The Triple Goddess (181 page)

The problem was solved one evening when the Aristotles were at their wits’ end as to how to get rid of their cousins without offending them. A clever Aristotle called Aristotle, noting the Threeps’ habit of shutting their eyes in ecstasy as they danced, after yet another waltz asked them if they’d be kind enough to favour the assembled company with yet another waltz.

The Threeps were of course happy to oblige; and as soon as
The Woolly Waltz
was under way, and the Threeps had their eyes firmly closed, Aristotle whispered to the others that they should make a gap in the circle they’d formed around the dancers to watch.

It wasn’t long before one of the Threeps, Nipper, a yearling who wasn’t as in control of his steps as his older sister Pippa, his brother Zipper, and the others, danced his way through the hole in the circle and, sheep being sheep, the rest followed. Without splitting into three groups they all conga’d off—a conga is a single-file dance in which each three steps are followed by a kick—down the road, on which no trees were down, to Threepfold and into their beds. And without having to count a single sheep instead of the usual thirty-three, they were all fast asleep, exhausted from the dancing.

When they awoke in the morning they had no recollection of how they’d got home, and didn’t ask each other about it in case they’d overdone it on the fermented elderberry jelly; which, judging from the way the sheets were all messed up as if they had been dancing in their beds, they had.

An additional advantage of Aristotle Aristotle’s ingenious stratagem was that, in future, not only could the Aristotles bring the Threeps’ visits to an end when they wanted to, but they didn’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time saying goodbye, which like the hello-ing took three times longer than necessary.

In the Aristotles’ village it is a custom that, to preserve their sanity after a Threep visit, nobody is allowed to mention the number three for a week, or to do anything in threes. For as much as they love their cousins’ company in small doses, the Aristotles have no intention of turning into Threeps themselves.

Because the no-three rule is more difficult than one might think to adhere to, Aristotle children are taught it starting in nursery school and kindergarten. When the teacher asks them to count their numbers from one to ten, they leave out three and jump from two to four. And in Aristotle schools there’s never any talk about learning the Three R’s.

For their part, the grown-up Aristotles won’t order three of anything at the Bakehouse…they prefer four or more anyway...where there are no three-pound cakes for sale, and nothing costing thruppence or three ha’pence. They won’t discuss doing something in three days’ time, or turn to page three, or join a threesome, or say the glass is three-quarters full, or wear a three-cornered hat, or play a three-card trick, or put three scoops of tea in the pot.

So solemnly do the Aristotles observe the rule that, as they sit around their firesides in the evenings knitting and darning, the Aristotles won’t mention
threa
ding a needle, in case anyone should mishear them and fine them a fruitcake, which is the penalty for saying “three”; and ask each other if they would like “...a cup of, you know, something
four
tifying.”

“Really,” say the Aristotles, “avoiding That Word is almost as tiring as receiving a visit from our cousins the Two-Plus-Ones, or the One-and-a-Halfs Times One-and-a-Halfs, and their four-minus-one children!”

’

‘

On many a sunny afternoon the Aristotles take a picnic up the downs and go sailing. They meet at the spring, where it bubbles out from under the hill before flowing through the village in its channel alongside the winding Street.

Weighed down by the hampers on their backs, the Aristotles remind themselves, as they climb, that what goes Up must come Down. Indeed, once they’ve arrived at the top, and unloaded their precious cargoes with the utmost care, after they’ve launched themselves into the wind their mood becomes one of such supreme happiness that—if it weren’t for the pangs of hunger—the Aristotles could stay in the sky for ever, and in the fullness of time turned into insensible clouds of vapour.

For Aristotles, sailing is easy: they just tuck in their toes and float up and up on the thermal currents of air.

To be over the downs on a sapphire day with an uninterrupted view of the world is wonderful, and the Aristotles bump and jostle each other with joy, and scramble up ever higher to see the sights. They look to the south, where the hills slope gently down to the sea, and in the other direction down the escarpment they’ve just ascended to where the village lies, compact and placid; and beyond it, the thousands of acres of dense forest, the Anderida, or Andreadsweald, that stretch to the blue-grey ridge on the horizon where that lower range of hills, the North Downs, sends back an echo of their own.

They see into the future: at first there are stockaded clearings in the forest, and then woods and fields dotted with cattle and sheep and horses. Seagull-streaming ploughs are pulled by deep-chested shire horses across dark squares of loam. In the home of the goddess of fertility there are so many acres of wheat and barley, yellow rape, and blue linseed crops that the land looks like a chessboard or patchwork quilt.

Willowed rivers wind through meadows. Sleepy lanes are lined with thick hedges. Hangers and holts and hursts, shaws, hazel copses, and groves of alder and birch resound with the pheasant’s call and pinion beat; and at night in bluebell woods, badger glades, and moon-etched spinneys, foxglove bells ring at fairy dances.

There are furnace, or hammer, ponds for iron works. Farmyards are filled with geese and ducks and chickens. There are belfried churches, and some with shingled broach steeples; barns, and dovecots; and, far above a secret valley ribboned by a silver stream, a viaduct echoes with the clattering fade of a train. There are thatched roofs, cottage gardens, and lawns, belvederes and pergolas.

On lazy summer days, farmhouses hung with red tile shimmer in the heat. Autumn smoke rises from bonfires and chimneys; and in winter the trees and hedgerows are spangled with frost, and millponds are frozen over.

The Aristotles ride on the Wind’s back and beg him to go faster. They scud, zoom, roll, twist, and cavort in the airy deep. They ambush each other. They yell and scream and squeal and shriek and laugh and cry tears of joy.

But there’s only time for so much fun because a rumbling sounds, which could have been a peal of thunder, except, as you may have guessed, it’s the growling of Aristotle stomachs that can only be appeased by Bakewell tart and ginger cake. For as sure as rose-petal jam or lemon curd goes best on white bread, it is time to go down for tea; and whereas the Aristotles rose like Yorkshire puddings or well-yeasted dough for bread, now the Siren song of the picnic baskets causes them to stoop like peregrine falcons to the ground, or drop like a suet pudding or spotted Dick, where they land so hard that they bounce along the ground before coming to rest.

Then there’s a race to spread the red-and-white check tablecloths on the grass, and unpack. The hampers are made of sturdy wicker with leather straps, and inside they have compartments for cups and saucers and plates and cutlery. There are bottles of milk, and pots of savoury spreads and jams; containers of butter, and sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard. There are padded pockets for the Thermos flasks of tea, to prevent them from getting broken, and deep spaces for the sandwich tins, each of which are marked with the contents, so as to save time identifying which is which.

The only things missing are napkins, but Aristotles don’t use them: they never smear their faces or spill anything, it would be a waste.

As they began the afternoon boisterously with sailing, now the Aristotles go berserk over their meal, and they are soon full of a lot more than
joie de vivre
. Because they are outdoors, they don’t have to restrain themselves as they do at the Tea Shoppe, and good manners go by the board as they help themselves, and don’t bother with such niceties as, “Is there anything I can pass you, Fenella?”, and, “My compliments, Ichabod, on the seed-cake,” and, “Mary, these sponge fingers are delicious.”

No, they grab what they want, which is some of everything, and although the tea isn’t freshly brewed, it tastes even better than usual for being drunk alfresco with a panoramic view.

When the last morsel is gone, and the rest of the afternoon has been spent sailing—for you’ll recall that, no matter how much they eat, the Aristotles are still lighter than air—with a mixture of satisfaction and regret they pack up the baskets and check that nothing is left on the grass.

Going down the hill is made even faster by the hampers being so much lighter. But the Aristotles have to be careful where they put their feet, because of the many rabbit holes. Rabbit homes have a lot of round entrances and exits, which they call doors even though they are hung with none, owing to the rabbits’ communal style of living, and their always being in too much of a hurry to bother with keys and locks and bolts.

There’s a front door, and a spare in case the main one gets blocked, and a back door and a spare; and as many side doors as are practical for a busy people who need to get where they are going fast. There’s one door that rabbits use when they’re going on holiday, and another for visiting the doctor; and several that serve for the many birthday parties they go to.

Rabbits are very inquisitive: they know, the moment Flora debouches from a certain burrow, that she’s headed to the shops; or Edwina to the dentist. There’s a hole close to the woods for when it rains, because rabbits hate to get their fur wet; and an exit a distance from the warren that is used when one wants to avoid the rent collector, or the milkman with an overdue bill; or an aunt who, as notorious for gammoning as rabbits are, is so gabacious that she once talked the hind leg off a donkey who was grazing in a nearby field, so that it had to be replaced with a wooden one.

When the Aristotles have negotiated the hazards of the descent, and reached the Village, the shadows in the lee of the hill are lengthening fast. Helios in his chariot is driving the celestial steeds ever nearer to his palace in the west, and will soon be calling ahead for his household to light the lamps. The spring welcomes the Aristotles back, and the waters’ voice mingles with theirs, as they say goodbye to each other and head home.

That night the Aristotles have a common dream, about a place that they can float to where the sun never sets, very high up indeed; a place where they can sail for ever and a day, and have their breakfasts and lunches and teas and dinners brought to them on red-and-white-chequered clouds.

And that’s the end of another Aristotle day.

’

‘

On one of the very rare occasions when the Aristotles were feeling adventurous, they went on a much longer sailing trip that took them far from home. In preparation for the journey, on which they would have no idea where their next meal will be coming from, the Aristotles spent a week doing nothing but eating meals in between their usual meals.

When they felt sufficiently well-nourished to cross the downs to the sea, the Aristotles started along the coast to the west; being careful to keep in mind that, however far they went, the length of the return journey would be the midpoint of as much greater as might be dictated by fatigue, and as much shorter as impulsion was increased by hunger...a formula so complicated that it was easier just to allow for double the time of the outbound passage.

After many miles, when they began to feel the way that one does when one would normally be sitting down to breakfast, lunch or dinner, the Aristotles spotted beneath them a convenient small island, and decided to land upon it.

But the strange thing was that, as they headed for it, the island moved away from them as fast as they were sailing towards it. Greatly surprised, the Aristotles called out to the island politely, to ask if it would mind stopping awhile for them to settle on its shores, so that they might get their puff back.

The Aristotles were amazed when the island slowed down and answered them in their own tongue, telling them it would be an honour and a pleasure to receive the Aristotles, about whom it had heard so much, as its guests; and that they were most welcome to avail themselves of any beach they cared to choose to land upon.

The island had no urgent appointment to go to, it assured them, and was merely taking some Exercise, which it would be more than happy to postpone, or indeed to cancel altogether. The island was not only talking the Aristotles’ language, but it seemed to share their philosophy; and naturally the Aristotles, who were faint at hearing the E-word so forthrightly spoken, were very glad of it.

Whereupon the floating island reversed direction and started back to greet them.

The strand that the Aristotles came in on had dunes of clumped grasses and powdery white sand at the top. It sloped down to a flat area of hard rippled yellow sand, which was interspersed with rocks covered with seaweed—the sort with bubbles on it that one can pop—limpets, barnacles, whelks, winkles, cockles, and mussels. Camouflaged at the bottom of numerous pools were tiny pink crabs, dabs, and shrimp.

The most remarkable thing about the island, other than its ability to swim, was that there were many people on it enjoying themselves on the beach, which, because the island was riding very high in the water, extended a long way out from the rocks above it. Also, it seemed that the island was surrounded by an area of its own water, which accompanied it wherever it went; for families were not only netting in the pools and sunbathing, building sandcastles, and playing with beach-balls on the beach, but paddling and shrimping at the water’s edge, and swimming out quite a long way.