SCENE THIRTEEN

(JENNY, LIZA, MAGGIE, TOTTIE, SARA. Dawn, or just after, the morning after the kirn. JENNY and LIZA arriving home, fits of giggles. High from lack of sleep and the night’s events. MAGGIE has heard them coming, she’s already up — splashing her face with water? fetching water? something — and ‘nursing her wrath’)

MAGGIE: I’ll thraw your neck when I come to you, lass. I’ll dadd your lugs. I’ll skelp you blue.

LIZA: We were only dancing!

MAGGIE: Dancing! He was dragging you down the loan!

JENNY: He’d had a drop! They’d all had a drop.

MAGGIE: Gyptians! Steal the clothes off your back — and a whole lot more!

LIZA: Kello’s not a Gyptian.

JENNY: It was the kirn, Maggie.

LIZA: We were dancing!

MAGGIE: Where to? Coldstream?

(Renewed giggles)

And for the love of the Lord, stop that laughing. You cackled and screeched all through the kirn!

JENNY: She wasn’t going to Coldstream really! She wasn’t getting wed or anything!

LIZA: (mockingly) Oooh-ooh! Buckled up at Coldstream!

MAGGIE: You weren’t? Were you? By, you’d see —!

LIZA: You’d lose your bondager if I got wed. That’s all that bothers you.

MAGGIE: Get ready for work, go on, the pair of you. The steward won’t brook lateness after the kirn. Especially not after the kirn. He’ll have a thumping head on him this morning. And not the only one. Gin you were mine — I’d shake you, lass!

(SARA has appeared, been milking her cow or fetching water or firewood)

SARA: Is Tottie not up yet?

(They stare at her blankly)

SARA: Still sleeping with the bairns, is she?

(MAGGIE shakes her head, is about to say ‘no’)

SARA: I left her last night dancing with the bairns.

MAGGIE: Well, she wasn’t with me, Sara.

SARA: (worried, but not unduly) I thought she was sleeping at your place. Now where can she be?

MAGGIE: The hayloft, probably.

(JENNY and LIZA exchange looks)

SARA: She didn’t want to leave with me. She wanted to dance.

JENNY: She followed us a way.

SARA: You’ve seen her then —?

JENNY: last night.

SARA: Well, but now, where is she now?

MAGGIE: (angry, to LIZA and/or JENNY) You should have kept an eye on her.

JENNY: Why? She’s a pest.

LIZA: She’s a pest

JENNY: Traipsing after us.

MAGGIE: She’s been girny lately. Thrawn.

SARA: She’s been having bad days.

LIZA: What’s the fuss? She never goes far. She’s too daft to get far.

(They catch sight of TOTTIE)

SARA: Tottie, burdie, where have you been? Come here. You’re a bad girl, going off like that, where have you been?

TOTTIE: (triumphant, but wary too — keeps her distance) I’ve been married.

(‘Ooh-ing’ or giggles again from LIZA and JENNY)

SARA: Oh, it’s a notion she takes. Like the dancing. MAGGIE: (to JENNY, LIZA) She was with you then?

SARA: Where have you been, Tottie?

TOTTIE: I’ve been with my man. Getting wed. Liza wouldn’t go. He didn’t want her anyway.

(Each time they approach her she withdraws)

JENNY: You’ve never been to Coldstream and back, not without wings.

LIZA: You can’t wed, you’re not sixteen.

TOTTIE: I’m not the bairnie now! I know things. I’m wed.

MAGGIE: It’s their fault, putting ideas in her head.

LIZA: Us!

JENNY: She wasn’t with us!

TOTTIE: I was! I was. They were going to Coldstream brig, they were laughing and dancing, they were having a wedding. I wanted to go too. But they shouted at me, Liza and Jenny and Kello and Dave, and Dave threw a stone. So I hid. Then I heard them running across the field, Liza and Jenny, running and stopping to have a bit laugh, and running and stopping and laughing and running. But the ploomen didn’t run cos they’d had too much ale, they couldn’t loup the dyke, they stayed in the loan. So I went and asked them could I go to Coldstream instead, and Kello said yes.

LIZA: Kello.

JENNY: You’ve never been to Coldstream!

LIZA: She’s making it up, she talks like that all the time.

TOTTIE: I’m going to have a clock and a dresser and a bed. And a baby.

(The silence gratifies her)

LIZA: Who said?

(TOTTIE starts laughing, almost dancing (or lolling about in the hay, as ELLEN did earlier), hugging herself with satisfaction — at last night’s, as well as this morning’s, attention)

MAGGIE: What did he do? Tottie? Which one was it, and what did he do?

SARA: There’s blood on her skirt.

MAGGIE: (slapping at, or shoving at JENNY or LIZA, whichever is nearest) Your fault, bitches!

(As she speaks the farmyard bell — maybe just two iron bars banged together — is heard in the distance)

MAGGIE: That’s the steward in the yard. You’re late. Go on, the pair of you, hurry up, go on. No sense everyone being late.

SARA: Tell the steward we’re both sick, Tottie and me. Tell him we’re sick.

MAGGIE: And Jenny — both of you — keep your gob shut!

LIZA: (to TOTTIE) Was it Kello?

MAGGIE: Tak your hook, Liza!

TOTTIE: (calling after her in triumph) You’re the bairnie now, Liza!

(LIZA and JENNY go slowly towards the field, collect their hoes, tie on their headhankies, aprons, etc)

TOTTIE: It was Kello I saw in the glass. Yon night I took a loan of Jenny’s glass.

(MAGGIE and SARA say nothing, don’t know what to say — to TOTTIE, to each other)

TOTTIE: He said we hadn’t got all night, we’d never get to Coldstream, we should go in the rigs. We were wed in the rigs. Lift your claes! Woosh! I wanted a look at his prick, but I couldn’t see right, it was still half dark. And he never lay me doon at all, he pushed me agin the stack. ‘We’ll smoor the fleas together,’ he says. ‘It canna hurt if we smoor a wheen fleas.’ But it hurt. I’m hurt.

(But just when she seems distressed and ready to be comforted, she starts laughing again, excited, gleeful)

LIZA: They’ll tell the steward and the maister.

JENNY: (to LIZA) What’ll they do to that Kello, eh? What’ll they not do!

MAGGIE: There’s always trouble after the kirn!

JENNY: (looking to the fields) They’re ploughing already. I can see the horses. He’s turning up the stubble, your Kello —

LIZA: Not mine!

MAGGIE: Go to work, Sara. I’ll see to her now. Leave her here with me. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. And the steward’ll be angry if you’re not in the field, it’ll make him angrier at Tottie.

SARA: (more angry than sad, for once) At Tottie? (But SARA can’t go)

JENNY: (to LIZA) What’ll you say when you see him, Kello?

LIZA: I won’t see him — I won’t look!

JENNY: If he speaks to —

LIZA: I’ll spit!

MAGGIE: (looking to fields) They’re ploughing already. Ploughing for winter.

SARA: Come home now, bairnie!

TOTTIE: Not the bairnie now!

MAGGIE: Trouble — it comes like the first nip of frost. Sure as frost after harvest.

LIZA: I wish it was last night again. I wish it was the kirn still.

MAGGIE: Sure as winter.

JENNY: I wish the summer would last for ever.

LIZA: I wish we were still dancing!