The Tin-Kin (23 page)

Anitherbirthdayshixty-five yearsoan the goanah’m. Ah’m ah’m ah’m ah’m puffin an blowin. Pufffffin like a jenny whistle. Ishatchoo, Rachel? Pairweethingyeare. Ah’ll sing ye a song: ken awthe planes, Lolly. LOLLEELOLLLLL. HO! HO! Ha Ha Ha! Look at me. I’m a filthy cat!
I LOVE plooms. PlooplooplooplloooooPLOOMS!
‘Any old rags?’ And I meeeeaaaaooow! Sea.Hawk, Chick. Awkerseawk. Hawkrseashawk.

AND THEY SAY SHE’S STILL DANCIN! HO HO HA HA!

Ah’ve been swallied byawhale. A WHALE! ‘Waste not, want not, pick it up and eat it!’ DDdddDevil stop meeeeeee an aw yousstayawafae those MCPHEEEESS. Lolly. Lolly.
Mr Alexander Reid had on view in the window of his shop, 307 High Street Elgin, two re-mar-ka-ble potatoes.
Lolly. Lolly maks yea lollipop.
Jourrrrneyeeey intaeeeeSpace! Ma dilly ma dilly ma dilly’s a secret ma dilly ma dilly’s a secret.
‘Any old rags?’ Put this inyer pipan smokit. Jock Terns loooooooops the loooooooop! HOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEE! Tat cooooo. Tat coos een. Cousin. Coo’s een. He fellinlove wee it. Weel seen it took him fer a bull! Shoutin doun the dancers like thon Tarzan ae the bloody jungle.
Whit did ah tell ye? The Batchie Woman’s nae a circus act, right enough, an Auld Betsy’s nae a bloody fool!
Desperate Dan, big stupppid Dantheman. O ho! There’ll be bluebirds sssoverrr.
Hello hello again,
SH-BOOM! SH-BOOM!
There wis some real gangsters amang us.
Ultra-violet radiation is recommended by the world’s best medical
men. Shalalalalalalalalala!
It wis easy tae see ah’d been swept aff ma tramplers! BITCH NURSE ae a burker’s daughter! ‘Any old rags?’ An de ye ken whit he said? Ye damn tinky who’ll not get a penny oot’a my pocket. Oh, me! Whit a temper he’d get oan him when the winds started tae blow. O ho! Ha! Ha! O ho! Ho!
Ha! Tears runninuninunininiuninuninunin down her cheeks, while that stupid number went on turnin. The trap goes SNAP! Almost cuts the mousey in two.
‘Any old rags?’
The rest ae the eveninsablurblurblur. Aye, well. Damn us bloody Whytes!
Datdat-dat-dat-dat-duh.
We’re all tink
sss
. RohwlEE pohwlEE pudding, is it?
ONE!
He sinks his foot intae my kidneys.
To my
darling Martha from your ever-loving Duncan
. Look! Thon’s Duncan yer Daddy. Daddy Daddy daddydadddydaddydddadddddy. Dadda. O shaness, Wee Betsy! Whit-a-shame!
And
TWO!
This is how ah feel, Curly. Look. DEEK!
Fond kisssssssssss.
Beasts crawlin in her hair, Granny, and a toe-cap skims ma ribs. Spoonfuls aesugar anamargarine. Goggles, sir? Widopen space. Oh, me! We had good times in the camps. Ma Mary. Mamaery mammary. Mamery. Memmery. Mermaidy. Ma mairy’s in toun next week.
She
’s nae courtin, ye ken? FffffFammelsssssfffffffat as sausages.
Hello, Lunar 142. Landing Control, please.
Yon manny fae Forres. ‘Any old rags?’ Shut yer fff or ah’ll fuckin murder you! A hundred thousand faces. Nivver speak ae those days. Nae wonder ye stare. Shaness! Whit in heaven’s wrang wi runnin aboot kickin a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? CAUSE YER A BLOODY USELESS PACK AE DESPERATES!
CRACK.
Same sound as the heidie’s belt on Bertie Topp’s palm.Ye’ve aie been a saftie wi her.
Oh, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Namesake grandbairn usin that fouty language like some shan dilly!
Bad-luck McTootie.
Toot. Tooootie toootootootie. Thick as thieves, the pair ae ye. A place that smells like the beachnd tastesae peatanberries anpokesae chips.
That precious element:
vitamin D.
Keep right on to the end of the road! Ma jingies! THE HALE BLOODY WORLD CAN PUT THEIR LIP IN MY STUMMEL! The pear ripened, so it did! My lipsaretweaking my lugs.
We’re being attacked by pandrops!
Some sair gift’s turned wicked. Spoiled spotty, pot-belly pigs right enough. Eat your mother’sssshit! The sun’s up at the hospital. ‘Any old rags?’ And God, his shoes! The shoes were a size big. It kept fallin aff him.
An ah’m, agone. Gone. Dawn, he never saw you! But Big Ellen knows. Bigellenahsaid.

Ma Batchie screamed like an animal and looked, suddenly, like she would fall into the fire. She took one last gasp.

GONE IN A BLINK!

A world

so small

it would slip

through a buttonhole.

There was a whine and Ma Batchie’s body was suddenly released from whatever power had held her up. She let go of Maeve’s hand and she fell back into her chair, a scarecrow cut down.

Dawn grabbed Maeve into her arms. She looked from the old woman and down at her daughter, whose tears were soaking her face. Maeve’s forehead was feverish, and she could feel her child’s heart and her own, beating fast against each other.

Three nurses ran into the silence and saw they were too late. Two went to Ma Batchie and began trying to revive her, stroking her arm, her hair, feeling for a pulse. The other came to Dawn.

The ambulance will be here soon.

I’m sorry, Dawn said. She just . . .

The nurse told her not to worry and turned to go, but Dawn stopped her.

Wait! The old woman said things just now, the names of some people I was going to ask about. But I hadn’t got round to asking yet. And there were sparks. I’m sure I saw them.

The nurse stuck her hands in her pockets and gave the unconscious old woman a sharp look. When she turned back to Dawn her face was sour.

Please don’t ask me about that kind of thing, she said. Tinkers and curses and black magic. I go to church. I don’t believe in such things.

The nurse took herself away, clicking her heels on the parquet floor with a new kind of vigour. Ma Batchie just smiled a peaceful smile.

   SECRETS   

Wee Betsy, 1955

The fatter Big Ellen gets the more people round here are talking about the baby. If it’s a boy it’s going to be Duncan like my daddy, and if it’s a girl we’re going to have another bloody Betsy. That means I’ll start being called Big Betsy, cause I’ll be bigger than the bairn. So I’ve got my fingers crossed tight for a boy.

I keep thinking of the story Granny told us about the piper and the lord’s daughter. How is it that the lord’s daughter was having Fearghas’s baby when they weren’t married yet? The thing is, I thought you had to be married first, even if your man has gone away to sea like Big Ellen’s. I’m just having a scratch of my napper and wondering about this when Mammy comes in. She nags me to stop my fleching, cause I’ll get the beasties from my hair under my nails. Rachel’s out playing, so I think now’s a good time to ask about the story.

Mammy explains. It was all down to music! Music and dancing can make people do things they normally wouldn’t, she says, a bit like Daddy when he’s on the drink.

Music. It makes sense somehow. That’ll be why this family keeps growing, with Granny always hammering away on her organ and puffing at that whiney old chanter downstairs. I don’t want more sisters, and I definitely don’t want a brother, so I hope Granny keeps it down from now on. Otherwise she can give the new babies to the fairies she’s always going on about.

‘Away and play with Rachel for a wee whiley,’ Mammy says.

I hate to leave my nice seat by the fire, but I go to the top of the stairs and put my boots on slow as I can, thinking whether I should tell Rachel what I’ve learnt.

‘Oh, Betsy, can ye nae tie those pints any faster?’ Mammy complains.

By the time I’ve done double knots in my laces, I’ve decided to let Rachel in on the secret, but only if she promises to hand over her quarter of the Mars Bar we get on Saturday, and I get to choose what flavour drink we get off the Hays van.

Uncle Jock comes out his room at the bottom of the stairs. He’s holding up part of his station uniform.

‘I’ve lost a button,’ he says to Mammy, waving the waistcoat in his hand.

‘I can dae that for you, Jock, bring it here. Need it in the morning, do ye? Have ye kept the button?’

‘Aye,’ he says, and he fumbles in his pocket and starts to climb the stairs as I run past him shouting, ‘Bye, Uncle Jock!’ Maybe one day he’ll have a baby with Miss Webster and they’ll call her Betsy after me. I wouldn’t mind that.

Rachel’s at the drying green, standing right in the middle of the claes tows with everybody’s white sheets flapping round and around her. We like to stand in the centre and turn till we’re dizzy. It’s like being inside a huge white rose.

‘Can I play?’

‘Aye! Come on!’ Rachel says, her voice a sing-song, spinning up and up even though she’s stopped moving. She holds her hands out to the sides and waits for me to join her, my back against her back, arms stretched out together, touching all the way to the tips. She leans back, and where our heads meet it feels strange, like we’re being pulled together by magnets. We are melting into one. This is probably how I got the heid beasts off her, but I’m not minding about that now. Rachel giggles in my lug as I call out.

‘Ready, steady, GO!’

We do the spinning game for a while, and then we do a clapping game.

‘Skidamarink – adink – a dink

Skidamarink – a doo!

Skidamarink – adink – a dink

I love you!’

When we’re bored of Skinny Malinky we separate and fly through the sheets, pretending to be seagulls soaring through the clouds. All I can hear is laughing, Rachel’s and mine, our boots pummelling the earth, stamping down the weeds, the sheets billowing. They beat and fill out like a heart, Granny thumping dust from the rug. Most of the game all I see is whiteness swirling past, waltzing ghosts. For a second my head spins and I feel lost. The sheets are alive! Twisting and trapping and tying knots. I flip round till I catch a glimpse of Rachel’s face. Phew! There she is! She’s got two teeth missing on her top row. It makes her say ‘ethith’ instead of ‘esses’, and when she smiles it looks pink through the gap, same as Nancy’s mouth.

Rachel falls to the floor panting and holding her belly, and I sit on my knees beside her. I stroke the soft fringe on her kilt between my fingers. I wore that kilt once, till it got too small. The pin catches the sun as my wee sister rolls about like a jolly joker, and her lovely black curls snake over the grass. I want to tell her about the music and the babies right now, and decide I don’t mind about getting her quarter of the Mars Bar. She must’ve come from Granny playing a really pretty tune.

We sit with the circles of giant white petals all around and above us, and I get Rachel to be serious and listen. She tries, but Rachel doesn’t seem to understand what I’m on about, or if she does she doesn’t find babies all that interesting. I wouldn’t have gotten her bit of Mars Bar for it anyway. She rolls onto her back and starts being stupid again. I give up, call her a silly nickum.

Lady Hill’s at the top of the Lane behind an old wall. I think it’s haunted and it’s like a mountain to climb. I watch the toes of my boots dunting into the grass like a donkey’s hooves. On the steep bits I throw back my head and stare at the statue on the pillar at the top. I think there should be a lady on the top of Lady Hill, but it’s not a statue of a lady at all. It’s a boring manny who was the Fifth Duke of Gordon. Looking up at him’s like staring at the headmaster in assembly, and the feeling’s like toppling on the edge of a cliff. All you can hear is the wind and the seagulls crying, except for the crashing coming from the scrap yard. But I hear voices today as well. Sounds like the Newlands clan are already up there. I pull Rachel behind me till we’re almost running.

‘Hurry up, you warridrag!’

The view’s nice on a clear day. You see all the way to the hills. Ben Rinnes is the biggest. I’d love to go there. Down below you can see most of Elgin, the big church at Plainstones with the thing on top that’s shaped like a vase of flowers, the ruined towers of the cathedral, a bit of Cooper Park and the boating lake, but no boats now cause they take them away in the winter. Nearer by there’s the River Lossie, the green dome of Dr Grey’s Hospital, and the rag store and the yard where Daddy is right now. He’s making a racket clanking bits of metal. Beside the yard is the drying green with the white sheets flapping, where we were just a minute ago! Granny told me they used to hang people there, so the green must really be haunted. Maybe from up here we’ll spot the ghosts. But there’s no time to waste getting all dreamy.