Mathilda, SuperWitch (17 page)

After work, had errands to run. As Ash is still sticking to me like glue (except in
that
way), he had to drive me.

This is not a plus.

Ash is nice to look at (very) and gives me that special feeling (very, very special feeling) but having that all the time is not-so-special (especially since nothing has come of it except a kiss in the library about two gazillion years ago).

So now, Ash-as-bodyguard is sort of Mathilda Torture.

Oh well.

The sacrifices one makes to be Savior of the World.

I do get a reprieve, when in or around The Gables or The Witches Dozen, Ash will leave me alone. Both places have protection spells and pretty strong broomsticks covering their front and rear, so I’m safe.

So…

Off we went on my errands, Ash and I, first to the tip to get rid of the recycling. Then to Brockley Farm Shop so I could buy my lavender (they have the best – they also have pretty great sausages too, so got some of those and some nice, chubby baby carrots and…)

I digress.

And on the way home from Brockley’s, I saw Cadbury Garden Centre.

Now, garden centres in England are like little shopping nirvanas tucked here and there all over the country. They have invisible tractor beams that could rival the Death Star. Even if you don’t garden or aren’t craftsy (like me), you get sucked in and find yourself spending hours flipping through books on perennials and testing knee mats and listening with rapt attention to people explaining the pros and cons of different types of trowels, etcetera.

Ash and I were coming up to Cadbury Garden Centre, otherwise known as Granddaddy of All Garden Centres so I shouted, “Turn up there!”

“Where?”

“There!” I pointed.

Ash slowed.

“Why?” he asked and I think I detected a hint of suspicion.

“I need something.” I cast around in my head for an excuse he would buy. “Witch stuff… magickal implements.” That sounded good. “It’s important!” I added, just in case me shouting wasn’t getting through.

“This is an unscheduled stop.”

“What? Do you have to report back or something, turn, turn, turn!!!”

So he turned.

Some time later, as we were walking back to the car, he asked, “You needed pink pots?”

“They aren’t pink,” I said, changing the subject because I knew I wouldn’t ever convince him I needed pots – pink pots, no less.

He looked at me in a way that said he thought I was fibbing.

Then we got into the car.

Not, it is important to mention, the Lush Jag, no.

We were in
my
car.

We were recycling at the tip and it is far easier to recycle in a hatchback (not to mention Su had kinda borrowed the Lush Jag, long story). So we were in my fourth hand Nissan Micra that used to be the wet dream of a boy racer and now was my daytime nightmare.

* * * * *

Story on how I came to be the not-so-proud owner of the Purple People Eater:

Boy Racer had run out of money and had to unload his Micra.

I was (even then) bidding on Jimmy Choos rather than saving for a decent car.

So.

Boy Racer and I made an unholy alliance that ended up with me owning a partially suped-up Micra and Boy Racer having, well, nothing but a bit of my money.

To the credit of Boy Racer, he did give the Micra a kickass iridescent green knob on the stick shift and some lights on the undercarriage that would make me hip with all the homeys in the ‘hood (ack!). The car also had a paint job that was metallic purple with platinum and green opalescent effects.

Unfortunately, Boy Racer didn’t get around to doing anything under the hood.

I understood his priorities, it is first about the way it looks and then you get to the meat of the matter but engine-wise, the Purple People Eater (as I called it) wasn’t much to write home about.

* * * * *

Anyway
.

* * * * *

Once buckled into the car, I showed Ash a pot. “See this?”

He looked at the pot then looked at me.

“Yes,” he said, with what I suspected was what he considered extreme patience. “It’s a pink pot.”

“No, it’s fuchsia.”

Silence.

I pulled out another pot. “See this?”

“Pink,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, this is petal.”

“Petal?”

“Yes, and this one,” I pulled out the third, “anyone can see this isn’t pink it’s –”

“Brown.”

“Truffle!” I snapped.

“You’re mad,” he announced starting the car (in which, incidentally, he somehow managed still to look cool).

“Yes, I am but at least I’m adorably mad.”

Silence for a beat and then, “You don’t have any plants to put in the pots,” he pointed out.

Oo, I knew I forgot something.

* * * * *

This would mark the beginning of the end of my perfect day.

* * * * *

From Cadbury Garden Centre, we were off to Junior Poon’s on Hill Road.

I’d been looking forward to Junior’s for ages. The girls were meeting for drinks and crispy aromatic Peking duck in the wine bar underneath the restaurant. The wine bar looked like spruced up catacombs complete with low hanging ceilings that, believe you me, could catch you off guard – especially if you’d had one too many.

I loved Junior’s.

Junior’s rocked!

And crispy aromatic Peking duck was second only to pizza with loads of sun-dried tomatoes in the Ambrosia of the Gods Contest.

I’d been given the mission to get there by six, grab one of the private back alcoves with the comfy couches and order the duck.

Lucy and Josie got off at six thirty and Su was returning the Jag to Ash (under threat of certain death, but that’s another story) and we were all going to walk home after lots of Peking duck and wine.

I’d been waiting all day to get my lips around a pancake oozing with hoisin sauce.

I couldn’t wait for the duck.

I couldn’t wait for the nice Pinot Noir that I discovered the last time I was at Junior’s.

And I couldn’t wait for a reprieve from Ash, if only for a few girlie hours.

But, it wasn’t to be.

Instead this is what happened:

Ash was driving.

I was holding my pots and thinking about when I could next get to the garden centre to buy some plants to go in the pots.

I was also thinking about Peking duck and how many orders we’d need.

We were close to Junior’s, slowing for the Six Ways roundabout…

When…

Smash!

We were rear-ended.

“What the…?” (Me.)

Ash didn’t slow, he shot through Six Ways, pedal to the metal, the Purple People Eater’s engine revving and calling out to Mama, “No more, Mummy,
no more
.”

“Ash, slow down, we were just…”

Smash!

Rammed again.

The car jolted, fish-tailed and Ash downshifted. Ole Purple screeched in protest.

Smash!

Smash!

Smash!

At high speed, Ash took the left angle onto Hill Road.

* * * * *

For your information, Hill Road is one of those crazy “chicken roads” that came into being when rich people rode horses, poor people walked, kings chopped people’s heads off and the guy who had a premonition of the future existence of automobiles and tried to warn ancestral city-planners was burned at the stake.

In other words, Hill Road was narrow.

Way narrow.

Super
narrow.

To a girl from Colorado where you could drive for an hour on the highway between Pueblo and Taos with two whole, big, wide lanes to yourself going eighty-five miles per hour and feeling like you were going sixty and maybe, just maybe, see one dusty pickup… well, to that girl, Hill Road was an eye opener.

These days, Hill Road, like many roads in England, was forced, against its will, to accommodate two lanes of traffic
and
parking
and
scary, aggressive English drivers who were scary, aggressive English drivers precisely
because
of the existence of roads like Hill.

With nothing for it, Hill Road, like many streets in England, protested against all of this and forced all travelers to play chicken in order to get through.

It was a hair-raising experience.

And it was about to get worse.

* * * * *

Down Hill Road we went (passed Junior’s, by the way), the maniac bumping into us again and again, swerving crazily behind us and clipping our fender one side and then the other while
we
were swerving crazily trying to avoid slamming into an oncoming or parked car.

Everyone was honking and tires were screeching and I counted three drivers who gave us the two-fingered, backhanded “V” (English for “Fuck Off”) and one of them was a blue-haired old lady who could barely see over the wheel of
her
Micra.

“Do you know how to use a gun?” Ash asked calmly as if we were on a Sunday drive.

Ack!

Guns?

Ack!

I was watching behind us and, at Ash’s question, my head whipped around so fast my neck cracked (and thus disappeared all benefits of the yoga I did that morning).

“No!” I answered (loudly).

We were making the right turn onto Marine Hill, a forty degree turn you should take at fifteen, twenty miles per hour (tops) and we had to be doing sixty (okay, maybe forty, but still!).

I screamed.

Yes, to my utter mortification, I girlie-Kim-Basinger-in-
Batman
screamed, high-pitched and shrill.

(What can I say? It was terrifying.)

We’d gone the five hundred feet on Marine Hill to Wellington Terrace and managed somewhere during the scream to lose the car behind us for a second.

Ash slammed on the brakes and then cut the wheel to the left, switched gears then
reversed
down Marine Parade.

Yes, he went backwards down Marine Parade.

Holy Mother Earth and all her flowered friends.

* * * * *

Let me explain about Marine Parade.

On a good day…

On Marine Parade…

When you are going forward…

And have plenty of time…

And there is no traffic…

And the sun is shining…

And you are in good health with all your faculties about you…

The angle of Marine Parade to Marine Hill and Wellington Terrace is The Angle of Death.

That junction was where perfect insurance records went to die.

Not to mention, Marine Parade was another “chicken road” but it just happened to have the added heart-attack-inducing sheer wall of granite that held up Marine Hill on one side of the road and on the other side you had a thirty foot drop onto an access road to the seafront terraced houses.

I didn’t scream this time. I was too terrified to move a muscle… even a throat muscle.

The car came after us, screeching tires to make the death angle and Ash drove backwards down one of the most crazy bits of road in a town full of crazy bits of road.

The whole time he was winding open the window (if you can believe).

Then out came the gun.

Ack!

Blam!

Blam!

Blam!

I don’t know if he hit anything because I closed my eyes. I felt like Brenda must have felt in
Highlander
when the Kurgan took her out for a spin.

We were screaming down Marine Parade and Ash cut the wheel at the end and we went careening left into the parking lot of the derelict Royal Pier Hotel.

Screech!

We stopped with a jolt.

Zoom! The car passed us.

Ash pulled the emergency brake and got out of the Micra (gracefully, which is surprising considering he’s over six foot and the Micra is called a Micra for a reason). He ran toward the Parade in that manly, loping SWAT jog as-seen-on-TV with the gun held behind his back.