by Jess Smith
The elderly gent told Davie that he would find nothing in this place because the ancient one had eaten most folks. The rest had taken to the hills in fear that they too would be feasted upon.
‘Ancient one,’ asked our visitor, ‘and who might he be? And can he not eat food like the rest of us?’
The old man was a bit taken aback by Davie’s response and asked him where he had been for the last ten years and more. After realising Davie had been on the high seas, the old man beckoned to him to come in and share his supper. Davie didn’t feel the need for food, having eaten enough to choke a horse, but thought it best not to offend the man and said a drink of tea would be fine. They drank down tea and then Davie discovered what was happening to the people.
He drew upon his pipe, did the old man, stared into the fire and said, ‘One night when her Majesty the Queen was alone in her chambers, she made a wish that the King’s dungeon was filled stapped full with gold. Suddenly she turned to see a tiny man dancing in the flames of her fireplace. He said that if she wanted her wish to come true, then she had to bring two handmaidens over to the fire for his Master. Without question the greedy monarch did as requested. The most terrible thing happened next—a dozen tiny little men just like the first grabbed the two innocent maidens and drew them into the fire, never to be seen again. The King, on hearing this, was horrified at the evil greed of his wife, scolding her for dealing with the underworld. She said that before he judged her, why did they not see if the tiny man kept his part of the bargain. So down into the dungeon they went, and yes, there it was, a mountain of sun-kissed gold filled every corner. But the King was not impressed, and went into his wife’s chamber to see if the magic forces could be summoned. At once the little man appeared to him and said, if he wanted things to be as they used to be, then he must bring the Queen over to the fire. This he did, and in an instant she too was seized and swallowed up by the fiery imps. Then the rooms began to shake. Flames shot forth from the fire to curl and slither up the wall. The fireplace was glowing like a furnace. Then he of all terror, of all horror, of the most grotesque form, the Devil himself, shot out and held his Majesty by the throat. ‘You will bring me and mine food—living, screaming, kicking food—do you hear me, mortal?’
The quivering King nodded his head vigorously. The Devil, as suddenly as he had come, was gone, leaving a cold fireplace and a wreck of a king.
‘So now you see where the townsfolk have gone,’ the old man concluded.
Davie thought long and hard before saying that he might be able to help. He asked to see the King. After climbing several flights of winding stairs the pair were ushered in to sit before a bent-backed and sad-faced man. He was not old, yet he had the appearance of one who had lived a dreadful existence. ‘I have a young man here, who thinks he may be of assistance, your eminence, sire,’ said Davie’s companion, with an air of despair in his croaky voice. The King hardly lifted his head to look at Davie, but bade him sit anyway. Davie said that he too had a powerful magic, not to be used for greed or evil but only for deeds of goodness.
‘Take him away to do what he wishes,’ said the King to his faithful old servant, though neither of them had the slightest belief in Davie or anyone else for that matter.
Davie was taken into the Royal Chambers and soon had the fire kindled, spreading a warming yet menacing heat throughout the room. He didn’t have long to wait before the tiny man he had heard of came slithering over the flames. ‘Have you food for my master?’ he enquired. ‘Yes, I have,’ answered Davie. ‘Then give it here,’ squealed the demon. Davie shook his head several times before saying he had to see the ancient one first. The last word had no sooner left his mouth when the ruler of demons whooshed up and hovered in the room like a tower of solid flame. Davie felt his toes curl inside his boots and his tongue swell with fear.
‘Where is my meal,’ roared the earth-shattering one. ‘I need fed!’
‘Sire, I have a meal better than any living, scrawny person—would you like to taste it?’ Before the Devil could do to him what he’d done to all the other mortals, Davie spread his sack on the floor, peered inside and summoned its best. It did not disappoint: the whole room began to fill up with every possible edible morsel. ‘Come eat, fill yourselves,’ he called to the demons, who were pushing and shoving to be able to feast upon Davie’s gifts. The Devil was the first to gorge, spewing and slushing his way through fruits, beef stews, fishes and fry-ups until not a single crumb was left. He liked these new delights and ordered Davie to be there again next night. Davie came again as he was told and the next night also.
After a week, when he was certain he’d gained the trust of the king of the demons, he set about his plan. ‘Keep all the doors open leading from the chambers and down the stairs, and also open the castle gate,’ he told the old guard. ‘This night we will see the end of the ancient one and his family of gargoyles. Trust me, old man.’
That evening, as was now usual, when the fire was lit those wicked vipers from the pits of hell came forth to feast. With drooling slavery lips they waited impatiently, scratching at Davie and then at the sack. The Devil ordered him to provide food or else they’d eat him instead.
‘Now, listen here, you lot,’ said the bold hero, ‘why do you wait night after night for a feasting when you can enjoy the pleasures of the sack all the time?’
‘Well, tell us more, then, Davie boy, please come closer and tell us more.’ The Devil pushed aside his family of ghouls in anticipation, curling long fiendish fingers round Davie’s neck.
‘It’s easy, my lord of the underworld—jump inside!’ The drooling band gathered in a tight circle and peered inside the sack, ‘I see nothing,’ said one, ‘nor I,’ hissed another.
‘Of course you can’t see anything, because you must all jump deep inside. Only then can the sack work its magic.’ Davie felt the Devil’s bony fingers loosen their grasp as he bent down to sniff and gaze within the blackness of the sack. His followers, as if waiting on his orders, gathered round. ‘Let’s try this, my wiry little worshippers,’ he cried then leapt into the sack. In an instant his band did the same. Davie waited until the last cloven foot had disappeared from view before whipping a strong band of rope around the opening. ‘Look out,’ he screamed, ‘I’m coming through, I’ve the devil on ma back!’ Out of the chambers and down the stairs he darted, with the bag of hell on his back. Out through the main door, out through the courtyard, out through the castle gate, on to the street he ran and ran with all the demons of hell scraping and screaming on his shoulders. The King, who heard the commotion, was standing on his castle wall shouting from the high turrets, ‘Haste on Davie, haste on my man, you’ll do it!’ His old guard was doing the same.
Davie went round the bend in the cobbled street, and with one last dash began emptying hell’s cargo down into the town’s well. Down, down they went, tumbling and rolling and screeching, never to escape the blessed water of the well.
Davie had used his sack as was asked of him by the old sick lady—‘never ask for greed, only need!’ Well, folks, if ever a sack was used for need, then it certainly was this one.
Before long word spread that the Devil was defeated, and soon the townsfolk came home to their houses. The King began to do his duty, and soon found a worthier Queen than his last one. And as for brave Davie, well, one day while washing at a quiet river, he met and was reunited with his family and never needed to ask his magic sack for anything again. (He keeps it safe, however, just in case.)
The tale I have just shared with you is part of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. Travelling people used these stories to teach their children about what in the world was right and wrong. As in the Bible the Devil, that timeless serpent who represents all sin, was always the main baddie, while a mere human of low birth was the hero.
17
WINTER IN MANCHESTER
We were back on the road now, and as we planned our winter in Manchester I stirred up quite a storm. If you need a cuppy, then go on, fill you
rself one, then settle back and we’ll have this blether.
Lancaster loomed on our horizons. Mammy asked Daddy if he remembered where her old chum Lizzie Gaskins lived. He said somewhere to the north of the city, but that we didn’t have time to visit because it was getting late.
‘I’d like to see her again, Charlie, we didnae half hae a guid auld laugh when we were weans.’ As we sprawled in the leather luxury of our Jaguar cruising down the English highway with our caravan yoked up behind, Mammy told us that Lizzie was a traveller from Stirling who had married an English lad. They had made a good living on the antiques and settled in Lancaster, only occasionally popping south to the hop-picking in Kent.
Daddy promised that when we’d found a winter stopping place then he’d take her to visit with her friend. But ‘best laid plans’ and all that, because I put the spoke in Daddy’s wheel before that day wasted away.
I felt a jaggy pain in my right side as we ate breakfast, but thought nothing of it because I was aware the dreaded monthers were on the skyline of my teenage years, and us girls didn’t mention such embarrassments. Bloody monthers—why in the entire world did Mother Nature send those cursed times upon the female form beats me. Knots like invisible fists twist and turn away deep inside the gut, accompanied by drum-beating headaches; black moods when you could quite happily fling hot oil at anyone, and then those blasted rivers of red, yuck! Who in their right mind would want to talk about such a curse? Yes, God must have been in some helluva mood when issuing the monthers. And what was the reason—babies! Yes, all that just to reproduce ourselves. I promise you this, reader, when I stand outside those pearly gates He’ll hear me, I can put hand on heart to that.
Anyway, there I was with knots getting tighter and running up and down my right side with knuckle-dusters on. It was more than I could stand. ‘Mammy, I’ve a bugger of a pain in my side,’ I cried out. Before my mother could answer I felt a bolt of flaming pain shoot under my ribs, pushing every mouthful of porridge up my gullet and covering Daddy’s head and neck. Mary, Renie and Babsy began boking, forcing Daddy to pull off the road. In seconds we were all leaning over the fence, retching. Mammy felt my head, which in her words was ‘on fire’. ‘I think we had better get Jessie to a hospital, Charlie, she’s not well. Come on, darling, let’s get you lying down in the trailer.’ She lovingly helped me into the caravan, while the rest of the family cleaned themselves of my vomit. ‘Can you think of what it was you ate, pet?’ she enquired. I couldn’t think of anything other than what we’d all eaten that morning. She thought it might be appendicitis until I told her my beasties were visiting.
‘Never in all my time did I see a lassie with a reaction like this,’ she told me. ‘No, you need seeing to.’ Nicky and Portsoy, who were following behind, pulled over and said they’d wait on a nearby lay-by until our return. We sped off to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. By the time we eventually arrived I was delirious, with a temperature to fry on. In no time I was poked, prodded, X-rayed, injected and eventually bedded. ‘We can’t seem to find a reason for your daughter’s condition, but we’ll keep her in overnight for more tests.’ I screamed that it was only the monthers and to let me out. But nothing doing, hospital it was and that was that.
While they were in Lancaster, my family sought out Mammy’s old friend, who was overjoyed to see her.
Next morning the family arrived to find me thankfully recovered, sitting in the waiting room. The doctor told them he believed I had a condition known as grumbling appendicitis, and might one day need it removed. I had a reprieve on that occasion, folks, but I would have gladly parted with a dozen back teeth to have seen the bugger staring at me from a glass jar than living in the knowledge that my grumbler was still snuggling into my wee intestines. Still, as the Good Book tells us, ‘sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof.’ And thereof it certainly was, because when we arrived back at the lay-by where Nicky and dear old Portsoy Peter were supposed to be waiting for us, the polis had shifted them, over four times. The poor souls spent the night yoking up from one lay-by to another before going back to wait for us in the first one. That, however, wasn’t the trouble I am referring to, oh that it was. No, Portsoy had been arrested by the cops who just happened to be on the look-out for him. We did not know it at the time, but there was a warrant out for his arrest regarding a toff’s missing something or other. I can’t say what it was, but it had enough value to send the hornies south to find and arrest him. So off we went, minus our pal, to winter stop between a car garage and, just as on our previous visit, a piece of waste ground.
November, with its touch of nippy morning frost and foggy nights, had us searching through the ragbags for woolly jerseys with high necklines. If you didn’t read Jessie’s Journey, to which this book is the follow-up, then share with me now what I mean by the ‘rag-bags’. These were large brown paper bags, each containing six washing pegs and a small sample packet of washing powder, along with a note which read ‘Please accept these in return for any old clothes, preferably woollens, many thanks.’
Most folks on finding these bags on their doorsteps were happy to part with unwanted rags and in return to have something back, especially useful objects. However I have to say the odd one would be happy to pocket the goods and replace them with the contents of their bowels, filthy pigs! Still, only rarely did we encounter such low life. If we did we usually pushed the bag back through their letterbox to allow them a moment of reflection before they cursed us to the depths of damnation. In complete contrast, one day we began our cold street hiking by starting off in a well-to-do area. Hardly had we placed one bag when a lady called to us. When we went back to her house she beckoned us round to the rear entrance, to find, sitting there, dozens of hessian sacks filled to bursting with woollens. By the time Nicky and I had the last one piled into the Big Fordy there wasn’t an inch to spare. What a great day that turned out to be. The gentle lady didn’t ask a penny, she was only too grateful to get rid of all her old clothes. I saw lots of nice cardigans, but when she told us that her sister and husband had died I thought it best to leave things in the sacks. Travellers are very superstitious and later on I will share more of this with you.
Our day would begin with the frost biting into the tips of our fingers. I say ‘our’ meaning, on this Manchester visit, Nicky and I. Mammy stayed at home while the lassies went to school. Daddy, being the mechanically-minded chap that he was, had found an odd hour helping in the garage, and this was of great benefit. It covered our rent, although I have to admit we certainly found him coming in many times covered in oil from burrowing into the guts of cars. Still, it was a labour of love to my old Dad without a doubt.
So I hope you’ve got the picture, folks, as to our abode in the Rosy City. I’d like to tell you now about our neighbours. Opposite the waste ground, to our north, there sat a large smelly waterproof factory. I don’t know its name, just that it made raincoats. Once a week, a massive lorry-load of cuttings was dumped onto the waste ground. Believe me if you can, reader, but under that smouldering mountain of material lived the city’s vagabonds. Almost like an army of vampires they emerged onto the night skyline to forage hotel and restaurant back-entrances for scraps of food.
For me they represented a menacing, heaving mass of life’s unwanted, the dregs of society, but to my mother (God love her) they were sad, unfortunate individuals who had fallen from life’s hard road and never found the way back. She always smiled and greeted them, as she would do anyone. They in turn would remove their crumpled bunnets, click heels together and greet her with as much politeness. ‘Mammy,’ I remember saying, ‘thon lads could just as easy slit our throats while we slept for whatever we had, and here’s you smiling and giving them the time of day.’
She took my hand, answering me by saying, ‘lassie, a beggar disnae steal, he begs.’
I, with my blindness to adult knowledge, shrugged my shoulders and asked my mother where was the sense in her words. To this day I see her eyes twinkling with a tear i
n each. ‘They have already been robbed, Jessie, of all dignity and honour. Nothing left for thon poor souls than to live within the cess-pit of nature, surviving on the likes of folks who have a little heart left in them to show the compassion this world seriously lacks.’ She then scolded me and reminded me that we travelling people should understand that better than others. She finished with these words. ‘After all, who do you think taught tramps the ways of begging if not us?’ Mammy had a way of painting pictures with her well-chosen words, and this is why, to this day, I can share them with you, my friend.
Within a fortnight of us settling into the secluded spot within the Cheetam Hill area, the only other person who came into our midst was a young policeman called Jim. He took to us because he came from Fife; he was another Scot living and working in the heart of England and needed perhaps to hear familiar Scottish voices. Mammy enjoyed his visits when he was on street duty. She’d whistle him in for a hot mug of tea; this was a godsend to a street bobby, especially one who had to walk the lonely nights away with eyes in the back of his head. At first he said, ‘Och, you’re no needing tae be giving me tea, Mrs Riley,’—then, after a while, he’d appear with a bag of scones or a packet of biscuits expecting our hospitality as if he were one of the family. Daddy, who mainly eyed the law with mistrust, soon dropped his guard to Jim, the young friendly bobby from Fife, and treated him like an old pal.
After November had passed we got ready for the deep dark winter ahead, and I certainly felt that the ragging was taking a chunk from my pretty feminine fingers. Nicky said it left him shattered in the evenings, and gave him no time to ‘check oot the bints’ (look for talent of the female kind). This had me scratching my head, I must say: you’d think there were more than enough ‘bints’ sharing his breakfast with him every morning. Yes, I know, folks, he had the sowing to do, I know, I know.