Читать книгу Pets on Parade - Malcolm Welshman - Страница 6

When Madam Mountjoy walked into my consulting room that January morning with a black cat sitting benignly on her shoulder, and stated he was the reincarnation of an Inca emperor, I knew it was going to be one of those days.

Mind you, the morning had already got off to an uncertain start – and that was entirely my fault. It stemmed from the fact that I’d sent a Christmas email to our receptionist, not dreaming she was then going to brood about it all over the festive period, and still allow it to rankle now that we were into the New Year. Dear, oh dear. Where was your sense of humour, Beryl?

It had been an Internet card of a jolly Father Christmas standing on a red-tiled roof next to a chimney, going ‘Ho, ho, ho’. Very seasonal, I thought. Very Christmassy. You clicked on the sack he was carrying over his shoulder and he suddenly became animated – he actually sprang over to the chimney pot. I expected him to pop down it. Wrong. He started to urinate down it instead. It tickled my juvenile sense of humour but it didn’t tickle our receptionist’s at Prospect House when I emailed it to her. I must admit I’d had an anxious moment when I clicked the ‘Send’ button, thinking perhaps Beryl might not see the funny side of it. Too right. She didn’t.

It was apparent the moment I bounded into reception, full of good cheer, a smile on my face, ready to greet her with a chirpy ‘Good morning’. That didn’t cut any ice with her. Oh, no. Her frosty expression and the Arctic glare from her good eye – the other, as usual, just gave out its customary artificial glint of glass – were enough to freeze my bonhomie as if I’d just plunged through a walrus’s blowhole.

My ‘Good morning, Beryl … how are things?’ instantly froze on my lips as I swiftly saw that ‘things’ were definitely not good.

Beryl pulled at the sleeve of the black cardigan draped, shawl-like, over her shoulders. It was an exaggerated gesture which spoke of a thousand grievances. But one was sufficient. ‘Why don’t you grow up, Paul? That email of yours wasn’t funny.’

Uh oh. Seems my peeing Santa had a lot to answer for.

Beryl had turned back to the computer and was tapping away at the keyboard, her long, red nails flying across the keys. ‘Which reminds me,’ she went on, her face remaining impassive as she spoke, ‘Mr Digby wants some more tablets. His Labrador’s bladder is playing up again.’

I was tempted to say, ‘Good job it wasn’t his reindeer’s …’ but thought better of it. After all, I wasn’t that much of a wit and, to judge from Beryl’s icy look, she already considered me half of one.

Having re-established a fragile line of communication with Beryl by way of Mr Digby’s bladder problems – an appointment to be made before further medication was prescribed – I breezed on down the corridor to do my usual ward round before starting morning consultations.

I met Mandy, our senior nurse, clip-clopping in her highly polished, black brogues up the corridor. As ever, I felt like jumping to one side and giving her a salute. She’d evoked that reaction in me ever since my initial run-in with her over the anaesthetic machine last June – when I was being interviewed for the post of assistant vet. A memory which actually still causes me to giggle (‘Oh, do grow up, Paul,’ my girlfriend would say), although, at the time, my squeaky giggling had been induced by the escape of nitrous oxide. As Mandy drew level, I tentatively raised my hand in a gesture of greeting while she sailed by accompanied by the crackle of her crisply starched uniform. A galleon at full stretch. Her prow plunging forward … well, at least her ample bosom was. Her head barely turned as my ‘Good morning’ was acknowledged with a brisk nod and a curt ‘Morning, Paul,’ before her keel turned to starboard and she disappeared into the dispensary. Blimey. What had got into her bulwarks? So much for New Year festive feelings. Here, in Prospect House, they seemed to be festering fast.

Mind you, things hadn’t been exactly a bed of roses back at Willow Wren first thing. My girlfriend, Lucy, the junior nurse at the practice, had had to get up ahead of me for the early shift and had been distinctly thorny.

‘Don’t know why you’re so cheerful,’ she muttered in response to my ‘Morning, sweetheart,’ as she pulled on her uniform, lights blazing, while I ducked back under the duvet and then listened to her downstairs crashing about getting herself some breakfast. Who’s been peeing on your patch? I wondered. Not that Father Christmas again?

It was no better down in the ward.

‘Hi,’ I said as I walked along to where Lucy was scrubbing out a kennel. I was greeted with the suck of a squeegee mop, the slurp of it being shoved along the concrete floor, and a kick, accidental or otherwise, of the bucket of disinfectant. Right … OK. There was something in the air – apart from the smell of dog dirt. Things that had to be said … stuff to be sorted. But this was certainly not the right time or place, so I left Lucy to it.

There were only two in-patients to check. A pair of Golden Retrievers that, true to their name, had retrieved the carcass of a turkey while their owners had been out, and had then proceeded to demolish it jointly. The resulting haemorrhagic gastroenteritis had precipitated a frantic evacuation in every sense of the word. The owners had sought emergency help two nights back. The Retrievers had been hospitalised and, in the intervening period, their bowel functions had slowly returned to normal. Much to my relief. And to theirs, no doubt. Isn’t it funny how the sight of perfectly formed crap can often provoke jubilation? Well, in me it can. Bit sad really. Anyway, the sight of theirs, waiting to be scooped up, did just that. The fact that Lucy would be doing the scooping up made it even more satisfactory. Now, now, Paul. Less of that.

I bent down and scratched the dogs’ ears through the bars of the kennel door, telling them what a good job they’d done. They responded with a grizzle of pleasure and furious wags of their tails, no doubt eager to tell me it was none of my business. Just theirs.

‘Well, at least someone’s pleased to see me,’ I said, loud enough for Lucy to hear. All I heard, in response, was a suck and a slurp. In a different situation, such as under a duvet, such sounds may have been far more welcome. But here, emanating from that dirty kennel, their erotic charge was a little dampened.

I walked back up to reception, determined not to buckle under the pervading gloom that seemed to have seeped into Prospect House that morning. Perhaps the sight of one of my bosses, Eric Sharpe, bouncing in would have helped to cheer everyone up. But that wasn’t going to happen today. Wednesdays always saw Eric up on the golf course attempting to reduce his handicap. He was a small, balding vet who jounced around the hospital in a white coat far too big for him. But it covered a man of generous spirit who was always ready for a laugh and was usually able to lift everyone’s mood. Beryl, though, her mind still flooded with the image of a urinating Santa, would have been a major challenge today.

‘Don’t think the heating can be working properly,’ Beryl was saying. ‘It’s bloody freezing in here.’ She was hunched forward on her swivel chair, pulling her cardigan up round her scrawny neck, looking very carrion crow-like.

Stone them, Beryl, I thought, she being the first crow I’d take a pot shot at. No, that was uncharitable. It seemed the mood in the place was beginning to affect me too. One thing I could be sure of – it wouldn’t be affecting Eric’s wife, Crystal, who was the other partner in the practice. She was out visiting one of her ‘specials’ as Beryl would put it – Lady Derwent, who always insisted that Dr Sharpe should be her Labradors’ preferred vet.

‘So,’ I said, rubbing my hands together and mustering up as much enthusiasm as I could to face the glacier (Beryl). ‘What have you got for me today?’

‘The usual,’ she muttered coldly, casting her good eye at me while the glass one did its customary robotic scan of the ceiling. It was a habit of hers that had unnerved me the minute I’d first set my own eyes on it last June.

‘Right,’ I said, rubbing my hands even more vigorously, before parting them to clench my fists.

Beryl continued to give me the eye – her good one – and, observing my hand movements, said, ‘Told you it was cold in here, didn’t I?’

I pictured my hands rapidly flying over the computer to settle round her neck, but restrained myself with a ‘Let’s get on with it then.’

Beryl was quite right about the ‘usual’. There was a string of standard consultations: three booster injections in a row. Very routine stuff. Jab – jab – jab. Hang on a minute. I pulled myself up, reminding myself that it might be routine for me but certainly not for the dogs involved, as it wasn’t every day they got hauled into the surgery to be confronted by Paul Mitchell (BVSc, MRCVS), qualified last year. Prospect House my first job. Been here just over six months. Still a relatively new boy but a wee bit jaded by all the routine stuff.

‘Now, Dandy, there’s a good lad,’ I muttered as I raised the scruff of the Cairn on the consulting table and slipped the needle under the skin of his neck. He didn’t so much as whimper or flinch. ‘What a good boy,’ I added, trying to sound encouraging, as I rubbed his scruff once the booster vaccination had been given.

‘Now what can I do for Bertie?’ I asked, as I tackled the next case, still attempting to muster some enthusiasm. Goodness, what on earth was happening to me? My spirits definitely seemed to be flagging.

‘Bertie’s anal glands are giving him gyp again,’ said his owner, giving me a quizzical look. ‘Needs them emptying.’ Yippee. Just the fillip I needed!

I suppose I must have been about halfway through the morning’s list when the atmosphere suddenly changed in quite a dramatic fashion.

It was the appearance of Madam Mountjoy that did it. I saw from the details on the computer screen in the consulting room that she was a new client and was bringing in a cat named Antac. Good start. Made a change from all the Flossies, Cuddles, Blackies and Sooties. Cripes, this cynicism had really set in.

So in wafted Madam Mountjoy with her Antac. I use the word ‘wafted’ deliberately as this woman seemed to float into the consulting room and hover in front of the consulting table as if inches off the ground. Not that she had anything particularly angelic about her, and there was certainly nothing fairy-like. True, she was swathed in layers of calico in the form of a white kaftan which could have lent her a sylph-like appearance had she not been so fat that no amount of loose clothing could have concealed the mountains of flesh heaving beneath it. She resembled a large wedding cake whose tiered layers had collapsed and folded in on one another. Her hair was silver-grey, and haloed her face in a wild tangle to stream down over her shoulders. That face had an element of the moon about it. Full, white and cratered with acne scars. From her ear lobes dangled silver broomsticks, a silver pentangle hung between her breasts, while her wrists tinkled with the myriad of silver bangles that enclosed them. If all that wasn’t striking enough, she had the most disconcerting eyes. Huge, slanting eyes with troubling grey irises, surrounded by thick, black layers of mascara which could have out-kohled Cleopatra.

The look she gave me seemed to bore into me, as if wishing to strip me naked and expose my soul. Wow. This was suddenly intensely unnerving. Still, I had been moaning about how mundane the morning had been so far so I shouldn’t have been complaining if it was about to change, should I?

With difficulty, I averted my eyes from hers and turned my attention to her cat.

‘So this is Antac?’ I enquired as an opening gambit.

Even her cat had an air of the unreal about him. Not for him transportation in a routine cat basket. Nor, indeed, was he attached to a collar and lead like some cats presented to me in surgery. No, Antac was on Madam Mountjoy’s left shoulder, unrestrained, looking every bit an Egyptian pharaoh’s deity. Gleaming black fur … piercing yellow eyes … sitting bolt upright, motionless.

‘He’s not Egyptian,’ said Madam Mountjoy, as if she’d been reading my mind. Spooky. That’s when I learnt he was a reincarnation of an Inca emperor. The statement was made without her batting an eyelid, a feat which would have been difficult to achieve anyway due to the heavy encrustations of mascara that gummed up her lids.

‘Right … yes … well … So, what’s the problem with Antac?’

‘He needs his toenails cutting.’

‘Toenails?’

‘OK. Claws then.’ Madam Mountjoy shrugged and raised her eyebrows. ‘They keep digging into my shoulder. It’s upsetting my Akasha.’

‘Akasha?’

‘It’s the world’s energy source. It’s how I fuel my magic.’

‘No need for British Gas then,’ I was tempted to say, but resisted, as I suspected this lady considered herself some sort of witch or mystic and the last thing I needed was for her to suddenly magic up a wand from beneath her kaftan and turn me into a frog. Not that I thought of myself as a prince, charming as I might appear to be. Instead, I gave her a wan smile and explained that it would be best if the toenail … er … claw trimming was done on the table.

‘Did you hear that, Antac?’ said Madam Mountjoy, swivelling her head rapidly round to face the cat. For an instant, I was reminded of that possessed girl in The Exorcist and wondered if Madam Mountjoy was about to throw up. Instead, she spewed out the words, ‘You’re being summoned onto the table.’

I had picked up the nail clippers and was casually waving them in front of her, in cool dude mode. My heart sank as I heard her address the cat in that way. ‘Well, it would be easier all round,’ I said, my voice a touch whiny.

‘Antac quite understands, even though we’re not speaking in his native tongue,’ said Madam Mountjoy, sharply.

That unnerving feeling returned.

As she spoke, the cat sprang down onto the consulting table, sniffed the surface, his tail a ramrod, and then sat, his tail sweeping round to curl over his front paws.

‘He commands that you now proceed,’ said Madam Mountjoy.

‘I might need to restrain him,’ I warned, my voice still wavering a little.

Madam Mountjoy waved a dismissive hand. ‘He’s had to endure far greater ordeals in his past life, I can tell you.’

Not wishing her to embark on a tale of his heroics, I lifted Antac’s front left paw, squeezed it gently to unsheathe the claws and clipped each one back a fraction. To my amazement, the cat sat there impassively, with scarcely a twitch of his whiskers, and continued to do so as I tackled the claws on his other paws.

Once I’d finished, Antac got to his feet, turned and leapt back onto Madam Mountjoy’s shoulder, where he settled himself back into his former stance.

‘Ah, that feels much better,’ sighed Madam Mountjoy, rotating her shoulder, causing Antac to sway a bit although he managed to keep his balance. ‘Yes. I can now tune in more clearly, with no interference.’

Long wave or medium wave? I wondered. Now, now, Paul, don’t tempt fate.

Madam Mountjoy suddenly took a deep breath and crossed her bangled arms over her breasts. They shook … the bangles, that is. She closed those kohl-lined eyes of hers, the lashes whipping together, and began to emit a sing-songy sort of hum rather like a kettle starting to whistle. Oh Lord, was she falling into a trance? That could spell trouble, especially as she hadn’t paid for her consultation yet.

Then, in a falsetto whisper, she spoke. ‘The aura in here is very unpleasant.’ The silver broomsticks in her ears swivelled from side to side and her mouth dropped open, her tongue darting out to expose a silver stud embedded in its tip. ‘Very unpleasant. Very off-putting,’ she added, her tongue rattling back behind her teeth.

Hark who’s talking, I thought, rattled myself by her peculiar turn. Mind you, I had to admit there was quite an atmosphere in the consulting room. Quite pongy, in fact. But I put that down to the nervous Alsatian who’d earlier defaecated on the spot where Madam Mountjoy was now standing.

She fanned her long black nails in front of her face and her eyelids snapped open again. ‘It’s very strong,’ she added. ‘You should let me cast a spell. Cleanse the place.’

I didn’t know about casting spells or not. If anything, she could have put in a spell of cleaning, but I couldn’t see her knuckling down with her broomstick to give the place a clean sweep. Of course, I kept mum for fear of frog-induced repercussions.

It was at that point that Antac gave a loud miaow. I must admit, it made me jump a bit as he’d been so quiet up to then. Madam Mountjoy seemed unperturbed. She turned to him and bent her head down so that her ear was almost touching his nose. ‘What’s that, Antac?’ she asked. There was another, more muted miaow.

Madam Mountjoy straightened up and stared at me with those laser-like grey eyes of hers. Very unnerving. ‘Antac informs me that many feline spirits have departed from here. Posses of them are at this very moment circling above us. You need to be exorcised.’

Posses of pussies, eh? I bridled. What a nerve. OK, I might not be the most competent of vets and I admit the occasional cat had slipped beyond its ninth life through my fingers. But posses of them? Come on. I wasn’t that bad. This old crone was out of her head.

Suddenly realising Madam Mountjoy was getting inside mine, I hastily terminated the consultation and accompanied her through to reception, where, having paid her bill, she tapped Antac knowingly on the head, looked at me and uttered in a sombre voice, ‘You have been warned,’ before swirling out of the front door, broomsticks whirling, bangles clanging.

‘Crikey,’ declared Beryl, giving her departing figure the eye – her good one – ‘she’s enough to put the wind up anyone’s sails. Which reminds me, Mrs Jenkins wants some more of those charcoal granules for her Cleo’s flatulence.’

I thought I’d seen the last of Madam Mountjoy, but if I’d had the ability to see into the future – as she apparently could – I would have realised that wasn’t going to be the case.

It must have been about two weeks later, time enough for Beryl to have pushed the urinating Father Christmas to the back of her mind – at least I assumed she had, judging from her better mood – when she mentioned Madam Mountjoy. Beryl was standing in front of the electric heater in the office, the sleeves of her woolly, black cardigan hanging down her sides as usual – why she never put her arms in the sleeves, I’ll never know – rubbing her hands together having just returned, ‘freezing’ as she put it, from her morning cigarette, smoked by the open back door leading to the exercise run in the garden. Although smoking in Prospect House was strictly taboo and enforced rigorously by both partners, Crystal and Eric, a concession to Beryl’s addiction of the past 50 years had been made whereby she was allowed her daily quota of fags, to be smoked either out in the exercise yard or, if the weather was too inclement, on the back doorstep with the door open wide enough for her to exhale the smoke through the gap.

‘Yes, I remember her,’ I said at her mention of Madam Mountjoy’s name. ‘Seems I was under threat from the spirits of cats I’d bumped off. Or some such nonsense.’

‘Well, she’s been in touch,’ whispered Beryl, bringing her hand up to cover the side of her mouth. Always the dramatist, is Beryl.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

I smirked.

‘It’s not funny, Paul,’ she hissed, her glass eye fixed on me.

I swallowed hard. ‘No, of course not.’

‘She’s contacted me from the other side.’ Beryl gave an exaggerated wink of her good eye while the glass one swivelled wildly heavenwards.

‘You mean …’ I faltered, pointing upwards. ‘She’s passed on?’

‘No, no,’ said Beryl, tutting, still with her hand cupped over her mouth. ‘She’s been in touch from the other side of town. Teville Gate.’ Beryl must have seen my bewilderment, more induced by her glass eye swinging down to glare at my crotch rather than from learning that Madam Mountjoy lived over in Teville Gate, since she went on in an exasperated tone of voice. ‘She’s worried about Antac.’ Beryl glanced over both her shoulders and then over mine before continuing. ‘Apparently, he’s been in the wars.’

‘The Aztecs have got him, have they?’

‘Shhh … it’s no joke. Madam Mountjoy thinks he’s been possessed.’

I began to feel another smirk coming on.

‘It’s serious, Paul,’ she reprimanded.

I bit my lower lip. ‘Yes, of course, you’re right,’ I said, suppressing the bubble of laughter welling up in my throat. ‘You’d better get her to come in.’ I failed to stop the bubble of laughter from bursting out. ‘And let me see what’s got into him,’ I spluttered. ‘A Roman centurion? Or maybe a Benedictine monk?’

Beryl’s false eye stopped rotating and lined itself up with her good one to show her disapproval of my frivolous mood (that juvenile sense of humour again). She fixed me with a cold stare that brought me up straight. ‘I offered her an appointment but she turned it down. Apparently, that time she came in … she got spooked.’

‘Really?’

‘So she says. That’s why she insists you visit.’

‘Over at Teville Gate?’

Beryl nodded. ‘And it has to be you.’ Her voice dropped an octave. ‘Apparently, you are a kindred spirit with whom she can bond.’ Beryl nodded sagely. ‘So …’ She let her voice trail off. Ooo-er. Seemed I was in for a bit of hocus-pocus. Very tricky.

Madam Mountjoy’s place of spiritual bondage over at Teville Gate turned out to be at the end of a terrace, a corner shop called ‘The Olde Wiccan Shoppe’. It was a wet, dark, late January afternoon when I parked a few doors down from the shop and, turning the collar of my raincoat up, beat a rapid path to her shop door. Above it, there was a skull with glowing eyes and a skeletal finger beckoning me in. Creepy.

I half expected the shop to be full of witches on the spend, loading their wicker baskets with bags of frozen fingers and spare ribs, bundles of frogs’ legs and jars of newt jelly. But the place was empty. Yet it still felt claustrophobic on account of the dim lighting, the overpowering smell of incense, and being stuffed from floor to ceiling with shelves – on one side loaded down with wands, dowsing crystals, lucky flying witches and miniature cast-iron cauldrons; on the other side, shelves groaned under the weight of books of all shapes and sizes, catalogued by subject matter. The Idiot’s Guide to Casting Spells and The Good Witch’s Guide to Wicked Ways were two titles that caught my eye. The latter book was on the counter, open at a chapter on potent ways to get your man, and looked very well thumbed. I began to feel distinctly uneasy; this was not helped when I spotted a small occasional table over in one corner, on which was a bowl containing what looked like locks of hair, alongside a burning candle, a mantra of love inscribed on an embroidered card and, behind these items, a gold photo frame containing … I had to move closer and stoop down to make sure … yes, it was … a head-and-shoulders picture of me.

At that point, I thought it wise to beat a hasty retreat, but, as I turned to leave, a figure glided out from behind a rack of elves, pixies and plastic fauns at the back and moved rapidly across to block my exit.

‘Ah, Mr Mitchell,’ exclaimed Madam Mountjoy, in a low, seductive voice, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

To do what? I wondered, thinking of the love spell on the table.

‘Do come through to the kitchen, please.’ She curved a black-nailed forefinger at me and beckoned.

Oh dear, what was she brewing up? A heady love potion that she’d force me to swallow on pain of death? Something concocted to turn me into a horny demon?

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

‘Er, no thanks.’

‘Something stronger perhaps?’

‘No. Not if you don’t mind. I’m on duty.’

‘Shame. Another time, maybe?’ Madam Mountjoy threw her arm across her chest, her hand enfolding her right breast. ‘I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.’

Me neither, I thought. Although I could guess what she was after. But I wasn’t going to stoke her fire. Demon or no demon.

‘Never mind.’

‘Sorry?’ I said, startled.

She gave a wry smile, and the merest flicker of her kohled eyelashes. ‘It’s Antac you’ve come to see.’

‘Well, yes, that’s why I’m here.’

‘Indeed. So do come through.’

I expected to enter a witch’s den. Not necessarily a cauldron hanging over a pile of burning logs, but certainly something akin to the image of Madam Mountjoy I’d conjured up. But her kitchen was modern. There was a gas range – black, naturally – a microwave, and in one corner stood not a broomstick but a Dyson. There was a shelf on which was stacked a line of glass-stoppered jars. Spaghetti, rice and sugar, I recognised. I wasn’t so sure about the jar containing the dried, shrivelled carcasses of frogs. Well, that’s what the leathery, brown lumps looked like to me, but then my mind had gone into overdrive ever since spotting the love spell in the shop. The kitchen was filled with a sweet, rather sickly smell. More hocus-pocus in the making, I thought, glancing across at the range on which a black, covered pan was quietly bubbling, emitting the occasional hiss of steam. Probably a stew of newt, snails and puppy dogs’ tails.

‘Just a load of rhubarb,’ said Madam Mountjoy, giving me a wistful look. I swear she was reading my mind.

Today, as on the previous occasion when I’d met her, Madam Mountjoy was wearing a voluminous white kaftan, cut low at the neck, the hem trailing across the kitchen floor as she swept to the middle, turned and faced me. She put her palms together as if to pray, an action that caused her silver bangles to cascade down her forearms. Her black-lined eyes snapped shut while the lashes continued to flicker, a movement that was echoed in the rest of her body. It was all of a twitch, as if there were internal weights being shunted and pulled about, and, although concealed by the kaftan, it gave rise to an uneasy feeling that the body beneath those layers was preparing itself to be fired into orbit. It just needed a deep thrust to ignite it. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to light her touchpaper. The mental image coincided with her opening her eyes abruptly and staring at me, her face full of disappointment.

‘Just trying to summon up Antac,’ she explained, a little peeved. She stretched her closed palms above her head and tried again. ‘Antac … Antac … Where are you?’ She arched her head back to gaze up at the ceiling. ‘Antac, come down and show yourself.’

For a split second, I had a vision of the cat materialising from thin air, careering down from heaven, paws splayed, to land at Madam Mountjoy’s feet. Clearly, it wasn’t a vision shared by her, as with an exasperated click of her tongue stud against her teeth, she glided over to the fridge, pulled out a half-empty tin of tuna and, with a spoon from an adjacent drawer, rattled it inside the tin. That did the trick. Antac suddenly appeared in a flash. He padded round the edge of the units until he reached the fridge, where he turned, arched his back, tail up, and sprayed against the door, a steady stream of urine shooting up the side.

‘Just look at that,’ seethed Madam Mountjoy. ‘It’s so out of character. I reckon he’s been cursed. Possessed by another person.’

A peeing Santa briefly flitted through my mind, and I silently rebuked myself for being juvenile. Yet again.

Madam Mountjoy went on to explain that they had been having a battle recently with a certain Sybil Clutterbuck. ‘They’ being the Order of the Golden Dawn, a coven of white witches over in Chawton. It seemed this Sybil had been the High Priestess up until last month when, due to the discovery that she’d been fiddling her expenses – a new broom paid for out of club funds – they had cast runes to have her replaced. Only she had refused to step down. Apparently, club rules stated that casting runes for new priestesses could only be carried out on the fourth night following a new moon. In her case, the runes had been cast on the fifth night, so, according to Sybil, they were invalid. As Madam Mountjoy had been the one to forward the motion to have Sybil removed in the first place, it was she whom Sybil blamed.

‘And this is the result,’ said Madam Mountjoy, pointing at her cat.

I couldn’t quite see the connection between an embittered witch and a spraying cat. In fact, to be honest, I couldn’t see it at all. A fact that Madam Mountjoy saw all too well, as she went on: ‘Antac’s been acting strange ever since. I’ve tried all sorts of things. Lunar scheduling … herbal remedies … and I am just going through some ancient mantras from my dictionary of spells. It’s all Sybil’s fault. She’s put a spell on him, you see.’

At last, I did see. Sort of. I certainly could see the dangers of becoming embroiled in some sort of witch warfare. Drawn broomsticks at dawn. Cudgels in the coven. It was all getting a bit nonsensical. Everyone getting in a flap. The word ‘flap’ coincided with me glancing round the kitchen and observing that the back door had a cat flap in it.

‘Is that new, by any chance?’ I asked.

‘Well, actually, yes,’ replied Madam Mountjoy, nodding – an action which caused the silver broomsticks in her earlobes to swing violently.

‘And have you had any unwanted visitors?’ I wasn’t thinking spirit-wise – more flesh and blood. ‘You know … local cats.’

‘Now you come to mention it, I have seen a couple slip in. I soon shoo them out though.’

‘Well, there’s your answer then.’ I went on to elaborate. I felt pretty sure that Antac had been unnerved by the encroachment of strange cats on his territory. Nothing to do with being put under a spell by some demented old crone. The response to the invasion of his space was to mark out his territory by spraying.

Having explained this to Madam Mountjoy, I then went through a plan of action to counter the behavioural pattern, with tips on how to clean the sprayed areas and prevent reoccurrence of spraying in those spots. When I’d finished, the look of relief that spread across Madam Mountjoy’s face suggested a whole cauldron of pee had been voided. Her lips puckered into a smile. Her blackened eyelashes fluttered in wild elation.

‘Oh, thank you, Mr Mitchell, thank you so much,’ she gushed, advancing towards me, her kaftan billowing open against her breasts, her lucky charms fully displayed. ‘You’ve raised my spirits enormously. Is there something I can do to raise yours? Massage your aura maybe?’

‘Er, no, I don’t think so,’ I spluttered, and beat a hasty retreat.

When I got back to Prospect House, Beryl was agog to learn what had gone on. Her ‘You don’t say … goodness … did she really?’ peppered my account as her good eye stood out like an organ stop while the glass one rotated a full circle at every juicy detail.

‘You’ll have to watch out for her in the future,’ she warned, when I’d finished. ‘She obviously fancies you.’

‘Who does?’ We both turned, startled, as Lucy, striding into reception, asked the question in a rather brittle voice.

‘Oh, hi,’ I said, feeling guilty for no real reason, other than the fact that, for the past few weeks, I’d been treading rather carefully, with Lucy’s mood swings making her liable to flare up at the slightest thing. I didn’t dare to try lighting her touchpaper for fear she’d go off like a rocket.

‘One of Paul’s clients,’ said Beryl. ‘She’s taken a shine to him.’

Beryl, Beryl, Beryl … that’s not helping, I thought.

‘Good for her,’ snorted Lucy, throwing me a glance that conjured up a barrage of barbed arrows winging my way, each with my name on it, destined to score a direct hit. ‘I’m working the late shift tonight,’ she added gruffly, addressing me. ‘So I’ll stay over upstairs. Just make sure the animals are fed.’

The animals she was referring to were the menagerie of waifs and strays we had accumulated over the past six months we’d been living together in the practice cottage over the Downs in Ashton. Among them, Nelson the deaf little terrier; Queenie, and two other cats; and, of course, Gertie, the goose given to me to fatten up for Christmas, but who had become a family pet instead. I wasn’t so sure ‘family’ was the appropriate word to use in the current circumstances, with Lucy and me circling round each other on emotional tenterhooks. How long that was going to continue was anyone’s guess. Maybe I needed the likes of Madam Mountjoy to read our tea leaves. Or palms. Or whatever.

‘She’s in a bit of a mood, isn’t she?’ said Beryl, watching Lucy flounce out. ‘Wonder what’s got into her?’

I wondered, too. It certainly hadn’t been me for quite a while.