booksnew/source/Bane/Bane16.txt

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Barbara called me on the morning of the harvest festival and I was
enormously cheered up to hear the sound of her voice. Kitty’s
death had hung over me like a pall of heavy cloud and the last
couple of nights had been less than good. I had woken up from
those dreams again. Writing had gone right out of the window.
‘Hi Barbara,’ I said, trying to stiiie a yawn, and still feeling
muggy and shaky from lack of proper sleep. ‘What time is it?’
‘Oh, I hope I didn’t wake you up. It’s past ten o’clock.’
‘No. Yes, well you did. But I should be up by now anyway,’ I told
her.
‘I just thought you’d want to come to the festival with us today.
It’s been years since I’ve been to one and I thought Paddy would
love it.’
‘So would I. I was going to ask the two of you anyway,’ I said.
‘She’ll stuff her face and be sick all over the place, but every kid has
to go through it every summer anyway}
‘You better believe it,’ Barbara said. I could hear the start of a
laugh in her voice. What a nice way to be woken up from bad
dreams.
‘Right, I’ll come up and collect you, if you like, and we can stroll
down. About three?’
‘Why not make it for lunch?’
‘Sounds even better. I haven’t tasted woman’s cooking for
months.’
‘Well mine isn’t that great, but I can rustle up a salad.’
‘Cheat.’
‘Suit yourself, greedy guts. Come up at one.’
I told her I’d be there. The day took on a slightly brighter aspect,
and for once I managed to slip out from under that cloud.
This was one harvest festival I was going to really enjoy.
On the way up to Upper Arden, I dropped in at Jimmy Allison’s
place and found him looking better than he had the other day in the
cemetery. He was planning, he said, to drop in at the Chandler
with Donald and old Duncan Bennett for a few light refreshments
before the festivities.
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‘Just to get in the mood,’ he said, with a smile. ‘It’s become a
tradition, don’t you know?’
‘Yes, every night, I reckon,’ I said.
‘Well, when you get to our age, you take what fun you can get
whenever you can. Anyway, it’s good to be up and about again.
That was a bugger of a bug.’
Jimmy paused for a bit, lost in thought, then he seemed to jerk
back to the present. ‘Anyway, did you read that stuff I put in the
box?’
‘I did.’
He looked at me, checking to see ifl was bull-shitting him. ‘I did,
honest. From start to finish,’ I said, and he nodded conceding that I
might have. ‘It’s a remarkable history. Tell me, Jimmy. Have you
ever heard of a Cu Saeng?’
‘Cu Saeng? The Old Dog?’
‘Yes, that’s the one‘?’
‘Of course. It’s an old legend that one.’
‘Where does it come from?’
‘Who can say, but it’s common to both the Irish and the Scots
sagas, which show they go back to the same origin sometime in the
past.’
‘Do you know what it is?’ I asked.
‘Sure. It’s the spirit of madness. It lives under the ground, or the
underworld, take your pick. Probably the god of darkness symbol.
Anyway, it’s supposed to drive anybody who sees it as mad as a
hatter, or turn them into stone. Like the Gorgon, I imagine. Why
do you ask?’
‘I’ll tell you in a minute. Go on,’ I urged. ‘What else do you
know?’
‘Well, it’s supposed to be the spirit that haunts lonely places,
waiting for the unwary. Pops out from under the roots and scares
the hell out of them.’ He stopped to light his pipe, sucking in the
Hame that dipped down towards the bowl with every pull, and
blowing out a plume of blue. ‘Now tell me why you’re asking}
‘Kitty MacBeth told me it was a Cu Saeng that caused the Bad
Summers.’
Jimmy Allis0n’s eyes ilicked up from where they had zeroed in
on the glowing bowl of his pipe, and iixed me with a hard stare. He
stared so long and hard that the match he was holding burned right
up to his fingers, and it was only the quick burn as the iiame
scorched his thumb that made him jerk away, dropping the
blackened match on to the iloor. He jammed his thumb into his
mouth alongside the stem of his pipe and sucked on both.
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‘She told you what?’ he asked, his face serious.
‘She said that the Cu Saeng awoke to ravage the place,’ I said,
and I must confess I felt a little bit foolish, no matter how much I
had thought about the situation over the past week or so, and what
conclusions I had reluctantly arrived at.
‘And how would that happen?’ Jimmy asked.
‘She said that sometime in the past, the people here had brought
something to life — into the earth, she said — to help them stave off
some sort of invasion. But once it had done the job they couldn’t
send it back again, so they trapped it in the rock and put up walls
around it. It’s all written on that stone down at Kitty’s shack.’
‘What rock?’
‘Ardhmor.’
‘And the walls? What were they?’
‘Water and stone, and wood. That’s the hawthorn hedge. She
said she had to keep re-planting it whenever one of the hawthorns
died or got broken. Oh, and there was another wall of bone where
they buried the invaders with their heads cut off, just like .... ’
‘J ust like the ones Arthur found,’ Jimmy said, softly. There was
a strange, half-puzzled, half-knowing look on his face.
‘Well, what do you think of that?’ I said.
‘I don’t know what to think. Seems a bit far-fetched to me, but ‘
I’ll tell you, I can’t gainsay it. I’ve seen too many far-fetched things
in my time to say yea or nay. I know that the Bad Summer happens
every once in a while, and some of them are worse than others. I’ve
never heard of any explanation of them before, except to call it a
curse or a bane. Like recurrent bad luck. Real bad luck.’ He
stopped off and took another pull on the pipe and watched the
smoke billow, a frown of concentration pulling his eyebrows, grey
and grizzled, down over his eyes.
‘Could such a thing be true?’ I asked.
‘Who can say? It’s a new one on me. I mean I’ve gone over all the
old records, probably more than anybody has. But I’ve never
heard or read of anybody saying why these things happen. Only
that they do, and they pray to God that they don’t ever happen
again. What about you? What do you think?’
‘Well, I’ve got to confess that I’m beginning to believe that it
must be. Kitty shocked me with some of the things she knew about
me. She knew she was dying and there was something else. She
said that I had something to do with stopping it.’
‘Stopping what?’
‘The Bad Summers. She said that I almost stopped it before, and
that this time I would have to finish the job. The only thing is that I
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haven’t a clue after that. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
Jimmy looked very thoughtful as I left. He hadn’t said one way
or another what he thought of the things I’d told him except to say
that it might not matter what had caused the bad times in the past.
‘I think she was right about it coming again,’ he said. ‘And so
soon. It’s been only twenty years, near as dammit, since the last
string of troubles, but I can feel it in my bones again. Who knows,
maybe she was right. Maybe it would be better if she was.
Anything that can be conjured up should be conjured right back
again. That’s a lot better than waiting for the curse to strike again
and not being able to do a damned thing about it.’
I told Jimmy I’d better get a move on to Barbara’s place, and he
told me to go on up, dropping the opinion, with a sly grin, that he
thought she was a fine looking woman and just my type. It was as
close to a nudge-nudge, wink-wink as he’d ever get, but I got the
message that he would give his blessing to any advances I might
make on that front. He saw me to the garden gate, still pulling hard
on the big briar pipe, and told me he’d see me in the beer tent later
on in the afternoon. Just as I was leaving, he thanked me for
reading his stuff and I thanked him for writing it.
‘Do your think there’s a book in it?’ he asked. ‘Can you use it?’
‘Yes and no. There is a book in it. But it’s your book. You’ve -
done all the work on it yourself and it reads right. There’s no need
for me to write y0ur book, you lazy old bugger.’
‘Less of your cheek, young toe-rag,’ Jimmy said, all the time
beaming with pride that his protege, the one he’d encouraged all
the time to get out there and write, had been the one to praise his
own work.
‘Anyway, I won’t have the time. I don’t have the gift.’
‘Prove me wrong, then. I’ll give all the stuff back to you, and you
can send it off to a publisher. I’ll bet a case of Strathisla they snap it
up.’ He said he’d think about it and I told him to do more than that.
Just as I was leaving, he said it would make a better tale if there
. really was such a thing as Cu Saeng.
‘I didn’t think you’d believe it,’ I said.
‘Oh, I don’t say that. You’ve sort of sprung it on me. I’ll toss it
around a bit and think it over. What I think doesn’t really matter
anyway,’ he said. ‘There’s not a damn thing I could do about it.’
As it transpired, there wasn’t. But there was something I was
supposed to do about it, so I’d been told, except I didn’t have the
foggiest idea of what, or how, or where, or when. Or even why.
I had decided, even before my talk with Jimmy, that I would just
wait, and watch and see what happened.
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One thing was certain, if it turned out to be a whole load of
hogwash, nobody was going to be more delighted than me. Then I
could get out from under the raincloud and get on with my life, get
on with my work and sleep well at nights.
Both Barbara and Paddy met me on the steps at their front door
as I climbed down from the jeep, both of them sparkling with
excitement. It showed more on Paddy, who had got to the jumping
up and down stage.
‘She’s been driving me crazy since she woke up this morning,’
Barbara said. ‘It’s as if she was high on something.’
‘And you can’t remember being just the same? Shame on you.
The mother hen’s got a convenient memory, hasn’t she?’
‘Oh, go on with you,’ she said, giving me a light punch on the
shoulder. ‘I was never as bad as that.’
‘Worse, if my memory’s right. But don’t worry about it. We
were all like that.’
‘Well, I must say, I’ve been looking forward to some light relief ,’
Barbara said. By this time we were at the top of the steps and ‘
Paddy was running around my ankles like a frisky pup. Barbara
planted one on my proffered cheek and then I had to bend down
for the same treatment from her daughter. When she gave me the
required peck, I didn’t let her spin away, but instead grabbed her .
by the waist and swung her up to sit on my hip. I grabbed her free
hand and spun her round.
‘Can I have the pleasure of this dance, miss?’
‘Yessir!’ she cried, right in my ear, her laughter almost
deafening me.
‘And you’re next,’ I called to Barbara, looking past her
daughter’s bouncing pony bob. Barbara did what would have been
an elegant curtsey except for the fact that she was wearing a pair of
slimline Levis and a halter top under which things were moving in
that kind of way that takes your mind of dancing altogether. She
caught my eye and I would have blushed but for the wink she
flashed at me, and that overcast feeling went slip—slidin’ away.
She shooed both of us into the kitchen where she’d made a big
tossed salad with pepper and celery in a wooden bowl, along with
boiled eggs in mayonnaise and a ham cut so thinly you could see
through it. I ate more than I should have, but I suddenly found I
had an appetite and Barbara didn’t seem too displeased to see me
demolishing it. In between stuffing her mouth with eggs and ham
Paddy kept up the usual excited barrage of questions about what
would happen at the festival. Her idea was the American dream.
Would Mickey and Donald be there? Did they have majorettes?
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Would there be pop—corn and candy? I said there would be
something like that, but different. Better, I said. Yes, there would
be a band, and a parade and lots of things to do. Paddy still couldn’t
picture exactly what was going to happen at the festival. I think in
her mind it was a cross between a rodeo and a fairground, but in
any case she knew it was going to be fun and she was getting herself
right into the mood for having plenty of it.
After lunch Barbara sent Paddy out to play in the garden while
we sat in the living room watching from the mullioned window over
the expanse of lawn that rolled away towards the vegetable garden
and the big trees beyond. We were drinking coffee in the big
comfortable room where the sunlight streamed in and lit up big
oblong patches on the old parquet fioor. _
‘She plays in our tree,’ Barbara said, emphasising the our
meaningfully. ‘She told me only yesterday she’d found people’s
names carved on the bark, and wanted to know whose they were.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told her that they were ours. Yours and mine and Colin’s, and
she said "Golly, they’re ancient",’ she said, laughing with
exaggerated rue.
‘They are ancient. From another age.
‘Do you remember . . . ?’ I said, just at the same time as Barbara
said the same thing. I broke off and she laughed and insisted that I
go on first.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Do you remember the day we had the picnic?
Down by the stream?’
Barbara frowned a little , obviously trying to picture it, failed and
shook her head.
‘It was the day the three of us found the .... ’
‘Mushrooms! Yes. I do remember. And we smoked some
concoction that Colin made up. Yes I remember}
‘I had this dream about a man with a spear, and he stuck it into
the ground.’
‘Oh yes,’ Barbara said. ‘You were so convinced it was for real
that you started to dig and Colin got really pissed off.’
‘Yes he was a bit, but it was true, don’t you remember'? I dug and
Colin helped and .... ’
‘And you found something. I can’t remember what it was. A
stone or something?’
‘Yes. A stone spear—head, just like the one I saw in the dream}
‘That’s it. I remember now. And the lady in the dream gave me
gold flowers for round my neck. Oh, I remember I was so
disappointed when I found they were gone. It was like gold, so
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beautiful.
‘Colin dreamed of a black knight with a sword,’ I said.
‘Did he?’ Barbara asked in a small voice, she was still miles away
in her memory. Years away, remembering the woman who had
given her Howers in her dream on the bank of Strowan’s Water.
‘I found the stone.’
‘What stone?’
‘The one I dug up.’
‘Really? The same one?’
‘I think so.’
‘Our treasure! Do you remember? That’s what we called it. The
buried treasure. You said it was a magic stone that gave us special
power, didn’t you?’
‘No that was Colin’s idea. He was always the imaginative one.’
‘Poor soul,’ she said with simple compassion. ‘He was, wasn’t
he?’
I remembered something else just as Barbara said that, and I
reached into the inside pocket of the light nylon jacket I had put
on, a Himsy, almost wet-looking thing that was ideal for the hot
weather because it could crumple up into a fist-sized bundle and fit
into a pocket.
‘Look at this,’ I said, and pulled out the slender golden torc that .
Kitty MacBeth had unofficially bequeathed to me, along with the
rest of the contents of her beautiful carved box.
‘Ooh,’ Barbara said, evoking yet another memory. ‘It’s
beautiful.’
I reached out to give it to her and she took it. Our lingers
brushed lightly, and I felt that delicious little sparkle, the vibes I
would have called it in my teen years.
‘Is it gold?’
‘I don’t know, but I’d bet any amount that it is.’
‘Oh, it’s the loveliest thing.’
‘You like it?’
‘Like it? It’s exquisite,’ she said, holding up the torc to the light
so that the sun sparkled off the golden orbs that finished off the
arcs.
‘I’d like you to have it,’ I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t put the
torc in my pocket for any reason that I could figure out, and I
hadn’t intended to come here and give it to Barbara, but all of a —
sudden, I just did it as if I’d been pushed from behind.
‘No, I couldn’t Nick,’ Barbara said, shaking her head, with her
eyes still fixed on the gilded glint. ‘It’s far too expensive}
‘Well, actually, it’s probably never been valued. It was given to
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me by somebody who doesn’t need it any more, so I don’t think
she’d mind if you had it. No, I don’t think she’d mind at all.’
What was it Kitty had said? ‘The one and onlies?’ and she
laughed. ‘That was more true than you could have known.’
No, with a brief Hash of certainty, I knew that Kitty MacBeth
would not mind at all.
‘I don’t know what to say Nick. It’s so gorgeous, I really
shouldn’t take it.’
Just then Paddy came into the room and leaned over her
mother’s knee. Her eyes had caught the ilashing light from the
torc.
She stared at it, with wide, unblinking eyes, as if the reflections
had snagged her hypnotically.
‘That’s pretty,’ she said, in a very soft voice. ‘Is this a present
from Nick? Can I see it?’ She reached out a small hand and clasped
the circlet and Barbara just let it go. I thought Paddy was going to
put it on her head, but she just stared at it, entranced, almost
hypnotised. Then, in one easy movement, she put it up to her neck,
pulled apart the two golden balls and slipped it on. It sat there,
gleaming bright.
‘Can I have it, Nick?’ The question was more like a command.
Not like a little girl’s appeal for a plaything. The torc sat perfectly »
on her neck.
‘Paddy, that’s not very nice,’ Barbara said.
‘Can I have it, Nick. It’s for me, isn’t it?’ Paddy said, as if she
hadn’t heard her mother speak. The sunlight caught off the gold on
her neck, beaming it back into my eyes, and for the briefest instant.
I saw rings of golden light, spiralling outwards on water. For a
slender moment of time I heard the buzzing of summer insects and
the clattering of hooves on rock. I smelt the pungent sap of pine.
Then my mind switched to the more recent past, and the words
in Kitty MacBeth’s letter. Take the torc. It protects.
And for some reason, it just seemed right that Paddy should
have it. I don’t know now, and didn’t know then, what made me
think that, but I just nodded my head.
‘Yes. It is yours. If your mother says so.’
Barbara scolded me gently for falling for Paddy’s plea, but she
didn’t object.
Later she said: ‘It’s strange. When Paddy put it around her neck,
I suddenly thought of golden ilowers.’
The festival was just winding up to full swing when we got down to
the field at Duncan Bennett’s smallholding. The whole town was
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there, Upper Arden folk rubbing shoulders with the people of the
Milligs, and the Westbay crowd rubbing shoulders with
everybody.
Barbara had changed Paddy into a summer frock, which
probably wasn’t practical and caused a mother-and—daughter feud
that died down as quickly as it Hared, and the little girl bore the
indignity with relatively good grace. I parked the jeep in the only
free slot in the supermarket car-park, and we strolled along the
main street towards the sound of the brass band that was belting
out an enthusiastic but tuneless marching jazz number. Barbara
was stunning in a white cotton dress and sling-back sandals, and
she’d put her hair up in a neat French roll that showed off the clean
arch of her neck and did amazing things for my hormones. She
cleaked her arm through mine and Paddy grabbed my hand,
swinging it to and fro to match her bouncing step.
The marquee was blue and white, jammed in a corner against the
hedge and in the opposing corner, furthest from the main road, the
beer tent was a square box of green canvas that seemed to be
bulging at the sides. I knew that in there it would be hot and smoky
and jostling with bodies and swimming with beer. Ideal for the
Arden men on festival day. I thought a beer would go down just
{ine on a warm afternoon. Along the edge of the hedgerow, there
were stalls with cakes and sweets, home-made jams and buttered
shortcake. There were little cuddly toys in profusion, baskets and
pottery, all for sale at giveaway prices that would help swell the
coffers of whichever charities the day had been dedicated to. When
we arrived, the grass was already trampled Hat under Arden’s feet.
Paddy saw the slide and swings that some of the townsmen had
put up under the trees the night before, hauled out from whichever
hall they’d been gathering dust in for the past year. She slipped her
hand out of mine and was off like a rabbit, with a quick wave of her
hand and a Hash of white tail.
‘She was probably right about wearing her jeans,’ I said.
‘Don’t you start.’ Barbara said. ‘I had a bad enough time with
her.’
I held my hand up in surrender. We strolled around the
periphery and Barbara ooh—ed and aah-ed at the handicrafts. She
picked up a piece of local pottery that had been fashioned into a
deep red stem vase with a narrow neck, and was turning it around
in her hands when there was a loud report from the trees nearby.
Barbara jerked and the delicate piece slipped from her fingers and
thumped to the ground. It bounced, but it didn’t break.
‘It’s all right. Just the clay pigeons getting warmed up,’ I said.
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Barbara was relieved that the piece hadn’t broken. She bought it
on the spot.
The next stall offered a selection of arty candles in all shapes and
sizes and some grotesque colours. The two men in the stall ran a
little shop next to the Chandler that specialised in arts and crafts,
picture framing and candle making and other such gaucheries.
‘Mrs Hartford,’ the tall, slender one gushed. He had a long face
and a nose to match. One hand was cocked on his hip, and he
sported a big silver belt buckle. ‘How nice to see you.’ His smile
showed a row of milk bottles a yard wide.
‘Isn’t it, Brian?’ he said, turning to his chubbier companion who
was graced with a shock of silvery hair that was carefully coiffed,
and had the faintest tinge of blue. He waddled from the back of the
stall where he’d been arranging a set of thick candles with dark
colours that ran into each other and reminded me of rotting
toadstools.
‘Oh, hell-0 there,’ Brian effused, wiping his hand on a natty little
apron that only emphasised his paunch. ‘W0n-derful day, don’t
you think?’
Barbara agreed that it was, and politely had a look around the
wares. I’d met the two gentlemen in the Chandler one night, where
they’d been described to me as ‘raving berties,’ a description that
seemed redundantly obvious. They seemed civil enough to me,
although I found their mincing just a little bit exaggerated. But
having worked in TV studios, their effeminate mannerisms were
less out of the ordinary to me than they must have been to some of
the plain folk from Arden.
Barbara and I strolled into the marquee that was bustling with
the women of the WRI and the Round Table and what have you.
The trestle tables were creaking under the weight of the home
baking and garden produce, elderiiower wines and sugared fruits.
Contest was in full swing and, when Barbara met one or two
matrons who insisted that she get a guided tour, there was nothing
for it but a quick dodge through the flap. With almost one bound I
was free of all that. I headed for the beer tent by way of the
playground, where Paddy was in a crowd of squealing and laughing
youngsters who zoomed down the slide or soared on the swings or
jumped and climbed on the jungle-gym. There was a big muddy
mark on the back of her dress, I noted with some small satisfaction.
Most of the other kids were in jeans.
In the beer tent it took my eyes a moment or two to adjust to the
gloom and the fumes. It was sweating in the green half-light that
filtered through the canvas, and there was that convivial hubbub of
195

male voices, shouted orders and raucous laughter. This was man’s
country.
Jimmy Allison and the major with Duncan Bennett and a few of
the older guys were sitting in a circle on upturned aluminium beer
kegs. I beat my way through the fug and crowded bodies to join
them and somebody poured me a lager that was so cold it froze my
throat deliciously at the first swallow.
‘You’ll be wanting a half of whisky, I fancy,’ Donald said,
producing his trusty hip-flask from the pocket of his tweed jacket
that must have been killing him with the heat.
‘No, beer’s fine for the moment,’ I demurred, smacking my lips
contentedly.
Jimmy didn’t pass up the opportunity and Donald poured him a
fair measure before charging his own glass.
‘Slainte,’ the highlander said, raising his whisky, and we all said
cheers and good health. Jimmy’s hands were not so twisted and
gnarled with the arthritis, I noticed, and I thought the summer
warmth must be doing him good. I made a mental promise to bully
him into seeing a specialist before the winter set in and made them
useless. He was in a mellow mood, as indeed we all were. Some
more mellow, I’ll grant you, than the others who hadn’t been
drinking since the beer tent flaps opened at noon, but that’s the .
way of it at the festival. Outside, the band screeched enthusiasti-
cally and nobody minded nor cared whether it was off-key or out of
step.
Behind our group, World War Three, as they were affection-
ately known in the Chandler, Brigadier Watson and two of his
forces friends who apparently joined him every summer for a
yachting holiday were arguing in loud, plummy tones, adding their
military wah—wah—wah to the conversation. They were drinking
pints of dark beer and smoking cigars and having a jolly good time,
their old war-horse faces getting redder and redder as they went.
Most of the farmers from the surrounding area were in the tent,
with their greasy caps shoved back on their heads and sticks with
worn, knobby handles tucked under their armpits. Along the side
of the tent, in the shadow where the pegs held the canvas down to
the grass in taut little arcs, their border collies waited with infinite
patience, panting, sides heaving.
At one of the tables, a crowd of young lads were taking turns at
arm wrestling, rocking the little trestle back and forth with their
effort. Beer cans hissed open, and big John Hollinger, who had run
the bar every year as far as I can remember, roared out with robust
good humour to all and sundry, the sweat beading his brow and his
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customary bar cloth slung round his neck.
‘Right, who’s next?’ he would bellow. ‘No, not you Bert, you’re
third. Willie? Three pints, right. No, no whisky. You bring your
own,’ and so it went on.
Somebody choked on his beer in mid laugh and somebody else
slapped his back. Somebody stumbled and stood on one of the
dog’s feet and jumped back when it yelped with a high-pitched
squeal of pain and surprise, and the owner cautioned him to watch
the bloody dog. One of the arm wrestlers fell down when his elbow
slipped in a slick of ale and the whole tent laughed. Everybody was
getting juiced up for a real good time.
I stayed for another beer, sitting in that mixed company, just
taking in the conversations that were going on all around. Donald
challenged me to a clay pigeon shoot and one of the farmers laid a
bet with another over the result of the quoits match. Another of
the barrel-sitters professed that if his wife didn’t win a prize in the
home—baking section then it wasn’t worth his while going home
tonight. A crony said it would be nothing short of a miracle if he
was sober enough to get home tonight, and again everybody
laughed. _
Outside I was garrotted by the sunlight, jerking back as I
emerged from the gloom into the bright. The field was a riot of
noise and colour. From outside, along the main street, I could hear
the honking of horns that heralded the arrival of the parade, and as
I walked toward the marquee, the big trailer did a wide swing to
negotiate the gate and scraped through. On the back, the harvest
queen was done up like a dish of fish, with a bright yellow cloak and
a long dress to match. She had the corn-crown, woven by one of the
townswomen from stalks and ears into a delicate, dainty
headpiece, and behind her, slightly to the right, dressed in a jacket
and a hat made of cornstalks, was the reaper-king, a tall, fair-
haired lad, with his shiny, curved scythe. All the corn maidens
were pretty as a picture in their colourful dresses, and the whole
pageant was finished off with dollies and animals, roosters and
intricate shapes made of straw. Everybody cheered as the leading
trailer made a circuit of the Held and then came to a stop in the
centre. Following the leader came a horse-drawn ilatloader pulled
by two immense Clydesdales, great plodding beasts that were
tricked up to a glossy shine, their burnished harnesses gleaming
and jangling. Their heads bobbed up and down majestically with
every step, showing off their pleated manes. The ilatloader was
piled high with the harvest gifts, stalks of corn and barley, tied
together in the traditional hour—glass shape.
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There were barrels of apples and early pears, mounds of
potatoes that were so white they must have been dug up that
morning. There was a forest of rhubarb from the smallholdings and
pots of honey from Duncan Bennett’s apiary and the other hives
around Arden. There were round, soft cheeses and gallons of
buttermilk, but most of all there was the bread. Big humped loaves
with golden—brown cracked crusts, square loaves and crescents,
cottage loaves salted with flour. You could smell them in the
eddying breeze, warm and sweet and mouth watering. The
produce float pulled up behind the pageant and everybody cheered
again. In the front trailer, the harvest queen and her escort and
their crowd of pretty little backers stepped down for their royal
parade around the field, waving and smiling at the applauding
crowd, who cheered enthusiastically.
By this time, I had found Barbara, and Paddy had come running
with all the other kids as soon as the horns of the pageant had
beckoned. We had a good position at the centre of the field where
the queen would give out the bounty of the harvest. I’d been there
once when the poor girl had been bowled back in the rush of eager
children and had ended up with her backside stuck in a soft cottage
cheese.
Paddy couldn’t see what was going on, so I lifted her on to my
shoulders and held her steady with a grip on her ankle. Barbara
watched with a smile of approval, and then gave my arm a brief hug
that said thanks, and I got another of those little warm glows you
get at such times.
Just when the queen and her retinue had arrived back at the
middle of the field, there was another wave of horn-honking, and
the deep growl of an engine, rough and powerful. The crowds
parted and up the line came Father Gerry on his Honda,
resplendent in his shiny hard—top and black gear. He zoomed past
the cheering crowd and hit the ramp at the back of the pageant
trailer at such a rate that, when he got up to the loader level, the
bike actually leapt into the air, its front wheel spinning powerfully.
He stopped dead centre, and the wheel thumped down on to the
boards and with a flick of a thumb he killed the engine dead, and he
jumped the bike back on to its stand and whirled to face the crowd
with one fluid motion. Great entrance, I thought, watching him
standing there, black and magnihcent, his arms raised high, willing
the crowd to silence.
It obeyed him. A hush swept over the farmers and their wives
and all the kids.
And in the silence, Paddy, from her vantage point somewhere
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above the top of my head pealed out: ‘Look mummy, it’s Darth
Vader!’
Everybody heard it, even Gerry, who was unlacing his helmet,
and a wave of laughter swept through the crowd. It made a mess of
Gerry’s entrance, but nobody cared. Beside me, Barbara was
having a quiet lit of hysterics, and I could feel Paddy jostle up and
down on my shoulders which were heaving with barely suppressed
laughter.
Gerry got the lid off and beamed a big smile down at her.
‘Don’t I wish, young lady,’ he told her, and everybody clapped.
He was still smiling widely when he lifted his hands up again for
silence.
‘I’m not going to try that again, ladies and gentlemen, boys and
girls. I don’t want to risk my neck.’
Somebody at the back shouted: ‘Oh, don’t be a spoilsport,
reverend,’ and there was more laughter.
Gerry shook his head good-naturedly and the laughter fell away
slowly.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, everybody,’ he called.
‘Once again, it is our own harvest festival and we’re all here to have
a good time.’
He paused and looked around.
‘But first, let’s remember why we’re here. To say thanks for the
summer, and to say thanks for everything that’s grown so well to let
us have a festival today.
‘So, boys and girls,’ he said in his strong, clear voice, ‘let’s join
hands and say thank you.’
Above me, I could hear Paddy clap her hands together,
following Gerry’s exaggerated gesture of encouragement. Beside
me, I noticed a few other children doing the same.
‘Dear God, we thank you for making things grow, for making all
the nice things we like to eat. We thank you for making the sun
shine on our harvest festival and for giving us this wonderful day.
Amen.’
‘Amen!’ piped up shrill voices and adult tones all around.
‘Now let’s all have some fun!’ Gerry yelled, and everybody
cheered.
‘Who is that‘?’ Barbara asked.
‘My friend, the hot—shot priest,’ I told her. ‘Father Gerry
O’Connor.’
‘He’s delicious,’ she said. ‘What a waste}
I felt a small twinge of jealousy, but I had to admit that the good-
looking young priest did have more than the normal helping of
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good looks and charisma. I just said a thankful prayer that he
actually was a priest, and a conscientious one at that.
‘Sorry kid, he’s spoken for,’ I said, gesturing skywards with my
eyes.
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she said, and hugged my arm again, leaning
in towards me so that I could feel the softness and warmth of her
body. The little pang of jealousy evaporated in the heat of that
moment.
Paddy asked to be let down off my shoulders and I caught her
under the armpits and swung her, topsy turvy, over my head,
spinning her so she landed on her feet.
‘Can I go and play, now?’ she asked, squinting up against the
sun. Barbara told her to run along and be careful. As Paddy
turned, her mother noticed the muddy patch on her skirt and was
about to say something but Paddy slipped through the crowds like
a iish and was gone.
‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,’ she said, still holding on to my arm,
‘I’ve got an interview at the Western Iniirmary on Monday}
I told her I was delighted, and asked if she wanted me to drive
her up to Glasgow.
‘No, I’ve borrowed my father’s car. He doesn’t really use it any
more. I’ve got used to the fact that the wheel’s on the wrong side,
and I’m just grateful that he’s got an automatic. I’m afraid a stick
shift would just be beyond me.’
‘Best of luck, Babs,’ I said. ‘I hope you get the job.’
‘Thanks, me too. I need to be working at something now that
Paddy’s going to school. I don’t want to be cooped up in the house
all day long.’
I said something phoney and masculine like they’d be crazy not
to hire her, but she just smiled and took it as a compliment.
‘I wonder if you could do me a favour, though,’ she said. ‘My
father had arranged to go down to London to meet some friends
this weekend, so .... ’
‘So you want me to babysit?’
‘Well, yes. If you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all. It’ll be a pleasure. I’ll come up and pick her up and
take her out somewhere, if you like.’
‘That would be nice. Really. Thanks}
‘No problem. She’s a great kid. More fun than most people I
know, so I’ll be having a good time,’ I said sincerely. Paddy was
one of those kids you just took to, although I suppose her strong
resemblance to her mother was more than just an added bonus.
‘I’ll take her along Strowan’s Well, and see if the gang hut is still
200

there,’ I said, on impulse.
‘She’d love that. But don’t you tell her about the things we used
to do. I want her to grow up to be a lady.’
‘Didn’t seem to do you any harm,’ I said appraisingly.
Back in the centre of the field, the harvest queen was handing
out goodies to the children who surrounded her in a yelling horde,
helped by all her maids, some of whom were almost floored in the
rush. Everybody got their little round loaf, and a piece of cake and
some fruit. There was an abundance of fudge and drinks of fresh
and sour milk, and every child’s face and hands were sticky with
something in a matter of minutes. Close to the beer tent, the
barbecue was warming up nicely. The trench had been filled with
coals and over the red heat there was a whole pig turning on a spit
that was spun by a brawny young fellow with a painful-looking
sunburn. Beside it slowly rolled what looked close to a full side of
beef, and there were about two dozen capons going crisp red-
brown and sizzling over a long hot trench that had been dug
parallel to the main fire.
I left Barbara in mid—afternoon to have another vital pint of lager
in the tent where I found everybody at that mellow stage of good
fellowship and bonhomie. A pint was thrust into my hands and this
' one was a heaven-sent stream that slaked the back of my throat like
a blessing. I took a huge mouthful and belched explosively and
unstoppably to a round of raucous laughter.
‘Terrific,’ I said vehemently when I got my breath back. ‘Bloody
wonderful?
‘You’ll be wanting a wee half of whisky now,’ Donald said, and
brought out his little hip-flask again. It was full to the brim, and I
wondered if he had a magic flask, or a hidden bottle. I declined
again and he shrugged and poured him and Jimmy another fine
measure of heroic proportions. Another two candidates for the
flatloader express, I thought. Every year, the horse-drawn buggy
was the main form of transport home for everyone who found it
difficult to walk. It could take twenty people, and normally made
five or six trips. That’s how much Arden liked its harvest day.
Donald MacDonald and I had a contest at the pigeon shoot
where he outclassed me embarrassingly. We’d had a side bet on the
outcome, but he refused to take the pound. He’d scored ten out of
ten, despite the fact that he’d drunk enough to floor me twice over.
When we walked down through the trees back to the festival field,
he was as solid as a rock.
We left the tent and came down the path where Father Gerry
was surrounded by a group of_ sticky faced kids who were jostling
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about him and hanging on to his sleeves. He’d changed out of the
biker’s gear into a light shirt and slacks. The monsignor was with
him and everybody was laughing. The tall priest with the basset—
hound’s face had a deep booming laugh that rumbled up within,
giving out a resonance of good feeling.
‘Hello Nick. And Donald too,’ he said, shaking both our hands
firmly. Gerry called out a hello over the heads of the children.
I made my excuses to both of them, for I’d seen Barbara out
there in the crowd, beyond the beer tent, and waded through
Gerry’s congregation of children. I was passing the big square tent
when something caught my eye in the narrow space between it and
the bright canvas of an adjacent hoopla stall. There was a crowd of
men fooling about in the shade there, drinking out of bottles. I was
about to pass on by when a flash of white on black drew my
attention, and I did a double-take. There was Badger, in amongst
the crowd, which immediately struck me as being strange, and just
as I lookedl saw that he was being pushed about roughly by a circle
of men.
I started up the narrow canvas alley, between the tents, ducking
to avoid twanging the guy—ropes with my head.
When I got to the end of the passageway, I saw that Colin was
drunk as a lord. He could hardly stand on his feet, and the circle of
guys were shoving him about, from one to the other. The poor guy
looked sick and drunk and terrified, and he didn’t seem to know
where he was.
‘Look at him,’ one of the men said raspingly. ‘He’s as drunk as a
skunk.’
‘Here, Badger,’ another one said, and Colin was shoved across
the circle. The man shoved at him and Colin staggered backwards
and fell in a heap. Everybody laughed cruelly.
Colin tried to get up and one of them stuck out the toe of his boot
and sent him sprawling into the leaves. I could hear him sobbing
with fear and bewilderment, and then, just as he had got to a
kneeling position, on all fours, he was suddenly sick, and a gout of
vomit splashed out and spattered over one of the men’s shoes.
‘Fuck sake,’ the young tough said, jumping back. ‘He’s been sick
all over my boots.’
Somebody laughed and the man told him to shut the fuck up.
‘Stupid bastard,’ he grunted and swung one of his soiled boots
forward and got Colin right under the ribs. He let out a whoosh of
air that was mingled with a sharp yelp of pain and rolled sideways.
‘You can have it back again, fucking idiot,’ the man said. It was
one of the toughs who’d ganged up on Colin before, that night I’d
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been floored with a half-brick. Billy Ruine, the mean little gang
leader, was there too, smirking on the other side of the circle.
I couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘What do you think you’re doing, you bastards?’ I shouted out
and came out from between the tents. All the heads turned.
‘Oho, here comes the fuckin’ hero,’ Billy Ruine sneered.
‘You get the hell out of here before you get it too,’ he spat.
I was almost speechless with rage and disgust.
‘You cretins. Look at you. Bloody animals. Picking on some-
body who can’t even defend himself} They’d obviously got Colin
tanked up on their cheap booze.
‘Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, big mouth?’ Billy
Ruine said. ‘What you want to do, take the whole lot of us on? Eh,
that what you want?’
He stuck his chin out and made a come-on gesture with both of
his hands. His team of hoods spread out beside him, their faces
flushed with drink, dark with violence. Behind him I could hear
Colin snufiling his misery.
‘Come on then, wise guy, let’s be havin’ you.’
I could feel my hands shaking with that burst of adrenalin you
get with confrontation. There was no way I was going to come out
of this well at all.
I braced my feet on the ground and prepared to hit out at the iirst
one that moved. There was no way I could run away from this one,
so I decided I might as well take a few bloody noses with me as they
carted me off in the ambulance. This was looking very hairy
indeed.
Billy Ruine took a step forward, with that sly, arrogant look on
his face.
‘Well, well now,’ Donald said, loudly. ‘This is a fine wee party
we have going on here, do we not?’
I was never so glad to hear a human voice in my life. Billy Ruine
turned and saw Donald standing off to the side.
‘Now, is it a private party, I’m wondering,’ Donald said in his
mild, slow way, ‘or is it that anybody can join in?’
‘Fuck off, old timer,’ Billy said, and one of his troops giggled.
‘This is nothing to do with you.’
‘Well, if you put one hand on him, then I’ll have to make it
something to do with me, now,’ Donald said mildly. There was no
hint of anger or menace in his voice.
Billy turned away from him. ‘Ignore that old fool,’ he said and
ran towards me, swinging his boot up to catch me in the groin. I
jumped back and Billy’s foot missed me by an inch. I grabbed it and
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pulled and he went down, but he twisted and came back up again
like a cat and swung a roundhouse that clipped me on the side of
the ear and made my head ring.
That was the last hit he got in. An arm lashed out and caught him
right smack on the chin. I turned, surprised, and saw that it was not
Donald who had thrown the blow. Monsignor Cronin was standing
off to the right. There was a bellow of pain and I saw Donald leap »
into the crowd. He spun and his foot came right up clear of the
ground and connected with one of the group’s head. He went down
like a sack. Donald continued the movement and turned like a
ballet dancer and his hands moved like pistons. Smack, smack
right and left, and two of the young hoods doubled over. The
monsignor swept past me like a black shadow and stepped over
Billy Ruine who was lying still on the fallen leaves. He caught one
of the guys and spun him around on his heels with a blow to the
solar plexus, and grabbed another and head-butted him straight on
the nose, like a bar-room brawler. But there was nothing of the
streetiighter in the fluid grace with which the two men cut a swathe
through the line—up. My ears were still ringing from that clip, but
the pain had gone away. It was over in seconds. The two remaining
young men turned and ran. The rest of them writhed and moaned
on the ground under the trees.
Monsignor Cronin shot his cuffs out, and rubbed his hands
together. He was breathing lightly, and his solemn face looked as
placid as he could ever manage.
‘Silly boys,’ he said, shaking his head. He turned to me and
raised his finger to his lips: ‘Shhh. Not a word to a soul. Bad for the
reputation, don’t you think‘?’ I was too surprised to do anything but
nod.
Donald helped Colin to his feet and dusted him down. His nose
was running and the tears had streaked his face. He looked very
unsteady.
‘Bloody animals,’ Donald said. ‘That’s what they are. Come on,
laddie, let’s get you away from here.’
We helped Colin into the beer tent and sat him on the grass
beside the barrels where he snufiled a bit before falling asleep,
lying sprawled and ungainly beside the patient dogs.
‘He’ll be all right once he sleeps it off,’ Jimmy Allison said after
I’d told him what happened, or some of it.
‘It’s a damned shame, picking on that poor soul. You would
think they had better things to do with their time.’
‘Och, they’re no better than pigs,’ Donald said loudly and
vehemently. ‘Animals is what they are, and no mistake. It does
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them good to get a taste of their own medicine. I’m thinking we
were a bit soft on them.’ ·
Donald was still in a fury over what Billy Ruine and his boys had
done to Colin. I must say I was enraged as well, but I was still very
grateful to Donald — and to the monsignor — for getting me out of
that with nothing worse than a thick ear. Grateful and, frankly,
amazed. Those two men, well past their prime, had made
mincemeat of those young toughs with such ease that if I hadn’t
seen it I wouldn’t have believed it. If it hadn’t been for them I
would probably be lying round there in a pool of blood, or worse.
The cheap wine that band of thugs had been drinking from their
bottles had obviously tired them up to a frenzy. They might not
have stopped at a mere beating.
My nerves had calmed down by the time they started carving up the
crisp brown meat of the barbecue. The sweating helpers hauled the
beef and port on to wooden planks set on sturdy workhorses and
the carving knives were whipped up to ringing sharpness as
Tommy Muir, the local butcher, and his son, both big and beefy
men, set about carving everything up with a marvellous deftness
into steaks and slabs of hot meat. The chickens were halved and
quartered and everybody lined up for a share. The beer tent
emptied, giving John Hollinger a break, and I saw him strolling off
with a plate of beef and pork and potatoes that would have done a
bear proud. He was a bear of a man anyway, so it made little
difference. Barbara and Paddy joined Jimmy and Donald and a
few others with myself who sat in the shade of a weeping ash, and
we had our own banquet, washed down with some white wine and
more beer. The guys kept the jokes clean in deference to the two
ladies and we all set to.
As to be expected, from memories of childhood, everything was
delicious, as freshly cooked food in the open air never fails to be.
Paddy made a pig of herself and within minutes of settling down
her face was covered in grease.
I was on my fourth can of beer of the day — and that was just
enough for me — washing down the gargantuan meal, when
Duncan Bennett remembered he hadn’t got his free harvest loaf. I
couldn’t have eaten another morsel, but Duncan wandered off to
get his fair share, saying he hadn’t missed his loaf in all the years
and that, he said, was a whole lot of bread. Barbara told Paddy if
she ate another thing she’d be sick, and that’s just the way I felt too.
Babs and I sat back against the tree, enjoying the lethargy of a big
meal on a hot day. All around the iield, under the trees and in the
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shade of the tents and stalls, families and couples and groups of
friends were doing the same thing. It was the festival’s equivalent
of half time. Paddy fell asleep, and I almost dozed off too, while
the murmur of conversation and laughter washed over me.
After dinner time, there were games for the children, egg and
spoon races, and contests. The men threw weights over the bar and
put their bets on quoits, and they drank more beer.
Later on, when it was beginning to get dark, they lit the huge
bonfire with the straw man as a guy lashed to the centre pole. The
last job of the harvest queen was to put her crown on the straw
man’s head, then they lit the {ire and he was gone in minutes — his
and her hour of glory gone in one glorious burst of flame.
Everybody cheered for the umpteenth time that day and applaud-
ed. Father Gerry had got in a spectacular array of fireworks that lit
up the night and we watched as Donald passed round his
miraculous flask. Barbara took a sip and he beamed with pleasure
when she declared it top class. He got up and sang one of his Gaelic
songs with all the verses that sounded the same, and nobody
minded. The monsignor, his fellow combatant of earlier, got up
and sang a funny one that had the kids laughing.
Paddy fell asleep, and I took her and Barbara home. Jimmy and
Donald and Duncan, and a whole squad of others, left for the
flatloader.
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