at them. The sergeant resisted the temptation to wave back.
The police constable was leaning into the police car, talking on the radio. “. . . corrugated iron and fish, blocking off the southbound M6 about half a mile north of junction ten. We’re going to have to close off the whole southbound carriageway. Yeah.”
The rain redoubled. A small trout, which had miraculously survived the fall, gamely began to swim toward Birmingham.
“THAT WAS WONDERFUL,” SAID NEWT.
“Good,” said Anathema. “The earth moved for everybody.” She got up off the floor, leaving her clothes scattered across the carpet, and went into the bathroom.
Newt raised his voice. “I mean, it was really wonderful. Really really wonderful. I always hoped it was going to be, and it was.”
There was the sound of running water.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Taking a shower.”
“Ah.” He wondered vaguely if everyone had to shower afterwards, or if it was just women. And he had a suspicion that bidets came into it somewhere.
“Tell you what,” said Newt, as Anathema came out of the bathroom swathed in a fluffy pink towel. “We could do it again.”
“Nope,” she said, “not now.” She finished drying herself, and started picking up clothes from the floor, and, unself-consciously, pulling them on. Newt, a man who was prepared to wait half an hour for a free changing cubicle at the swimming baths, rather than face the possibility of having to disrobe in front of another human being, found himself vaguely shocked, and deeply thrilled.
Bits of her kept appearing and disappearing, like a conjurer’s hands; Newt kept trying to count her nipples and failing, although he didn’t mind.
“Why not?” said Newt. He was about to point out that it might not take long, but an inner voice counseled him against it. He was growing up quite quickly in a short time.
Anathema shrugged, not an easy move when you’re pulling on a sensible black skirt. “She said we only did it this once.”
Newt opened his mouth two or three times, then said, “She didn’t. She bloody didn’t. She couldn’t predict that. I don’t believe it.”
Anathema, fully dressed, walked over to her card index, pulled one out, and passed it to him.
Newt read it and blushed and gave it back, tight-lipped.
It wasn’t simply the fact that Agnes had known, and had expressed herself in the most transparent of codes. It was that, down the ages, various Devices had scrawled encouraging little comments in the margin.
She passed him the damp towel. “Here,” she said. “Hurry up. I’ve got to make the sandwiches, and we’ve got to get ready.”
He looked at the towel. “What’s this for?”
“Your shower.”
Ah. So it was something men and women both did. He was pleased he’d got that sorted out.
“But you’ll have to make it quick,” she said.
“Why? Have we got to get out of here in the next ten minutes before the building explodes?”
“Oh no. We’ve got a couple of hours. It’s just that I’ve used up most of the hot water. You’ve got a lot of plaster in your hair.”
The storm blew a dying gust around Jasmine Cottage, and holding the damp pink towel, no longer fluffy, in front of him, strategically, Newt edged off to take a cold shower.
IN SHADWELL’S DREAM, he is floating high above a village green. In the center of the green is a huge pile of kindling wood and dry branches. In the center of the pile is a wooden stake. Men and women and children stand around on the grass, eyes bright, cheeks pink, expectant, excited.
A sudden commotion: ten men walk across the green, leading a handsome, middle-aged woman; she must have been quite striking in her youth, and the word “vivacious” creeps into Shadwell’s dreaming mind. In front of her walks Witchfinder Private Newton Pulsifer. No, it isn’t Newt. The man is older, and dressed in black leather. Shadwell recognizes approvingly the ancient uniform of a Witchfinder Major.
The woman climbs onto the pyre, thrusts her hands behind her, and is tied to the stake. The pyre is lit. She speaks to the crowd, says something, but Shadwell is too high to hear what it is. The crowd gathers around her.
A witch, thinks Shadwell. They’re burning a witch. It gives him a warm feeling. That was the right and proper way of things. That’s how things were meant to be.
Only …
She looks directly up at him now, and says “That goes for yowe as welle, yowe daft old foole.”