Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

It’s almost like you blame me. You call yourself a victim, but I was the victim. Don’t you understand? I was the victim. I am still the victim.

Of course I don’t know what the medical implications are! Speak to your doctor! How am I meant to engage with all of this? It’s monstrous! It’s obscene! He was my uncle. I already told you he was a blood relation. My mother’s brother. I already told that to the adoption people. I was twelve years old! A child! They swore to my mother — they swore to me — that they would maintain my anonymity.

I have rebuilt my life. I have paid the price. I was never able to conceive again. My womb was too small to go full term. The baby should have been aborted but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. I nearly died in the delivery. I lost five pints of blood. I told you all of this on the phone. I never wanted to have the baby. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake.

I’m sorry the baby was you. But I never wanted you. I wanted another baby, my own baby, but that was never to be. I was denied a child of my own. Peter was denied a child of his own. I have been punished — by God, by him, by… I don’t know… I have suffered enough. I have kept the secret all these years and I’m damned if you’re going to spoil everything for me. I won’t let you. I’ll do anything, anything it takes. I am beyond fear. I am beyond care.

Please, please , let this finally be an end to it.

Please.

Rita

A dispatch from the desk of:

Baxter Thorndyke, Cllr

The Old Hall

Burley Cross

21/12/2006

Brian,

REMEMBER TO DESTROY THIS LETTER AS SOON AS YOU HAVE READ AND MEMORIZED THE CONTENTS!

DON’T BIN IT.

DON’T SHRED IT.

BURN IT!!

I thought it was probably advisable to pass on the details of the Sex Hex by post, under the ingenious disguise of ‘Boring Council Business’. We don’t want Petra accidentally happening across it — in the form of a stray email — while idly going through the online receipts for your annual tax return, do we, now?

As I told you when we conversed on the issue in the bar after council: I’m not prone to handing out information on the Hex to just anyone, willy-nilly. Consider yourself lucky. Consider yourself ‘blessed’.

The Sex Hex works. It is powerful magic . Don’t play around with it. It is deadly, deadly serious. Use it at your own peril in other words.

Got that? Good. So let’s get down to business…

For a successful Hex, you will need:

1. A SHEET OF PLAIN, WHITE PAPER FROM A PREVIOUSLY UNUSED BASILDON BOND NOTEPAD.

(Basildon Bond are a good quality paper manufacturer. The original spell demands ‘virgin parchment’ — which could just as easily be a stray page ripped from a scruffy student notepad. But where’s the fun in that? I find the spell is at its most potent, its most powerful, when each individual ingredient you use is as good and as ‘pure’ as it possibly can be.)

2. A MATCHING ENVELOPE (AS ABOVE).

3. A DOWNY FEATHER FROM THE BREAST OF A TURTLE DOVE.

I have a casual acquaintance (the husband of Tammy’s former acupuncturist — greasy little chap, also an aficionado of the Hex) who happens to breed grouse and doves. He has kindly provided me with a ready supply of downy feathers. I have taken the trouble to enclosed one for you, here.

4. A HAIR FROM THE HEAD OF THE OBJECT OF YOUR DESIRE.

A good technique to acquire one, I often find, is to get into a lift (or on to a bus — if you ever use public transport) with the Hex-ee and stand directly behind them. You can then remove a stray hair from the back of their dress/jacket with relative impunity.

5. ORCHIS MASCULA .

This is the Early Purple Orchid (or ‘Cuckoos’ as it’s often called in the Midlands). It’s fairly widespread all over the UK and can be found in both woods and on meadowland. It flowers from mid-April to mid-June, but the flower’s of no interest to us. What we need is the tuber (i.e. the root).

To complicate matters, the plant has two of them (both fleshy and egg-shaped). The difference between them is that one feeds the plant (then shrinks as the plant matures), the other receives all the excess nutrients that the plant accumulates throughout its growing season and so expands as the year progresses (thereby providing the energy the plant will need in order to germinate the following year). This is the tuber you want. The withered one is sometimes used in spells to ‘check wronged passions’ (the last thing you need). The fresh one is ‘under the dominion of Venus’ and will certainly serve our purpose.

6. ORCHIS MASCULATA .

It looks very like ‘Cuckoos’ (just to add to your misery) but flowers slightly later (July). You’ll find it on heaths and commons. It’s generally known as the Spotted Orchid (Mascula also has spotted leaves, so whoever you get your supply from certainly needs to know the difference between the two. Try looking on the internet if you get desperate).

The important distinction between the two species lies underground. Masculata’s tubers are divided into several ‘finger-like’ lobes (as a consequence, it is sometimes called ‘Dead Men’s Fingers’ or ‘Palma Christi’ — I believe there’s a reference to it in Hamlet . Ophelia is wreathed in them when she drowns).

This root is also referred to as ‘the Female Satyrion’. The myth is that they were the special food of satyrs and excited them to terrible excesses. Once again, it is the plump tuber that you want (and to distinguish between the two types they must always be harvested in autumn).

Both kinds of tubers need to be prepared in the same way. First you’ll need to immerse them in boiling water (briefly scald them, in other words — but be sure and keep the sets of tubers strictly separated throughout this process, or you’ll forget which batch is which). The skins must then be rubbed off and the tubers placed into a pre-heated oven for around ten minutes (180 degrees Centigrade — 160 if your oven has a fan. Never, never microwave).

Once you’ve removed them from the oven, place them somewhere cool and airy for a few days (away from any damp). During this time they will change from looking ‘milky’ to transparent and ‘horny’.

When fully dried they can be stored (indefinitely) in a glass jar or a plastic bag (remember, do label them correctly to forestall any future heartache).

For the Hex to work you will need a small slither of each, approximately the size and width of your littlest nail.

7. A SAMPLE OF THE SALIVA OF THE OBJECT OF YOUR DESIRE.

Sounds tricky, but this is easier to manage than you might initially imagine. Just invite the Object/Hex-ee out for a meal, or buy them a coffee, or — if needs be — just follow them around until you see them partaking of a random beverage and then acquire the can/glass/cup after they have gone and simply wipe a clean white tissue around its rim (a good quality tissue: white, pristine, with a high ply — none of that recycled rubbish). It is this tissue that you will employ in the Hex.

8. PAGE 85 OF THE KAMA SUTRA .

This is the Numerological part of the equation. The page number is acquired (a detail that had always deeply perplexed me before I finally worked it out during that especially long and boring debate about the future of the Ilkley Lido last spring) by adding together the numerical value of each individual letter in the words SEX HEX, i.e. nineteen for S, five for E etc. etc.

When I initially used the Hex I bought a new copy of the Kama Sutra for each fresh conquest. Now I just photocopy the page. It seems just as effective.