Three Witches of Catherine Street

Bathing in our casement wreck off St James’s park I had Roman thoughts. Liz dipped her feet in the healing waters dangling off a ledge but wouldn’t swim because Dad said they’re death traps, kids drowned. But regular baptisms in St James’s bombsite felt better than jumping into the Thames off Tower Bridge.

Wet flak echoed as Derek torpedoed side to side, inventing his own mad strokes. I’d never seen a thing so large and lopsided swim with such force.

Us Pups were all dreamed out but chuffed because a spate of raids in 1943 meant bombers were brewing, soon we’d be back in business, our bones useful again. 

Doing backstroke in black water, Beryl said she’d been to a two shillings séance at the Three Witches in Catherine Street. Sybil, Gerty and Mary were on a streak, channelling yappy dead coughing up treasures buried in gardens, under their sheds and rabbit hutches—old compasses, gems, diamond tiara stashed in a sofa on Jermyn Street.

I’d joined Dad on a few two shillings nights in Catherine Street. Snoek paid for Blitz Rats to attend weekly séances, so long as we kept our ears out for any dead souls asking after prized possessions lost in a bombing, precious objects that mightn’t have been found by clearing crews or Loot Weasels, things the dead ached for worse than missing limbs. I hadn’t been back for over a year though. Death was glum listening too long to that harum-scarum bunch, ration card queues of disincarnate sods, airing the dirty laundry of unlived lives through Sybil’s mouth or Mary’s fingers typing out the dead’s messages. Hearing their regards and how do from beyond, you’d think they’d got no further than Bromley on the last train to Margate.

Beryl said lately they’d had less moaners. The night she’d last been there Mary got hold of Gregg from Grovsner Avenue. Mary read off her page—Gregg here accidentally garrotted himself on a light cord in blackout. Gregg says there’s a vase by the fireplace his missus put his ashes in he bought in a market but he’d really gypped from a museum storeroom and a bloke from Barons antiques said it’s worth a bloody fortune, Chinese. Offered Gregg twenty pound on the spot. Half a chance. He’d been thinking to sell it after the war and disappear to the South Seas, before his little misadventure under the stairs.

Propping herself next to Liz on the ledge, Beryl said she trekked with her Dad after the séance over to Gregg’s place to have a peek and saw the vase he’d described through the window by the fireplace. Of course we can’t just nab it, that’s weaselly, she said. So her Dad cooked up a little skit about being from the morgue, went back and told Colenso there’d been an awful mix up, most sorry, couldn’t apologise enough, but her old man’s ashes had been switched accidentally with an old lady’s remains from Paddington killed the same tragic night, knowledge of which has only now come to the morgue’s attention. 

Her Dad carried fag ash in a pretty urn bought off a man at the funeral parlour. He said—truly we’re mortified and to try making amends, though of course we know we can’t begin to make up for such a dire, dire mistake mam, we’d like to offer you your late husband’s ashes in this premium urn and five pound as way of compensation, if, that is, you’re able to return Mrs Enid Evelyn Butlin’s ashes as a matter of urgency? Colenso was no easy customer though, Beryl said. She wanted to call the morgue. Dad said if he’s got to come clean, it’s all his own fault and if his boss Mr Moss finds out he’d lose his job. Mr Moss won’t tolerate a foul up. I frowned my best urchin and curtseyed from her front garden. Dad upped his offer to urn and seven pounds, if she’d give him back Enid’s ashes immediately. See, he said, if I had no conscience mam I could’ve left you here with her and your sadly departed forever sitting on Mr Butlin’s mantlepiece but I’d never sleep a wink, being how I’m a Christian and father and widow myself. Also, between me and you mam, Mr Butlin’s not a gentleman I’d feel at ease with the safekeeping of my beloved’s remains.

Colenso asked Beryl’s Dad if he’d transfer Enid’s ashes into something less personal, she’d like to keep the vase as a keepsake of her Gregg. Beryl said, Dad without blinking says—Leave it to me mam, just if you’ll entrust me with the vase for an afternoon I’ll find a container more fitting for poor Enid bless her soul and bring it back, clean as a whistle, this evening. So she hands over the vase, Dad gives Colenso an urn full of fag ash and we’ll flog Gregg’s vase on the Eel’s Underground Emporium and give the Three Witches their cut.

Where’d you dump Gregg? I asked but didn’t hear the answer over a musketry of splashing and timbre ticking as Derek bounded off the bricks. Jack had a fit because his cig got soggy. Plunging red after the culprit, he caught Eric by the scruff and dunked him.

Eric surfaced, got his breath back and said he’d found a box camera in working order and an oil of Napoleon at a pad off Abbotsbury Road because Sybil had some man on her line Friday said he’d tell us where there’s a haul hidden in an attic, if we’d give his wife’s new bit on the side what for, suggesting a few ingenious ways using dogshit, curry powder, matches, misc. rubber goods and methylated spirit. Wasn’t much else up the attic, Eric said. But worth the trouble for a ventriloquist dummy he’d christened Little Git.

People also went to Catherine Street to ask Gerty to cast spells. She specialised in rashes, boils, ulcers, warts and Henry claimed he’d cursed James for just three shillings and it’d paid off handsomely.

Floating and staring through a hole in the roof, I thought about Carthage then about Dad taking me to Catherine Street. Remembering the medieval smell of the Three Witches’ kitchen took me right back to those beautiful afternoons I’d dream of during long droughts, afternoons that occur only after raids go on for many days on the trot. From the all-clear until a fresh offensive the air is a season, springy and hazy with brass sun snooping happily through the night’s debris, promising gifts, everything marked big bright blitz. I first saw the Three Witches one of those beautiful afternoons around Christmas 1940.

36 Catherine Street was a last lone tooth in a toothless street. Rotted and draughty but still standing, Dad said Sybil, Mary and Gerty had strong spells sheltering their gaff, warding off the worst of Jerry’s bombs that’d made short dirty work of their neighbours for streets around.

Sybil’s blind brother pushing a tea trolley ushered us into the living room to wait with other punters.

Dad said his lazy kidney was telling him we’d hear from Mum. His kidney wasn’t often wrong. He’d tell from a throb if a Loot Weasel farted in a five mile radius.

Seven Spanish Shawls later Terry tapped our heads and counted us into the kitchen. Sybil took our hands, cleared her throat, like rehearsing for a cabaret finale after a full day of it, then she’d gurn making her signature noises and say—dear me that’s a tragedy, here’s a sorry story and Mary with her eyes shut started typing.

All we heard that first sitting was mimsy dead mothers asking after so-and-so and chitchat. We didn’t get Mum or any dead souls missing their objet de désir. Terry ushered us out the back door onto Catherine Street’s scab and still I left a little elated, energies came through us.

Following week, more naggers nagging from afterlives, ticked off there’s no Pan Yan Pickles or Yorkshire relish in eternity, but we did get a lead on a furniture hoard.

Mary read from her sheet after typing blindly a few minutes—Do you happen to know, asks Miss Chase of Clydedale Road if her Voysey sideboard given her as a gift survived the fire that destroyed her property on December 10^th, 1940, at about midnight? Miss Chase says she wasn’t home at the time, recuperating from a long bout of illness in the Cotswolds, died shortly after from shock hearing of the damage and her last thought was that sideboard. It’d do her the world of good, Mary read, if some reliable chap might go enquire as to the whereabouts of her sideboard and generally about the condition of her possessions, which meant a great deal to her. Here, Mary said, Miss Chase lists a lot of junk she’d like particulars on, handing the sheet to Snoek who asked Eric’s Dad, who’d gained second sight since losing an eye, to go check on Miss Chase’s special sideboard.

We got a tease on Mum too.

This your Joan? Sybil said to Dad, lovely large Joan? Bright blue eyes and big Mum’s smile? Dad tightened in his seat. I nodded and asked what’s she saying? Says her John’s gone got himself a—wait John what? John Spenser? Dad shook his head and she moved onto our neighbour’s Mum Ann who had telegraphs for everyone alphabetically from Audrey to Winifred, snappily like God was billing Ann by the word. 

Living eyes were always teary from fumes in the kitchen which helped.

A pregnant girl one week asked after her man who’d been in France. She hadn’t heard since February and it was May. Sibyl said it’s a long shot, held her hands, called on Leonard to talk to his charming missus from beyond.

Tall? Sybil said. Little crooked in the face, handsome though, handsome isn’t he? He says call baby Bert.

Isn’t sore? the girl said. Sure it’s him, dead?

Sirens cut the séance short. As I filed out the backdoor with Dad Sybil said to me—You’ll have a good dig, this will be big, look out for a hotel shot to bits.

And John, Sybil said to Dad, your Joan’s doing well, here before the siren she was behind this one’s soldier in the queue. Scarpered when she heard the wail. Jitters. Dad asked her to bring Mum back but Sybil said it didn’t work like that. Come back next week we’ll give her another go now she knows the way John.

36 Catherine Street was the safest spot in all London so the pale pregnant girl stayed seated through the siren.

Later that night I scooped chandelier tears off a hotel lobby floor near Holland Park and saved one crystal for Sybil as a souvenir.

Dad’s devotion to Friday night séances got stronger the longer Mum didn’t show. He trusted his twinges and by summer he’d started going to six shillings sittings on Tuesdays too. Drought was already disorganising him. Unspent nights unsettled his breakfast which sat on livid, undigested dinner. Befouled by peace, his bowels were confused by a sudden return to the ghastly usual. Mum didn’t pick up the mystical blower, leaving Dad in the lurch listening to dead cuckoo cries for months on end.

A shadow flitted over my floating face, snapping this memory in two, but it was no thick fleet coming to save us from ourselves.

 Beryl fell in the water and Liz wobbled on her perch from the quake as Derek pushed off the side and plunged deep. We quietly waited for his head to crash to the surface. Kids did drown in those pools but nobody we knew.

Do hippos need air? Jack said. He lit a match and we passed it end to end, trying to see under.

 Beryl screamed and Derek whaled out of the water then lumbered up onto the roof. Jack’s flame followed a silhouette describing a creature with unchartered anatomy. Slates skated down from above and sploshed in little blitzes. I couldn’t fathom his acrobatics, only imagining it must have had to do with strange dark worlds some said trickled into him through his cracks.

Bastard scratched me, Beryl said, inspecting her ankle. 

Derek’s dangling Bluto foot filled the hole in the roof, turning our waters pitch black.

During drought we all had the same dreams of endless raiding nights. King Kong bombs stretchered over our city by vast Junkers fleets and dropped, opening London’s deepest coffers. Soon we’d be back in business. Liverish ghosts said there’d be bombs the size of St Pauls falling on London before long. 400-ton bombs tugged across the Channel by aeroplanes, as Sybil told Beryl one mongering dead bloke insisted was a sure thing, likely before Christmas. Beryl was a big believer in the Three Witches and so was Eric who went every week to six shillings Tuesdays with his Dad.

Christ that smell’s a Jumo-engine Time Machine wafting me back to Catherine Street where I’d been back once more on my tod. Long dry spells like in 1942 pushed dormice dead to the back of dusty closets so I was their only customer that Tuesday afternoon. After 1941 people weren’t eager to hear gossip from hereafters when life was colds and flus and now leaking pipes and lumbago.

Gerty plonked me at the séance table, asked me what I’d donate and after forking out four shillings and three pence, said that’d do for an average strength spell.

Gerty said—need his name, address, article of clothing or object he’s had his mitts on. I knew the routine, gave her a Stage clipping with name and address and a page of his score I’d been studying for invisible ink. Gerty muttered Udo Klotz over and over with her eyes closed, clutching the score, eyeballs dancing under the lids and a spell took its course.

She gave a stage cackle and clapped her hands—Your Mr Klotz will suffer with infernal sore fingers. Burning fingers. Before long he’ll want to yank his fingers off, she said. Have to play piano with his feet. If that’s an issue we’ll repeat.

Sybil squeezed my hand, said she felt a shiver behind my chair. Ethel? Diane? Sybil said, Edith, isn’t Edith your gran? Edith your old aunt? Gerty asked for any more shrapnel rattling around in my pockets.

You’re Snoek’s John’s boy? His Joan’s little one? Not so little. Dear me no, no here she is large as life your Mum, she’s cross. Best’s yet to come they said. Says get back to school. Eat better. Scrub with soap in your cracks. Best’s come and gone. Tell Dad give you more greens, drink less, no more dogs. Beautiful teeth. Lovely green emerald eyes your Mum. Be good. Be good.

Ashes waft in an odorless world, 

this gnat’s piss sky, 

promising shite.