‘To everyone, though, I will just be known as Mr Smith. Where I’ve come from, how I got my money to start my business off with, will remain my secret. Then, once my clubs are the talk of every town I have one in, people from other areas willing to travel miles to have a night out in, newspaper photographers waiting outside all night for a chance to catch the rich and famous coming and going, a waiting list for membership for each of the clubs as long as my arm, then and only then will it be the time for everyone to know that the person they have been sucking up to, begging to be allowed membership to my clubs, is just a dirty, thieving traveller. Now isn’t that just the perfect revenge for all those snobs who think they’re better than me; me knowing that they all secretly despise me yet having to treat me with the utmost courtesy and respect or else they won’t be allowed inside my clubs.’
His face turned ugly then as he darkly hissed, ‘But there’s one person above all else whose face I’m determined to see with my own eyes when she finds out just what she gave up when she turned down my proposal. I will hire a private detective to find out where Belinda lives now and then, dressed in my Savile Row suit, handmade leather shoes, a wad of cash bulging in the pocket of my cashmere coat, I will visit her in my chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, so I can tell her in person, let her see for herself, just what kind of life she gave up the chance of having. And just because she saw me as being beneath her. But the best part is that, before I leave, I’m going to hand her a ten-shilling note and tell her it’s payment for the sex she let me have with her all those years ago.
‘So now you know just why I turned against you all, all those years ago, and my plans for the fair. If I was you, I’d start looking for another fair to work for because, very shortly, this one won’t belong to Grundy’s any more. Oh, and as I’m the owner now, find someone else to cover my work because my days of working for this fair are over.’
With that he spun on his heels and strode out of the van, leaving an utterly speechless Solly staring blankly after him.
Several moments later, Gem arrived. As she began taking off her jacket she was saying, ‘Velda is very upset over Sam’s death. She was very fond of him. It’s good she’s got a queue of people at her tent to keep her mind off it. I told her I’d go and have a cup of tea with her when she finishes work tonight as we couldn’t really talk that much, knowing the punters were waiting outside for their readings. Anyway, we’ve time for a cuppa ourselves before we have to go back for our appointment with…’ Her voice trailed off as she then noticed the look on her husband’s face. She demanded of him, ‘Solly, what on earth has happened while I’ve been to see Velda? Something has, I can tell by your face.’ When he didn’t respond she went over and shook his arm. ‘Solly, Solly, what is it?’
He finally uttered, ‘Sonny has just told me he’s selling the fair as soon as it’s in his name.’
It was her turn to look shocked. ‘What! Oh please tell me that this is some kind of bad joke Sonny is playing on us, Solly. Haven’t we got enough on our plates with your father’s death without his idea of having himself some fun. It is a joke, isn’t it?’
He shook his head. ‘He was perfectly serious when he told me.’
‘No, surely you misunderstood him.’ She went over to the kitchen table and sank down in a chair, then looked up at her husband in utter befuddlement. ‘Why would he sell the fair? This is all our livelihoods, not just Sonny’s and ours but all of the people who work for us. What does he think is going to happen to us if he sells the business? Your father built it up to what it is now so he could leave his sons with a good business to provide a living for them, not for Sonny to sell it.’
Solly pulled a chair out at the table and sat down too. ‘That’s what I told him too, Gem. But Sonny doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t care about any of us. He wants the money from the sale of the fair to open a nightclub with. Not just any old nightclub, but one wealthy people will pay a fortune just to have membership of and treat him like he’s God for fear he’ll take their membership off them. He intends to eventually own a string of them.’ He then proceeded to relate to Gem all that Sonny had told him of his reasons behind his scheme.
When he had finished she blew out her cheeks and heavily sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. ‘Let me get this straight… Sonny fell in love when he was nineteen with an outsider who turned him down, nastily I admit. And he’s let what she did fester inside him for all these years to the extent that he believes all outsiders feel like she did about us fairground people and so has made it his mission to make as many of them as he can pay. This defies belief, it really does. I wish that Sonny would have come and talked to me when that… Belinda… did you say her name was… turned him down. I could have made him realise that the reason she turned him down wasn’t because of what her family and the rest of them would say about her, it was because she didn’t love him enough to marry him and live the life he was offering her.’ She let out a long exhale of breath before she went on. ‘I can understand why Sonny didn’t want any of us to know what the woman did to him at the time. He’d have been so hurt and humiliated, embarrassed, especially with you, Solly, and very jealous of the fact that I was an outsider who had turned my back on my family to marry you but the woman he wanted to marry wasn’t prepared to.’ She shook her head, sadly. ‘I can’t say I agree with what he’s been doing to make himself feel better but I can understand the satisfaction of getting his own back on them. There’s been so many times I’ve wanted to feel the pleasure of slapping the face of someone who’s been nasty to me when they’ve found out I belong to the fairground; spat in the street at me; been told by people they don’t want dirty lowlifes like us in their community. I wanted the satisfaction too of seeing their faces when I told them that I was in fact from a decent family, that my father was a businessman who could afford to send me and my sister to private school, but I never did anything because I would be lowering myself to their level then, wouldn’t I?
‘His idea for these clubs, though. I can’t deny that it all sounds a great idea. If Sonny did them get off the ground, get the sort of people he wants as members into them, then he could end up being fabulously rich, far better off than what he would be as a ringmaster. I’ve read about clubs in London where some people pay extortionate sums to become members because they’re seen as the places to be seen in. But, Solly, I don’t believe though that this is all about Sonny just wanting to become rich and revered so no one ever dare look at him like he was something they’d scrape off their shoes.’
‘What is it really in aid of, then?’
‘It’s all about his need to get his revenge on Belinda for what she did to him all those years ago. That’s what it is.’
Solly was looking at her, stunned. ‘But I can’t believe that my brother is prepared to put his family and all the rest of the fairfolk on the streets just to get his own back on that one woman?’
‘Well, it’s festered away inside him for so long that it’s consumed him, stopped him thinking straight. We need to get through to him, Solly, that he doesn’t need to go to the lengths he’s prepared to to make Belinda sorry for what she did to him. Just for her to see that he’s done well for himself and that she could have had a better life with him than the one she’s got would be enough to have her regretting that she turned him down for the rest of her life. Sonny is the owner of a successful business now and could still go and see her looking the part in a smart suit, driving a Rolls-Royce, his wallet bulging with a wad of money. She doesn’t need to know that the suit is hired and the car too, or the money in his wallet is actually for bills we need to pay, does she? We just need to make him see that the satisfaction he’ll get from that will be just as great as it would be if he really was the owner of a string of nightclubs, but he wouldn’t then have to live with the guilt of ruining all the lives he has to to achieve that. Deep down, the old Sonny that cares about his family and the rest of the Grundy community must still be there, somewhere. We just have to tr
y and reach it.’
Solly gnawed on his lips. ‘I hope we can.’
Gem was afraid it might be too late. Sonny had been planning how he would get his revenge on Belinda for years, so he might not be at all receptive to what they had to say. He might be hell-bent on doing it his way, no matter what the cost. Regardless, she said, ‘I hope so too, for all our sakes. We’ll go together to see him as soon as we get back from our meeting with the undertaker.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Lurking out of sight behind a living van, Sonny had a good view of his brother’s as he bided his time waiting for the occupants to once again leave for their appointment with the undertaker. Again checking that both his nephews were otherwise occupied, he let himself into Solly and Gem’s van. He had no real care any longer whether anyone came back and found him now that everything was out in the open; he wasn’t leaving this van until he had that package in his hand.
Yanking the bedclothes off the bed, he began his meticulous search. A half an hour later, he fell to his knees in despair and cradled his head in his hands. The package was nowhere to be found. The only thing he could think of was that the package must have fallen out somehow during one of their moves and been left on a road somewhere for someone else to find, or in a ditch.
The fear of God came over him then. What on earth was he going to do? Even if Bossman’s henchman believed his story over how the package came to be lost, what the contents had been worth in monetary terms, they would look to him to recompense them with. He had no doubt that would be a considerable amount. Even if he could persuade them to accept payment from him in replacement of the lost goods, where on earth was he going to get that kind of money from? His plans for his future shattered into pieces as the money he had meant to use to fund that would now have to be spent saving his life. The fair had to be worth thirty or forty thousand at least, considering his father owned all the large rides and including the value of the age-old charter for the fair to play in numerous towns and cities around the Midlands and North of England. Not to mention the long-standing agreements with landowners and farmers to hold the fair on their land. A larger concern would seize the chance to take a fair like Grundy’s off his hands to expand their own. Surely the contents of the package couldn’t be worth more than the fair was? All he had to do was persuade Bossman to give him the time to sell the fair before he got his money. He prayed he would. But then a thought struck him. Bossman wouldn’t just take his word for it that he was now owner of the fair and it was his right to sell it if he wanted. He would know that his father was dead; the thug that had been responsible would have passed that news on to him when he had reported back to him after his visit last night, but he would demand proof that he was his father’s actual heir before he would agree to give him the time Sonny needed to raise the money he was owed. He would need to find his father’s will. Solly had said a copy of it would be in his father’s van amongst his papers. With no thought to the mess he was leaving behind, he jumped up to go and find it.
Sonny hadn’t been inside this van for years and, as he stepped inside, it was like the years melted away. It was as if nothing had changed; it was just how he remembered it. Any minute, he expected his mother to come bustling through to offer him tea and something to eat. The smell was just as he remembered it too. Of his father's favourite type of pipe tobacco. Shoving these memories aside, he began his search for his father’s papers. He finally found what he was looking for in an old wooden box on a shelf in his curtained wardrobe. Under various other documents and old letters Solly found a long white envelope. Without further ado, he tore it open, pulled out the sheaf of typewritten paper inside, and unfolded them. Sonny’s ability to read mirrored that of Solly’s but he didn’t need to read all the document, just the part of most interest to him. His own name as his father’s heir. The shock he got to see that it wasn’t his name but Solly’s – that his father had stated his brother as main beneficiary – had him howl out in fury. He then noticed a letter with his name on it that had been underneath the one containing his father’s will. Snatching it up he ripped it open, pulled out the letter inside and tried to read what it said. Most of it he couldn’t, but enough of the words to get the gist. His father believed that Solly would make a better ringmaster than he would. His rage then mounted to fever pitch as he furiously screwed the letter up and threw it across the room and, whilst still clutching the copy of the will, he stomped angrily around the small space at the bottom of the bed. ‘How could you do this to me, you bastard. How could you? I’m your eldest son, it’s me you should have left the fair to. You think Solly’s a better man than me, that’s the truth of it. That’s what you were telling me in that letter you left me. Thought I would understand and forgive you for choosing him over me? Well, I fucking don’t. A ride. Oh, you left me a ride. How good of you. What the fucking hell am I supposed to raise the money I need with just that. I hope you rot in hell—’
He was cut short by an old lady, her aged face wreathed in worry. ‘What’s the matter, Sonny? I heard the shouting and thought someone was being murdered in here.’
He spun to face the old crone and screamed at her, ‘If he was still alive I would be committing murder for what he’s done to me.’ He then pushed her out of the way as he stormed out, leaving her staring agog after him.
With nothing to bargain for his life with now, he had to be away from here, as far away as he could be. He had to find somewhere to hide where he would never be found. Bossman had made it clear that he wasn’t the kind of man to be made a fool of and then turn a blind eye. He would make it his mission to hunt him down and make an example of him, he had no doubt about that.
As he returned to his own van to pack up his belongings and make his hurried getaway in one of the fair’s lorries, he rued the day he had got himself an invite to that game of cards that had resulted in him getting involved with the types of people he was now fleeing for his life from. From now on he would have to live the rest of his life constantly looking over his shoulder; the future he had planned for himself now unachievable and just a fanciful dream. That one stupid mistake had cost him everything, but it was his chance to finally get his revenge on Belinda that he regretted the most.
* * *
The visit to the undertaker’s was a harrowing experience for Gem and Solly. They hadn’t been expecting to be arranging a funeral for Sam for many years yet. In respect of Sam’s status it would be a grand traditional showman’s affair. A black carriage with two black horses, black plumes on their heads, to ferry Sam’s mahogany brass-handled coffin from the entrance of the fair to the local church. Until then he would be lying-in-state in his living van for those of the community who wished to to pay their respects to him. On the day of the funeral there would be six fairground pall-bearers: Solly, Sonny, Jimmy and Robbie and the other two yet to be decided. The pall-bearers would carry Sam’s coffin from the living van via a route through all the stalls and rides in the main fair area to the waiting carriage and then again from the church down the aisle. Hymns and order of service were decided upon and Solly told the undertaker that he would talk to his older brother over which one of them would be giving the eulogy. The main details dealt with, the undertaker then suggested several halls big enough to hold the amount of mourners that they would be expecting at the wake afterwards and caterers for the food.
At the back of both their minds was their desire to persuade Sonny to put a stop to his plan of selling the fair and leaving them all in a very precarious situation and instead seeing the wisdom of the one that Gem was going to put to him.
As soon as they arrived back, they wasted no time in going to see Sonny. It was the old lady that had gone into Sam’s van to enquire what all the noise was about who told them that Sonny wasn’t home when they went to knock on his van door. She told them what had happened earlier, of going into Sam's van to find out what all the angry shouting was about and finding it was Sonny and then after as she had been sitting outside her van
peeling potatoes for chips for her family’s supper when she had seen him, looking like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, piling luggage into one of the lorries, then driving off in it like a maniac. She hadn’t seen him since.
They thanked her for the information, then let themselves inside his van, both of them deeply bemused as to why Sonny had departed in such a hurry when surely it would have been better for him to stick around until at least the solicitor had dealt with the paperwork of getting the business transferred to him. As Solly went into Sonny’s bedroom, Gem curiously looked around the living area. It looked like a bull had charged through it. Her eyes then fell on a crumpled sheaf of papers lying at her feet. Picking them up, she smoothed them out and started to read the words written on it.
As she was trying to digest just what she was reading, Solly then arrived in the living area. ‘He’s took all his stuff. Doesn’t look like he’s coming back.’
She prised her eyes off the document and lifted her head to look at him, her eyes shining in relief. ‘I have your father’s will. It was on the floor. The fair isn’t Sonny’s to sell. Your father left it to you.’
Solly stared back at her. ‘What! Dad made me his heir? But tradition…’
She interjected, ‘Obviously your father decided not to observe the rules of fairground tradition when it came to deciding which son he thought would make the best ringmaster to replace him when he died. He might have loved Sonny, but Sam was far from daft or blind. We all knew that Sonny only did what he had to and if anyone had any problems that only the family could deal with, Sonny was the last one they’d turn to as they all knew he’d only pass them back to one of us. Maybe he did suspect that Sonny might decide that he didn’t want to be ringmaster anyway and sell it. Whatever, thank God, he decided to make you his heir and not Sonny as this means he can’t sell the fair and we have no need to worry any more about what’s going to happen to us all.’
All the Fun of the Fair Page 33