All the Fun of the Fair

by Lynda Paige

  Sam’s eyes narrowed and he snapped, ‘It wasn’t a request, lad.’

  Micky gave an irritated sigh. ‘Hold the fort,’ he said off-handedly to the woman who had given birth to him as he put the fare he’d just taken off a customer in the money pouch around his waist. Then he bent to crawl through a small door in the skirt of the stall, under the circular water trough holding the gliding ducks.

  Sam fixed his rheumy eyes onto the nonchalant ones of his companion and asked, ‘How many ducks have you got swimming around?’

  Micky shrugged beefy shoulders. ‘You can see for yourself, boss, a few.’

  ‘How many is a few?’

  He shrugged again and snapped, ‘I dunno… fifty?’

  ‘And how many of that fifty are winners?’

  Micky looked at him warily. ‘Why yer asking me that, boss?’

  ‘Just answer, Micky. How many?’

  ‘I dunno. A few.’

  ‘How many is a few?’

  Micky frowned, bothered. ‘Why yer asking me that?’

  Sam hissed, ‘How many, Micky? Or do I count them myself?’

  He hung his head and shuffled uncomfortably on his large flat feet before muttering under his breath, ‘None.’

  Sam’s eyes darkened, thunderous, and he growled, ‘Repeat that, Micky, and just a bit louder as I’m getting on, see, and can’t hear so well.’

  He lifted his head and shot back, ‘None. I said NONE.’

  ‘I thought that’s what you said in the first place but I couldn’t believe me own ears so I just wanted to confirm it.’ Before Micky could stop him, Sam had grabbed him by the throat with a iron-like grip that defied his age and, pushing his face wreathed in anger into his, he snarled, ‘We offer our punters a game of chance, Micky, you are offering them no chance. In fact, what you are doing is stealing off them. Your father would be turning in his grave if he knew what you were up to. He was one of the most honest men I have ever met. If it wasn’t for the respect I have for your mother I’d have you off my fair now and, I tell you this, I’d make sure other fairs were warned about what you get up to so it wouldn’t be easy for you to get a pitch anywhere else in a hurry. Now, at least ten of the ducks should be winners, so sort it now, lad. Be warned I shall be regularly checking – or my sons will be – and you’ll never know when. And, another thing, if I ever see your mother sitting like she is looking like she’s waiting for the grim reaper to call on her, then I shall personally make sure she’s well looked after here with us, but you’ll be long gone. From now on I want to see her with her happy smile making the punters laugh with that funny banter of hers and happy around the fair otherwise too. Is that clear?’ When Micky didn’t answer him, he shouted, ‘I SAID, IS THAT CLEAR?’

  Micky vigorously nodded his head. ‘Yes, Mr Grundy. Yes it is.’

  Sam released his hold on him. ‘Good. Now see to them ducks but first hand me that rag doll.’

  Micky flashed a look at the big doll hanging in pride of place amongst the other prizes of cheap fluffy toys and plastic bags with goldfish swimming inside them hanging from the circular domed roof of the stall and on the support column in the middle, amongst the numerous flashing colourful lights, before bringing his eyes back to look confusedly at Sam. ‘Why d’yer want that? It’s our big prize for anyone who hooks three winning ducks in a row.’

  Sam smiled mockingly. ‘That you made sure no one had any chance of winning… any of your prizes in fact. Just hand it over or I’ll get it myself.’

  Micky ducked back through the small door in the skirt of the stall, grabbed the doll, then leaned over the water trough and, in a begrudging manner, passed it to Sam. Sam shot him a look that said: ‘I’ll be watching you’ before he stepped back over to the still-sobbing little girl and, patting her on her head, said, ‘I think this dolly needs a home and I heard you’d like to give her one.’

  While the child’s mother looked on, stunned, the little girl lifted her head and as soon as her eyes settled on the doll, her tears miraculously dried to beam with a happiness that matched the smile her lips were displaying. As her eager arms stretched out to take the coveted doll from Sam’s hands, she uttered, ‘She’s mine to keep. Honestly, mister?’

  ‘You won her fair and square, lass. The man who runs the stall made a mistake and you did hook a winning duck.’

  She clutched the doll lovingly to her chest and looked up at her mother. ‘Can we take Ermentrude home and show her to Daddy?’

  Her mother smiled tenderly down at her. ‘Yes, of course, love.’ She then said gratefully to Sam, ‘Thank you so much.’ Grabbing her daughter’s hand, they went off, soon to be swallowed up in the crowds.

  Before he carried on with his walk around, Sam looked at his pocket watch, secured to his waistcoat by a thick gold chain. It was a prized treasure his father had given him on his twenty-first birthday, that his own father had given him on his. It was just coming up to ten past nine. Not long now before he was with the woman who had come to mean such a lot to him, who he hoped was going to give him the answer he so wanted to hear when he put his question to her.

  * * *

  A short distance away, Suzie was taking a break from helping her parents on their toy and bric-a-brac stall, smoking a cigarette at the back of it. Her thoughts were whirling, heart thumping in anticipation of what was in store for her once she had finished work that night. She’d told Donny an old friend from one of the fairs her parents had worked with before they’d come to Grundy’s had married an outsider from Barnsley who Suzie had bumped into when she had visited Grundy’s fair earlier that evening. Her husband was away working at the moment with his job as a lorry driver and the old friend – according to Suzie – had invited her to come and see her when she finished work so they could have a catch-up together over a bottle of wine. She was welcome to stay the night – as long as Donny didn’t mind, of course. Good-natured Donny was pleased his wife was going to spend time re-acquainting herself with a long-lost friend, although not so happy she was spending the night as he would miss her.

  Had Donny known where his wife was really going and who she intended to spend the night with, he would have been totally devastated.

  The previous Monday morning Suzie had travelled to the same row of shops that, a couple of hours before, Gem and Velda had visited. She usually went shopping with a couple of other young married women that she was friendly with, but that morning she was not in the mood for anyone else’s company. Despite being ever on the lookout to find herself a man to better her life with, she had been utterly disappointed not to even get a whiff of a possible contender and was starting to feel despondent that she would be stuck for the rest of her life with a boring husband that she was fond of but didn’t remotely love in a way a woman should the man she married, with no better future facing her than the one she had with him now. She was worried that all her future held was living in a caravan with the most basic of amenities, having to work long hours for the few shillings a week her parents gave her for her labours, to supplement the income her husband earned labouring for his parents on their ride, to feed and clothe them both. They had little to spare for any luxuries or social life.

  As she had been about to leave for her shopping trip her father, knowing where she was going, had asked her to place a bet for him on a dead cert at the bookie’s. Suzie had no love for her father. He put gambling and drinking before his family and it was the reason she had grown up with six of them living in a cramped, disintegrating two-person van, wearing cast-offs. Many times the only food they had to eat was what her mother had managed to cadge off other members of the community they were living amongst at the time. They rarely had money to buy fuel for the heater or lamps and Suzie constantly felt the shame and embarrassment of it all. It was this which had ignited the flame in her that when she grew up she was going to do all it took to get the best life she could for herself. This morning she was feeling so low that she couldn’t be bothered to admonish her father for throwing yet more
money down the drain at the expense of her mother going without and so she just snatched it off him, along with the slip of paper with the nag’s name on.

  Suzie was a smoker herself but even she gagged when she took a breath of the cigarette-filled air when she first entered the shop. It was full of groups of shabby-looking men milling around waiting for their races to begin, relayed to them over the radio speaker high on a wall, or venting their anger for bets they had just lost, trying to conjure up excuses to give their wives for their empty pockets. Having fought her way to the counter, ignoring the extremely suggestive remarks she received from various men as she did so, and whilst giving the dodgy-looking man beside her a dark glare for pushing up too close against her for her liking, she slapped the note with the horse’s name, along with two half crowns, on the counter and said tersely to the counter assistant, ‘Half crown each way and can you make it quick so I can get out of this hellhole before I choke to death.’

  As the man took the note and money he responded, ‘Wish all my customers were as good to look at as you. Fancy a drink in the back office, if you’re not in too much of a rush to get off?’

  She was about to tell the bookmaker just what he could do with his drink when she stopped short, clamping shut her mouth. She had expected to be greeted by a hard-faced, loudly dressed man, the same sort that she had on numerous occasions seen her father placing his bets with in the array of bookies he had dragged her inside, so she was shocked to see that this man was young, in his early thirties. He was dressed very smartly in a fashionable dark blue suit and crisp white shirt and his looks were the sort that made her legs go weak. A shiver of anticipation travelled down her spine and, hiding her hand with her wedding ring on it from him, she smiled winningly and told him that, for him, she did have a few minutes to spare for a drink.

  His name was Larry Bickerstaff and she quickly gleaned from him that he was the owner of three thriving bookies in the town, had his own house, sports car and holidayed abroad twice a year. Most importantly, he was unattached. Larry was everything she had been on the lookout for; someone who could give her the kind of life she craved. From that moment, her life with Donny was already fading into the background as she planned her future with Larry. Through her expert conniving and powers of manipulation, she had managed to spend time with him several times since first meeting him that Monday morning. She had been intimate with him on several occasions too. Tonight he was taking her out for dinner and dancing, then she was staying the night with him in his house. She had formulated a plan of how she would install herself in that house when the time came for the fair to pack up and move to their next venue in seven days’ time.

  Larry believed Suzie to be a single woman herself who was just here in Barnsley for two weeks to visit her friend whose parents owned the visiting fair and who she helped out when needed. Back in her fictitious home town of Carlisle, she lived in her own flat, albeit it being rented. She was an orphan, her parents having died when she was young, and she had been raised in a children’s home. She was a personal secretary for an accountant. Larry would be a pushover for her. Already he was smitten – couldn’t keep his hands off her.

  Stubbing out her cigarette, she glanced at her wristwatch. Just over an hour to go and she would be heading off for a night of passion. He didn’t know it yet, but Larry was going to give her the future she’d promised herself.

  * * *

  Over on the dodgems, with his hand hovering over the controls and humming along with Bill Haley and the Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’ that was blasting out, Solly watched the riders manoeuvring the gaily coloured toy-town-like cars around. He took a glance at his wristwatch as he brought the ride to an end and the vehicles slowed to a stop. The riders began to clamber their way out and the next punters scrambled excitedly in. It was coming up for nine-thirty. He smiled to himself. Finding out that his two sons were going out after work tonight and his father informing him that he wouldn’t be having supper with them this evening either as he had other plans – which he declined to enlighten Solly about, leaving him filled with intrigue about just what his elderly father could possibly be up to – meant that himself and Gem would be on their own. It had been a while since he’d showed her how much he loved and appreciated her, and tonight he planned to. As soon as the last stragglers left, he’d secured the dodgems for the night, then made sure no one else needed his help around the fair, the fun could begin. He’d already arranged with a gaff lad to fetch fish and chips and deliver them to his van along with the bottle of wine and bunch of flowers he’d gotten one of the women fair workers to bring him back from their shopping trip earlier. He intended to head straight to their van to have the table set and the wine cooling in a bucket of cold water to surprise Gem with as soon as she came in; her believing she still wasn’t finished for the night as she had supper to cook and clear away, then ready the van for rising the next morning. He couldn’t wait to see that lovely face of hers light up when she saw her surprise.

  Bill Haley had finished rocking around the clock by now and the gaff lad in charge of keeping the music playing had chosen ‘Cool Water’ by Frankie Laine and the Mellomen. Once all the punters were seated and Solly had started off their ride, he looked across towards the waltzers that his brother was in charge of and the pleasure that had been flooding through him at the thought of the special time ahead with his wife left him to be replaced with sadness. He sighed. Had the relationship he had with his brother been different, Solly would have invited him, along with a girlfriend if he had one, to join him and Gem tonight; to share their meal with a glass or two of wine or beer, have some laughs playing cards. Gem would have liked that as she loved company.

  He was still as much at a loss as he had been over twenty years ago when his brother, one he had shared as close a relationship as ever brothers could, suddenly changed overnight from the fun-loving, good-natured nineteen-year-old he had been into a surly, distant stranger. What he did in his spare time, Solly had no idea; if he went out, stayed in alone, entertained anyone he’d met whilst working or out and about in whatever place they were playing in. He never joined in with any family occasion, nor any Grundy community social get-togethers. He kept himself very much to himself. All his family had been bewildered by the sudden change in him and nothing they had done to try and restore Sonny to his old self had worked. But then, how could it when they had no idea what caused it in the first place. Even all these years later, Solly still missed the closeness he had shared with Sonny. He never stopped hoping that the old Sonny would somehow miraculously resurface and the relationship return to what it once had been. Otherwise, Solly wasn’t looking forward to what the future could hold when the time came for Sonny to replace their father in charge of the fair. As he was now, Sonny was not a easy man to get on with; he treated everyone he had dealings with in the same indifferent and intolerant manner. It was if he saw everyone as being beneath him. As a boss therefore… Solly was deeply concerned what life would be like for himself and the community.

  A loud scream jerked Solly out of his troubled thoughts. His head spun around in the direction it had come from. A gaff lad was sitting in the middle of the track, face wreathed in agony, clutching his arm to his chest. The cars still whizzed around him and on suddenly spotting a human obstacle in their path, the panic-struck drivers desperately did their utmost to steer their vehicles away from the stricken young man. As he dodged between the cars over to the lad to help, Solly didn’t need to ask him how he’d come to land as he had. Showing off to the pretty girls amongst the drivers, he’d jumped from the back of one moving car to another, misjudged, and landed heavily on the metal plate track. The pain he looked like he was in possibly meant his arm was broken, but hopefully it was just a sprain. Otherwise the lad would need to be taken to hospital and if Solly couldn’t find anyone else that could drive that was free to take him, he’d have to do the deed himself. He prayed he could or else his planned romantic time with his wife looked to be in
jeopardy; there was no telling when another time like this would come along again.

  * * *

  In the operating room of the waltzers, one foot propped up on the small counter, Sonny looked at his wristwatch. It was just after nine-thirty. Not long to go now. He had got himself through the doors of a private drinking club and had been going there for the last three nights. He had ingratiated himself with a group of local businessmen, them believing he was also a businessman. His story as usual was that he was in Barnsley seeking suitable showroom premises to expand his elite car business. He’d even had business cards printed now. One of the men he had met was holding a cocktail party, to which plenty of his business associates were invited. Sonny wasn’t stupid. The man was only cosying up to him in order to secure himself a large discount off a vehicle he might buy from Sonny in the future as payback for introducing him to potential new customers. He was full of glee that the pompous man had absolutely no idea that he’d just invited the sort he saw as scum into his own home to help himself to his chef-prepared rich food, to consume large quantities of his fine wines and liquors and to smoke his expensive Cuban cigars.

  When his plans for the future came to fruition, Sonny planned to visit Belinda. Dressed in his handmade clothes, gold rings on his fingers, a wad of bank notes bulging in his pocket, he would arrive at her door in his luxury car so she could see with her own eyes, hear from his own lips, the grave mistake she had made when she had chosen to believe her own kind’s lies about fairfolk when she refused his proposal. He would also make her aware there would be no redemption for her with Sonny due to the callous way she had turned him down. He vehemently hoped that her life, since he had last seen her, had not gone well. He hoped she was impoverished and in a miserable marriage so his revenge would be all the sweeter.