Just a PB Piece

PUTTING BERLIE’S TOGETHER, PIECE BY PIECE

The fair is not long in taking shape on the green. Tarpaulins unfold and a whole brash brush-painted world is pieced together. Behind the scenes men with spanners and hammers and oil on their cheeks sit discussing what is still to be done. A woman on a stepladder is checking the light bulbs, making sure that they work and that the right colour of bulb is placed in the right socket.

Mad Martin wanders round the green stopping to ask if anyone has seen Col. He plays with the dogs, too. Three of them and all looking like they are from the one litter. Mad Martin has broken biscuits in one of his pockets and it is like they remember from last year. He sits on the grass and fusses over the three dogs. Above him the seagulls wheel across the sky and call down in protest, but today Mad Martin does not pay them any attention.

Athol Stuart circles the green looking like he is just out for a stroll. Keeping an eye on things, he is. He’s bright enough and cheerful to some of the men who stop and give him the time of day. Shakes the hands of those he is more familiar with. Not like they are friends exactly, but as if they know each other. Athol Stuart also makes sure that Martin is no bother to them.

‘No, he’s no bother at all. Like a great big child is all he is. No bother in that,’ says an elderly man who has stepped up as the spokesperson for Berlie’s.

Sinnie goes out of her way to see what’s what at the fair this year. She stands at the edge of things looking for the lady who reads fortunes – a small dark haired woman who walks with a stoop and a tight grin on her face. Sinnie wants to ask her if she knows about dreams and what they mean. Last night the waist-coated owl took Sinnie on its back and flew with her high above Port Brokeferry. Dreams of flying are common enough, Sinnie believes, but she does not know what they mean.

Evelyn takes her lunch break down by the fair. She has seen Kelso and knows Kelso has seen her. She thinks to wave and decides against it. Instead she sends a message with one of the children, pays the wee girl fifty pence to deliver it. ‘Just tell him Evelyn says hello.’ She waits for his reply, but none comes.

There are others who make a circuit of the green at some point in the day, just to look. Some of the boys from school linger longer than they should and Athol Stuart has to shoo them away when he hears the school bell ringing. Lachlan Davie is seen chatting to a girl with too blond hair and too red lips – it is Evelyn that sees him and she is confirmed in everything she has said about the man to Morag. What she is no witness to is Kelso waving to Grace, and smiling all the afternoon afterwards.

Some of the other visitors to Port Brokeferry come to discover what all the new noise is about. They are less certain of what is going on. They are here for the peace and quiet and now it looks like that will be broken.