Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2) (3 page)

‘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.

‘
D
o you think you’ll get one?’ queried Beryl, ten days into February, scratching the prominent mole she had under her chin.

One what? I wondered. A punch on the jaw from Lucy? Things were no better with her. Still bumpy. Whatever was bugging her had yet to be exorcised. Madam Mountjoy’s intervention was still a possibility.

Beryl studied her scarlet talons briefly and then looked up at me. ‘I was thinking of a St Valentine’s Day card. You know … from that medium.’

‘Oh, come off it, Beryl. You’re just winding me up.’

‘Well, you never know. You’re certainly not going to get one from Lucy, that’s for sure.’ Beryl finished scrutinising her nails and proceeded to fish in her handbag for her packet of cigarettes, ready for her back-door smoke. We were in the office at the time, having our coffee break. It was a small room, five steps down from the reception area, and had a window that overlooked the parking area in front of Prospect House. That was an advantage for Beryl, since, whenever she took a break, she could keep an eye – her one eye – on any cars coming in and, by leaving the office door open, keep an ear open for any clients who might have sneaked in unseen via the path along the side of the property; a path which gave access from the Green, a remnant of what had been the village green before Westcott-on-Sea expanded as a retirement town in the mid-Fifties.

I knew she was right about Lucy, although I was reluctant to admit it; and I was certainly not prepared to discuss it in any detail. ‘What about you then?’ I asked, determined to change the subject.

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. I’m sure there’s bound to be a secret admirer amongst all our clients.’

Despite the thick layer of powder clinging to Beryl’s cheeks, I could see them begin to redden, a flush creeping up from her scrawny neck.
‘Now
who’s doing the winding up?’ she muttered, her lips disappearing in her mouth as she absent-mindedly fingered her mole again. Then she added, ‘I have had my share in the past, you know.’

I didn’t know and was curious to find out. All I did know was that she had once been married, and there was a daughter in California and a son somewhere in Australia. But Beryl wasn’t to be drawn. The only thing on her mind at that moment was the cigarette she was desperate to draw on; and with a little inflected ‘Mmm’ to suggest there was more to her than met the eye – her good one – she quickly disappeared through to the back door to have her smoke.

My comment about secret admirers hadn’t been entirely tongue-in-cheek as, when I mentioned the possibility, I did have one particular client in mind – Mr Entwhistle.

I had met the gentleman one lunch break during the hot spell of June the previous year, just after I’d started as an assistant clinician. The heat inside Prospect House had been stifling, despite windows and doors flung open everywhere – that itself was a curse as it meant the pungent smell of rotting seaweed down on the beach wafted in, even though the beach was over a mile away. That apart, I was still thankful to get out, and I headed down past Prospect House, through the tunnel of rhododendrons that had once been part of the house’s Victorian gardens and now served as a hidey-hole for young courting couples.

I crossed the Green to the shops lining the far side, a small complex catering for the cul-de-sacs of bungalows that had spread out like a web from the Green over the past few decades. Although bounded on three of its sides by busy arterial roads that headed down into the centre of Westcott and its main attractions, the pebbly beach and pier, the Green was still a popular recreational area; and on that June scorcher, there were youngsters playing tennis on the courts provided by the Council, while office workers dotted the brown-scorched grass, grabbing themselves a bit of tanning time. The office girls stretched out in their halter tops and short skirts made their end of the Green particularly desirable for elderly gentlemen dreaming of days gone by when they had the physiques to expose themselves with similar candour; and so, at lunchtimes in the summer, the park benches there were always packed.

Apart from the display of youthful flesh, the only other feature of the Green to stir up any excitement was the magnificent oak that stood at the apex of the Green, adjacent to, but over the road from, Prospect House. There’d been heated debates in the local newspaper and a campaign group set up to save the tree as the Council had deemed it unsafe. In the event, it had recently been struck by lightning and split in two, necessitating its complete removal. The demise of that tree brought Cyril the squirrel into our lives, a fascinating episode in my early days at Prospect House and one which helped to form a strong bond between Lucy and me. Heavens – how different things had become between us. We’d need to make a Herculean effort and foster a herd of baby elephants to establish the same degree of rapport now.

My main objective that lunchtime, besides escaping from Prospect House, was to grab a baguette and some buns for tea from the little bakery I’d discovered soon after starting work at Prospect House. With my penchant for sweet things, especially when presented as sticky iced buns, or custard doughnuts – maybe Madam Mountjoy could enlighten me as to whether I’d been an elephant in a previous life – I soon became a regular customer at ‘Bert’s Bakery’ as it was called.