Bruar's Rest

dark and as if he was angry. He reminded her that the Fureys had been coming to the area for so long now he hardly noticed. ‘It’s women who fuss over tinkers,’ he said, to her utter amazement, ‘Mrs Sullivan has a thing about Kathleen and her boys.’
    ‘Why should she be so concerned? And by the way, just in case it’s slipped your notice, I’m a tinker.’
    He ran his fingers through his hair and apologised for his lack of compassion, ‘Mrs Sullivan had two sons, oh fine young lads they were, but in 1916 she lost them. You see, her man died when the boys were little, and she brought them up here with my mother’s help. They were like brothers to me, but...’ his words trailed off as he dropped his head on the arm of his chair.
    ‘Tell me, Michael, I need to know—was it in France or Germany they died?’
    ‘Hell no! It was in bloody Dublin during the Uprising. Those blasted British ambushed a dozen young men, and killed every one. Look, here I am, rambling on about something you know nothing of. Anyhow, it’s finished now and in the past. But it split the country in two, it did, and as far as we’re concerned the politics have hardly begun.’
    She removed two coats from the rack behind the kitchen door and said, ‘It’s a nice moonlight night, Michael, why don’t we walk awhile and you can tell me all about this fight in Ireland. In Scotland, on our small campsite, there was an Irishman who told us of unrest in his homeland. He came from the south and said he might go back and take up arms, and now that I hear you, I feel this struggle was what he meant.’
    He was lost in thought and hardly heard a word she said, as arm entwined in arm, they walked and talked. Then she asked him if he had any involvement in matters concerning his country’s politics?
    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