The Loud Halo

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘So now he’s proposing to get married,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, an’ it should be worth seein’. She’s been around tryin’ to find somebody will give her a dress for the weddin’. Indeed she was at my own house yesterday but I had nothin’ would do for her.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ I said. ‘I wish I could help her.’

  ‘Ach, she’s no needin’ help,’ replied Morag. ‘Mary Anne’s promised her a white dress she has by her.’

  ‘Her own wedding dress?’ I asked.

  ‘Ach, no, mo ghaoil, it’s just a dress of some sort she inhabited from her granny when she died. It’s been up in a box in the loft long since.’ I felt even sorrier for the girl. ‘It’s queer all the same,’ Morag went on, ‘the likes of them tinks wantin’ to get marrit in a church.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘How do they usually get married?’ I was thinking of the traditional gypsy ceremony.

  ‘Indeed I’m thinkin’ they don’t usually bother themselves,’ said Morag.

  There was sudden thump on the door and it flew open, revealing a group of masked children clad in a variety of old seamen’s jerseys, yachting caps, long black skirts and tattered dresses. They blundered into the kitchen and silently stood in an aura of mildew and excitement, waiting for us to guess their identities, greeting our deliberately wrong guesses with anonymous snorts and giggles and reluctantly acknowledging correct ones by removing their marks. Eventually all the masks were removed and we gave them each a threepenny bit. I put out a bowl of water in which lurked quartered apples and rolling up their voluminous sleeves the children ducked for them with eager deliberation. When the apples were finished they put on their masks again and securely tucking up flapping skirts and trouser legs ran off gaily to repeat the performance at the next house.

  ‘I’m thinkin’,’ said Morag, ‘the tinks will be after some of them dresses the children was wearin’ tonight if they see them. They’ll want to be dressin’ themselves up for the weddin’ as well as the bride.’

  A few days after Halloween the prospective bride called at the cottage. Trying to conceal her excitement she told me wistfully that she had tried ‘everywhere just’ (she implied by her tones every reputable store in town) but could not get a pair of white shoes to fit her. Had I such a thing as a pair? She would be so full of thanks to me if I could but just find her a wee pair. I knew I had absolutely nothing suitable. I also knew that she would not believe me if I told her so. I invited her inside to inspect my shoe cupboard to see if there was anything else that might do. There were no light shoes at all, my Bruach footwear being limited to gum boots, brogues and carpet slippers. She smiled at me ingratiatingly. She understood, of course, I wouldn’t want to part with them; they were nice anyway and that cool in the summer for the feets. I wondered at first which particular pair of shoes she was going to try to win from me and then I saw that her glance kept going to a pair of grubby old tennis shoes in the bottom of the cupboard. I bent down and rooted them out. There was a small hole in the toe of each.

  ‘These?’ I asked incredulously. ‘You want these?’

  Ach, it was too much to ask of me. She tried to look contrite, but her eyes returned greedily to the shabby shoes I was holding. I handed them to her.

  ‘Have them by all means if you want them,’ I said, and poking about found a tube of whitener not completely hard which I also pushed into her hand. Full of smiles and dramatic predictions of good luck that would follow my generosity she rushed off clutching the shoes to her and leaving me with an inexplicable sense of guilt which was not dissipated until Morag told me that she had heard the bride’s mother only that day pestering the grocer to get her some coloured toilet rolls.

  ‘Aye, I thought that would surprise you, I was surprised myself,’ she told me, with cheerful disapproval. ‘Toilet rolls for tinks!’ she scoffed, ‘and coloured ones at that! “What’s wrong with a handful of grass the same as we use ourselves?” I says to her, and do you know what she was wantin’ them for?’

  I shook my head and waited.

  ‘She said she must have coloured paper for makin’ the flowers for the bucket the bride was goin’ to carry.’ She snorted. ‘Fancy that now. Not satisfied with a white dress my fine lady must have a bucket to carry like brides in the papers and her mother’s havin’ to make her the flowers for it.’

  An ancient dress, a pair of old tennis shoes, a bouquet of paper flowers!

  I announced my intention of going to see the wedding, and Nelly Elly was quick to say that she would come with me if she could get someone to see to the Post Office for her. Mary Anne, delighted at the possibility of seeing the bride in her grandmother’s dress, planned that she too would come if Jamie would get back from the cow in time. Morag indicated that she would come if the Lord spared her.

  The day of the wedding brought a sunwhite morning encircled with gull cries and harried by a bluster of wind. The wedding was to be at twelve o’clock in a church some twelve miles distant so there was time only to rush through the morning’s chores before embarking on a wrestling bout with Joanna, my car, who with age was becoming an increasingly slow starter. I was late and all three of my friends were walking along the road towards the cottage when I met them.

  ‘My, they’re sayin’ there’s tinks come from as far as Inverness for this weddin’!’ exclaimed Morag as soon as we had started off.

  ‘Indeed and so they have,’ agreed Nelly Elly. ‘Did you no’ have them round yesterday just? Beggin’ me to buy they were, just so they could give the bridegroom a wee bitty somethin’ for his weddin’.’

  ‘I’m knowin’ fine what the wee bitty somethin’ would be, too,’ observed Morag sagely. ‘It’ll be a rough weddin’ if there’s many from Inverness there.’

  ‘There’s a dozen came from there yesterday,’ reported Nelly Elly. ‘An’ I’m after hearin’ that the little boy they brought with them was a wee monster. He was swearin’ that bad on the train they had to lock him in the guard’s van all the way.’

  She sucked in a horrified breath. ‘Folks was sayin’ they’d never heard anythin’ like it.’

  ‘If there’s a dozen of them from Inverness there’s as many from other places,’ put in Mary Anne. ‘There must be near forty of them all together in that sod hut. Dear knows where they’re all to sleep.’

  ‘Ach, they’ll no’ be carin’ where they sleep,’ said Morag disdainfully. ‘An’ they’ll have that much drink inside them they won’t know where they are anyway.’

  ‘Erchy was past their camp yesterday and he was sayin’ there was good smells for a mile either way,’ supplied Nelly Elly. ‘They were after cookin’ the chickens they got. He says they had three or four fires goin’ and he reckoned they had about fifteen birds there of one sort or another. They’re doin’ well out of it. I know the cockerel my mother gave them was near as big as a goose.’

  ‘My own was as big,’ countered Morag with pride. ‘I was thinkin’ maybe I’d keep him till the New Year, but ach, when they asked me would they get somethin’ for the weddin’ feast I felt I’d best give it to them.’ She smoothed her gloves complacently. ‘All the same,’ she went on, ‘I believe they’ve done well for meat from Lachy’s cow that fell over the cliff a day or two back. He says they were runnin’ back and fro with pails and basins to it all day long till the tide took it away.’

  ‘Indeed I heard that too,’ confirmed Mary Anne. ‘So I didn’t give them a bird at all. I wasn’t for givin’ then anythin’ at first but the hens are layin’ well just now so Jamie said to give them a few eggs.’

  ‘Somebody told me you gave them a pound of tea, too!’ accused Morag.

  ‘Aye,’ admitted Mary Anne self-consciously. ‘I had plenty so I thought I’d not be missin’ it.’

  ‘I’m glad everyone didn’t give them a chicken,’ I said, regretting that I had put only half a crown into the toe of each of the tennis shoes.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Mors.

  ‘Because I didn’t,’ I repl
ied.

  ‘Ach, well, I daresay you gave them eggs or potatoes or somethin’.’ she suggested. ‘There was no call for everybody to give them chickens.’

  ‘I didn’t give them anything at all,’ I confessed. ‘The bride asked me for a pair of old tennis pumps I had and when I gave them to her I popped half a crown into the toe of each of them, but I wasn’t asked to contribute anything to the feast.’

  ‘No indeed, and that was plenty to give them,’ comforted Nelly Elly. ‘They were havin’ a struggle to carry home the food they collected when I saw them. What with all they’d have from Lachy’s cow and them havin’ got a whole sack of potatoes from Roddy they’ll be feedin’ like kings and queens anyway—not but what they don’t always,’ she added.

  ‘Better than the rest of us,’ agreed Morag, with a tremor of indignation. ‘An’ not only that. Did you hear how he’s been gettin’ the petrol so they can go for a honeymoon?’

  We all admitted that we had not heard.

  ‘Why, he’s been takin’ his van to a different spot each day an’ there he leaves it an’ stands himself beside it with an empty can. He stops every car and lorry as it comes by an’ tells them he’s run out of petrol and asks will he get a bit to see him home.’ She paused for our exclamations. ‘Some of the drivers feels that sorry for him they’ll give him near a canful,’ she continued, ‘an’ my fine fellow has a fifty-gallon drum in the back of his van so as soon as they’re out of sight he nips round an’ puts the petrol into it.’

  ‘Oh, my, my, he’s the wily one,’ chuckled Mary Anne appreciatively.

  ‘Hear that now!’ said Nelly Elly with envy-tinged disapproval. ‘What will those tinks be after thinkin’ of next?’

  ‘I wonder?’ I murmured, as I was assailed by a sudden recollection. ‘I wonder if that’s what he was up to the other day when Hamish saw him, broken down, as he thought, beside the road?’

  ‘Likely it was,’ said Morag.

  I started to chuckle as I recounted for the amusement of my companions the story Hamish had told me. It seemed he had been walking back to Bruach after delivering some sheep to the mainland when he had come across Hairy Willie, looking rather grimier and sweatier than usual, bending over the engine of his van. When Hamish had drawn alongside the tinker had proceeded to give him a brief but vitriolic description of the misdeameanours of the ancient engine and while he was in full spate a car drew up and a gentleman got out to ask if help was needed. Hairy Willie promptly replied that it was ‘Nothin’ but a wee bitty petrol she was after wantin’.’ But the gentleman, according to Hamish, had already started his own investigation and, to the tinker’s very obvious surprise, had discovered that the tank contained ample petrol. He had continued his examination of the engine, poking and prodding, screwing and unscrewing, and eventually he had told Hairy Willie to try to start it. The engine had responded to the first pull. The mystified expression of the tinker had changed to one of such relief that the gentleman had asked anxiously if he had been stranded for long and how far away his home lay, to which questions Hairy Willie replied with his customary glib mendacity. ‘Thank you, thank you, sir,’ he repeated again and again. ‘What would I have done now if yourself hadn’t come along?’

  ‘It isn’t I you should thank but God Almighty,’ replied the gentleman. ‘It is He who sent me here to help you.’

  ‘Hairy Willie’s face looked as though he had two tongues and had bitten both of them,’ Hamish reported, ‘an’ he turned to the man. “You must be a minister,” says he. “I am indeed,” says the man. “Is there anything wrong with that?” “Wrong!” shouts Hairy Willie. “Wrong? Man! Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me you was a minister, I might have started swearing’ in front of you.” ’

  My companions exchanged looks before they permitted themselves to giggle demurely.

  By this time we were rounding the head of the loch where the wet, black hills gloomed over acres of shore which the tide had left to a shifting mosaic of seabirds. Hooded crows swaggered uneasily among the fringes of salt weed and an occasional heron stood in aristocratic aloofness, with feathered ‘widow’s weeds’ lifting gently in the breeze.

  ‘Here comes the boys!’ announced Morag, and I drew in to the side of the road. There had been a cattle sale at the loch side that morning and the Bruach men had started out at two o’ clock to walk their cattle to it. They were trudging their long way back now, driving before them either cattle they had bought at the sale or cattle they had refused to sell because of poor prices. Morag put down the window. ‘How did the sale go, boys?’ she demanded eagerly.

  ‘No’ bad,’ they admitted.

  ‘Good prices?’

  ‘Ach, no’ bad.’

  ‘What did our own Ruari make on his beasts?’ It was not done to ask a man outright what he got for his cattle. You asked him about a neighbour’s or a friend’s beasts and hoped he would volunteer to tell you how he himself had fared.

  ‘I believe he got seventy for the two of them.’

  ‘The dear knows!’ exclaimed Morag noncommittally. ‘An’ is he after buyin’ a beast in for himself?’

  ‘Aye,’ was the disdainful reply. ‘A right queer beastie, too, that looks as if it’s been crossed with a camel.’

  ‘The fool!’ said Morag with derision. She turned her attention to wee Shamus, who at eight years old had achieved the status of manhood by being allowed to walk his widowed mother’s cow through the night to the sale. His valiant efforts to disguise his tiredness were not helped by the fact that he had a black and swollen eye.

  ‘Shamus!’ Morag taxed him. ‘You’ve not been fighting’, surely?’

  ‘I have not then,’ replied Shamus with flushed stubborness.

  ‘You haven’t? Then how is it you have such a black eye?’

  Shamus kicked his gumbooted foot in the grass. ‘Well, you see,’ he said profoundly, ‘somebody struck somebody.’ But before she could question him further he had darted off to turn a cow who was trying to dodge past him.

  Erchy, red-faced with exertion, came hurrying up to the car. ‘Here,’ he told us, ‘I’m thinkin’ I’ll come back with you.’

  ‘You will not,’ we told him. ‘We’re cramped enough as it is.’

  ‘I could sit on top,’ he coaxed.

  ‘No.’ We were adamant.

  ‘Ach, well, I’m comin’ back tonight yet,’ he told us as we were moving off. ‘I’m feelin’ I need a good drink after all the runnin’ about I’m after doin’ today.’

  ‘You’ll be needin’ your bed, more likely,’ Morag said, but he too was running to head off a recalcitrant cow.

  ‘If they get the Bruach men with their cattle money and the tinkers after the weddin’ they’ll have a wild night at the bar tonight,’ she prophesied.

  We arrived at the church a little before twelve, but though there was a fair number of people standing in coy groups outside the church they were obviously not the wedding party. I pulled Joanna in behind a parked van close to the church gates before I realised with a shock that it was an ambulance. With a look of dazed enquiry I turned to Morag. Bruach modes of transport were often wildly unorthodox but surely, I thought, not an ambulance for a bride!

  ‘Ach, no,’ Morag reassured me. ‘Likely it’s the driver himself come to take a look at the weddin’.’

  ‘We’ll no go into the church, will we?’ asked Nelly Elly.

  ‘Why not?’ I replied. ‘I thought that was why we came.’

  ‘Ach, no indeed, I could never go into the church with the tinks,’ she giggled.

  ‘You’re not goin’ in yourself, are you, Miss Peckwitt?’ Mary Anne enquired.

  ‘If Miss Peckwitt’s goin’ in I’ll go along with her,’ said Morag venturesomely.

  ‘Of course I’m going in,’ I said, and getting out of the car made for the church door, whither they all followed me with eager resignation.

  Just as we reached the entrance someone shouted, ‘Here they come!’ and pausing to look back along the r
oad we saw the disordered procession of tinkers coming towards us. The bride and all the female tinkers, frequently impinging on one another as they walked, headed the procession, while the groom with the equally undisciplined male tinkers followed close on their heels. Untrammelled children dove in and out with a liveliness that was in no way affected by their lengthy walk.

  A thought struck me. ‘What happened about the bouquet?’ I enquired. ‘Did the grocer get any coloured toilet rolls?’

  ‘Not him,’ replied Nelly Elly. ‘Why would he do that when it’s just left with them he’ll be?’

  ‘Did she manage to get hold of some coloured paper, then?’

  ‘Well, indeed but didn’t Enac and Fiona go over to the mainland to get themselves some boots last week, an’ them feelin’ that sorry for the tinker girl not gettin’ her bucket they went into all the hotel lavatories and took a bit. They even went through the train while it was in the station and took some of them paper towels. Aye, but the old tinker body was well pleased when they gave it to her. The girls was well pleased too because she told them they’d have rich husbands and good luck for the rest of their lives through it.’ She chuckled. ‘Ach, but the men are sayin’ we’re all goin’ daft over this weddin’.’

  Distinct sounds of hilarity were now reaching us from the distance, but as they neared the church the tinkers hushed their children and their own voices and allowed their features to resume the masks of mendicancy we knew so well.

  We slipped into the church and took our seats on a back pew and taking courage from our example, most of the onlookers followed suit. So quickly did the church fill that when the tinkers arrived there were only a few pews vacant. Embarrassed and bewildered, they squeezed themselves in, waiting vainly under the unrelenting eye of the minister to be told what to do. Hairy Willie came in and stood surveying the congregation with an artficially induced benignity. He was resplendent in his ‘Canadian trip’ clothes, his battered black hat being crushed under his arm. His normally shaggy hair had been cropped so close to his head that it looked as though he was wearing a nylon skull cap. Morag nudged me.