A Kiss and a Promise (40 page)

The stew was excellent and Ginny asked her neighbour what was in it. She was a plump, golden-skinned girl wearing a ragged red dress, her long black hair reaching almost to her waist, and she smiled at Ginny’s question. ‘Everything,’ she announced after a moment’s thought. ‘Rabbit, pigeon, squirrel, hedgepig … and there’s carrots, onions, taties, turnip … everythin’ we can get hold of. Good, ain’t it?’

‘It’s grand,’ Ginny said fervently. ‘I never tasted anythin’ so good in me whole life an’ me Auntie Amy’s a first-rate cook. Who made the bread?’

‘It’s sody bread; I prigged it meself off the baker in the village while me mam were buyin’ flour,’ the girl said offhandedly. ‘There’ll be tea in a moment when the kettle boils.’

It occurred to Ginny at this moment that she was fortunate indeed to have sat down by this particular girl since she had understood every word her companion had uttered, whereas most of the children might have been speaking Chinese for all the sense she could make of it. But this girl was different.

Presently, when she had finished her stew and was drinking strong, sweet tea out of a mug, Ginny said as much. The girl grinned. ‘That’s why I sat by you,’ she said. ‘Mammy and I lived in Liverpool for several years ’cos me dad were a Chinese seaman and Mammy were that fond of him, she’d have followed him anywhere, but then he jumped ship – or mebbe he were killed in a brawl, we never really knew – so a year gone, Mammy came home to her tribe and brought me with her,’ she finished.

‘What’s your name, kid?’ Conan interrupted. He was sitting by Ginny and leaned forward to speak across her. He indicated Ginny with a jerk of his thumb. ‘She’s Ginny an’ I’m Conan. What’s your moniker?’

‘I’m Nan,’ the girl said briefly. She drained the last of her tea, set her mug down and stood up. ‘C’mon, Ginny, we’ll get to us tent afore everyone else piles in.’ She turned to Conan. ‘The boys’ tent’s next to our’n,’ she told him. ‘G’night; see you in the mornin’.’

It was stuffy and not very pleasant in the tent though the smell of trodden grass was sweet. ‘I’d rather sleep near the entrance,’ Ginny told her new friend, as other females, both young and old, began to enter.

Nan said something to one of the older women, not one word of which Ginny could understand, and the woman replied at some length. Whereupon, Nan turned to Ginny, shaking her head. ‘No, we’re to sleep right at the back, agin the canvas,’ she said. ‘The older women has to be up first to make the fire and start the breakfast. Kids allus sleep at the back.’

Ginny shrugged and took the ragged piece of blanket which Nan was offering her. ‘Okay,’ she said resignedly. ‘G’night, Nan.’

Ginny awoke next morning and could not, for a moment, think where she was. Just above her was a piece of very dirty brown canvas. She had an ache in her back from lying on the hard ground, and judging from the noises she was sharing her abode – whatever it was – with a family of pigs, for there were snorts, grunts and squeals coming from somewhere. Groggily, she sat up and looked about her and memory came rushing back. She was in a small tent, sharing it with … she counted … half a dozen girls ranging in age from four or five to fifteen, and three elderly women. Even as she watched, however, one of the old women yawned, stretched and stumbled out into the morning, then another followed. Neither of them had glanced in her direction, and Ginny lay quietly down again. She needed time to think, to consider what she should do, and if there was an opportunity to escape, she must take it, so it would be best to pretend to be asleep whilst she worked out a plan.

When the third woman left the tent, Ginny shed her blanket and crawled over to the entrance. Outside, the camp was already astir and the sounds, which she had thought had come from her fellow sleepers, were explained. A tinker who looked about twelve or thirteen was driving a lean sow with half a dozen scrawny piglets at heel into the encampment, and it was from these animals that the various squeals and grunts had come. In fact, her first guess had been correct for the sow and her brood must have been passing the back of the tent as Ginny had woken. The boy turned and grinned at her as she stood up and looked slowly about her. The huge stew pot of the night before had been taken off the fire and a smaller vessel was in its place. The elderly women were fussing round the fire and a younger woman, wrapped in a scarlet shawl, came towards them with her arms full of sticks and began to poke them into the flames beneath the blackened pot. Breakfast, judging by the smell which came from that direction, was to be oatmeal and Ginny realised that despite the good supper she had eaten the night before she was hungry once more. When someone jerked her elbow, she turned quite crossly, for the scene before her was fascinating. She had thought that tinkers were a pretty feckless lot, but they were moving quickly and neatly now. Men were hustling the sow and her brood into the shelter of the pine wood where, Ginny now saw, they had already made a rough enclosure which they were disguising, in what she considered to be a masterly fashion, with branches of pine and bundles of sticks, until it resembled nothing so much as a fuel store. The children were beginning to emerge from their sleeping quarters and they, too, were going about their business speedily and efficiently. Two of the bigger boys seized buckets and carried them off in the direction of the river whilst younger boys disappeared into the woods and the girls began to spread out, a couple making off, armed with buckets, towards the meadows which lay above the little valley and others moving the livestock’s tethers so that they might have fresh grazing.

‘Hey, queen, wharra you starin’ at?’ It was Conan, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and looking around him at the bustle with a good deal of interest. ‘Them pigs woke me up, a-snufflin’ and a-snortin’ as they was druv into the camp.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Some farmer, somewhere, won’t believe his eyes when he finds he’s a sow short – a sow and her piglets.’

‘You mean they’re stolen?’ Ginny said. She sounded shocked, which was exactly how she felt, for though they had passed a good few farms before they reached the tinker camp, they had all been small, poor affairs. She could not imagine a farmer failing to realise he had lost a pig, and as soon as he did so, surely he would make straight for the nearest tinker camp? She said as much to Conan, remarking indignantly that it was a mean thing to do, stealing from folk poorer than themselves. She added that she had no doubt the tinkers would speedily find themselves in prison if they continued to thieve from local farmers.

Conan, however, gave a derisive snort. ‘It ain’t like farmin’ in England, what they do round here,’ he explained. ‘In summer, the farmers drive their pigs into the forest and on to common ground to fend for themselves. And besides, they’re afraid of tinkers. They know tinkers thieve but they know, too, that unless they want to find their haystacks on fire or their calves and lambs carried off, they’re best to keep quiet about the odd critter goin’ missin’.’

‘How do you know?’ Ginny asked aggressively. ‘An’ don’t go tellin’ me your daddy told your mam and your mam told you, ’cos I shan’t believe it. I already know you’re a liar, Conan, so don’t go makin’ it worse.’

Conan grinned again. I believe he thinks it’s a compliment to be called a liar, Ginny thought. One thing is for sure, the sooner I can get away from the tinkers and Conan, the better I’ll be pleased.

‘No, queen, but I don’t waste me time sleepin’ when I need information,’ Conan said boastfully. ‘You know the feller who prigged the pigs? I talked to him last night, askin’ ’im about the tribe and how they go on. He telled me no end; he telled me they’re mainly horse dealers and go to all the horse fairs, buyin’ an’ sellin’ what they can. That’s why they’re on their way to Kerry, ’cos there’s a grand horse fair there. He telled me they don’t have no permanent place of their own so they reckon that gives them a right to take what they can between fairs. How else can they live, eh? They’ll take eggs from beneath the sitting hen, but they’ll always leave her one or two; clothing off the line, if the wife is mad enough to leave it unattended, and peats off the pile. Unless they’ve gorra grudge against a farmer, they won’t take his lambs or calves, but pigs wanderin’ in a wood, well, they could belong to anyone.’

‘Oh,’ Ginny said, rather doubtfully. ‘Well, it ain’t what I’m used to and I don’t like it. Shall we – shall we go our own way, Conan? I can’t see it’s goin’ to help us – well, not me, at any rate – travellin’ with this little lot. An’ they can’t want us; they’ve gorra dozen kids of their own, if not more. We’re just two extra mouths to feed.’

‘I think we’re a good deal safer in a group, like,’ Conan said. ‘After all, they know this country like the back of their hands so we’ll end up at your dad’s farm, no problem. As for meself, I’m happy to stay with ’em until we come across me daddy.’

‘Ye-es, but it could take weeks and weeks if they keep wanderin’ around to different horse fairs,’ Ginny pointed out. ‘And my daddy will be leavin’ to go to Liverpool quite soon I should think, though me grandparents will still be there. Honest to God, I dunno what to do for the best.’

‘I’ll have a word wi’ one or two of the fellers,’ Conan said eventually. ‘Flann said your dad’s farm were some way off, didn’t he? I reckon if I has a word wi’ one of the chief ones and explain the situation, they’ll mebbe go straight to this Killorglin place. Especially if I tells ’em your daddy will be so pleased to lay hands on you that he’ll be likely to give ’em a bob or two for their trouble.’

This sounded pretty sensible to Ginny and since one of the elderly women began beating on her tin plate at this point, indicating that the food was ready, she neither argued nor questioned further, but took her place in the line-up and was soon sitting on a fallen tree trunk with Nan on one side of her and Conan on the other, gobbling oatmeal and drinking the strong tea which seemed to be a staple of the tinker diet.

When the meal was over, a group of men set off to do fieldwork for which, Nan explained, they would be paid in potatoes, eggs and similar commodities. The women finished such tasks as they considered necessary and then seemed to melt away, leaving two old women to keep an eye on the encampment, and the children to look after the livestock and move the tethers as the animals cropped the grass in large circles.

The day wore on. Mostly, it was an enjoyable time, though Ginny still found it difficult to understand the tinkers, for their brogue was the broadest she had heard yet. But Conan told her that he would be unable to speak to the chiefs until evening, when they returned from their fieldwork, and since Ginny had no idea in which direction Kerry lay, she did not attempt to strike out for herself.

Besides, it would be difficult. Conan and Nan never left her side for one moment and though she realised that this was just friendship, it still made it impossible for her to simply walk away and return to the nearest village. When evening came and the fieldworkers returned, Conan went off to talk to the men he referred to as ‘chiefs’. Ginny had noticed a grizzled man with a blue spotted handkerchief round his neck and another, younger one, who reminded her of pictures she had seen in her school book of a Red Indian chief, so dark his skin and flashing eyes, so long, straight and black his hair. She guessed that they were discussing her, saw them glance constantly in her direction, and was immensely reassured when Conan came over to her presently and assured her that the men had agreed the tinker band would make its way straight to Killorglin.

Satisfied on this score, Ginny began to play a hilarious game of cat’s cradle with Nan, which several of the other girls joined in, and presently made her way to the tent, wrapped herself in her ragged blanket and settled down. Nan had told her that the tribe would be moving on next day and she felt pretty sure that this move was on her account, since there had been no indication that they meant to up sticks until Conan had spoken to the chief. But already, the men had begun to pull rough wooden carts from their hiding places in the pine wood and to load them up. Sure now that the tinkers meant her nothing but good, Ginny fell asleep as soon as she lay down.

She was woken, what felt like hours later, by a voice. It was a familiar voice, speaking in a husky, chuckling whisper, and it must have been the mention of her own name which had woken her. She sat up on one elbow, suddenly alert and listening with all her might. It was Conan’s voice and she was pretty sure he was talking to one of the boys in the other tent, completely unaware that voices carry through canvas as though through thin air, for as he continued to talk his voice grew louder and more boastful, despite his companion’s telling him every few moments that ‘there be no need to shout’ and wondering why he couldn’t tell a plain tale, ‘’stead of ’broiderin’ it up all the while’.

As she listened, Ginny felt her entire body grow cold. Conan was telling his pal just what he and the chief had been discussing and what they intended to do.

‘I brung that there gal – that Ginny – to the tribe acos I knew her da’ were in a big way o’ farmin’. He’s a warm man, I’m tellin’ you, an’ mortal fond of ’is only child. He’ll pay up handsome to get her back unharmed. The chief says he’ll get Nan’s mammy to write him a letter, sayin’ he’s got the kid an’ tellin’ her da’ what he’ll do to her if a good bit o’ money ain’t forthcomin’. We can send the letter right away, ’cos the chief says the longer this Gallagher feller has to sweat it out afore we gets within easy reach, the more willin’ he’ll be to pay to get her back unharmed.’

Conan’s companion grunted. ‘Is that why young Nan’s stickin’ closer to her’n porridge to the pan?’ he enquired. He gave a hoarse chuckle. ‘Well, if it works, we’ll be in the money, but if it don’t, I reckon we’ll all be behind bars. Has the chief thought o’ that?’

Conan gave a derisive snort. ‘Course he has,’ he said scornfully. ‘How many bands o’ tinkers are there roamin’ the countryside in summer? An’ Killorglin’s a long way from anywheres, the chief says. Likely they’ll have one fat old scuffer – that’s a Garda to you, Liam – who’ll be as scared of the tinkers as everyone else is. He’s a wise feller, the chief, he’s not takin’ chances, he knows what he’s about.’