I stood there in the doorway of the little hut and I didn’t know what to say.
“Look at me,” said Mother Demdike. “Look at me and look at this little hut of mine. It’s an anachronism, a hangover from another time. Another century. I’m a piece of history. You will grow up and tell your children that, some time in the past, when you were young, an old witch woman used to live down the road from you. And you’ll point to the place where my hut once stood and there’ll be a block of flats or something here. And your children won’t believe you and even you will begin to doubt your memories, because how could you have really met an old witch woman in the nineteen fifties? That doesn’t fit with reality. In fact, you’ll begin to question a lot of your childhood memories. You’ll do what every grown-up does; you’ll reinvent your past, based on the logic of your present. You’ll say, ‘No, I didn’t really see that. I must have dreamed it.’”
“Dreamed it?” said I. “Like I feel that I’m dreaming this now, in a way.”
“You’ll never know what’s real and what isn’t,” said Mother Demdike. “Because no one has the time to find out. Life is too short. We all see a little bit of the whole picture. We all take in a little snatch of history, the bit we’re born into. Then after we’re gone, someone writes it down inaccurately. What really happened in history there is no one alive to know for sure.”
“Golly,” I said, as I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“You,” said Mother Demdike, “may be poised upon the brink of something big. Tell me that list of herbs once again. In fact, show me the book you got the list from. It’s there in your pocket, I believe.”
I took out my copy of Voodoo in Theory and Practice and handed it to her.
“You stole that from the library,” said Mother Demdike.
“I did,” I said. “I see you’ve nicked a few yourself.”
Mother Demdike chuckled. “All in a good cause,” she said.
“Of course,” said I.
“Then read me the list.”
She returned the book to me. I thumbed through the pages and read her the list.
Mother Demdike busied herself about the place. She delved into jars and drawers and when she had found everything that I sought she packaged all in a brown paper bag and handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Your hand,” said Mother Demdike. “Your part of the bargain. You must let me read your hand.”
“Certainly,” said I. “That’s fair.” I stuck my hand out and she took it between her own.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Oh yes.”
“Oh yes?” I asked.
“Oh yes. It’s all here, written right through you. You will perform great deeds. You will do special things. But society will hate you for the special things you will do. You will become a hated person. A social pariah. But you will advance humankind, you will be remembered, as I will be forgotten.”
“I’ll remember you,” I said.
“No, you won’t.”
“I will.”
“You won’t.”
“Check my palm again.”
Mother Demdike checked my palm again. “Oh yes,” she said. “I will be remembered. That’s nice, although I take exception to being called ‘the rankest hag that ever troubled daylight’.”
“But at least you get a mention.”
“Do me one favour, Gary,” said Mother Demdike.
“I’ll try,” I said. “What is it?”
“Put a blue plaque up. On the site of my hut. If you can. If you have the power.”
“And will I have the power? Check my hand again and tell me.”
Mother Demdike checked my hand again. “Yes,” she said and she smiled at me. “You will have the power. You will.”
“Then I’ll make sure the blue plaque goes up.”
“Thank you,” said the old one and she kissed the palm of my hand.
I took my leave of Mother Demdike. She’d given me not only the herbs I required, but also a whole lot more. I don’t know how to explain it, but when I left her little hut I felt real. As if I could do things that mattered, really do them. That I would make my mark upon mankind. Do something big.
I have a lot to thank that old woman for. She didn’t say much to me, but she said the right things.
And the day eventually came when I did have the power to get that blue plaque up. Her little hut had gone by then, she had gone and the memories of her were fading. A new block of flats was up and new thoughts and ways were on the go.
I didn’t bother to get the blue plaque put up, though. I mean, ugly old cow. I could never see the point of ugly people.
5
Dave was already at the launderette. He loved that launderette, did Dave.
He’d been introduced to the joys of launderettes by a friend of his called Chico, who lived in Brentford’s Puerto Rican quarter. Chico had explained to Dave about the pleasures of watching the washing go round and round in the big new washers. These pleasures are really subtle; they have to be explained. They have to be understood and they have to be mastered.
That doesn’t sound altogether right, does it? Mastering pleasure. But it’s true. To appreciate anything fully and completely, you have to be its master. You can have moments of exquisite pleasure, drinking, drugging or sexing it away. But if you are not the master of the pleasure, you will eventually be its slave.
I never mastered the pleasures of watching the washing go round and round in the washers. But I never felt slave to them, either. I just thought the whole thing was stupid. I just didn’t get it.
Dave was seated on the bench, his eyes fixed upon a white wash. A look of ecstasy upon his face, his knees held tightly together. He was entranced.
“Oh, wow,” went Dave. “Oh, bliss.”
“Enjoying yourself?” I asked, as I sat down beside him.
“Immensely,” said Dave. “Do you know, I foresee a time when almost every household in the country will own a washing machine.”
“Own a washing machine?” I laughed out loud. “What? People will have washing machines in their homes? Instead of here in launderettes?”
“Mark my words,” said Dave. “And televisions too.”
“What is a television?” I asked.
“It’s a wireless with pictures.”
“What? Pictures of a wireless?”
“Moving pictures, like in a cinema. It’s a sort of miniature cinema for the home. There’s one on display in the window of Kay’s Electrical in the High Street.”
“I’m not allowed to go near the High Street,” I told Dave. “My dad says that homos hang around the High Street.”
“Do you actually know what a homo is?” Dave asked, although his eyes never left the washing white wash.
“Of course,” I said, though I didn’t. “But you’re mad, Dave. A washing machine in your house. Where would you put it?”
“I’d put mine in my bedroom,” said Dave. “And I’d have it on while I was having it off with Betty Page.”
I stared hard at the washing machine. I could see the white wash going on behind the glass door panel. It reminded me a bit of the octopus in the movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, being viewed through a porthole in Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. But without the tentacles or the suckers. Or even the octopus. Or even, now I come to think of it, the movie, for that was made several years later. But pleasure, eh? It’s a funny old game.