Tales from the Tent (11 page)

So, friends, as I said previously, you may find that hard to believe, but as I also said, if you have never experienced the supernatural then perhaps it is best for you not to
judge.

Without sleep and like brain-dead zombies we shuffled our bodies through the motions. By mid-morning Daddy answered Mammy by saying he definitely wasn’t moving until the weekend, because
of the farmer’s sheds he still had to paint. Mammy practically ate him alive at this news, but she soon realised the spraying of the sheds would help provide for our winter’s table. So,
demons or not, we had to face more nights in that frightening campsite beyond the shadowy mausoleum.

Auntie Annie and big Wullie, well, they had no reason to bide another night, and by twelve they had packed up and gone. Old Portsoy said there was a bit of business needed seeing to at Aberdeen,
and he’d be back on the Thursday. So, with those three gone, our fewer numbers looked forward with heightened fear to what might come that night when the blind bats took flight. We wondered
if the Banashen wind would ever subside, because it was still blowing eerily through our lower limbs.

Nicky, Daddy and the rest of us gathered as many fallen tree branches as we could carry from the wood for a roaring fire. If anything came upon us that night then we’d sure as hell see
it.

Darkness seemed to be waiting impatiently, and thank the gods the folks who visited the previous night came a-calling after tea. They were doubled in numbers and brought biscuits, cakes, ale
again and numerous musical instruments.

The bothy ballads sung so traditionally would, had the night before not happened, been without doubt a joy, but none of us were ready to be serenaded. No, we were too afraid.

It was touching midnight before they upped sticks and headed off down the road. Mary mentioned, in a rather sheepish voice, our previous night’s strange apparitions. She was perhaps hoping
our glen folks might be able to throw some light on the matter, but once again no one said a dickey-bird. None of us took our eyes from the visitors until the last head bobbed round the bend and
left us alone. Alone, and at the mercy of the Banashen wind.

Two hours in the dark passed, then three, and, so far so good, the metal clankers and voices left us in peace. Was it to be only one night of haunting? No, was it hell! Four a.m. ticked loudly
from Daddy’s alarm clock and the whole sequence of events began again. This time, however, it had more of a heart. The wind lifted and not only circled our belongings around, but
intermittently threw things forcefully against our trailer walls. The metal striking metal was louder this time, as if nearing us. Nicky dived into our trailer and shouted he’d had it with
this place, and that come the morning he’d be gone. Mammy, perhaps not wanting to lose her laddie (as she called him) ordered Daddy to get up and pack. The ghosts had won, we were leaving.
The Banashen wind calmed when Daddy and Nicky gathered our bits and pieces from outside. Not one of us lassies, or Tiny either, ventured so much as a toe into the dark, and as we huddled together
on the trailer floor, Daddy hitched big Fordy onto the trailer, and hurried off that haunted green. Nicky pulled his and old Portsoy’s trailer behind us.

Whatever happened to us in that secluded spot remains a mystery. I later discovered that a great battle was fought in and around the area of the mausoleum. Did our disturbance of those sacred
remains have anything to do with what happened? Perhaps it did.

When sunshine all but falls asleep,

When life is cold and drab and lost,

I, the spiteful wind, will reap.

Pruning wings of invisible light,

Then choose at will, stout hunting grounds,

Dante’s inferno, or Paris by night.

So gentle trumpet tilt her deck,

If care she not for friendly warning,

Her destiny a nervous wreck.

My coat-tail willingly embrace.

Now due, your family tree’s demise,

Forswear and join the privileged race.

Tread you not; white lightning’s toes

Huff nor puff will split asunder,

You’re doomed to clap, where’er she goes.

My deadly adversary seek,

No puny flesh may play this game,

Fire and wind cannot be beat.

To all the deadly enemy without,

Arm in arm with what’s ’is name?

Strange bedfellows make without a doubt...

10

PORTSOY PETER

T
hree miles down the road we pulled onto a lay-by to wait on two things: Daddy and Nicky finishing the painting job and Portsoy coming back on
Thursday.

You may find it difficult to understand how we later coped with our experience. I cannot say, except that time pushes memories into a smaller piece of a traveller’s mind. Our precarious
existence in temporary abodes may also have made us accept it, or maybe it was our outlook on life itself. In other words ‘tomorrow has its own worries, be they natural or unnatural, face
each day like there’s no other and that’s final.’

Daddy must have been doing a fine job at the painting, because no sooner had he finished one farmer’s barns than he started another.

Menmuir, a few miles down the road, saw our next stop. First, though, I would like to share one last snippet from Kirrie with you.

I hope you remember when I said that the bold boy, Portsoy Peter, would be a subject of conversation? Well, if the tea’s in the cup and the bum’s in the chair, then just you listen
to this.

Thursday morning, and as promised, Portsoy arrived safe and sound. I use those words carefully, because he had a strange way of living on the edge of a knife. I was getting ready to go into
Kirrie for some messages, Mammy had a few cottar housewives to fortune-tell and the lassies were going with Nicky and Daddy to help do easy chores at the painting. Portsoy said he’d come with
me, and dearie me, I can feel the shiver run up and down my spine at the mere mention of that day.

In Kirriemuir town there was in those days a very reputable establishment where one could purchase whatever one wished (my companion’s words). I will not name the fine store, instead
let’s call it Kirrie’s Harrods.

When we came into the main street something so beautiful caught my eye that it held me in awe. There, in the window of Kirrie’s Harrods, draped over a slender, white-faced, rouged-cheeked
dummy doll was the most beautiful garment I had ever seen—a pink cashmere duffle coat with jet-black toggles. My heart louped somersaults in my young breast: never had I seen such a beauty,
what a garment! I stood there transfixed, completely forgetting the groceries I had to buy for the family’s supper.

‘You see something you like, Jessie?’ whispered Portsoy.

‘Oh aye, man, take a deek at that, I have never seen such a coat. Would you look at it, man, could you see me in that pink?’

‘Aye, lassie, that I could, dae ye want it?’

‘Dae I want it, ha, that’s a laugh, dae ye see how much they’re asking for it?’

A price tag for some enormous amount hung from the cuff—don’t ask me how much; I can’t remember what it was, but so outrageous was it I knew in a million years I’d never
afford it. But so lovely was that coat, that for a poor wee travelling girl just to look upon it was more than enough. Old Portsoy pushed an arm through mine and said, ‘if you want something
bad enough you should have it, now watch and learn, my girl.’

With those words still ringing in my head, my escort walked me into the department store, and proceeded to charm the staff with a born wit of the highest degree.

‘Now, Jess’, he whispered, ‘don’t speak unless I touch the pinkie of your left hand, and talk like a toff!’

‘I cannae talk like a toff, all that marbles in the mouth stuff,’ I told him adamantly.

But he convinced me I could and that was that.

Portsoy then approached a slender middle-aged lady smelling of roses and bade her good-day. She smiled, and with one hand sitting gently in the other asked if we needed assistance. My companion
went for the jugular. ‘We, that is my niece Gwendolyn and I, are visiting my cousin the Laird for a day or two, and we were passing this magnificent shop. Gwenny has taken a liking to the
cashmere piece in the window. Do you have it in blue? Blue’s her colour, you see. Well, do you?’

I froze as Portsoy made out he was thoroughbred, and an English one at that! Worse, he implied I was his niece!

The rose-smelling lady, who by now was smiling from earlobe to pearl-studded earlobe, approached me with a swirl of measuring tape and called to a girl no older than myself to bring a size-12 in
blue. This she did. It was gorgeous. Portsoy Pete knew, however, it was the pink one I wanted, and said, ‘oh, dimples, my darling, I know blue’s your colour, but that shade does nothing
for Gwenny’s lovely eyes. No dear, best try on the pink, mmn?’

By now sweat buds I never knew I possessed were erupting over my body like mini-volcanoes. Portsoy touched the small finger of my left-hand, meaning it was time I spoke. The mother of all nerve
battles took place in my dry throat and I squeezed out the minutest ‘yesssss’. The battle was then lost, closing my lips forever as trickling beads of sweat ran from below my hairline,
down my back and disappeared under my breasts. Not even the Banashen herself had the power to bring such fear. I wanted to run out the door, not stopping till the trailers on the lay-by came in
view, but something halted me in my tracks—a pink, cashmere, jet-black-toggled duffle coat was being draped across my shoulders by the girl. I slipped one arm in, then the other, and as if in
a dream gently fastened each shiny toggle. Portsoy came behind me and lifted the hood over my head. Then swiftly turned me to gaze at my reflection in the full-length gilt-edged mirror.

I was absolutely beautiful. For the very first time in my entire life I wore a coat no ordinary traveller girl had ever worn. I felt like the Queen of the travelling people.

‘Portsoy,’ I whispered, ‘I know full well you and the whole of Kirriemuir don’t have the lowie tae pay for this coat.’

‘Shsst. I never touched yer pinkie, wait and watch.’

So, whilst the young lassie folded my new purchase into a gold-coloured box, Portsoy conned, to the highest standard of his profession, the rose-smelling manageress.

‘Now, where, oh where, did I leave that blasted wallet of mine?’ he turned to me.

Obviously his pinkie-touching technique was still applicable and I stayed silent.

He pretended to search through his pockets for a wallet that never existed, saying, to humour the lady, ‘I have a shoot this afternoon, my man must have popped the pocket contents into my
tweeds. So, sorry Gwenny, but we’ll have to leave this coat of yours here, can’t be helped, lovey.’ Then he turned to the lady, apologised and summoned me to leave.

‘What in heavens name is he up to?’ I thought. The idea that he’d taken cold feet, and wasn’t conning the dear lady as he’d first thought to do, was a relief to me,
but I was sad I’d lost the coat. I had misjudged him, however, because Portsoy knew exactly what he was doing. His plan was still ongoing.

‘That will not be necessary, sir,’ the manageress said, as she pushed the boxed garment into my hands, smiling broadly. ‘Feel free to settle the purchase any time you’re
in town.’

‘If you think that will be alright,’ he said, adding, ‘I tell you what, just in case I’m called prematurely back to Harley Street, better pop it onto the Laird’s
account.’

‘Certainly sir!’