[Flying Dutchman 01] - Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

The parlor window shuddered under the impact of a bloated dead toad, which fell onto the outside sill. Chanting broke out anew as Mrs. Winn rose stiffly from her chair and made for the door.

“Winnie the Witch with the wrinkly face, come on out and give us a chase!”

She collected her cleaning equipment and opened the door slowly. Horatio slid by her, his tail curling sleekly. He watched as the old lady placed mop and bucket to one side. Taking a straw-fringed brush, she began sweeping the broken soil clod from her porch onto the flower bed below.

“Look, Winnie the Witch is going to chase us on her broom. See, I told you she was a real witch!”

Shaking her broom at the rhododendrons, Mrs. Winn called out. “Don’t be so silly, go away and leave us alone, you naughty children. Have you nothing better to do?”

Derisive laughter hooted out from behind the bushes. “There’s her black cat, all witches have got a black cat!”

Dipping her mop in the bucket of soapy water, Mrs. Winn began cleaning mud smears from her neat green door with its polished brass knocker and letter box, crying out as she did, “If you don’t go away, I’ll fetch a policeman!”

“Haha, fetch the bobbies. We don’t care, old pruneface!”

Wearily the old woman carried her cleaning stuff down to the front lawn. Flicking the bloated toad carcass from the sill, she started in mopping the filth from the parlor windowpanes. Again a voice challenged her.

“Hurry up, Winnie, fly off and bring the bobby, hah. Fat lot of good that’ll do you!”

She knew they were right. Her tormentors would leave the moment she made a move for the police, but once the constable had come and gone, they would return to renew the persecution. It was an all-too-familiar pattern during the last months. Her house was isolated, standing alone on the far hill slope outside the village. She had no neighbors to call upon for help. Clamping her jaw resolutely, she grabbed her pail of soapy water and hurled it at the bushes. It fell short, splashing on the lawn. This caused great hilarity from the gang in hiding. They rattled the bushes until several clumps of rhododendron blossoms fell to the ground.

“Hahaha! Silly old witch, you missed! Witchie, witchie!”

Horatio’s tail swirled around the doorjamb. He stalked smoothly back into the house. Mrs. Winn watched him go. She swayed slightly in the hot afternoon sun, wiping a bent wrist across her forehead, then, gathering up her cleaning implements, she trekked wearily in after the cat. As she closed the front door, a fresh battery of rubbish rattled against the panels outside.

“Winn, Winn, Winnie the Witch! Hahahahaha!”

Striving to ignore the children, she boiled a kettle and made tea, pouring some into a saucer and adding extra milk for the cat. Horatio liked the drink of milky tea. She stroked the back of his head as he bent to lap it up.

“They won’t leave us alone, Horatio. If it’s not those youngsters, then it’s Obadiah Smithers with his legal notices, trying to get me out. Oh dear, Horatio, only one week left after today. Those lawyers from London will be here to enforce the clearance notices—I could lose my house! Unbelievable! And the village, oh, Horatio, the poor village.”

Horatio licked a paw and wiped it carefully over one ear, staring solemnly at her, as if expecting an answer to the problem. However, it never came. Mrs. Winn sat looking at her work-worn hands, a tidy, plump little old lady, with silver hair swept into a bun, her slippered feet scarcely touching the rustic, tiled floor from the chair she sat in.

Outside the golden afternoon rolled by, punctuated by the guffaws and mocking comments from behind the rhododendrons. Mrs. Winn toyed absently with her thin, gold wedding band, turning it upon her finger. From out in the mosaic-tiled hallway, flat chimes from a walnut-cased grandfather clock announced the arrival of half past three. A shaft of sunlight from the kitchen window, which illuminated the old woman’s chair, had shifted slightly, leaving her face in the shade. Her half-filled teacup stood on the table in its Crown Derby saucer, a wedding present from her favorite aunt. The tea had grown cold.

She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the din from outside. It was no use, an afternoon nap was out of the question. Horatio prowled about for a while, choosing finally to settle at her feet. Mrs Winn was seldom prone to feeling sorry for herself, but now she dabbed away a threatening tear with her apron corner. Clenching a fist in a sudden show of temper, she spoke to her cat. “Ooh! If only somebody would happen along and teach those wretches outside a lesson! . . . If only . . .”

Then she sat staring at the white-and-blue flower-patterned tiles around her kitchen sink. Some summer afternoons could be very lonely for an old widow and her cat.

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