by Ian Watson
“Suppose they mightn’t,” she conceded. She did seem remarkably self-possessed.
He nodded, gratified. “So any sort of blackmail is out.”
“Any mundane sort.”
“Mundane, eh? Fancy word, that be.” He imitated Alicia imitating a joke yokel. “What’s the other sort?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t believe in you, Sally, not one scrap. Medieval witches boiled in great big cauldrons? Blah. Medieval peasants never owned a witch-size cauldron. That’s straight out of fairy-tales—or Disney. Magic water? Ho-hum.”
“A few bottles of that in church, the way the vicar carries on!”
Paul sniggered. “Constipated water.”
“Different kind, though,” Sally said. “Much weaker.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe the least little bit. You and Humphrey Barton? Bollocks.”
The pub door opened, and Mary Wilson stood framed there.
“Hey, Paul!” she called. “No time for a drink. Your Alicia’s waters broke half an hour ago, real sudden. Pains only just came on. Mrs Smythe drove her in to the Maternity.”
Paul revved, and mounted the tarmac outside the pub, to turn. Sally dodged away. “That’ll show her I mean business,” he thought, with a twitch of satisfaction.
How did Mary Wilson know so soon? As Alicia said: people in Easton Hampcote knew what you were eating for dinner before you knew it yourself. Except, they didn’t know about Sally and him; of that he felt positive.
He sped towards the hospital, back the way he had just come. He must have passed the Smythes’ old Ford en route earlier, and not noticed. He had been planning his encounter, and practising scepticism. Well, those had paid off.
The birth was remarkably rapid, however the presiding surgeon inflicted an unnecessarily vigorous episiotomy to enlarge the opening, requiring a number of stitches. Alicia murmured that she had heard through an anaesthetic fog his assistant protesting at this. No doubt it was inconsiderately late in the day for a mother to give birth; maybe the surgeon was going out for supper? Alicia had refused her consultant’s persuasions to check in a few days early and have the birth induced with a prostaglandin drip, labour thus commencing in the morning and concluding by late afternoon. Here was the pay-back.
To himself too, Paul reflected. That cut in Alicia’s vagina would delay the renewal of love-making by weeks. Or longer. A woman could stay sore for months.
Yet he wasn’t thinking too much along those lines. He was a father—of a well-formed baby boy. He and Alicia were parents, of David Gordon Philips, Alicia’s choice of names. A solid, handsome ring to them.
The nurse on duty also forgot to bring Alicia a milk-suppressant tablet—she wasn’t planning to give suck—but Paul sorted that out.
He stayed while he and she fed David Gordon his first bottle; then the baby was carried off to its plastic bubble-chamber in another room. Alicia would need to stay in hospital for a week to ten days. Likewise baby. The medical profession expected him to develop post-natal jaundice, and were already removing test samples of blood from the ball of his poor little foot as if to deplete his supply of the red stuff.
Exhausted, Alicia faded out; and Paul drove home a second time, vaguely cursing doctors.
He visited every evening, using up the intervening couple of hours by working late at the office then catching an early pint and a pub meal: hot pie, cheeseburger and chips. A pint, in Lederbury, yes. He wouldn’t arrive back at Hollyhocks till nearly ten.
On the third night, Sally was waiting in the shadows. “Sorry and all that,” he told her definitively, “but bugger off.” That night after he had climbed into bed alone he saw again the after-image of her, nude in Humphrey Barton’s fine spa bath.
Fair enough. This at least was no nightmare of falling down a well, disappearing into darkness. He could cope with that particular image easily enough; and he did, then went to sleep.
Next night was Boys’ Night, so he went directly from the hospital to the White Hart. It was only a short drive home afterwards, unmonitored by police.
Matt didn’t seem his normal jokey, chipper self. Brooding into his beer?
“What’s up, Matt?”
Matt contrived a grin. “Up? Don’t talk dirty.”
“You seemed preoccupied.”
“I was thinking about the magpies of Birdland. Wondering which ones would like to fly from Whitney’s to a better feathered nest overseas. Migrating to the sunny dollar.”
Conrad Golby was quick on the uptake that night. “Why magpies? Why not owls or nightingales? Has somebody nicked something?”
Laughing, Matt dealt Conrad a friendly cuff. “You’d know all about nicking in the antiques bizz! When was the last time the boys in blue turned you over?”
“Has someone? Stolen? Secret formulas? Inside job?”
Matt shook his head. “Nope. Heard the one about the stripper with the artificial leg … ?”
They hadn’t.
“Hath this child been already baptized or no?”
What a stupid question, thought Paul. If it was already baptized, why would we be here?
“No,” replied Alicia. The baby was limp in her arms, half asleep.
Standing by the font, she was a radiant madonna. Madonna with child, in a long robe of Victorian lace. Surely that was the true symbolic aim of the christening ceremony: to transform every mother into Mary, every infant into Jesus (or his sister).
A bitter thought intruded: David Gordon’s might as well have been a virgin birth! And now that wretched cut and those stitches. Paul itched. Guiltily he glanced along the aisle, however Sally wasn’t lurking anywhere that he could see.
The vicar began to pray. Quite a gathering was standing to attention. Two godparents by the font: an old school chum of Alicia’s, Maggy, and Raymond Thwaite, their ex-best man. Two sets of grandparents upright in the front row, looking proud. Maggy’s husband Bob, and Mrs Thwaite. An aunt and cousin of Alicia’s, and her younger sister Antonietta. Paul’s older brother, Daniel, with whom he never really saw eye to eye. A scattering of the church regulars, Mrs Badgot prominent: and the Boys’ Night indomitables (including, wonder of wonders, Adrian) plus wives and kids. No Sally. Thank God.
He’d been a fool, and his folly would likely find him out; though not today. If he itched, he should scratch that itch well away from home. Easier said than done. No, he shouldn’t have scratched it at all.
Hubert Smythe raised his voice, as if in an attempt—unsuccessful—to capture Paul’s attention.
“None can enter into the Kingdom of God except he be born anew of water—”
The old stone church only possessed one stained-glass window, and that was out of character: a First World War memorial in rose and violet with several soldiers being exhorted by an angel—their company commander—to go through the barbed wire to heaven, surely a rapid route. Several marble bas-reliefs dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were inscribed with pious encomiums praising gentlemanly charity and valour, ladylike sweetness and forbearance. Black-painted plaques from the pragmatic nineteenth century specified the amount of charity: five pounds willed to furnish bread for the parish poor. Nearer the font, in an enormous flagstone, a brass inlay of a local knight had been worn by centuries of tread till it was a featureless golden puddle. Yellow chrysanthemums crowded vases.
“… Suffer the little children,” the vicar was reading. Alicia glanced sharply at Paul; an angry madonna.
“Praise be—,” the congregation chorused raggedly; just as Alicia had quipped to the vicar months ago, apropos the village’s recovery from the plague. Now she was uttering the response with feeling.
Would Sally tell, out of venom? If so, he too could tell a tale! About how Sally Dingle had planned …
… for her parents to take out substantial life insurance? Unprovable.
How she aimed to poison them both? “By witchcraft, sir, is that so?” Already Paul could hear the s
cornful tones of the imaginary policeman.
“I demand therefore—” Hubert Smythe was staring directly at Paul. “Dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the devil?”
Oh absolutely. I already renounced Sally Dingle.
The service droned on, via the Creed, to the blessing of the water.
“… beloved Son Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins, did shed out of his most precious side both water and blood—”
Did he, indeed? What kind of water was that, then? Dilute acids from the stomach? The Church didn’t make quite so much of the water, did they? The blood, yes. Buckets of blood spilt down the ages; and cup after cup of communion wine. Communion water wouldn’t have quite the same cachet. Couldn’t baptize someone in blood, though.
Paul wished that he could lose some water out of his side. These days the waistband of his trousers was uncomfortably tight. In fact he felt positively obese. All those cumulative half-pints at the White Hart? Maybe too much salt in his food of late was the culprit. Convenience meals and pub snacks were making him retain water. Gas shifted in his intestines, pressed by water-laden tissues, and he squirmed so as not to vent a sulphurous stink in church.
Smythe accepted the white package that was David Gordon from Alicia; lace hung down like a dwarf’s bridal train. Consecrated water spilled from the vicar’s fingers upon the baby’s bald head. “I baptize thee—”
Smythe received David Gordon into the flock, painting an invisible cross of water on his brow next, and handing him back to Alicia. Then he read the Thanksgiving followed by another prayer. He instructed the godparents on their duties—fluffing his lines now, as if distracted—and finally opened his mouth to pronounce the blessing.
The baby shrieked like a cat caught in a snare.
Smythe cringed, then he too cried out, brandishing his right hand—the hand which had baptized.
The vicar’s index finger was swelling obscenely. More a phallus than a finger.
Alicia screamed too. The wailing baby’s brows were swelling visibly, bulging. Its whole face was puffing up, compressing its eyes tight, inflating its lips to block the mouth, closing its suddenly misshapen nostrils. The howling stopped, from lack of air. The body in the lace robe convulsed. At the same moment Hubert Smythe’s huge finger burst open at the tip, spraying blood and water at the font.
In a congregation frozen by horror only one person moved. Matt Davies jumped up. “No!” he shouted. “That’s impossible!”
At eleven that same night Paul sat in the kitchen of Hollyhocks with the lights off and the curtains open, watching the garden by moonlight, trying to think. He felt ragged and dog-tired.
Alicia already lay upstairs, tranquillized then put to sleep by barbiturates, dead to the world. Paul would take some sleeping pills presently, tired though he was, to give himself the alibi of chemical unconsciousness. He’d turned the lights off because village eyes would be scrutinizing Hollyhocks tonight. He sipped some whisky. Haig. Drops of fire. They’d bought it because he didn’t like it, so it would stay longer in the bottle, reserved for visitors.
His memories of the past nine or ten hours were chaos. Mrs Badgot—formerly a nurse—trying to force the empty tube of a ball-point pen down David Gordon’s throat to ventilate him. Fast thinking, that. But useless. The vicar rocking from side to side like a drunk, bleeding all over his vestments. Matt insisting that the font should be covered immediately and that no one should touch the remaining water, or empty it.
Then the useless, screeching drive in Matt’s BMW with a hysterical Alicia and the bloated, asphyxiated baby to hospital. Dead on arrival. Matt burbling, on the way, about allergy shock, or something. Matt phoning urgently from a pay-phone in the hospital. Other arrivals by car: godparents, grandparents, Mrs Badgot driving a bandaged Hubert Smythe, sallow with shock, and his wife. The emergency doctor’s questions. Matt taking the doctor and Paul aside while a nurse was giving Alicia a sedative injection—because she was screaming at Matt, “Why was it impossible? Who were you phoning? Why were you so bothered about the font?”
According to Matt, a bottle of experimental synthetic hormone concentrate appeared to have vanished from the safe area at Whitney’s. Or rather, the bottle in question had proved to contain tap-water; if it was the same bottle. No, the police hadn’t been told—just the security officer—because Whitney’s weren’t certain that there had been a theft. There may have been a stupid error in the lab. When? Hard to say; some time during the previous fortnight. Pointless to stir up publicity. Counterproductive. If this was a theft, it indicated industrial espionage, and the spy was still about. Some chemist or other staff member who lived in Birdland. A magpie.
One of Whitney’s analysts—whom Matt trusted—would be taking a sample from the font right now. It was quite unlikely to be the missing hormone (if any was actually missing). Why put that in a font before a christening? It couldn’t have had such a lightning effect. The effect was wrong, anyway.
Paul said nothing. He knew. In his mind’s eye he clearly saw Sally standing in the empty church, pouring clear liquid from a bottle into the font and murmuring water-words to it.
He said nothing about this even after the hospital notified police and coroner; even to the inspector and constable from Lederbury who called at Hollyhocks that evening. (“Does anyone local have a grudge against you, that you know of? Mrs Philips? Mr Philips?” “No.” “No.”)
Of course he said nothing. The liquid in the font might well turn out to be the stuff stolen from Whitney’s, where Sally Dingle worked; but it couldn’t have done what it did, on its own. Unaided by enchantment. (“Enchantment, Mr Philips? What do you mean?” Fall into that trap? Not likely!)
It might even prove to be harmless water, after the event. (“So a chemical can be told to turn into water miraculously, like water into wine, is that it, sir?” Hmm, bring on the men in white coats with needles and strait-jacket.)
And their son was dead. Not just blinded. Dead.
It was too late to tell anyone about the water-witchery. No one would manage to pin this on Sally like the tail on the donkey. She wasn’t a fool. If he blurted out the truth, there’d be nothing to connect her with the theft. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Besides … how could she break into a safe room and know what to take? She was only canteen staff at Whitney’s.
Maybe she had stolen nothing—but had hexed the holy water waiting in the font; spat into it, cursed it. The missing hormone might be a huge red herring. Yes, that was it. The more Paul thought about it, the more he felt that the theft—if any—was sheer coincidence. Matt had been keyed up, nervous about the possible lab error in labelling. The horror at the church had triggered his anxieties about a missing chemical.
How could Paul accuse Sally of hexing plain water without confessing how he had … had it off with her? Guilt made him fantasize; that’s what anyone sane would say. What a fool he would have made of himself, all to no effect—except personal disaster.
And their child was dead, vilely.
He hated Sally; and feared her. And desired her.
As he stared down the garden the moon suddenly illuminated a misty Pook Pond and the rumply field rising beyond. The scene … shimmered. He saw not Charolais cows but distant cottages, hovels facing the village duck pond. An uncouth crowd clad in smocks, sleeveless surcoats, and hose were gathering. Paul started to his feet, gripping the window-sill. She was doing it again! The crowd milled, braying soundlessly. Three men dragged a silently screaming woman towards the pond, started to tie her wrists and ankles. This vision was worse—clearer—than his glimpse of Barton’s half-built spa. This time it was populated, by the spectres of dead peasants.
She must be near by, as he had guessed she might be!
He opened the kitchen door, ran down the lawn in darkness—the vision had vanished—and stalked through the wild garden, circling soft-foot towards the well. A black figure loomed by it.
He hissed, “Sally Dingle!”
Painfully his foot struck a stone left lying in the grass. Immediately he knew what to do. Stooping, he hefted the stone, and struck at her head. She sprawled against the wall of the well. He couldn’t see what damage he had done but she was certainly still alive, groaning in pained confusion. Discarding the stone, he cast about for the bucket. He freed the rope, tearing a fingernail back on the rough fibre. He trussed her ankles, trussed her wrists, just as the vision had shown. Then he heaved the iron grille aside.
“No, no,” she moaned. “No use. Too late. No.”
“Too late, is it?”
“Yes, yes,” she gasped. For a moment he thought she was encouraging him.
He upended her over the edge by the legs, let her drop head first. Heard, moments later, a single sludgy splash. Then he vomited on the grass.
He restored the heavy grille and walked back to the house, to take two sleeping tablets and go to bed.
It rained morosely the next day. Paul phoned his office to take several days’ leave. Grandparents and Antonietta were staying at the White Hart which had some bed-and-breakfast rooms. They soon arrived at Hollyhocks to console morosely. Matt had put up Raymond and his wife overnight; Adrian had done likewise for Maggy and her husband. They also came round to the house; then Mrs Badgot with Ruth Smythe. The vicar was still house-bound, in no fit state. The gathering resembled the aftermath of a funeral except that the funeral hadn’t yet taken place. Daniel Philips had excused himself—unforgivably, said Maggy to Paul, as though Paul was to blame for his brother. Maggy and Amanda Thwaite took over the kitchen, to brew cups of tea and cook a large lunch.
David Gordon should be cremated in Lederbury, Alicia decided. She couldn’t bear to enter St Mark’s, Easton Hampcote, again. “Not so soon, Ruth. Do you understand?”
