Tales from the Tent

by Jess Smith

  So, with Daddy’s permission, Nicky and I went job-hunting. He found one in demolition while I settled for work in a lampshade factory. It sticks vividly in my mind, does this factory, because it was tightly sandwiched between Gallaghers’ Tobacco factory and Strangeways Prison. Quite a thought that, don’t you think, folks?

  My boss, a wee round fat guy by the name of Swift, positioned himself in a podium above the workforce. He was a bit like a stern minister glued to his pulpit, fearful to leave lest he falls from grace. I must say, however, my boss was a gentle little man who smiled and nodded and seldom gave orders. He just liked sitting and doing his business from a high viewpoint, leaving the day-to-day running of the place to a tall, thin, one might even go so far as to say ghostly-faced woman. In spite of her appearance she was the nicest, kindliest soul you could ever hope to meet and spoiled me rotten. Why, you ask. Well, once she and her late husband spent two weeks in Rothesay, and now loved all of Scotland’s hantel because of it. If I were late she’d touch my hand and say, ‘did Mr Frost keep you awake, pet, that sleep found you late?’ Or something just as caring. Yes, a nice cratur she was, but for the love of me I can’t remember her name. (If you are reading this, gentle lady, then get in touch.)

  I loved my job making lampshades in that place, perhaps because I enjoyed seeing the finished object. The job was simplicity itself, though. All I did was take the wire frame and wind different-coloured plastic ribbons round and round until the frame was covered. Downstairs they had a far more delicate job to do. The people who worked there were intricate painters. It was their job to paint flower-designs and suchlike onto hard-canvassed shades. I knew within myself I could have flourished in that studio environment. But one had to be six months on the ribbon job before venturing downstairs, because once a design was applied to the skin-shade it had to be perfect. Only proper artists were allowed a brush in hand there. Still, I think I could have done ‘no bad’.

  Remember I told you Daddy wanted me to be the ‘bide at hame’ daughter? Well I couldn’t let him know that a certain young artist had given me more than a fleeting glance during canteen visits. His name was Ian Campbell, and he was three years older than me with the most gentle nature and sparkling white teeth thrown in for good measure. We talked ourselves silly and found we had so much in common it was uncanny. My nights were filled with dreams that had us running along sun-kissed beaches, kicking soft warm sand through our toes, then falling into warm embraces and smouldering kisses. Oh yes, dreams were made for times like those. I kept our day meetings secret, telling no one. However, it soon became apparent we were a duo. One day he, not me, decided to put a more permanent seal on our sneaky, feely-touchy romance.

  ‘Jessie, would you like to come home and meet my parents?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Of course I would, but I can’t ask you to meet my folks because my father doesn’t want me involved with boys, I hope you understand.’ He did without question, and went ahead to introduce me to his folks. It happened on the Friday. And you will understand why this particular incident stays forever in my mind.

  I was a nervous wreck with all manner of thoughts swirling through my mind; would they like me? Did he tell them I was a gypsy? And how would they take it? By the time we reached his front door the small amount of lipstick applied to my dry mouth was gone, leaving a vague pink line instead. I had taken a lot of time with my clothes, pressing my hemline until it resembled a sharp knife. Mammy kept saying she needed the gas ring to boil the kettle, so would I please hurry and remove the iron. Daddy was obviously suspicious, but accepted my excuse about going to see Clark Gable in ‘Gone with the Wind.’ I’d have gone with the clouds to see Clark, never mind the wind, but not that night. I lied to my father just as every other teenager does who sneaks around. It was not my fault, though, because if Daddy had left things to Mother Nature, I know I’d have been as honest as the day was long.

  So, as I was saying, there we were, me and Ian, standing with fingers entwined on his frosty doorstep. And talk about frost! His mother, the queen of freeze, opened the door. Fairly tall she was, with a straight back, and sporting short curly black hair. I smiled gingerly and stepped inside an immaculate hallway. Ian started to remove my coat when suddenly she stopped him with a raised hand. ‘I cannot allow you in my house,’ she said through clenched teeth. Ian tried in vain to quieten things; the poor laddie didn’t know where to look. I did though, right into his mother’s face. Our eyes met with steely stares. ‘I suppose you think I’m not the right kind for your son!’ I shouted, standing there in the pristine lobby of this complete stranger’s house.

  She turned and walked away without an answer, leaving Ian dumbstruck and bumstuck on a small chair. It was his father who helped me understand. ‘I must apologise for my wife, but she doesn’t believe in mixing the blood. It’s not a personal thing with her, my dear girl, but it wouldn’t be right, you see.’ He too walked off, leaving me in total confusion.

  But me being an ‘intae-the-face-wi’-all-things buddy’ I had to have my say. ‘Listen to me, you bloody English, jumped-up, would-be toffs! I’m just as good as you if no’ better, who dae ye think you are anyway!’ Ian held my hand and said, more to shut me up than anything else, ‘Jessie, it has nothing to do with you being Scottish or even being a Gypsy. It’s our colour! My parents want me to marry a black girl like myself!’

  After telling the wimp not to open his mouth to me on the coming Monday, or any other day of the working week, I pushed open the door to storm off down the road like all spurned females. My poor hips and thighs were scadded red raw with the speed I shifted myself. But not as red as my face, I bet.

  Another dead-in-the-water romance then, folks. Do you think my Da had put the evil eye on that side of my life? I wonder. Anyway, what did I know about skin colours? Hell, I fancied the bloke, is that not enough? Apparently not!

  When I got home no one bothered where I had been or why I came home early, because we had had a visitor while I was gone. Of all people, it was our wee con man, Portsoy Peter, who had arrived back to finish the winter with us. I must say I for one had missed him and his wee Alfred Hitchcock face. No one told me where he had been. However, when the opportunity offered I asked him. This was his reply: ‘You know how much I enjoy the company of toffs and their expensive lifestyles, Jess? Of course you do. Well, when her Majesty asked me to spend some time in one of her confinement homes with all expenses paid, I just couldn’t refuse.’

  That’s my Portsoy for you, and I will always remember him. It’s not proper, I know, to encourage a conman, but he never to my knowledge took a penny from the folks without money, only from the folks with plenty. We’ve a while in his company yet, folks, before there is a parting; and the winter in Manchester still had a wee sting in its tail for us.

  18

  KING RUAN AND THE WITCH

  Why don’t we have a blether now about another ancient tale without time, reader? I’m feeling the need for a visit home to bonny Scotland, so let’s us, you and me, travel north to a field skirting Bankfoot, not far from Tullybelton in Perthshire.

  Here we’ll drift back before the days of recorded history and hear the story of ‘King Ruan and the Witch’s Promise’.

  Once upon a long time, back before the rising of millions of tides, there lived a young King. He was called Ruan, and he was not a bad fellow. His entire kingdom, which spread from the Tay’s birth spout to its entry into the northern sea, was filled with good, kindly people. However, they had a problem. I don’t say, and God forbid if I do, that their King was the cause of it, but in a way, I suppose he was. You see, he wasn’t a pretty boy, in fact he was the very opposite. He was so ugly, nobody would look upon his face without feeling a wee heave from his or her guts. How could their King with a face like a hew-haw ever find love? And no one was more aware of this problem than Ruan himself. He rose from his bed each day with the heaviest of hearts, longing to be cuddled, but no matter where he searched, not a single female would spe
nd a moment too long gazing at his ugly face. If by chance they had noticed the sad unhappy eyes staring from within that face then it might have been a different story. He might have melted them somewhat. His longing had him search everywhere but to no avail. He might have searched in the forests and found a pretty nut-gatherer, but he had a terrible fear of trees and was never found anywhere near them.

  Such was the pain in his heart he decided to visit the ancient field witch who, they say, knew all things.

  Gathering his people round him, he told them what he intended to do.

  ‘No, sire, please don’t, it is folly.’ The people knew her evil ways would indeed lure their beloved King away, and they pleaded for a week with him to change his mind. No, he’d made his decision, the witch it was: there was no other choice.

  His dearest friend, an old soldier who had fought for his late father when he was king, asked Ruan to stay and be patient. One day the right girl would win his heart. But it was no use, he’d made up his mind.

  Now, although folks knew of the wizened woman from the green grass, they had never set eyes on her, it was enough to know that she was a demon who stalked the country when the moon was full.

  Ruan set off to find her, looking in caves, calling from hilltops, searching in undergrowth, but after a week and some more he was no further forward. At the end of each day he would find a quiet secluded spot and lie down. One night, while he was in the deepest slumber, a voice calling in the wind awakened him. ‘Help me, Ruan!’ it cried out. He jumped from his bed of rushes and stared around at the cold damp ground. The spreading moonlight gave the merest glimpse of trees in the night. He called out to the forest, ‘I am here, what do you want from me, stranger?’

  ‘Ruan, I am the witch of the fields. I hear you calling my name, but before I help, you must free me from the trees.’ Ruan thought he was being haunted by the evil beast, and called back that he didn’t need her help after all, he was on his way home. It was with the fastest legs he ran all the way back, not looking in caves, or calling from hilltops, or peering into undergrowth. Completely exhausted, King Ruan fell into the arms of his anxious friend, the old soldier. ‘I knew she would try to spellbind you, sire,’ he warned him, adding, ‘don’t you be a-going looking for her kind no more. Sooner or later a lass will be to your liking, just be patient. Thon demon knows your mind and would hide in the dreaded trees for you.’

  And so it was that not a single night passed without the sad voice calling into his slumber, ‘Help me, Ruan, help me.’ Unable to resist his dreams a minute more, he called his faithful followers to his side and told them he had to go and find the field witch or else he’d surely go mad. ‘You don’t want me to be a mad king as well as an ugly one, now do you?’ he asked them.

  ‘Sire, it is not your ugliness that bothers us, rather it be the sadness that it brings to your heart,’ said his friend. ‘We love you too much to see an evil auld biddy steal you away from us.’

  However he knew that peace would never be his until he found the field witch.

  Again he called from hilltop and undergrowth and caves, ‘where are you, woman?’

  Weeks passed with no sound from the demon, until one night a storm of nightmarish proportions forced him to hap on the boundary line of a thick forest. All night long he lay staring into the deep dark branches. Like giant fingers they slapped and flapped against each other. Ruan became so frightened he could not move.

  As quick as it began the storm winds dropped, and the moon like a flower within the darkened sky spread her light in streams of shadows. ‘I must go from this place or else the trees will surely have me.’ He shivered with a deep fear and speedily rolled up his bed. No sooner had he taken a step, when from out of the forest came the voice he’d waited so long to hear. ‘Ruan, help me, they are closing in. I have little time left.’

  Without a moment’s thought he turned in his fear and as before ran and ran and ran. Not a breath of extra air did he inhale until his almost dead body lay once more on the lap of his old friend.

  ‘This time, sire, I will not allow you to go out of my care again,’ he sternly said.

  Next day the old soldier called on as many people as he could and told them that under no circumstances were they to allow King Ruan out of their sight, because ‘she of the fields’ had bewitched him and would certainly kill their monarch if she could. From then on, wherever he went, a shadow of stern faithfulness followed. Yet still rest evaded him, as each night that oh so haunting voice beckoned him, ‘Ruan, my life drains, please, I beg you, come.’

  Unable to contain himself another minute he dressed before the sun yawned over a sleepy horizon, but this time however his faithful friend would go with him. Before long the pair were on the skirts of the vast forest that held Ruan in a grip of fear, and there they waited. The old soldier had come armed for a fight with the she-devil, for he would rid his master of her spell or die. Late afternoon saw a thundery sky spread out to meet a dark and fearful night. Together the two waited and soon they heard, through peals of thunder and flashes of jagged lightning, a gentle voice calling. This time his heart froze as he heard the witch say, ‘Ruan, I am slipping away, I fear you’re too late.’

  ‘Stay here, I must go into the forest, old friend. Do not worry, I have a feeling she means me no harm.’

  ‘Master, it’s a folly you do this night, for the forest will strangle you. She knows what you are afraid of, I beg on my old painful joints, dear King, do not venture forth.’

  However nothing would relieve his anxiety but to meet with the witch, and striding into those dreaded trees our brave lad went to meet not just his fear of trees but the witch herself. All night long the old soldier stood in the place his master had bid him stay and waited like a faithful dog. He stayed there until all the storm’s power had abated and then he saw him. Coming forth hand in hand from those terrible trees was brave Ruan with his witch: a beautiful young girl. ‘Master, what form of evil spell has she been under?’ asked his bewildered companion. Ruan told him to sit down and he would explain.

  ‘When I was born, an evil witch of the fields took my love stone from my crib and hid it in this forest. If ever a maiden fell in love with me, then the wicked one would steal her away and hide her in the trees of which she had given me a deep inborn fear. The only way I could release my love was to conquer the fear and rescue her. But I only had two chances. You see, old friend, if I failed a third time then the spell would never be broken. I would live in my ugly form and happiness would forever flee from me.’

  His old friend turned to the girl and asked her how she came to love his master who was so abhorrent to the eye?

  ‘When passing the castle to gather nuts one day I saw my beloved, he was sleeping by the burn. When I leaned down to gaze upon his face I did not see a thing of ugliness. I saw a tender, caring face with a hidden depth of blossoming love. I could not sleep but his face came to me. So I whispered his name to the wind. One day, however, the witch who stole his love stone heard me. She captured my spirit and hid it in the trees, thinking Ruan would never have the courage to rescue me. Please, soldier, put down your weapon, I tell the truth.’

  The old man lowered his sword and he saw the love shining between his master and the girl. ‘Yes, this is indeed the way of things,’ he thought as he followed behind his master and the young woman who had brought the love his heart had so desired.

  The wedding was a day of wonder for all to enjoy. The couple lived a long and happy life, giving to the place by the Tay many wonderful children. And as for the witch of the fields, well, she was never seen or heard of by anyone.

  Now, reader, as was the way of ancient Scotland, two large standing stones have been placed side by side in a field twixt Tulleybelton and Bankfoot, and they are to this day a prominent feature for all eyes to see. One is square and misshapen, resembling, some might think, a donkey, while the other is pointed and slender—they represent Ruan and his Queen, the nut gatherer.

  I wondered
about the crib ‘love stone’ mentioned in this tale, and through research found that crib stones were four tiny pebbles blessed with Mother Nature’s kisses and arranged round the head of a new-born royal. They represented: 1st—love; 2nd—health; 3rd—wealth; 4th—wisdom. I can’t say for certain, but during the time of the Druids it is thought they used stones a lot.

  The late father of my friend Mamie Carson, Keith Macpherson, who had a gift for verse, wrote the following poem about a Standing Stone and I thought this a fine place to slip it in. For your pleasure now, folks, I give you—

  The Muckle Big Stane

  Oh ken ye Mcleod frae the muckle big Stane,

  It stands in the field at the fit o’ his lane,

  A link wi’ the Romans wi’ cup and wi’ mark

  Their ghosts gethir roond every nicht efter dark,

  And Andra, guid man, maks it one of his rules

  Tae join in their crack on his way fae the bools.

  But ae nicht this winter, no many weeks gein,

  He passed without stoppin at the muckle big Stane,

  Wi’ his chin on his chest, and sae doon at the moo,

  The ghosts thocht at first sicht that Andra was fou,

  And they agreed that strong drink maks the best o’ men fools;

  Then they heard Andra mutter ‘I’m bate at the bools.’

  So they bade him come ower just like one o’ their ane,

  And they sat themselves doon by the muckle big Stane.