Ice Dancing Episode 21

TMary didn’t approve at all. She thought that witches and wizards were the work of the devil, even when they did silly things

he writer, a middle aged and motherly woman, specialised in books about witches and wizards with lots of lovely pictures that she had painted herself. Great fun. The kids must have enjoyed the talk but Mary didn’t approve at all. She thought that witches and wizards were the work of the devil, even when they did silly things in kiddies’ picture books, like falling off their broomsticks into haystacks or turning toy cats into real tigers with disastrous results.

All of that went right over Mary’s head. All she could see was her own horror of anything that smacked of “the occult”.

She had complained to the headteacher who she blamed for the whole thing and she told me all about how she had insisted on withdrawing Alice and Lindsay from the school that afternoon, so that they shouldn’t be “contaminated by evil”. She used those very words.

I kept looking around, trying to find a way of escaping from her, but everyone else was deliberately intent on their coffee and their own conversation. Nobody was going to rescue me.

“I phoned the education authority to complain,” she said, with a smugness that made me want to shake her.

“And what did they say?” I asked. Actually I was quite interested by this time.

“They were very sympathetic and they asked me to write in about it, but they said they hadn’t had any other complaints.” “Well, no. I don’t suppose they had.” “People are very feeble.”

“Maybe other folk don’t think the same way as you do, Mary.”

“Why not?”

“Well I’ve read those stories – Fiona used to like them – and I honestly don’t see any harm in them. It’s just made up stuff for kids. It isn’t going to turn them all into mini-Satanists.”

She pursed her lips. “Ah, but who knows. It might trigger something in them. Who knows what the long term effects might be?”

God only knows what she might have gone on to say; probably something supremely tactless about Fiona and the phone box groupies being the work of the devil, but Sandy rescued me.

“Time we were going, Helen. The roast will be overcooked.” He smiled at his cousin and put his arm round her shoulders. “Hello, Mary. How’s tricks?”

She relaxed, leaning over to peck him on the cheek. At least she approved of Sandy, I thought. At least he wouldn’t contaminate her with evil.

There was no point in thanking Sandy for his intervention. He liked Mary. He would let her talk and just nod away without really hearing anything she said. It was his stomach that had been bothering him. There was the usual chunk of red meat cooking slowly in the oven. Fiona was in the house, but she could never be relied upon to smell burning or even respond to it when she did, so we went home.

After we had eaten roast beef, followed by apple crumble and custard, Sandy took his Sunday papers into the sitting room, switched on the television and put his feet up on the battered brown leather object that his mum had always called “the pouffe” and that had become even more distressed since Siggy had taken to sharpening his claws on it.

There were holes in Sandy’s socks at toe and heel. His mother would have been horrified. Come to think of it, Mary would have been horrified. But I don’t do darning and, to give him his due, he never complained. He would have worn them till they disintegrated. Time for new socks, I thought. He was planning his customary extended nap. Fiona had picked at her meal and then headed up to her room.

Suddenly restless, I changed into jeans and a fleece and went for a walk, taking the dog with me. I followed the road down from the farm, but instead of going to the village or even passing the cottage, I went along one of the network of narrow lanes that lead out towards the high hill country, inland from the village. The fields on either side had a gilded brilliancy about them that you only see on autumn afternoons and the hedgerows smelled of mushrooms and late, sweet honeysuckle.

There were never many cars on this road, and Jess ran here and there, sniffing, peeing intermittently, and running back to herd me along. Then she suddenly pricked up her ears and rushed off over the brow of the hill with her tongue lolling out like a piece of boiled ham.

I shouted, “Jess, here Jess!”

I whistled and clapped my hands, but there was no sign of her, so I laboured on up the slope. Over the hill, the road flattened out and there was Joe Napier, resting his elbows on a gate, with Jess leaning against his legs, grinning happily. She didn’t move but thumped her tail on the ground and waited for me.

I hadn’t been wrong. The gin at the party hadn’t clouded my senses that much. There aren’t many genuinely good looking people in the world when you think about it. Not many at all. But Joe was so tall and athletic that the sight of him, as much as the hill, took my breath away.

“You look very rural,” I said when I got up to him. He bent down and scratched the dog’s ears.

“Me and my faithful hound.”

“Jess likes you.”

“Jess seems to like everyone.” “That’s true.”

“Are you just out for a walk?” he asked. “Or are you tending to the cows or something.” Did I look as if I was tending to the cows, I thought, irritably.

“No. I’m not tending to any cows,” I told him. “You’re always asking me that!” “I’m scared of sounding ignorant.” “Well there are cows, but they’re fine. I don’t have much to do with them, to be honest. Unless they get out. Which they do sometimes. And I just felt like a walk.” “Where’s Sandy?”

“Asleep in front of the telly.”

“I suppose he works hard.”

“He does. He works with the cows. And a lot of other things besides. I look after the hens and do a mountain of paperwork. It’s kind of boring. Record keeping, spreadsheets. Computer stuff.”

“Can I walk with you?”

“Of course. There’s a turn-off further along. We can double back to the farm that way.”

“Come on then. You can show me.” He set off, walking briskly, and I followed him. Jess rushed back and forth, herding both of us together. More tomorrow.