by Jess Smith
Her heart sank, she had nothing. Pleading and begging made no difference; eventually she was asked to leave by an apologetic station porter.
‘What a disaster—how can I find my man now?’ she thought, before slumping down outside the train station on a similar slatted bench to the one on which she’d been so foolish enough as to put her bag earlier. Thinking on how she’d been duped by the man in the torn coat, panic at the unfamiliar surroundings and her lack of money took a grip. ‘What a sleekit, fly bastard of an excuse for a man!’ she cursed him for the tenth time, then thought on what he’d say on finding a grey tweed skirt and an elbow-patched funeral cardigan when looking through his ill-gotten booty. Everything became painfully clear in the full light of day. Tears welled in her eyes, though not for the loss of her bag, clothes or train ticket. Only one thing mattered to her—the wedding photo was in the case!
The more she thought about the serious situation she found herself in, the more curses were piled on the thief. ‘You will never see a full belly again,’ she screamed at the top of her voice. People, startled by the incoherent outburst, hurried past, probably thinking she’d lost her senses. ‘What am I to do now? Here with the whole stretch of England ahead of me, and not a penny to pay my road?’
‘I need to eat,’ she thought as she walked away from the train station in the busy city of Newcastle, with its wide river and splendid bridges.
The aftermath of the dreadful war saw to it that there were not many pennies to be got. To date she’d managed to sustain herself in Scotland, she had never become completely destitute, so that when she came across folks begging on the street it confused her. ‘Are you tinkers?’ she asked two men sitting on the pavement of a broad street corner, cloth-caps at their feet.
‘What’s a tinker?’ enquired one.
‘A bloody gyppo!’ answered the other, ‘she thinks we’re filthy pikeys.’
‘You calling us gyppo, you flea-ridden bitch?’ He lifted a stick and brought it hard down upon her toes. She kicked him hard on the leg before spitting at the other one’s face. It was obvious Megan had been sheltered and secluded in her nomadic life. If she had been a bit more streetwise she would have rushed past such shifty-looking beggars.
Some beggars wanted money to feed a hungry family, but there were those who did it for nothing more than a bellyful of cheap alcohol. Perhaps these lads were drunkards? Suddenly they were on their feet and chasing after her. Up and down and round and on she ran, as if the devil himself was at her heels, taking right and left turns and not knowing where she was running, until no sound of them could be heard. They might have caught her, had she not had the speed of a hare and the lightness of a deer. Not even Bruar could run at her speed, and she was more than grateful for that. She kept up a fast pace until the city was a fading memory behind her.
By nightfall a long stone dyke appeared on her shadowy horizon. Behind it she found shelter, curled up and fell into an exhausted sleep. Already her search for Bruar was looking in danger of ending, and it was only three days into it.
Next morning her bones ached and her stomach rumbled. Where could she find food? More to the point, where would she get money? If another train ticket was needed to continue her journey then money had to be earned. This positive thinking took her feet a faster pace upon the narrow winding road. For the next two days she lived off berries and wild nasturtium. The scenery left her breathless, with miles of heather moor followed by drooping willow trees. She went up and over green meadows, where sheep grazed in peaceful contentment. This was the Yorkshire Dales, and like her precious Scotland, it seemed a beautiful place where songbirds sang in full-throated harmony.
Apart from a lone shepherd, she met hardly any folks at all. Three days had passed and seen her curl up on the ground behind dykes and tree stumps; how grateful she was, then, to come across a small hamlet. Snickly Rigg dipped into a green valley. Perhaps only nine or ten thatch-roofed houses made up this tranquil village.
By now she was desperately in need of a substantial meal, so she knocked gently on the first door that she came to. An elderly man, thick-set and rugged, brown pipe suspended from a small mouth, answered the door. ‘What can I do for you, young woman?’ he asked, looking her up and down.
‘Can you spare a drop of tea, mister?’
For a while he chewed and puffed upon the pipe, before saying, ‘Can you pay?’
‘There’s no money to my name, because a devil stole my bag back in—what’s the name of that town with a train station in it, it has a river and bridges in it too?’
‘Not many trains come this way, but I think you could mean Newcastle. That’s a long ways back, lass, did someone drive you here?’
She felt this old man would be hard-pushed to spare her water, never mind tea, with all the questioning he was doing.
‘No one drove me. I can shift these legs and run thirty miles in a day. Now do you have any tea?’
He stepped back inside his house, not unlike the low thatch-roofed cottar home of Helen, and motioned her to sit on the dyke by the gate. Soon he was wobbling out on bandy legs, with tea in one hand and a welcome sandwich of cheese in the other. He sat on a wicker chair, tucked his legs under it and offered her a three-legged stool. An old shepherd dog, smelly and panting, rubbed its head against her thigh. The dog was friendly, so she gently ran a hand over its head and down its back.
‘You’re kind to me, sir, and I wasn’t lying when I said my bag was stolen, so what can I do in payment of this?’
‘Does the cow pay for her grass, and the pheasant for the wind in its wings? What kind of man would I be, if I couldn’t share my food with somebody in want? God knows there’s more than enough. But come to think of it, the wife’s grave could do with some more of your flowers.’
She was puzzled why he should ask her for flowers.
‘You’re a gypsy girl, are you not?’
‘I’m a Scottish tinker, never met any gypsies.’
‘Can you not make the pretty flowers and give the blessing of the Egyptian?’
Before she could ask what he meant, three dark-skinned girls dressed in brightly coloured gowns, gold rings in their ears, suddenly came laughing and chatting round the corner.
‘Hello, Mr Thrower, are you wanting a bunch of flowers?’ one called out.
‘See, here they come, the pretty gypsies with their flowers and their blessings. Lovely they are, to brighten an old man’s heart. Yes, Lucy, give me six for my Jane’s grave.’
Megan watched the three girls approach and felt, in an inexplicable way, drawn to them. One stepped forward and gave her a quick glance from head to toe. It reminded her of a speedy stoat, with head darting to examine every inch of a young rabbit before pouncing. The pair of steel-blue eyes gave Megan the third degree. Her inquisitor said to the others, ‘She is our kind.’ Turning to Megan she asked, hands on hips, ‘Who be your kin?’
Megan’s quick outburst of thick Scottish dialect made them laugh loudly. ‘I’m from the Clan Macdonald,’ she said, proudly puffing her breast out like the prize peacock in a stately garden.
They were mocking her, how dare they? Her hackles rose. They’d no right laughing at such a proud Scots name. She told them so.
‘We aren’t joking at your name, it was the way you said it. We’ve never met any Scottish gypsies before, but it’s a good day this, because the more of us there is then the better, don’t you think? By the way, we are the Lees. Come and put flowers on Mr Thrower’s wife’s grave with us. I’m Lucy, the pretty one, these be me cousins, Anna and Ruth. What’s your name?’
‘Megan,’ she said, feeling much stronger after having eaten.
Her new friends were like a breath of fresh air. As they followed the old man down a few steps into a small enclosure of scattered gravestones she judged that they were in her age group. How she’d longed for conversation with girls of her own age. Since Rachel left she’d never even spoken to one. She watched as Lucy, without a word, laid a single rose-like fl
ower on the grass. The others did the same. It was humbling to feel another paper flower being slipped into her hand by Lucy. Strange, they had only just met, but she felt an overwhelming sense of belonging as she laid her flower beside the others. Then the three girls held hands, closed their eyes and said in unison a blessing over the grave.
‘Lie at peace in God’s green earth,
Where none can hurt and none can curse.
See the light that shines for you,
Rise, gentle soul, and pass on through.’
The old man wiped away a tear and said, ‘Thank you so much, what would I do without you?’ He slipped some pennies into Lucy’s purse, then hobbled off, clay pipe shifting in his small, toothless mouth. As he struggled to reach his door, he called to Megan, ‘These girlies will see you alright, tell them what happened in the train station and they’ll see you fed, nothing surer. Damn good folks, these Lee gypsies, damn fine.’ He waved, adding, ‘Come back soon’, then was gone behind a half-shut door, the panting dog curling at his heel.
Her three companions were horrified on hearing what had happened at Newcastle, and insisted that she follow them home. Soon she was standing on the lip of a large quarry, gazing down at a most wonderful sight.
Horses, big shire ones and little ponies, grazed nearby, while brightly painted bow-fronted wagons made a great half-circle on the quarry floor. She could smell all kinds of cooking—vegetables, ham, beef, mingled with the aroma of sweet honey and boiling fruit. Never in her entire life, not even at the summer’s height, did her nostrils experience such a feast of aromas from Mother Nature’s bounty, mixed in the blue reek of open fires. Was this a gloaming dream?
‘Come on, and meet the others.’ Lucy was eager to introduce her.
‘Wait up,’ cautioned Ruth. ‘She’s a single girl, better let Mother Foy know how we came by her.’ The others agreed with her. No one likes a lone woman. They went on to explain that in their circles, a lone female could be misunderstood. When she asked why, they said that gypsy men never forgave a fornicating wife. She was usually sent off without any clothes or money. ‘Just like me?’ asked Megan, aware now the situation was no dream.
‘Yes, just like you. But come to think on it, why were you not under the protective hold of a man, does you have a husband? Did he take a stick over yer back? Or did your Daddy put the stone to you for stealing another woman’s man? Don’t answer me questions yet. Tell old Mother Foy the reasons for such loneness, she should meet you first, girl. If you have a shifty past she’ll see it.’ Ruth was the suspicious one, and needed to know why a stranger looking for protection in their midst had arrived at old Thrower’s door.
‘I’ll tell you everything, but I’m thinking you’ll find it a mite hard to believe.’
Soon the girls were standing outside a brightly-painted wagon, Mother Foy’s varda they called it. Gold, yellow, green, red, in fact every colour she could imagine was to be seen, threaded into flowers and intricate designs. The artist had also painted a rainbow above the door, which split in two parts. Two polished brass oil lanterns hung at each side. Irish linen lace curtains hung like dewdrops inside the windows.
‘These gypsies,’ she thought, ‘are fussy about their homes. I wonder what they’d think of my canvas hovel, with its black stove and sooty chimney? Our horsehair mattresses might raise an eyebrow or two also.’ As she took in with her inquisitive eyes every bit of the wagon’s exterior, she hardly noticed the top half of the door slowly open. An elderly woman leaned over and rested two sinewy arms on the bottom half, sucked upon a clay pipe with its stem part broken, and ran an eye over her.
‘Who have we in our midst today then, girls?’ she asked, adding, ‘You know not to bring strangers home from the hawking, especially filthy-clothed females.’
‘Begging your pardon, old humpy-back, but these clothes have kept me warm these past nights as I lay behind dirty, moss-covered dykes.’
The elderly lady laughed and said, ‘No wonder the back of you is brown and green-tinged.’ She then removed a brightly-coloured headscarf from her shoulders, rolled a long grey plait of hair and expertly intertwined it into the scarf. She threw a disapproving look at her new visitor’s hair and scoffed, ‘Avoid a mother blackbird, she’ll eye your hair for next year’s nesting.’
Laughter spread around Megan, tempting her to give another tirade of verbal defiance. She hadn’t given any thought to her appearance that morning. Her priorities were to find a bite to eat, and some way of finding work, so that she could get on with her search for Bruar. She decided to apologise, however. ‘Look, I’m sorry, missus, this tongue of mine has a life of its own, but please allow me to tell my story,’ she said, and insisted that all should listen. So she explained her past to the women. Young and old, they listened in silence as she opened her heart and finished with retelling her robbery at the hands of the station thief.
Mother Foy came down from her wagon and bade Megan sit at her side on a willow seat. ‘Your load is heavy, girlie, as heavy a one as would bend the back of someone twice your age. Yes, you can stay with us, for as long as you like. If I offered the money needed to end your epic journey, would you take it?’
‘I will take only payment for work. I’ll turn my hand to anything, but I’ll not take money for nothing. I already owe my man’s auntie a bob or two, and there’s a debt unpaid to a certain doctor. Please give me work.’
‘I’m thinking now, after hearing the woe in your life, that’s the answer you’d give me. The girls here, well, they make wooden flowers, and then dye them. They use beetroot juice and get lovely red ones with it. Onions give yellow and white, oh, and when they are crushed and boiled with daffodil heads, one would be hard pressed to tell the difference twixt real and false flowers. Sometimes they go onto the moors to collect heather blooms. When these are boiled, they extract a fragrant, purpled pink dye. They also pick summer blooms and dip them into melted wax. And there are the whittling pegs, you could sell them. What turn do you know could bring in lowie [money]?’
‘I gather heather and wind it into coarse balls for pot scrubbers. I can catch the pheasant, snare the rabbit and guddle the trout. I’ve even been known to belly-catch a sleepy salmon. I can gather the hay, lift potatoes, plant anything, harvest anything needs harvesting. Mistletoe-selling, hawking, reading palms.’ She could have reeled off lots more, had the old woman not slapped her back and said, ‘You’ll do. But first, and don’t take offence, what would you say to a nice fresh frock?’
Glancing down at her tweed skirt, plain and dowdy, and stained with travel, and well aware that the laced-up, black leather shoes on her feet would have been more suitable for a sixty-something spinster, she agreed with rose-blushed cheeks of embarrassment.
Lucy walked off, while Ruth and Anna ran to search their small clothes bags for a suitable dress. Mother Foy took her into the varda wagon, to administer a piece of worldly wisdom. ‘Now, child, gypsy boys are as healthy as gorger [non-gypsy] ones when it comes to flitting eyes at slender ankles and firm breasts. And there are more than enough young men in our circle,’ she smiled, then went on, ‘albeit most are spoken for. But they’re spunky and healthy, and might have a try on you girl. So after supper, the first thing we must do is let everybody know that you’re not free for the taking. Usually our boys, who are busy on the moor at the beating, have respect and won’t bother you. There is one, though...’ she hesitated with her words, as she thought on him. Her shoulders rounded like an old cat apprehensive of an approaching rainstorm, her brow narrowed as the broken-stemmed clay pipe twitched between clenched teeth. ‘You don’t want anything to do with him; he’s a bad lot and cares nothing for respect or honour, nothing like that. His heart is as black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat; don’t even look in his direction.’
Megan smiled and touched the old woman’s arm, ‘I fill my heart, sleeping and waking, with my man.’ She went on, ‘He’s a big handsome brute with wavy blond hair and eyes you could swim in. No, I won’t be giving myse
lf to any other.’
The woman could see the love lighting up her young friend, so changed the subject. She spoke instead of Megan’s journey south with them. ‘If you do as I say, I can promise you a free passage with us through the country. We stop for the hop picking in Kent. It’s there I’ll show you how to get to London.’
Megan couldn’t believe her luck; not only was she offered a way to be with Bruar, but these folks were good and kind. And they shared her background—yes, things were beginning to shine. ‘When will we get there?’ she asked, excitedly.
‘Let me see, there’s the horse sales at Appleby in June, there’s a bit of hawking round this place and that. We might be down hop-picking way after next summer.’
‘Next summer!’ Megan’s hopes faded by the second. ‘All that time?’
They came down from the varda and sat on the seat next to its wooden steps. The old woman whistled up at a blackbird perched on a hanging branch of a laburnum tree that brushed against her wagon roof. Uncannily it whistled back, and then she said, ‘It seems to me you don’t know much about horse-drawn wagons, and less about the distance between the north and south of England. It’s already hop-picking time, but how are we going to get there? It’s a shire I have, not winged Pegasus. I’ll feed and bed you, but I want help. Along with your normal chores, like filling the watering can by five in the morning, fowl has to be plucked and cleaned, rabbits skinned. Take nothing from one-eyed men, for it’s bad luck, and never mention the peacock, it’s real evil, that. My old Frankie, God bless his soul, is dead these last ten years, and I could do with some help. We never got blessed with young uns, so apart from the respect my knowledge brings I’m on me own. Bones creak a lot, and eyesight isn’t good. You’re in luck, because there’s a bigger than usual pot of stew on the chittie irons over the fire, we’ll eat that in an hour.’
Megan thanked the old woman; but something struck her, she was curious. If she’d no family, why the title, Mother?
