All the Fun of the Fair

by Lynda Paige

  Suzie snorted, ‘Don’t tell me you care what happens to me?’

  ‘Then I won’t, because I don’t. I dare say though, whatever you do next, you’ll end up smelling of roses. Your sort always do.’

  Suzie raised herself up to her full height and stuck her chin in the air. ‘You’re right, I will. You see if I don’t. As for that stupid idiot I married, well you’re welcome to him.’ She maliciously smirked, stabbed Ren hard in her shoulder and spat, ‘Do you think I had no idea how you really feel about him? I used to laugh myself silly at the way you’d look at him when you thought no one was looking with those cow eyes of yours. On my wedding day as I was saying my vows I was giggling to myself cos I knew that you were in the congregation wishing with all your heart that it was you standing in my place. Well, as I said, as I’ve no longer any use for him, you’re welcome to my cast-off. Of course, that’s as long as he desperate enough to be willing to be seen out with a freak like you on his arm after having someone as gorgeous as me.’ She laughed before she turned from Ren and, still with her head held high, collected her luggage and stalked off in the direction of town.

  Ren sighed heavily. She could have been gloating with pleasure over witnessing Suzie’s downfall but all she felt was a deep sadness for how Donny must be feeling and her need to find him and offer him her support through this terrible time. A woman coming towards her weighed down with a bag of shopping was a reminder to her of why she had come here in the first place. With no transport at her disposal she would, after all, have to lug the heavy sacks of sugar back to the fair. Had Solly not offered Donny’s services as a driver she had been going to borrow a barrow to wheel the sacks back to the fairground. Much to her relief though Ernest Flinders, the grocer, was feeling kindly disposed towards the fairfolk who had considerably upped his profits these last two weeks since they had arrived. Selling three sacks of sugar in one go, a quantity that would usually take him several weeks, made him even more kindly disposed towards them. He offered to leave his wife in charge while he personally drove Ren and her purchases back to the fairground.

  As soon as Ren had stored the sacks of sugar safely away in the now extra-reinforced cupboard next to the candy-floss machine, she went in search of Donny. She was very worried not to see any sight of him or the lorry. It appeared that he hadn’t come back after he’d left the bookies. She wasn’t quite sure what to do but thought she would wait a while. He was probably parked up in some layby somewhere, trying to get his head around what Suzie had done to him. She wished she was with him to offer him her support but, as she wasn’t, all she could do was hope he was alright. When he hadn’t arrived back by the time the fair closed that night, she was worried sick about him and felt it only right she tell his parents.

  His parents were as distraught to find out what Suzie had done to him as Ren was and his fuming mother wasted no time in going to tackle Suzie’s parents over their daughter’s despicable behaviour towards her son. Ren didn’t witness that exchange but heard afterwards that bitter words were thrown at each other and the rift took a long time to heal.

  It was Gem that Ren told what had happened to Donny and who then passed the information on to Solly. Solly then told his father for his instruction as to what he wanted to do about the lorry. As Solly knew he would be, his father was far too concerned for Donny’s welfare to be worried about him taking off with one of their vehicles. As a man who prided himself on being a good judge of character, Sam was angry with himself that he had seen no sign of Suzie’s true nature, believing that she was a caring and willing young woman, same as everyone else had done… except for Ren.

  The whole community prayed that Donny would return safe and sound when he was good and ready. He knew where the fair was due next so would know where to find them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The move from Barnsley to a huge disused factory car park in the middle of Skipton, where the council had relocated the fair after the site they had played on for over fifty years had new houses built on it, didn’t go anywhere near as smoothly as the one to Barnsley had. The good weather turned stormy and the fairfolk had to brace themselves against the wind and rain to dismantle all the rides and stalls and load them securely onto the lorries; the field became a quagmire, vehicles getting stuck fast in the churned-up mud and much time was lost having to tow them out. As it was a new site they were heading to, several members of the community misunderstood the directions Sam gave them and individually got lost, ending up miles from where they should be. They had started to unload before their mistake was realised. On arriving at the new site, Sam was to find that the council employee responsible had forgotten to turn the water and electricity supply on, so they had to rely solely on their oil-powered generators until first thing Monday morning when the council offices would open.

  To worsen matters, two drivers decided to have a bet as to who could arrive at the new destination first. Consequently, racing at speed to pass each other on winding country roads between Barnsley and Skipton, one lorry had to swerve to avoid a collision with an oncoming car and landed in a ditch. It took several hours to locate a local farmer willing to forgo his Sunday dinner to tow the lorry out with his tractor… for a price, of course, so the bet cost them both dearly. It was even worse for the two men; they had no choice but to admit to their tomfoolery as, during the crash, several items on the back of the lorry were damaged as well as the vehicle itself. The men were instantly sent packing by Sam. He turned a blind eye to fun, but not stupidity. Antics such as the men had gotten up to not only put lives at risk and proved very costly but didn’t do the fair’s reputation any good at all.

  So it was touch and go whether the fair would be ready to open at two o’clock on the Monday afternoon, but through everyone’s combined efforts, at one fifty-five the lights were switched on, music began blasting out of the numerous speakers, and all the rides and stalls were manned, ready for the hordes to descend.

  Earlier that Monday morning, the labourer assigned to erect the school tent found that during transit the tent had been amongst the load that had been on the back of the lorry that ended up in the ditch; one of the support posts had been broken. The man, a recent recruit to the Grundy’s workforce, was no carpenter. In fact, he was proving not much good at any task he was given and he was lazy too, so Sam was on the verge of letting him go. The other labourers that had the skills to fix it were otherwise occupied and would be for a long time yet, so Solly volunteered to fix or replace it. He erected the tent himself as soon as he had finished the job he was on. It did mean there was no school that morning, much to the delight of the pupils who found sneaking off to explore the old disused factory far more interesting, even though they had all been warned to steer clear of it.

  It wasn’t until the afternoon when the fair was up and running that Solly got around to dealing with the tent.

  Before he did, he sought out his wife. She was in the pay booth of the House of Fun and was so consumed with her own thoughts that she did not hear the first tap on the window. She heard the second, as it was a loud rap with his fist.

  She jumped and looked out at him crossly. ‘No need to bang so loudly. You nearly broke the glass,’ she scolded him.

  ‘You looked far away when I got here. Nothing the matter, is it?’

  She looked at him blankly for a moment. She wasn’t sure. Just before Solly had arrived, she could have sworn she had spotted a young woman over by the carousel watching her, the same woman she had seen watching her in the last place they had been before they had moved here. That venue had been twenty miles away. It wasn’t unusual for people to travel miles to have themselves some fun at the fair but unusual when they had so recently. But then the woman hadn’t seemed to be having herself any fun, just standing watching Gem until she had spotted that Gem was watching her in return. She then hurried off out of sight. Gem mentally shook herself. Maybe it wasn’t the same woman, just someone who looked like her. ‘No, nothing at all. Just a bit tired like eve
ryone else is today. It was a long day for us all yesterday. Have you had time to fix the school tent yet? The sooner the better as, twice this morning, the kids have had to be herded out of the old factory. I doubt they’ll go back in again though after the warning they got that, if they do, they’ll be made to go to lessons seven days a week instead of five. At least when they’re all at their lessons they aren’t at liberty to get up to stuff they shouldn’t be.’

  ‘I’m just off to do it.’

  She looked at him as if to say, Well, why aren’t you then?

  He looked sheepish. ‘It’s just that I can’t remember the name of the teacher. You know I’ve never have been that great with names and I’ve only met the woman once in the two weeks she’s been with us, when you introduced me in passing when she first came here.’

  ‘It’s Miss Dunn. Emily.’

  ‘Ah, I remember now.’ Then a thought struck him. Why was it that name seemed familiar to him but not in connection with the fair’s school? At that moment he couldn’t think why. ‘I’ll get to it and tell Miss Dunn when it’s all done. See you later.’

  The pole was repairable and didn’t take long to fix. As soon as he had gotten the tent erected, he went to Emily’s van to tell her that she could resume her duties. The neat-looking older woman beamed on seeing who her caller was. ‘Ah, Mr Grundy. It is Mr Grundy, isn’t it? Gem’s husband, or is my memory playing tricks on me?’ It was then she realised he was looking at her strangely. ‘Is anything the matter?’

  As soon as she had opened the door and he had seen her face, the memory stirred of seeing that same face in a photograph recently. First her name had seemed familiar to him and now her face, but somehow not connected with her being here at the fair or to do with the school. He wished he could remember why her name had seemed familiar and where he’d recently seen a photograph of her. ‘Oh, er… no, no, everything is fine. I’ve just come to tell you that the tent is fixed.’

  She looked pleased. ‘That is good news. I shall go and round the children up. I understand they’ve been running their parents ragged this morning. They’ll be pleased even if the children are not, thinking they would be getting the whole day off. Thank you, Mr Grundy.’

  He had heard many of the children’s parents singing this woman’s praises, along with Gem. In the short time she had been teaching the children to read, Gem had told him that some of them were already demanding their parents buy them books from the second-hand shop so they could escape into the exciting fictitious worlds Miss Dunn introduced them to when she read to them. She seemed a genuinely nice person who really cared. Gem was right to put up a fight with his father to take her on so that the next generation of Grundy fairfolk were not going to have to struggle like his generation had done, and those before him, without the ability to read and write. They would certainly know far more about the outside world than he or his likes did. There were so many things that he would like to know that he could have read about had he been able to read.

  As he left her he again wished he could remember why her name had seemed to familiar to him and just where he had seen a likeness of her, but then all his thoughts of Emily Dunn left him as a gaff lad collared him to ask what ride he was being expected to help on that afternoon.

  * * *

  They had just finished their evening meal, Sam had already left and Gem was clearing away. As soon as she finished, she had to take up her duty that night of manning the helter-skelter with Nita, her niece. Solly, Jimmy and Robbie were readying themselves to go and relieve gaff lads on three rides so they could have their evening meal before the evening hordes descended. Jimmy said to his father, ‘I need to go to the privy before I go back to work so you both go ahead without me.’

  ‘Right you are. Oh, you’ll need to take some more newspaper with you as I used the last sheet when I was in there earlier.’

  Jimmy said to his mother, ‘Got any squares already cut, Mam?’

  ‘No. Just rip some paper up for now and I’ll cut some up properly later. You know where I keep the sheets. I know there’s some as your father folded a newspaper up the other night and put it in the drawer.’

  Something then triggered in Solly’s brain, like a bulb being switched on. Newspaper. Photograph. Emily Dunn. That was where he had seen her name and photograph. He called urgently to his son, ‘Don’t take any of that newspaper until I’ve had a look at it first.’

  ‘Why?’ his wife asked him, bemused.

  ‘Because I need to check something.’ He went to the drawer and took out the pile of newspaper sheets Gem saved for use as toilet paper, scanning each sheet until he came to the one he was after. He then proclaimed, ‘There it is.’ He picked up the sheet and held it out to show Gem. ‘That’s a picture of Miss Dunn. It’s not a good photo, but it’s her, else I need glasses. I couldn’t read the whole article but I managed to make out her name and the word police.’

  As she took the page of newspaper, Gem said, bothered, ‘Emily Dunn is in trouble with the police, I don’t believe it!’ As she studied the photograph and read the accompanying article, she looked increasingly worried. ‘The Skipton police are asking if anyone has seen her and, if so, to get in touch with them. I wonder why they want to interview her?’

  ‘She’s wanted for murder,’ offered Jimmy.

  Gem scolded him. ‘Don’t be silly. Miss Dunn is no murderer.’

  ‘She might have smothered her mother for her inheritance for all you know,’ said Robbie.

  ‘You read too many novels, Son,’ said his father. Then he said to his wife, ‘But the police don’t want to speak to anyone without any reason, Gem. You were wondering why a woman like her would want to give up her life to come and travel with us, so maybe now we know that she’s using us to hide from the police. She probably didn’t reckon on any of us spotting a police alert out for her in the newspaper. Most of us can’t read anyway, so she maybe thought the chances weren’t high of that happening.’

  ‘Mmm. But I just can’t imagine Miss Dunn doing anything she shouldn’t. She’s such a sweet, kind lady.’

  ‘I have to say, I felt the same about her myself when I was speaking to her this morning but maybe the sweet old lady bit is just an act. We all thought Suzie was a nice girl and didn’t think for a minute she was capable of doing what she has to Donny,’ Solly reminded her.

  Gem heaved a troubled sigh. What if Emily Dunn was just acting a part like Suzie had been and wasn’t really the sweet older woman they all thought she was but a conniving, deceitful criminal trying to escape justice from her heinous crimes? ‘I suppose we ought to tell your father and ask him what he wants to do?’

  Robbie said, ‘Have you forgotten that Granddad has gone to meet an old chum of his in a pub in town and won’t be back until late?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Herbie Dockers. He was the blacksmith we used to shoe the horses’ shoes when we still had them before we got the lorries. He would also see to any ironwork we needed when we came here. No doubt Dad’ll be the worse for drink when he does roll home,’ said Solly. ‘He left me in charge.’ He raked a hand through his thatch of hair. ‘If the police find out that we knew we have a criminal here and didn’t tell them, that could mean big trouble for us. We need to tell them.’

  * * *

  Panic swamped Sonny when, stretching his legs outside the small operating booth in the middle of the Sky Chairs ride, he spotted Solly with a policeman weaving his way over towards him. He was terrified that, somehow, the authorities had found out that he was hiding illicit goods on behalf of a possible known criminal. His relief was therefore enormous when he saw Solly and the policeman then change direction and head over into the living van area. Whoever the policeman was after was, thankfully, not him. But then should his arrangement with Bossman have come to the authorities’ attention they could strip him naked, search his van and anywhere else associated with him personally from top to bottom, and they wouldn’t find anything anyway. He’d been too clever in selecting his hiding place to mak
e sure that didn’t happen.

  A while after that, Gem was sitting on one of the two small armchairs in front of the wood stove in Emily’s small, one-bedroomed living van. She was looking at the older woman sitting in the other chair, mortified. ‘We didn’t have any choice but to tell the police you were here after Solly seeing the article in the newspaper.’

  Sitting next to her, Emily smiled in understanding and patted her hand. ‘You certainly didn’t have any choice, my dear. How could you turn a blind eye to possibly having a criminal hiding in your midst? Absolutely not, you couldn’t. Had I known the police were looking for me, I would immediately have… turned myself in.’ She issued a chuckle. ‘I can imagine you thinking I was a murderer, or something equally as bad, that was hoping the police would never think to look for me living in a fair. What really surprises me is that my neighbour in the flat downstairs, Mrs Cross, was worried enough about my sudden departure that she thought something suspicious had happened to me so reported it to the police. She and her husband had only moved in three months before, they were out working all day, and I only saw Mrs Cross a couple of times. I wasn’t really that acquainted with her so I never thought to tell her of my plans to leave. I have no family, you see, so the only person I did inform was the landlord and that was by letter which I left on the mantle for him to find when he called to collect the rent. I didn’t give him any details of what my future plans were, just my notice to quit along with the rent until the end of the month. It all happened so quickly you see, having my offer to teach the children accepted and then the fair leaving two days later on the Sunday. So it was only two days to get everything organised to join you.’