Bruar's Rest

they had been tattooed deep inside her head. All she had to her name to give was the respect those ancient chants offered. Covering the corpse she put a small cushion beneath her knees and chanted:
    ‘ Tre banni, tre banni, [Three prayers, three prayers]
    Femma tori marra, [Woman to earth]
    Femma tori glimmer, [Woman to fire]
    Femma tori panni. ’ [Woman to water]
     
    On and on she repeated the chants, and hoped that her friend’s soul would go wherever her heart and truth lay. All that she could give her friend was what the Earth offered all people—the elements of earth, fire and water. Nothing else mattered, and this then was her parting gift to Mother Foy.
    When at last she ceased chanting, the faraway clock tower rang for all to know that a New Year had begun. There was no way gypsies could be found to deal with the elderly woman’s death; anyway, Megan’s knowledge of the countryside amounted to the mile between the ranch and the gorse field. She decided to burn the wagon herself.
    ‘Perhaps when Sam comes,’ she thought, ‘he’ll help.’
    A long night lay ahead, as all across the land a nation would be drinking, dancing and celebrating. A solemn duty rested on her young shoulders, a preparation of the final event, and the last ceremony of Mother Foy’s life.
    Having no one to talk to or help with the preparation, she started conversing with the corpse. ‘You have plenty bonnie petticoats and blouses, ideal for cutting into strips to bind you with.’ This helped her loneliness. During wakes she’d listened to many of her own tinker folk having conversations with the dead.
    By first light she stood back and congratulated herself for a job well done, and wished someone would come and take a look at her fine handiwork, such a perfect job. Before bandaging her body, Mother Foy’s earrings had been slipped into almost paper-thin lobes. Gold rings were placed onto every sinewy finger. ‘You’d a great love of jewels, I bet each tells a story,’ she said. Once more it seemed appropriate to explain to the corpse what her work entailed. ‘I put two pennies on your eyes and shined and laced to perfection these narrow shoes of yours. I wish you could see yourself, old friend, you’re a right bobby-dazzler.’ It took her a long time to plait the long grey hair, then to arrange it over her head with pretty ribbons. But it was worth it; she was lovely. Death removes wrinkles to such an extent that the skin of a corpse takes on a semblance of near white porcelain. ‘Do you know, my old friend,’ she said again, ‘I wish you could see yourself, you’d be right pleased.’ With these, her last words to the woman who’d taken her in and given her hope, she very delicately bandaged every inch until not a single hair was visible.
    One thing which troubled her was the thought that no burning should take place, not on New Year’s Day, it would only attract attention when there were so many people on holiday. So she decided she’d conduct the ceremony the next day.
    There was no way she could continue to use the wagon as a home, not even for a day, as the dead have to be left in total peace. But this wasn’t a problem for a tinker who’d survived summer and winter in the open, so she set about building a small tent behind the wagon and lighting a good fire.
    She had to get a fire lit—after all, for a tinker, is this not the first thing to be done? After clearing the area of snow, the mattress off her wagon bed was folded over a bent tree and secured with stones taken from the dyke, with silent promises that they’d be put back. She cut and piled branches to form a barrier at her rear, then used some more to build walls on either side of her mattress roof. From the wagon she gathered as many bedcovers as she could and packed them inside her tiny abode. Hunger pangs were by now gnawing deep in her stomach. She added extra firewood to her rapidly dying fire. Soon she’d a kettle boiled. Bridget had left lots of good things to eat, and in no time she was fed and watered.
    The long busy night took its toll, and if Sam hadn’t come as promised, she’d have slept a lot longer than the noon hour. He was confused to see her huddled inside a tent, instead of in the shelter of the wagon. ‘What are you doing outside the wagon in the middle of winter?’
    Pleased to hear another person’s voice she welcomed him in. ‘Sit down here and warm yourself by the fire. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll ask that