Tales from the Tent

by Jess Smith

  The big man rather sheepishly rolled over from the broken branch and landed inside the mausoleum. Mary and Babsy were already protesting their innocence, saying the padlock on the gate leading to the inner chamber had already been interfered with. It didn’t take long to see they weren’t the first intruders. The padlock was indeed wrenched off and lay in segments upon the stone floor. Very quietly they pushed inside and began whispering. Mary laughed at this and said she hardly thought the inhabitants were likely to hear them. Inside the dome, as far as the eye could see, were inscribed stone squares circling round the floor and going round and round all the way up to the ceiling. These were obviously containers for the ashes of departed family members. Some were little children who’d died of illnesses, some were soldiers lost in battles dating back hundreds of years, some were young women and old men, there were dozens of them. Big Wullie began to feel a strange panic in his chest and shouted at my sisters to ‘get the hell out of this icy place!’ Soon the threesome were heading back up the old track road to tell Auntie Annie about the creepy mausoleum of the landed gentry.

  She was livid and told him so. ‘Better the man you’ll be if you took no part in the disturbance of the dead! See if I find out you had an evil hand in that kind o’ thing then you’ll feel the other side o’ ma haun.’ Auntie Annie was brandishing the soup ladle as near her man’s face as she could, and if big Wullie hadn’t said what he said next then he wouldn’t have felt its soupy wallop.

  ‘I only had a wee peep inside, wife, and by the way, what’s wrong with the other side o’ your haun?’ Silly big fool of a man. Everybody who knew Auntie Annie knew her arm-reach was longer than that of any living man, you see she never misses.

  Without seeking another word from the lassies or her man, she went back to stirring the soup. When we all gathered for supper she told us about the mausoleum. My Mammy, although she’d had a grand day at the hawking with me, was furious and didn’t half lay into Mary and Babsy. She left Renie alone, knowing she’d have no stomach for such desecration. For the next hour the crack made no mention of the building that housed ‘gone over the other side folk’.

  Usually when we had eaten, we took our last long walk of the day—you know, the one that needs a lot of privacy. Men went in one direction, women the other. Somehow or other, though, in that particular gloaming we found that our paths met down on the old track road, standing outside the place of dead folks. Strange that we were all of the same curious mind, would you not say, reader?

  Daddy hoisted Alan up, then said he’d go in last, let all us healthy youngsters go first. Mammy and Auntie Annie stood at the bottom, point-blank refusing to go any further. Portsoy was confident enough that there was still spunk in his bandy legs to tackle the climb.

  Inside (and I can verify this because I was the first in) was an altar with a tiny casket in the middle, but, sad to say, its contents were long since scattered over the stone floor. ‘This must have been a very important baby to be placed in this position,’ I thought, ‘and all these names—wow!’ My eyes circled up and round the dome.

  ‘Would you look at those words,’ whispered cousin Nicky in my ear.

  ‘What words?’ I asked. Nicky took my chin and directed my gaze upward towards a long narrow stone cemented between the memorials to two Earls. It read:

  No eye shall gaze upon our rest,

  Unless it is in Heaven.

  No hand shall lay upon our rest,

  Unless it is forgiven.

  I didn’t quite understand those chiselled words, nor did I understand why there were spirals of icy-cold winds breathing sharply against my ankles. Still, all the while the voice of yon old woman echoed loudly in my head: ‘Angry is the Banashen when graves have been disturbed.’

  Mammy’s whistle had all of us abandoning our curiosity and clambering over the wall back onto terra firma. Soon we saw the reason for her whistle, a handful of locals were heading towards our campsite. Whenever travellers were in the vicinity it was usual for local folks to join them for a ceilidh. Well, it was in those days, especially in the Angus glens. The hardy craturs had brought some home-brewed ale and soon the pipes were reeling, followed by lassies dancing and singing the old ballads. Mammy played her mouthy dry, and as the day wasted away a grand time was had by all.

  Before we uttered our farewells to them, however, Daddy asked what significance the mausoleum held. For instance, did any superstitions linger around it? The dead, did they hold any position of high degree? Now, reader, do you know this, that not one of those folks, and I can say from memory there was a dozen, said a single word. They just thanked us for a braw evening as they slowly walked out of sight and round a tree-lined bend.

  Auntie Annie reminded us not to leave any belongings lying outside, just in case someone had an eye on something. Mammy told her our visitors were as honest as the day was long and not to be so mistrusting. Auntie said she trusted no one, and reminded us she once had a pair of pink knickers stolen from off a fence—and did the bugger not steal a shoe as well! Big Wullie laughed, and said there must be a right funny thief going about. ‘Did you search for a one legged bloke who wore pink knickers, wife?’ he joked. Stupid big man, you’d think he’d learn. Yes, this time he took the full force of both Annie’s fists.

  Well, the ale had worn off, and by midnight we were all sound to the world in our beds. Then it began. The haunting!

  Now, for no apparent reason, I awakened and sat upright in my bed. Mammy did the same. In the hazy dark she asked what had wakened me? Suddenly, Daddy and my young sisters were also sitting up in bed, bewildered as to why they were awake. We peeped out from within the trailer curtains, out into the grey dark night, and, God in heaven, what we saw still sends eerie shivers travelling from my hair to my heel.

  Sticks, still alight, were suspended in mid air. Washed clothes that Mammy had draped over a nearby fence were floating around in circles intermingled with basins, boots and tattie bags. In fact all that lay outside was going round and around in mid-air. We stared in utter terror to see if anyone else was witnessing this phenomenon, and, yes, Auntie Annie and big Wullie were both wide-eyed at their window. Nicky and Portsoy were a wee bit braver than the rest of us and opened their trailer door. Immediately they stepped outside the wind stopped, and everything fell with a clatter on the ground.

  ‘This is a witch’s doings,’ called Portsoy, ‘someone has put the evil eye on us.’ He went on, ‘Come on Charlie, you too, big Wullie, best we take what we can and move away this night.’

  Before anyone could find the breath to answer Portsoy, the spirit wind came with such ferocity the feet were taken from beneath him and threw him hard upon the cold grass. I never knew the old yin could move so quickly. The moment he and Nicky were back inside their trailer again, every movable object began circling the campsite. This went on for at least an hour. Then, as quickly as it began, it subsided. Unable even to contemplate sleep we sat as if transfixed in our beds. Then it started, a noise unlike any we’d heard before. Metal striking metal. Then, the most horrific of all—the voices! Shouting, screaming, whispering voices! Inside our heads and outside there was no escaping those dispossessed souls, for that was the only explanation we could find—the dead were amongst us. It is almost impossible to put those moments into words. Whatever was in our midst that night, its sole purpose was to frighten the life from us. Renie was the first to stiffen and shriek hysterically, and in no time we joined in. Daddy stood up and shouted as loud as he had ever done at us to shut up. Soon we exchanged our hysterics for low whimpers, and this, along with the voices, lasted until a sleepy sun pushed its first rays beyond the heathery grouse-moor horizon.

  So, friends, as I said previously, you may find that hard to believe, but as I also said, if you have never experienced the supernatural then perhaps it is best for you not to judge.

  Without sleep and like brain-dead zombies we shuffled our bodies through the motions. By mid-morning Daddy answered Mammy by saying he definitely wasn
’t moving until the weekend, because of the farmer’s sheds he still had to paint. Mammy practically ate him alive at this news, but she soon realised the spraying of the sheds would help provide for our winter’s table. So, demons or not, we had to face more nights in that frightening campsite beyond the shadowy mausoleum.

  Auntie Annie and big Wullie, well, they had no reason to bide another night, and by twelve they had packed up and gone. Old Portsoy said there was a bit of business needed seeing to at Aberdeen, and he’d be back on the Thursday. So, with those three gone, our fewer numbers looked forward with heightened fear to what might come that night when the blind bats took flight. We wondered if the Banashen wind would ever subside, because it was still blowing eerily through our lower limbs.

  Nicky, Daddy and the rest of us gathered as many fallen tree branches as we could carry from the wood for a roaring fire. If anything came upon us that night then we’d sure as hell see it.

  Darkness seemed to be waiting impatiently, and thank the gods the folks who visited the previous night came a-calling after tea. They were doubled in numbers and brought biscuits, cakes, ale again and numerous musical instruments.

  The bothy ballads sung so traditionally would, had the night before not happened, been without doubt a joy, but none of us were ready to be serenaded. No, we were too afraid.

  It was touching midnight before they upped sticks and headed off down the road. Mary mentioned, in a rather sheepish voice, our previous night’s strange apparitions. She was perhaps hoping our glen folks might be able to throw some light on the matter, but once again no one said a dickey-bird. None of us took our eyes from the visitors until the last head bobbed round the bend and left us alone. Alone, and at the mercy of the Banashen wind.

  Two hours in the dark passed, then three, and, so far so good, the metal clankers and voices left us in peace. Was it to be only one night of haunting? No, was it hell! Four a.m. ticked loudly from Daddy’s alarm clock and the whole sequence of events began again. This time, however, it had more of a heart. The wind lifted and not only circled our belongings around, but intermittently threw things forcefully against our trailer walls. The metal striking metal was louder this time, as if nearing us. Nicky dived into our trailer and shouted he’d had it with this place, and that come the morning he’d be gone. Mammy, perhaps not wanting to lose her laddie (as she called him) ordered Daddy to get up and pack. The ghosts had won, we were leaving. The Banashen wind calmed when Daddy and Nicky gathered our bits and pieces from outside. Not one of us lassies, or Tiny either, ventured so much as a toe into the dark, and as we huddled together on the trailer floor, Daddy hitched big Fordy onto the trailer, and hurried off that haunted green. Nicky pulled his and old Portsoy’s trailer behind us.

  Whatever happened to us in that secluded spot remains a mystery. I later discovered that a great battle was fought in and around the area of the mausoleum. Did our disturbance of those sacred remains have anything to do with what happened? Perhaps it did.

  The Enemy Without

  When earth’s adorned in winter’s frock,

  When sunshine all but falls asleep,

  When life is cold and drab and lost,

  I, the spiteful wind, will reap.

  I hide then seek in hawthorn glens,

  Pruning wings of invisible light,

  Then choose at will, stout hunting grounds,

  Dante’s inferno, or Paris by night.

  If pass me by a tall ship sailing,

  So gentle trumpet tilt her deck,

  If care she not for friendly warning,

  Her destiny a nervous wreck.

  Oh! Mighty oak, for now you rise

  My coat-tail willingly embrace.

  Now due, your family tree’s demise,

  Forswear and join the privileged race.

  At your service proud Lord Thunder,

  Tread you not; white lightning’s toes

  Huff nor puff will split asunder,

  You’re doomed to clap, where’er she goes.

  To clash with fierce consuming flame,

  My deadly adversary seek,

  No puny flesh may play this game,

  Fire and wind cannot be beat.

  I am the everlasting wind!

  To all the deadly enemy without,

  Arm in arm with what’s ’is name?

  Strange bedfellows make without a doubt...

  Charlotte Munro

  10

  PORTSOY PETER

  Three miles down the road we pulled onto a lay-by to wait on two things: Daddy and Nicky finishing the painting job and Portsoy coming back on Thursday.

  You may find it difficult to understand how we later coped with our experience. I cannot say, except that time pushes memories into a smaller piece of a traveller’s mind. Our precarious existence in temporary abodes may also have made us accept it, or maybe it was our outlook on life itself. In other words ‘tomorrow has its own worries, be they natural or unnatural, face each day like there’s no other and that’s final.’

  Daddy must have been doing a fine job at the painting, because no sooner had he finished one farmer’s barns than he started another.

  Menmuir, a few miles down the road, saw our next stop. First, though, I would like to share one last snippet from Kirrie with you.

  I hope you remember when I said that the bold boy, Portsoy Peter, would be a subject of conversation? Well, if the tea’s in the cup and the bum’s in the chair, then just you listen to this.

  Thursday morning, and as promised, Portsoy arrived safe and sound. I use those words carefully, because he had a strange way of living on the edge of a knife. I was getting ready to go into Kirrie for some messages, Mammy had a few cottar housewives to fortune-tell and the lassies were going with Nicky and Daddy to help do easy chores at the painting. Portsoy said he’d come with me, and dearie me, I can feel the shiver run up and down my spine at the mere mention of that day.

  In Kirriemuir town there was in those days a very reputable establishment where one could purchase whatever one wished (my companion’s words). I will not name the fine store, instead let’s call it Kirrie’s Harrods.

  When we came into the main street something so beautiful caught my eye that it held me in awe. There, in the window of Kirrie’s Harrods, draped over a slender, white-faced, rouged-cheeked dummy doll was the most beautiful garment I had ever seen—a pink cashmere duffle coat with jet-black toggles. My heart louped somersaults in my young breast: never had I seen such a beauty, what a garment! I stood there transfixed, completely forgetting the groceries I had to buy for the family’s supper.

  ‘You see something you like, Jessie?’ whispered Portsoy.

  ‘Oh aye, man, take a deek at that, I have never seen such a coat. Would you look at it, man, could you see me in that pink?’

  ‘Aye, lassie, that I could, dae ye want it?’

  ‘Dae I want it, ha, that’s a laugh, dae ye see how much they’re asking for it?’

  A price tag for some enormous amount hung from the cuff—don’t ask me how much; I can’t remember what it was, but so outrageous was it I knew in a million years I’d never afford it. But so lovely was that coat, that for a poor wee travelling girl just to look upon it was more than enough. Old Portsoy pushed an arm through mine and said, ‘if you want something bad enough you should have it, now watch and learn, my girl.’

  With those words still ringing in my head, my escort walked me into the department store, and proceeded to charm the staff with a born wit of the highest degree.

  ‘Now, Jess’, he whispered, ‘don’t speak unless I touch the pinkie of your left hand, and talk like a toff!’

  ‘I cannae talk like a toff, all that marbles in the mouth stuff,’ I told him adamantly.

  But he convinced me I could and that was that.

  Portsoy then approached a slender middle-aged lady smelling of roses and bade her good-day. She smiled, and with one hand sitting gently in the other asked if we needed assistance. My companion went for t
he jugular. ‘We, that is my niece Gwendolyn and I, are visiting my cousin the Laird for a day or two, and we were passing this magnificent shop. Gwenny has taken a liking to the cashmere piece in the window. Do you have it in blue? Blue’s her colour, you see. Well, do you?’

  I froze as Portsoy made out he was thoroughbred, and an English one at that! Worse, he implied I was his niece!

  The rose-smelling lady, who by now was smiling from earlobe to pearl-studded earlobe, approached me with a swirl of measuring tape and called to a girl no older than myself to bring a size-12 in blue. This she did. It was gorgeous. Portsoy Pete knew, however, it was the pink one I wanted, and said, ‘oh, dimples, my darling, I know blue’s your colour, but that shade does nothing for Gwenny’s lovely eyes. No dear, best try on the pink, mmn?’

  By now sweat buds I never knew I possessed were erupting over my body like mini-volcanoes. Portsoy touched the small finger of my left-hand, meaning it was time I spoke. The mother of all nerve battles took place in my dry throat and I squeezed out the minutest ‘yesssss’. The battle was then lost, closing my lips forever as trickling beads of sweat ran from below my hairline, down my back and disappeared under my breasts. Not even the Banashen herself had the power to bring such fear. I wanted to run out the door, not stopping till the trailers on the lay-by came in view, but something halted me in my tracks—a pink, cashmere, jet-black-toggled duffle coat was being draped across my shoulders by the girl. I slipped one arm in, then the other, and as if in a dream gently fastened each shiny toggle. Portsoy came behind me and lifted the hood over my head. Then swiftly turned me to gaze at my reflection in the full-length gilt-edged mirror.