by Jess Smith
It might have been the gentle breeze blowing about her ankles that made her move closer to him as he went on and on about the problems in his land. She couldn’t say why, but once more she was back in the hay barn in Yorkshire, finding his lips and kissing him with as eager a passion as the coming spring. Pressing her body into his and running her knee up and down his inner thigh, she felt out of control like a wind searching for an autumn tree laden with dying leaves. Nothing seemed important, only the hunger rising in her body as she ached for love, she needed him. This time, however, it wasn’t she who was pushing him away, the opposite was the case. ‘Stop it—have you heard a single word I’ve said?’
‘No, and to be honest I don’t give a diddle damn about struggles, politics or any war, whether a homegrown one or a world one. Get this into your stupid skull; a tinker is a tinker and always a tinker. Who wins wars makes no difference to us, because we get treated the same by everyone. Och, you make me sick, can you not accept life and be done with it? Anyway, things seem to fare well for you, I can’t see hungry folks with begging bowls in hand here.’ She turned and ran off in the direction of the house, only to be pulled abruptly back on her heels by a red-faced and furious Michael. ‘You listen to me, my lady, father and mother worked every God-given day to build this place and I’ll do the same, but it doesn’t get round the fact that there are those who aren’t so fortunate. Look, I love you because I’ve never met anybody who makes me feel so happy, tinker or not, but if you stay here as my wife, then the Republican cause will definitely be your business, as it is mine.’
She’d never seen this side of the fine Michael and shouted, ‘Stuff you and your war up a hen’s arse!’
He grabbed her arms and hissed, ‘How am I supposed to take a mouth like that into county circles?’
She broke free and screamed, ‘You can stuff your county circles up the hen as well!’
Without another word she ran to her room, leaving him fuming, and was soon lying face down on her bed sobbing into the pillow.
Their first row, and what a whopper it was. Sleep was a luxury that came after hours of tossing and turning, and her only relief was in calling a certain smiling face into her mind—that of Bruar, her husband.
Breakfast was as quiet a time as she’d ever known. Michael had gone while the moon was still in the sky and Mrs Sullivan was washing bed sheets. Apart from the natural shuffling sounds of horses in their stables, outside was just as still, telling her that the stablemen were also gone. She needed to do something with herself; Bull Buckley or not, she’d be taking the journey home if things didn’t change.
‘After me chores I’ll be taking the road to Runny Brook to visit the Fureys; do you want to come?’
No need for the housekeeper to ask twice; soon the pair were sauntering along a long narrow lane on the way to visit the tinker family. ‘Well, would you look at that,’ said Mrs Sullivan, pointing to the grass verge, ‘The earth is giving birth to a purple crocus. On our way home that will be in bloom,’ she added.
Robin sat outside the tent, tending the open fire while the children played around him.
‘Lovely little boys. The eldest reminds me of someone.’ The housekeeper wiped tears from her eyes as she greeted the tinker children who rushed around.
‘Tis a happy man I am to see you come and sit by me fire,’ said Robin, who had the charms of a prince stepped from the pages of a fairy tale book.
Mrs Sullivan took a bag of freshly baked biscuits and shared them amongst the little boys, all jostling for the biggest ones. ‘Good day to you, Robin. Lord, I’m feeling the legs sore, it’s easy seen I’ve done little walking since last you were here. Tell me now, how is Kathleen?’
‘If you take a squint into the tent, sure she’s started her labour and won’t want to be a-talking. I wonder if you’d do me a favour and keep yer eye on me boys until I get back?’ he asked, slipping some snare wire into a bag slung over his shoulder. ‘You see, I need to catch some rabbit for to feed the family.’
Megan thought his snares were far too thick; not at all like hers. When she snared dinner she used thin wire, and she never left the snares unchecked more than three hours. ‘How often do you check them?’ she asked, unable to hold back. The natural ways returning to her mind, she could almost smell the rabbit, both raw and cooked. ‘It’s just that no good comes of long-snared rabbits, they lose a lot of flavour. But my ways are not yours.’
‘I see that the way is in you. Well, that’s good, so it is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off.’ He didn’t share his ways with her and left her question unanswered, which is just what she expected, because a tinker never shares his ways with anybody. Before setting off, he warned the boys to behave and turned to Mrs Sullivan, repeating his request. She assured him his children would be in safe hands, but that he shouldn’t be too long. Then she tiptoed over to the tent mouth and very gently peeped inside. She didn’t like the colour of the pregnant woman, and asked if she needed assistance.
Vigorously she shook her head.
‘I see things are in hand, then. But how long do you think it will be?’
Kathleen went blood-red as another push of labour forced her face into a contorted grin of pain. She screamed out an answer, ‘I think it’s another one of those curses, because my agony is terrible.’
Megan didn’t understand, and said quietly, ‘Poor woman, what’s wrong with her?’
Mrs Sullivan moved away from the tent, not wishing Kathleen to hear and said, ‘She feels this is another one that will die, a girl. Look I’ll take the little ones down to Ballyshan just in case Michael comes home and wonders where I am; the men might be hungry, having left early without a breakfast. Why don’t you stay and help Kathleen? She’s never needed it before, but I always feel another pair of hands won’t go wrong.’
Reluctantly Megan agreed. She watched her friend hurry away with three little boys in tow, then sat by the fire and waited. Several times Kathleen screamed and cursed, before at last she let out one frenzied screech, then everything went deathly silent.
Although Mrs Sullivan told her not to bother the pregnant woman, she just had to see how mother and baby were. She peered inside, and what met her eyes was the most awful sight. Kathleen was cleaning herself in a basin of water she’d prepared for when her labour took hold, but there was no sign of a fresh new life. Instinctively Megan searched the tent bed for the baby, expecting to see its bonny wee face snuggled inside a cosy woollen shawl, but only a blood-soaked sheet lay crumpled at the foot of the thin mattress. Her eyes searched every wrinkled inch of the bed, but there was no infant. ‘What did you have?’ she asked, with increasing concern as there was no sign of the newborn.
Kathleen turned with obvious discomfort and said; ‘Another one, it’s lying over there.’
Megan scanned the tent floor until her eyes fell upon two tiny blue fingers protruding from a dirty rag at the base of the canvas. Trembling she bit onto her fist at the small size and helpless posture of the dead baby and cried out, ‘How did you lose it?’
‘Oh shut up. Now throw it over by the burn and the dogs can eat it when Robin comes back.’
‘Eat a human being, a little innocent baby, how can you even think on it? I’m no Christian but I thought you folks were believers in God?’
‘Think on it, is it? God is it? Listen, you. My womb carries these useless things. They move inside o’ me for nine month, and when I put them into the world, they die. And don’t mention God to me, its all his fault.’ Kathleen fell silent as exhaustion engulfed her. She fell upon her mattress and turned her back on the dead child.
Megan felt as useless as she’d ever done in her life, yet the female instincts of her heart weighed heavy. Trying not to disturb the wretched mother, she gathered the still frame of the baby and took a long strip of flannel from a pile of rags. Sitting the mite on her knees, she began rolling its body carefully into a proper shroud as delicately as she could. When the little arms and legs were straightened and tig
htly wound in the cloth, she spoke gently to the mother. ‘Kathleen, will you allow me to bury your baby? You see, like you we live in tents and also our women folk lose as many babies as are saved. Let me send this tiny girl into the earth so that Mother Nature can accept her flesh. Such sacred bones should be left in her tender care.’ She waited patiently for a response.
Kathleen in time opened her eyes and whispered, ‘You’re as bad as that Mrs Sullivan. Do you know she walked for miles with the last one and buried it? So if you want you can do the same, I don’t give a damn.’
The finishing touches were taking place just as Robin came back, two small terriers at his heel eagerly sniffing at the trickle of blood that had congealed around the noses of three big buck rabbits tied expertly to a piece of wood; thick snares or thin, he certainly brought home the dinner.
Seeing Megan kneeling beside a small mound of earth in a peaceful spot at the dyke’s edge, it didn’t take much for him to realise his wife had once more produced what she’d predicted. The sadness that spread across his face was the opposite of that of his wife. He knelt down, cap screwed in his bloodied hands and said, ‘Strange, is it not? We hardly know you, yet here you are burying our poor wee mite of a child. It was a girl, then?’
She nodded and said, ‘I’m a Macdonald from Glen Coe, and this is our chant of death. Kathleen has given me permission. If you can allow me the same, I’ll give your baby up to the earth.’
‘On you go,’ he said, wiping a tear with his crumpled bonnet.
Tre banni, tre banni: (Three prayers, three prayers)
Chavi tori mara, (Child to earth)
Chavi tori glimmer, (Child to fire)
Chavi tori pani. (Child to water)
Three times she whispered the earth prayer, and as she did so, not a sound was heard either from the vast bog or the mighty forest, apart from a tiny Jenny wren whistling happily from a small hole in an oak tree. When finished she went back inside the tent. Kathleen was sound asleep. Leaving her in peace, she and Robin went back to Ballyshan, he to collect his boys, she to reflect on the day’s events. The tiny purple flower she’d noticed earlier while going to the campsite had been joined by several others, and the dark brown earth now sported a small carpet of purple, pink and white.
‘Poor Kathleen, not again.’ Mrs Sullivan, who was visibly saddened by the grave news, slipped small woolly cardigans she’d knitted during winter months onto the three boys before giving Robin another food parcel. ‘This will keep the wolf from the door, and let you see to the children while Kathleen regains her strength.’
Sitting the youngest on his broad shoulders he set off with little said. The other two ran on ahead. Megan watched from the kitchen window until all that was left of them was the curly top of the child on Robin’s shoulders.
‘Look at them,’ she told herself, ‘just another day in the life of a tinker family. Who but this elderly lady and myself know what agony and pain they’ve suffered this day?’ To an outsider walking up by Runny Brook, all he’d see was a small encampment with three dirty-faced little boys, a red waistcoated father and a sad-eyed mother. He’d not be aware that, sleeping beneath a small mound of earth nearby, was the result of a night of lovemaking followed by months of uncertainty and wishful dreams that the child just might be another boy.
Her bedroom offered sanctuary. Her heart grew heavy at what she’d been forced to do. Still, if she hadn’t done it, what was the alternative? Two sharp-toothed terriers ripping legs and liver from a human being who’d not yet sinned? Her day’s burden, hard as it was, was one she was grateful to have undertaken.
Neither Michael nor the men came back, and by early evening she and Mrs Sullivan had stabled the horses and locked the buildings securely. Before retiring, Megan asked where Fiddler’s Fancy was stabled. Her companion showed her quickly to another part of the stables, a place fit for a queen, never mind a horse. A plush room with a carpet of hay, walls half-lined with sheep skins, just enough food and water to keep her healthy and shining. Megan could well understand why everyone said what a beauty she was. ‘She’s an Arab, doesn’t like the cold. Michael treats her like a princess.’
Mrs Sullivan’s constant yawning signified she sorely yearned for bed. The day’s events had opened wounds. Linking an arm through Megan’s, she said softly, ‘let’s have a nice cup of milky cocoa before going to bed. Now, do you want to speak of today’s sadness, or will we settle for the hot chocolate?’
Megan did have questions, but they would be better kept for another day. And maybe this kind lady would share the memory of her lost sons.
Cocoa cupped between hands, they both retired to bed. It was hard finding sleep, as those blue fingers and that tiny bundle kept flashing in her mind.
It was about four in the morning, the darkest hour, when her new-found sleep was disturbed by the sound of a car engine coupled with whispering voices. The men had come home.
Morning found a happy-faced Michael wakening her with a broad smile. ‘Come on, lazy bones, I have news for you.’
She was grateful for the presence of his manliness, and his smile beamed warmth into her body. ‘Whatever it is, that smile on your face tells me it’s mighty good,’ she said, running a hand through his wavy hair.
He took from his pocket a letter. ‘Now, darling girl of mine, I want you to listen. I never told you because I didn’t want to raise your hopes, but before I left England I sent a letter to the war office.’
‘You did, and what about?’
‘I contacted the body concerned with displaced soldiers, injured ones that is, and asked for a list of hospitals in the south. They sent me a list. I wrote to them again, and this is the reply. I would have had this news sooner, but if I’d written from an Irish address I hardly think they’d have answered. No, I used Bridget’s home address, and this is why a reply has taken so long in coming.’
‘What is it, Michael?’ she asked sternly, then added, ‘That piece of paper has an official look about it. Does it hold news of Bruar?’
He sat on her bed, laid a hand on her shoulder and opened the brown envelope.
‘ “Dear Sir,
Regarding your enquiry as to the whereabouts of Private Bruar Stewart who served with His Majesty’s forces during the recent war: it is with regret that I have to inform you that Private Stewart, having sustained severe shell-shock while in action, was hospitalised in France before being transferred to Kingsland House in Sussex. He never regained any form of normal mental state. It is my sad duty to tell you that he was found dead at the foot of fire-stairs adjacent to the building. It is believed he fell while walking in his sleep. This is a common symptom with shell-shocked soldiers.”
There, at long last we can put Bruar to rest. Now, say you’ll marry me!’
She hit him hard on the jaw. If he had any regard for her feelings, he never would have spoken of Bruar’s demise in such a selfish fashion. Visions flashed into being behind her wet eyes. Questions filled her shocked mind. ‘My man gone! Why did the Seer tell me he was not dead? Why have I felt such pain at the distance between us, why did I think my life could be fulfilled with finding him, regardless of his state?’
Questions without answers fell like a deadly shower around her ears. With not a single glance at Michael she dressed. He stood awkwardly against the dressing table, waiting for a clear answer. He was puzzled by her apparent shock. ‘Isn’t this what you wanted?’
‘It’s what you bloody wanted, not me.’ There, she’d said it, and she meant it.
‘But the other day, it took all my strength to fight you off. You’re not telling me that was the feelings of a sad lonely wife, because if so, it was a funny way of showing it.’
His blunt words clarified everything. Now that the truth was revealed, she realised all she’d been doing in Ballyshan was living a lie. ‘I know what you’re saying, Michael, but the uncertainty of whether he existed seemed to leave me in limbo. All this time my imagination sent me off on roads of wild dreams of being you
r wife, living here like a lady, but the truth is, I’m a true-blood tinker. We don’t marry outside our own. My Bruar is dead, and half of me with him. Do you want half a woman?’
‘I’ll take a fraction if you’ll say the word. God almighty, Megan, surely you know the heart of me? Who cares for you as I do? I love the wild tinker in you!’ He folded the letter, putting it back into his pocket, but through heartbroken sobs she asked for it. ‘Why, if you can’t read or write?’
‘It’s all I have of my Bruar. Please let me keep it Michael, it’s the only thing left to say that he’s finally gone from me.’
He told her defiantly it wouldn’t do her any good because of her illiteracy. She said that didn’t matter. Grudgingly handing it over, he left her to think things out. After all, he thought, it had been wrong of him not to show respect, or a flicker of melancholy at Bruar’s death. Yet it hurt him to know that a memory from her past would share their bed; if she decided to stay, that is.
She pushed her arms into a warm coat and was soon heading up onto the boggy ground. Here her pain could be given free rein, she could grieve naturally. Ghosts of her past relatives painted scenes of her forbidden love, they whispered in her ear, shame on you for not finding Bruar yourself. Needle-tongued spectres told her that with Michael there could never be a future, nor a present for that matter, because something was missing in their relationship. Whatever it was, she’d no idea, but maybe the truth was that Bruar was never meant to be shared, dead or alive.
Michael didn’t follow her, which was just as well, because she’d found routes through the bogland that no one had ever walked on before. The seclusion was welcome. The green and mystical Ireland was like Scotland, and yet at that precise moment she craved to be home. At least in such wild terrain her savaged heart might find solace in its similarities to her homeland. Try as she might, though, Bruar’s spirit would not rest, and somehow a future with Michael seemed impossible. Her mind was made up; come the weekend she’d ask to be taken to Dublin.
