The Witches

‘The worst is over,’ she said. ‘I'll soon be up again.’

‘Will she?’ I said to the nurse.

‘Oh yes,’ the nurse answered, smiling. ‘She told us she simply had to get better because she had to look after you.’

I gave her another hug.

‘They won't let me have a cigar,’ she said. ‘But you wait till they're gone.’

‘She's a tough old bird,’ the nurse said. ‘We'll have her up in another week.’

The nurse was right. Within a week, my grandmother was thumping around the house with her gold-topped cane and interfering with Mrs Spring's cooking. ‘I thank you for all your help, Mrs Spring,’ she said, ‘but you can go home now.’

‘Oh no I can't,’ Mrs Spring said. ‘Doctor told me to see that you take it very easy for the next few days.’

The doctor said more than that. He dropped a bombshell on my grandmother and me by telling us that on no account were we to risk the journey to Norway this summer.

‘Rubbish!’ my grandmother cried. ‘I've promised him we'll go!’

‘It's too far,’ the doctor said. ‘It would be very dangerous. But I'll tell you what you can do. You can take your grandson to a nice hotel on the south coast of England instead. The sea air is just what you need.’

‘Oh no!’ I said.

‘Do you want your grandmother to die?’ the doctor asked me.

‘Never!’ I said.

‘Then don't let her go on a long journey this summer. She's not yet strong enough. And stop her smoking those vile black cigars.’

In the end, the doctor had his way about the holiday, but not about the cigars. Rooms were booked for us in a place called the Hotel Magnificent in the famous seaside town of Bournemouth. Bournemouth, my grandmo

ther told me, was full of old people like herself. They retired there by the thousand because the air was so bracing and healthy it kept them, so they believed, alive for a few extra years.

‘Does it?’ I asked.

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘It's tommyrot. But just for once I think we've got to obey the doctor.’

Soon after that, my grandmother and I took the train to Bournemouth and settled into the Hotel Magnificent. It was an enormous white building on the sea-front and it looked to me like a pretty boring place to spend a summer holiday in. I had my own separate bedroom, but there was a door connecting my room with my grandmother's room so that we could visit each other without going into the corridor.

Just before we left for Bournemouth, my grandmother had given me, as consolation, a present of two white mice in a little cage and of course I took them with me. They were terrific fun, those mice. I called them William and Mary, and in the hotel I set out right away teaching them to do tricks. The first trick I taught them was to creep up the sleeve of my jacket and come out by my neck.

Then I taught them to climb up the back of my neck on to the top of my head. I did this by putting cake crumbs in my hair.

On the very first morning after our arrival, the chambermaid was making my bed when one of my mice poked its head out from under the sheets. The maid let out a shriek that brought a dozen people running to see who was being murdered. I was reported to the Manager. There followed an unpleasant scene in the Manager's office with the Manager, my grandmother and me.

The Manager, whose name was Mr Stringer, was a bristly man in a black tail-coat. ‘I cannot permit mice in my hotel, madam,’ he said to my grandmother.

‘How dare you say that when your rotten hotel is full of rats anyway!’ my grandmother cried.

‘Rats!’ cried Mr Stringer, going mauve in the face. ‘There are no rats in this hotel!’

‘I saw one this very morning,’ my grandmother said. ‘It was running down the corridor into the kitchen!’

‘That is not true!’ cried Mr Stringer.

‘You had better get the rat-catcher in at once,’ my grandmother said, ‘before I report you to the Public Health Authorities. I expect there's rats scuttling all over the kitchen floor and stealing the food off the shelves and jumping in and out of the soup!’

‘Never!’ cried Mr Stringer.