And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson Page A

snobbery. It sounded like expert analysis.
    ‘I’ve learned scores o songs,’ the man said, ‘hundreds o them, but I’ve done it frae listening tae other folk singing them, and this boy’s learned his frae a book or aff a record.’
    The barman put the pint in front of him. ‘There ye go, Walter. Staying in town the night?’
    The man handed over a couple of coins. ‘Aye, at my sister’s. I’ve been putting a new sink in her bathroom. Trouble is, I’m on the settee and it’s no wide enough for me. I’ll need to anaesthetise masel or I’ll never sleep. So maybe I’ll drap in on Jean Barbour efter this, see what’s what. Crash oot there insteid.’
    ‘How’s Jean?’ the barman said. ‘Hivna seen her for ages.’
    ‘Same as ever,’ the man called Walter said. ‘The world may come to an end, and Jean’ll be sitting among the wreckage, telling us how it happened.’
    ‘You’re right there,’ the barman said.
    ‘Did you say “Jean Barbour”?’ Mike said.
    Walter looked at him. ‘Aye.’
    ‘Does she stay down the Royal Mile somewhere?’
    ‘She does, aye.’
    ‘I’m supposed to look her up. She’s an old friend of my dad’s.’
    Walter said, ‘She’s an old friend of a lot of folk, Jean. What’s your name?’
    ‘Michael Pendreich. Mike. My dad knew her years ago.’
    ‘D’ye ken her yersel?’
    ‘I don’t even know where she stays. It’s just when I heard her name …’
    ‘I’ll take ye doon there,’ he said, ‘when this place shuts.’
    It was coming on for ten o’clock, closing time. Walter said they should buy a carry-out and take it to Jean’s as a way of extending the evening.
    ‘Will it not be a bit late?’ Mike asked.
    ‘Ach away, man. That woman never sleeps. Dinna fash.’
    Walter was from Ayrshire originally, but had come east and now stayed in Dalkeith, a few miles to the south of Edinburgh. Mining country, he said, although there were hardly any pits left now, just the big ones, Monktonhall and Bilston Glen, and the Lady Victoria at Newtongrange. He was talking about places just a short bus ride outside the city but the names meant nothing to Mike. Walter was a plumber by day and a singer by night. He’d always had a good voice, he said, could belt out any number of songs, when he was an apprentice in the 1950s he’d sung in a skiffle band but it hadn’t come to anything, it had only been a ploy to attract women. ‘In thae days, if ye were a working-class boy and ye wanted a better kind o life than the one that was mapped oot for ye, there was just two ways o daein it: ye could become a professional footballer, if ye were skilled enough, or ye could become a professional boxer, if ye were hard enough. And then this third opportunity came along: ye could form a band and sing your way tae glory if ye were bonnie enough. Weel, I wasna skilled or hard or bonnie enough for ony o thae things, sae I became a plumber. But then something amazing happened. I was on a job doon at Lauder, on the road tae England, and I was there for aboot a week wi a couple o other boys, up and doon the road every day, and on the last day, when we’d finished the job, we went for a few pints in a pub afore we came back up the road. And there was this auld man there, and he just started singing. There was a wee lull in the general noise, ye ken, and he started singing intae that space. The haill pub went silent as he sang, he didna hae the best voice, it was auld and quavery and a bit flat but by Christ he had us aw spellbound, we aw listened, even the guys that were wi me, on and on he went, verse efter verse efter verse, a story aboot a sister and her lover, and her brothers killing him because he wasna good enough for her, and her defiance when the faither tried tae mairry her aff tae another man. Weel, I’d never heard anything like it in my life, and when he was done I went over and bought the auld fellow a drink and asked him aboot it. It was a ballad, he said, “The Dowie Dens o