The Witch

Sometimes I think Mother reckons I’m still ten years old, the things she asks me to do. This morning I have had to go to round all the houses on the street and deliver the neighbours their Christmas cards. It’s such a load of nonsense that she gives them cards anyway. Half of them she can’t even stand. There’s one woman in particular who I also find most peculiar. In fact I don’t doubt that had we been living 400 years earlier she’d probably have been tried as a witch.

I remember a couple of Christmases ago (actually it was probably more like six, but they’re all sort of blurring now) Dad and Mother invited most of the street over for Christmas drinks on the 23^rd. Loads of people came. Corin and Lydia next door are damn good eggs and they were on fine form. Their daughter Samantha is also particularly fine looking, though she is older than me and therefore totally uninterested.. Anyway, Janis (that’s the witch’s name) came round with her husband Horatio (I kid you not) and proceeded to tell Mother that she was “letting the front garden go”. Horatio apologised at once (I imagine he is terribly hen pecked) and explained that Janis had been “feeling under the weather” for some time. A little later I saw her coming out of Dad and Mother’s bedroom. Christ only knows what she’d been up to in there but before I could say anything she was downstairs informing Mother that I had been spying on her in the bathroom! Utterly insane. I protested my innocence at which point she stormed off. I still think Mother is unsure which of us to believe which I find quite galling.. Anyway, it should go without saying that I didn’t put their Christmas card through their letterbox. Instead I put it in the bin.