Broken Homes

he’d expected to happen.
    ‘I used to be able to make a fairy light,’ he said. ‘It used to keep my sister amused.’
    A bit of prodding revealed that he only knew the one spell and that he’d stopped performing it once he was sent off to school.
    ‘Mine was a Catholic school,’ he said. ‘They took a dim view of dabbling in the occult – or even just dabbling, to be honest. The headmaster believed that if you’re going to do something you should do it all the way.’
    He gave me details of the school, but warned me that it had closed due to a scandal in the late 1960s. ‘Headmaster had his hand in the till,’ he said.
    ‘So who did you learn this magic trick from?’ I asked.
    ‘From my mother of course,’ said Mr Nolfi.
    ‘From his mother,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘So he says,’ I said.
    We were in the so-called private dining room where we were all eating— to be honest we weren’t sure what it was, Molly was experimenting again. Shanks of lamb, according to Lesley, casseroled with something fishy, possibly anchovies, possibly sardines and two scoops of mashed— I said swede but Nightingale insisted at least one of them was parsnip.
    ‘I’m not sure we should eat stuff when we don’t know what it is,’ said Lesley.
    ‘I’m not the one who bought her the Jamie Oliver book for Christmas,’ I said.
    ‘No,’ said Lesley. ‘You’re the one who wanted to get her Heston Blumenthal.’
    Nightingale, trained – as he pointed out – from an early age to eat what was put in front of him, tucked in with enthusiasm. Given that Molly was hovering in the doorway, me and Lesley had little choice but to follow suit.
    It tasted remarkably like lamb in sardine sauce, I thought.
    After a sufficient wait to ensure that we hadn’t been poisoned, we continued our discussion about Mr Nolfi.
    ‘It strikes me as rather unlikely,’ said Nightingale. ‘Or at least it’s not something I’ve come across before.’
    ‘We didn’t find anything at his home,’ said Lesley.
    ‘There must have been female practitioners even in your day,’ I said.
    ‘There were some Hedge Witches,’ said Nightingale. ‘Especially out in the countryside, there always are. But there was nobody with formal training that I knew of.’
    ‘Hogwarts was all male,’ I said.
    ‘Peter,’ said Nightingale. ‘If you’d like to spend the next three days cleaning the lab then by all means keep referring to my old school as Hogwarts.’
    ‘Casterbrook,’ I said.
    ‘That’s better,’ said Nightingale and polished off the last of his swede – if it was swede.
    ‘But it was boys only,’ I said.
    ‘Indubitably,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m sure I would have noticed otherwise.’
    ‘And these boys came from the old wizarding families?’
    ‘You have such a delightfully quaint notion of how things were,’ said Nightingale. ‘There were a number of families who generally sent one or more of their sons to the school. That’s all.’
    Traditionally, the landed gentry had kept the first son at home to inherit the estate, the second went for a soldier, the third to the clergy or the law. I asked Nightingale where the profession of magic stood in that list.
    ‘The Folly was never that popular amongst the aristocracy,’ said Nightingale. ‘We were all much more proudly bourgeoisie than that. It would be best to think of us as professionals – like doctors or lawyers. It was common for a son to follow in his father’s footsteps.’
    ‘But not his daughter?’
    Nightingale shrugged. ‘It was a different age,’ he said.
    ‘Was your father a wizard?’ I asked.
    ‘Good Lord no,’ said Nightingale. ‘It was my Uncle Stanley who carried on the tradition in that generation – it was he who suggested that I attend Cosgrove Hall.’
    ‘He didn’t have sons of his own?’ I asked.
    ‘He never married,’ said Nightingale. ‘I had four brothers and two sisters so I believe my father felt he could spare me. Mama always said I was a curious child, asking far too many questions at the most inopportune times. I’m sure they were relieved to have someone else take up the responsibility of answering them.’
    He caught me and Lesley exchanging looks.
    ‘I’m amazed you find this at all interesting,’ he said.
    ‘You’ve never talked about your family before,’ I said.
    ‘I’m sure I must have,’ he said.
    ‘Nope,’ said Lesley.
    ‘Oh,’ said Nightingale and promptly changed the subject. ‘Tomorrow I want the