Brewing Trouble

BREWING TROUBLE

    I was struggling to get the cauldron out of the shed when Leila burst in through the back door looking very dishevelled – grey hair like a fuzzy halo around her head and duffle coat done up on the wrong toggles.

    ‘Got it’ she cried ‘got it all’.

    ‘Shhh - the neighbours!’ I was trying to quieten her down knowing that when she was hyped up like this she was liable to screech out anything.

    Next door had been very funny with us since last year when we’d been doing an incantation over the pot (very quietly) for that nice Mr Jones from the greengrocer. He’d wanted to ‘get it on’ as he called it with the lady from the drapers.  

    They’d called the police who had come around to the back garden when they didn’t get an answer at the front door. They were quite good about it. Just said that the neighbours didn’t like the smells coming over their fence and were upset about us not wearing any clothes. I‘d tried to explain that with some spells it was necessary. The older tired looking one just groaned and said ‘well don’t do it again’ and the younger one looked like he wanted to laugh. I don’t know why. Anyway they left.

    While this was going on Mr. Jones had hidden in the outside loo and when they’d gone had said he wasn’t staying either and not to bother with the spell. He’d ‘charm her himself’ he said in a sort of sarcastic way, went in to the kitchen to fetch his clothes and left.

   We haven’t seen much of the neighbours since. They just scuttle off now when we’re around. Leila says it’s because ‘they’ve seen too much’ (she says it like it’s in inverted commas which she does a lot of when she’s trying to be clever) and are probably frightened of us. I can’t think why though – we’re just two old ladies really.

    Anyway, Leila was excited because someone had finally answered her advert in Asda. ‘Spells R Us. Incantations, Charms, Spells to help your Lovelife, Health and Prosperity. White magic only’.

    We’d had one earlier client through this but he turned out to be a tax inspector who wanted us to do something to stop his boss getting at him. He didn’t like the price I quoted and started to get very interested in whether we paid our taxes. I’d been getting letters from the tax office so this bothered us. We didn’t follow our usual rule of ‘first do no harm’ and turned him in to a mouse for a short while, just to teach him a lesson.

    It was only for a few minutes but he’d been quite cross when we reverted him and said we’d done the same to his boss. We’d felt obliged to help a bit because he’d answered the advert so it was just for the goodwill but he didn’t seem to like it.

    Leila unpacked her bags while I got the pot on the camping stove. We’ve given up the traditional real fire, modern technology is so much easier.

    The person who phoned hadn’t actually made an appointment so we thought that we should do our own spell to help us attract more clients. We looked it up in the Spells and Charms book and decided that the nearest we could get was a general prosperity one so Leila had gone off to the supermarket to get the herbs while I made up some ‘Pick and Mix Prosperity Powder’ that we’d got over the internet from the ‘All You Need Charms Shop’. Life is certainly easier nowadays than it used to be when we had to grub about in the fields for everything.

    I do miss the old days though in a lot of ways. It was much more fun when we could dress up as old crones and huddle over a fire in the Epping Forest making cackling sounds and chanting. Looking at Leila now though in her tatty duffle coat I suppose nothing much has changed.

    Off course none of that was really necessary even then but it was a good way of getting people’s attention and we got a lot more clients. It was a form of advertising I suppose.

    I put in the water and started to add the herbs she’d bought back from the shops. ‘Have you got the spells book?’ Leila asked.

    ‘Over there’ I nodded to the table I’d spread everything out on.

    She opened the big old book and started exclaiming over some of the spells ‘Look at this picture. It could be you in an old life’

     I peered over her shoulder ‘Oh thanks’ I said sarcastically looking at the damp stained page and the picture of an old warty woman wrapped up in shawls with a pointy hat on her head stirring a pot.

    She looked at me again appraisingly ‘Well… maybe not such an old life either.’

    ‘You can talk – don’t you have anything else to wear other than that horrible duffle?’

     ‘Don’t start on me. I can wear anything I like now that I’ve retired. I’ll just remind you I was the one who was a supermodel and what were you eh? Just the singer in a not very famous rock band.’ She answered her own question, and huffily carried on turning the pages in the book.

    Silence for a while and then came a scuffling sound and a head popped up over the fence from next door. A woman looked over and asked what we were doing.

    ‘Nothing much dear. Just a little spell. No smells or anything and we don’t need to take our clothes of for it this time’ I added hastily.

   The head disappeared and I could hear whispering. I distinctly heard ‘They’re barmy’ and ‘They’re at it again’ This time a teenage girls head appeared over the fence. ‘What are you doing? Is it like Harry Potter?’

    I heard Leila snort. We’d been to see all the films but after the first one had to go to different cinemas every time because Leila wouldn’t stop her running commentary about the silly things in the films and we’d been told not to go back again.

    She thought that the Harry Potter stories didn’t portray the real world of magic and for a time I had to keep an eye on her in case she tried to put a hex on J.K. Rowling.

    ‘Not really dear’ I replied. ‘You can come round and have a look if you like.

    More whispering from behind the fence and then silence and then the back gate opened and the girl appeared, with the woman I assumed to be her mother, both looking apprehensive.

   ‘Come in’ Leila said with her pretend cackle ‘Like some eye of dog or toe of bat cordial’. She asked sarcastically.

    ‘I’m Annie and this is Leila. Don’t take any notice of her. She’s just being crabby.’

    Mother and daughter were silent for a moment but eventually the teenager said I’m Josie and this is my mum Cora. What are you doing?’

    ‘Well dear’ I said ‘Have you seen our advert is Asda. We call our business ‘Spells R Us.’

    Josie laughed nervously. ‘Err no. Sorry I haven’t. You don’t really believe all of this do you?’ she blurted out.

    ‘It’s a very old natural science my dear.’ I could feel myself getting in to my lecture mode. Leila was eyeing me up. ‘God. You’ve got her started now. She’ll never stop. Look.’ She turned to the newcomers. ‘It’s like this. We can prove it works but sometimes it doesn’t, especially if people,’ she glared at them, ‘don’t want it to.’

    ‘Our problem is that we don’t get enough clients any more to practice on. The advert didn’t do much so we thought we’d try a prosperity charm.’

    Cora perked up then. ‘I’m surprised you can’t conjure up more customers with your spells or whatever you call it.’

   ‘The witches code says we’re not allowed to do much for ourselves. Just general things like the prosperity charm or something that will help us to help others.’

    ‘I’ve seen the advert. It isn’t very good. What you want is a proper marketing campaign. You need to do some market research and then target your adverts very carefully. Get some coverage in the local papers. That sort of thing…….’ She tailed off, looking thoughtful.

     ‘If you can convince me it works I could help I suppose. As long as it’s for helping people and doesn’t lead to anything like Lord Valdemort’ she laughed nervously.

    So that’s how ‘Spells R Us’ became Magic Incorporated PLC and we got our own marketing department.

    Unfortunately it didn’t last long. Cora got quite hysterical one day when Uncle Albert called in and tried to fill her car’s petrol tank with petrol but somehow just filled it with earwigs.

    She refused to have anything else to do with us and they moved away quite soon afterwards so we were left with ‘Spells R Us’ again and more letters from the taxman.

    I wasn’t that disappointed really because we’d got fed up with her.