Good Omens

“What are these?” said Shadwell, suspiciously.

“Phenomena,” said Newt. “You said to look for phenomena. There’s more phenomena than witches these days, I’m afraid.”

“Anyone bin shootin’ hares wi’ a silver bullet and next day an old crone in the village is walkin’ wi’ a limp?” Shadwell said hopefully.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Any cows droppin’ dead after some woman has looked at ’em?”

“No.”

“What is it, then?” said Shadwell. He shuffled across to the sticky brown cupboard and pulled out a tin of condensed milk.

“Odd things happening,” said Newt.

He’d spent weeks on this. Shadwell had really let the papers pile up. Some of them went back for years. Newt had quite a good memory, perhaps because in his twenty-three years very little had happened to fill it up, and he had become quite expert on some very esoteric subjects.

“Seems to be something new every day,” said Newt, flicking through the rectangles of newsprint. “Something weird has been happening to nuclear power stations, and no one seems to know what it is. And some people are claiming that the Lost Continent of Atlantis has risen.” He looked proud of his efforts.

Shadwell’s penknife punctured the condensed milk tin. There was the distant sound of a telephone ringing. Both men instinctively ignored it. All the calls were for Madame Tracy anyway and some of them were not intended for the ear of man; Newt had conscientiously answered the phone on his first day, listened carefully to the question, said “Marks and Spencer’s 100% Cotton Y-fronts, actually,” and had been left with a dead receiver.

Shadwell sucked deeply. “Ach, that’s no’ proper phenomena,” he said. “Can’t see any witches doing that. They’re more for the sinking o’ things, ye ken.”

Newt’s mouth opened and shut a few times.

“If we’re strong in the fight against witchery we can’t afford to be sidetracked by this style o’ thing,” Shadwell went on. “Haven’t ye got anything more witchcrafty?”

“But American troops have landed on it to protect it from things,” moaned Newt. “A nonexistent continent … ”

“Any witches on it?” said Shadwell, showing a spark of interest for the first time.

“It doesn’t say,” said Newt.

“Ach, then it’s just politics and geography,” said Shadwell dismissively.

Madame Tracy poked her head around the door. “Coo-ee, Mr. Shadwell,” she said, giving Newt a friendly little wave. “A gentleman on the telephone for you. Hallo, Mr. Newton.”

“Awa’ wi’ ye, harlot,” said Shadwell, automatically.

“He sounds ever so refined,” said Madame Tracy, taking no notice. “And I’ll be getting us a nice bit of liver for Sunday.”

“I’d sooner sup wi’ the De’el, wumman.”

“So if you’d let me have the plates back from last week it’d be a help, there’s a love,” said Madame Tracy, and tottered unsteadily back on three-inch heels to her flat and whatever it was that had been interrupted.

Newt looked despondently at his cuttings as Shadwell went out, grumbling, to the phone. There was one about the stones of Stonehenge moving out of position, as though they were iron filings in a magnetic field.

He was vaguely aware of one side of a telephone conversation.

“Who? Ah. Aye. Aye. Ye say? Wha’ class o’ thing wud that be? Aye. Just as you say, sor. And where is this place, then—?”

But mysteriously moving stones wasn’t Shadwell’s cup of tea or, rather, tin of milk

.

“Fine, fine,” Shadwell reassured the caller. “We’ll get onto it right awa’. I’ll put my best squad on it and report success to ye any minute, I ha’ no doubt. Goodbye to you, sor. And bless you too, sor.” There was the ting of a receiver going back on the hook, and then Shadwell’s voice, no longer metaphorically crouched in deference, said, “‘Dear boy’! Ye great Southern pansy.”27

He shuffled back into the room, and then stared at Newt as if he had forgotten why he was there.