On the other hand, he wore a garland of flowers on his head over the burrs, and strange little nosegays sprouted from each shoulder and hip as though he were a prickly green teddy bear stuffed with flowers and they had burst out at the pressure points on his seams. Also, around his waist was a folded flag showing the head of the lion rampant, and more flowers poked out from the top of this.
His two chums guided him down the steps to the street, holding a hand each and steadying him with a grip under each arm as he swung his legs around stiffly and lumbered down, tread by tread. Isa continued to howl.
At last, arrived at street level and steadied between his helpers, he opened his hands – I saw with a shudder that his hands were bare and somehow this evidence that there really was a man in there was the chillingest of all – and into his grasp were thrust two huge bunches of flowers, staves of flowers really, like skiing poles. For a few minutes, as the crowd continued variously to chant or to snivel, he stood leaning on these staves waiting for his helpers to put their coats on and take up two buckets into which the gathered townspeople immediately began to throw pennies and sixpences. Then slowly, painfully slowly, the strange ensemble moved off, the Burry Man gripping the flower staves and swinging his stiff legs, the men holding him tight under one arm each and rattling the buckets in their other hands. Children broke free of their mothers and followed along, still chanting. Even Isa, brave now that she could no longer see him and not wanting to miss out on the fun, managed a tiny ‘Hup, hup, hooray’ and toddled off after them.
The grown-ups looked around smoothing their aprons and sniffing, seeming satisfied, as though an important task had been completed, then they began to chat to each other and drift away.
‘Where is he going?’ I asked the old man who had spat.
‘Right roond the toon,’ he said. ‘But they’re away to the Provost’s house for a nip first.’
‘Gosh, I’d have thought whisky was the last thing he’d want right at the start of the day,’ I said. The old man wheezed with laughter.
‘The start? He’ll have a nip in every pub in the toon and plenty more,’ he said. ‘It’s good luck and there’s many can spare a tot of something a gey sight easier than a ha’penny.’
‘Heavens,’ I said. ‘So he spends all day drinking whisky?’
‘Aye,’ said the old man and, winking at a couple of other worthies who were listening in, he added, ‘Goan then, ask me. I ken what you’re thinking.’
I flushed, for of course that was exactly what I was thinking. The old men roared with laughter and I joined in, helpless not to.
‘Aye, it takes stamina right enough, to be the Burry Man,’ said the one who stopped laughing first. ‘As for they twae holding him up…’
‘He could manage without them till dinnertime,’ said another, ‘But it’s well seen he’ll need them comin’ hame.’
I was quite happy chatting away to these new chums and might have followed them to a bench and shared a pipe with them, but Buttercup’s voice cut in.
‘Dandy! Dandy, darling, do come on. I must get the fancy dress prizes. What do you think – ribbons for the girls and marbles for the boys or a shilling for both?’
‘What about whisky?’ I said. And Buttercup frowned.
‘Please try to take it seriously, Dan. Her horrible Ladyship wouldn’t tell me what they had last year – cat! – and Mrs Meiklejohn the Provost’s wife can’t remember and I don’t want to ask someone else and look as though I don’t know what I’m doing, even though of course I don’t… come on, Dandy. We’ll see the Burry Man again later.’ For I was still gazing after him. ‘He’s simply all over the place all day.’
‘Do you know, Buttercup,’ I said, taking her arm as she made her way towards a draper’s shop across from the Rosebery Hall, ‘that poor man is plied with whisky all day long and he can’t go to the lavatory? It’s barbaric.’
‘The whole thing’s barbaric,’ said Daisy. ‘Much as one doesn’t want to agree with anything those mealy-mouthed ninnies said last night, it is too paganistic for words.’
‘Absolutely shivery-making,’ I said. ‘How they can laugh at the babies for screaming beats me. I nearly screamed myself.’
‘You’re not alone,’ said Buttercup. ‘Cad’s had to go off for a stiff drink. It gave him the absolute willies.’
‘I thought he was rather dashing,’ said Daisy.
‘If Frankenstein’s monster is dashing,’ I said.
‘Oh, but he is,’ said Daisy, quite serious. ‘The untamed beast and all that.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Daisy,’ said Buttercup. ‘Shut up about fancying an untamed beast, at least while we’re in the draper’s. My reputation won’t withstand it.’
We had a cosy time in the Co-operative choosing hair ribbons and bags of marbles, and the girl behind the desk was most obliging in the matter of letting us rootle through the contents of her till for the shiniest shillings and sixpences to hand out too. Then we turned down the lane to go to the harbour and look at the river, picking our way past several old women at the harbour head industriously gutting baskets of herring, slapping the fillets on to salt trays and flicking the noisome entrails back into the water for the gulls. As we passed, a woman in a sack apron emerged from the dark end of a lane with a bale of wet laundry done up in a sheet and began to hang it on ropes strung between poles along the harbour side. She said nothing but glared at the gulls and at the herring wives, who glared back and flicked with even less accuracy and attention than before. Between the smell, the flying innards and the flapping washing, then, the three of us decided against too long an interlude by the water’s edge and retreated in search of coffee.
‘I can understand her anguish,’ I said. ‘Gulls and laundry don’t mix at all, but really one has to give Friday to the fisher folk, doesn’t one? Monday’s the day for washing in all of Christendom. Even I know that.’
‘It’s the Ferry Fair,’ said Buttercup. ‘Mrs Meiklejohn was telling me yesterday that everyone washes their floors and windows and changes their linen for Ferry Fair day. They clean and tidy everything in sight…’
We were passing the police station now, and in front of it a constable was standing in his shirtsleeves at the noticeboard, with the glass front of it propped open, and was busily removing old notices and postcards.
‘Look,’ said Buttercup. ‘Even he’s tidying for the Fair.’
The constable caught her words and smiled at us, unoffended.
‘Got to, madam,’ he said. ‘There’ll be prize notices and winners’ announcements to go in tomorrow. Got to tidy out for the Fair.’ He returned to his task, murmuring to himself. ‘Lost property has to stay, opening hours has to stay…’ and Buttercup rolled her eyes.
‘They do it at New Year too, I believe,’ she said.
‘Oh yes,’ agreed Daisy, ‘they all do it at New Year. One can hardly hear the drunken revelry for the sound of scrubbing brushes at Hogmanay.’
‘And it’s a very good thing, when you consider it,’ I said. ‘Even the foulest sloven gives everything one good wash a year for luck – and two here in Queensferry, you say? I should think that’s a strong argument right there towards keeping the Fair going.’
With this we arrived at the tearooms. There were two side-by-side, which always amuses me. If a village has two establishments on different streets then each can pretend that the ladies choose the nearer, but when they sit nestled together as did Mitchell’s and Beveridge’s in Queensferry the workings of class structure and economics are laid bare. Mitchell’s had blue oilcloth table covers, a sweet counter and a handwritten card in the window saying ‘Cakes ½ price after four’. To Beveridge’s we turned, as a man.