Enter Three Witches (2 page)

“Oh, Bren,” Miranda said, laughing. “It’s not that bad. I’m not even that mad at my dear old mum, and if I spoiled her soup, what would we do for dinner? I could hardly ask her to make another.”

“Irish,” Rose muttered. “Kill you one minute, kiss you all to pieces the next.”

“You should talk,” Miranda said.

The doorbell rang. Bren and Shadow tore out of the kitchen and down the hall to admit Bob West to his former home.

“Hey, Dad. This is
all right,”
Bren said. “Down, Shadow, you brute. He’s glad to see you too.”

“Hey, Bren. What’s new besides the fact that this dog needs to go to school?” Bren’s father shoved the Newfoundland adroitly in the chest with a well-tailored knee and thumped his son on the back.

“I’ll take him soon,” Bren promised. “This winter for sure. Those classes are held indoors, Dad.”

Bob laughed and started down the hall. “So how’s life in the zoo?” he asked.

“Terrific,” Bren said. “If we had a man around the house, it would be perfect.”

Bob pulled up short by the kitchen door. “You know where to find me,” he said.

Bren looked uncomfortable and bent a little away from his father to scratch Shadow’s ears. “Yeah, I know, but I’m sorry, Dad. I really like it here, strange as that may seem.”

“So okay. Back to square one, as usual,” Bob said. “Let’s go see what the ladies have brewed for supper. I’m sure that’s the right word.”

Miranda stood by the oak table, where the Tiffany lamp cast its fragmented rainbow onto her white silk shirt. She was holding a bottle of distinguished Scotch. “Well, I didn’t brew this, at least,” she said.

“Extravagant woman. Now I know where all the money goes.” Bob poured himself a sizable drink and waved the bottle at the rest of them. “Anybody else? It’s the real thing.” They shook their heads. “Maybe this explains our incompatibility,” he went on after a long, appreciative swallow. “Failure to enjoy good booze is a serious flaw in a woman’s character.”

“It interferes,” Miranda murmured. “One needs such a clear head in my line of work.”

“How could I forget?” Bob asked, and headed for the couch.

“Watch your ankles,” Bren cried. “Luna’s got her dinner under there.”

His father deposited his drink on the table and lifted one end of the couch to disclose a furious Siamese. “Come out of there, hellcat,” he said. “I’m damned if I’ll stand all night for disgusting Luna. Out! I said.” The cat seized its chicken neck and fled under the stove.

“You be careful, stupid white man,” said a voice from the doorway. “Don’t you mess with Luna. She got the power too, and don’t you forget it.” A formidable black woman stood just inside the kitchen door and glared at Bob West, who let the couch down with a thump.

“Aha!” he cried. “Louise LaReine. Queen Lou. Another unforgettable character from my former life. How you doin’, sweetheart? I didn’t know you were still gracing this mansion with your irresistible charms.”

The woman pointed dramatically at the shining tile floor. “Who you think scrub these tile?” she demanded. “Who scrape the crud off that stove? Not her ladyship, I promise you.” She cast a glance, in which malevolence and affection were curiously mixed, at Miranda, who was looking amused.

“Stow it, Louise,” Bob said. “Miranda could rent that hole of yours for eight hundred bucks—black feathers, cock’s blood, and all. A thousand, if she cleaned it up. That’s what’s called a garden apartment these days, and you can get a lot of expert maid service for that kind of dough.”

“She better not try,” Louise said. “She try that kind of crap on me, and we just see which be stronger—white witchery or good old black obeah.”

“Louise, dear, be calm,” Miranda said. “He’s only teasing. I haven’t the least interest in a trial of strength or in losing your invaluable services. Don’t pay him any mind.”

Possibly mollified, the black woman snorted and left as suddenly as she had come.

“You insulted her,” Miranda said.

“I meant to,” Bob answered. “I insulted her regularly when I lived here, and I see no reason to be more civil now that I don’t. The woman is loathsome. How you can even think about what she does with those black chickens she keeps in the garden, much less listen to their strangled cries, is more than I can imagine.”

“I don’t hear any strangled cries,” Miranda said, “and I have always believed in professional tolerance. Let’s talk about something more agreeable. Mama, how’s the soup?”

“Somebody had better set the table,” Rose said, “or there won’t be any place to put the soup.”

“Bren,” said his father, “you have been elected by popular acclaim.”

“Why me?” Bren grumbled. “I can’t tell right from left. The minute I look at silverware and napkins, my mind goes blank.”

“You get the stuff. I’ll straighten it out,” Bob said.

Miranda watched fondly as they set the table. They look so alike, she thought, the boy a more refined version of the man, both tall and brown-haired with regular, suntanned features. Even their eyes were the same color, yet that was where the difference lay. Bob’s were the eyes of a good-looking, confident, self-satisfied man; nothing more. In Bren’s there was another quality, an animal awareness and a disturbing depth. He’s
mine
, she said to herself, and went to serve the soup.

Dinner was fairly amicable. “This is good, Rose,” Bob said after a reflective sip. “You always had a hand with soup.”

“Comes of having to make do,” the grandmother said. “People who always have meat on the table forget how to make a good soup.”

“Peasant virtue?” he said. “How long has it been since you had to go without meat?”

“Wait till you see the chicken she expects me to divide into four.”

“Just so it didn’t come from the back yard,” Bob said.

“I would never take one of Louise’s chickens,” Miranda said. “They don’t look very sanitary, for one thing, and there would be repercussions of a most unpleasant kind.”

“Not to change the subject,” Bren said, and then stopped. He had wanted to avoid another round in the ongoing argument about Louise LaReine and her curious practices, but hadn’t yet thought of a new topic. Everyone looked at him expectantly. “Eli wants me to help him light a play this fall,” he said at random. “I thought it might be fun. We’ve got such a neat theater.”

“No gym, no sports facilities of any kind, but a neat theater,” Bob complained. “That’s a New York school for you.”

“Well, Dad, if a monstrously rich athlete had graduated from Perkins instead of a monstrously rich actor, we would probably have a gym and no theater,” Bren said. “It was just a matter of chance.”

“What play?” Miranda asked.

Bren hesitated.
“Macbeth,”
he said finally.

“Oh, Lord, not old bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” Rose said. “What a bore. They’ll get it all wrong.”

“Maybe I can be a consultant,” Miranda suggested.

This struck Bren as a truly horrible idea. “There’s a lot more to
Macbeth
than witches,” he said. “In fact, I think the witches are sort of minor.”

“There, you see? What did I tell you?” Rose said. “Minor indeed.”

“Gramma, I haven’t even read the play yet,” Bren protested. “It’s just an impression I have—that the witches are more or less local color. What do you think, Dad?”

“Sorry, old boy. I had that stuff in school, but it all went in one ear and out the other.”

“The witches,” Miranda explained, “appear briefly, but they are hugely important. They not only foretell the events of the play, they actually make things happen because the characters believe their prophecies and act accordingly. Besides, Shakespeare was full of wonderful witch lore and witch language.”

“And it all takes place on a blasted heath,” Rose said. “Twisted trees, drifting mists. What more could one ask? But, as I said, they’ll probably muck it up.”

“It sounds like fun to light,” Bren said. “Not that I know much about lighting, but Eli does. He’s a wizard with anything electrical.”

“
Is
he?” Miranda asked.

“Not the way you mean,” Bren said.

They were now well into the chicken, which had been stewed in tiny pieces with many vegetables to stretch it. It was delicious, and Bren had a warm feeling in his stomach that came even more from the apparent truce between his parents. He continued to hope that his father would abandon his bleak and expensive apartment on the other side of the park and come back to the house on West Eighty-fourth Street. Bob and Miranda were in the uncomfortable position of people who love each other but can’t stand to live together. Only the mysterious power of sexual attraction, assisted in this case by a touch of the supernatural, could explain how they had ever made it through as many years of marriage as they had.

Shortly after dinner, however, Bob rose to go, pecking his estranged wife on the cheek and giving Bren another manly punch on the arm. “Call me this weekend, and maybe we can kick a ball around in the park—you and me and the IBM,” he said. Bren looked puzzled. “The immense black monster,” Bob explained and left, laughing.

Rose looked at the clock. “Put the dishes in the sink,” she said. “Maybe if we grovel, Louise will do them tomorrow. I’ve got a client.”

“At this unholy hour?” Miranda asked.

“Exactly at this unholy hour. This woman is so superstitious she’d come on the stroke of midnight, if I gave her a chance. Happily, she pays extremely well.” The old woman took up a Spanish shawl and wrapped herself in its gaudy folds.

“Spirits or futures?” Miranda inquired languidly as she started to pick up the dishes.

“One never knows,” Rose said. “It depends on what the stars have told her to do on the day in question.”

“Don’t laugh at the stars, Mother.”

“Laugh? I don’t laugh at anything, but this woman is a fool. There’s the bell.”

Rose stamped away to the front door, and Bren helped his mother clear the table. “I wouldn’t want her to tell my fortune,” he remarked. “I’m sure it would be full of scorpions and ugly girls and death by water and all that terrific stuff.”

“Your grandmother is one hundred percent honest,” Miranda said. “If she sees scorpions and ugly girls, scorpions and ugly girls is what you’ll get.” She filled a kettle and put it on the stove so that she and Bren could have tea by the fire as they sometimes did when they were alone.

Bren turned out all the lights except the Tiffany lamp, which shed its multicolored glow on the shadowy walls. “Just the same, I’m not going to ask,” he said.

Miranda poured tea, and they pulled their chairs closer to the fire. “Fortunately, you don’t have to, as you perfectly well know,” she said. “Mother and I did a complete job on you when you were born—horoscope, crystal, auguries, even your tiny palm—and everything was absolutely rosy. You’re fortune’s child, all right, but you still have to make something of yourself.”

Bren had heard this before, or most of it. “Auguries?” he asked. “What kind of auguries? This is a new one to me.”

Miranda looked faintly guilty. “Well, we didn’t want to leave any stone unturned,” she said.

“You mean like sheep’s entrails?” Bren asked, wrinkling his nose. “That kind of thing?”

“We subcontracted that part to Louise,” Miranda admitted.

“Boy, I’ll bet Dad was just crazy about that.”

“He didn’t know,” Miranda said.

For a time they were silent, the firelight playing on their contented faces.

Finally Bren said, “Listen, Mom, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. I would always want you to call me if there were any kind of emergency, but do you think you could let up on these routine, come-home-to-dinner calls? I guess I like to think I can look at a clock or notice that it’s getting dark and just come like anyone else—maybe even forget sometimes or decide I’ll stay a little longer. You know?”

Miranda studied him for a moment. Then she said, “When I call, you feel really
compelled
? As if you’re not free to choose?” Bren nodded, and she frowned. “That’s funny. That’s not the way it’s meant to be, or is it? I honestly don’t know.”

“Of course, that’s the way it’s meant to be,” Bren said, a little impatiently. “It’s the power thing.”

“I guess so,” Miranda said. “There ought to be two kinds of calling, then. I’ll work on that.”

“You work on it, if you want to,” Bren said, “but just let me decide for myself that it’s time to come home. Do you mind a lot?”

“No. I don’t think so,” his mother said reluctantly. She stretched one long, white hand out toward her son. An intricate gold ring with a dark stone winked in the firelight before she thought better of it and withdrew the gesture. “I suppose I’m testing you,” she said in a burst of honesty. “It makes me feel good to know I can still do it.”

“You’ll always be able to call me,” Bren said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“What if I do?” Bren said. “Is there some sort of remedy for having a witch for a mother? I’m sorry. That sounds worse than I meant.”

“Maybe you should go live with your father after all,” Miranda snapped. “Get away from all this evil influence.”

“Oh, stop it,” Bren said. “You know I don’t want to live in that little brick box when I’ve got all this, and besides, I’m sure your powers stretch quite a lot farther than the east side of the park. What would be the point?”

“Go and find out,” Miranda said furiously. “I won’t call you. I promise.”

“Mom!” Bren shouted, jumping to his feet. “I don’t
want
to go, okay? I
like
it here. I love you and Gram and our horrible tenants and even Luna when she’s not biting me. So cut it out.”

“I’m sorry, Bren,” Miranda murmured. “I’m being a controlling mother. Let’s start over. How’s your tea? I could warm it up.”

Bren sat down with an exasperated sigh. “My tea is fine, Mom. And don’t worry about being controlling. I’m sure you can help it even less than most mothers.”

“You’re so understanding for your age, Bren.”

“Sure. Thanks,” Bren said. He put his feet up on the hearth and sipped his tea. Over the crackling of the fire came a weird, chromatic keening that seemed to originate in the chimney.