by Lynda Paige
‘How serious, I’m not sure. But from what happened just now I’d say you have been experiencing epileptic fits caused by the bump to your head you told me about. This might not happen again but, if it does, you’ll need to go and see a doctor immediately and be properly examined. You might be given treatment to control the seizures. In the meantime I can’t pass you as fighting fit and while we wait and see whether this happens again and whether you are epileptic or not, the army will assign you to a desk or stores job or suchlike.’
Sonny feigned dismay. ‘So I won’t be allowed to fight?’
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Grundy.’ Then he added optimistically, ‘If you don’t have another fit for a good period of time and it transpires you aren’t epileptic after all, then that’s a different matter. But just thank goodness you had a seizure whilst you were here and not whilst you had a gun in your hand or you might accidentally have shot yourself or one of your colleagues.’ He smiled at Sonny sympathetically as he stood up and went around the desk to complete the paperwork.
Sonny hid a smile of triumph, thinking: Thank God it was you I saw and not the older, far more experienced doctor that might not have been so easily fooled.
He did have several more fits at necessary intervals when it seemed he was being looked at by those above as medically sound to join the fighting force. So, whilst Joshua and Solly were risking life and limb with thousands of others in France and Italy, Sonny was risking nothing helping to run stores in several different camps in the north of England. He had himself a ball in his spare time; dancing, gambling and drinking his pay away and having sex with any of the local girls willing to give their bodies to him. Some of Sonny’s peers made themselves nice little nest eggs through being in league with local black-market racketeers. Much to Sonny’s rancour, he was working alongside very patriotic types that wouldn’t entertain the idea of betraying their country by being involved in such activities, so his chances to make any money on the side was very limited and extremely risky. So, when he was demobbed, he did not have an illicitly gained wad of bank notes in his pocket but just a few pounds above his allowance he’d managed to put by.
His family never learned the truth of just how it was that Solly was pronounced unfit to fight when, as far as they were concerned, Sonny was as fit and healthy as his elder and younger brother, who both passed their medicals with flying colours. Regardless, he was welcomed home as much a hero as Solly was, and all mourned together the loss of Joshua.
Sonny was sad his elder brother had died; he had loved him very much. That said, his death would prove very fortunate for him. Now he was the eldest living son and that meant that when his father died, he would be his heir and the fair would be his. With the kind of money at his disposal from the sale of it, he would find himself in a far better position to come up with a superior plan for getting outsiders to suffer for their untoward ill feeling against him. He had plenty of time to come up with an idea as his father was still hale and hearty and had a good few more years in him yet, but patience was a virtue – or so he had heard. The longer he waited for vengeance to be reaped, the sweeter it would be. Until the time came, he was content to carry on getting it the way he had before the war had disrupted him.
Sonny ground the tip end of his roll-up in an overflowing astray and looked disinterestedly out the window of the small, central operating room. Through the whizzing chairs he spotted his father in his trademark striped jacket, hobbling amongst the crowds and checking all was well. For a moment he felt a flicker of guilt over what he planned to do with his father’s beloved fair once he was dead but that quickly passed. His father could have sold the fair at any time and done whatever he wanted with the proceeds but, instead, he had chosen to keep it running to support his family. Sonny had no family to support and no children to leave the business to when he passed on so, as far as he was concerned, he had no need to feel any guilt for what he planned to do with it once it became his. His lip then curled sardonically and he sniggered to himself. Solly was under the false illusion that all his labour was in order to keep the business profitable to provide him and his family a living and for generations to come. He couldn’t wait to see Solly’s face when he discovered that all his effort had been purely to fund his brother’s future, not his own. But, far more importantly, how would Gem cope? She had given up a very privileged lifestyle to marry Solly, but would she be prepared to live the far more frugal one as the wife of a mere fairground worker? Hopefully she wouldn’t be prepared to and would leave Solly to return back to her old way of life. To lose the love of his life, Sonny knew, without doubt, would devastate his brother far more than the loss of the fair would. Then Solly would know just what it felt like to have his life shattered at the hands of a woman, just like he himself had.
Chapter Three
At just after eleven-thirty that evening, Gem was looking at her two sons, annoyed. James, Jimmy, the image of his father; ruggedly good-looking, dark-haired, six foot. He was the eldest at nineteen and was sitting on a chair in the lounge area of the living van taking off his shoes. Taking more after her own side of the family was fair-haired seventeen-year-old Robert, Robbie, narrowed-shouldered and slim of build. Not so tall as his brother at five foot ten, he had already taken off his shoes and was tiredly lolling back on a comfortable, well-worn red velvet-covered horsehair sofa waiting for his mother to serve him his supper. The first day of a fair arriving and setting up and the last day, packing up and moving on, were the two busiest of the week and at the end of both days even the youngest and fittest members of the community were too tired to have the energy for much else but having a bite to eat and crawling into bed.
‘Did you two gannets have to eat all the leftover apple pie and not save some of it for your dad and grandfather? What am I going to give them now for their supper?’
Both young men looked up at her, puzzled. ‘I haven’t eaten any pie, only what I had at dinner. Anyway, I walked in tonight the same time as you did, Mam, so you know I haven’t eaten any,’ Robbie told her through a loud yawn.
‘And I came in just after you both, so the same goes for me,’ said Jimmy. ‘Maybe Dad slipped back earlier and scoffed it.’
‘Dad came home earlier and scoffed what?’ said their father, taking off his jacket which he hung on one of three hooks on the wall beside the barn-style van door.
Gem spun to face him and snapped, ‘Oh, you didn’t, Solly? You greedy so-and-so. You could have left some for your sons and father.’
As he walked into the room and sat down on a wooden dining chair at the table in the kitchen area and began to take off his shoes, Solly looked at them all bemused. ‘Would someone kindly tell me what I’m supposed to have come back earlier and scoffed the lot of?’
Gem enlightened him. ‘The remains of the apple pie I was going to give you all for supper.’
He shrugged. ‘I never came back here at all tonight so I couldn’t have eaten the pie.’
Gem eyed him blankly. ‘Well, it’s all gone, hardly a crumb left in the dish, so if it wasn’t any of you three that ate it, then who on earth was it? Your father never eats between meals these days and Sonny… Well it’s hardly likely to be him that’s the culprit as he never eats with us except for high days and holidays and hardly pays us a social visit when we’re here let alone when we’re not and, besides, he never eats puddings.’
Robbie looked knowingly at her. ‘Well someone obviously did, Mam. But, more to the point, I’m starving so if we’re not having pie, what are we having?’
At that question the other two men in the room looked at her expectantly too.
Big Sam then arrived, rubbing his hands and proclaiming, ‘It’s getting nippy out there. The sky is clearing so could have a frost.’ He looked at Sonny. ‘Might be wise to put a tarpaulin over your van genny or you might have a job to get it started in the morning if we do.’ As he sat down next to Robbie on the sofa he looked at Gem enquiringly and grumbled, ‘No cuppa or supper on the go yet.’ And not being able to
resist a chance to remind her of her non-blood show-woman status, added, ‘If you was a true show woman it’d be on the table by now and the kettle on the stove ready to refill the pot for a second cuppa.’
‘That’s enough, Dad,’ Solly shot warningly at him.
His father eyed him innocently. ‘Just stating a fact, Son. Our womenfolk would never stand idly by while they had starving men around.’
So used to jibes of such nature after twenty years of them from her husband’s father, knowing there was no maliciousness intended and that it was just his way of reminding her that she was only a show woman by default, Gem responded, ‘For all a true red-blooded show woman she was, I doubt Nell could have filled your belly from an empty plate, Mr Grundy.’ Gem had long ago stopped wondering whether if she had been a true-blood show woman she would have been allowed by Sam to call him Dad. Perhaps it was old-fashioned respect that he had never allowed her to address him in any manner but by his full title. After her marriage, however, Nell had insisted Gem call her Mother.
Sam looked confused. ‘Eh?’
Jimmy laughed. ‘We’ve had a visit from the pie thief, Granddad.’
He looked even more confused.
Robbie enlightened him. ‘Some kind soul let themselves in while we were all out working and ate the leftover apple pie Mam was giving us for supper.’
Sam’s face darkened thunderously. ‘I’ll skin the buggers alive if I catch whoever did it. There’s no one who has such light pastry hands as my Nell did, but you come a close second, girl.’ And before he realised that he was paying his daughter-in-law a compliment added, ‘As apple pie’s not on the cards, what is then?’
Gem sighed. She really didn’t feel like cooking this time of night and, besides, she hadn’t anything to cook except for what was intended for breakfast tomorrow morning. She hadn’t had time to shop today, having been busy enough playing her part in setting up the fair for opening this afternoon, along with all her other chores she’d had to fit in. So all that she could offer her hungry brood right now was toast and jam. A choice between that and going hungry, they all readily accepted her offering.
It didn’t escape Gem’s notice that Sam seemed in a hurry to finish his supper and make his leave. It was no secret that, since Nell had died, when the evening was a dry one, he had taken to visiting Velda to have a nightcap with her and these chats, talking mostly of Nell to a woman outside the family who knew her well, had helped ease his grief. But lately Gem felt that something within Sam had changed and these visits were no longer just to have a friendly chat with Velda. She suspected that he had developed feelings for her and wanted more from her now than just friendship. She had never broached the subject with Sam. Sam was definitely not the kind of man that easily divulged his feelings; he kept them very close to his chest and would only have gruffly told her that she was imagining things and to mind her own business. Neither had she mentioned her suspicions to Solly as he had idolised his mother; her death had hit him hard. If his father was to take up with Velda or any other woman, in fact, it was best coming from him. But, even so, that didn’t mean she couldn’t try and quash her curiosity over the matter by carefully probing Velda herself though, did it?
Secretly, she hoped that Sam did find someone to share the rest of his life with and knew that the big-hearted Nell would be happy about that too. Gem also thought that if that woman was Velda then she herself – and Nell too – couldn’t be happier for him. Nell had thought a lot of Velda, valued her friendship greatly. Gem herself owed Velda a great debt of gratitude. She had very much been Gem’s ally when she had first joined the Grundy family and faced the backlash of Solly’s decision to marry an outsider. If it hadn’t been for Velda’s support and encouragement, she and Solly might not still be happily married now with two strapping sons. She would more than welcome Velda into their tight-knit family circle as her stepmother, should her suspicions be correct.
A while later, Jimmy and Robbie in their separate bunks, Gem was snuggled comfortably into Solly in their small bedroom at the front of the van. She was just dropping off into a peaceful sleep when, all of a sudden, she was jerked out of her slumber by Solly exclaiming, ‘Oh, hell!’ The covers were then thrown back, he jumped out of bed and began to pull his clothes back on.
Yanking the covers back over herself, she looked over at his shadowy form moving around in the darkness and demanded, ‘What on earth is wrong, Solly?’
He responded in a frustrated tone. ‘I forgot to cover the genny when I turned it off before I came to bed. Best go and do it as a precaution in case Dad is right and we do have a frost.’ He leaned down, kissed her cheek and tenderly told the love of his life, ‘Won’t be long. You go back to sleep.’
She snuggled back down. ‘Don’t you dare put your cold feet on me when you come back and wake me up.’
He just smiled as they both knew he would.
Millions of stars twinkled down from an almost cloudless sky and an icy nip in the air made Solly shiver as he stepped down the wooden van steps onto the hard ground below. His father’s prediction that there would be a frost seemed very likely, he thought as he made his way round the back of the van to fetch the tarpaulin generator cover. Enough light from a three-quarter moon alleviated Solly’s need for a torch. When not in use, he always kept the tarpaulin cover folded up and secured for safekeeping under straps on top of the large tool box fixed to the back of the van. He was surprised though to find it wasn’t there. He frowned. On arrival at any place, his first job was always to set the generator up and running so Gem could have electricity in the van to aid her in getting food on the go. Yesterday evening, as soon as they had arrived here, he distinctly remembered removing the tarpaulin that he had covered the old generator with when they had left the last place in order to protect it during transportation, folded it up, put it on top of the tool box and secured the straps over it. But then, as it wasn’t here, he couldn’t have, could he? He walked back around to the side of the van to where the genny was sited and looked around it. No sign of the tarpaulin. Had it somehow been kicked under the van itself then? To discourage vermin fairfolk were very vigilant that nothing food-wise or anything they could nest in was left lying around. If the tarp was under the van and rats had already made a home inside then Solly would be very cross with himself for being lax.
It was almost pitch black under the van but, to save him going back inside to fetch a torch and his rummaging around possibly waking the others, Solly took a chance that if the tarp was just under there then there was enough light for him to see it. If it was further underneath he would have to fetch a torch. Running around the two sides and back of the van between the four wheels were storage cupboards leaving only just over the wheel width between the bottom of the cupboards and the ground so Solly had to flatten himself on the ground to see underneath it. At first glance the space under the van didn’t appear to have any darker shapes indicating something was under there but on a second look around he spotted something beside the inside of the wheel nearest to him. It appeared to be a bundle of some sort. Was it the elusive tarpaulin cover? But just how had it come to be under there though…
Crawling under the van, Solly reached out and grabbed hold of an edge of the bundle. He knew by the feel of the material that it was tarpaulin he was clutching, but it appeared to be caught on something. He gave another hard tug of it. At this, and to his own shock, a surprised yelp resounded from under the tarp and something inside it began to move. Solly froze. Was it a rat? But then rats didn’t yelp, they squeaked! Whatever was hiding in the tarpaulin was human. Had his own unexpected appearance disturbed a burglar? Perhaps he found the length of tarpaulin and hid himself under it until Solly himself had gone back inside and he could carry on with what he was up. That or he was a vagrant using it as a place to sleep for the night? Whoever it was, though, was fighting to free himself from under the tarp and it was Solly’s guess that, as soon as they did, they would make their escape out of the other side and
be long gone before he could get around there to catch them. Solly’s reactions were quick. Like an attacking snake he slithered further under the van and, as best as he could in such a restricted space, flung himself on top of the tarpaulin, pinning down the person under it who was still flaying about in their efforts to free themselves from its folds.
‘I’ve got you. Come out now.’ But the thrashing about still continued so Solly commanded in no uncertain terms, ‘I’m warning you, don’t make me use force. I’ve a hammer in my hand and I will use it,’ he lied.
At that the flaying abruptly stopped and, after a moment, a timid voice stuttered, ‘Please don’t hurt me, mister. I wasn’t doing nothing bad, ’onest I wasn’t. I was only sleeping. Oh, you’re heavy. I can’t breathe—’
The tone of voice told Solly that the person was a young lad. Twelve or thirteen, certainly no older. Doubting he posed a threat, Solly eased himself off the top of him and wriggled back, but still keeping within grabbing distance should the young man try a bid for escape. Slowly the outline of a body started to emerge and the more that revealed itself, the further Solly inched back out from under the van until, a few moments later, they were both sitting by the side of it.
The intruder was a young boy of around ten. As Solly studied him for a moment a flicker of recognition struck but for the life of him he couldn’t place just where he had seen him before. Then it came to him. It wasn’t the boy himself he recognised but the shabby brown coat he was wearing. It had a tear in the sleeve, the same tear he had seen on the coat being worn by the figure huddled on the ground who was being attacked earlier.
Head bowed low, arms wrapped around himself, the boy was violently shivering and Solly was of the opinion that it wasn’t from the cold but from fear as to how his captor was going to deal with him for trespassing under his van. He placed a reassuring hand on his knee and said, ‘Stop worrying, you’re not in trouble, lad. I’m just glad I found you alive tonight and not in the morning frozen to death.’