The Fanatic (14 page)

‘When I am in need, I hope ye will do likewise by me.’ Weir took a pen and paper and wrote a few words. ‘This is for the guards at the Netherbow Port. They ken me of course, and this will let ye pass this night. There is a ship at Leith cried the
Marcus
that will sail with the next tide to Newcastle. Speir for it, and for a man cried John Forrester, from Ostend. This second note is for him. He is a discreet man that has carried our people before, and will get ye a passage for a fair price. From Newcastle the ship will gang down the English coast and syne across the sea to Flanders. Once there you are safe. Are ye for Amsterdam or Rotterdam?’

‘Rotterdam. I hae a cousin there that’s a merchant.’

‘There’s plenty honest Scots folk there,’ said Weir, ‘and the Dutch too are good Christians, which no doubt is why Charles Stewart sends his English warships against them.’

He paused, seemed to hesitate. ‘I should say perhaps …’

‘Aye?’

‘There is one John Nevay of Newmilns at Rotterdam. A powerful saint, as I mind. Do ye ken him?’

‘Na, I hae only heard o him.’

‘Be wary of him. Some think him too rigid, too hard in judging of others. He has not a good opinion of me, for
example, although I never did him a wrong. I wonder whiles if his judgment is not unbalanced. Should ye meet him, I would advise against telling him I am your friend. It might set him against ye, and cause ye mischief.’

‘But why would he –’ Mitchel began, but Weir stood up and led him towards the door. ‘Wheesht, wheesht, James, we’ll no rake ower auld ashes when the fire’s weill oot. If ye meet him dinna tell him I said this. And noo, James Mitchel, God gang with ye. I’ll hear in time if ye are safe.’

He unsnecked the door and Mitchel was hit by the icy night. They looked around but the courtyard was silent and empty. ‘She’ll chap when she wants back in,’ the Major said. He might have been referring to a cat at a window. Mitchel felt a twinge of unease. He had always thought of Weir as his sister’s stern but protective guardian. There was an uncaring edge to his voice he had not picked up on before. Cruel, even. But there was nothing to be done about it. Folk were being hanged and dismembered for the sake of conscience. A woman going daft in her dotage was a small sadness by comparison.

Weir closed the door and Mitchel hurried down the steps. He turned into the close to go back to the Cowgate, and from there to the Netherbow and Leith Wynd. From the shadows a shawled figure emerged.

‘Jean, Jean,’ said Mitchel. ‘Ye may gang hame noo. Hurry noo, afore ye freeze.’

‘I’ll no freeze,’ she said. ‘I’m weill happit. It’s no me that’ll freeze.’

He was about to pass her when she reached up a hand and touched his cheek.

‘Are ye awricht, Jean?’ he asked.

‘
You’re
frozen,’ she said.

‘Na,’ he said, ‘I hae jist been in at yer fire.’

‘Ye’re aw frozen,’ she went on, as if she had not heard him. ‘Ilk yin o yese. Ye hae grat for a broken Covenant and the saut is frozen on aw yer faces. But wha’ll greet for me, eh? Wha’ll greet for me?’

He was embarrassed. Weir was right, she was losing her mind. He clasped her hand between his for a minute. ‘Awa hame, Jean. I’ll pray for ye.’

‘Pray for me?’ She gave him a weird, silly smile. ‘Oh, I thank ye.’ If she had been capable of it, he would have said she was being ironic. He let go of her and headed for exile.

Hugh Hardie had arranged to meet Carlin by St Giles on the first Sunday after he started working, half an hour before the tour was due to start. By then he would have done five nights and they could iron out any problems that had arisen, anything Carlin or he thought wasn’t right. ‘A kind of staff assessment,’ he’d joked.

‘I’m on the staff then, am I?’ Carlin had said.

Hugh had also left a message on Jackie Halkit’s answer-machine: ‘Sorry I missed you on Wednesday. Hope you enjoyed the tour. Your man seems to be doing the biz – be interested to know what you thought of it, and him. Why don’t we have another drink next week? Phone me.’

That had been on the Thursday. Jackie had yet to return the call. Since then Hugh had spoken to his tour guide. Things had not been going as smoothly as he’d hoped. He wasn’t looking forward to raising the subject.

Carlin was there waiting when Hardie arrived. He was carrying a large plastic bag which contained his costume, and was leaning on the Major’s stick. Nearby was an array of garishly painted wooden boards, each advertising a different walking tour and claiming a higher quota of ghosts, witches and murderers than the next. Hugh noticed that several groups of tourists were cosying around the boards and their grisly depictions, while Carlin had yards of clear space to himself.

‘Well,’ said Hugh breezily, ‘here we are then. How are you doing?’

Carlin shrugged.

‘It should be busy tonight. A party of twelve Americans phoned up and booked themselves on, and there’s always a few more strays hanging about on a Sunday. So you’ll need to give it your best shot, eh?’

‘Aye, I’ll need tae.’

‘Any problems so far then?’

‘I’ve nane.’

‘Right. Good.’ Hugh waited in case Carlin wanted to add a qualification. He didn’t. ‘You’re okay with what we
do
with Major Weir?’

‘I’m checkin him oot.’

‘Oh?’

‘There’s a few inaccuracies.’

‘Oh. Well, if you find anything major – ha! – let me know. We can work it into the script, maybe.’

‘Aye, maybe.’

Hugh decided not to suggest the book project as something Carlin could be working on in his spare time. Not just yet.

‘There’s one thing I wanted to mention. Gerry, the guide, said there was, um, a misunderstanding or something. On Wednesday? What was that all about?’

‘Whit did Gerry, um, misunderstand like?’

Hugh laughed. ‘Well, no, it wasn’t him, it was you. He said you didn’t turn up at the end, you know, the last bit when you appear in the doorway.’

‘Whit’s he then, a gaffer or somethin? Reportin back tae ye?’

‘No, but, you know, that’s what we agreed. That’s what Gerry’s expecting even if the punters aren’t. It throws him off his patter, you know.’

‘Can he no improvise? Work somethin intae the script?’

‘Well, obviously, that’s what he did. I just want to impress on you, you know, how important it is that you do all the various bits. It’s part of the experience for the punters. And it’s part of the job for you. Part of your job, okay?’

I didna feel right. I had tae stop. I wasna weill. By the time I got started again it was too late.’

Hugh was doubtful, but tried to feel relieved. ‘Oh, well, that’s not so bad. I mean, I’m sorry if you were ill, but I was more concerned that you’d just sloped off, kind of thing. So long as you’re clear about what you’re supposed to do. About staying right to the end.’

‘Oh aye, I ken whit I’m supposed tae dae.’

‘Great. Right, well, that’s that then. I’d better be off, let you get into position. But you’re happy, are you? I mean, it’s working out all right for you?’

‘Whit aboot ma pay?’

‘Your pay? Oh, right, Sunday. Yeah, let’s see. Well, it wasn’t a full week, was it? Tuesday to Saturday – five nights. That’s twenty-five quid. So I owe you a fiver then.’

‘A fiver?’

‘Yeah, once I’ve taken off the deposit for the gear.’

‘Whit ye talkin aboot?’

‘Did I not explain? The cloak and stick and wig. You get your twenty pounds back when you finish, when you hand the stuff back. And the rat of course. I thought I said that.’

Carlin held the bag and the staff out to him. ‘There ye are then. Now gie’s ma money.’

‘No, I mean, when you finish the job. For good. It’s just because it’s expensive to replace.’

‘Oh,’ said Carlin. ‘Well, supposin I don’t finish. For guid. Supposin ye like me so much ye keep me on. Ye’re never gaun tae pay me whit’s mine then, are ye?’

‘Everybody’s got to finish some time.’

‘Aye. Well, I’m finishin right now unless ye pay me whit I’m due.’

Hugh was in a dilemma for about two seconds. He couldn’t afford to lose his ghost, not at this moment. It was worth the risk. Hell, it wasn’t even much of a risk.

He took out his wallet and handed over twenty-five pounds. ‘You win,’ he said. ‘Just don’t run off with the stuff, okay?’

Carlin looked at him and then, dismissively, down at the bag. Then he turned to go. Hugh Hardie felt like saying something impulsive. At the same time he felt that it was being dragged out of him, as if Carlin was making him say it.

‘By the way,’ he called, ‘I do want to keep you on. You’re good. You’re so damned – spectral!’

Carlin half-turned and leered over his shoulder. Hugh laughed. ‘So long as we understand each other!’ As soon as he said it he realised that the leer had not been a joke, and that he did not understand Carlin at all.

Arsehole.
Carlin strode up the High Street, resisting the temptation to stuff the Weir gear into a litter bin. But he was more angry with himself than with Hardie. He needed the
money but not that badly. He should chuck it. He would chuck it, right now, if it wasn’t for Mitchel.

Mitchel. As soon as that thought occurred he was astonished at it. He had no obligation to Mitchel. Some deluded holy joe from three centuries ago. But it was true: it was Mitchel, not Weir, that had gripped him.

At the junction with George IV Bridge he paused. He was supposed to be taking up his position for the tour, but there was plenty of time. He looked south, past the library, towards the university and Greyfriars. Nothing that he could see had been there in Mitchel’s day. Except Greyfriars. The old tombs. The place where the National Covenant had first been signed in 1638. Mitchel must have gone there, years later. He’d hardly have been born in 1638, one or two at most, a country bairn without a trace of himself in his head. And then, when he arrived in Edinburgh in his teens, to be a student, he’d have gone there, to Greyfriars, to see where the story he was caught up in had started.

Carlin thought of his own first time in Edinburgh. His father brought him when he was eight. It was a birthday treat – to show him the Castle and the Royal Mile, and take him to the Museum in Chambers Street. Early that morning they’d caught a bus from their village to Stirling and a train from there. The journey had seemed endless. When they came out of the station up the Waverley Steps, Carlin’s mouth fell open and stayed that way until his father reached down and gently pushed up his jaw. The department stores on Princes Street sailed before his eyes like a line of Spanish galleons. Across the railway tracks the Old Town, all spires and crags and overlapping snakes and ladders of windows, tumbled up towards the Castle on its dark plinth. And right in front of where they stood was a monstrous black stone spaceship, ready for launching, with the tiny faces of people keeking out from its top.

‘That’s tae Sir Walter Scott,’ said his father. ‘He was a famous writer, like Rabbie Burns, only he wrote stories mair than poems. He was a toff but a Scotch yin at least. He could speak Scotch wi the best o them.’

They walked along Princes Street past the monument, then up the Mound to the Old Town. They had to go slowly
because of his father’s legs. He’d been blown up in the war in North Africa and there were still bits of shrapnel in him, burrowing slowly through his body. When he walked any distance his legs would start to jag with the tiny skelfs that were in them. ‘They’re tae remind me I’m still alive,’ he used to joke. He had been a soldier, now he was a socialist and an atheist. Eventually the shrapnel would wear him away inside and kill him.

They toiled to the Castle esplanade and looked down on the city. The boy thought he would never see anything so immense again in his life. His father pointed out places: the Forth, the port of Leith, the Lomond Hills across in Fife. He pointed to the north and west. ‘That’s where we cam fae this mornin, Andra. Oot o sicht awa yonder.’

‘We’re fae nowhere then,’ said the boy. Like this, he meant, nowhere at all like this.

‘Naebody comes fae nowhere,’ said his father, ‘but there’s nane o us that’ll no gang back tae naethin.’ Carlin always minded him saying that, because of the strange progression of negatives. It seemed to draw a line between him and the ground he stood on: only if he was from nowhere could he really be here. Later, on the train home, his father’s sentence would rattle in his head as the fences and trees fled past. A boy could take those words to pieces and put them together again endlessly, like toy bricks, or a metal puzzle.

After the Castle there followed a jumbled succession of ascents and descents – stone steps, narrow passageways, steep cobbled streets – that brought them at last to Greyfriars. They’d stopped and looked at the wee Skye terrier and then at some of the grim old gravestones. The boy was impressed by one of the memorial tablets, on the wall of the kirk itself, which showed a skeleton dancing jubilantly on top of a skull, a scythe in one hand and an open Bible in the other. The weathering of centuries had made the image indistinct, but somehow it was more powerful for appearing so old and battered. Then his father made them sit on a bench for a while, to rest his leg. After the roar and hurry of the streets, the kirkyard seemed quieter, more isolated even than their village. They were alone apart from a solitary man in a filthy anorak some distance away. They watched him making his
way unsteadily across the grass, using the stones as handrests until eventually he came to a space that was too big to be crossed unaided. The man stood, as if being battered by a strong wind although the day was calm, gripping the last stone with stained, scuffed fingers.

‘Let’s go,’ his father said. And when they reached the gates, and the boy glanced back at the man still clinging there, his father added, ‘You haud on tae me, Andra. We’re no wantin ye lost.’ Buses and cars thundered past. They seemed to be in a domain of ragged, unshaven men, and the boy wondered if his father was worried that they might steal him. His hand was hot and small in the rough security of his father’s as they crossed the road.

‘Where are we gaun noo?’ he asked.

‘Ye’ll see,’ his father said.

It was the Museum, a black, towering building so vast that they had to climb steps that were half the length of the street, and then push through a revolving door of such weight that it took the strength of both of them to move it, just to enter. But inside the blackness gave way to galleries of glass and light, and bubbling tiled pools in which fat orange fish glided. The boy’s mouth came open again. They wandered among fraying stuffed elephants, and motionless snakes that could swallow you whole, and Komodo dragons that were like small dinosaurs and might hunt you down in packs, and more bones – real ones this time – the skeletons of whales suspended in the air. It seemed that every corner revealed some new and astounding object which would take its place in his already crowded imagination.

Eventually they went to the café and had tea and a cake. His father looked at his watch. ‘Come on,’ he said.

Out on the long steps of the Museum there was a commotion of some sort. A group of people were surrounding somebody who seemed to have fallen. They were all leaning, stretching down, and a clamour of questions rose from them. ‘Whit’s yer name, darling? Were ye in there? Were ye wi yer mammy?’ As Carlin and his father approached, they saw a tiny figure in a dark blue coat, sitting hunched on the steps, her fists against her eyes, her shoulders shaking but no sound coming from her. The questions kept coming: ‘Whit’s yer
name? When did ye last see her? Are ye cauld? D’ye ken where ye stay?’ Carlin’s father said, ‘Puir wee thing. We dinna want that happenin tae you son, eh?’ Carlin watched her over his shoulder as they walked away, back towards the station. ‘How will she get hame?’ he demanded. ‘Och, they’ll find oot who she is,’ his father said. ‘Dinna you fash.’ But he couldn’t help himself. If you were lost in a place this size, how would you ever be found again?

Edinburgh was a dreamscape for him from then on. When he did well at school and it was suggested he could go to university, Edinburgh was the one place he could think of. Coming back as a student it was only his second visit. His father was dead by then, four years cold, and his mother was ailing. The shape of the city renewed itself to him instantly, clear and precise. But now he took in its hills and hollows and saw it not as a city but as land with the city draped and poured over it. The buildings and streets were at once solid and ephemeral. He got up early the day after his arrival and climbed from the halls of residence to the top of Arthur’s Seat, from where he could look down on the Castle where he had stood with his father ten years before. A few sheep eyed him warily. Where he was from was still invisible beyond the Ochils, but the field of his vision had grown to the south and east: the Pentlands with the white scar of the dry ski slope on their flank, the Lammermuirs, the Berwick Law, the Bass Rock. Between him and the land now there was nothing, nothing but walking. Edinburgh was there but it was no barrier. He skited and stauchered back down the steep side of the hill and every step connected him with the land. When he reached the road he could still feel the beat of it pumping up through the soles of his feet.

It was there yet. The electricity of time. Even now, when he put on the ridiculous outfit. He made his way to the close for that evening’s performance. The tap-tapping of Major Weir’s stick on the pavement reverberated up into his head.