Bruar's Rest

half insane with grief, raked in his pockets. From one he took a small penknife and cut the cord, finding a piece of dirty string among rusty nails and a soiled flannel in his other pocket; he rolled the string around the end of birth cord nearest the tiny belly to which it was attached and tied it tight. The baby winced, wriggled and uncurled matchstick fingers of pink and mottled red, opened wide the small mouth and filled new lungs with virgin air.
    Going through his actions automatically now, Rory dipped a cloth into the basin of cold water by his wife’s bed and wiped the child. It winced again as he laid the small bundle, wrapped in a torn sheet, next to Bruar. He said to the traumatised boy, uncaringly as if his children were nothing more than unwanted mongrel pups, ‘Here lad—a brother for you.’
    All that mattered was dead: their mother, his partner for life, the woman who promised to love him forever, was gone. What could he do with the children? His job would have been to provide food for their bellies, not to offer the love for their souls that only a mother could give.
    Little Bruar pushed away the small bundle of life and huddled into his father’s side. What was a brother anyway? He was more concerned by mother’s silence. With fear and curiosity he tugged at the damp sheet covering her porcelain face. Questions tripped off his tongue to fall like silent ash around his grieving father’s ears: why was she messy? Why cold and grey-coloured? She didn’t touch his face and run her fingers through his tousled hair—why? Daddy was crying, he’d never known his father to do this—why? One small candle flickered by the tent door, not the big oil lamp—why? And who left this baby? Innocent eyes stared at Rory, waiting on one touch, a simple nod just to reassure the little lost child, but there was nothing. Angry in his confusion, he shouted, ‘Daddy, you’re squeezing Mammy, you’ll hurt her. Can I have a cuddle, Daddy?’
    There was no place for his son, only for loss and pain. The whistling ocean wind blew cold through the tent; Bruar felt its bite, he wiped away tears from his father’s face with his small hand and tried with his body to push a wedge between his shaking father and dead mother in a futile attempt to find warmth.
    The baby opened his mouth with a sucking motion, searching for milk, and when none came started crying. No one had told him who this baby was, yet nature had linked them together, and Bruar felt the blood ties. Gently the youngster turned his father’s face in its direction. Rory uncurled his arms from around the limp body of his wife and carefully laid her down. He felt for and touched the toddler’s head. ‘I know, I know, lad, I hear, he has good strong lungs. We’ll get down to Auntie Helen’s, she’ll find us milk.’
    Scared and confused, little Bruar pulled at his mother’s arm. There was no response, so he turned once more to his grief-stricken father: ‘Make my Mammy get up on her legs and open her eyes, cause me scared. She’s lost her tongue, Daddy, has a cat got it?’ His tiny shoulders shook, bottom lip trembled.
    In grief his father had no answers for one so small. How could this fledgling gain the slightest understanding of his mother’s still form? Rory made an attempt at explaining why Mammy was sleeping forever, but was interrupted by sounds from outside the canvas dwelling. A slender arm wrenched back the tent door; there stood Helen, head and shoulders covered by a green, woollen shawl. Her face was grave and furious.
    ‘Rory, I’m right disappointed, surely the drink isn’t in you at a time like this, when another baby is due? Folks are looking for you, and man they are as angry as a sea-monster scouring the waves. You had no right hitting the Balnakiel! They say it was the fuel of wild drink that made you. God, man, he’s lost an eye!’
    ‘Shut up, woman, I have no stomach for your biting tongue, or anyone’s, leave me alone.’
    ‘Leave you alone!’ She hit him hard across the face with her shawl. ‘I’ll flog you for bringing shame on the family name. Will you never learn?’
    Slowly he moved aside. His young wife was becoming rigid, her flesh marble-hued; the skin of her eyelids was tightening, exposing half-opened eyes. He turned to gaze upon her, then fell in a crumpled heap at his sister’s feet, unable to stand the sight.
    Helen’s tongue tightened, a lump spread from her breast bone and froze in her throat when