Tales from the Tent (26 page)

The Crypt lay directly beneath Mrs Baird’s garden wall. Only a few feet separated the Crypt and the garden. Every single guest, including His Grandness the Duke, was now collapsing on top
of Padraig, Peter and Wull’s homemade still several feet below in the secret chamber. Broken fingers brought screams along with bruised bums and heads. Hats, gloves and feathers joined the
handbags and hankies to float and bob in the last drops of the ‘Tinker’s Brew’. What a blooming disaster for the village of Collbrae!

Mrs Macallister had to be carried back to the manse and no one saw hide nor hair of her for a week.

I will now leave it up to you, reader, to imagine the fate of all concerned. Just in case you can’t, please allow me to tell you.

Peter had been village doctor far too long, so when a suitable more able-bodied younger man was found then the responsibility of the villagers’ health was handed over to him.

The bishop never found it in his heart (despite what the bible says) to forgive Padraig, so he was defrocked, sacked and kicked out. Mrs Macallister refused to clean for anyone else so went with
him to his new house.

As for Wull, well, he put his shovels and spades into the capable hands of young Skiff Smith, who became the proud keeper of a brand new graveyard situated a half-mile down the road. Oh, and in
case I forget, he did the undertaking as well. Because of the old graveyard being in such a dangerous state, a group of architectural planners had came up from Glasgow and measured out a new one.
Big Annie swore she had overheard a telephone conversation between the Bishop and one of the architects instructing him that a special plot had to be landscaped for the Duke.

Regarding Mrs Baird, the strange thing was her sister Phemie really had fallen sick, so rather than leave her to fend for herself she moved in.

Which takes me back to Padraig’s new house. It was Mrs Baird’s place he bought, since it had such a bonny garden. ‘Rubbish,’ said Malky and Angus, ‘it is the smell
of the auld still wafting up his nostrils when a westerly blows, and not a row o’ rid roses.’

A last word on Mrs Baird. Folks said she never said a word about that day when an English Duke was buried in her garden. But the women of the village would have loved to be flies on
Phemie’s wall, I bet.

So if, one fine day, it’s the village of Collbrae you find yourself in reader, then why not take a walk round to Dougal’s Point. To the cave to be precise. If you do, you might find
a grand welcome. For in there are three mates puffing on their pipes and supping from a hidden still filled with a ‘tinker’s brew’.

I hope you enjoyed the farce of Collbrae, then, reader.

26

TRUE ROMANCE

B
ack to the road now, folks, and we drift into May with its extra hour of daytime, flowery trees and hearts searching for love. However with my
‘love-seeking’ never to be, I settled into a future already decided for me. When I give more thought to this subject it makes me wonder about arranged marriages. In many parts of the
Asian world, brides and grooms are joined even before they are born. Now, here was I with no such luck, because I’d been chosen not to be joined to anyone. No fear then of me being mated to a
gadgie with a guffy’s face—or, on the other hand, of hitching with an Adonis. Oh no, as I told you earlier, I would spend my life taking care of Mammy and Daddy in their old age. But I
suppose when you consider what a great set of parents I had I should have been grateful.

We had pulled onto a deserted beach well up the coast. Nicky left us to visit his folks and with Portsoy out of the picture it was a quiet and serene place. Quiet serenity puts
me into a thoughtful mood even to this day, and one morning after finishing my chores, my feet went walkabout for miles through slipping leathery seaweed and powdery sands. I had no recollection of
tide or time as I succumbed to a perfect sunshine. Hollywood would have killed for such an atmosphere: it was heavenly, or, as we travellers say, ‘a truly barry day, chavie, just
kushtie!’

To those who sought Cupid’s arrow it was a perfect day. I had no thoughts in that direction until I saw him...

He seemed almost Lowry-like upon the skyline, the young lad. And like the artist he too was a painter, sitting in front of an easel, sketching white fluffy clouds touching a green ocean. Not
wanting to appear nosy, I walked slowly as if to go around him. His brush-tip was applied to the canvas so I stopped, not wanting to distract the lad. Obviously, though, with only the two of us
sharing miles of deserted sands, he was aware of my gaze and turned. ‘Hiya,’ he smiled, and I wished I had had a canvas to paint such a perfectly handsome face.

‘Hiya,’ was all I managed. It was enough, he popped his brush into a jar half-filled with coloured water and asked me to join him. ‘Do you bide here?’ I asked.

‘Bide, what kind of word is that?’

I felt my face grow red and redder, until I’m sure it glowed. ‘Do you live in this area?’ Repeating the question would not, under different circumstances, have brought a
feeling of discomfort, after all the word was Scots and not cant.

He stood up, pushed hands into baggy-pocketed trousers and stretched a strong-muscled neck toward the sun, ‘No, but I wish I did. My name is Rod, and I come from London with loads of cars
and people and buildings. Do you “bide” here?’

We both laughed and suddenly a voice in my head said, ‘don’t tell him you’re a traveller.’ I responded to this feeling of shame and for the first time in my life I lied
about my status. I could feel them, the old ancient ones, turning cold in my heart. Here was I, a proud travelling girl, denying my roots: how could I do such a thing?

Then I caught his gaze, melting blue eyes shaded from the sun’s glare by a tanned hand, and blatantly lied. ‘My name is Jilly, I’m from Edinburgh here on a few days’
break from University.’ (I had once heard someone say that all the rich and best-bred folks came from there, and called their girls, or their horses, Jilly. I was doing fine until he asked
what I was studying and the year, and everything else a student at university would know.

‘Gosh almighty, why did I dig such a hole for myself?’ I thought, then ran off to pick up a mother-of-pearl shell glinting in the sunshine, while he went back to his easel. But like
a magnet he drew me back to him, and doe-eyed and captivated I watched him silently paint. Whatever was happening to me had never happened before, even my stomach had little creatures bouncing
about in it with tackity boots on. No words could explain why I felt this way, was it love at first sight, perhaps?

Rod painted, I watched, I talked, we laughed as hour followed hour. Lunchtime came and went, but what did I need with food? I had all the nourishment I wanted from my beach companion’s
smile, and from thoughts of us walking off into the sunset to who cares where. As we wandered through the pages of Mills and Boon I even imagined giving myself to him completely. You know what I
mean by that, reader, and I thought that vivid dream would soon be realised when we became better acquainted.

Firstly I’d come clean and tell him who I really was: ‘Jessie from the campsite over across the dunes, and not Jilly from the home of Arthur’s Seat’. But before I got the
chance, I saw, coming toward us, a young woman. I wondered why she was smiling. I didn’t know her and surely my Heathcliff didn’t either. She was a right bonny lass, and when Rod saw
her I was left standing while he ran and scooped her up in his arms. She held onto a floppy hat trimmed with a long chiffon scarf. A long, almost see-through dress, the same colour as her
headscarf, hugged slender hips and trailed upon the sand. She was beautiful, and I was gutted, deflated, dowdy and scunnered tae the hilt.

‘Darling this is... sorry, what did you say your name was, again?’

Of all the bloody rotten Rods—he hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said!

Picking up the thin cardy I had left lying by a rock, I said, ‘Hiya, I’m Jessie.’

My stupid blind eyes filled to the rim with painful tears as I turned on my heel and waved goodbye. Another heart-sore lesson for me. When would I ever learn?

As I reached our campsite I noticed Daddy had been watching me running up the beach. He asked if I was all right. Not wanting him to see my tear-stained face, I nodded, then went into the
caravan. Mammy, who’d been away hawking with my three sisters, smiled and asked me what I’d done with the day. When she heard about the artist, and me lying about my roots, she touched
my face and said, ‘lassie, if I’d a penny for every wee white lie that slipped from my tongue, then we’d be living in Inveraray Castle by now.’ That was enough to abolish my
fear of passing over at life’s end and meeting the wrath of the ancient ones. Still, there was a slight heaviness on me that night as we sat round our campfire, and it left me feeling a wee
bit ashamed of myself. I cringed at the easiness in me towards a complete stranger. I may have gained a slightly bruised ego but what if I had allowed my heart to rule my head? What if I had given
my most precious gift freely? It wasn’t the ancient ones who haunted my innermost thoughts that night, it was the fact that I had nearly done an unthinkable thing before marriage. Sleep only
came after I had wrestled with the reality that my future didn’t include marriage anyway, so the only disappointment would have been mine.

Goodness gracious me, folks, nearly an X-rated one there!

This wee story I share with you now was one my father heard at a tender age. He said, ‘I was as high as my auld spaniel’s left lug, and never forgot the night after
a snake bit me, mother told me this wee story.’ While he was playing in a heathery moor up and round by Ballachulish an angry old adder gave him a bite like no other. To quiet him, Granny
told this wee tale.

27

ROSY
’
S BABY

R
osy was a city lass and didn’t know a single thing about the countryside. Her mother hated it. But Daddy lost his job as a shoemaker and was
forced to move into the old dilapidated farm his uncle had left him. Into a month, and already Mother was nagging: she didn’t like the awful place, not one bit. Poor Daddy tried his best. He
rebuilt the old dyke, fixed the cottage roof, bought some cows and sheep and even acquired a cat to chase away the mice that lived beneath the floorboards of their little house.