Bruar's Rest

group. How she’d longed for conversation with girls of her own age. Since Rachel left she’d never even spoken to one. She watched as Lucy, without a word, laid a single rose-like flower on the grass. The others did the same. It was humbling to feel another paper flower being slipped into her hand by Lucy. Strange, they had only just met, but she felt an overwhelming sense of belonging as she laid her flower beside the others. Then the three girls held hands, closed their eyes and said in unison a blessing over the grave.
    ‘Lie at peace in God’s green earth,
    Where none can hurt and none can curse.
    See the light that shines for you,
    Rise, gentle soul, and pass on through.’
    The old man wiped away a tear and said, ‘Thank you so much, what would I do without you?’ He slipped some pennies into Lucy’s purse, then hobbled off, clay pipe shifting in his small, toothless mouth. As he struggled to reach his door, he called to Megan, ‘These girlies will see you alright, tell them what happened in the train station and they’ll see you fed, nothing surer. Damn good folks, these Lee gypsies, damn fine.’ He waved, adding, ‘Come back soon’, then was gone behind a half-shut door, the panting dog curling at his heel.
    Her three companions were horrified on hearing what had happened at Newcastle, and insisted that she follow them home. Soon she was standing on the lip of a large quarry, gazing down at a most wonderful sight.
    Horses, big shire ones and little ponies, grazed nearby, while brightly painted bow-fronted wagons made a great half-circle on the quarry floor. She could smell all kinds of cooking—vegetables, ham, beef, mingled with the aroma of sweet honey and boiling fruit. Never in her entire life, not even at the summer’s height, did her nostrils experience such a feast of aromas from Mother Nature’s bounty, mixed in the blue reek of open fires. Was this a gloaming dream?
    ‘Come on, and meet the others.’ Lucy was eager to introduce her.
    ‘Wait up,’ cautioned Ruth. ‘She’s a single girl, better let Mother Foy know how we came by her.’ The others agreed with her. No one likes a lone woman. They went on to explain that in their circles, a lone female could be misunderstood. When she asked why, they said that gypsy men never forgave a fornicating wife. She was usually sent off without any clothes or money. ‘Just like me?’ asked Megan, aware now the situation was no dream.
    ‘Yes, just like you. But come to think on it, why were you not under the protective hold of a man, does you have a husband? Did he take a stick over yer back? Or did your Daddy put the stone to you for stealing another woman’s man? Don’t answer me questions yet. Tell old Mother Foy the reasons for such loneness, she should meet you first, girl. If you have a shifty past she’ll see it.’ Ruth was the suspicious one, and needed to know why a stranger looking for protection in their midst had arrived at old Thrower’s door.
    ‘I’ll tell you everything, but I’m thinking you’ll find it a mite hard to believe.’
    Soon the girls were standing outside a brightly-painted wagon, Mother Foy’s varda they called it. Gold, yellow, green, red, in fact every colour she could imagine was to be seen, threaded into flowers and intricate designs. The artist had also painted a rainbow above the door, which split in two parts. Two polished brass oil lanterns hung at each side. Irish linen lace curtains hung like dewdrops inside the windows.
    ‘These gypsies,’ she thought, ‘are fussy about their homes. I wonder what they’d think of my canvas hovel, with its black stove and sooty chimney? Our horsehair mattresses might raise an eyebrow or two also.’ As she took in with her inquisitive eyes every bit of the wagon’s exterior, she hardly noticed the top half of the door slowly open. An elderly woman leaned over and rested two sinewy arms on the bottom half, sucked upon a clay pipe with its stem part broken, and ran an eye over her.
    ‘Who have we in our midst today then, girls?’ she asked, adding, ‘You know not to bring strangers home from the hawking, especially filthy-clothed females.’
    ‘Begging your pardon, old humpy-back, but these clothes have kept me warm these past nights as I lay behind dirty, moss-covered dykes.’
    The elderly lady laughed and said, ‘No wonder the back of you is brown and green-tinged.’ She then removed a brightly-coloured headscarf from her shoulders, rolled a long