A Winter Love Song

by Rita Bradshaw

  She had tried to answer Miss Nelly but her tears had choked her, and Miss Nelly’s eyes had been wet when she had walked away. She would have run after her, Bonnie thought, because she had wanted to just talk about her da to someone who had cared about him, but Franco had come up to Miss Nelly and taken her arm, and for once Miss Nelly hadn’t shaken him off. The two of them had walked away together, and so the moment had been lost.

  She could go and talk to Miss Nelly now, though, when everyone was asleep and the fair was quiet. As the idea occurred to her, Bonnie sat up straighter. Miss Nelly wouldn’t mind if she woke her up, but she might not even be asleep yet. They’d been late setting everything up for tomorrow after the move, and it had been past midnight before the last of the fair folk had turned in. It was probably only about one o’clock or thereabouts even now. And she did so want to speak to her. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed their old easy relationship until Miss Nelly had spoken to her earlier. Miss Nelly was linked in her mind with her da in a way no one else was.

  Her mind made up, Bonnie slid out of bed. The day had been a hot one and the night was warm without a breath of wind. She didn’t even bother to slip on a cardigan over her long cotton nightdress and left the wagon on bare feet, padding over thick tufty grass in the field outside as silently as a small ghost.

  Nelly’s fine motor van was often set some distance from the wagons and tethered horses, usually in a part of the area where the traction engines that hauled some of the loaded trucks and carts carrying the heavier rides were stationed. These engines, which also served as mobile power stations when the fair was open, generating electric current for the lights, were impressive beasts, and Bonnie, like all the fair children, had been brought up to show them due respect. They ate coal voraciously, but as each engine carried three hundred gallons of water in its tanks and managed a journey of fifteen miles before needing to stop at a watering-place, they weren’t without their difficulties. In the middle of a dry summer, some villagers would try to prevent the showmen from sucking more water from their depleted ponds, but the present move had passed uneventfully. As Bonnie grew close to the powerful road locomotives with their rich midnight-blue paintwork lined out in gold, gleaming spiralled brass rods supporting a canopy which read ‘St Ignatius Fair’ and massive wheels, she trod warily, as though they could suddenly wake up and leap at her. She had been brought up on stories of bairns being devoured under their terrible wheels, and, although she knew it was silly and fanciful, she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that the engines were able to think and see.

  Probably because she was concentrating on getting safely past the sleeping giants, she was up the steps of the vehicle and in the door before thinking about it. The dogs, who had all been snoozing outside under the van in the relative cool of the night, barely opened an eye, exhausted after enduring an unpleasantly hot day with their thick fur coats.

  Bonnie had been in Miss Nelly’s home a hundred times before, and even without the bright moonlight she would have been able to pick her way to the bedroom without mishap. She had been intending to knock on the door and wait for an answer, but as it was wide open she was in the doorway before she could knock.

  Miss Nelly looked ethereal in the shaft of white moonlight slanting across the bed, her glorious hair fanned out against the pillow with one silken lock trailing across her bare up-tilted breasts. She was as naked as the day she’d been born, but it wasn’t this that had Bonnie riveted in the doorway, her hand pressed to her lips to prevent any sound escaping. Franco was fast asleep too, one dark muscular arm draped across Miss Nelly’s white belly and his black hair half covering his face as he lay on his side so his bottom was visible. He was as dark and big and hairy as the woman lying beside him was tiny and smooth-skinned, making the contrast all the more shocking to Bonnie’s horrified gaze. She knew this was bad. She didn’t understand the whys and wherefores, but she knew only married couples should share a bed and that things went on when they did, things that could produce a baby in due course. It was for this same reason that the travellers had strict rules about their daughters, once the girls reached a certain age, not being alone with a lad, and even when a lad had proposed to a lass, contact between them was supervised by the lass’s parents until the couple were wed.

  Numbly Bonnie backed away from the doorway, and when a few moments later she found herself walking back across the field with the living wagons, she had no memory of leaving Miss Nelly’s home.

  Once back in bed, she drew the sheets over her, covering her face in spite of the heat inside the wagon, but she couldn’t shut out the picture imprinted on her mind. Miss Nelly and Franco. But Franco was married to her grandma, and Miss Nelly loved her da. Didn’t she? But she couldn’t, not if she was doing ‘that’ with Franco. No she couldn’t, she couldn’t.

  She was consumed by a feeling compounded of intense pain and disappointment and a hundred other emotions besides, but by the time the dawn chorus heralded another day, Bonnie had settled several things in her mind, for good or ill. She was alone, really alone, and she had to face up to it. Nothing was as she had imagined, and she could put her trust in no one but herself. Until her da came home – she didn’t allow herself to consider that he might not – she would manage by herself. She’d had her tenth birthday a few weeks ago, she wasn’t a bit bairn any longer and she could do this. And she would, she would.

  Her childhood was over.

  PART TWO

  Friendship

  1933

  Chapter Five

  Bonnie stretched her toes, wiggling them in the warm soft grass. It was a beautiful moonlit night, with a gentle breeze blowing over the sleeping campsite. The day’s toil was over, and all was peace and quiet. A hundred yards or so from the living wagons, the roundabouts, swing chairs and other rides, along with the stalls, booths and tents, were silhouetted against a glorious night sky. The day had been a hot one; the United Kingdom was in the grip of a heatwave with temperatures soaring to ninety degrees in the baking south and drought warnings in place, but here on the outskirts of Whitburn where the fair had arrived for the usual August Bank Holiday venue, a cool north-east breeze had kept the weather bearable.

  Not that the heat had bothered her, Bonnie thought, lifting her face to the sky and shutting her eyes. After the harsh northern winters, the sun was always welcome. But their present location was a trial every year, reminding her of the first unbearably painful weeks after her father had gone missing. She’d long since given up hope that he would return and had accepted the unacceptable – that her lovely da had been murdered by person or persons unknown. And so she’d done the only thing she could and made the best of her changed circumstances that had become increasingly uncertain as the Depression deepened.

  Money had become scarcer and scarcer for the average man and woman in the last few years, and although the crowds still came to the fair in the good weather, lots of people could do nothing but admire the bright lights and listen to the music, hungrily drinking in the elusive atmosphere of gaiety but never spending a penny, their pockets empty.

  The last winter had been particularly hard. Bonnie sighed as she thought back to the endless weeks of biting cold and raw winds. But for Ham having had the foresight to buy a small copse of standing wood from a farmer in the autumn, the fair community would have been in dire straits. As it was, they’d parked their living wagons close by, and the men had felled the young trees, bringing the trunks and branches into the camp.

  Every member of the fair family had done their bit. The men had sawed the bigger branches and trunks into neat logs to sack and sell; the younger lads had used bill-hooks to split a number of the logs in half for small fireplaces, and the girls had chopped others into kindling pieces with small hatchets. Even the very young toddlers had been expected to work at making the kindling into round bundles, packing the small pieces upright into a tin can which had been cut down and nailed by its base to a flat log. When the can was full, the youngst
ers twisted a length of wire round the sticks to hold them together, lifted the finished bundle out of its nest and added it to their steadily growing pile. And then the women and children had walked miles, going from door to door pushing a couple of handcarts piled high with sacks and bundles of wood. One of Ham’s brothers had lost two fingers when the saw he’d been using had slipped, and little Ava, the only child of a young married couple, had been crushed to death when a stack of logs had fallen on her as she’d wandered too close. But the community had been able to eat each day and, come the spring, there had been enough money to buy fuel to get the fair on the road.

  As the breeze ruffled her long black hair, Bonnie sighed again. She didn’t want to go back into the wagon where Franco’s guttural snores would be competing with her grandma’s equally loud ones. Most nights, weather permitting, she would wait until the pair of them were asleep and then silently slide out of her narrow bed that served as a settee in the day and sit outside for hours, gazing at the stars and thinking.

  She had turned fifteen at the end of June, an event that had passed by without comment, but she knew her grandma had remembered even though she hadn’t spoken of it. Bonnie had overheard her talking to Franco about looking into a possible husband for her over the next twelve months.

  Bonnie’s full mouth tightened. Once it had become clear that her father wasn’t coming back, her grandma had sold Rosie and her da’s wagon to an engaged couple within the fair community who were getting wed shortly. She’d pocketed the money for herself, making it clear to Bonnie she wouldn’t see a penny of it, while telling Ham and the others that she was keeping it safe for her granddaughter. Safe. Bonnie’s upper lip curled. It was as ‘safe’ as the money she earned singing in the big tent each evening which went straight into her grandma’s cashbox. She’d protested more than once about the fact that she didn’t even have a few pennies for herself, but as her grandma used her hands as well as her tongue in lashing out at her, Bonnie had learned to keep quiet. Many a time, sore and smarting from a beating, she had thought about running away, but where to? She didn’t have a friend in the world outside the fair community and it was the only life she knew. The idea of leaving terrified her, or at least it had, when she was younger.

  Bonnie brought her knees up and rested her chin on them, her arms clasped round her legs.

  But maybe the alternative, that of staying and being married off to someone her grandma chose for her, was worse? She didn’t want to be tied to a man and dropping one bairn after another, and in this respect she knew she was as different from her contemporaries as chalk from cheese. Perhaps it was because she had mixed blood, as her grandma never tired of reminding her, that she didn’t quite fit into this life as she got older? But she knew one thing – the only time she was truly happy was when she was singing in the big tent. Then she became someone else entirely, and she knew her voice touched folk of all ages. Ham had billed her as the singing nightingale, and even in these hard times she drew more of a crowd than any of the other acts.

  Bonnie stood to her feet. The soft night air held the tang of woodsmoke from the dying embers of the travellers’ fires dotted about the campsite, the moon was riding high in a cloudless sky and the trees bordering the field were whispering ancient secrets to each other as the breeze ruffled their leaves. The thought of going into the claustrophobic confines of the wagon wasn’t to be borne, and for more than one reason. In the last year or so, she had caught Franco looking at her in the same way he used to look at Nelly, and it made her feel sick. His eyes jerked away each time and his overall manner with her was normal; she might even have convinced herself she had imagined the greedy hunger in his face but for the number of occasions when he ‘accidentally’ brushed against her in passing or sidled into the big tent to watch her when she was performing.

  She shivered, but not because she was cold. Perhaps it would have been different if Nelly hadn’t left the fair shortly after her da had gone missing? She had felt a bit guilty about that in the following years, but after the night she had seen Nelly and Franco together, she hadn’t been able to talk to Nelly in the same old way or even look her in the face. It had proved easier to avoid any contact. And then with the first chill of autumn, Nelly had upped and gone. She’d been relieved at first, still upset and angry at what she perceived as Nelly’s betrayal of her father – she had to admit Franco’s unfaithfulness had barely crossed her mind – but after a while the hurt had lessened and she’d found she missed the woman she’d hoped her da would one day marry.

  Shrugging the memories away, Bonnie began to walk, her bare feet making no sound on the thick grass as once again she began to wrestle with thoughts of the future. She didn’t want to marry anyone, she told herself fiercely, and no matter what her grandma said or did to persuade her otherwise, she wouldn’t have it. Several of the lads in the fair communities had given her the eye in the last twelve months or so, but from a distance, careful to observe the unwritten code of conduct regarding young unmarried girls. Ham and the other men wouldn’t tolerate a lad hanging around a lass unless the pair were officially engaged.

  Exiting the field where the living wagons were parked and going into the dusty lane beyond, Bonnie sniffed appreciatively. There was the smell of the sea in the breeze now, and she could hear the waves crashing into Whitburn Bay. The year her da had gone missing, she had walked down into the bay on several nights, unbeknown to anyone else. She’d sat for hours weeping uncontrollably, begging God to send her father back to her.

  The memory of that little girl, a lost child crying for the moon, brought a sudden flood of compassion into her breast as though it was for someone else, and it was, in a way, she conceded. Losing her father had changed her more than anyone knew. She’d been forced to grow up almost overnight, and she had lost something precious in the process – that belief in dreams her da had spoken of. The world was a harsh and cruel place and it crushed dreams to dust. She had long since stopped believing in miracles.

  The thought saddened her, and then she made an impatient sound in her throat. This was her trouble, she admitted to herself irritably. Thinking too much. Her friends seemed to have nothing more on their minds than how soon they could marry a lad they had their eye on, and how grand a living van he could provide.

  ‘And who are you off to meet in the middle of the night?’

  She swung round with a startled scream to find Franco just behind her. He was barefooted like her and clad only in his trousers, his thick, curly chest hair accentuated by the moonlight gleaming on the gold medallion hanging from his neck.

  Her first reaction was to appease him so he didn’t carry tales to her grandma, and although her voice was indignant, it was also soft as she said, ‘I’m not meeting anybody. I was hot and I wanted a walk, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t come that, not with me. Who is he? Is it Jed? He can’t keep his eyes off you. Or Leo, maybe? Or is it someone from outside? Your mam was inclined that way, wasn’t she? Is that it? You’re seeing some lad or other from the town?’

  ‘I told you. I just wanted a walk.’

  ‘I’ll break his neck, whoever it is.’ He glanced around, as though someone was going to leap out from the hedgerow either side of the lane in which they were standing. ‘I watched you sitting outside the wagon, biding your time, making sure no one was about, but you didn’t know I was awake, did you? How many times have you done this? The truth, mind.’

  The hot temper Bonnie had inherited from her father flared. Her voice still low but holding quite a different note, she glared at her grandmother’s husband as she said, ‘You’re not my real granda, you can’t tell me what to do.’

  ‘No, you’re right, I’m not your granda. I’m not related to you by blood at all.’ It was clearly something he’d thought about before. ‘Is that why you flaunt yourself at me while keeping me at arm’s length? A little tease, that’s what you are, but I don’t mind that. A lass has the right to tantalize and play hard to get – all men like the
thrill of the chase – but what I do mind is you carrying on with some lad or other on the sly. Now I’m asking you again, who is it?’

  Bonnie had taken a step or two backwards as he had been speaking. Now fear of him was added to the anger, but it wasn’t enough to stop her next words. ‘I don’t flaunt myself at you, I never have. Neither did Nelly and that’s why you wanted her, isn’t it? I didn’t understand at the time but I do now. It was you who drove her away, after you’d –’ she didn’t know how to put it – ‘after you made her . . .’ She stopped again.

  ‘What? What did you say?’ Franco’s eyes narrowed and now he grabbed her by the wrist, jerking her towards him. ‘What have you heard about me and Nelly?’

  ‘Nothing, I haven’t heard anything.’ She was struggling to free herself but with as little effect as a tiny fledgling sparrow in a cat’s mouth. ‘I saw you. I saw you myself.’

  ‘You saw me? What did you see?’

  ‘You were in her van, in bed with her. I saw you.’

  Franco swore softly. ‘You were spying on me?’

  ‘No, I came to talk to her about my da. I didn’t know you were there.’

  ‘But you watched us?’ He didn’t deny it. In fact the idea of Bonnie watching him take Nelly had excited him. He’d only had Nelly the once and that still rankled. He’d taken a bottle of brandy round to her van that night, ostensibly to offer a shoulder for her to cry on after that old dog of hers had died, but he’d known the time was right. And she hadn’t been used to hard liquor. It had been as easy as deflowering a bit lass half her age. He’d awoken after a couple of hours and made his way back to his own van, telling a furious Margarita who’d been waiting up for him that he’d taken a long walk. He had fully expected it to be the beginning of many such liaisons with Nelly, but she had had other ideas. She’d barely said two words to him before she’d left the fair a couple of months later.