Tales from the Tent (22 page)

From then on our existence went on an even keel. Christmas came and went, but not until New Year’s Eve did we realise that guid auld Scotia was the place to be. England just shines at
Christmas with everybody having a richt braw time, but if it’s celebration time, well, us Scots certainly take all awards at Hogmanay. Mammy bought in the drink, stout for herself, whisky for
the boys and blackcurrant cordial for us. Lots of black bun and shortbread with bricks of fruit cake found our wee bunch celebrating up to the gong of midnight. Somehow or other, things
didn’t have the same ring to ‘A guid New Year’ as it might have done over the tartan border, and by two o’ clock we were sound asleep. Next morning, apart from Jim the horny
coming to first foot us, the day had an empty, hollow sound to it. Still, we hadn’t reckoned on our neighbours—the creepy-crawlies. Mammy noticed that, apart from our empty bottle of
blackcurrant cordial, the drink box was full. She had had her stout but Daddy didn’t fancy a whisky and Nicky only sampled the beer. Portsoy had his own supply and God alone knows how much of
that the old lad drank. He certainly found it difficult giving his face a wash, so I reckon he’d opened another bottle. He always said ‘never buy the one, it might get
lonely.’

‘I can’t abide keeping drink in the place after the bells,’ Mammy told us all at dinner. Oh, this only meant one thing, she was going to visit the earthworms again.

Daddy told her just to leave the box sitting some place, for they’d surely find it. ‘Smell it more like,’ I mused.

She and I carried the booze-box over as near them as possible, and while I dived home for fear of slipping and falling into a gungy hole Mammy whispered to them: ‘Mr Weatherspoon, hello,
Mr Delifario, you there? Major, also Mr What-dae-ye-call-yerself.’ The ground rippled and she knew things would be fine.

That evening as we settled in for what was forecast on the wireless as a change in the weather, there was a tapping on the caravan door. Daddy as always answered it.

‘Jeannie,’ he said, ‘there’s a few blokes out here need to speak tae ye.’ Mammy gingerly stepped outside, and out there, shivering in the first covering of snow
stood (and I kid you not) every bloody tramp in the whole of Manchester and maybe beyond!

The Major came forward, rolled a crumpled cap between black and orange fingers, and said, ‘Madam, we’d be glad if you’d allow us to toast you and your family’s good
health.’ With that, a horde of jam-jars, broken cups and containers of every sort, holding Mammy’s offering of the ‘cratur’, rose into the cold January sky to fall back and
slide down those sadly-abused throats.

‘Men, please step inside.’ Mammy pushed open our narrow door, and one by one the creepy-crawlers stepped into our spotless clean caravan until there was standing room only. I felt my
dinner heave inside my belly as the smell hit the back of my throat, but that was only a temporary thing—after all I’d smelt worse from a dung-field. And as the night pushed onwards we
were entertained to mouth-organs, singers (with beautiful voices even although half the teeth were absent), jokers, magicians and, my favourite pastime—storytellers. Amazing fun was the only
way to describe the first night of 1964. That was the best New Year’s party we’d ever had, and we’ve never since seen its likes.

I wonder now if you may want to hear the story one of the city tramps told us that night. I’m glad you do. So get the kettle boiled up, pour your favourite cuppy and share this with
me.

21

THE LETTER

Y
oung Johnny rose on that memorable day from a cosy bed, washed and went down stairs. His dear, sweet mother as always greeted him with a kiss and
said there was a plate of his favourite hot oats waiting for him, then handed him a letter that had arrived by the early post. Before enjoying his breakfast he opened his mail, only to find it was
written in a foreign tongue. ‘Mother, be a dear and read this for me, you have a flair for languages and I don’t know what it says.’

His mother obliged and sat down to read. What happened next was unbelievable. He watched his mother turn from a gentle, loving lady into a furious, foaming-at-the-mouth monster. ‘Argghh,
you beast, you horrible evil creature, get out of my house this instant and don’t ever come back here again!’ she screamed, throwing his letter at his feet, then grabbing his collar she
heaved her son from the house. Johnny stood there in the cold street flabbergasted. Without a moment to lose he picked up the offending letter and set off to ask his vicar why its contents had
turned his mother mad.

The vicar, as always politeness itself, ushered him into the parlour. ‘Hello lad,’ he said, ‘what brings you to my door this early?’

‘Well, vicar, I received this morning a letter.’ He removed it from his pocket and handed it to the vicar. ‘Please, could you explain, if you can, why it has turned my dear,
sweet mother against me?’ The vicar smiled, reassuring his visitor that his mother had obviously read it wrongly. ‘No mother would do such a thing, especially yours.’ He unfolded
the page and sat down, popping a pair of one-legged glasses over his nose. For a minute he paused, then without warning reached into an umbrella stand, retrieved a golf-brolly and started thumping
the poor lad over the shoulders. ‘Get out and take that, that thing, with you.’ Johnny gathered up his letter and dashed for the safety of the front door. Once outside he thought
‘nothing, no matter what, would make the old, gentle vicar react in such a fashion, some one just has to explain what is in this letter.’

How, though, could he show it to people? He needed a plan. Soon the paper with its demonic contents was folded safely in a leather wallet, only to be shown to whomever he deemed completely
trustworthy. For a while he lived a quiet existence, living in a tiny flat high up in a tall tenement building, speaking to no one. He got a job in the bucket lorries, working very hard and
deliberately keeping his letter a secret.

Then one morning, during a torrential downpour, he met Sally; he was sheltering in the café doorway where she worked as a waitress. Seeing how wet he was, she invited him in for a warm
cup of coffee. They immediately fell head-over-heels in love. Within six months they were wed, but not once during that time did Johnny tell Sally about the letter eating away at his heart. Then
one night he asked her a question: ‘do you love me more than anything?’

‘Yes, of course I do, darling, you should never have any doubts.’

‘If I show you something, will you solemnly promise me not to let our love rule your head?’

‘Nothing could spoil our life together, absolutely nothing, now what is it?’

Johnny sat his love down on their bed and very carefully unfolded the letter from its wallet. Not taking his eyes off her face, he handed Sally the tormenting document. ‘Perhaps like me
she won’t be able to read it,’ he prayed.

That night with his torn cheek and blackened eyes Johnny again found himself wandering the streets, destitute and alone. Would he ever know the true contents of the letter?

Next morning, along with other street tramps, he was rounded up and moved on by the local police. One policeman spoke to him and enquired why he had ended up on the streets? Frightened to speak
to anybody, let alone the law, Johnny turned and ran as fast as he could down an alleyway. The policeman, thinking he was a criminal, gave chase. It was easy catching poor Johnny, with him being
hungry and battered. Soon he was sitting in a prison cell, a shattered man, and he hadn’t a clue why. ‘Look,’ he screamed at four other men sharing his cell, ‘see what I
have. Do you want to kill me or hang me from the ceiling by your shoelaces? Come on then, tell me what is in this letter first.’ Poor unfortunate thing, he would rather have died than never
to have known why this awful letter plagued him so. An old man stood up and took the letter from Johnny’s fingers. He sat down, took a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses from his shirt pocket and
began to read.

‘Please don’t hit me, I beg you,’ Johnny wriggled on the floor like a cowed dog. ‘Please, mister, just tell me what it says.’

Slowly, with fire raging in his eyes, the old man leaned down and said, ‘why, do you not know what this says?’

Johnny cried into his jacket sleeve that he just hadn’t a clue.

‘When you get out of here, go and visit this old Chinaman, he will tell you what to do.’ The man handed Johnny a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.

Soon, address firmly clasped in the desperate man’s hand, he set off to find the wise Chinaman. At long last they faced each other, with Johnny’s existence depending on what
he’d be told, please God.

The same scenario unfolded with the Chinaman threatening to cut off his head with a Chinese War sword and Johnny begging for his life. He told him that the man in the prison cell had said he
would help him. The slightly-built little man thought for a moment, then said, ‘Before I copy this into English you must solemnly promise to follow my instructions to the very last
letter.’

‘As I live and breathe, old man, I will do all you say.’

‘When I copy this I will seal it inside an envelope, then inside a metal box, and you must take yourself to a far-off shore. Find a boat and row miles and miles until you are completely
alone, remember no one must be anywhere near you. Then, and only then, remove the letter and read it.’

Johnny gave his word, hand on heart, thanked the small man and did all he asked.

In mid-Atlantic we now find him bobbing alone in his little skiff, miles from anything remotely human. Beads of sweat begin to trickle down his face into a dry hot body. His breath now comes in
short pants. He opens the metal box, a seagull screeches high above him and he dives under a tarpaulin. The sky is once again clear, there is nothing further to delay him. Hands quiver, as inch by
inch he unfolds the letter. He holds it up, then opens sunburnt eyelids and, and, and—swoosh! A GUST OF WIND BLOWS IT OUT OF HIS HANDS.

If you feel like hitting me, folks, then that’s exactly how I felt when first hearing this. Sorry, but some you win and some you lose.

Not very nice to you, am I? Still, after spending all this time with me, I’m sure you’ll forgive and forget.

22

BACK ON THE ROAD

B
ack to Manchester now, and we find a cold January has passed without much happening, except for one thing, though, a job for Saturdays. To make a
wee bit extra I took a job at the open market selling outsized shoes for an old Jewish gent called Jeremiah. He owned several shoe stalls at the Cheetam Hill Road market.

For a whole day from eight in the morning until four in the dark afternoon I stood trying my utmost to sell the ugliest shoes I’d ever set eyes on. There were size nines and tens, aye,
even elevens of every colour of the rainbow, white patent boat-like things and the most horrible black shiny ones. Believe it or not, my friends, but those shoes of various extremes were made to
adorn the female foot! Jeremiah insisted that everything could be sold, it wasn’t the item, it was the seller. So he, that wily old bent-backed gent, who instantly reminded you of a character
from a Dickens novel, taught me how to charm those chuckit shoes onto female feet. The customers, those sadly misinformed ladies, purchased shoes that, I’m sorry to say, made them look more
like shoed penguins than anything else. I can still to this day see them smile when I lied and said they were a perfect fit, and that they didn’t half go with their outfits, or hair or eyes.
I even sold deliberately, as pairs, one size nine and one ten. Old Jeremiah swore we all have one foot larger than the other. For all that hard sell I earned a measly ten shillings. However I must
be honest, and say it was a grand way to learn how to duck when a woman of over six feet threw a pair of bad fitting shoes at you!