Diary of a Shopkeeper, 25th October
‘From ghoulies and ghosties, and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night,’ said Willie Pickle, ‘I pray you preserve and deliver me.’
Mr K raised his eyebrows. ‘And what did she say?’
‘She said the council didn’t do pest control anymore, and that I should look in the phone book for a private service.’
‘And did you do that?’ I said.
‘Not exactly. I just hit the thing with the phone book and that finished it off.’
We laughed and Mr K reached through the gap below the screen to take the cheese selection I’d wrapped up for him.
‘This is like a modern-day Halloween game,’ he said. ‘Instead of Dooking for Apples it’s Groping for Godminster.’
‘My favourite game was where they hung toffee apples from a string, and you had to try and eat them without using your hands. Beuy beuy, we’d all end up clarted with sticky toffee. I had to stop, though, when I grew a beard – I was crusty for days.’
‘Your beard!’ I cried. ‘How old were you, for any sake?’
‘Thirteen. Why?’
‘They grow up fast in Westray,’ said Mr K.
‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ said Willie. ‘We had none of this pumpkin nonsense when I was a bairn. If you went into Tullochs and asked for a pumpkin they’d have given you a lugget with the biggest neep in the shop.’
‘I hope you ken,’ I said, ‘that Kirkwall BID is a big supporter of the noble neep. The kids have been going around hunting the neepie signs for a fortnight, and now there’s a Nasty Neep competition. Some of the shops have carved up incredible creations.’
‘I must say, shopkeeper, I think your effort’s a bit lacking,’ said Mr K. ‘All you’ve done is peel your neep, boil it, chap it, and pile it on a plate. That’s not very artistic.’
‘Look at the sign,’ I said. ‘Monster Mash! It’s a joke!’
‘Halloween is no laughing matter,’ he said. ‘It’s an ancient religious festival marking the turning of the seasons, and the transmigration of souls from one world to the next, when the boundary between living and dead thins to a diaphanous gauze…’
‘And toffee apples,’ said Willie Pickle, plonking a bottle of Calvados down on the counter. ‘I tell you, it’s the bairns I feel sorry for this year.’
‘Because it’s not safe to go out guising?’ I said.
‘No, because everybody’s wearing masks all the time anyway, so what’s so scary about putting one on for Halloween.’
‘I’ll tell you the scariest thing I ever heard of,’ said Mr K. ‘It was out our way, a few years back, an old bachelor farmer passed on. He lived away at the end of the hill road, and unless you were going to the peats you’d never seen him.’
‘And who does that these days?’ said Willie. ‘Damn few. And they’re all dead.’
‘He was just an old fashioned, retiring kind of guy,’ said Mr K. ‘He did his work about the farm and kept himself to himself. In fact, you never saw him from one year to the next – and we were his neighbours! The Hermit o Heddle Hill they called him.’
‘So far I’m not quaking in my size twelves,’ said Willie.
‘Listen… When he died, it was six month or more afore some peat cutter found him – on Halloween, as it happens. And they swore that, on the kitchen table in front of his shrivelled remains, was a note.’
‘A fiver? A tenner? What?’
‘Stoup, Willie!’ I said, ‘Let’s hear the story.’
‘The note was a curse,’ wheesked Mr K, ‘written with the dying breath of the old hermit. It promised that his spirit would return to haunt the remote acres of Heddle Hill just as he had in his lifetime. And sure enough…to this very day…his ghost has never once been seen.’
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 29th October. Other diaries will appear weekly. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions. Our Nasty Neep was made by the multi-talented Lauren Gilmour. Thanks to BID for the neep, and to Lauren for the hours of carving!