Daguerreotype VI

The oddly dressed man sat in the pews on the right of the chapel. I sat on the left, next to Sheena, who had left space for a thinnish person between herself and Tam. There was organ music, but it was coming over a PA-system. No-one sat at the organ off to the side of the lectern. The music wasn't a hymn, but I couldn't place it. Perhaps it was the organ arrangement, or someone had dramatically changed the tempo of the tune. It nagged at me. A man seemingly dressed as the Pope stepped up to the lectern: I looked over at Tam. He shrugged. Da had believed the Wee Free an ostentatious religion. To tell the truth he had had no time for religion at all. Mam had attended the local Presbyterian, whenever the bruises were under her clothing.

The high-church fellow began saying the usual things: a full life, taken unto God, sadly missed. I looked down, there was a minuscule ladder in my stocking. I drifted off, only coming back when the man of God announced that -as was customary- a family member would be stepping up to say a few words. Tam didn't move. Neither did I. A flash of hounds-tooth caught my eye and I realised that the stranger was making for the lectern. Perhaps I'd find out who he was.

He had a faded elegance about him, and if the contrast between the black and the grey in his hair was a little too sharp, who could blame him? The look suited him. As did the eccentricity of his dress in general, it had to be said. A century and a half ago they'd have called him a fine figure of a man, he was perhaps a little corpulent for modern tastes. Ah.. but the voice. Basso profundo and warm as a fur coat. The faintest Edinburgh accent and a musical lilt. It was the voice of a lover or the devil and I could scarcely follow what it said. I concentrated harder:

'Cousin Tam, was not a conventional man. How could he be, being kin of mine? We were not close, but we had dealings in the past. Agreements that bind beyond the mortal coil.'

It was all I could do not to laugh. In fact I may have let something slip, since Tam gave me a sharp look. I shivered, he'd looked just like Da, for a moment.

The seductive voice continued with veiled hints and platitudes until he himself had had enough.
He stumbled on stepping down from behind the lectern, as though he had trodden on the tail of a morning coat, although of course he was dressed in nothing of the kind.

The over-dressed clergyman stepped up to the mark once more and offered up a short prayer. The same music began to play and the conveyor-belted coffin began its journey to the flames. The name of the tune came back to me as the curtains closed behind it. 'Horo My Nut Brown Maiden'.

Da had sung it to me from age five to eleven, until I had escaped to The Senior School at Loretto near Musselburgh. The bursary had been from a private endowment. My father had fought against accepting it. I myself was so glad of it that I did not enquire too closely into its provenance - and I had avoided returning to the house in Coalburn whenever I could.