by Jess Smith
Megan learned such a lot from Mother Foy about gypsy ways, and it didn’t take long before she was almost mastering Beth, her shire horse.
The flat land allowed the horse a freedom seldom seen in Scotland, and when they had stopped for the day Megan would often climb onto its back and ride the large animal as fast as it could go. Shire horses are not usually to be seen galloping with a rider straddled bareback, so when horse and rider took to the open plains it was not a graceful sight: it could be quite comical watching the pair. Beth with her clumsy, skirted hooves shifted clumps of grass in their wake, Megan bounced like a rubber ball on her broad back, hanging on to the thick ginger mane. But someone who was fanciful might have seen it as a pretty painting come to life. While she rode, Mother Foy slept a lot, so Beth the fifteen-year-old shire mare was the only real friend Megan had.
Because of the recent events in the quarry they decided to keep a low profile. The need to know if Lucy’s avenger had sent Hawen Collins to meet a fate worse than death, or, more to the point, whether the police had decided to pursue and imprison Buckley, was soon eating into the old woman, and she had to know. Sooner or later such news trickles to gypsy ears, though, and one way or the other she’d find out.
She may have had her own doubts regarding Megan’s talk with Mrs Newton, but she thought best not to question the girl when they were back at Bleak Fell quarry. At night, though, when the pair sat warming themselves in the wagon by the stove, a movement from outside would silence any conversation, sending them to close any small openings in the curtains. However, if Buckley did come seeking to silence Megan, what could defenceless women do—one far too old, the other not a match for that beast?
Time passed and the fear diminished. Megan familiarised herself with the small villages scattered here and there. She hawked long hours, which were fewer now that winter had shortened daylight, and she brought home mere handfuls of pennies. Her old companion taught her tea-leaf reading, palms and fortune-telling. She wasn’t a natural at it, though, and soon doors were staying closed at her knock. The villagers had heard that a woman had been told by Megan that she’d meet and marry a handsome dark-haired stranger. Imagine her shock when the lady in question informed her she had mothered six kids to a shepherd with thick red hair. So it was decided that she would not go a-dukkering any more. She also felt unwilling to go gathering and bunching heather; it didn’t seem appropriate after all the bad memories of Lucy, her lover and Rory all being found dead in the stuff.
Add to this that old Mother Foy had taken a few falls from the wagon steps, and Megan felt that it would be better to stay with her.
Winter brought sporadic snowstorms and biting winds. Her concern for the old woman became a constant worry, and Beth’s lack of adequate shelter bothered them both.
The old dear had a quirky sense of humour, and one morning after a battering of snow she stroked her backside and said, ‘What a horror of a night it was—did you hear the howling gale? The sleet, needle-pointed, tore into me arse by that blast of a gale. I went out for a pee in the frozen gorse and when I lifted my skirt the wind bit and stung like gunshot. Buttocks were solid for hours.’ Megan laughed, it wasn’t what Mother Foy was expecting, but she soon saw the funny side.
Later, when they went outside, Megan ran over and rubbed Beth’s body. She shook her head, saying, ‘That bloody wind is merciless, the poor horse will be got dead. I think we should break our silence and ask the good folks at the stud farm to give Beth a shelter till spring.’
The older woman had seen and lived through it all before, and so had the horse, but this nature-loving Scot would always put animals before her own comfort. Her protest continued.
‘Girlie, that horse has the hide of an elephant. See how her mane thickens to keep frost from her neck. Her tail curls under, keeps the openings warm, stops her kidneys cooling, and those skirts covering her ankles are like fur boots, they are. No, she’s all right.’
But Megan, now with the bit between her teeth, was persistent. ‘Just the other day you told me you’d not seen a winter severe as this before. It’s as bad as the ones we have. Please let me visit the horse breeders.’
Up till that point the old woman had decided to stay away from the stud farm. Buckley too, knew these people, in fact most gypsies did. At the annual horse sales in Appleby they were there in the midst of the gypsies, dealing, buying and selling. The old woman thought for a moment, and replied, ‘If Buckley had been caught, surely the stud farmers would know of it, so I suppose it might be a way to get the cloud of worry off our shoulders.’ Another thought occurred to her: Megan might at any time leave her to search for Bruar.
‘Beth might do well having a bit of shelter. We’ll ask if she can be stabled with them for the winter. They won’t do it for nix though, so give me my tin box from ’neath the bed.’ Under the bed in a metal box the old lady hid her savings. From the box she took several pound notes which she put in a leather purse.
The snow had ceased to lay its cover of white across the fields and dead bracken. Megan had cleared it away around Beth, sufficient to allow her to sleep, walk and graze on a bundle of crunchy hay brought with them for winter feed. Feeling the sting of long, cold nights, Beth had eaten more than her usual ration, so perhaps the horse farm was the best place for her survival.
Christmas Eve arrived cold and damp, a thick freezing fog covering every inch of the land. Without a glint of sunshine or a murmur of wind, the day’s start felt as though a leaden hand was turning time. Megan helped dress the old woman before haltering Beth. ‘Look at the icicle dripping from your nose, big soft beast,’ she whispered in the horse’s ear, rubbing a coarse blanket up and down its spine. ‘There now, that should stir up some warm blood. Before breakfast, let’s ride a mile or two.’ Half an hour later the pair were back eating a hearty breakfast of fried bread, eggs and black tea.
‘I’m anxious to meet your friends. Do you think they’ll take to me?’
‘Who could fail to like such a girlie as yourself? These folks, being an Irish family, will love the celt in you. Now hurry and rinse these dishes, before the grease hardens.’
As they walked towards their destination through a thick mist, Megan worried about whether her old friend would manage the journey. ‘What a miserable day, is your shawl warm enough?’ Her concern grew with each slow, dragging step of the old woman. She would have liked to take her companion’s arm to steady her, but she was walking Beth. The elderly lady was, however, of a hardy breed and told her so. ‘I’m fine. Now, watch that we take the right turn on this road. If we go left we’ll put another mile onto our journey. In this pea soup I’m certain my joints will fix stiff if I go another step over the distance.’ Minutes had passed when she stopped, squinted her eyes into slits and said, ‘Yes, there’s the building, thanks be to God for keeping me eyes sharp. I don’t show gratitude for me bent back and stiff legs, but I thank him for the eyes.’
In the thick fog Megan could just about make out outbuildings with low roofs; these were stables. Beth, on smelling other horses, quickened her pace. The old woman laughed and said, ‘Now, girl, don’t get too frisky, you’ll be there soon. We’ll put her in the barn meantime. We don’t want to seen too pushy by taking up a pew in the stalls, better I get permission.’
Megan walked into a cobbled yard and led her equine friend into the giant barn at the farthest end. After scattering loose hay in a trough and hobbling the horse, she was soon standing alongside her companion, outside a grand ranch-style door.
‘Well, well, well, would you look at who has decided to brighten our doorstep,’ said a young man, holding a newspaper in one hand, brown-stemmed pipe in the other. ‘Come away in, dear friend, out of this confounded fog. Now tell me, who is this young filly?’
‘Stephen, what a sight you are to gladden the eyes of an old gypsy woman. This is Megan, and before you start prodding at her mind, let me say she is a Scot and her business is her own. Now, what have you done with Bridget?’ At these wo
rds a young woman appeared.
‘He’s not got the energy to do anything with me, Mother Foy. Oh, it does my heart the power of good when I see that wrinkled face of yours. We noticed the bowed wagon down by the gorse, is it yours?’
Megan was ignored momentarily as the friends greeted each other on the doorstep.
‘What couthy folk,’ she thought. They certainly had a fondness for her old companion, and she wondered why. Her answer came running breathlessly down the stairs in the form of a little girl. Her face, on seeing who was visiting, beamed as she threw herself into the old woman’s arms, ‘Mamma Foy, my lovely old Mamma! Why have you taken such ages to come? Did Daddy tell you what Uncle Michael has given me for Christmas? Can I tell her Daddy?’
Her father waved his hand in a gesture of approval.
‘Oh Mamma, she is just divine, wait until you see her, are you staying for long? Uncle Michael will fetch her over in the spring because she’s too young to leave her mother.’
‘What a load of questions; me little princess, let me look at you.’ The wide-eyed child blushed and turned on tiptoes, pirouette-fashion. Her golden ringlets skimmed the air, then fell one by one upon tiny shoulders and cascaded down her back.
‘A living doll if me old eyes don’t deceive me, how you have grown. I think you must be about seven or eight. But what is this gift that has my sweetie so excited?’
‘Oh silly Mamma, I’m nine now. It’s nothing other than a brand new Irish foal, whose mother is none other than Fiddler’s Fancy. You remember her, don’t you? She won the National twice.’
‘Well, she must be a pretty picture if she’s her foal; I won a small fortune on Fiddler, I did.’
Megan couldn’t help but wonder, with a little awe, at the attention, nay respect, this family paid to her old friend. They were not without wealth, that was apparent, but why the red-carpet treatment to a mere gypsy?
The child smiled. ‘I’m Nuala, what are you called and why do you come with my precious Mamma Foy?’
Before she could answer, the old woman called Nuala over and said, ‘This young lady is my friend, and has kindly offered to take care of me until the winter be over. Like you she has a pretty name, Megan.’
Nuala threw her small arms round the new visitor and said excitedly, ‘I think you are the loveliest person in the entire big grand world.’
‘Why?’ she asked curiously.
‘For taking care of my Mamma Foy, that’s why.’ Then as fast as she had come she dashed back upstairs, to gather armfuls of dolls and teddy bears to lay at Megan’s feet, small hands arranging the toys in a little circle, giving each a name and asking Megan to play with her.
Her mother seemed to delight in the child, in fact both parents did. However their visitor intervened. ‘Nuala, my little sweetie, why don’t you sit here beside me and we will tell her how you came into the world?’
The child needed no prompting, and jumped up into the soft armchair to gaze into Mother Foy’s grey eyes.
Silence settled around the family as outside the start of a gentle wind could be heard. Rain began to spatter against the windows. Bridget drew shut the curtains, then joined her husband, who sat on the floor beside a roaring log fire, waiting for their friend to share, once more, the story of Nuala’s birth.
‘It was around this time me and me old man Frankie, God bless his rest, took ourselves to settle out the winter months down at the gorse field. We had just arrived and were tying Beth to a tree, in fact to the same tree we had her tied to up to this very day. Well, Stephen here comes galloping like the devil was on his tail. Oh, what a state this poor young man was in, hair all windswept and needing a wash and shave if I remember rightly. Me old man helped him in to the wagon. ‘What ails you?’ he asks him like.
“My wife is fretting and I’m certain she is dying. Oh God, gypsy, do you know anyone who can help her, please!’ He was near on breathless, poor soul, he was. I heard all the commotion and asked what was wrong with his wife. “She has gone pale with labour. Been two days pushing and screaming, but now she has gone silent. I think the baby is dead, and if we don’t find help, then I’ll lose her too.”
I could see by his fearful-looking brow that there wasn’t a minute to lose. Onto his horse we went, and did not draw a breath until we got up here to the house. When I did see Bridget with that awful greyish colour, I tell you for true I had me doubts if the girl was alive or dead. Frightening it was. But when I stared down at her lifeless frame, her eyes opened and she whispered, “Save my little lamb.”
Now I tells Stephen to take a good grip of ’imself and follow my instructions to a tee. “Get me a glass of cold water, and when I lift your wife’s head, I want you to drip it down her spine.” I could see the look on his face and knew he was not trusting me. “Do it!” I shouts in ’is ear. Then, when he was fetching water, I spoke little words to the swollen belly. “Please don’t think this child dead,” I reassured Bridget. “All these past nine months, tell me what words did you whisper to your unborn?” I put my ear close, for the mother-to-be had hardly the strength to speak, let alone deliver her child. She whispered one word: “angel”. I put my mouth to the womb and said over and over, “Mummy’s little angel.” Stephen came back, water dripping from a shaking hand. I lifted Bridget’s head and he did as I told him—poured the cold water gently down her spine. At its touch she flinched. This was to keep her awake, she wasn’t far from unconsciousness, and if that happened, both mother and child would have died. The cold water forced her eyes to open and she screamed: “my angel is moving—I can feel the tiniest movement.” I warned that she should lie very still, because I knew through delivering many awkward births that this little madam was exhausted, she needed to be encouraged. In other words, she was going nowhere otherwise. It took Bridget and me some time, but eventually tiny Nuala here came into the world. Bridget couldn’t rise from her bed for a week.’
‘And I was a very happy and contented father who did all the caring for our little angel,’ beamed Stephen, relishing the importance of fatherhood.
‘I was the best baby in the world, wasn’t I, Mummy?’ added Nuala, whose big blue eyes stared wide with wonder at the story of her birth.
Mother Foy cuddled the child snuggling into her side in the silk brocade-covered armchair, and whispered, ‘And I became your Godmother.’
Megan listened with pride. Here were people with enough money to buy the best medicine. Yet when no doctor of experience was available, nature brought a woman into their midst to safely deliver a desperately wanted child. She held no honour or distinction, just the knowledge of how precious life was. She lived in a simple barrel-shaped home, and transported all she owned from place to place. The night they so needed her, she just happened to be down at the end of the gorse field with her husband, tending to their horse and boiling a kettle.
Quietness settled around as they sipped on tea. Outside the breeze was gathering force now, and Nuala was yawning for bed. ‘But,’ she protested, ‘I won’t go unless you both promise to stay for Christmas.’
Before either could answer the large door blew open and in strode an angry young man. ‘Blasted English weather pelting down out there, hardly a Christmas scene. And what bloody idiot put a sleepy old shire in the barn? I fell over the mare in the dark. Who the hell could be so stupid?’
Mother Foy, seeing the funny side, laughed, but his tone brought Megan to her feet, ‘I put Beth into the barn, because Mother Foy said I should. She didn’t like us helping ourselves to a stall in the stables without permission.’
The young man closed the door at his back, then striding past her, knelt down by Mother Foy and planted a big kiss on her cheek. ‘I should have recognised Beth. How are you?’
‘I’m getting old. But Megan did as I asked.’
He brushed a hand across his damp hair. ‘Sorry, young lady.’
Megan blushed red; she could feel her face glowing. He called her a lady; no one had ever done that before.
�
��Michael, me dear friend, Nuala tells me you have the foal of Fiddler.’
‘Indeed I have, Mother, and what a beauty she is, the image of her mother.’
‘Do you still have the horse?’
‘Yes, I do. I could not see me part with the love of my life.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘I wish you could, because she still has a fine sway, but I keep her at home in Ireland. Sorry.’
‘Well, you take good care of that beauty, because she runs like the wild Arab steed, she does. Listen to us going on about horses and me not introduced you proper to Megan.’ Much too comfortable to rise from her warm chair, she gestured at the pair to make their acquaintance, while she bade Nuala goodnight with the assurance that they would most certainly stay for Christmas.
Michael Riley was as handsome a man as Megan had seen in a long while. Unable to say exactly what it was, she knew there was something about the man. Her body felt on edge, slight confusion entered her brain, why?
That evening passed with conversations of little or no consequence, yet all the while she felt drawn to him. Perhaps it was his wild, devilmay-care attitude. She was at a loss for words to explain it, she just knew he had a power. It made her feel vulnerable, but what of him? If she’d caught his glance once, she’d done so a dozen times.
‘I can’t help but feel a fondness for them who have grand Scottish blood flowing through their veins,’ he said, after hearing her broad accent.
She smiled and heard herself say, stupidly, ‘In what part of the Emerald Isle did you see first light? Is the gypsy in you?’
‘In honest answer to your second question, is not the wandering gypsy in us all? To your first, I saw the light of day in my parents’ tiny cottage on the shores of Galway Bay, but I was brought up in Wexford, and there it was where my father began a lifelong love—buying and selling horses. Needless to say, my old Dad passed his horse sense to me. My dear father is no longer with us, having died of pneumonia. My blessed mother found her bed cold and empty without him, and was gone herself no more than a year later. My only living relative is my dear sister Bridget, over there putting the finishing touches to the Christmas tree. There now, pretty colleen, you know the very heart of me, and I don’t share that with just anybody.’