Authors: Doris Davidson
‘I wish the old witch was dead,’ he whispered to himself. But witches never die.
When Hogmanay came round with all its festivities, Peter was staying with his granny. He wasn’t allowed to see in the New Year, but he didn’t mind that, because there were always some ‘first-fitters’ who came later on through New Year’s Day.
In the afternoon, there were about five extra people in the house when another knock was heard. Peter rushed to answer the door, ready to shout ‘Happy New Year’ to whoever might be there. The words froze on his lips when he saw Aul’ Babbie standing on the landing. She made her way past him, surely more unsteady on her feet than usual. He closed the door and slowly followed her into his granny’s kitchen.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. Aul’ Babbie was laughing and joking with the other folk. He had never heard her laughing before and noticed that it was more of a cackle than a laugh.
Definitely a witch’s laugh. More convinced than ever, he sat down close beside his mother and silently prayed that Aul’ Babbie wouldn’t stay long.
Surprisingly, his prayer was answered. She stayed only long enough to get a dram and a piece of his granny’s home-made black bun, then rose to go. As she passed him, he saw, with horror, her bony hand coming out to touch him. He closed his eyes tightly and gripped the side of his chair.
She merely patted him on the head. ‘That’s a richt fine laddie ye’ve got, Mary,’ she said to his mother. Peter let his breath out slowly and opened his eyes to see the old woman hobbling to the door.
His granny had just come back from seeing Aul’ Babbie out when they heard a great thump and a rumbling noise.
‘The drunk aul’ fool has fa’en doon the stair,’ said Mr Duff, who lived across the landing.
They all ran out to see if she was hurt, leaving Peter by himself. He felt too numb with horror to move. If she was dead, it would be his fault for wishing her dead, he thought. She would know he was to blame and she’d come back to haunt him. By the time they all came back, he had worked himself into a terrible state.
He looked at their faces, trying to read the answer to his unspoken question. ‘Is she … dead?’ he managed to ask, at last.
‘Na, na, laddie,’ his granny assured him, ‘but she fell fae the top step richt doon to the next landin’. Poor aul’ sowl. As if ha’in’ a wooden leg wasna bad enough, noo she’s broke her good ane.’
Peter gaped at her. ‘What did you say, Granny? About a wooden leg?’
‘Mercy me, bairn. Did ye nae ken she had a wooden leg?’
The boy’s spirits lifted as he realised what this information meant to him. Never again need he be scared at Aul’ Babbie. She was just an ordinary old woman after all.
Whoever had heard of a witch with a wooden leg?
***
Word count: 929.
Published in the
Kincardineshire Observer,
14 April 1972
Written at the end of 1971 and sent to at least three magazines. I can’t remember which, but it was rejected pretty quickly each time. Then I took a chance and sent it to a weekly newspaper printed out of Aberdeen. It was not a ‘freebie’ (it cost 2d per week), and published news local to its area, and this being my husband’s birthplace, we had it delivered. I had noticed that it always included a very short story, and I felt that
The Witch
was as good as any of them.
I got a phone call saying that they bought all their stories from other publications and could only offer me £1 for it, although it was better than the stories they usually printed. It wasn’t what I had expected, but what the heck? At least it was a payment and it would be printed.
The story which the teacher had told the class that afternoon had made a deep impression on William. Fancy a baby getting all those presents from people who came to see it.
His sister’s baby hadn’t got any gifts, for nobody had come to see it. There must be something wrong with it, because Mary had been crying ever since she’d brought it home. She hadn’t been pleased about her baby like that other Mary in the story. Jesus must really have been a wonderful baby, William thought, to make everyone so happy.
His mother didn’t think much of Mary’s baby, either, not as far as he could gather. ‘I can’t understand why Mary won’t just have it adopted,’ she had said to his father. ‘People would soon forget, if the child wasn’t here as a constant reminder.’
‘Well, she wants to keep it,’ his father had answered, ‘and there’s nothing you can do about it, dear. After all, it’s her life.’
‘You don’t understand either, Bill. It’s the disgrace.’ His father had patted his mother’s shoulder. ‘It’ll soon be forgotten, love - a nine days’ wonder.’
William hadn’t understood half of their conversation, but he realised that his mother didn’t want the baby in the house. He decided he had better take a close look to see if he could find out what was wrong with the baby to make everyone so unhappy.
He knew that his mother and Mary were in the kitchen, so he went over to the pram standing in the corner and peered down at the little face which was all that was showing above the covers. He had half expected to see something horrible and was pleasantly surprised to find that it looked much the same as any other baby he had seen. In fact, it was quite pretty, like a doll in its pink jacket and its eyes shut.
But, if the baby looked so beautiful, why were his mother and Mary so unhappy about it? He puzzled over it for some time, then suddenly it came to him. It was because nobody had come to see it, or give it gifts, but he could put that right. Yes, he could give the baby a Christmas gift and make it just like the Baby Jesus.
He didn’t have any money, though. He wondered if there was anything he could sell, but his train set was broken, so no one would want to buy that. Nothing else he had was worth very much.
Wait - there was the new winter coat his mother had bought him. Anyone would pay a lot of money for such a beautiful coat - lovely and hairy, with five leather buttons to fasten it. He had felt like a prince the only time he had worn it. He didn’t want to sell it, the best coat he had ever had, but if it would make his mother and Mary happier about the baby he would willingly give it up. He would get a few pounds for it, he was sure, and he could buy a really good present with money like that. Not gold or myrrh or that other precious stuff, of course, but something worth giving.
But - what would his mother say about him selling the coat? He remembered hearing her tell his father that coats for children were very expensive nowadays. ‘I’ll just have to make do with my old winter coat,’ she had said. ‘William has grown out of his and he’ll have to get a new one.’
No, it wouldn’t be a good idea to sell it; his mother would probably be angry with him. Or else she would start crying, and he didn’t want to see her crying any more -she cried too much already. What could he do?
Just then, Mary came in to change the baby, a process that usually made William so embarrassed that he left the room, but today he was so preoccupied that he didn’t even notice. Mary took the baby over to him when she was finished. ‘Keep an eye on her for me, William, till I wash the nappies, there’s a good lad.’
He looked at the baby who gave a little mew and opened her eyes, so he hastily laid her down in the pram and gave it a gentle rock. ‘I’m going to bring you a gift,’ he announced decisively. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage it, but I promise you I am. I’ll let them see that I like you, little …’
He stopped, aghast. This baby didn’t even have a name. Mary always said, ‘the baby’, while his mother usually called it ‘that child’. So
that’s
why they were always crying - no one had remembered to give it a name.
Whoopee!
He would give the baby a name for a Christmas gift; what a wonderful idea. Nobody had thought of it and it wouldn’t cost anything. He would pick a really magnificent name and make all the family proud of him - and of the baby.
When Mary came back, he went up to his own room and thought over all the girls’ names he knew. What about the girls in his class at school? One of their names might do.
Lynne? No, she had a spotty face.
Susan? She nipped you when you weren’t looking.
Lorraine? He liked Lorraine, and thought she was pretty, but lots of girls were called Lorraine, and he wanted something special.
This was much more difficult than he had imagined. He looked at his books to see if he could find a better name there.
Alice in Wonderland? The name Alice didn’t seem to fit the baby.
Hansel and Gretel? He quite liked the idea of Gretel, it was unusual, but he didn’t think his mother and Mary would like it.
‘Tea’s ready, William,’ called his mother.
After teatime, he went back to his room and lay down on his bed. He wondered how babies ever got names if it was so difficult to choose them. By the time he went to bed, he still hadn’t hadn’t found a name, and he tossed and turned for what felt like hours before he fell asleep.
He dreamed of that first Christmas, of how the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would have a son, of how the Angel told the shepherds in the fields when the Baby Jesus was born, of all the gifts the Three Kings brought.
When he woke in the morning, he knew that somewhere in his dream was the name he was seeking, but he couldn’t think what it might have been. Then he remembered! The Angel Gabriel! That was it - what a perfect name for the baby! ‘Angel Gabriel.’ He said it slowly, letting it roll round his tongue and savouring the beauty of the sound. He could bet that no other baby ever had a name like that.
He froze, suddenly. How could he make a proper gift of a name? It wasn’t something you could wrap up in Christmassy paper or put in a fancy box, and he did so want to make it a good gift. A gift card! He had seen them in the shops with pretty pictures on them, and they just had to go in an envelope. He couldn’t buy one, of course, but he could try to make one. He could write the name on a piece of paper in his best, joined-up writing, the kind they were learning at school.
He rummaged about in his toy box, looking for his drawing book, and at last he found it - luckily with a few empty pages. Tearing them out carefully, he searched for his packet of felt pens. A red one was all he could find, but it would do. Red was a nice, cheerful colour. He went down on his knees and laid the book on his bed, putting one of the blank pages on top.
He made a mistake on the first page, and it wasn’t until his third attempt - on the last page - that he was satisfied that he had done his best writing. He studied it critically. It didn’t seem much for a gift of such importance, but he could draw something on it to brighten it up. What would a baby like? He drew a little butterfly for a start and it looked quite good, so he drew a few more. Then he decided it needed a fancy pattern around the edge, so he spent the next half-hour making little squiggles all the way around. He propped the card against the mirror on his dressing table, and stood back to admire the effect. It looked really good, he thought, and all he needed now was an envelope.
He took the strongest white envelope he could find in his father’s bureau, slipped the card inside and licked the flap. Thumping it vigorously to make it stick down properly, he let out a long sigh of satisfaction. All that remained to be done was to write on the front, and it didn’t matter so much about that. The card was the real gift, the special gift.
With love from William
,
he wrote, laboriously, then placed the envelope with its precious contents inside the drawing book. He would give it to the baby tomorrow; that was Christmas Day, the proper day.
William went about for the rest of that day with a secretive smile on his face, making his mother wonder what mischief he was hatching, but as he was behaving rather well otherwise, she didn’t upset him by asking any questions.
Once, when no one else was in the room for a few moments, he moved over to the pram. ‘Angel Gabriel,’ he said, experimentally. The infant hiccoughed and opened her eyes, then to William’s delight, a smile passed across the tiny face. This convinced him that she liked the name and he gave a whoop of joy, causing his mother to pause in her preparations for the next day to listen for the crash which inevitably followed the familiar noise. Nothing happened, however, so she shrugged her shoulders and carried on.
When he was hanging up his stocking that night, a disturbing thought bothered William. ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘will Santa know about the baby?’
She didn’t answer immediately, and he looked anxiously into her face. She looked as if she might cry again, so he put his arm round her neck. ‘Mum,’ he repeated, ‘will you hang up a stocking for … it?’ He had nearly given his secret away.
She gave him an unexpected hug. ‘Yes, darling, I will. Santa won’t forget her, I promise.’
William rose before anyone else was up and ran downstairs to see what Santa had brought him. He enjoyed opening the packages, but he knew his greatest thrill would come when the baby’s envelope was opened. Making sure that indeed there were other gifts for the infant, he took the envelope out of his pyjama-top pocket and pushed it well down into the other stocking - like his, one of his father’s large golfing socks. It was going to be a happy Christmas after all.
He could scarcely contain his excitement until the rest of the family came down, and when at last Mary starting taking the things out of the baby’s stocking, he held his breath in glorious anticipation.
‘Oh, thank you, Mum. Thank you very much.’ Mary’s voice was choked as she shook out a lovely lemon pram cover. ‘Dad. This is gorgeous.’ She held up a furry teddy bear for William to see.
He was wondering why she was thanking them for the things that Santa had brought when he heard her say,
‘What’s this?’
He lifted his head and saw that she was looking at the envelope - his envelope. His heart began to beat faster, but with studied nonchalance, he murmured, ‘It’s my gift to …’ He stopped. He had nearly given the game away, again, ‘To … to … it,’ he finished, lamely, pointing to the pram.