Denis Bailey the
white witch
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
Denis was a
weird looking guy. Slim like a pixie with lank
long brown hair. He was a white witch, not black
one he assured me.
I had bought an animal skull in Camden market for
£20. It had cabalistic symbols carved in the
bone and a crystal embedded at the top that shone
brightly.
I was thrilled with my eccentric purchase but
wanted to know if it had been used in a seance.
Enter Denis who said he would take it to the head
of his coven to be tested! Off he went with the
skull on his motorbike into the night.
Back he came a week later saying ‘yes’
it had been used in a seance. I decided to put it
away in a cupboard out of sight.
Next Denis said I was a potential white witch and
so one evening he brought his athame knife to my
flat, drew the curtains, and began chanting mumbo
jumbo while ‘anointing’ me with his
athame. Suddenly without warning he developed a
terrible spluttering cough, so bad that he ran
out of the living room, tripping over the
telephone cable and disconnected the telephone.
He ran into the kitchen and gulped down a glass
of water. I took this to be a message from beyond,
that I was not destined to be a white witch!
I introduced him to a Saturnist I had met through
the skull called Ron Adams who years later denied
that he was ever a saturnist. He somehow met my
magical husband Martin and they became good
friends through conjuring until his sudden demise.
Denis had an accident with his motorbike,
crashing into a wire fence and was only saved
because he was wearing a biker’s thick
leather jacket. He was convinced Ron had put a
curse on him. He was scared after the incident
and so gave up being a white witch.
This was a time before porno sites and the
internet. Believe it or not Denis, who was an
authority on Buffalo Bill and cowboy memoralbilia,
became a male prostitute. Was I missing something?
He had a diary where he wrote all the names of
his women. How he got them I know not because it
was pre Facebook and the internet. I never found
out what became of him!
Years later I discovered the skull in the
cupboard and took it to my stand in Portobello
road. An eccentric Italian dealer from Milan
bought it for the princely sun of £60. I was
glad to see the back of it.
Written
29/11/24 in Nightingale.
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