John McPake and the Sea Beggars Read online

  Stuart Campbell is a full-time writer, a native of Edinburgh now living in Glasgow. He has worked as an English teacher and advisor in the Lothians, and as a part time manager with Health in Mind, an Edinburgh-based mental health charity. He has previously written for the BBC, the Guardian and Scottish Book Collector. He is the editor of RLS in Love, an anthology of Robert Louis Stevenson’s love poetry, and author of Boswell’s Bus Pass, a travelogue of modern Scotland following in the footsteps of Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Stuart Campbell is married to Morag and has four grown-up children.

  Also published by Sandstone Press

  RLS in Love

  Boswell’s Bus Pass

  JOHN McPAKE

  and the

  SEA BEGGARS

  Stuart Campbell

  First published in Great Britain

  and the United States of America in 2014

  Sandstone Press Ltd

  PO Box 5725

  One High Street

  Dingwall

  Ross-shire

  IV15 9WJ

  Scotland.

  www.sandstonepress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © Stuart Campbell 2014

  The moral right of Stuart Campbell to be recognised as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

  Editor: Robert Davidson

  Copy Editor: Kate Blackadder

  The publisher acknowledges support from Creative Scotland towards publication of this volume.

  ISBN: 978-1-908737-69-4

  ISBNe: 978-1-908737-70-0

  Cover design by Mark Ecob

  Ebook by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

  To Morag

  Contents

  PART 1

  ONE: Leith 2014

  TWO: Flemish Brabant 1572

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN: The Miller’s Tale

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  PART 2

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE: Mick’s Tale

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR: Blindman’s Tale

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT: Gerda’s Tale

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO: John’s Tale

  SIXTY-THREE: The Exhibition

  Acknowledgements

  I must thank Roy Henderson, John Aitken, David Raitt, Jim O’Sullivan, Alan Burnett, Theo Dijkman, Sharon Beveridge, Robert McCabe, and all of the children for their help and encouragement.

  I acknowledge my debt to Paul Reed who also used ‘voices’ in his novel The One.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  People with a diagnosis of psychosis often hear multiple voices. To the hearer the voices are as real as if they were listening to someone standing next to them. The voices, often unpleasant, can have completely different characters.

  PART ONE

  ONE:

  Leith 2014

  Unable to sleep, John raised his window and breathed in the chill early morning air. He could just make out Jack lying in the grave with his arms crossed.

  Overall, the garden was not proving a great success. After a heavy night’s drinking Jack Sprat (he was after all just skin and bones) had taken a spade and started to dig by moonlight. He had thrown earth over his shoulder as if rescuing a smothered relative from a landslip. Despite his slight frame the hole grew ever deeper. He knew a thing or two about graves having been employed as an NVQ assessor to a large firm of funeral directors in a previous life. ‘2.2: Sides of grave are shored where depth of grave exceeds 1.5 metres or as determined by enterprise policy,’ he recited from memory.

  Increasingly bored with tending to the needs of the dead, Jack had joined the army and found himself in Bosnia where his previous training proved invaluable. After three months he stormed into a formal regimental meal and harangued the Commander on account of there being no nationally defined professional competencies for mass graves in this part of the world. It was a disgrace and clearly the Commander should have a word with the Serbs. He subsequently left the army and set up home with his new companions, psychosis, trauma, alcohol and several other men with whom he had nothing in common apart from a diagnosis.

  ‘Alas poor Jack,’ said a rueful voice in John’s head.

  He looked again at Jack, now sitting bolt upright, saw him lean forward and tug at something on the ground, the edge of the sheet on which he had piled the earth from his excavations. Soon his feet were covered. He then pulled at the sheet on his left, and again a cascade of soil tipped into the grave.

  Jack lay back and skilfully tugged at the remaining sheet, dropping earth onto his face. This was the largest deposit, judging by the size of the soil pyramid where Jack’s head had been. For a moment his one arm remaining above ground flailed, and then became still, a blind periscope emerging from the freshly dug grave. John ran from his room.

  ‘Some of us are trying to sleep.’

  ‘They always come in the night, fascist bastards.’

  The door to the garden was locked. After rattling the handle John remembered Beverley’s lecture on safety. The key was behind the Nescafé jar. It took an age to open the door. He tripped on the top step but kept running until he reached the grave. He threw himself onto the mound and tugged at Jack’s hand. The excited Voices assailed him. He shook his head like a wet dog to dislodge them but they only got louder.

  ‘Well done Johnnie Boy! Quite the hero. You’ll get a mention in Psycho Times.’

  ‘Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.’

  ‘Climb in alongside him you loser! Ever considered necrophilia, John?’

  John heaved on Jack’s arm until it grabbed him round the neck and pulled his face into the cold earth. The man was stronger than he had realised.

  ‘Fight!’

  The arm let go and Jack’s face emerged from the grave, his face black and hair matted.

  ‘He’s turned into a darkie, one of those rastapharoahs! No baby, no cry …’

  Jack sat up and grabbed two handfuls of earth which he crammed into his mouth. He filled his ears, shaped two plugs of clay and forced them into his nostrils.

  ‘Straitjacket, nurse!’

  John put his arm ro
und Jack’s shivering body and tenderly put his fingers into his mouth like a mother whose child has swallowed a humbug.

  ‘Now put your fingers up his arse! Gay boy! Gay boy!’

  ‘Shut up! I can’t hear what John’s saying …’

  ‘He never speaks anyway.’

  John helped Jack out of his grave, brushed him down and, with the utmost tenderness, led him back into the house.

  TWO:

  Flemish Brabant 1572

  The three weavers caught their breath on the brow of the hill and stared at the pig roasting on the spit. Strings of saliva dripped from the dogs. The smell of bristle, gristle, flesh and fat was unbearable. Johannes glanced at the fox hanging from his wrist, a bracelet of elongated skin and gaunt flapping skull, a mouthful of meat at best. The pig dribbled its tallow into the flames, its eyes open and its nostrils flared.

  Cornelius approached the black-cowled women tending the fire. The nearest, either a child or a dwarf, seized the poker and jabbed it towards his face eager to scour his eyes from their sockets. Her two companions took up positions to either side of her. They stood in a shared silent scream.

  ‘Their tongues have been cut out,’ said Balthasar, placing a hand on Cornelius’ shoulder.

  ‘Leave them be. They too have suffered.’

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ said Cornelius, moving away angrily while slapping his chest to beat out the cold and hunger. He wrenched his neck from side to side as if he was in the grip of a huge bear, and his head was the only part of his body he could move. ‘Shit. Mother of God!’ he added for good measure.

  Balthasar, the older man looked at him. ‘Have you finished?’

  ‘Almost,’ said Cornelius. ‘Shit, pish and the pus from the sores of martyrs’ wounds. Gabriel’s scrotum and eunuchs’ foreskins!’

  ‘Did Gabriel have a scrotum?’ The two men looked at each other. Cornelius knew that his companions were trying to distract him from his anger.

  ‘But what if they find her?’ he continued. ‘What if the Spanish catamites suspect something and burn down the barn?’ A thin, nervous man in his thirties, he moved quickly from foot to foot as if wary of being attacked by his own shadow.

  He sought reassurance in the eyes of Balthasar. The older man had seen it all before. According to village legend he had survived the first massacre by feigning death beneath a heap of dead fighters, lying in urine and biting his lip when cramp grabbed his thighs. The more gullible claimed that he had once laughed in the face of the Grand Inquisitor, tweaked his beard and somehow lived to speak of it. He was, when all was said and done, the talisman, the augur of good fortune who would bring this mission to a successful conclusion.

  Balthasar was just tired. He had already exceeded his allotted lifespan, and had no wish to play the hero. His back ached, his scrofula had returned, and at some point on their journey his bowels had turned to stone. He would not tell his companions but secretly harboured grave doubts about their quest. It also occurred to him that Cornelius’ young wife, Geertje, was indeed at risk from the foreign soldiers. ‘She’ll be fine,’ he said, ‘keep the faith.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Johannes eager to move again before his fingers, already stiff in his gloves, froze completely. The pack of dogs dreaming of chase and kill foraged for scent beneath the layer of hard snow, the trace of rabbit, the hint of fox. They had been joined on the hill by every starving cur from the village. Cornelius kicked out at the unwanted beasts catching one in its throat. It yelped away and the others followed. Their own two dogs tucked in beside the men as they moved down the slope towards the frozen lake.

  ‘They’re hungry too,’ said Johannes.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Balthasar. Despite his strong views on not overfeeding hunting dogs he was no advocate of starvation. ‘Keep them lean and mean,’ he would say. ‘When they find Michel, then they can feast like the beasts of Kings.’ He looked up at the cold sky from which the light was seeping away. ‘What we need is a star.’

  ‘What?’ asked Johannes.

  ‘Well, there are three of us, I’m called Balthasar, we’re looking for a child, we need a star.’

  ‘I’m poxed if I’m changing my name to Melchior … a stupid name. What was the third one called?’

  None of them could remember.

  ‘Anyway, we haven’t got any myrrh.’

  ‘What is it anyway?’

  ‘It’s the sweat from angels’ armpits,’ suggested Cornelius.

  ‘Angels don’t sweat,’ said Balthasar.

  ‘It’s hard work sticking red hot pokers up devils’ arses all day,’ said Cornelius, stamping his feet from which all sensation had drained.

  ‘When we find Michel,’ said Johannes, ‘he will be raised as a weaver, not a carpenter.’

  By screwing up his eyes they could see the distant skaters in greater detail. There were couples dancing on the ice, their movements exaggerated by the effort of keeping their balance. They were all older women. Occasionally they embraced each other in a parody of happier times, aping in slow motion the same steps they once shared with young lovers and

  sweethearts.

  Johannes shivered beneath the rough wool of his cloak. He was itching too from whatever species of vermin had taken up residence in the warmer crevices of his body. He stretched his arm down his back but he couldn’t reach it.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ enquired Cornelius as he watched his friend squirming, ‘Are you dancing with St Vitus?’

  ‘Is Satan pulling your strings?’ asked Balthasar. ‘Are you a puppet or a man?’

  ‘A man who will fight the pair of you with one hand, while his other hand keeps trying to find this hell-escaped flea,’ said Johannes, who abandoned the unequal struggle. The dogs’ breaths mingled in cold shafts.

  Halfway down the slope the men paused again. They were tired but mercifully could no longer smell the roasting pig. They gazed down onto the frozen lakes where the black figures, skating, tumbling and mock jousting, had grown larger. The Babel shouts of children were distorted by the distance. Life-sapping cold rose to meet them. Johannes wanted to be back home; he wanted to roll back the seasons and tell Antonia all the things he never had the chance to tell her when she lived. He wanted to lose himself in the rhythm of the loom. Above all else he wanted to find his son.

  In the foreground he could make out the figure of a bowed old woman, a black bundle on her back, trudging snail-paced across the bridge that linked the two halves of the hamlet. She was most likely carrying kindling faggots that had been stored for the months when the water, the soil and the blood would freeze. She had picked out the small bodies of hibernating mice, as hard as stone to the touch and tucked them out of harm’s way into the adjacent stack. Soon she would be home at her hearth. Her witch’s fingers would twitch as she conjured a spark from the tinder, cupped her hands and blew on the minute glowing angel of light to keep it alive, before gently feeding it with crispy splinters of wood.

  ‘That’s old Mother Kuiper,’ said Balthasar. The others nodded and acknowledged the similarity to the village crone who dispensed gossip and saliva with equal enthusiasm. She spent most waking hours stirring a pot full of rooks, starlings and crows: feathers, bones, lights and gizzards. A sense of loss took hold of the mens’ souls.

  On the far rim of the pond young boys played with a stone puck and willow sticks. Each was attempting to outdo the other with frantic sweeping movements that sent the puck spinning across the ice in a film of water. Up above, an alien skeletal bird hovered.

  Taking their cue from the dogs, Balthasar and Johannes relieved themselves in the snow. It seemed unwise to void so much body heat.

  Johannes shivered as the sweat felt cold between his skin and the buckram. Balthasar pointed beyond the frozen ponds and fields towards the forest. Johannes screwed up his eyes and struggled to distinguish between the motes floating in his vision and what just might be a distant knot of men moving in slow motion towards the forest. ‘It could be them,’ he said.
‘We’re not far behind.’

  A whistle from Balthasar and the dogs stopped foraging, their snouts pointing through a cloud of hot breath. Men and dogs set off down the slope. ‘Jesus!’ said Cornelius as his boots sank well beyond his knees in the crisp snow.

  With great effort they levered themselves forward and downwards. At the edge of the pond the boys, who moments before had been absorbed in spinning their tops, dropped their leather whips and stared awkwardly at the three strangers. Perhaps they too had been visited by dark apostles of the Inquisition, spitting Spanish curses, trying to identify the fattest one who could be roasted just for sport, to loosen the tongues of the others, and send a bleak message of retribution to their families.

  Johannes smiled reassuringly at the nearest boy who quickly looked away in case he was the chosen one.

  Progress was easier on the ice if you spread your weight evenly. In his youth Johannes could dance on air. One distant frozen St Nicholas Eve he had swept Antonia off her feet and held her aloft like a captured swan. The other villagers clapped and threw their bonnets in the air as he swept her across the ice, his arms tight around her tiny waist.

  One of the dogs paddled helplessly and then splayed itself on the melting surface. A young couple wrapped in each other for warmth and love glared at the travellers, and the old woman they had seen from afar, bent under her trussed-up faggots, seemed to be treading water as she dropped her bundle and skidded in her haste to escape.

  Beyond the pond the snow that had drifted against the thicket hindered their progress. The dogs vied with each other to find a way through. The disguised wall of thorns tore at the snout of the foremost. He yelped and searched the hedge with sharp-edged breath. The men beat their staves against the thorns until they yielded. The clods of snow became flurries.