The Burry Man's Day (7 page)

I took a desultory look around the sideshows, then stood for a while on the terrace east of the Rosebery Hall to watch Daisy, with enormous satisfaction and a sweet smile for Mrs Turnbull, give first prize to a tot got up as Charlie Chaplin and second prize to a five-year-old Theda Bara style Cleopatra, who was practically naked. The local picture house clearly had a lot to answer for.

Presently, I began to sense another locus of noise and bustle somewhere behind me. People were funnelling into the mouth of a narrow lane giving on to the terrace and, making my way to the corner, I could see a steady trickle of others disappearing along one of the small side-streets which peeled off the steep street leading up the hill; clearly they were converging somewhere in the back lanes. Spying my expectorating chum of the morning as he passed I caught at his coat sleeve.

‘It’s yersel’,’ he cried in polite greeting and I was sure he had had a nip or two, for his old eyes were swimmier than they had been on our first meeting and his toothless grin was rather wet and shiny.

‘What’s going on up there?’ I asked him, pointing to the crowd, growing from a trickle to a flood now.

‘It’s the greasy pole,’ he said. ‘Come on with you, you’ll no want to miss that.’

‘No indeed.’ I had never seen a greasy pole competition before although I had often heard them described and I was sure neither Cad nor Buttercup would have seen enough to have tired of them, but I could not find either golden head amongst the crowd and since Daisy was busy on the town hall steps, trying to decide between three little pharaohs, and I was loath to miss my chance of a ringside seat, I hurried on alone.

The venue for the greasy pole seemed odd at first. Hill Square was a mean little opening between two closes with tenements all around, but it had the one redeeming feature of soft earth underfoot and, as I squinted up at the pole, I could see the point of that. It looked thirty feet high at least, a ship’s mast possibly, borrowed for the occasion, for it was polished quite smooth. Slippery enough at the best of times, I should have thought, even without the liberal coating of grease I could see glinting on its surface. At its summit two bulging lumps dangled and I asked someone standing beside me what they were.

‘A ham and a bag of flour, madam,’ I was told, and had it not been for that ‘madam’ I should have suspected the man of cheek. My face must have shown my puzzlement, for he chuckled.

‘The ham’s the prize,’ he said, ‘and the flour’s . . . you’ll see.’

Little boys were hurling themselves up a few feet and slithering back down again, chided by the grownups: ‘Come away now, the mess of you!’ but presently the first serious contender presented himself to clapping and jeers. He was a wiry youth dressed in very stout twill trousers, and made good progress to about halfway up before, for no obvious reason, he suddenly shot straight back to earth again and landed on his bottom grinning sheepishly to the roars of laughter from all around.

The next hopeful looked even less likely; he had huge hands to be sure but also a very round stomach and short little legs. The crowd began to laugh as soon as they saw him and sure enough he was hardly his own height from the ground when he let go. While yet another tried his luck, I drifted off into a daydream as I always do on these occasions. This daydream was of me, striding forward and launching myself at the pole. I tossed my head and laughed at those who would stop me, before hoisting myself effortlessly to the top and waving my hat in the air. Is it only me, I wonder, or does everyone do it? I know I have plunged (in my mind) into every circus, yacht race, steeplechase and opera I have ever seen, but imagine the shame if one ever admitted as much to a friend and got only cold uncomprehending stares in return. Besides, it was hard to decide what exactly the substance was which turned the pole greasy, but from the calls of ‘yeugh’ in the crowd, it seemed unlikely to be cold cream, and I shook the daydream away with a shudder.

Now there began some kind of wrangle between the officials and a wily-looking man who had fashioned a contrivance like cowboy’s chaps out of sacking and attached these on top of his trousers. The head-shaking and muttering went on and on, and the crowd was beginning to grow restive, when a smart clip-clopping drew my attention to the mouth of the close, and I saw a tiny cart pulled by an equally tiny pony draw up. One is used to various makeshift equipages but this really was the sweetest and oddest-looking little outfit I had come across, a sort of cross between a bath-tub and a perambulator with one seat for a driver in front and two back-to-back, facing out to each side, for a pair of passengers behind. I was so diverted by it that I did not trouble to wonder who was climbing down from the driving seat until a voice shouted from the crowd.

‘I thocht ye were away hame, Rubbert.’

Robert Dudgeon nodded vaguely, helping a woman I took to be his wife step down from the little cart and tying the pony’s rein to a gatepost.

‘There’s no telling him,’ called this Mrs Dudgeon. ‘You can try if you like, Greta, but there’s no telling him.’ She shook her head at her husband and seemed genuinely worried, although her words were light-hearted enough, or perhaps she was just cross with him. The woman standing at my elbow was certainly cross with
her.

‘You wouldn’t believe the mess that bloomin’ pony left all over the green this afternoon, and would Chrissie Dudgeon shift herself away out of it? Would she not! She had to wait for Rubbert and take him straight home, she said, and yet here he is bold as brass at the greasy pole and the filthy beastie’ll be at it again.’

‘Ach, Myra, it’s good for yer rhubarb, you should be grateful.’

‘I’ll give ye rhubarb, ye wee so-and-so. The bairns have trekked it all up the stairs.’

‘It’s a very peculiar little cart, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘And such a minuscule pony. One can hardly believe it could pull them along.’

‘Made fae a shell hutch,’ said a man nearby, in an attempt at an explanation; an attempt which failed for me at least. ‘And they ponies are used wi’ lugging more than that in days gone by.’

‘And it’s on a fine rich diet,’ said Myra, still smarting. ‘You should see my stair runner. Ach, it’s worth it, though, I daresay, to see this.’

I was puzzled and frowned at her.

‘Rubbert has a right knack for the greasy pole,’ she explained. ‘Pit yer paper away, Tommy,’ she said to her husband. She was evidently one of those whose bad temper never quite dissolves but simply shifts to a different target as the mood takes her. ‘Would ye look at this man,’ she said, appealing to me. ‘He comes oot tae see a spectacle and stands readin’ the paper that he can see any nicht o’ the year.’

‘Wheesht yer moanin’,’ said Tommy. ‘A man can dream, can he no’?’ He nudged me and showed me the open page of his newspaper where there was a highly embellished advertising notice from a shipping line. ‘New Zealand,’ he said wistfully. ‘Steerage £18. Places still available.’ He sighed. ‘It leaves on Tuesday. I’ve got three days tae pack.’

I smiled at him while his wife scowled.

‘If ye’re waitin’ for me tae beg you tae stay,’ she said, ‘dinnae haud yer breath.’

‘Och, give it rest the pair of you,’ said a woman nearby, ‘and let’s enjoy this.’

Our friend with the cowboy chaps had been dismissed at last and Robert Dudgeon was walking forward. As he broke the front of the crowd a rustle of appreciative anticipation ran around the arena.

‘A man of many talents,’ I said, and when a small child beside me looked up and fixed me with one of those quelling stares that little children can, I explained: ‘That man is the Burry Man, you know, my dear.’

The child sniffed a superior sniff, and said: ‘No he’s not. The Burry Man’s all green. And he’s away on his ghostie pony back to his swamp till next year.’ The child’s mother gave her a clip on the neck for cheek, but the others – me included – smiled indulgently.

‘Wheesht, Molly.’

‘They should hold him back a wee bit and let some o’ they other clowns gie us a laugh first,’ someone said, watching Robert Dudgeon taking off his coat and handing it to his wife. ‘It’ll all be over too soon, else.’

‘I’m not so sure aboot that,’ said a voice behind me. ‘Rubbert doesn’t look himself tonight, and he must be fu’ after the day he’s had.’

‘Och but he’s fu’ every year when he climbs the pole,’ said the first woman. ‘I reckon it’s the drink that gives him his edge.’

If Robert Dudgeon
was
drunk, I thought, it was the drunkenness of one well used to the condition. His expression, granted, was rather owlish and his movements were slow and deliberate, but he did not sway or stumble as he handed his coat to his wife and turned his cap to the side. The crowd continued to clap and cheer, but he did not play up to them, neither smiling nor grimacing as he grasped the pole high above his head and heaved himself up. He clasped his legs around the pole and twisted his feet together neatly. Thus secured, he freed first one hand and then the other, wiped them on his shirt shoulders, leaving dark marks of oil there, and took a fresh hold.

‘Mair washin’ fur ye, Chrissie,’ shouted one of the onlookers and several people turned to smile at Mrs Dudgeon. She gave a small tight smile in return but did not take her eyes from her husband, now halfway to the top, still clamping his legs and wiping his hands, pulling himself steadily upwards. Her tense concentration seemed quite at odds with the laughs and jokes of the crowd and I wondered for a moment whence arose this trait I was beginning to recognize in Queensferry to find portents in the blameless and shadows in the sunshine. Then a louder than ever whoop from the crowd drew my attention back to Robert Dudgeon.

He was nearing the top now, and it was quite dizzy-making to look at him. One last clamp with his legs, one last heave with his arms and he was there. He tugged a string on the bag of flour and it burst out in a cloud, covering his greasy clothes and drifting down over the onlookers, who stopped their clapping to swat it away.

‘Fling down the ham, Rubbert,’ voices cried. ‘Fling it down and I’ll catch it.’

But Robert Dudgeon made no move to touch the other parcel. He clung to the pole motionless for a long half minute and then began slowly to slide.

‘Ye’ve forgot yer –’ a woman in the crowd called with a cackling laugh, but she broke off as Robert Dudgeon slithered down faster and faster. He hit the ground with a thump, fell backwards, arms spread out, legs still twined around the base of the pole, and lay quite still.

For a moment there was silence, then a few awkward giggles and then, all at once, action. People rushed forward, one of them calling for a doctor. Others began to shoo off the children, still others – women – gathered around Mrs Dudgeon and bore her away.

It was only when I found myself kneeling beside him that I realized I was one of the ones who had surged forward to help. His face was dark and perspiration still ran from his brow, mingling with smears of oil and caked-in patches of flour. I could still smell the fairground smell of his breath, the sweet toffee apples he had been eating. Heat still wafted from him. His feet were still loosening their grip on the pole, his boots creaking. His half-open eyes, though, and his wide open mouth told the same tale as his chest, still as a stone. He was dead.

Chapter Three

Buttercup and Daisy might, I am sure, have put poor Robert Dudgeon callously out of their minds and had a perfectly pleasant evening; certainly they kept lapsing out of assumed solemnity and beginning to giggle over old memories of school until a glance at Cadwallader sobered them again. For Cadwallader, awash with guilt, sat with arms on knees, hands hanging down, staring at the floor. Every so often he would raise his head, catch someone’s eye and heave a great sigh before looking down again, until one began to wish he were more like the husbands one was used to, who at least would be sighing and hanging their heads all alone in their library. But then
I
should be the cold spoon in the souffle, for I did not feel quite as unperturbed as the other two at the thought of Robert Dudgeon’s death. I alone had spoken to the man for one thing and I had played my small part in persuading him to spend what transpired to be his last day in life doing something he very clearly did not want to do. So I could understand Cadwallader’s feeling awkward, but he was wallowing rather.

‘I’ll never forgive myself,’ he said for the dozenth time. Daisy broke off in the middle of a story and composed her face, hardly sighing at all. Buttercup had no such scruples, but issued a moan that I hoped was partly in jest, for one should not be able to summon such scorn for a husband of six months’ standing.

‘You have nothing to reproach yourself with,’ I said, ignoring the memory of his heavy-handed blustering the evening before. Cadwallader rolled his eyes at me.

‘He knew,’ he said simply.

‘Don’t be a goose, darling,’ said Buttercup. ‘How could he have known?’

‘Search me,’ said Cadwallader. ‘But he did. Look how hard he tried not to do it. And I made him. And now he’s dead.’

‘But Cad,’ I said gently, ‘he didn’t die of being the Burry Man. We don’t even know why he did die yet, do we? And he’s done it for twenty-five years without coming to any harm, so –’

‘Exactly!’ said Cadwallader. ‘All the more reason we should have taken him seriously when he put his foot down this year. He knew.’

‘Knew what?’ said Daisy, crossly. She was tugging at her fox fur and hungrily eyeing the drinks tray. Cadwallader had come straight into the Great Hall and we had followed him, expecting a decent little interlude of serious thought and quiet remarks – five minutes maybe – and then a leisurely bath and a large cocktail, but we had been sitting around the edges of the table for forty minutes now, marooned by Cadwallader’s gloom, and it was getting rather irritating. Even when my own father died, my mother changed in time for dinner.

‘Daisy does have a point,’ I said. ‘What could Mr Dudgeon possibly have known? If it was a heart attack or an aneurysm, which it must have been, then it came out of the blue. And if he had
known
that his heart was weak or whatever, he would have told us last night and he wouldn’t have climbed that wretched pole.’