And the Land Lay Still (9 page)

‘This guy, he’s aw right, ye ken, he’s got a no bad voice and he kens some good songs, but they’re no really inside him, he disna sing them frae his guts.’

The man’s eyes, which had seemed narrow with menace, widened now as if he had merely been half-asleep. Altogether friendlier.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Mike said.

‘He’s had to learn them aw and it shows in the way he sings them.’

As if he was saying,
D
on’t you worry about that tosser.

‘But surely everybody has to do that?’ Mike said. ‘Learn them?’

‘Aye, that’s right,’ the man said. ‘But wi some folk a song gets right deep doon inside and then when it comes back oot ye can tell that’s where it’s been. And wi other folk it just gets skin-deep and nae mair.’

There was a quiet intensity about the way he spoke, the look in his eyes, which suggested he knew what he was talking about. It didn’t sound like snobbery. It sounded like expert analysis.

‘I’ve learned scores o songs,’ the man said, ‘hundreds o them, but I’ve done it frae listening tae other folk singing them, and this boy’s learned his frae a book or aff a record.’

The barman put the pint in front of him. ‘There ye go, Walter. Staying in town the night?’

The man handed over a couple of coins. ‘Aye, at my sister’s. I’ve been putting a new sink in her bathroom. Trouble is, I’m on the settee and it’s no wide enough for me. I’ll need to anaesthetise masel or I’ll never sleep. So maybe I’ll drap in on Jean Barbour efter this, see what’s what. Crash oot there insteid.’

‘How’s Jean?’ the barman said. ‘Hivna seen her for ages.’

‘Same as ever,’ the man called Walter said. ‘The world may come to an end, and Jean’ll be sitting among the wreckage, telling us how it happened.’

‘You’re right there,’ the barman said.

‘Did you say “Jean Barbour”?’ Mike said.

Walter looked at him. ‘Aye.’

‘Does she stay down the Royal Mile somewhere?’

‘She does, aye.’

‘I’m supposed to look her up. She’s an old friend of my dad’s.’

Walter said, ‘She’s an old friend of a lot of folk, Jean. What’s your name?’

‘Michael Pendreich. Mike. My dad knew her years ago.’

‘D’ye ken her yersel?’

‘I don’t even know where she stays. It’s just when I heard her name …’

‘I’ll take ye doon there,’ he said, ‘when this place shuts.’

It was coming on for ten o’clock, closing time. Walter said they should buy a carry-out and take it to Jean’s as a way of extending the evening.

‘Will it not be a bit late?’ Mike asked.

‘Ach away, man. That woman never sleeps. Dinna fash.’

Walter was from Ayrshire originally, but had come east and now stayed in Dalkeith, a few miles to the south of Edinburgh. Mining country, he said, although there were hardly any pits left now, just the big ones, Monktonhall and Bilston Glen, and the Lady Victoria at Newtongrange. He was talking about places just a short bus ride outside the city but the names meant nothing to Mike. Walter was a plumber by day and a singer by night. He’d always had a good voice, he said, could belt out any number of songs, when he was an apprentice in the 1950s he’d sung in a skiffle band but it hadn’t come to anything, it had only been a ploy to attract women. ‘In thae days, if ye were a working-class boy and ye wanted a better kind o life than the one that was mapped oot for ye, there was just two ways o daein it: ye could become a professional footballer, if ye were skilled enough, or ye could become a professional boxer, if ye were hard enough. And then this third opportunity came along: ye could form a band and sing your way tae glory if ye were bonnie enough. Weel, I wasna skilled or hard or bonnie enough for ony o thae things, sae I became a plumber. But then something amazing happened. I was on a job doon at Lauder, on the road tae England, and I was there for aboot a week wi a couple o other boys, up and doon the road every day, and on the last day, when we’d finished the job, we went for a few pints in a pub afore we came back up the road. And there was this auld man there, and he just started singing. There was a wee lull in the general noise, ye ken, and he started singing intae that space. The haill pub went silent as he sang, he didna hae the best voice, it was auld and quavery and a bit flat but by Christ he had us aw spellbound, we aw listened, even the guys that were wi me, on and on he went, verse efter verse efter verse, a story aboot a sister and her lover, and her brothers killing him because he wasna good enough for her, and her defiance when the faither tried tae mairry her aff tae another man. Weel, I’d never heard anything like it in my life, and when he was done I went over and bought the auld fellow a drink and asked him aboot it. It was a ballad, he said, “The Dowie Dens o Yarrow”, and he sang some verses frae a couple mair, just tae gie me a taste o them, he said they were hundreds o years auld but the odd thing was, they were brand new tae me and yet I
kent them. How d’ye reckon that, eh? I
kent
them. See, where I grew up ye had tae fight tae survive, and it was aw different faimlies, different clans if ye like, and there were these codes ye had tae ken, and if ye stepped ower the mark you were for it. Weel, I was often ower the mark, and I was often for it. I was a right scrapper, and tae tell ye the truth I enjoyed it. There were things I would fight for and things I wouldna. I would fight ower a woman, I would fight if somebody kicked my dug, I’d fight if my faimly was insulted or if I thought somebody was lying tae me, or if there was a debt that hadna been paid or a score that had tae be settled. But I wouldna fight onybody because of fitbaw or religion or politics, because I didna think they were worth it, and I wouldna fight a man just because he was drunk and wanted tae fight, I would walk away frae that. I was sure o mysel, ken, I didna
hae
tae fight, but I liked tae. And here was this auld man in the pub singing these ancient ballads, and the stuff that was in them, weel, he could hae been singing aboot the places I grew up in. That stuff happened aw the time, just wi nae weapons – or different weapons. So he tellt me aboot fairs and festivals where I could hear mair o these songs, no just in the Borders but all over Scotland and in England tae, and I started tae spend my spare time at these gatherings and learning the auld ballads. And the thing is, the mair I learned, the mair it seemed I already kent them. They were in me, but I just hadna kent they were. And something else, the mair I sang them, the less I wanted tae fight. It was the days of the big CND marches against Polaris, and the singing and the protesting kind o went thegither, there was a big overlap, and I found myself on marches tae the Holy Loch and suchlike, so half the time I was singing all these bloodthirsty songs aboot battles and murder and the other half I was singing anti-war songs but either way it stopped me fighting. I canna mind the last time I was in a fight, but it’s years ago. I dinna hae time tae fight noo. There’s no enough time tae learn aw the songs.’

They bought half a dozen bottles of beer and clinked down the street. Greatcoat was still at it when they left, arguing about everything. The biker looked over his shoulder at Mike as they went.

So what was Jean Barbour like, Mike wanted to know. ‘Ach, she’s a fine woman, ye’ll get on great wi her,’ Walter said. She wasn’t from Edinburgh originally, she was from Argyll, somewhere over
that way. Well, her ancestors were. Or were they? Now that he thought about it, was there not something about Glasgow too, and the Highlands? The way she went on, you were always picking up information about her and you always swore that this time you weren’t going to forget it, but you did somehow. Some folk said she had a bit of tinker in her, quite a bit in fact, and that would explain her ability to tell a tale, but not how she’d come to own this house in the middle of Edinburgh. And not how she spoke either, her voice and her accent seemed to shift all the time depending on what she was saying. Oh, you would hear some bonnie tales if you listened long enough to Jean Barbour, so you would.

‘Pay attention now,’ Walter said, and lumbered off through a narrow entry. Mike had to negotiate something at his feet that had earlier been somebody’s dinner, then followed through the half-dark, trying to run a mental thread from the street to a door where he found Walter working the bell pull as if he were raking out a fire. After a minute the door opened and a pale female face looked out at them.

‘Oh, it’s yersel, Walter, in ye come.’

‘Thanks, Maggie,’ Walter said, and Maggie stood aside and shut the door behind them and they were in, down a passage and into a smoky, shadowy room around which a number of bodies were seated and sprawled. There was a general murmur of conversation. A boy was strumming a guitar while a couple of girls sang along to the chords, quietly and not very confidently. Mike and Walter stood in a space in the middle of the room and Walter put the carry-out down on a big table.

‘Is that you, Walter Fleming?’ said a wee woman in an armchair by the fire.

‘Aye, it is.’

‘About bloody time. It’s weeks since you were here. I’m glad to see you’ve not come empty-handed. But you’ve brought more than drink with you.’

‘This is Mike. I found him in Sandy Bell’s. Mike, this is Jean.’

‘Hello, Mike. Make yourself at home. Clear some space, boys and girls. Dinna make him stand there like a stookie.’

People shifted themselves. Conversations restarted. Walter opened two bottles of beer and passed one to Mike. The imperious wee woman summoned him.

‘Come and talk to me. How do you have the misfortune to have fallen in with Walter?’

He stepped over people to reach her.

‘Sit, sit,’ she said, and he squeezed himself down at the side of her chair.

‘We just started talking in the pub,’ he said.

‘Was he not singing?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, he does. That’s a treat in store for you. He’s one of the best. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d swear he learned the muckle sangs at his mother’s knee in a tent or a caravan. And what about yourself? You look like a boringly sensible young man. Tell me something that’ll surprise me.’

‘Well,’ Mike said, ‘I think you used to know my dad. A long time ago.’

‘Oh? Who’s your dad then?’

‘Angus Pendreich.’

There was a lamp on a small table on the other side of her chair, the shade turned to the wall. Jean tilted it the other way so the light shone full on his face.

‘Now that
is
a surprise,’ she said. ‘And then again, it isn’t. When you came in the room I thought, I’ve seen that face before. Angus’s son. Good God.’

She studied him a little more. ‘I see his name every so often. He’s still doing well, it seems. Very successful. Famous, even.’

‘I never really think of him like that,’ Mike said.

‘And how is he, leaving aside the fame and fortune? How is he in himself?’

‘He’s fine. I shouldn’t think he’s changed much.’

‘I haven’t seen him for many a year. Where is he these days?’

‘He’s always on the move. London, Glasgow. He has a place in the Highlands too.’

‘Lucky him. And your mother, how’s she?’

‘You know her as well?’

‘Not really. I only met her once.’

‘They’re divorced. They split up years ago.’

‘Yes, I knew that. They weren’t right for each other. Did she find anybody else?’

‘No.’

‘I bet
he
has.’

‘He’s good at finding them,’ Mike said, ‘but he doesn’t keep them.’

‘That’s Angus, right enough,’ she said. ‘And what about yourself? Do you have somebody?’

He put a hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the light. ‘No.’

She turned the lamp away. ‘You will,’ she said. ‘With those looks you’ll be fighting them off. Anyway, that’s not for now. We’ll have a proper talk some other time. Whenever you speak to your father next, say hello for me, won’t you?’

‘I will,’ Mike said. ‘He was asking for you, by the way.’

‘I should bloody think so.’ She raised her voice. ‘Walter!’

Walter had found himself a seat by the table and was chatting to the girl who’d let them in.

‘What?’

‘You don’t get to sit down in here without a song. Leave Maggie alone and give us a song.’

‘Tell us a story,’ Walter retorted.

‘I call the shots around here,’ Jean said. ‘Wheesht, everybody. Walter’s going to sing.’

Walter cleared his throat and sang. He had a slow, gentle voice and he sang two or three slow, gentle songs. One had a chorus that everybody but Mike seemed to know. The room swelled and ebbed with the sound of it. People clapped. Somebody else sang something. Then somebody else, as if an invisible plate of songs were being passed around. Mike leaned against the side of the armchair, part of what was going on and yet not part of it. He said nothing. It was his first time in such company, and he saw that he had much to learn.

§

‘There are good listeners and there are those that are not so good at listening,’ Jean said. ‘If you know what you’re doing, if the story you’re telling is good enough, you can hook them all, some more securely than others but you can hook each and every one of them. But sometimes you get the awkward buggers, the fykie folk that can’t sit still at all, they fidget away and pick their nebs and shift their bums from side to side, they’re bored or they want to be the centre
of attention – something I deplore, of course –’ she said with a sly look, ‘or maybe they can’t help themselves, they just want to know the end of the story long before you’ve got to it.’ She fixed her eyes on somebody who’d been a bit restless. ‘Once a few years back I was telling a story and there was a young lad sitting just where you’re sitting, he kept looking at his watch and half-rising to go and then sitting back down but he couldn’t settle, I knew he really wanted to be away but he couldn’t bear to leave, he was that anxious to know what happened. But he was spoiling it for everybody else.’ So Jean broke off from her telling – it was a story about young Jack, who was off on his adventures as usual, seeking good fortune and lifelong happiness – and she asked the lad what ailed him. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘it’s just that I’ve an exam I should be revising for, and I need to get back to my books.’ He was a student, you see, and he’d come away from the library for an hour but Jean’s story was taking more than an hour to tell and he didn’t want to go without hearing the end. So she says to him, ‘Look, I’ll not be finished here for a while, if you don’t have the patience to hear the whole thing you should just leave now while you can.’ But he wasn’t content with that, he was eager to know the end of it, so she says, ‘If you want to know what happens to Jack, go through that door there to the kitchen, my old Aunt Greta’s in there making the tea, ask her what happens at the end of the story, and then you can just slip out and not disturb us any more.’ Well, nobody knew that Jean had an Aunt Greta but, anyway, away through to the kitchen goes the student, and there’s a wee wifie barely four foot tall with a scarf on her head and big jangly earrings, making the tea, and she looks up and says to him, ‘Aye, what is it you want?’ in a sharp voice. He says, ‘I’ve come to ask you what happens at the end of Jean’s story.’ ‘What story’s that?’ the wee wifie says. ‘The one she’s telling just now,’ he says. ‘Well, what’s it about?’ He says, ‘It’s about a fellow called Jack and all his adventures.’ ‘Och, that story,’ she says, ‘it goes on for ever that one.’ ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘and I can’t stay to hear the end of it, I have to go away now to do some studying, but Jean told me to come through and ask you what happens.’ ‘Och, I never heard the end of that story yet,’ says Aunt Greta, ‘so I canna help you. But if you go through that door and along the passage, the first room you come to, my auld mither bides in there, and she’ll maybe ken what happens.’