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?’