‘Now the way I see it,’ said Buttercup, talking through a cigarette clamped between her scarlet lips, a habit I suppose she must have picked up in one of those speakeasies but which was drawing startled looks and rumblings from the other tables in Beveridge’s, ‘we can divide the events into the straightforward sporting contests where the winner is obvious and all we have to do is smile and hand over the loot – so that’s the races and the greasy pole, chiefly – and the much trickier judging competitions – the fancy dress and the bonny babies. Greasy pole and fancy dress are tonight – well, late this afternoon really, six until half past eight, such an awkward time.’
‘It’s after they’ve all had their teas,’ I said.
‘I suppose so,’ said Buttercup. ‘I must remember to tell Mrs Murdoch. Dinner at nine.’
‘We can fill up on toffee apples at the Fair,’ said Daisy.
‘If we can fit them in around our duties,’ said Buttercup. ‘I don’t want you trying to announce winners with your teeth glued together, Daisy darling.’
‘Ah yes, our duties,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Buttercup, all business. ‘Now, the way I see it, I’ve got to live here and you two don’t, so I’ll take care of the races and you two can pick your way through the diplomatic minefields and then hightail back to Perthshire and leave it all behind you. Agreed?’
‘Absolutely not -’ I began. But Daisy interrupted.
‘Done,’ she said. ‘Bags me the fancy dress.’
‘Now hold on -’ I said, beginning to splutter.
‘That’s that then,’ said Buttercup. ‘Dandy can do the bonny babies.’
‘But…’ I said, and gave up as Daisy and Buttercup melted into giggles.
‘Your face, Dan!’ said Daisy.
‘It’s easy,’ said Buttercup. ‘Just pick whichever one you think is prettiest.’
‘I’ve never seen a baby I thought was pretty,’ I said. ‘I won’t have to touch them, will I?’ But Daisy and Buttercup only laughed again.
‘Pick a nice big chubby one and you’ll be fine,’ said Buttercup. ‘Bonny is just a polite word for fat, I’ve always found.’
‘Well, all right,’ I said. ‘Bloated is possibly less revolting than wizened, I agree, but if we’re going down such an agricultural route, why not just weigh them?’
‘Think of me,’ said Daisy, ‘trying to choose between a pirate and a chimney sweep with doting mothers squaring up for a fight.’ She fell silent with a small clearing of her throat as a tidily dressed woman came towards our table.
‘Please excuse me interrupting,’ she said, speaking diffidently enough, but smiling with an air of confidence from out of her healthy, rather well-scrubbed face. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing you discussing the fancy dress.’
Quite. The Scots as a race, that is to say the working people and the bourgeoisie, whisper and mutter away to each other when out in public so that others speaking in perfectly normal voices seem to address the room.
Daisy was looking at the woman with a nicely judged mixture of surprise and disdain, just this side of rudeness, but Buttercup, all those years in America, I suppose, was smiling encouragingly at her, eyebrows raised in invitation to say more, and to be fair I daresay if the woman had indicated some interest or expertise in the bonny baby area I should have been drawing up another chair and ordering fresh coffee.
‘I’m Mrs Turnbull,’ she continued, then when that achieved nothing, she went on. ‘My husband is the new headmaster of the school.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Buttercup. ‘Well, how can we help you, Mrs Turnbull?’
‘Rather, how can I help you,’ the woman said, earnestly. ‘About the fancy dress, I wouldn’t have dreamt of it, if you hadn’t said yourself you were puzzled about how to decide.’ She turned her beaming smile on Daisy. ‘But since you did, I can venture to be bold… don’t you agree it’s best to reward the right spirit rather than anything else?’ Daisy looked blank. ‘From what my husband tells me, from what the children tell him, there will be a fair few ghosts and witches and monsters. And I don’t think… that is we don’t think, my husband and I… I mean to say I’m sure you agree that they shouldn’t be encouraged in such unwholesomeness. It was bad enough at Hallowe’en, but really in the middle of summer…’ She trailed off into silence, for Daisy was looking at her so coldly only the thickest-skinned could have continued.
‘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.