All The Days of My Life by Hilary Bailey Page B

and so he did. He gave the mission to me. He sent me off in search of the gypsy. Of course, he explained almost nothing. He said only that there were reasons why the girl, Mary Waterhouse, had to be watched and that her future, which had in part, perhaps, been predicted by the gypsy, was of such concern that it was worthwhile trying to find the woman again, to find out what she knew, if anything, and, perhaps more importantly, how she knew it. He naturally passed the gypsy-hunt off fairly lightly and as far as I was concerned it was just a piece of good luck for a boy of seventeen (the chance of a chase through England during a long, dull summer holiday). I set off for Kent with my schoolfriend, Allan Pimm, in his little black Morris Minor. The trail led us into Dorset and, after a fortnight, back to the south of England again, to Rye, where we had heard the gypsies were camping on the flats near the sea. It was early spring and a dull, grey day when we arrived there. A strong wind was coming off a dark, turbulent sea. The wind tossed the reeds and long grass about as we walked about a mile from the car, which we had parked by the roadside, to where the caravans were sited between the road and the sea. I could not imagine why they had picked this wilderness to use as a camp. Later I learned that the local councils were at this time forever harassing the gypsies in order to prevent them from coming into rapidly suburbanizing neighbourhoods. The gypsies, once part of the normal pattern of rural life, useful and mistrusted at the same time, salesmen of scarce goods and extra hands at times when help was needed on the land, had lost their role. Now they were always on the move, evading the police and local authorities.
    The camp looked very tiny as we advanced over these raw flats. Small horses cropped apathetically at the tough and salty grass. As we got closer we saw two women, in flapping skirts, making their way up from the beach, laden with big bundles of driftwood. The caravans, close to, looked less trim than they must once have done. The eccentric red, black and yellow decorations seemed worn and the varnish was cracking on the wooden panels. Two of the horses were in badcondition. I looked at my friend, Allan, and could see that, standing in this flat, grey spot, he felt as depressed as I did. We had reached the caravan site at about the same time as the two women who had been fighting up against the wind from the other direction. They instantly assumed smiles both wary and propitiatory. I went up to them and said, politely I hope, “We are looking for an old lady, Urania Heron. Is she here? We should like to see her.”
    Both the women looked us over quickly. In retrospect I realize that neither Allan nor I came into that class of girls, or women in middle age, or men with bad nerves and shaky prospects who would normally be seeking out a gypsy in this God-forsaken spot, so as to get their fortunes told. We were a pair of fresh-faced schoolboys, silly, innocent and well-meaning as only schoolboys of that era could be, if the system had not already bruised and corrupted them. Allan and I, new from the playing fields and the study, must have been a mystifying pair. One of the women, still clutching her bundle of driftwood said, “What would your business be with her?”
    â€œMy father would like to see her,” I said, which was in the circumstances probably the best answer I could have given. At least they could not think, then, that I was from the local authority or the Inland Revenue, come to worry and harass them.
    â€œGive me your name, then,” said the woman, “and I’ll ask her if she’ll see you so you can tell her your father’s business with her. She may refuse you – she’s old and ill.” A sharp gust of salt wind hit us. I looked at Allan who was standing a little further off and bending my head towards the woman, so that he could not hear, I said, “My