All the Fun of the Fair

by Lynda Paige

  She couldn’t believe how much she had to thank her father for being solely responsible for her meeting the man of her dreams. His compulsive gambling had cost the family dearly, at times seen them go hungry and cold but, had he not had his habit, she wouldn’t have gone into the bookies two weeks ago and met her saviour. Fate certainly had been looking after her that day.

  She took a quick glance at her watch. Time to make a move. This was probably the last time she would see her parents. Did that bother her? No. Not at all. She despised her father for his selfishness and bullying and loathed her mother in equal measure for not protecting herself or her children.

  She addressed her mother, ‘I’ve got a headache, Mam, so I’m just going back to my van to have a couple of pills.’

  The weary-looking, middle-aged, shabbily dressed woman who looked at least twenty years older than her forty-two years shot a worried look at her daughter. Not out of concern for her, although she was, but more for the fact that she knew that once Suzie left, her husband would start bullying money from her. It was money she needed to buy food and necessities that he used to fund his lunchtime session at the nearest pub and a visit to the bookies before the fair opened at two. With Suzie not around to stop him from helping himself out of her handbag, she was no match for him. She flustered, ‘Oh, no need, love, I’ve a bottle of aspro in my handbag. I’ll get them for you.’

  ‘It’s alright, Mam, I want the privy as well.’ She leaned over and pecked her cheek. ‘Take care of yourself.’

  Suzie’s mother watched her leave, frowning and bewildered. That was an odd thing for her daughter to say to her considering she was only going to be away for no more than a few minutes?

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Solly was on his way to the fair entrance with several coloured lightbulbs to replace ones that he had noticed had blown earlier that morning. As he passed by Ren’s stall he called, ‘Morning, Ren.’

  The response that he got from her to his greeting was, ‘Oh, bugger. Oh, sod it. Oh, damn.’

  He stopped his pace to stare over at her, mystified. ‘Anything wrong, Ren?’

  She heaved a despondent sigh. ‘I’ll say there is. Bloody rats or mice have got into my last three sacks of sugar. I don’t know how they managed it as the sacks were locked in the cupboard at the side of my candy-floss machine.’ She disappeared from Solly’s view behind the candy-floss machine for a moment before she reappeared again, an angry scowl on her face. ‘They’ve gnawed a hole in the back of the cupboard and that’s how they got in.’

  Solly looked at his watch as he stepped over to her. ‘The wholesaler shuts at twelve on a Saturday and it’s now coming up to half eleven so you’ll never get there in time, even if I got Dickie Bickers to drive you who thinks our lorries are racing cars. You’ll have to replace the sugar from the grocer down the road.’

  ‘And pay through the nose for it,’ she grumbled. ‘Bang goes any profit I might have made today.’

  ‘The Irish have a saying for times like this. Sod’s law. I’ll get one of the lads to repair that hole for you. I’d take you myself to the grocer’s but I’ve a few jobs to see to before opening. Just bear with me a minute and I’ll find—’ He stopped short as, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Donny talking to one of the stallholders. He called to him, ‘Donny, you busy for the next half hour?’

  He called back, ‘Not particularly, boss. I’ve done all my jobs so was going around to see what help anyone else needed before I head back to my van for dinner. Just asked Harry here, but he says he’s fine.’

  Harry Oldershaw, a rotund, jolly man in his late forties wearing a loud checked suit and trilby hat on his completely football-shaped bald head, who owned the Mighty Striker stall, jovially called over to Solly, ‘Apart from the fact that me poor feet could do with a massage, but as Donny ain’t a bonny young lassie, then he doesn’t quite fit the bill. Oi, but don’t tell the missus or she’ll have me guts for garters.’

  Sonny chuckled at Harry’s quip before he called back over to Donny, ‘I’ve a job for you.’

  Ren realised just what that job was and urgently insisted, ‘Oh, no need to bother Donny, Mr Grundy. I can manage this myself. A walk will do me good.’ Ren didn’t drive. Not that she wouldn’t like to learn and have the independence a vehicle of her own would bring her, it was simply that she was too small for her feet to reach the pedals.

  ‘Struggling down that country lane lugging big bags of sugar and in this hot weather. You think I’m going to let you do that?’ Solly looked appalled. Just then, Donny joined them. Much to Ren’s upset, he didn’t even look at her let alone acknowledge her presence. ‘You won’t mind will you, Donny?’

  ‘Mind what, boss?’

  ‘Driving Ren to the grocer down the road to buy some sugar. Rats have made a meal of all she had left to make the candy floss with.’

  He shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. After what he learned about her from his wife, he preferred not to have to spend a second in the woman’s company, let alone at least half an hour, but then he didn’t see how he could get out of it, so lied, ‘Er… no, no, course not.’

  The half a mile or so walk to the shops from the fairground took roughly twenty minutes so driving in a lorry took less than five, but to the two estranged occupants in the lorry cab, bouncing up and down as the wheels hit the ruts in the rough country road, the journey seemed like hours.

  It was very apparent to Ren that Donny hadn’t at all wanted to drive her to the shops and just how uncomfortable he was in her company. He sat, staring straight ahead out of the window, his body taut. He didn’t speak one word to her. She hadn’t tried as she hadn’t wanted to purposely cause herself hurt with the likely rebuff she would get from him. Considering how close they had used to be, as close as any friends could possibly be without any romance between them, Ren was bewildered as to why Donny couldn’t even look at her now. What had she done that was so bad this state of affairs had resulted? By the time they did arrive at the shops, she couldn’t contain herself any longer. She respected the fact that Donny had decided, after all these years, to end their friendship but the least he could do was give her a reason for doing so. Having an opportunity like this to get him to explain himself might not come along again for a very long time, if ever in fact. It was now or never.

  As he turned off the engine she shifted her body on the long front bench seat to face him and, before she lost her nerve, blurted, ‘Why are you being like this with me, Donny? We’ve been such good friends since we were babies. What have I done that’s so bad you can’t even look at me now? Considering we were such good friends, I deserve to be told.’

  He was looking straight out of the window, not looking directly at her, when he responded, ‘I know, Ren.’

  She frowned, bewildered. ‘Know what?’

  Face screwed up darkly, he spun his head to look at her and blared out, ‘How you really feel about me, that’s what I know.’

  She gasped, astounded. Donny knew that she loved him, worshipped the ground he walked on! She shuddered. Judging by the look on his face, the very thought was disgusting to him. So was that why he didn’t want to be around her, as knowing she loved him was so abhorrent to him? She implored him, ‘Look, I never meant you to find out. I never told anyone, so how on earth…’

  ‘Liar!’ he spat at her. ‘You told anyone who’d listen. Thank God Suzie decided to tell me what you were saying about me behind my back or you’d still be making a complete fool of me while I was none the wiser, believing you were my best friend.’

  She was gawping at him, astounded. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Donny.’

  He sneered at her. ‘Yes you do. Making fun of me behind my back.’

  She gasped, stunned, and spoke emphatically and with an amount of indignance, ‘I have never done any such thing. If I am guilty of talking behind your back it was only to sing your praises.’

  He glared at her. ‘So calling me an imbecile, an idiot, ridiculi
ng me all the time, is singing my praises, is it?’

  She was too shocked by what he was accusing her of to be relieved at the fact that it wasn’t, after all, that she loved him that he was proclaiming he knew. ‘What!’ she exclaimed, horrified. ‘I have never called you any such thing. I swear on my life I haven’t. Who would tell you such terrible things?’

  ‘Suzie did. She hated hurting me but she couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer, me not knowing how you really felt and treating me like you were. Going to try and convince me Suzie’s lying, are you?’

  ‘If that’s what she’s told you, then yes I am.’

  ‘She’s my wife, she wouldn’t. Anyway, why would she have need to?’

  Apart from the fact that she didn’t like the fact that her husband had a close relationship with another woman, despite the fact that woman was no threat to her on a romantic level, Ren had no idea. She wanted to tell Donny how badly his wife treated her when no one was around and that she had good reason to believe that she was playing around behind his back, but couldn’t bring herself to hurt him and he might think she was making it up to excuse away what Suzie was accusing her of. Over Donny’s shoulders, through the driver’s door window, it was then that Ren noticed someone heading over to the bookie’s. ‘Why don’t we ask her now?’ She pointed out of the window.

  Donny turned and looked in the direction Ren was pointing to see his wife heading into the betting shop. Her father must have persuaded her to place a bet for him. But why was she lugging a couple of suitcases and her vanity case with her?

  By the time Donny got out of the lorry, Ren was scrambling out after him. She wanted Suzie to look her in the eyes when she tried to worm her way out of the lies she had told her husband. Suzie had disappeared inside the shop and they followed after her.

  Inside the small office behind the counter the man behind the desk, which was piled high with paperwork he’d been dealing with before his visitor had unexpectedly arrived, was looking at Suzie, agog. ‘What are you doing here? Bernie knows he’s not supposed to send anyone back here without getting my say-so first, especially if I’ve got the safe open. The amount of money we take here, to have it at hand for them to snatch and run off with… I’ll be having words with him. Anyway, I thought we were meeting tonight after you finish helping your friend at the fairground for a last evening together before you go home to Carlisle tomorrow.’

  She shot him a winning smile and, before he could stop her, she had gone to his desk, swung him around in his seat and sat on his knee, running her fingers tenderly down the side of his face. She said seductively to him, ‘That’s it, Bobby, I’m not going home.’ She cupped his chin and kissed his lips. ‘I know how devastated you were going to be when I was gone. You’ve kept telling me how much you love me and will miss me. So now you don’t have to. I made some telephone calls this morning and gave up my job and flat. We can be married as soon as you like. If you give me your keys, I’ll go and settle myself into your house and be waiting for you when you come home.’ She left him in no doubt just where she would be waiting for him.

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten something, Suzie. That you’re married to me.’

  The unexpected voice made the pair in the chair look over to the door.

  Still reeling from Suzie’s announcement, Bobby was unable to react at that moment to yet another unannounced intrusion into his office. Suzie jumped up from his knees and, for a moment, stared at her husband, panic-struck. Then anger at his appearance and the prospect of all her hard work being scuppered reared up and she angrily demanded, ‘What are you doing here? Are you following me?’ She then spotted Ren. ‘And what’s she doing here?’

  Bobby found his voice then and angrily cried, ‘You never told me you were married.’

  She spun to face him. ‘There was no point as my marriage is over.’

  Although he felt like this was a nightmare he was in the middle of, Donny shot at her, ‘And you didn’t bother to tell me it was?’

  ‘I left you a letter.’

  ‘A letter! Is that all I am worth to you? I don’t understand. You never gave me any hint that you weren’t happy with me.’

  She sneered. ‘Happy! I was as miserable as sin. Did you never think to question why someone like me, with my looks, would settle for a boring ordinary-looking bloke like you who could only offer me a caravan to live in. I’m worth more than that, much more.’

  ‘So why did you marry me then?’

  ‘Because you were a better bet at the time than living with my parents.’

  He felt like someone was ripping his heart out and wringing it tightly. ‘So you’ve never loved me,’ he uttered.

  Her reply was blunt. ‘No. Couldn’t care less about you if you want the truth.’

  Ren couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her heart was breaking for Donny. Regardless, she wanted answers to another matter. ‘If you’ve never loved Donny and didn’t care about him, then why cause trouble between me and him by telling him those lies you made up about me? Why break up our friendship?’

  She smirked. ‘Because I wasn’t prepared for him to realise that I wasn’t the one he really loved and should be married to and risk him leaving me until I didn’t have need of him any more.’

  Donny gawped at her. ‘What on earth are you talking about? There’s no one else.’

  She sniggered, looking at him like he was the village idiot. ‘I needn’t have bothered breaking you two apart as you’re too thick to know who you really love.’

  Bobby then found his voice and asked her, ‘And what makes you think I meant what I said when I told you I loved you, Suzie? You must have told your husband lots of times you loved him and obviously never meant it.’

  She looked at him, frozen, as the truth dawned on her. She gasped. ‘You’re telling me you lied to me! Why, you bastard.’

  He laughed. ‘The pot calling the kettle black. You’re not the only one who lies to get what they want.’

  ‘What’s it like getting a taste of your own medicine, Suzie,’ Ren shot at her.

  Suzie spun to face her, glaring at her menacingly. ‘You shut your mouth, you fucking freak.’

  ‘Oi, don’t speak to Ren like that, Suzie,’ Donny snapped.

  She shot back, ‘And why should I have doubted that you would jump to her defence against me.’

  ‘Because she’s my friend and I won’t have anyone speak to her like that.’

  She smirked. ‘Just a friend, eh?’ Then her situation with the man she had pinned all her hopes on for her better future overwhelmed her and she spun back to face him and pleaded, ‘I know you don’t mean what you said, Bobby. You do love me. You’re just angry I never told you I was married. You know I love you with all my heart. That’s the honest truth, on my life it is. I’ll be a good wife to you. I’ll make sure you never want for anything. We’re meant to be together. I’m sorry you found out about my marriage like this. I was going to tell you, honest I was. I’ll get one of those quickie divorces.’

  Bobby rose from his chair, placed his hands on her shoulders, fixed his eyes on hers and, in no uncertain terms, told her, ‘I do want to get married, Suzie. Only when I meet the right woman though, not a slut like you. All you were to me was a bit of fun. It didn’t take me long to work out what you were truly after when you realised I wasn’t just a handsome face but owned several betting shops and had done very well for myself out of them. Thought you’d just have to bat your eyelashes and I’d be putty in your hands. Well, that might have worked on chump over there, who was stupid enough to marry you, but not me, lady. That life of Riley you thought I’d give you, well, I will give that to some woman but, as I’ve already told you, that won’t be you. I have to say, though, that you’re not bad in bed, I will give you that. Certainly know what a man wants so that he’s desperate for more. That and only that is why I’ve been seeing you for the last two weeks. It certainly wasn’t for your scintillating conversation or your knowledge on anything more than what Marilyn
Monroe or Jane Russell is up to according to the latest Hollywood gossip in those trashy magazines you read or what the latest fashion in hairstyles is.’ He then dropped his hands and addressed Donny, ‘I feel sorry for you, mate, being stuck with the likes of her for a wife. If you’ve any sense you’ll get shot as quick as you can. Now, will you please all leave my office as I have work to do.’ He then added to Suzie, ‘Don’t forget your stuff. I don’t want you having any reason to come back here.’ He then called out, ‘Bernie, come in here, I want a word with you.’

  Suzie stared at Bobby, stupefied, as her dreams lay shattered around her.

  All Ren's thoughts were on Donny. She turned her head to address him but, to her shock, the space he had been standing in was empty. She dashed outside but, to her dismay, saw no sign of him or the lorry. Before she could start to panic, Suzie arrived out of the betting shop dragging her luggage along with her.

  As soon as she saw Ren the utter misery her face had been wreathed in changed to fury. Dropping her luggage she leapt over to Ren, slapped her hard on her face, whilst screaming furiously out, ‘You bitch. You bloody bitch. This is all your doing. You’ve wrecked everything. I’ll kill you, I will. Bobby was going to give me the life I’ve always wanted… the life I deserved and you’ve ruined it. You’ve been spying on me, you must have or how did you know to bring Donny here this morning and confront me in Bobby’s office?’

  Ignoring the pain from her smarting cheek, Ren glared darkly up at her nemisis and told her in no uncertain terms, ‘Hit me again and I’ll give you as good back, Suzie. For your information, I haven’t been spying on you. I’ve better things to do with my time. If you need to find blame for Donny and me catching you out in your disgusting plan then it was down to mice.’ If the situation hadn’t been so tense then Ren would have laughed at the look of abject confusion on Suzie’s face at what she’d just told her. ‘It’s you that’s wrecked your own life through your own greed. Nothing is ever good enough for women like you. Even if me and Donny hadn’t happened to have been here today and Bobby hadn’t been bright enough to see you for what you are, your relationship with him wouldn’t have lasted long as the life he was giving you soon wouldn’t have been enough and you’d have been on the lookout for someone else that could give you more. I hope you rot in hell for what you’ve done to Donny but I bet you won’t lose one night’s sleep over it because the only person you care about is yourself.’ She then sneered disgustedly at her. ‘You know you won’t have an easy time of it back at Grundy’s after it becomes common knowledge what you did as, despite what you think about Donny, the rest of us think very well of him, so I’d lie low for a good long time if I was you. Go and stay with a friend for a bit away from the fairground… that’s if you have any, that is.’