Terry Pratchett: The Sea And The Little Fishes

Just for a moment, Nanny's eyes narrowed.

'It's her way,' she said.

'A very petty and nasty way, to my mind!'

'Oh, yes,' said Nanny simply. 'Ways often are. But look, you -

'Will you be bringing anything to the produce stall, Gytha?' said Gammer Beavis quickly.

'Oh, a couple of bottles, I expect,' said Nanny, deflating.

'Oh, homemade wine?' said Letice. 'How nice.'

'Sort of like wine, yes. Well, here's the path,' said Nanny.

'I'll just, I'll just nip back and say goodnight -'

'It's belittling, you know, the way you run around after her,' said Letice.

'Yes. Well. You get used to people. Goodnight to you.'

When she got back to the cottage Granny Weatherwax was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor with a face like an unmade bed and her arms folded. One foot tapped on the floor.

'She married a wizard,' said Granny, as soon as her friend had entered.

'You can't tell me that's right.'

'Well, wizards can marry, you know. They just have to hand in the staff and pointy hat. There's no actual law says they can't, so long as they gives up wizarding. They're supposed to be married to the job.'

'I should reckon it's a job being married to her,' said Granny.

Her face screwed up in a sour smile.

'Been pickling much this year?' said Nanny, employing a fresh association of ideas around the word 'vinegar' which had just popped into her head.

'My onions all got the screwfly.'

'That's a pity. You like onions.'

'Even screwflies've got to eat,' said Granny. She glared at the door. 'Nice,' she said.

'She's got a knitted cover on the lid in her privy,' said Nanny.

'Pink?'

'Yes.'

'Nice.'

'She's not bad,' said Nanny. 'She does good work over in Fiddler's Elbow. People speak highly of her.'

Granny sniffed. 'Do they speak highly of me?' she said.

'No, they speaks quietly of you, Esme.'

'Good. Did you see her hatpins?'

'I thought they were rather ... nice, Esme.'

'That's witchcraft today. All jewellery and no drawers.'

Nanny, who considered both to be optional, tried to build an embankment against the rising tide of ire.

'You could think of it as an honour, really, them not wanting you to take part.'

'That's nice.'

Nanny sighed.

'Sometimes nice is worth tryin', Esme,' she said.

I never does anyone a bad turn if I can't do 'em a good one, Gytha, you know that. I don't have to do no frills or fancy labels.'

Nanny sighed. Of course, it was true. Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn't do good for people, she did right by them.

But Nanny knew that people don't always appreciate right. Like old Pollirt the other day, when he fell off his horse. What he wanted was a painkiller. What he needed was the few seconds of agony as Granny popped the joint back into place. The trouble was, people remembered the pain.

You got on a lot better with people when you remembered to put frills round it, and took an interest and said things like 'How are you?'. Esme didn't bother with that kind of stuff because she knew already.

Nanny Ogg knew too, but also knew that letting on you knew gave people the serious willies.

She put her head on one side. Granny's foot was still tapping.

'You planning anything, Esme? I know you. You've got that look.'

'What look, pray?'

'That look you had when that bandit was found naked up a tree and cryin' all the time and goin' on about the horrible thing that was after him. Funny thing, we never found any pawprints. That look.'

'He deserved more'n that for what he done.'

'Yeah ... well, you had that look just before ole Hoggett was found beaten black and blue in his own pigsty and wouldn't talk about it.'

'You mean old Hoggett the wife-beater? Or old Hoggett who won't never lift his hand to a woman no more?' said Granny. The thing her lips had pursed into may have been called a smile.

'And it's the look you had the time all the snow slid down on ole Milison's house just after he called you an interfering old baggage,' said Nanny.

Granny hesitated. Nanny was pretty sure that had been natural causes, and also that Granny knew she suspected this, and that pride was fighting a battle with honesty -

'That's as may be,' said Granny, noncommittally.

'Like someone who might go along to the Trials and... do something,' said Nanny.

Her friend's glare should have made the air sizzle.

'Oh? So that's what you think of me? That's what we've come to, have we?'

'Letice thinks we should move with the times -'

'Well? I moves with the times. We ought to move with the times.

No one said we ought to give them a push. I expect you'll be wanting to be going, Gytha. I want to be alone with my thoughts!'

Nanny's own thoughts, as she scurried home in relief, were that Granny Weatherwax was not an advertisement for witchcraft. Oh, she was one of the best at it, no doubt about that. At a certain kind, certainly. But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself, is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end of it was hard work and self-denial?

Granny wasn't exactly friendless, but what she commanded mostly was respect. People learned to respect stormclouds, too. They refreshed the ground. You needed them. But they weren't nice.

Nanny Ogg went to bed in three flannelette nightdresses, because sharp frosts were already pricking the autumn air. She was also in a troubled frame of mind.

Some sort of war had been declared, she knew. Granny could do some terrible things when roused, and the fact that they'd been done to those who richly deserved them didn't make them any the less terrible. She'd be planning something pretty dreadful, Nanny Ogg knew.She herself didn't like winning things. Winning was a habit that was hard to break and brought you a dangerous status that was hard to defend.

You'd walk uneasily through life, always on the lookout for the next girl with a better broomstick and a quicker hand on the frog.

She turned over under the mountain of eiderdowns.

In Granny Weatherwax's world-view was no room for second place.

You won, or you were a loser. There was nothing wrong with being a loser except for the fact that, of course, you weren't the winner. Nanny had always pursued the policy of being a good loser. People liked you when you almost won, and bought you drinks. 'She only just lost' was a much better compliment than 'she only just won'.

Runners-up had more fun, she reckoned. But it wasn't a word Granny had much time for.

In her own darkened cottage, Granny Weatherwax sat and watched the fire die.

It was a grey-walled room, the colour that old plaster gets not so much from dirt as from age. There was not a thing in it that wasn't useful, utilitarian, earned its keep. Every flat surface in Nanny Ogg's cottage had been pressed into service as a holder for ornaments and potted plants.

People gave Nanny Ogg things. Cheap fairground tat, Granny always called it. At least, in public. What she thought of it in the privacy of her own head, she never said.

She rocked gently as the last ember winked out.

It's hard to contemplate, in the grey hours of the night, that probably the only reason people would come to your funeral would be to make sure you're dead.

Next day, Percy Hopcroft opened his back door and looked straight up into the blue stare of Granny Weatherwax.

'Oh my,' he said, under his breath.

Granny gave an awkward little cough.

'Mr Hopcroft, I've come about them apples you named after Mrs Ogg,' she said.

Percy's knees began to tremble, and his wig started to slide off the back of his head to the hoped-for security of the floor.

'I should like to thank you for doing it because it has made her very happy,' Granny went on, in a tone of voice which would have struck one who knew her as curiously monotonous. 'She has done a lot of fine work and it's about time she got her little reward. It was a very nice thought.