Unspeakable, p.1
Unspeakable, page 1
Unspeakable
Unspeakable
Dilys Rose
First published 2017
Freight Books
49-53 Virginia Street
Glasgow, G1 ITS
www.freightbooks.co.uk
Copyright © 2017 Dilys Rose
The moral right of Dilys Rose to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or by licence, permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP.
A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-911332-15-2
eISBN 978-1-911332-16-9
Typeset by Freight in Plantin
Printed and bound by Bell and Bain, Glasgow
Dilys Rose is a novelist, short story writer, poet and librettist. She has published eleven books and received various awards for her work, including the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Award, the McCash prize, two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards, a Society of Authors’ Travel Award and a Canongate Prize. She lives in Edinburgh.
Other books by Dilys Rose
Fiction
Our Lady of the Pickpockets
Red Tides
War Dolls
Pest Maiden
Selected Stories
Lord of Illusions
Pelmanism
Poetry
Madame Doubtfire’s Dilemma
Lure
Bodywork
Poetry for children
When I Wear My Leopard Hat
For Geraldine
It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure.
Thomas Aikenhead, January 8th, 1697
Contents
Part One
Elephant
A Receipt for Happiness
The Sweet Singers of Borrowstounness
A-Maying
Lozenges for Love
The Stool of Repentance
The Chief End of Man
At Lucky Lorimer’s
A Leith Cocking
Plum Cake & Attar of Roses
Man With a Bay Horse
A Charge of Riot
The Minister of Duddingston
A Curious Reek
A Key to the Door
Patriae et Posteris
Part Two
Venice Treacle
Netherstane
Full Bellies and Feather Beds
Blubber and Baleen
The Coat-tails of Another Family
The Ferry Fair
A Game of Hell
Part Three
Bajans and Billiard Halls
Climbers on a Stair
The Blue Firth
A Knowledge of Simples
House of Curiosities
The Naked Eye
Ezra’s Fables
Corpus Vile
A Frenzy
A Tincture of Sedative Herbs
Hircus Cervus
Chou D’Or
Poetical Fictions and Extravagant Chimaeras
Printer’s Deil
A Rhapsody of Feigned and Ill-Invented Nonsense
Nightshade
Snow
Afterword
Notes on the text
Acknowledgements
Part One
Elephant
When he is taken from the Tolbooth in chains and escorted by armed guard down Leith Wynd to the Gallowlee, Thomas Aikenhead will recall standing amongst close-packed adult legs, straining to see the elephant.
The creature, from India, is the first of its species to which the city has ever opened its gates. For the whole morning a gangly, outlandishly garbed showman and his tow-headed drummer boy tramp up and down the High Street, announcing that a marvellous creature from the Eastern Indies will be on view, for a price, at dinner-time.
On a platform assembled at the Mercat Cross in readiness for the arrival of the main attraction, two tumbling girls entertain spectators with supple coilings and writhings, leapfrogs and somersaults, crab walks and headspins. The girls are slight and lithe, cinnamon-skinned, with lips as purple and juicy as damsons, flashing eyes and crow-black braids worked into topknots. Their arms are ringed with bracelets, their ankles with jingling bells.
They twist into such an array of fankles and launch into such leaps that they might have springs for bones or wings attached to their sharp little shoulders. Thomas, not yet five years old, thinks them beautiful but possibly malevolent, like the faerie folk, sprites that pinch and pull your hair and might steal you away to a land beyond the hills where you must live in silence for seven years. He can’t imagine how it might be to stay quiet for such an eternity; he loves to talk.
In the cold winter light it is evident that the tumbling girls are only human: bruises on their legs and arms stand out like archipelagos inked on the maps of their skin. When the crowd cheers at some marvellous contortion, the girls bow so low that their topknots graze their knees. They never smile.
Throughout the morning a raw wind blows up from the Firth of Forth, a pale streamer below the hills of Fife, which, on this November day, are hazy. The sky is thick as broth. Snow begins to fall, light smatters at first, drifting around then pouring down from the heavens, settling on bare heads, on hats and hoods as the elephant, with the drummer boy astride its shoulders and his bare legs kicking about the animal’s great lugs, plods up the street.
The showman is garbed in a raspberry cloak and matching breeks. His head, on the end of a scrawny neck, nestles amid layers of yellow satin.
The mannie’s got a tulip for a heid! says Thomas.
And a seedpod for brains! says a fat man beside them. A bunch of shoelaces dangle like rats’ tails from the pocket of his cobbler’s apron.
A great cratur like yon must cost a king’s ransom tae stable.
Whit’s a king’s ransom? says Thomas.
Weel now, says the man, it’s a sum few can pit thir haunds on.
The showman struts by the elephant’s side, affecting an air of pomp and ceremony. He carries a stout, sharpened stick and grips the end of a heavy chain attached to one of its forelegs.
Is the elephant a prisoner? says Thomas.
Efter a fashion, the cobbler replies.
But whit’s he done wrang?
Stole a bannock? They’d be for packin him off tae the New World wi aw the sinners they dinna hae space for in the Tolbooth, but he’d mair than likely sink the boat!
Where’s the New World? says Thomas. How d’ye get there? Efter ye cross the ocean, d’ye haveta fly?
Stap yir pesterin, says his big sister, Katharine.
Nae hairm, says the cobbler. If he disna ask, he willna ken.
He niver stops. Even when naebody wants tae hear, he prattles on and on. There’s a time tae talk and a time to haud yir tongue.
You tell him, lass, says the cobbler, ruffling Katharine’s hair, which she doesn’t like one bit.
When the elephant approaches the ramp leading to the platform it halts, shakes its head, extends its monstrous trunk and blares a great trumpeting across all the assembled snow-dusted pates. The crowd’s initial wariness gives way to amusement. The showman jabs the elephant. When it doesn’t respond, he jabs it again and thrashes the loose end of the chain against its leg.
He’s hurtin it, says Thomas. Why is he hurtin it?
Because he’ll no mak money frae a beast that disna dae his biddin, says Katharine.
The elephant gives another trumpet, is jabbed and beaten again until it lumbers forwards, head rising and dipping, trunk coiling and uncoiling; it raises one huge foot after another then heaves its great bulk onto the creaking, swaying platform.
From the adjacent gibbet where, like the hanged man on a tarot card, they have been demonstrating the art of dangling upside down from a single slender foot, the tumbling girls right themselves, leap off the gibbet and land neatly on the elephant’s back. They stand on tiptoe and snake their arms about, causing their bracelets to rustle like wind shaking the barley. At a nod from the showman, they sweep the drummer boy off the elephant’s head and fling him out onto the street, where he lands with a flourish.
The girls tumble onto the street then flit around, collecting payment. Though slight, they are fierce and tenacious, with a way of catching and holding a person’s gaze. Again Thomas thinks of faeries and magic spells, of the evil eye and how it might snare a person, drag him into its orbit and not let go.
The drummer boy unhooks the panniers which hang either side of the elephant’s head and brings out three loaves and six jugs of ale. As for the elephant, grey as the day itself, it turns in obedient circles, giving onlookers who have flocked from all over an opportunity to observe its novel anatomy. They marvel at the big blunt feet – which, at some point in the future, will become velvet-topped stools in the house of a wealthy merchant with a predilection for curiosities – the spindle tail; the restless, freakish trunk; the curved tusks; the hide ridged and wrinkled as bark; the great, flapping, skatefish lugs; the eyes which glint like nails driven deep into its skull.
So, my Guidmen and Guidwive s, the showman roars, it’s a cauld wind blaws up frae the Forth the day but I’ll warrant the cockles o yir herts are warmed by the spectacle afore ye! This beast, niver afore tae grace the shores o this island and purchased for the princely sum o Two Thousand Pounds, has come here by way o a lang slow tramp frae the soothern extremity o the land. And afore that, aw the way frae the far side o the kent world! Aw weel and guid but whit, ye might wonder, can such a curious cratur dae? Whit special accomplishments hae been bestowed by the Almighty and why, ye might ask, have I, at great personal expense, fetched it here for yir inspection?
That’s whit we’re here tae find oot! comes a cry.
Cut the craik! comes another.
But thir’s ane thing ye need tae ken, says the showman, and ye’d be wise tae pay heed. It’s in an elephant’s nature tae attend tae aw aboot him. His een may be sma but they’re sharp as tacks.
The showman knows this is a lie but it is a convenient lie and not a soul challenges him on it. So, he continues, if onybody hasna yet made it his business tae haund ower tae my lovely dusky lasses the requisite fee, act now or regret it at yir leisure. Oor auld mannie here – ye can see for yirsels by inspectin the undercarriage that this is undeniably a bull elephant – has spent elevin year on God’s earth. At hame he’d hae control – and let’s be honest, the sweet freedom o a haill herd o coos. But, in the absence o the carnal pleasures in which beasts indulge thirsels at nae cost to thir immortal souls – because, as ye ken, they dinna hae sauls! – oor auld mannie here has become a veritable miser. Whit’s mair, he’s been kent tae play an ill trick on cheapskates and – doot me at yir peril – ye widna wish it played on yir guid sel. And by the bye, as he and I’ll no be gaen onywhere hastie-like, here’s anither scruple o information ye’d be wise tae mind: the elephant possesses a prodigious memory.
Amid some mutterings of disbelief, a fair few seek out the tumbling girls and make a show of parting with their money.
That’s mair like the thing! Now then, as ye havena cheated an honest man o his livelihood, ye can enjoy yir entertainment wi a clear conscience.
Honest is as honest does!
Show us whit the beast can dae.
Aw in guid time.
We havena got aw day, man.
Some o us hae proper work!
Thomas ignores the banter but uses the showman’s stalling tactics to edge forward.
Richt ye be. First things first! This cratur hails frae a heathen land and believe you me, if some o ye Presbyterians find it ill tae stomach the ways o the Episcopalians, and some o the Episcopalians find it vexatious tae thole the idolatry o Papists, and the Papists amang ye tae abide the preposterous habits o the Quakers, and the Quakers—
Get on wi it, man, for pity’s sake. We dinna need yir balderdash.
I ken, I ken. But aw ye guid, God-fearin sauls should tak a moment and try and picture the kinna abominations tae be foond in his hameland. I’ll no lee, snakes are venerated. Monkeys, rats! Tae tap it aw, they worship a God that’s hauf laddie, hauf elephant and credited wi ridin on the back o a moosie! As a corrective, the first thing I kent it needful tae teach the beast wis due reverence. So, can I hae yir attention please!
Ye’ve already got it, man. But ye’ll lose it if ye dinna get a move on.
When the showman is satisfied that his girls have extracted as much coin as possible, the lad hitches his ragged breeks and sets his sticks against the drumskin in a long, dramatic roll. The showman prods the elephant until it slowly folds its cumbersome forelegs into a kneeling position and lowers its heavy head.
The elephant remains awkwardly in an attitude of reverence, ears undulating, trunk slithering over the straw-strewn platform. In response to another prod it drags itself back into a standing position. Snow continues to fall. It settles on its head, turns into sleet and drips into the wrinkled fissures around its eyes.
Is it greetin? says Thomas.
Naw, says Katharine.
How d’ye ken? Perhaps the dribbles are tears as weel as sleet. Or the sleet’s makkin it greet. Or the mannie pokin him.
Wha kens? says Katharine.
Can dogs greet? Can cats?
I dinna ken, Thomas, and I dinna care.
But if dogs can greet, they must be sad. And if they’re sad, they must hae sauls.
Ask the minister the next time ye’re in church.
I dinna like the minister, says Thomas. He’s aye cross.
If he’s cross it’s on accoont o haein tae thole nincompoops like you, says Katharine.
Whit’s a nincompoop?
Lord have mercy! says Katharine.
Where Thomas is, right at the front, with his sister’s skirt pressed against the back of his head, his eyes are level with the elephant’s feet. The pads are covered with cuts and sores from walking on mud and stones and standing for hours on end, on damp straw.
D’ye think the elephant’s cauld? D’ye think he’s dule?
How dae I ken, Thomas? How could onybody ken?
When Mither drooned the kittens in the Nor’ Loch, the cat wis dule. I sweer she wis. She wis aye searchin for her kittens. She stappit huntin rats. She didna greet wi her een but made a greetin soond in her thrapple.
Cats are no the same as elephants, says Katharine.
Thomas tries to picture a land where elephants roam free, where tumbling girls sit on sun-baked rocks, braiding each other’s hair and stringing bracelets onto their arms, and everything is bright and colourful but has little to compare it to. The buildings, the sky, even the few trees standing on the High Street are grey or black. There’s brightness from the snow but it’s a harsh brightness, the kind that pains the eyes. Apart from a few extravagantly becloaked gentry and a couple of young women – that Katharine calls jades – in showy robes, the tradespeople wear subdued colours and the labourers, hodden grey.
What, Thomas wonders, could be wrong with colour? How might the wearing of coloured cloth offend God? Didn’t God make flowers in every possible hue? Doesn’t his own father, who knows so much about how things are put together, say dyes are made from roots and leaves, petals and stamens, from powdered rocks and tinted clay? Why, if God made Heaven and Earth, wouldn’t He wish His people to make use of all the cheerful colour He provided?
The showman jabs the elephant. With deep groans and choked squeals, it rears up and props its forelegs against the gibbet. The showman produces a musket and makes a great palaver of loading it with gunpowder. He fixes a metal cage over the elephant’s head, chains it to the gibbet so its head juts upwards, then slides the musket into the cage. In some unfathomable manner the elephant manoeuvres the gun between its grey lips and fires a shot at the sky. Again there is much cheering. Its head is freed from the cage and the elephant is permitted to stand once more on all four feet.
But now tae my final demonstration, for which I offer ye a unique opportunity! Buy the beast a hunk o breid and a pint o ale and ye’ll hae the privilege o feedin it yirsel! Believe me, nocht in the world is as curious as an elephant’s way wi bit and sup.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a claret cloak holds up his purse.
Guid sir, a baker’s apprentice calls out, if ye pay me thirteen and sax I’ll eat the breid and drink the ale. And piss it oot again – gratis!
Where’s the novelty in that? his neighbour replies. Ye piss yir ale agin the wa a dizzen times a day as it is.
The man in the claret cloak ignores the jests and moves through the throng with his entourage: two flame-cheeked bairns bundled up against the elements, two sturdy manservants and a pair of panting, piebald hounds.
Thomas nudges Katharine.
Is yon Maister Hepburn feedin the elephant?
The same, says Katharine. Tossin awa coin oor faither pays him in rent!
Why?
Because he can.
Think on the miracle o the loaves and the fishes! comes a cry from another quarter.
Could ye no mak yon breid and ale fill the bellies and slake the drouth o guid, workin men?
Now that wid be a sight worth seein.
Isna an honest man mair deservin o bit and sup than a dumb beast?
Aye, and a heathen beast at that!
The showman allows the banter to run its course. He knows how it goes. People need a chance to jape and jibe, to argue the toss.
Watching the elephant snuffle up a hunk of bread is entertaining but nothing to seeing it take in a whole jug of ale, twirl its trunk this way and that, as if intending to spray onlookers, and then, after more furling and unfurling of the monstrous appendage, direct a jet of ale into its own mouth.
