13. THE POET RETURNS

Years are passing and although she looks eighteen still, Janie Cobweb is now in her fifties.

“I thought I’d look you up, Janie,” murmured Jed Cobweb, who she hadn’t seen since her infancy but who she remembered in telling detail, and here he was, out of the blue, “looking her up” at her door as if he had every right to be there.

As a child she hadn’t liked him. He had diverted her mother when the baby Janie most wanted attention, and when he mother was dead it had taken him very little time to realise he was on to a loser and leave her too.

He had been a self-styled poet, regurgitating his hey nonny nonny rubbish to adoring crowds who contributed more than most of them could afford to his well-being. In a way she supposed that she despised him for that, too.

But she could have done with his support during her growing years when, contrary to the dictates of her own ego, she didn’t know everything. And despite her unique physical maturity she hadn’t been able to manage everything either. And in later years she could most certainly have done with him when her demonic father had appeared and informed her of his biological relationship to her.

But now, in the 1340s and with a goodly part of a normal life-span firmly behind her, she had no desire to renew any kind of acquaintance with him. And although she still had the appearance of an eighteen year-old thanks to the old crone’s herbal tincture �" she had carefully followed the verbal instructions that had come with the herbs, swallowed the foulest-tasting mixture imaginable before sleeping and careful not to vomit before it had a chance to do whatever foul-tasting herbal mixtures were supposed to do - and it appeared to have worked seeing that several decades had passed and she hadn’t apparently aged so much as a day. She loved that aspect of her life, that despite the appearance of youth she had the accumulated wisdom of maturity.

Jed, on the other hand, looked old. He had an untidy beard that was considerably more grey than the dark of his younger hair, wrinkles on his sallow cheeks and desperate, warysunken eyes. He looked a mess.

“I’m a mess,” he told her, confirming her diagnosis.

“You look it,” she said.

“I met your father,” confessed Jed, “and he was most unhappy that I’d left you to the whims of a cruel world, but, truth to tell, even as a baby you were a b***h and hard to deal with unless I resorted to heavy handed corporal punishment for some of the rotten things you did, and I daren’t do that.”

“I was a little angel,” she protested, “I remember.”

“Then you’ll know how much effort it took for me to control myself,” he grumbled. “Like the time you managed to cover my meat with worms.”

“They were only little worms,” she replied, “and I thought them rather sweet.”

“They tasted foul,” he spat out at her, “I’ve never known such a foul taste.”

“Then why did you eat them?” she demanded, knowing what his answer would be.

“Because I was hungry,” he sighed.

“And it made you rich because you wrote one of your pathetic songs about it, and the people went for it in a big way. You called it a number one hit. Remember?”

“It was a long time ago. I forget,” he muttered.

“Then let me remind you.

     “Hey nonny nudey non

A wormy in my sit-upon,

A wriggly nonny teensy titch,

A present from the foulest b***h,

A nightmare on my dinner plate,

Eat it up or you’ll be late,

And don’t it scratch and don’t it itch...”

   “It was a wretched toxic meal, and I hated you,” he mumbled, “and for no reason that I ever made sense of I ate the whole platter full while the blasted things wriggled and tormented me on the way down. I wanted to beat the living daylights out of you, but instead I went away. As far away as I could get. And your precious father didn’t like me doing that and when he found me he cast his own spell over me. So instead of remaining eternally young I started to grow old, and who wants a geriatric poet who still wants to sing hey nonny nonny songs?”

“I enjoyed it, though,” grinned Janie, “I can still remember the expression on your face as you swallowed the wretched things. And I went coochy coochy coochy coo like the baby I was!”

“They still come out when I go to the toilet,” he mumbled, "crouching by a hole in the ground and ashamed when I see the blasted things."

“What absolute fun!” she laughed. “Now I want you to go, please. You’ve called to see me and now you must go. For good this time, because I don’t like you.”

He adopted a grimace that seemed to tear his face into two. “And I’m staying,” he spat at her, “This was my home once, and I want to come back. I know my rights! Your mother wanted me to be your foster father, so that’s what I’ll be until you stop looking like a spoiled brat and actually grow up!”

“That, dear Jed, was fifty years ago,” she scowled at him. “And if you insist on doing anything I don’t like, my father will hear of it and you’ll be punished again, and next time the punishment will be much worse than merely growing older in the normal way.”

“What could be worse than that?” he scowled.

“That’s easy,” she said firmly, looking him firmly in the eyes, “I remember the look on the people’s face when they set fire to my mother that night all those years ago and suddenly realised that she wasn’t a witch at all? They felt guilt, the most terrible, heart-rending guilt, when they knew what they’d done to the wrong person. The way they knew that they’d applauded the painful death of an innocent? And that’s what you’ll suffer, see if you don’t. Guilt. And it won’t ever go away.”

“I’m staying put, and let your father do his worst,” almost shouted Jed, “I need a home, a base, somewhere to write my songs. I’ve come to terms with growing older so I guess I can come to terms with anything else you and your evil pater wants to throw at me. I’m an old man, I’m dying, goodness knows I ought to be when I remember some of the things I’ve swallowed as I’ve prayed and tried to find inspiration in a bottle, and hope to find a keen audience in rapt attention for my words...”

“If you stay you’ll suffer worse than any man,” she said, simply. “And don’t forget: naked you came into the world and naked you’ll beg to leave it.”

“That’s one thing I won’t let you do to me,” he croaked, “I won’t let you remove my garments and see my wretched flesh.”

“Stay here and find out,” she whispered, her eyes holding his, “and for starters, how about this?”

And whilst simultaneously fighting the desire to do it, Jed pulled off his own shirt with shaking, reluctant hands and revealed a body scarred and red with sores of all imaginable kinds.

“Pretty,” she whispered, teasingly, very, very pretty.”

© Peter Rogerson 20.11.17