Tales from the Tent (5 page)

Next day the berries saw us swelling the purse. Mammy was rare pleased and thanked God for filling the drills with juicy fruit and the heavens with the sun. I wanted to hear
more of Mac’s tales, but he had lots of cracking to do with old Portsoy. I stood upon a wee stool and peeped through the window, to see the same glass Mac’s teeth had snuggled into the
night before filled to the brim with ‘the cratur’. ‘Oh well,’ I thought, ‘thon’s a wild bit o’ cracking taking place in that wee trailer this night, best I
forget the tales for now.’

I wandered off and soon found a dozen or so girls of my age hanging about the farmer’s giant hay barn. ‘Let’s monkey swing,’ said one of the lassies. This game was to
swing from the rafters and then drop down onto the hay, great fun it was too. The usual practice was to aim to go from one end of the barn to the other without falling. Whoever slipped first stood
out, and so on until only one was left. Well, I can’t say exactly how or why, but you-know-who fell and landed, not on the soft spongy hay, but on a great rusty pitchfork concealing itself
under a layer of straw. Up it went into an inch of my foot. Two strong lassies dragged me squealing like a porkie all the way from the barn to our spot at the far end of the campsite. Every
traveller in the place was up and over to see why my foot was dragging a pitchfork behind it. ‘Take that lassie tae the doctor,’ was one concerned voice. ‘God, wid ye look at thon
fit, it’ll need tae be cut aff!’ was another. My mammy knew exactly what to do, and soon my foot with the hole was steeped in an almost boiling basinful of water and Dettol. Half an
hour later I was sat, my foot washed and swathed in miles of torn cotton sheet strips, with a cup of tea and a scone. All well wishers and nosy parkers gone, I hopped to bed with a foot as sore as
the wildest toothache, and Mr Nod definitely did not come within a mile of me that night.

Next morning I was still immersed in the Charlotte story and failed to hear Mammy shout out to me to ‘watch the fire, ye daft lassie!’ Too late—I stumbled and fell over half a
tree Nicky had positioned on the early morning blaze. ‘Ouch!’ I watched a great swelling instantly spread itself across my shinbone to add to my other injury. Everybody laughed and I
said something stupid like, ‘so glad to kick-start yer day’s humour.’ Mammy came immediately to my assistance with a damp cloth—then, when she saw my baggy eyes, she
didn’t half turn on the fury. ‘Have you been filling your empty head with stories, how oftimes dae I say, there’s a time an a place.’ Before I could answer, Daddy came to my
aid by saying, ‘the tale she heard was a cracker, Jeannie, and if you mind oor Jess when its cold winter howling, then she’ll tell it on a dark night.’

Mammy tutted, then ordered everyone to eat breakfast and get to work. I looked at Daddy who winked at me, then at Portsoy who in turn winked his eye at Mac. But it wasn’t the story of
Charlotte I’d heard two nights past that had caused my baggy eyes, it was the throbbing pain in my sore foot.

However Mac’s tale of Charlotte did give me food for thought, and I just had to hear another tale. By teatime, me with my shiny shin, holey foot and baggy eyes were once again propped in
old Portsoy’s caravan, listening to another of Mac’s tales.

This story was given to Mac by a young woman he met camping in a moor, and that was all he would tell me. He tells it through the woman’s tongue. I do the same.

5

THE TOMMY STEALERS

I
t was a beautiful place, with warmth and security. The moon shone on the hanging branches of several laburnum trees lining the pure green grass,
and as my father unyoked the horse a flash of silver-white wings rose in brief splendour from an old oak. Mother imitated the too-wooing of the owl, then apologised to it for the disturbance.

My brother Tommy and I helped Father unload the cart while Mother filled a kettle from a clear flowing stream marking its territory round the outskirts of the forest. In no time the horse was
munching on a casket of hay, the bowed tent was nestled snugly against an ancient stone wall, the fire was lit with a brag o’ heart and we were enjoying a hot mug of tea.

‘This is a good place,’ said Dad, ‘I think we’ll make a day or two’s lowie here’.

Mam gulped a mouthful of tea before replying that any place would be better than the last place, then added, ‘God help us all if they ever find us.’

‘They’ll never find us, lass, and if they do then it’s a fight to the death.’

Dad’s words sent a cold shiver up my back and the hair rose on my neck as a shy rabbit scurried through the thick undergrowth over by some trees. My brother Tommy felt my fear and moved
closer, entwining his arm through mine.

Dad smiled and said, ‘now let’s not be shanning ourselves like this, it’s time for bed,’ then added, ‘look at the old moon, it’s heavy on the western side of
the heavens and we all know that means it’s past two in the morning, so off to bed with the lot of us.’

I pulled the rug up under my chin as sleep was finding no place in me and thought back to the last place—and them! ‘Will I ever sleep again?’ I thought.

Sleep did come that night, but not in a restful slumber that a child of ten should enjoy. No, it came within a dark cloud of nightmarish memories, ones that would plague me for the rest of my
life.

It was the day before that we had camped briefly with some travellers of Irish stock, who kept my father busy dealing his horse for theirs. After swapping mares they hitched up to move further
up country. Nice folks they were.

The three strangers who wandered on to the green seemed pleasant enough as they shared some twist with Dad. Mother even gave them tea and a buttered scone. I remember hearing one ask Dad if we
were the only travellers there. Yes, he told them innocently, there had been four or five Irish families but they’d moved on.

This seemed to please them and they settled back at our fire, spending what was left of the day with us.

Come teatime, Mother didn’t have enough food and told them so, apologising.

‘Oh, that’s fine, because we’re not here to eat your meat,’ said one of the strangers, a tall man.

‘No,’ laughed another, ‘we’re here for him.’ The older man had no sooner answered my mother than he stretched out a hairy arm and grabbed our Tommy. Father fumbled
with a burning stick from the fire, then, brandishing it in the air, shouted, ‘leave my son alone!’

The third man, a dirty creature, unshaven and raggedy-clothed, came up behind father and knocked him to the ground. Then a sickening thud from his navvy-booted foot rendered father
unconscious.

I screamed at the man who was running off with Tommy to let him go, while Mother scooped a bucketful of burning ashes from the fire and in vain threw them over the second man. Within seconds the
three fiends were out of sight, running off with our Tommy. Mother and I dropped to our knees beside father’s lifeless body, sobbing uncontrollably. We’d heard the tales of
body-dealers, men who targeted vulnerable people. Unscrupulous men with wicked intentions of selling them to doctors for the practice of dissecting. But until then we had never believed the
scattered tales. There we were, then, victims of such demons. But some folks swear that God protects us! It certainly was true on that day, because who should discover that the horse father had
changed with them was lame? Yes, the Irish lads. And while they were bringing the mare back they came across the body snatchers. When they saw and recognised Tommy it didn’t take them long to
sort out those evil men and bring him home.

Father was none the worse for his ordeal. It wasn’t the first hammering he’d had. After thanking the Irish we packed instantly and set off. Mother told me to hold Tommy’s
little hand. I held it so tight it went pale.

Yes, my sleep was sorely troubled that night. But that was a long time ago.

The Great War of 1914 came with its millions of casualties. Father followed the call and was among them. Mother, being of delicate stature, found life without her man unlivable, so within a year
took her place in the ground at his side. I had to be strong for Tommy. You see my young brother developed a stutter, and became the butt of endless jibes and jokes. One day before his tenth
birthday his teacher asked me not to take him back to the school.

As he grew he became more and more withdrawn. No matter how hard I tried to love and protect him, Tommy found life unbearably hard. One dark winter night while a blizzard covered the country, my
young brother walked out, barefooted and nothing on except pants and a thin simmit. I found him clutching a piece of paper. He was frozen dead. Scribbled on the paper was
: ‘I love you
sister, but every night when I fall asleep those three strangers come back, I have to find peace. Forgive me, Tommy.’

My brother died before reaching the age of seventeen.

‘Oh Mac, you might have picked a story to cheer me up, that is so, so sad,’ I told him.

‘Funny is it ye want—well, here’s a wee laugh for you.’

Mac closed his bulky journal and lit up a fag. Full-strength Capstan he smoked. Why did folks feel the need to kill themselves and call it enjoyment? This always made me think that we adults are
stupid. But back to things in hand (and not Mac’s fag by the way). No, this next wee tale was perhaps his way of cheering me up. All the more because the folks involved are relatives of
mine.

6

SANDY
’
S KILT

S
andy the piper was more than pleased with his day’s takings. Well, that’s understandable, because was oor lad no’ just the
country’s best piper. He’d spent the better part of that July day on his favourite spot at the Pass o’ Killiecrankie, piping tune after tune for Scotland’s culture-keen
tourists. Weary but happy, he’d wandered home, which was a snug wee wood-end on the outskirts of Pitlochry, to share his hard earned shillings with the dearest love of his life—bonnie
Jeannie. When our hardy piper arrived, a grand plate of thick vegetable broth was waiting, followed by a heel-end of the best bread spread over with streaky bacon, to be swallowed down with
Jeannie’s milky tea.