Pat-a-Cake

flash fiction

The old man was a part of the landscape. He had a black birthmark on his left cheek and sat outside a disused estate agent’s. Local shopkeepers brought him food and blankets on occasion, and while he had no cap out for money, he would sometimes be handed some coins.

Lucy, an academic, was writing a social history of the town and became curious about the man because no-one seemed to remember when he’d first pitched up. ‘He only says three words’ said the landlady of a pub down the street. ‘Drink, smoke, and pat-a-cake.’

An old boy at the bar shook his head. ‘He probably played that game with his mum when he was little.’

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man… Something about the Mother Goose rhyme gave Lucy pause. Later in the library she took down a volume on medieval occultism and looked up the town, which was then prominent for its bake shops.

Bake me a cake, as fast as you can… A woodcut of a woman being pushed into an oven by two winged devils, as two more flew away with her infant son, appeared on one page.

Pat it, prick it, and mark it with B… The story underneath was a piece of folklore about a woman who’d made her name with magical recipes stolen from the faery world, and so like mobsters they came to collect, and when she couldn’t pay…

Put it in the oven for baby and me… Lucy noticed a large black spot on the baby’s left cheek.