Tales from the Tent (37 page)

I was used to Davey not arriving home for tea, so thought I’d wait until he arrived before cooking. I put on a nice big coal-stapped fire and settled down with a book. Hour followed hour,
and minutes after midnight had struck loudly from the town clock Davey wobbled through the door. ‘Not much use in putting soup into that beer-filled gut,’ I thought, so smiled and asked
him if he wanted a nice slice of chocolate sponge before going to bed?

‘If that is what you call feeding a grown man—chocolate bloody cake—well, think again!’ He then threw my offering against the fireplace and collapsed on the settee. As I
watched the cake blob and splat onto the floor I made my fateful decision—tomorrow morning, when the day dawned, he would be dead!

From the washing line I removed a pair of solid, frozen pyjamas. I then opened the back door; very calmly I pulled the alcohol-unconscious man I’d foolishly married from off the settee
until he lay upon the floor. I then removed every stitch of clothing and replaced it with those still frozen pyjamas. The next part (which was hardest with me being so heavily pregnant) was to pull
him outside. He’d be found in the morning, and even the most suspicious law-enforcer would never imagine that poor wee pregnant me could have any hand in his demise. He’d be dead and my
bairn and me would be free.

I calmly locked every door and window and happily couried under my bed covers with the knowledge Davey was no more. I was now wee Jess—mankiller!

Johnnie wakened me needing his breakfast. I, remembering, rose from bed with a thumping headache, streaming nostrils and a terrible cold, while my victim lay cuddled into my back, sound asleep,
wearing those same pyjamas and none the worse after my attempted murder!

I promise you this, reader, to this day I have no idea how he got into the house, it remains a mystery. But the strange thing was, Davey, from that day to this, has behaved in every way as the
good and wise husband and father.

The unexplained, wouldn’t you say, folks?

I was right about the child being a boy, and we named him Stephen. Then, despite my doctor protesting ‘no more’, I went ahead and tried for a girl. She came along three years later
and we named her Barbara.

Not many years later Shirley separated from her husband, leaving her devastated with two children to bring up on her own. My parents worried about her, so they upped sticks and
settled in Glenrothes. It was here at the ripe old age of twenty-one that Tiny, our wee fox terrier cross, died. God bless that wee dog, there never was a more loyal jugal than him.

A little while later, while visiting Janey at Brechin, Daddy suffered a collapsed lung and was rushed into Strathcathro Hospital, where his youngest brother happened to be a charge nurse.
‘How long have I got, Joe?’ he asked him. Joe said he wasn’t allowed to disclose such information. But Daddy reminded him that travelling brothers don’t keep secrets like
that from each other.

‘Then, see’n as ye pit it like that, cove,’ answered Joe, ‘six months! Better get things in order, Charlie.’

That was in June. He hired a small car, and after spending two weeks with every one of us he and Mammy went back to Glenrothes to spend what little time they had left together. By mid-December
his six months were up. It was then that he took the decision to finish his life. ‘I will not drink water, Jeannie, or food, so don’t give me any, lassie.’

Mammy began to panic: this wasn’t how she’d imagined his end to be, not as drastic as this. But she knew her man. Black and white was Daddy, she knew he’d never put her through
years of nursing a vegetable, and that was exactly what he’d be if air didn’t reach his lungs to feed his brain, he’d told her many times. She was frightened, so we all rallied
round, taking turns to stay with her and keep the pecker up. Daddy relented and drank a little water, but took no food. When Mammy could no longer watch the man with whom she’d shared almost
fifty years withering in front of her eyes, she begged the doctor to put him into the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. At the end of January, Daddy took a massive stroke. We were all there around
his bed. Each one of us kissed him and said our goodbyes. When it was my turn he opened his eyes and whispered in my ear, ‘Remember your promise to take care of Mammy.’

I stood there staring down at his pale, lifeless body. My precious father, the travelling man who never once denied his roots, joined the Ancient Ones still holding up his head, proud and
steadfast in the old ways. My mentor was dead, aged sixty-nine years.

He was buried in Crieff, where he wanted to rest. So his funeral tea was held in our wee house in Monteath Street. May I say this in all honesty, that when a traveller dies it is out of respect
that travelling folk come, some hundreds of miles, and they certainly came that day. It was a freezing cold February. My house was bursting. The womenfolk stayed inside while the men lined up
outside in our garden and even spilled onto the street with cups of tea and scones in shivering hands. I still wonder what my ‘scaldy’ neighbours were thinking.

Mammy went back to Glenrothes to mourn. I told Davey that Daddy had chosen me to be her keeper if she ever needed one. She certainly was as healthy a specimen as ever she was, but we said any
time she wanted to come to Crieff then she only had to ask. After three months we received a phone-call, it was Mammy, she was ready to move in with us. For two years she shared her life with us,
Davey, me and our three teenage kids.

However I began to see signs of strain on her face, and although she’d never say so, I knew a sink of her own was what was needed and a little peace and quiet.

My sister Renie’s man, who adored Mammy, bought her a picturesque cottage in Crieff. She was in seventh heaven, it was beautiful. With a little secluded garden, that one-bedroom home was
all she desired. After it was decorated and furnished, she held my hands and said, ‘Jessie, this’ll dae me till I die.’ And it did.

Eleven years Mammy stayed in her wee cottage. Every single day I popped in to keep an eye on her. Mary had brought her a wee dog called Laddie, and if ever a jugal was ruined then he was, he
even slept at the feet of her bed. Sometimes we’d walk and talk about when the end came, this was quite natural for her although I would quickly change the subject. ‘Lassie, I’m
seventy-odds, don’t ye think me and yer faither have been apart far too long?’ (On reflection I remembered the faraway look she’d sometimes have and I could see she was drifting
back to the old days with him at her side.)

I’d laugh, but inside my heart was breaking so I’d pick up a stick and throw it to Laddie just to avoid the conversation. However her eyesight was failing, and once or twice
she’d had a heart scare. So one night while she suffered a wee turn we lay in bed and she told me what her wishes were. ‘All the gifts your sisters have given me through the years, I
want them to have them back. There will just be enough money in my piggy bank to pay for the funeral. I want it paid in cash, mind, nane o’ yon cheques, OK. And most important, make sure my
knickers aren’t showing if I crumple down. God, it’s a red face I have when thinking of my clothes up over my knees.’

I cuddled into her and said, ‘Mammy, dear, you’ll be here a while yet.’

It was mid-June when Renie phoned to see if Mammy was all right, she’d spoken with her and thought her voice sounded weak. I said she and I had shared a baked tattie with chicken
mayonnaise for lunch and she seemed fine, although she had complained of a sore stomach in the night.

That evening as usual I called her on the phone to see if her blanket was on and if the dog was in, but there was no answer. I froze and Davey had to prise the phone from my fingers.

We rushed down the few hundred yards from our house to hers.

My Mammy lay dead on the paisley-carpeted floor. Only a tiny inch of petticoat peeped out from beneath her Black Watch tartan skirt. Arms were crossed over her chest. Everything was just as she
wished but I had taken no part in this. No one can convince me that the Ancient Ones hadn’t prepared her for my eyes, my last sight before she was laid.

I called the doctor who pronounced her dead, and before putting her into bed to await the undertaker I held her eight times, a cuddle from us all, her precious daughters.

My promise kept.

So now, my dear friends, we come to the end. My travelling days never found the way back onto the road, because I travelled a different one. One with a husband and children.
However, as I said before, ‘you can take the traveller out of the road but never take the road out of the traveller.’ I believe my road is still there, finding new bends and new
campsites. Yes, of course they are all in my mind, but that’s okay. As a storyteller and singer I share them with everyone. When people ask me as they always do, ‘where do you
belong?’ I still say ‘wherever the feather falls.’

Wherever the wind blows.

I am the feather

That soars above the billow’s crest,

That wheels above the moorland crags,

That lines the nest in far places.

I am the seed

That is borne aloft on the breeze,

That lights down on distant pastures,

That is the life of my people.

I have the strength of the tempest,

The gentleness of the zephyr.

I’m the spirit of the whole land.

I am within the unbroken circle

That has no beginning and no ending.

Around I go like the story of life.

Reader, you have been fine company as we travelled together through these memory-filled pages. Thank you.

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