‘We say the odd thing like, “Ach, the last time he had a drop, well …,” and we leave it there. Then we say, “It would be better all round if nobody offered him drink, that’s all I’m at liberty to say.” And we advise them not to raise the matter with Eric himself. We give a wee shake of the head and we say, “He’s a big man, he can do a lot of damage, we’ve seen it ourselves,” and I look at you and you nod. Now you can do that, surely? “If I were you,” we say, “I’d just regard it as his private business and leave it alone.” You see? Problem solved.’
The next problem wasn’t so easily solved. It happened during Eric’s third trip and a week from port. Sorley Mor had gone down to the engine room to see how his new engineer was doing, and found the big man singing to himself while dancing up and down with considerable grace, his hands on his hips. The skipper stopped in his tracks, turned briskly and headed back for the wheelhouse in an agitated state.
‘What’s the matter, Skipper?’ Gannet had muttered. ‘Have you seen a ghost or what?’
‘I wish I had, Gannet, and that’s the truth!’ said Sorley Mor, shutting the door and sitting down in his big rotating chair. ‘To be perfectly truthful,’ he said, rubbing his chin anxiously, ‘I’m not sure what I saw. It’s Eric.’
‘Aye?’
‘Aye.’
There was a long silence during which Sorley Mor fidgeted and moved about in his chair.
‘Gannet,’ he said eventually, ‘go you down to the engine room and tell me what you see there.’
Gannet shrugged and left the wheelhouse, only to return a few minutes later.
‘Well?’ asked the Skipper.
‘I saw Eric,’ Gannet replied, and attempted to settle down with the latest National Geographic magazine, to read the secrets of life among the Amish.
‘What the hell do you mean, you saw Eric?’ Sorley Mor demanded excitedly. ‘And will you put that damned magazine down!’
Gannet looked up at him and shrugged again, in a bemused way this time.
‘Was Eric doing anything?’
‘Like what?’ asked Gannet.
Sorley Mor walked around the wheelhouse loudly damning and blasting everything and everyone for a few minutes. ‘I swear to God, Gannet,’ he shouted, ‘I wish you were drunk all the time so that we could get a few words out of you! Did you see what Eric was doing, man?’
‘He was dancing,’ said Gannet.
‘Dancing,’ the skipper moaned.
‘Singing a bit, too,’ Gannet supplied after a moment’s thought. ‘My, but he’s light on his feet for such a big man.’
‘Light on his feet, Gannet! What in hell are we going to do?’
Gannet shrugged silently; he’d already spoken more in this sober conversation than anyone had a right to expect, while the skipper wandered around the wheelhouse, talking to himself and occasionally moaning.
‘I know,’ said Sorley Mor eventually. ‘He’d never hit a wee fellow like Stamp. Go you and tell Stamp his skipper would like him to go down to the engine room and ask Eric why he’s dancing.’
‘And singing,’ said Gannet.
‘Aye, aye, and the singing too,’ Sorley Mor said impatiently. ‘But if he’s really dancing then the singing doesn’t matter a damn, Gannet; after all, there’s plenty of normal men who sing, even stone-cold sober. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with them.’
Ten minutes later the diminutive figure of Stamp appeared in the wheelhouse. ‘Well, Skipper?’ he asked.
‘What’s wrong with everyone?’ Sorley Mor demanded. ‘Well? Is Eric dancing in the engine room?’
‘And singing,’ Gannet supplied.
‘Will you stop with the bloody buggery singing!’ Sorley Mor shouted. ‘Is he dancing, Stamp?’
‘Aye, Skipper,’ Stamp replied pleasantly.
Sorley Mor glared at Gannet and at Stamp, then he threw his arms skywards and strode around. ‘Of course,’ he shouted, ‘nothing could be more natural! I’ve got a six-foot-six grizzly bear in my engine room, a teetotal grizzly bear, and he’s dancing, and everyone else on the Wanderer is quite calm about it!’ He turned and looked threateningly from Stamp to Gannet; Stamp smiled calmly and Gannet stared back in his bemused fashion. ‘Why is he dancing?’ the skipper demanded. ‘Have either one of you ever known a dancing engineer before? Is it me that’s mad?’
Stamp laughed and scratched his head under the edge of his bunnet. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, ‘seeing as you put it like that, I have to admit that no, I never have. It’s just his hobby, Skipper. Did he not tell you?’
Sorley Mor shook his head, looking dazed.
‘Come you down to the engine room with me,’ said the little cook kindly, leading the way. ‘He’ll tell you himself.’
Sorley Mor followed as though he, as well as the boat, was on auto-pilot, and when he looked into the engine room Eric was still dancing – and singing. As the little group watched, Eric removed his right hand from his hip and executed an overblown salute. Sorley Mor gasped and covered his eyes. ‘Dear God,’ he whispered.
‘Eh, um, Eric,’ Stamp said above the noise of the engines. ‘We’re sorry to interrupt you.’
Eric stopped mid-step and bestowed a look of deep affection on Stamp. ‘Whit kin Ah dae fur ye, wee man?’ he asked.
Gannet looked at Sorley Mor and Sorley Mor looked back and shrugged. ‘Not a word,’ he whispered, ‘not a damned word did I understand.’
‘Sorry to bother you when you’re busy, Eric, but the skipper here was wondering about your dancing,’ Stamp said diplomatically.
Eric stared back; where he came from in Glasgow diplomacy was a positive disadvantage. ‘Whit?’ he asked:
‘For some reason he doesn’t seem to know about the dancing,’ Stamp said, smiling encouragingly.
‘Aw! Right! It wis the Military Two-Step,’ Eric supplied helpfully. ‘Ah’ve been makin’ an arse o’ it, let masel’ go a’ tae hell, so Ah hiv. Jist been daein’ a bitta practisin’. Ah’m tryin’ tae sherpen it up, know?’ He turned his attention from a horrified Sorley Mor to Stamp. ‘Ah don’t know, Stamp, son,’ he said conversationally, ‘bit Ah think it’s gaun’ right doon the lavvy. Ah’m shite at it, so Ah um, an’ wi’ the European’s comin’ up tae,’ he shook his large head despondently. ‘Mibbe Ah should jist pit the kybosh oan it noo, the hale thing’s mingin’, so it is.’
‘No, no,’ said Stamp, ‘I’m sure it’s something simple, Eric. From what I can see, you’re starting the salute half a beat or so before that final step, that’s all it is. You’ve got it out of sync, as you say, and you’re worrying yourself about it. It’s just a confidence thing, it’ll come back.’
‘Ye reckon?’ Eric asked uncertainly.
‘Aye, aye, I’m sure it’ll fall into place in no time. Look.’
To Sorley Mor’s amazement Stamp, the Stamp he had known all his life, put a hand out and gently pushed Eric to one side and proceeded to perform the Military Two-Step.
‘This is how you’re doing it. See?’ said Stamp. ‘Now watch this foot as I do the salute.’
Sorley Mor gulped.
‘It’s wrong, see?’ Stamp then retraced his steps and repeated the movement, and even Sorley Mor spotted the difference. ‘Now it works. It’s just that split second that can throw the whole thing off. You’re thinking about it too much. I think you should give it a rest.’
‘Mibbe yer right,’ Eric said. ‘Mibbe we kin practise in the mess later if ye’ve goat time?’
‘Aye, we’ll do that,’ Stamp said kindly. ‘But I promise you, you’re worrying about nothing. It’ll all fall into place.’
Sorley Mor turned and wordlessly motioned upwards with his thumb to Gannet and Stamp, who followed him into the wheelhouse, where he stood, holding his hands out, palms upwards. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘What what, Skipper?’ asked Stamp.
‘What damned everything!’
‘So you really didn’t know about the dancing, then?’ Stamp laug
hed quietly.
‘Stamp, do I look as though I knew about the dancing, then?’ he shouted. He looked at Gannet. ‘Did you know about the dancing?’
Gannet looked up from where he had already settled back down with the Amish and shook his head.
‘And you’re not, well, surprised? Curious?’
Gannet shrugged his shoulders this time.
‘As God is my witness,’ shouted Sorley Mor, shaking his hand skywards, ‘you are not normal, Gannet!’
Gannet smiled in reply.
Sorley Mor looked at Stamp again. ‘Why is he dancing? Just tell me in idiot’s terms, that’ll do.’
‘Sit down, Skipper,’ Stamp said kindly, putting out a hand and guiding Sorley Mor to his chair. ‘You’re getting yourself all worked up for nothing here, man. Eric is a ballroom dancer, him and his wife, they do the Old Time. That’s why he wanted away from the Merchant Navy. It was interfering with the competitions.’
Sorely Mor started at him in silence.
‘They go all over the world,’ Stamp supplied helpfully. ‘You’ve likely seen them on the TV in that “Come Dancing” and never known it.’
‘On TV!’ Sorley Mor moaned.
‘Aye, they’re on all the time, and they’re in the dancing magazines as well. The big man looks fine in his tails and white dickie, and he’s that light on his feet you’d hardly notice the size of those great big patent pumps. It’s amazing, really.’
‘Light on his feet,’ Sorley Mor groaned again; the phrase was haunting him. ‘Patent pumps!’ Then he gathered himself together. ‘How long have you known about this?’ he demanded.
‘Ach, ages, Skipper,’ Stamp replied amiably. ‘Sure, I wouldn’t have believed it was that interesting. Relaxing, too. You should try it yourself.’
‘And he’s got you doing it?’ Sorley Mor asked, aghast.
‘Ach, not to his standard,’ Stamp laughed gently, ‘no, no, Skipper. Eric’s been kind enough to say I’m a natural, but I’m sure all I’ve done is pick up the rudiments. I don’t have his talent. He needed somebody to help him out while we’re at sea and I found that I picked it up, just like the cooking. I wish I’d discovered it years ago, so I do. He’s got me and Molly dancing around the kitchen happy as sandbags.’
Sorley Mor spent much of that trip in silence, trying to ignore the occasional bursts of singing and dancing from the mess and the engine room. At one point, against his better judgement, he had looked into the engine room and found Eric, blissfully unaware of his skipper’s presence, dancing with one enormous paw on his left hip, while he waved an oily rag with great delicacy with his right paw. He found that once he knew what was going on he couldn’t avoid it, the awful reality of his dancing engineer jumped out and ambushed him at every opportunity, so that he would have given anything to have turned the clock back to that innocent, ignorant time, those halcyon days when all he had to worry him was the fact that Eric was teetotal. Once ashore he propelled Gannet towards the house at MacEwan’s Row, there being no way he would risk being overheard in conversation in the Inn. Chrissie stared at them as they walked in.
‘Somebody sick?’ she asked.
‘No, woman,’ Sorely Mor replied solemnly. ‘Just get us a bottle of whisky and a couple of glasses and disappear about your housework. Gannet and I have things to discuss and I need a few in him for that.’
‘Tell you what,’ Chrissie replied, ‘just you whistle and I’ll dance for you!’
Sorley Mor looked at her sharply, but Chrissie had already turned and left the room.
In the eyes of Sorley Mor the situation was serious. He had an engineer who looked tough and dangerous, a big Glasgow man at that, and everyone knew they were the most dangerous of all, or should be. On finding out that the big, dangerous Glaswegian didn’t drink, he had managed to convey the impression that Eric had been forced to give up the booze because he did terrible things when under the influence, and Eric, looking as he did like a grizzly bear, reinforced that notion among the other crews. Sorley Mor still didn’t understand much of what Eric said, but that was a problem that time would overcome as Eric mixed more with civilised people like himself and learned how to talk properly, much as his cousin, Alan, had before him. He was also a good engineer, there was no doubt about that, but how was his ballroom dancing to be covered up? He closed his eyes as the last terrible picture seared in to his mind of Eric, hand on hip, hopping gracefully from one foot to the other while waving an oily rag about; no skipper should be expected to come face-to-face with such a thing in the engine room of his own boat. The big man had even got Stamp involved. After that first shocking encounter he had walked into the galley to find Stamp in his usual bunnet, stirring one of his delicious concoctions as it simmered gently on the stove. His other hand was raised to hold Eric’s hand, and the big engineer was dancing delicately around on tiptoes in a semi-circle of tiny steps. It had been too much; he had eaten in the wheelhouse that night.
‘You were there with me that day in the Inn,’ he said to Gannet. ‘Did you hear him saying he wanted to leave the Merchant Navy because he wanted more time to dance?’
Gannet shook his head, smiling as he refilled his glass. ‘If you remember, Skipper,’ he said, ‘neither one of us could understand a word he said. He could’ve explained it all in detail for all we knew and we’d still have been none the wiser. Anyway, you can’t sack him for not telling you he liked to trot about the dance floor, can you?’
‘No, no, we can’t get rid of him on those grounds,’ Sorley Mor replied sadly. ‘But I’ll tell you this, it’s a question every man taking on an engineer should be warned to ask in future – are you, or have you ever been, a teetotal ballroom dancer?’
Gannet laughed out loud.
‘What’s so funny? If we’d only thought to ask that very same question we wouldn’t be in this position today,’ Sorley Mor said with feeling.
‘You, Skipper,’ Gannet laughed, ‘not we. And if he’s to be sacked you’re the one who’ll have to do it. Count me out.’
‘He’s a bloody good engineer anyway,’ said Sorley Mor quietly, ‘he’s reliable and easy to live with, on the whole that is. We don’t have any grounds to sack him—’
‘There you go again with that “we” business …’
‘—apart from the dancing.’
There was silence only broken by the clinking of glasses.
‘But how will we be able to face the rest of them?’ Sorley Mor asked deliberately. ‘How will we live it down if they find out? A teetotaller who dances like a nancy-boy! Oh God, why did this have to happen to us?’
‘You could have a word with him,’ said Gannet.
‘There you go again with that “you”,’ accused the skipper sarcastically. ‘This will affect you as well, Gannet, you know.’
‘Ach, not as much as it’ll affect you,’ Gannet laughed, almost choking on his drink. ‘They’ll make your life hell!’
‘And all you can think of is having a word with him?’ Sorley Mor demanded angrily. ‘And what would you have me say? “Look here, Eric, would you mind giving up the dancing and start drinking?” That’s your best suggestion? I wouldn’t fancy our chances if he turned nasty, would you?’
‘Well, you could get Stamp to talk to him with you,’ said Gannet. ‘They seem to get on well for some reason. After all, the big man’s provided you with the only all-cooking, all-dancing Stamp in captivity!’ and with that he fell backwards, laughing loudly.
‘Well, I’m sure you didn’t mean that in a constructive way,’ Sorley Mor said severely, refilling Gannet’s glass, ‘but that might be the only way out.’
And so the difficulties had been explained to Stamp. The catcalls from the other fishermen, the sniggering as they walked down harbours, both home and away, the name calling; it was all too much to bear. Stamp reassured Sorley Mor that when Eric and his good lady wife, Marilyn, appeared on TV the big man shaved off the whiskers, trimmed his hair and had the rest gelled flat. Unless you knew it was hi
m, Stamp explained, you wouldn’t know it was him, and how many fishermen did Sorley Mor know who regularly watched ‘Come Dancing’ or bought a dancing magazine? The other thing to remember was that Eric’s home had remained in Glasgow and, as he didn’t drink, he tended to take off as soon as they hit port, so the chances of him mentioning his interesting pastime to other crews were low.
‘I think you’re worrying about something that won’t happen,’ said Stamp. ‘No one will ever find out, it’s just a fig-leaf of your imagination, Skipper.’
Stamp was, of course, being kind to his skipper, and Sorley Mor, in his desperation, allowed himself to be consoled. He would contain the problem, he decided; he would swear anyone who knew of Eric’s dancing to secrecy. Stamp and Gannet nodded solemnly, knowing there wasn’t enough secrecy in the universe to cover this information. The entire crew had to keep the secret, as had their families, and Eric’s cousin, Alan, and his family. Above all, Chrissie must never know of it because, as Sorley Mor often remarked of his ‘tiny wee angel’, she had been known to fight dirty. At this Gannet smiled. He had realised from the start that if anyone had found out instantly it would be Chrissie, and she wouldn’t give herself away all at once. She’d let the damage be done in drip-drip fashion over years to get the best out of it. The first thing was to summon Eric to a meeting around the mess table at the end of the next trip. Eric had his bag in his hand, ready to throw it into his car and drive to Glasgow to get ready for the European Old Time Dancing Championships in beautiful Blackpool.
‘The thing is,’ Stamp said to Eric, ‘that as you know perfectly well, my friend, there are many people in the world who are not as cultured as you or me.’
Across the table Eric nodded solemnly. ‘Yur no’ wrang there, Stamp, son,’ he said sadly. ‘Summa the numpties Ah met in the Merchant Navy widda shocked ye. They used tae laugh at ma dancin’. Said Ah was a big poof, so they did.’
‘Tragic, tragic,’ commiserated Stamp, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘Ah don’t mind tellin’ ye,’ Eric said, a tiny hint of emotion creeping in to his voice, ‘Ah was near tae tears at times, Ah was that hurt.’
The Last Wanderer Page 18
