by Ian Sansom
‘No!’ said Miriam.
‘It would add quite a lot to the book, my dear. We’ve hardly begun with Westmorland. Apart from the scenery there are all the monuments, and the castles, and the industry—’
‘No, Father. I said no.’
‘And of course there’s the fair itself, for when we come to write up Cumberland. We’d be ahead of ourselves, actually. Two counties for the price of—’
‘No. No. And double no,’ said Miriam emphatically.
‘And we’d be able to let poor Gerald know that the police need to speak to him back in Appleby. So it’s win-win-win—’
‘No it is not, Father. It is not win-win-win. It is no, no, no. Do you understand?’
‘Miriam!’
‘Father! We are not driving all the way to Egremont. We are here, in case you’ve forgotten, to write a guidebook to Westmorland, plain and simple, in which task we are already conspicuously failing, without wandering off into Cumberland and goodness knows where. And besides, the policeman asked us to remain in Appleby, if you recall?’
‘He didn’t really mean it,’ said Morley.
‘Yes, he did really really mean it! He’s a policeman, for goodness sake!’
‘My point entirely.’
‘Someone has died, Father, and I think you need to take it rather more seriously.’
‘I am taking it very seriously, my dear. Not only has someone died: a man’s wife has died.’ He paused, composing himself. ‘And Sefton and I discovered her body – so I think perhaps we have a duty to poor Mr Taylor to let him know as quickly as possible that the police will be wanting to speak to him, don’t you?’
‘Well in that case we can just let the police know where Mr Taylor is and save ourselves the bother of the journey. Obviously.’
‘But …’ Morley was clearly looking for reasons to justify the journey. ‘The journey is the journey!’ he said, gazing around, in that annoyingly mystical way of his.
‘The journey is the journey?’ repeated Miriam. ‘And what on earth is that supposed to mean, exactly?’
‘This is The County Guides, Miriam. This is it, the very spirit of the thing. The three of us, en route, in transit. In loco!’
‘Oh! Father!’ cried Miriam. ‘Sefton? Talk to him. We are not driving all the way to Egremont. And that’s final.’
We arrived in Egremont in the late afternoon. The drive there was, of course, utterly spectacular, the automobile equivalent of a ride on the Settle–Carlisle line, Morley taking notes and typing as we travelled, as well as continually tossing out observations about the history and topography of Westmorland and Cumberland, and the history of English fairs, and the meaning of the sublime in English literature, and the nature of traditions and customs in rural English life pre-, post- and during industrialisation – the usual sort of conversation for a pleasant afternoon’s outing. With Morley, every jaunt became a lecture, and every lecture a jaunt. The Egremont Fair, I discovered, dates back to the thirteenth century, and is to be clearly distinguished from the likes of the Appleby Fair, which is strictly a gypsy fair, dating back only to the reign of James II, and also from the Grasmere Sports, which is really a sporting occasion, though all three are apparently an integral part of the Lakeland social calendar and therefore play an important role in maintaining what Morley in The County Guides describes as the ‘ancient and noble traditions of Merrie Englande’. It was perhaps therefore no surprise to be greeted on our arrival in Egremont by the sight of a gang of merrie Englishmen happily brawling outside a pub far advanced in its decrepitude and cheered on by a crowd who one might easily imagine having enjoyed bear-baiting during the late Middle Ages.
‘Ah! The Englishman at play!’ said Morley.
‘Bloody gypsies!’ cried one woman in the crowd to the brawling men. ‘Go back to where you belong!’
‘Oh, Father,’ said Miriam. ‘Look at this. Is it safe?’
‘High spirits,’ said Morley. ‘Nothing to worry about. Rather quaint in many ways. Now, a quick tour of the fair, we’ll find Gerald and then we’ll be gone. We’ll be back in Appleby by nightfall. Perfectly straightforward.’
In all my years with Morley nothing was ever straightforward – and so it proved at the Egremont Crab Fair.
Miriam parked the car on a residential street near the centre of the town. There were cars and vans and horses and carts everywhere you looked, men and women in their finery – and their not-so-finery.
‘Probably best if we split up,’ said Morley, ‘and then whoever finds Gerald can say that we’d like a word and we can perhaps rendezvous back here in – what? – an hour or so?’
‘Very well,’ said Miriam.
‘Mind your car, miss?’ asked a young lad who had clearly seen an opportunity to make some money during the festivities.
‘No, thank you,’ said Miriam, shushing him away.
‘Here you are, boy,’ said Morley, giving him a handful of coins. ‘Spend it wisely!’
‘Father!’ said Miriam.
‘It’s a fair, for goodness sake, Miriam!’ said Morley. ‘Go and enjoy yourselves!’ And with that he promptly disappeared into the crowd.
I was about to do exactly that and head for the nearest pub when Miriam called me back.
‘You’re not going to leave me alone here, Sefton, are you?’
‘But Mr Morley said we were to split up and meet back here in an hour or so.’
‘I know perfectly well what he said, but I’m not at all sure I want to be on my own with all these … people.’
Miriam could be snooty and she could be snobbish, and there were times when she was just plain rude. The influence of her London set – the Mitfords and the Guinnesses and the actresses and the mannequins – could be quite unfortunate. But this was admittedly quite a crowd, and quite a mixed crowd, and quite an unruly crowd, and as we neared the centre of town more and more young men and women and families began pressing all around us from every direction, with hawkers and flower sellers and boys and girls begging for change, and women selling rag dolls and – could it have been? – puppies from baskets, and tea stalls and booths and tables piled high with tall pies and flat cakes. Someone had somehow attached a gramophone horn to the top of a tall pole and somewhere nearby – and very recently – a farmer had been spreading muck. The combination of the sound of Tommy Dorsey’s ‘The Dipsy Doodle’ and the stench of manure, and the sweet smell of crab apples crushed underfoot was really quite intoxicating. Miriam was accustomed to the city, with its strict and peculiar rules governing crowd behaviour: this was classic country chaos.
She took my arm and we began walking together. ‘Let me hold on to you, Sefton, just in case,’ she said. And sure enough, we’d not gone more than a few steps when we were accosted.
‘Hey, young lovers, do you want your fortune told?’ asked a gypsy woman, who really would have made a Carmen; she was wearing the typical clothes of her tribe, a costume of such fine colours, and with loud clacking bangles and bracelets, that it almost eclipsed Miriam’s own.
‘We are not young … anything, thank you,’ said Miriam, picking up her stride.
‘Is that right? Are you sure?’ said the woman, who had fallen into step alongside us. ‘Good-looking young lady like yourself, with such a fine young gentleman.’
‘We’re not buying anything today, thank you,’ said Miriam. ‘Good day to you!’
‘I’m not selling anything,’ said the woman.
‘Good,’ said Miriam.
‘You sure you two are not together?’
‘Quite sure, thank you,’ said Miriam. ‘I am practically engaged to someone else, actually.’
‘Ah! Ah, that’d be it,’ said the gypsy. ‘I could tell, you see. Dordi, dordi. It won’t go well.’
‘What won’t go well?’
‘Your engagement, my dear.’
‘How dare you!’ said Miriam.
‘Oh, I thinks you know it, my dear,’ said the gypsy. ‘I thinks you know it. And I thinks you k
now that you two are destined to be together.’
‘Pah!’ cried Miriam. ‘I’ll tell you what I do know. I know we’re destined to go and visit the fair, madam, and I’d be very grateful if you could let us get on and do so in peace, thank you.’
‘You don’t want to know your destiny then?’
‘I make my own destiny, thank you,’ said Miriam.
‘Do you, now?’
‘Yes, I do, thank you.’
‘And what about you, boy?’ the gypsy asked me.
‘Me?’
‘Shall I reveal your future to you?’
‘It’s not his future that’s the mystery,’ said Miriam.
‘Oh, but I can tell you all about his past as well,’ said the woman.
‘Really?’ said Miriam.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said, and began to speed up even more. ‘Come on, Miriam.’
But the gypsy grabbed my arm and brought her face close to mine. ‘Oh, I know all about you,’ she said.
‘Go away!’ I said.
‘Oh yes. I know all about you. You know you’re one of us, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘I can tell. You’re one of those condemned to wander the world without ceasing, running and running, never finding peace.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, brushing her off and speeding away. ‘Much appreciated. Goodbye!’
Giving up with us, the woman immediately caught on to another man and woman and tried the same patter with them. ‘Hello, young lovers, do you want your fortune told?’ The man was rather more brisk with the gypsy than even we had been, and she duly passed on again to the next couple.
‘Bloody gypsies,’ said the man to me, as he walked past. ‘Gunnan folk. They’ve got their own fair, why can’t they leave us to ours?’
‘They say the crash down in Appleby is o’ alanga them,’ said the woman. ‘The children live on nobbut bread an’ scrape.’
We wandered together round the fair, Miriam rather irritated and anxious, clearly annoyed with the gypsy woman, and with me, and with Appleby and Egremont, and with the whole of Cumberland and Westmorland, but gradually she calmed down and began to enjoy herself. We drank tea and ate cakes. We watched men playing quoits and children attempting to climb a greasy pole. It was another warm September afternoon and the tea and cakes and the general air of gaiety slowly began to work a subtle autumn magic: we laughed at the same things, and shared a few small confidences. It was probably the most time we had ever spent in one another’s company alone, and certainly the most time we had ever spent together without arguing and without having to intervene to save Morley from some ridiculous predicament or other. I thought for a moment that life might actually be like this: some kind of surreal rural idyll. There was, in a field, a pipe-smoking competition; Miriam was sorely tempted to have a go, but participation seemed to be restricted to old men in flat caps and suits, all puffing up a storm. Elsewhere in the field we witnessed what a local informed us was something called ‘Gurning Through a Braffin’ – a sort of face-contorting contest that I wisely declined to enter. And a sign outside a tent advertised something called ‘Biskeys and Treacle’.
‘Biscuits, do you think they meant?’ asked Miriam.
‘No, I think they mean “Biskeys”, whatever they are,’ I said. (See the entry under ‘Biskeys and Treacle’ in The County Guides: Westmorland.)
It was as though we were discovering a foreign country together, Egremont Fair being about as exotic as England gets, a spectacle of the utterly odd and the perfectly everyday. But there was no sign of Mr Gerald Taylor, and soon it was time for us to return.
As we began wandering back towards the Lagonda, away from the centre of the town, my eye was caught by what was effectively a mini-bazaar set up on a patch of scrubland by the side of the road, tended by an ancient being wrapped in layer upon layer of clothes as though for a Russian winter. The thick grey braided hair and the large hooped earrings through large low-hanging earlobes suggested a woman of advanced years, but it was difficult to tell: if it was a woman it was a woman with a man’s face; the defiant face of a Geronimo. She had a variety of items set out on a blanket before her: wooden spoons, lucky horseshoes, candles and jars of cloudy liquids.
Miriam sensed me pausing.
‘Thinking of buying me a present?’ she asked.
‘Why, what would you like?’
‘Not sure. Not exactly Selfridges, is it?’
‘Perfumes, miss?’ asked the old woman. ‘Ointments? Creams? Something for your fiancé?’
‘He’s not my fiancé,’ said Miriam.
‘Something for your pretty lady?’ the old woman asked me.
‘Let me buy you something,’ I said. I had started to feel rather comfortable with Miriam, perhaps for the first time. ‘I’d like to.’
‘Seriously?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely. As a memento of our day together.’
‘Well, Sefton, you do know how to treat a woman.’
The defiant face of a Geronimo
She picked up a jar of cloudy liquid.
‘What’s this?’ she asked the old woman.
‘Oh no, no, you’ll not be wanting that, my dear,’ the woman replied, in her thin, strangulated voice.
‘I just wondered what it was,’ said Miriam.
‘No, I can’t let you have that,’ said the woman.
‘What do you mean, you can’t let me have it? Isn’t everything for sale?’
‘It’s not for you, my dear.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that, shall I? I was simply enquiring what it was.’
The old woman fixed Miriam with a defiant stare. ‘It’s hotchiwitchi oil,’ she said.
‘It’s whatty withchy?’
‘Hotchiwitchi.’
‘Hotty witchy?’
‘Hotchiwitchi. You’d call it a hedgehog.’
‘It’s hedgehog oil?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How do you get hedgehog oil? Is it some sort of secretion?’
‘It’s from the fat, from the cooking,’ said the woman. ‘From when we bake the hotchiwitchi.’
‘Ugh,’ said Miriam, placing the jar quickly back down on the blanket. ‘And what on earth’s it for?’
‘Hotchiwitchi oil? It does for everything, my dear. Cure for baldness. Cure for heartache. Cure for chilblains. Cure for your diarrhoea. Cure for your constipation.’
‘A cure for constipation and for diarrhoea?’ said Miriam.
The woman laughed one short barking laugh so loud and so violent it sounded like someone coming up for air, and then she held up another jar that looked exactly the same as the hedgehog oil.
‘You don’t need that one. You want to try this one, miss. This one’s for you.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Comfrey ointment.’
‘It looks exactly the same as the—’
‘Comfrey ointment,’ insisted the woman.
‘And what’s that for?’
‘What d’you want it to be for, my dear?’
‘What is it actually for though?’ asked Miriam.
‘Comfrey ointment does for everything.’
‘Like hotchiwitchi oil?’
‘Totally different. Boiled up with a bit of lard, it does you for burns and cuts. Lubricates your engine. And it’s good in a nice stew.’
‘Are you mocking me?’ asked Miriam.
And the old woman laughed again. ‘Where’s your gorgio sense of humour then?’
‘I have a perfectly good sense of humour, thank you,’ said Miriam.
This made the old woman laugh even more.
‘Come on, Sefton. This woman is clearly not interested in our business.’
‘No, no, no,’ said the old woman. ‘Seriously, my dear. Seriously. This is for you,’ she said, scooping up a handful from a pile of what looked like small dirty pieces of diced ginger. ‘This is what you need.’
‘Really? And what is this? Dried starling oil? Purified
pansy ointment?’
‘This?’ said the woman. ‘It’s mandrake, my dear.’
‘Is it?’ said Miriam. ‘I’ve never seen mandrake.’
‘Good for the blood, mandrake,’ said the woman. ‘You takes your little nutmeg grater, puts it in a pot, boils it up and then you takes it like tea, with sugar.’
‘And what does it do?’
‘It eases you proper,’ said the woman. ‘In every way.’
‘Well, perhaps I will take some of that then,’ said Miriam.
‘Told you,’ said the woman. ‘I know what you need, miss. And he knows, eh?’
Miriam clearly bridled and became tense at this suggestion: no one should ever know what Miriam needed, apart from Miriam. She produced her purse, as I reached for my wallet.
‘Let me,’ I said.
‘I pay my own way, thank you, Sefton,’ said Miriam, her tone hardening. The warmth of the afternoon seemed suddenly to have vanished.
‘Did you find the mandrake yourself, madam?’ I asked the old woman.
‘No, no. That’s the girl, Naughty, who finds the mandrake.’ She pointed to a little girl behind her who was bathing a baby in a handsome washtub made from what looked like half of an old beer barrel.
‘Naughty?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is that her name?’
‘That’s right. And her little sister’s Nice.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘Naughty finds mandrake. She’s a gift.’
‘I see.’ Naughty did not look as though she had a gift – she looked like a dirty ragamuffin – though of course it’s difficult to tell. (I have certainly met enough poets and artists in my time who have blurred the distinction between dirt and art, and who were neither naughty nor nice.)
‘I’m afraid I don’t have anything smaller,’ said Miriam, producing a crisp brown ten bob note.
I reached again for my wallet.
‘Here,’ I said, ‘let me, please.’
‘No, no,’ said the old woman. ‘That should suffice.’ And she snatched the note.
‘Hey!’ said Miriam. ‘I’m not paying that much for a handful of dried roots!’