The Burry Man's Day (6 page)

‘Harmless fun,’ Daisy said.

‘Oh, but it isn’t,’ said Mrs Turnbull. ‘Far from it. You wouldn’t believe the stories they tell the teachers. Ghosts of soldiers, grey ladies, ghosts of miners, ghost ships in the Forth, headless horsemen . . .’

‘You’re right there, Mrs Turnbull,’ piped up a dainty-looking old lady at the next table, for of course the whole tearoom was in on it now. ‘Didn’t wee Mary Mott stay home from the Sunday school trip to Cramond for fear of the ghosts in the swamp.’

‘Swamp?’ said Mrs Turnbull, aghast to find out that the neighbourhood boasted such a thing.

‘Well, they call it a swamp,’ said the old lady, pink spots appearing in her cheeks. ‘The pond in the trees just past the Hawes pier.’

‘The pond where the babies were drowned?’ asked the waitress, pausing with a laden tray in the doorway on her way to the kitchen. ‘That
is
a swamp, or quicksand anyway, because Jessie Marshall’s old dog fell in and sank like a stone and he was a fine strong swimmer.’

‘Babies?’ mouthed Mrs Turnbull weakly and I too felt a little nonplussed at the way this had been dropped into the general chit-chat.

‘The gate-lodge keeper on the estate,’ said a willowy lady, wiping away cake crumbs and leaning forward to regale us, ‘or it might have been the ferryman, I forget, this was away way back, Jacobite times I think, but his wife used to drown her babies in the swamp. Nine or ten of them all told. And they rested peaceful as peaceful there until the bridge was built, but now when the night train goes over you can hear them crying and screaming and the woman’s voice going “ssh-ssh, ssh-ssh”.’

‘Ten little babies, just fancy,’ said the dainty old lady. ‘I’ve never heard about that before.’ She shook her head slowly, seeming to fix her gaze upon me as though my disparagement of infant bonniness put me in the same league as the ferryman’s wife.

We hurriedly settled our bill and reeled out into the street and the sunshine in relief, laughing almost.

‘One begins to see what they mean,’ I said.

‘Oh Dandy, really,’ said Daisy. ‘Such nonsense. The squeal of the tracks and the swish of the pistons, darling.’

‘Of course, of course,’ I said. ‘But the constant drip of morbidity does begin to press down.’

‘Well, here’s cheerfulness, then,’ said Buttercup, waving towards Cadwallader who was approaching us from across the street. ‘And listen!’ We listened. From the distance somewhere along the street came a faint ‘Hip, hip, hooray’.

‘Great!’ said Cadwallader, hearing it too. ‘It would be a shame not to see him again, since it’s only once a year, and I’m well buffered with Scotch now. Let’s go find him then head for home.’

We followed the sound of the cheers along the terraced High Street and finally caught a glimpse of the crowd of children in the distance almost where the buildings ran out and the sweep of shore began. The three principals – the Burry Man and his gentlemen-in-waiting – were just disappearing into a building and the little band of followers plumped down upon the kerbstones or hopped up on to windowsills to await their re-emergence. When we caught up, I just had time to read ‘Brown’s Bar’ above the door, before Cad swept it open and ushered us inside.

He seemed to think nothing of it and Buttercup, quite at home in the speakeasies of New York, could not be expected to demur, but Daisy and I caught each other’s eyes and mimed a little mild guilt, shocked at the sawdust under our feet and the air, sharp with whisky and fuggy with beer, as startling as smelling salts after the fresh breeze outside.

There were no customers in the bar as early as this on a working day and the two guides were nowhere to be seen either so the Burry Man, standing at the counter with his pale hands splayed on its surface, and the serving maid standing behind it, her head bowed, with a whisky bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, made a kind of tableau in the shaft of light from the open door. The effect lasted only a second before she looked up at us, slightly goggle-eyed.

‘Father!’ she shouted over her shoulder, in the querulous tone of one who has been shouting repeatedly and getting nowhere. ‘Customers!’

‘Not customers, really,’ said Cadwallader. ‘We only came in to hand over our coins and collect our luck.’ He dug in his pocket and drew out a handful of change. ‘Where are your buckets, Robert?’

The Burry Man said nothing and I saw a quick frown tug at the barmaid’s brow. Perhaps one was not supposed to address him or allude to his everyday identity like this. We all stood awkwardly for a moment, the girl not at all equal to the challenge of the three of us and the hulking green presence converging when she was holding the fort. She seemed to be looking anywhere but at the Burry Man.

‘The whisky’s for luck too,’ she said at last, in a trembling voice. ‘Only I’m waiting for my father.’ She stamped her foot hard on the floor and shouted even louder this time: ‘Father!’

Immediately there came a thumping and shuffling from below us somewhere. ‘Father’ was evidently in the cellar, and not alone. We heard the tread of footsteps ascending a creaking stairway behind the bar and then, like jacks in boxes, up popped the Burry Man’s helpers followed by a red-faced man in a chamois leather apron, with the same russet curls and round chin as the serving maid, only rougher and thirty years older.

‘Welcome, welcome, ladies and gents,’ said the publican. ‘Joey, have you not given the Burry Man his nip yet?’

‘I was waiting for you,’ said Joey, and she poured an enormous measure into the glass, added a drinking straw and set it on the counter while the two helpers picked up their buckets and stood smiling rather shiftily.

I lobbed in my half-crown and the others followed, Cadwallader’s shower of coins making a most impressive carillon. The Burry Man still stood with hands flat on the bar counter and made no move to pick up the glass before him. Although it was hard to tell, he seemed not even to be looking at it; his prickly green face with the shadows for eyes seemed pointed straight at Joey the serving maid.

‘Come on, come on,’ said the publican. ‘A nip for luck. Help him, Joey.’ Joey bit her lip and then nudged the glass towards the Burry Man’s hand, flinching as she brushed his fingers with her own.

‘Go on, girl, dinnae be soft,’ said the publican. ‘Help the man.’ He sounded amiable enough but there was something disquieting about his insistence in the face of the girl’s obvious reluctance, and the fidgety leering of the bucket carriers only made it worse. Joey gave her father a desperate glance then lifted the glass and guided the drinking straw towards the Burry Man’s mouth, finally looking at his face, into the gaps in the mask before his eyes. For a moment they were frozen there, a tableau once again, before her face blanched, she gave a tiny cry and the glass fell. Then she spun around and bolted through the door to the back while the three men watching let their laughter go at last, whooping.

‘She’s always been the same,’ her father said to us, chuckling and shaking his head in the direction Joey had fled. ‘Petrified of him.’

‘You’re a bad devil, Shinie,’ said one of the helpers.

‘Ach, it’s a bit of fun,’ said the other.

We could hear Joey’s voice from far away in the back: ‘Father, please. Please!’

The Burry Man, silent, pushed up and away from the bar, picked up his flower staves and gripped them tightly, the knuckles showing as white as clean bone, then he lumbered round to face the door again. Not wanting to get entangled and, on my part at any rate, rather sickened by the cruelty underlying the little joke, the four of us bumbled out ahead of him.

‘Hip, hip, hooray,’ sang the children outside, jumping to their feet as they saw him swaying in the doorway. He slowly got to his place at the head of the crowd and the children jostled into some kind of order behind him, then the whole caravan began to move again.

We watched for a minute or two and had just turned away to set off towards the parking yard when the door of the pub behind us swung open so violently it banged back off its hinges and Shinie the publican hurried out to speed after the procession, a brimming glass of whisky in his hand.

‘Ye’ve not had yer nip,’ he said, standing square in front of the Burry Man and barring his way. The Burry Man’s hands remained on his staves. Then the publican made as though to put the glass to the mouth space himself, but at that the Burry Man reared backwards away from it. For a long moment Shinie, breathing heavily, stood peering into the shadowy face, then he dashed the contents of the glass into the gutter with a contemptuous flick of his wrist and turned away.

‘How simply too torrid for words,’ said Buttercup once we were under way again.

‘Positively operatic,’ I agreed.

‘He’s an awkward customer, Dudgeon, isn’t he?’ said Cad. ‘I wouldn’t have dreamed it until last night and again just there . . . a very awkward customer indeed.’

‘Hmm,’ said Daisy. ‘Village feuds, village squabbles, you’ll learn to ignore it. And there are far more serious matters at hand.’ She faced Buttercup sternly. ‘You neglected to tell us, darling, that this shindig came in two parts. Races tonight and fancy dress tomorrow, and I for one have only one suitable hat with me.’

‘Gosh, me too,’ I said. ‘Heavens, I’ve only got one
frock,
I was going to wear lounging pyjamas tonight. What are we to do?’

Cadwallader tutted ostentatiously and strode ahead and we trailed after him plotting how to dole out Buttercup’s fox furs and sailor collars between the two of us to cover our shame.

Promptly at five minutes to six, we were once again puttering down the Hawes Brae, in convoy this time – Cad and Buttercup ahead, Daisy and I following in the Cowley – in case some of the party should tire before the others. I slowed to turn into Faichen’s parking yard, but Buttercup turned and kneeled on the seat of the car in front, waving and shouting over the sound of the engine.

‘Last chance,’ I heard her bellow. ‘Straight on.’ ‘What?’ shouted Daisy back at her, but Buttercup merely waggled her thumbs at us and plumped back down into her seat.

Obediently we kept going and at the Sealscraig corner, where we were forced by the crowds to stop for a moment, my high seat in the motor car afforded me a view over the cafe curtains of Brown’s Bar. I looked in, interested to see if Miss Brown had recovered her sangfroid. By now, capped heads two and three deep at the bar spoke to a busy afternoon’s trade, but behind the bar all was confusion. The shelves stood empty and the spirit bottles were crammed here and there around the till and the beer taps. Joey Brown was standing on a high stool in her stockinged feet, swabbing the painted mirror which backed the shelves, a bucket steaming at her elbow. I nudged Daisy.

‘More Ferry Fair cleaning,’ I said. ‘Hardly timely, with all those customers.’

‘Or perhaps since every last drop is going to be drunk, she might as well leave it at their elbows and get on with other things?’

As though to confirm Daisy’s view, the door swung open at that moment and a figure, glassily pale, half fell out into the street beside us. Just then, thankfully, the crowds ahead of us cleared and we moved off again, so were not forced to witness whatever the sudden fresh air would add to his plight.

This time we managed to get as far as the bank before the density of the crowd and the numbers of little children whizzing around like clockwork mice all over the road persuaded us to give up and get out.

‘Two minutes to six, you see,’ said Cadwallader. ‘We’ll just catch a last glimpse of the Burry Man if we hurry.’

‘Whoopee!’ said Daisy sarcastically under her breath, but I was eager. Pruriently, I wanted to see for myself if he was still standing so I caught her elbow and dragged her along to the Rosebery Hall.

‘Hip, hip, hooray!

Hip, hip, hooray!

Hip, hip, hooray,

It’s the Burry Man’s day!’

The chanting, rather ragged now, could be heard clearly ahead of us and there he was.

‘As six strikes he goes back inside – like a cuckoo,’ said Buttercup. ‘And once he’s gone the Fair begins.’

Naturally, the protagonist himself appeared quite unchanged – stiff, green, beflowered and terrifying – but the alteration in his two attendants was extreme. They were clearly very hot, sleeves rolled up despite the scratches they gathered on their forearms as a consequence, and they looked absolutely done to death. I had not taken to either fellow during the mean little trick on Miss Brown but now one felt some sympathy, as one always does for those native guides who followed intrepid Victorian botanists and whatnot, carrying all the gear and getting none of the praise.

The crowd was cheering the painfully slow progress of the three, clapping in time with each step up towards the door, and I was reminded, blasphemously I suppose, of the road to Calvary; there was something moving about witnessing the end of this long day, although it was too ludicrous to be noble exactly. Then, even as I thought this, it changed. All of a sudden, the Burry Man shook off his helpers, not brutally but very firmly, and broke into a stiff trot, mounting the last of the stairs alone and disappearing into the open doorway like a terrier into a rabbit hole. The two men, exhausted and seemingly astonished, looked at each other and shrugged, then they trailed after him wiping their heads with handkerchiefs and flexing their tired arms. The crowd divided itself between laughing applause and wondering whispers.

‘Does he always do that?’ I inquired of my neighbours at large. ‘It must be agony.’

‘He’s nivver done before,’ said a man beside me.

‘Och well,’ said another. ‘He must have been bursting for a – I mean, he can’t have been comfy.’

There was general laughter at this, and then came the sound of a handbell and the voice of the crier demanding the under-tens for the fancy dress and announcing that the greasy pole would commence at half past six sharp. The Fair had begun.

The stalls were set up around the Bellstane, the little square at the bottom of the steep hill along from the Rosebery Hall, and although they boasted only the very ordinary staples such as coconut shies, ices and pop-gun galleries there was something rather more exciting about all of these in the evening, in a street with windows thrown up all around and people hanging over the sills cat-calling to friends below. It was a long way from the vicarage lawns of my youth and, although there was nothing to put one’s finger on, it was faintly bawdy somehow.