Bruar's Rest

that Bruar never died?’
    ‘To be sure I will, and I’m not a judge of anybody. I fancy where the heart is, then best be there as live an empty life. Me prayers will be that you find him, whoever the lucky fella is.’
    A strong wind whipped up sprays of salt sea as Dublin merged back into the land of many shades of green. She had found a new life there, albeit short-lived, she had loved and almost died there and would be forever grateful to Ireland. It taught her how to live a different life and love a different way. She’d buried someone’s tiny child, apart from young Nicholas the only newborn infant she’d ever held. She’d met O’Connor again from the old days, who was treading a lighter path than that of previous times. She had laughed with the humorous stable boys who had hidden another side; they were soldiers of an army ready to kill when ordered to for the sake of their cause. An artist could have searched the whole of his life and never found another wrinkled face and childlike smile like that of Mrs Sullivan, dear lady of the rosaries. And what could be said about evil Bull Buckley? He who flipped life’s coin once too often, and lost. Finally, Michael. What lengths he had gone to, to secure her heart, yet let it slip away because of lies. If he’d stuck to their original plan and found Bruar, then maybe they could have shared a future.
    The cold, silver-dark waves whipped freezing winds around her, that blew up her skirt and breathed life into its hemline. She laughed loudly as the posy pink hat lifted from her head and became another item to add to Davie Jones’ locker.
    One heaving roll of the sea sent passengers to the warmer lower decks. Megan found a quiet corner to sit out the rest of her journey across the Irish Sea and to think of no one but her husband. Aching for him, she promised, ‘My love, you’re no ghost, nor a brain-lost soldier, because in my entire being I feel you breathing. It is love that will carry me to you.’ Reaching into her handbag for a handkerchief she felt the envelope: Michael’s apology. Fumbling to open it, she felt a surge of shame mixed with relief: it contained the sum of one hundred pounds, more money than she’d ever seen, let alone handled, in her life. She’d planned to find work, for how else would Bruar be found without funds? Yet with this welcome gift he was within her grasp.

F OURTEEN

     
    S everal trains and horse-taxis later, an exhausted Megan found herself sleeping on a comfortable bed in one of London’s better hotels. She had the means to afford such luxury now and after breakfast began her final search in earnest. ‘Well, my laddie,’ she whispered to herself, stepping out onto the capital’s busy pavements that were filled with a constant tide of humanity, ‘where are you?’
    Street names meant nothing to her, and she cursed her handicap of being unable to read. But Mrs Sullivan had printed out in large letters for her, HORTON HOME; if she saw those words, then for certain he’d be there, or at the worst there would be information about him. All day she searched, until the capital turned grey-red with fog and people dwindled home, leaving the night-prowlers and down-and-outs the freedom to rummage through bins for morsels of food to see them through another night. It wasn’t so much the fog or the undesirables that ended her search but her legs; they ached so much that she abandoned her efforts to lie in tears on the comfortable but cold hotel bed.
    Two tortured weeks later she was as no nearer to finding him than she was at first. Policemen and taxi-drivers, beggars, old ladies, young boys and a constant stream of faces all said the same thing, ‘Never heard of the place.’
    Horton Home was proving harder and harder to find.
    It was a Sunday when she found a quiet spot by the River Thames and sat down to think. London, with all its thousands of faces, was as lonely as a graveyard. She’d stopped many people who gave her an evil look then rushed away. She found herself shouting out, ‘Have I Fourteen the mange or something?’ It was the worst place she’d ever walked and breathed in. ‘How can sane people live here?’ she asked herself, then thought if it held her man then surely he must be sick or worse. This idea only sent her into a depression, and to add to that, her funds were running low.
    Somehow, going to London for Bruar was nothing like she imagined. Every day she pushed her weary feet through more new