“Nice used to mean, well, precise. Or exact.” Definitely something strange. A sort of laid-back intensity. You started to feel that if he was around, then everyone else, even the landscape, was just background.
She’d been here a month. Except for Mrs. Henderson, who in theory looked after the cottage and probably went through her things given half a chance, she hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen real words with anyone. She let them think she was an artist. This was the kind of countryside that artists liked.
Actually, it was bloody beautiful. Just around this village it was superb. If Turner and Landseer had met Samuel Palmer in a pub and worked it all out, and then got Stubbs to do the horses, it couldn’t have been better.
And that was depressing, because this was where it was going to happen. According to Agnes, anyway. In a book which she, Anathema, had allowed to be lost. She had the file cards, of course, but they just weren’t the same.
If Anathema had been in full control of her own mind at that moment—and no one around Adam was ever in full control of his or her own mind—she’d have noticed that whenever she tried to think about him beyond a superficial level her thoughts slipped away like a duck off water.
“Wicked!” said Adam, who had been turning over in his mind the implications of a book of nice and accurate prophecies. “It tells you who’s going to win the Grand National, does it?”
“No,” said Anathema.
“Any spaceships in it?”
“Not many,” said Anathema.
“Robots?” said Adam hopefully.
“Sorry.”
“Doesn’t sound very nice to me, then,” said Adam. “Don’t see what the future’s got in it if there’s no robots and spaceships.”
About three days, thought Anathema glumly. That’s what it’s got in it.
“Would you like a lemonade?” she said.
Adam hesitated. Then he decided to take the bull by the horns.
“Look, ’scuse me for askin’, if it’s not a personal question, but are you a witch?” he said.
Anathema narrowed her eyes. So much for Mrs. Henderson poking around.
“Some people might say so,” she said. “Actually, I’m an occultist.”
“Oh. Well. That’s all right, then,” said Adam, cheering up.
She looked him up and down.
“You know what an occultist is, do you?” she said.
“Oh, yes,” said Adam confidently.
“Well, so long as you’re happier now,” said Anathema. “Come on in. I could do with a drink myself. And … Adam Young?”
“Yes?”
“You were thinking ‘Nothin’ wrong with my eyes, they don’t need examining,’ weren’t you?”
“Who, me?” said Adam guiltily.
DOG WAS THE PROBLEM. He wouldn’t go in the cottage. He crouched on the doorstep, growling.
“Come on, you silly dog,” said Adam. “It’s only old Jasmine Cottage.” He gave Anathema an embarrassed look. “Normally he does everything I say, right off.”
“You can leave him in the garden,” said Anathema.
“No,” said Adam. “He’s got to do what he’s tole. I read it in a book. Trainin’ is very important. Any dog can be trained, it said. My father said I can only keep him if he’s prop’ly trained. Now, Dog. Go inside.”