,’ said Dymphna sadly. ‘Dymphna has, though,’ she went on, cheering up. ‘At least, she has a calf. Damhnait.’

  ‘Oh? And where’s Damhnait?’

  ‘She’s in the parlour too. To every cow its calf, as the saying goes.’

  ‘I see,’ said Beverley, exchanging glances with the others again. ‘And what do you call the cats?’ she asked politely, wishing the others would row in and help her to keep up this absurd conversation, but they all seemed to have lost their tongues.

  ‘Pappageno,’ said Dymphna. ‘After the bird-catcher, you know.’

  Beverley had no idea what she was referring to, but she thought it best to not to ask. ‘That’s a nice name. Which one is Pappageno?’

  ‘Both of them.’

  ‘You call both of them Pappageno?’ Beverley was floored.How very economical Dymphna seemed to be with names!

  ‘Yes, well, as you say yourself, it’s a good name. And they both catch birds. I do love a good storm,’ Dymphna went on, tucking into some more shortbread and honey. ‘Don’t you?’

  Beverley shook her head, and looked around to see what the others were making of this conversation. Elizabeth was wriggling her toes experimentally and didn’t appear to be taking much notice. Gerard was blowing his nose loudly and unnecessarily frequently. Kevin’s teeth were chattering. Surely he wasn’t that scared of old Dymphna? Beverley had almost begun to allow herself to believe that she was OK really.

  ‘Put your jacket back on, Kevin,’ said Beverley. ‘You can’t sit around in that sleeveless shirt. It’s not all that warm any more.’

  Kevin did as Beverley said, but his teeth didn’t stop chattering.

  Suddenly there was a flash, as if someone had taken a photograph, followed within seconds by a loud, crashing sound as if someone were shifting large teachests full of books about upstairs in the attic and letting them fall over.