Not Just a Witch

Chapter Fifteen

Mr Knacksap now began to court Heckie seriously. He came to see her on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays, and on those days Daniel came at tea time to take the dragworm for a walk. He brought her red roses which he stole from the garden of the blind lady, and plain chocolates with hard centres because they were her favourites.

And one afternoon, sitting on the sofa in her cosy flat, he told her that he wanted to change his life.

‘I’m tired of living in town among the fumes and the dust,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘I want to go and live in the country where the air is clear. In the Lake District, where there are mountains and heather and… er… lakes. I want to milk cows!’ said Mr Knacksap, waving his hand.

‘Sheep, dear,’ said Heckie. ‘It’s sheep you have in hill country.’

Mr Knacksap frowned. He did not like to be interrupted and was not quite sure if he wanted to milk sheep.

‘Chickens too!’ he cried. ‘I want to get up at daybreak and look for brown eggs in the straw!’

He fished in the pocket of his jacket and showed Heckie a picture. It was of a pretty whitewashed cottage with a porch, standing in the shelter of a high hill. A stream ran through the garden, with alder trees along its banks, and a dovecote covered in honeysuckle stood by the gate.

‘Oh, Li-Li, what a pretty place!’

‘It’s called Paradise Cottage,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘And what I want more than anything in the world is to live there.’

Heckie was silent. When you love somebody it is sad to think that they may go and live a long way away, but she tried to be brave. ‘If that’s what you want, you must do it, Li-Li. But, oh, I shall miss you.’

Mr Knacksap seized Heckie’s hand. ‘No, no, dearest Hecate — you don’t understand! I want you to come with me. I want us to live there together! I am asking you to marry me!’

In the staffroom of Wellbridge Junior School, they were once again talking about Daniel Trent.

‘He’s looking thoroughly peaky again,’ said the deputy head. ‘Just when he seemed so much brighter. I wonder if I ought to have a word with those professors?’

But it wasn’t the fault of Daniel’s parents that he was unhappy. They did what they had always done. It was Heckie’s engagement that had made Daniel so wretched. If she’d just been going to marry Mr Knacksap, it would have been bad enough, but she was going to live miles and miles away in the Lake District. And so soon! Mr Knacksap wanted to have the wedding before the end of the month.

‘You’ll come and stay with us often and often,’ Heckie kept saying, and Daniel always answered: ‘Yes, of course I will.’ But he knew that he wouldn’t. Mr Knacksap didn’t like children; anyone could see that.

‘I suppose Heckie must be very happy,’ said Sumi when the children met at break. ‘But she looks awfully tired.’

‘She’s worried about the dragworm,’ said Daniel. ‘She can’t take him with her because of Mr Knacksap being allergous or whatever he is.’

‘Well, I think he’s up to something,’ said Joe. He was sitting on the coal-bunker eating a banana and looking more like a small ape than ever. ‘I believe he’s marrying her for a reason. And why can’t he ever come and see her on a Monday or a Wednesday or a Friday? What’s he doing the other days, do you suppose? I tell you, he’s a crook; I just know it.’

But what could the children do?

‘If we try and warn her, she’ll never believe us,’ said Sumi.

‘No,’ said Daniel thoughtfully. ‘She wouldn’t believe us. But there’s someone she’d have to believe, isn’t there?’

The others looked at him. ‘Yes,’ said Joe slowly. ‘I see what you mean.’

Mr Knacksap opened the door of his shop and stepped into the street. He was carrying a bunch of roses and a box of chocolates, but the roses were white, not red, and the chocolates were not plain ones with hard centres, but milky ones with soft centres.

There were other differences too. When he went to see Heckie, the furrier always wore a dark suit and had his hair parted in the middle. Now he was wearing a white suit and his hair was parted at the side. What was the same, though, was the greedy, furtive look on his face.

He crossed Market Square and made his way down the narrow road which led to the bus station. A Number 33 was waiting to set off for Fetlington, on the north side of the town, and as he rode past the prison and the football ground, the furrier closed his eyes and gloated. In a month he’d be safely in Spain, leading a life of luxury. Fast cars, casinos, beautiful girls to massage his feet and scoop the wax out of his ears as he lay beside the swimming pool!

At Fetlington Green, he got off and walked past a row of shops, then turned down the hill towards a piece of open ground with a barn and workshops. The sound of chipping and hammering came to him across the still air and he smiled his oily smile. She was a real worker, you had to give her that!

‘Coo-ee,’ called Mr Knacksap, as he opened the gates of the stone-mason’s yard. ‘It’s me!’

The chipping stopped. Dora Mayberry came out of the shed, wiping her hands. ‘Lewis!’ she said, smiling happily, and bent to sniff the roses. ‘Your tea’s all ready. I’ve got those cup cakes you like so much. Come on in and make yourself comfortable.’

When Dora had heard that Heckie was still cross with her, she’d gone to pieces. She fed her hat with any old rubbish and she didn’t care what she turned to stone — not just the fish fingers and her potted geranium and the bobble on her bedroom slippers, but the ointment she was supposed to rub on her chest for her cough, so that life in the cottage became quite impossible. Even the ghost in the wardrobe got harder and began to creak like a rusty hinge. It’s pretty certain that someone would have come and taken Dora away to a mental hospital before much longer, but one Wednesday afternoon there was a knock at the door and a visitor stood there, carrying a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates.

After which a new life began for Dora Mayberry. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the tall, dark man who had brought the message from Heckie came to tea. She didn’t like to ask him too many questions, but she learnt that he was called Lewis Kingman (she had already noticed the initials L.K. stamped on his wallet) and that he worked in insurance. But he wasn’t happy in his work and now, biting into a chocolate cup cake, he told her what he wanted to do with his life.

‘You see, dearest Dora, I feel I cannot go on living in town,’ he said. ‘My lungs are delicate. I need to be in the country. Somewhere open and clean. In a house like this.’ And from the pocket of his suit he brought out a picture.

‘What a pretty place!’ said Dora. ‘The dovecote and the trees, and the way the river runs through the garden!’

‘It’s called Paradise Cottage,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘And what I want more than anything else in the world, is to live there with you!’

For a moment he wondered whether to go down on his knees, but Dora wasn’t very good at dusting, and anyway there was no need — the silly witch was looking adoringly into his eyes.

‘Oh, Lewis!’ she said. ‘You mean you want to marry me?’

‘I do,’ said Mr Knacksap.

The next day, he bought two of the cheapest engagement rings he could find and had them engraved with his initials. But it wasn’t of the two bamboozled witches that he was thinking as he left the shop. It was of a man in a distant country who was almost as crazy and greedy as he was himself.