by Jess Smith
‘Yes Banif, he’s fixing on the lorry engine, it’s a ’mergency. We have parked our wagon, well, caravan, on a beach; lovely it is, but my God if it’s not a cold spot. Praise to God we don’t have to puv the gries [field the horses] in these parts. Me husband’s people still grie-draw wagons, and if their gries [horses] depended on hay in these wind-blown flat-lands, they’d all be gotten stiff.’
I laughed and thought on the many times I’d pushed our wee chaps in the open pram, noses blood-red, and frozen drips of snotters stuck hard onto their wee faces. ‘Aye, wife, the wind blows for championship in these parts, right enough.’ Johnnie, bless his heart, had brought a stool and lifted my guest’s sore foot onto it. She sighed in relief and gave him a lucky charm from her basket. Stephen had teething trouble, so she gave him a plastic ring which went straight into his mouth. I rushed round to fetch Daddy, but he’d left early for a trip to Aberdeen, and Mammy had gone with him. Somehow, with him being a Riley, this pair may have known snippets of history I didn’t, and could have shared them.
‘What’s yer first name?’ I asked her. Penfold was a lovely old gypsy name, but I wondered if her forename was Scottish.
‘Morag.’
Aye, it was a right bonny Highland handle, no doubt.
Well, this visitor of half-Scots, half-English blood soon relaxed to the point when I wondered if she had intentions of leaving. She hung out my washing while I swept floors and made beds, and by now we all needed lunch. She’d discarded her hard shoes, adopting my baffies, shuffling from area to area of the cottage. That was a strange thing to do, because everybody knew that travelling gypsies do not nose into people’s houses. They usually sit still and move only on invitation.
Afternoon arrived, and already my friend was intending on a wee siesta. Nowhere in my mind was there any hint she should go, yet I felt maybe being hospitable wasn’t such a good thing, was I stuck with her? I popped out for baby milk, taking my boys with me, leaving Morag sleeping peacefully on the settee.
Arriving home, I saw a red lorry with flashy painted doors at the far end of Patterson Street. ‘It can only be her son, Barley,’ I thought.
‘Hello,’ I called out, ‘are you looking for Morag?’
A young man of maybe twenty or so came towards me. ‘Yes, is she with you?’
‘Aye, I’ve left her asleep. Follow me, I live in this wee house here.’
‘In this house?’ he asked strangely, as if some memory hung around the place.
‘Aye, come on in.’ I opened the door, calling out to Morag that I’d found Barley. My boys were making a racket as we entered the house, and it seemed unusual that she failed to hear them. Barley was a right impatient lad, pushing by me, almost forcing entry.
‘Oh Mother, Mother,’ he cried.
‘What’s wrong with you, she’s fine!’ I shouted, picking up Stephen, who stopped crying at my touch. Morag, however, wasn’t just sleeping as I thought. Barley was cradling her in his arms, sobbing deeply. She hung loosely in his grip. It was the most horrible shock to discover my visitor had died. She was stone dead!
‘I’ll fetch Doctor MacKenzie,’ I called out, wishing that my parents were home, even one of them. Chrissie also was away that day: I was alone with strangers, one dead. Davie was at sea and I was left feeling totally vulnerable. ‘Look,’ I said again, ‘if you put her in my bed I’ll fetch the Doctor.’ Johnnie, at my sternest request, went outside to play. Stephen fell asleep.
Barley smiled and laid her gently down. ‘No need for a doctor, or minister, or anyone. She’s done what she meant to do. Now, if you could hold back the door, we’ll be gone.’
‘What was it she meant to do?’ I turned his head to face mine.
He wiped a hand across his tear-stained face. ‘Her mother was born in this house a long time ago. This is where she wanted to die.’
‘Then that’s why she came here—this wee house of ours she looked upon as a resting place?’
‘Yes, we would have stayed in this area for as long as it took, but she knew the heart was pegging and there wasn’t much time. Her grandmother went into labour while hawking Macduff. Just as she limped along this way all those years ago, the woman of this house took her in, helped with the birth. My mother recently discovered she’d not long to live and had me take her up here to die. Now, please don’t tell a doctor, ’cause stardy [police] would hinder things, questions and all that stuff.’
I assured him. ‘I’m a traveller and know enough about death ways; police won’t hear from me. Will it be a long time before you reach home?’
‘I have her coffin in the back of the lorry. When I get back, the funeral pyre will take place. Thank you for all you’ve done.’
‘I haven’t done anything, Barley.’
‘Oh, you’ve done a lot more than you know, giving her the time of day. Not many folks would do that, but I see now the traveller in you, I feel some things are meant. For her last hours spent a while in the place where her mother began, thank you.’
Whatever had taken place in my home that day seemed outwith my control, I felt that others were planning a stranger’s life and death. I watched in total silence as he carried his mother, Morag, my morning visitor, away. I wanted to call out she’d a really bad blister on her heel, but somehow the words didn’t come. I saw him open a door at the rear of his lorry, pull an oblong box from the back, and lay her gently in. I watched him reverse, and then he was gone. I never heard or saw so much as a raindrop of them from that day to this.
Brief encounters, like falling dandelion seeds, have neither rhyme nor reason to them, yet I felt that for a whole lifetime a gypsy woman had planned her end, and whoever happened to be living in her mother’s birth-home at her destined time would have been involved in that finale. It just happened to be me.
My washing dried soft and crisp and Stephen’s tooth broke through that night.
The sight of death has never bothered me. I take heed of wisdom words spoken many times by auld yins at funerals—‘just another turn intae a lang road.’
16
EWE MOTHER
Now I think I’ll tell you a story of another Morag—a shepherd’s wife who lived inland from here. Hughie was her man’s name, and around by Turriff they lived, oh maybe a hundred years past. Get the kettle on again and listen to the tale of the Ewe Mother.
Tied to a strong bough of an old warped oak hung a rope swing, weakened and battered by many winters past. It grew, that tree, at the bottom of a garden—well, not so much a flowery garden, more a small field circling a but-and-ben, home to Hughie and Morag. Sitting on that swing, trailing her feet over the worn earth, sat Morag, reminiscing. She remembered the day Hughie strung it up for the big family they’d so eagerly planned and awaited, but which had never come. So long ago now, yet clear as a crystal stream in her memory, were the wonderful summer days when love was all their joy. Just sixteen she was when Hughie plonked himself down onto one knee and asked, no, begged her to marry him. Right in among the sheep. She knew long before then what her answer would be, but her youthful mischief teased and played with his emotions.
‘Hughie, I think my fancy would be better applied to a man with more status than yourself. Surely, if you love me this much, then you’d not wish a shepherd life on me.’ Before he could say a word she continued, ‘my delicate hands are more suited to lifting wine glasses and giving written orders to servants in a big house. Don’t you want me to be a fine gentleman’s wife, Hughie Macintosh?’ Laughing loudly, she pushed poor big clumsy Hughie backwards and ran off.
‘But if you can catch me, then I’ll marry you,’ she called out, scattering sheep in different directions while running for the heather track.
Those sweet words fell around him like clover heads bouncing in the air from the cut of a sharp scythe. In seconds they were joined together with kisses and cuddles, a day never forgotten.
They wed with promises and oaths of devotion, and within months settled easily together. He’d chosen well, because even at such
a delicate age she immersed herself in the hard life as if born to it. The sheep became as important to her as they were to him. Winter found them both trekking cold desolate regions, shepherding through snow, wild weather, short days and long nights tending to lost sheep. They had a small herd of cows, and from them her country knowledge of milking filled a fine larder. Cheeses and butter, expertly churned, were in abundance. Bread too, yeasted and baked to perfection. Sometimes Hughie wondered if an angel had fallen from heaven and married him, his cup ran over.
Yet, as years passed, there was a lack spreading like doom in the small cosy house, so deep it cut into them both. So awful it was that her young face did not smile any more, and her days dragged by. In five years her womb had rejected three babies. She never reached beyond seven months in her pregnancy, with a pained premature labour. Oh, those terrible endless nights when her fruit trees produced no yield, and they were followed by months of sorrow. The country people, their neighbours, felt nothing but sadness for the pair. They’d see them herding the sheep off the hills, she blooming with motherhood, a bowed belly, his big, strong arms supporting her precious frame; then that sad sight of her at his side, both carrying cromacks, collies circling around, each alone in their painful thoughts.
It was after losing the fourth baby that Morag began to fear the bad time—the shedding. This was the only time when her heart broke, not for herself, but for the ewe mothers being forced from their lambs. September nights were filled with the bleating and crying of those mothers, aching for the lambs they’d never see again. It was then Hughie’s bed emptied as Morag slept with the ewes. She tried to comfort them by singing lullabies, stroking their woollen coats, desperately bonding through her own pain with the loss of their infants. Her babies were gone to a cold earth, theirs to a butcher’s slab.
Although his wife’s behaviour was uncanny, unnatural, her husband had no heart to stop it. During shedding he’d enter the field in the early morning to find her snuggling between ewe mothers. The strange thing was, the nights quietened when she joined those grieving animals. It seemed her presence did help them. Then, after eager tups were fielded with the ewes, beginning the whole process over again, Morag slept in her own bed, things returned to normality. The sheep, when pregnant, got down to facing another fierce winter; and yes, once more, Morag too was pregnant.
However, her joy, like before, was short-lived, and in its place came the fear of yet another dead baby. She begged Mother Nature to help her miscarry, her body shook with fear at feeling the icy cold fingers of Death creeping into her womb and stilling the heart of her baby. But her belly like before began to swell. Hughie made her promise not to come out with him, but to stay at home and rest whenever possible. ‘Stay in bed all day if need be, but don’t lose this baby.’
So, with the greatest care for the contents of her womb, she slowed to a gentle pace of life. Months passed, and as before, the first kick of the unborn had them both filled with joy at one minute, apprehension the next. She went for gentle walks among the ewe mothers, telling them about her own little lamb kicking inside. Seven months came round once more. Hughie was lambing in full swing and rushing into the house on the hour to check on Morag, but thanks be, her labour didn’t start. By the end of the eighth month they began to think—is this it, will we see a child, healthy and strong? Nine months came, a full-term pregnancy; everything was ready.
That morning she went outside to wave at the ewe mothers, who for some strange reason had closed in around the house to graze. Little lambs bleated and frolicked in small rows, trying to mount the dry stane dyke at the bottom of the field, making her smile through a mixture of fear and joy at what was to come.
In the late afternoon, claws of sharp tight pain shot up her spine, down her back and gnawed at her swollen abdomen. She screamed to Hughie, who was chopping firewood. He dropped his axe and was by her side, apprehension mixed with hope. Such awful pains kept coming now, each one harder and seething worse than the last. Fast and furious, only minutes apart, they stole valuable breath from her body, leaving her lungs tight and sore. Hours passed with anchors of stone on them, sweat oozed from her in buckets. His arms were torn as she clung on, then when she thought her heart would burst she gave one last push: one final moment waiting on that first cry.
A small lifeless baby boy lay limp, not breathing. Morag bit into the pillow, screaming at cruel, cruel Mother Nature, wicked, evil, hateful nature, as Hughie carried yet another dead infant from her. Tears ran over his face, shoulders heaved with torturing heartache. Nothing but a spark from the dimmed fire could be heard all through the lonely glen. Death had once more visited; would he ever tire of this place?
Hughie wrapped the baby in a sheet; he would bury it down by the oak, but not tonight. Morag needed some comfort. Poor sad Morag, never to mother a child. As they lay in silence holding each other, a ewe mother began bleating outside; the noise made when her lamb had died. Hughie thought the worse of his sheep, at a time like this to lose a lamb. He waited until his exhausted wife fell asleep before investigating, and by then the animal was becoming quite stressed, constantly bleating. Putting on his heavy coat, for he had heard rain earlier, he stepped outside.
There, a sight never before seen, were thirty or so ewes all standing together as if waiting on news. One, however, wasn’t standing, she was lying on his door step, obviously the bleater. It was dark, so to get a better look he opened his door. The elderly ewe sighed, gave a loud cough as sheep are prone to do and stretched her legs. Hughie opened the door further to reveal, lying there naked with tiny fists punching at the air, a newborn baby boy, snuggled into his foster mother’s fleece for warmth.
The big shepherd instinctively looked upwards as he thanked whoever it was that had deemed his insignificant household worthy of a miracle! A gift had been presented to them that night. He rushed inside with his tiny baby, and looked at the shawl which supposedly held the dead baby wrapped inside, but the shawl was folded neatly over his wife’s feet. There was no sign of the other child.
Morag was stirring as he kissed her cheek. She opened her tired eyes to see Hughie hold something out to her. ‘A present for you, my love, from the ewe mothers.’
Morag stirred from her swing, one more glance at the ewes in the field and she pulled a woollen shawl over her shoulders and walked back to the house. Soon Hughie and their son Angus would be home, hungry and needing fed. All life in the glen was a joy.
While on the subject of mothers, I want to speak a wee bit about my own dear blessed soul.
Mammy was, as mothers go, a gem. She wasn’t a strict mother, but we always knew when we’d overstepped the line. Punishment could range from a ‘you wash the dishes, ma lass’, to ‘just you wait until I get my hands on you!’ I never remember a time when punishment wasn’t deserved.
Recently, while discussing a manuscript of mine with Carl MacDougall, a prominent Scottish writer, I was reminded by him that readers who had any knowledge of travellers knew it didn’t make for an easy life. ‘Jess, don’t cover your pages with roses, because folks won’t believe it.’ But to me, life was a bed of roses; in fact it was simply marvellous. Being chauffeured around the country in a bus, playing on picturesque hill-tops one day, miles of yellow-sanded beaches the next. If Daddy took the mood, off we would go, without a single tie. School exemption certificates allowed us freedom to leave our learning books and fly away.
Mammy, therefore, had to have a similar attitude to her roots as he had. Not so much in the beginning when the bus life began—she preferred a house, one where her older daughters could stretch their legs and enjoy a form of privacy not afforded in the bus. I loved it, though, and never grew tired of it, as you’ll have gathered from my previous books.
Being so close to my mother, I found it easy to study her ways. Sometimes she’d say things that had me in stitches laughing, for instance I remember once while we were hawking in Perth. It was to the monastery on the hill we climbed. She said ‘if anybody will buy, t
hen it’s the monks, no matter what the weather, the nice men wi’ cloaks will aye gi’e.’ That day, as always, she was correct, because they bought lace, threads, buttons, in fact everything in her basket—the only thing they kindly declined was to have their fortunes told. As we walked away, she smiled and gave the man at the gate a wave. She turned to me, linked our arms and said, ‘I feel awfy sorry for the braw lads, Jess.’
‘Why, Mammy, there’s nothing coming over them. They’re living a life they chose.’
‘Och aye, fine I ken, but it’s still an awfy waste.’
‘They have a warm bed, home-grown food, aye, an’ by the colour o’ yon wee fat yin’s nose, a guid dram tae boot. God himself takes care o’ them, Mammy, how should you feel sorry for them?’
‘Well, imagine how Daddy would feel if he didnae get his cuddles. He’d be a grumpy auld bisom. Poor craturs spending all their days like that!’
‘Like what Mammy?’
‘Halibut, that’s what! Could you see your father lasting without a cuddle?’
‘No, Mammy,’ I told her, ‘just as much as thon “monkfish” could go without a smoke or a drink!’
And there was that time, while I was recuperating in Perth Royal Infirmary, that she sent me a get well card addressed to Mrs Smith RIP (Royal Infirmary Perth)!
When Daddy met her, it was love at first sight. Ah, nice, I hear you say, but wait until I tell you about his own mother’s reaction. Well, it might come as a big surprise, but the class obsession of Britain is prevalent throughout travelling folk as well. During Granny Riley’s time there were the high and mighty house-dwellers, who looked down noses at their kinsfolk for still living in tents. The middle-class travellers roamed in bonny caravans, and there were the lowest class of tinkers who lived near rubbish tips. Mammy’s folks, according to Granny, were the ‘midden rakers’.
‘Charlie, you can do better for yourself than her kind.’
‘No, mother, Jeannie and I were meant for each other, I love the lassie.’
