The Burry Man's Day (5 page)

The crowds grew thicker as we made our way along beneath another terrace, past the bank and the butchers, towards the Rosebery Hall, where quite a hundred people were gathered laughing together and humming with interest. It was mostly women, old men and children – since all others were at work – and quite a few of the elders were bent double exhorting their young charges to bravery.

‘What are you to say, Isa?’ asked one young woman whose daughter was wiping her grubby face against her mother’s pinny and threatening to weep.

‘I don’t like it,’ said Isa, pushing out her lip

‘Och wheesht,’ her mother replied. ‘If you’re a good girl and say it I’ll give you a ha’penny to fling in his bucket and bring you luck.’

‘I don’t
like
it,’ said Isa again stoutly.

‘They’re always feart the first time,’ said an old man. He eased himself back against the wall between Isa’s mother and me and spat expressively then, taking a closer look at my party and regretting the spitting, I suppose, he made up for it by wiping his mouth politely on his sleeve and touching his cap brim.

Just then, the clock on the town hall tower struck nine and the door swung open. Two men emerged, coats and collars off, hats on the backs of their heads. They turned back to the dark doorway holding out their hands and slowly the Burry Man emerged. Little Isa screamed, I heard Cadwallader say ‘Good God!’ and a cry went up from the crowd:

‘Hip, hip, hooray!

Hip, hip, hooray!

Hip, hip, hooray,

It’s the Burry Man’s day!’

I do not know what I had been expecting, and I felt foolish for being surprised. After all, I had known that the Burry Man was a man covered in burrs and here
was
a man covered in burrs, but the effect was staggering. Perhaps I had not imagined it to be so utterly complete. Not only were his body, arms and legs encased, so that his limbs looked like prize-winning stalks of Brussels sprouts, but his whole face and head were covered too, with just the slightest shadows showing where one or two burrs had been missed to let him breathe and peer out. He must have had on some kind of very stout under-garment too, for, as Daisy had said, burdock seeds were torturous little things, and so his outline was bulbous, a huge lollipop head and the monstrously thick green body underneath, making one think of galls on tree trunks and lichen on barnacled rocks. Mouldy, encrusted, vegetative and obscene, when he walked it was the stuff of nightmares.

On the other hand, he wore a garland of flowers on his head over the burrs, and strange little nosegays sprouted from each shoulder and hip as though he were a prickly green teddy bear stuffed with flowers and they had burst out at the pressure points on his seams. Also, around his waist was a folded flag showing the head of the lion rampant, and more flowers poked out from the top of this.

His two chums guided him down the steps to the street, holding a hand each and steadying him with a grip under each arm as he swung his legs around stiffly and lumbered down, tread by tread. Isa continued to howl.

At last, arrived at street level and steadied between his helpers, he opened his hands – I saw with a shudder that his hands were bare and somehow this evidence that there really
was
a man in there was the chillingest of all – and into his grasp were thrust two huge bunches of flowers, staves of flowers really, like skiing poles. For a few minutes, as the crowd continued variously to chant or to snivel, he stood leaning on these staves waiting for his helpers to put their coats on and take up two buckets into which the gathered townspeople immediately began to throw pennies and sixpences. Then slowly, painfully slowly, the strange ensemble moved off, the Burry Man gripping the flower staves and swinging his stiff legs, the men holding him tight under one arm each and rattling the buckets in their other hands. Children broke free of their mothers and followed along, still chanting. Even Isa, brave now that she could no longer see him and not wanting to miss out on the fun, managed a tiny ‘Hup, hup, hooray’ and toddled off after them.

The grown-ups looked around smoothing their aprons and sniffing, seeming satisfied, as though an important task had been completed, then they began to chat to each other and drift away.

‘Where is he going?’ I asked the old man who had spat.

‘Right roond the toon,’ he said. ‘But they’re away to the Provost’s house for a nip first.’

‘Gosh, I’d have thought whisky was the last thing he’d want right at the start of the day,’ I said. The old man wheezed with laughter.

‘The start? He’ll have a nip in every pub in the toon and plenty more,’ he said. ‘It’s good luck and there’s many can spare a tot of something a gey sight easier than a ha’penny.’

‘Heavens,’ I said. ‘So he spends all day drinking whisky?’

‘Aye,’ said the old man and, winking at a couple of other worthies who were listening in, he added, ‘Goan then, ask me. I ken what you’re thinking.’

I flushed, for of course that was
exactly
what I was thinking. The old men roared with laughter and I joined in, helpless not to.

‘Aye, it takes stamina right enough, to be the Burry Man,’ said the one who stopped laughing first. ‘As for they twae holding him up . . .’

‘He could manage without them till dinnertime,’ said another, ‘But it’s well seen he’ll need them comin’ hame.’

I was quite happy chatting away to these new chums and might have followed them to a bench and shared a pipe with them, but Buttercup’s voice cut in.

‘Dandy! Dandy, darling, do come on. I must get the fancy dress prizes. What do you think – ribbons for the girls and marbles for the boys or a shilling for both?’

‘What about whisky?’ I said. And Buttercup frowned.

‘Please try to take it seriously, Dan. Her horrible Ladyship wouldn’t tell me what they had last year – cat! – and Mrs Meiklejohn the Provost’s wife can’t remember and I don’t want to ask someone else and look as though I don’t know what I’m doing, even though of course I don’t . . . come on, Dandy. We’ll see the Burry Man again later.’ For I was still gazing after him. ‘He’s simply all over the place all day.’

‘Do you know, Buttercup,’ I said, taking her arm as she made her way towards a draper’s shop across from the Rosebery Hall, ‘that poor man is plied with whisky all day long and he can’t go to the lavatory? It’s barbaric.’

‘The whole thing’s barbaric,’ said Daisy. ‘Much as one doesn’t want to agree with anything those mealy-mouthed ninnies said last night, it is too paganistic for words.’

‘Absolutely shivery-making,’ I said. ‘How they can laugh at the babies for screaming beats me. I nearly screamed myself.’

‘You’re not alone,’ said Buttercup. ‘Cad’s had to go off for a stiff drink. It gave him the absolute willies.’

‘I thought he was rather dashing,’ said Daisy.

‘If Frankenstein’s monster is dashing,’ I said.

‘Oh, but he is,’ said Daisy, quite serious. ‘The untamed beast and all that.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Daisy,’ said Buttercup. ‘Shut up about fancying an untamed beast, at least while we’re in the draper’s. My reputation won’t withstand it.’

We had a cosy time in the Co-operative choosing hair ribbons and bags of marbles, and the girl behind the desk was most obliging in the matter of letting us rootle through the contents of her till for the shiniest shillings and sixpences to hand out too. Then we turned down the lane to go to the harbour and look at the river, picking our way past several old women at the harbour head industriously gutting baskets of herring, slapping the fillets on to salt trays and flicking the noisome entrails back into the water for the gulls. As we passed, a woman in a sack apron emerged from the dark end of a lane with a bale of wet laundry done up in a sheet and began to hang it on ropes strung between poles along the harbour side. She said nothing but glared at the gulls and at the herring wives, who glared back and flicked with even less accuracy and attention than before. Between the smell, the flying innards and the flapping washing, then, the three of us decided against too long an interlude by the water’s edge and retreated in search of coffee.

‘I can understand her anguish,’ I said. ‘Gulls and laundry don’t mix at all, but really one has to give Friday to the fisher folk, doesn’t one? Monday’s the day for washing in all of Christendom. Even I know that.’

‘It’s the Ferry Fair,’ said Buttercup. ‘Mrs Meiklejohn was telling me yesterday that everyone washes their floors and windows and changes their linen for Ferry Fair day. They clean and tidy everything in sight . . .’

We were passing the police station now, and in front of it a constable was standing in his shirtsleeves at the noticeboard, with the glass front of it propped open, and was busily removing old notices and postcards.

‘Look,’ said Buttercup. ‘Even he’s tidying for the Fair.’

The constable caught her words and smiled at us, unoffended.

‘Got to, madam,’ he said. ‘There’ll be prize notices and winners’ announcements to go in tomorrow. Got to tidy out for the Fair.’ He returned to his task, murmuring to himself. ‘Lost property has to stay, opening hours has to stay . . .’ and Buttercup rolled her eyes.

‘They do it at New Year too, I believe,’ she said.

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Daisy, ‘they all do it at New Year. One can hardly hear the drunken revelry for the sound of scrubbing brushes at Hogmanay.’

‘And it’s a very good thing, when you consider it,’ I said. ‘Even the foulest sloven gives everything one good wash a year for luck – and two here in Queensferry, you say? I should think that’s a strong argument right there towards keeping the Fair going.’

With this we arrived at the tearooms. There were two side-by-side, which always amuses me. If a village has two establishments on different streets then each can pretend that the ladies choose the nearer, but when they sit nestled together as did Mitchell’s and Beveridge’s in Queensferry the workings of class structure and economics are laid bare. Mitchell’s had blue oilcloth table covers, a sweet counter and a handwritten card in the window saying ‘Cakes ½ price after four’. To Beveridge’s we turned, as a man.

‘Now the way I see it,’ said Buttercup, talking through a cigarette clamped between her scarlet lips, a habit I suppose she must have picked up in one of those speakeasies but which was drawing startled looks and rumblings from the other tables in Beveridge’s, ‘we can divide the events into the straightforward sporting contests where the winner is obvious and all we have to do is smile and hand over the loot – so that’s the races and the greasy pole, chiefly – and the much trickier judging competitions – the fancy dress and the bonny babies. Greasy pole and fancy dress are tonight – well, late this afternoon really, six until half past eight, such an awkward time.’

‘It’s after they’ve all had their teas,’ I said.

‘I suppose so,’ said Buttercup. ‘I must remember to tell Mrs Murdoch. Dinner at nine.’

‘We can fill up on toffee apples at the Fair,’ said Daisy.

‘If we can fit them in around our duties,’ said Buttercup. ‘I don’t want you trying to announce winners with your teeth glued together, Daisy darling.’

‘Ah yes, our duties,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Buttercup, all business. ‘Now, the way I see it, I’ve got to live here and you two don’t, so I’ll take care of the races and you two can pick your way through the diplomatic minefields and then hightail back to Perthshire and leave it all behind you. Agreed?’

‘Absolutely not –’ I began. But Daisy interrupted.

‘Done,’ she said. ‘Bags me the fancy dress.’

‘Now hold on –’ I said, beginning to splutter.

‘That’s that then,’ said Buttercup. ‘Dandy can do the bonny babies.’

‘But . . .’ I said, and gave up as Daisy and Buttercup melted into giggles.

‘Your face, Dan!’ said Daisy.

‘It’s easy,’ said Buttercup. ‘Just pick whichever one you think is prettiest.’

‘I’ve never seen a baby I thought was pretty,’ I said. ‘I won’t have to touch them, will I?’ But Daisy and Buttercup only laughed again.

‘Pick a nice big chubby one and you’ll be fine,’ said Buttercup. ‘Bonny is just a polite word for fat, I’ve always found.’

‘Well, all right,’ I said. ‘Bloated is possibly less revolting than wizened, I agree, but if we’re going down such an agricultural route, why not just weigh them?’

‘Think of me,’ said Daisy, ‘trying to choose between a pirate and a chimney sweep with doting mothers squaring up for a fight.’ She fell silent with a small clearing of her throat as a tidily dressed woman came towards our table.

‘Please excuse me interrupting,’ she said, speaking diffidently enough, but smiling with an air of confidence from out of her healthy, rather well-scrubbed face. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing you discussing the fancy dress.’

Quite. The Scots as a race, that is to say the working people and the bourgeoisie, whisper and mutter away to each other when out in public so that others speaking in perfectly normal voices seem to address the room.

Daisy was looking at the woman with a nicely judged mixture of surprise and disdain, just this side of rudeness, but Buttercup, all those years in America, I suppose, was smiling encouragingly at her, eyebrows raised in invitation to say more, and to be fair I daresay if the woman had indicated some interest or expertise in the bonny baby area I should have been drawing up another chair and ordering fresh coffee.

‘I’m Mrs Turnbull,’ she continued, then when that achieved nothing, she went on. ‘My husband is the new headmaster of the school.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Buttercup. ‘Well, how can we help you, Mrs Turnbull?’

‘Rather, how can I help you,’ the woman said, earnestly. ‘About the fancy dress, I wouldn’t have dreamt of it, if you hadn’t said yourself you were puzzled about how to decide.’ She turned her beaming smile on Daisy. ‘But since you did, I can venture to be bold . . . don’t you agree it’s best to reward the right spirit rather than anything else?’ Daisy looked blank. ‘From what my husband tells me, from what the children tell him, there will be a fair few ghosts and witches and monsters. And I don’t think . . . that is we don’t think, my husband and I . . . I mean to say I’m sure you agree that they shouldn’t be encouraged in such unwholesomeness. It was bad enough at Hallowe’en, but really in the middle of summer . . .’ She trailed off into silence, for Daisy was looking at her so coldly only the thickest-skinned could have continued.