She had been hoping, rather self-consciously, for someone tall, dark, and handsome.
Newt was tall, but with a rolled-out, thin look. And while his hair was undoubtedly dark, it wasn’t any sort of fashion accessory; it was just a lot of thin, black strands all growing together out of the top of his head. This was not Newt’s fault; in his younger days he would go every couple of months to the barber’s shop on the corner, clutching a photograph he’d carefully torn from a magazine which showed someone with an impressively cool haircut grinning at the camera, and he would show the picture to the barber, and ask to be made to look like that, please. And the barber, who knew his job, would take one look and then give Newt the basic, all-purpose, short-back-and-sides. After a year of this, Newt realized that he obviously didn’t have the face that went with haircuts. The best Newton Pulsifer could hope for after a haircut was shorter hair.
It was the same with suits. The clothing hadn’t been invented that would make him look suave and sophisticated and comfortable. These days he had learned to be satisfied with anything that would keep the rain off and give him somewhere to keep his change.
And he wasn’t handsome. Not even when he took off his glasses.31 And, she discovered when she took off his shoes to lay him on her bed, he wore odd socks: one blue one, with a hole in the heel, and one gray one, with holes around the toes.
I suppose I’m meant to feel a wave of warm, tender female something-or-other about this, she thought. I just wish he’d wash them.
So … tall, dark, but not handsome. She shrugged. Okay. Two out of three isn’t bad.
The figure on the bed began to stir. And Anathema, who in the very nature of things always looked to the future, suppressed her disappointment and said:
“How are we feeling now?”
Newt opened his eyes.
He was lying in a bedroom, and it wasn’t his. He knew this instantly because of the ceiling. His bedroom ceiling still had the model aircraft hanging from bits of cotton. He’d never got around to taking them down.
This ceiling just had cracked plaster. Newt had never been in a woman’s bedroom before, but he sensed that this was one largely by a combination of soft smells. There was a hint of talcum and lily-of-the-valley, and no rank suggestion of old T-shirts that had forgotten what the inside of a tumble-dryer looked like.
He tried to lift his head up, groaned, and let it sink back onto the pillow. Pink, he couldn’t help noticing.
“You banged your head on the steering wheel,” said the voice that had roused him. “Nothing broken, though. What happened?”
Newt opened his eyes again.
“Car all right?” he said.
“Apparently. A little voice inside it keeps repeating ‘Prease to frasten sleat-bert.’”
“See?” said Newt, to an invisible audience. “They knew how to build them in those days. That plastic finish hardly takes a dent.”
He blinked at Anathema.
“I swerved to avoid a Tibetan in the road,” he said. “At least, I think I did. I think I’ve probably gone mad.”
The figure walked around into his line of sight. It had dark hair, and red lips, and green eyes, and it was almost certainly female. Newt tried not to stare. It said, “If you have, no one’s going to notice.” Then she smiled. “Do you know, I’ve never met a witchfinder before?”
“Er—” Newt began. She held up his open wallet.
“I had to look inside,” she said.
Newt felt extremely embarrassed, a not unusual state of affairs. Shadwell had given him an official witchfinder’s warrant card, which among other things charged all beadles, magistrates, bishops, and bailiffs to give him free passage and as much dry kindling as he required. It was incredibly impressive, a masterpiece of calligraphy, and probably quite old. He’d forgotten about it.
“It’s really just a hobby,” he said wretchedly. “I’m really a … a … ” he wasn’t going to say wages clerk, not here, not now, not to a girl like this, “a computer engineer,” he lied. Want to be, want to be; in my heart I’m a computer engineer, it’s only the brain that’s letting me down. “Excuse me, could I know—”
“Anathema Device,” said Anathema. “I’m an occultist, but that’s just a hobby. I’m really a witch. Well done. You’re half an hour late,” she added, handing him a small sheet of cardboard, “so you’d better read this. It’ll save