Someone Special (33 page)

Hester and Nell were still working with Phillips but they were no longer with the Allingham fair. They had continued very happily with the Allinghams right up to June the previous year, but Mizallie had died of a heart attack and things had begun to be difficult for Hester. Al had speedily found consolation with Bet, Mizallie’s handsome, self-willed cousin, who had come to ‘help out’ when Mizallie was first took bad, and who stayed on to woo the boss. She was a jealous woman, however. She soon had Hester and Nell out of the trailer – said it wasn’t proper for an elderly widower to share his home with a young widow – and began to push in other ways too.

Hester and Nell had soldiered on for a bit, sleeping in their little tent during the heat of the summer and doing their best to placate Bet. But when autumn came Al had decided to make Bet his new wife. He missed Mizallie so bad, he told everyone, that he could no longer sleep at night nor eat his victuals, but Mizallie had come to him in a dream and suggested that Bet would be a good replacement, if replacement were possible.

Bet now began to make life impossible for the younger woman. She bullied Hester, told lies about her to Al and denied her the use of the communal cooking fire at mealtimes.

Hester did not much mind. She knew Al understood that the lies were just that and she took to lighting her own fire in front of the worn little tent, but she worried, Nell knew she did. The winters were hard, even with the trailer to come home to. What would life be like in the tent during the snow and ice? The jungle in her show-tent did not much like the oil-stove necessary for Phillips’s good
health, and Hester seemed to spend a great deal of time and money remedying this fault. But Bet, seeing how the chaps clustered around Hester’s fire in preference to her own – Bet was elderly and sour and her cooking lacked imagination – decided that the fair would be a happier place without the Makerfields.

So she began to get at Nell, seeing that Hester was impervious to her nastiness. She set the child difficult tasks, demanded her presence when she should have been helping her mother with the act, refused to let the two females take shelter in the trailer and insisted that, instead of squeezing into the cab of the big lorry which pulled the trailer from gaff to gaff, Hester should travel with the dodgems, the galloper, and assorted chaps.

At the backend of the year, they moved to a small village just outside a sizeable town they hadn’t visited before and found another fair only a couple of miles from their gaff, right in the centre of the town. Gullivers, the other fair, was bigger than Allinghams, but not enormous, and because of a natural curiosity plus a certain idea stirring in her head, Hester took Nell to one side and asked her to stay around the gaff and not to talk to anyone much.

‘Sweetie, I’m going over to Gullivers but I don’t want anyone to know, so if someone asks where I am, just say I’m shopping. Be good, now.’

It was a drizzly day and Hester hurried along, the hood of her light macintosh thrown over her hair, trying to decide whether she was being sensible in talking to the Gullivers. But her options were shrinking and she and Nell had already had a good look at the other fair and had liked what they saw. The larger fair had no snake charmer or snake wrestler, so to approach them seemed the obvious thing to do. By now, Hester thought it must be as plain to Al as it was to her that there was no place for her and Bet on the same tober. And this fair, being larger, was surely richer? Perhaps, if she approached the boss –
Mr Gulliver, presumably – he might make the Allinghams an offer for Phillips, and since she was the only person who knew the snake, surely Mr Gulliver would want her to work for him as she had worked for the Allinghams? The least she could do was suggest it.

And that was what she did. She approached the biggest trailer of all and knocked timidly on the door.

A round, fat woman answered her knock. She stared very hard at Hester. ‘Yes?’

‘I’d like to see the boss, Mr Gulliver,’ Hester said quickly, before her courage drained away. Suddenly it occurred to her that what she was doing might seem disloyal to someone who did not know the circumstances. ‘Is he in the trailer or out on the gaff?’

The woman turned and shouted into the van. ‘Jack, there’s a woman wanting a word wi’ the boss, but Big Tom’s gone into town. Can you spare a moment?’

Jack came to the door and Hester had to stifle a gasp. He was a huge man, well over six feet tall and broad with it, and he had a craggy face with a broken nose and a scar running across his left cheek. Like the woman, he stared at her hard for a moment, then his face was split by an enormous grin and he stood back, gesturing her inside.

‘Afternoon; now what’s your business with Gullivers, Miss Hester?’

Hester was so surprised that her mouth fell open. She stood with one foot on the step and gawped at him, while her mind raced round in circles, totally confused.

‘I don’t … I’m only here …’ she stammered at last. ‘Who are
you
?’

‘I’m Ugly Jack. I run the dodgems for my Dad, Big Tom. You’re the gal who works the snake for Allinghams, ain’t you? I heard talk while I was in town so I went over to your gaff a couple o’ days back, took a shufti, liked what I saw. Now you turn up on me doorstep, cool as you please. What can I do for you?’

Just like that! Making things so easy that Hester too was blunt.

‘Buy me and Phillips, that’s the snake,’ she said breathlessly. ‘We can’t stay with Allinghams once Al has married Bet, she wouldn’t stand for it. She’ll want Al all to herself, and I can’t blame her. But no one works Phillips like I do, so I thought, if you could afford it … I’m sure Al wouldn’t strike too hard a bargain, he’ll see reason. And if he doesn’t, Bet will make him.’

Ugly Jack grinned again, then sat down on one of the upholstered seats in the dining section of the trailer and pointed to the opposite bench.

‘Take the weight off your feet,’ he advised. ‘This is business; it may take a while.’

After that, it had been easy. Ugly Jack had made an offer for Phillips and Al had been quick to accept it, but he had mumbled an apology to Hester and Nell in a quiet moment.

‘Tis difficult, wi’ a new woman,’ he had said diffidently. ‘You don’t mind shiftin’, Hes?’

‘Glad to go, Al,’ Hester had replied truthfully. ‘It’s better all round. Besides, I like the Gullivers and they like me, and Nell will soon make new friends.’

But there, at least, she had been wrong. Nell had done her best in every way: a fair is a family business and the fair children have to do their share, so Nell helped out on the joints, continued to work with Phillips and her mother, took money on the rides, nannied smaller kids, minded the hoopla or darts joints whilst the owners had a cuppa, rode the junior scenic to make sure no small flatties got hurt, even peeled mounds of potatoes for chips or helped the chaps to empty the peep-show machines at the end of a good day.

But though adults were decent enough to her, it had not made her acceptable to the fairground kids, any more than it had with Allinghams. In fact poor Nell
was just beginning to be accepted, more or less, when Hester decreed they move on. So all Nell could do was wait and see how things panned out.

For the first few weeks, it had been worse than Allinghams, because the girls took, it seemed, a dislike to Nell and set the boys on her, as they would have set them on any girl trying to horn in on their territory. Worse, the jukels did not take to her the way Allinghams’ jukels had.

Then, the previous winter, help had arrived, in the unlikely person of Snip Morris.

Snip was three years older than Nell and as tough as they came. He was strong and able, could handle most of the rides as well as the chaps could, and because he was fearless and completely without nerves he was quite a leader among the fairground kids. It seemed that he took one look at Nell and decided, in his own words, that she was ‘a nice kid, a bit of awright’. The other kids realised that it was either accept the newcomer or lose Snip’s friendship – and Snip was a force to be reckoned with.

It was odd that the kids accepted Snip as someone to follow, because Snip’s father, Abel Morris, bullied his son and underfed him. But Nell, becoming one of the gang, positively hero-worshipped Snip and began to enjoy Gullivers even more than she had enjoyed Allinghams.

Today, after a morning of driving rain, Chicken Joe had been glad to hand over his hoopla to Nell and have a break, though usually at this time there would have been lads and lasses wandering around in their dinner-hour and Chicken Joe would have been shouting his wares: ‘Have a go with Chicken Joe … your Sunday dinner for the lucky winner … come on, gal, see if your feller can win you a nice ‘un …’ Chicken Joe’s hoopla was hung with dressed chickens and other tempting groceries and his prizes usually had people eager to have a go but, either because the fair was moving on tomorrow or just due to the weather,
customers were thin on the ground. Despite Nell’s hopes, for Joe would increase her payment from the tuppence promised to as much as sixpence if she did good business, no one had lingered by the hoopla joint. There were one or two flatties about but they were cutting through the fairground to the bus station or checking on the times of the evening opening. At any rate they weren’t interested in trying to win a dressed chicken. This was the fair’s last stop before the big fair on Norwich cattle-market, where they would most likely meet up with Allinghams, because it was too big an occasion for just one fair, even a biggish one like Gullivers, to manage alone. Then it would be close-down, when they went into winter quarters at King’s Lynn and the kids went to school, which Nell missed during the spring and summer, though no one else appeared to do so, Snip especially disliking winter quarters.

‘Hi there, young Nell! I’m a-goin’ into town to see a mat’nee; want to come? There ain’t no customers so you won’t be missed, Joe’ll probably close when he get back from his dinner, anyroad. And it’s a cowboy fillum, one of them gunslinger things. You’ll like it, honest.’

Nell screwed up her eyes and peered through the curtain of falling rain around the hoopla joint, though she knew very well whose voice had hailed her. Sure enough, leaning against the junior scenic with its blazing lights and throbbing music was the sturdy, unkempt figure of Snip Morris, his dark curls flattened to his head by the rain, his dark eyes fixed on her face.

‘Well? You coming or what?’

‘I can’t, Snip. You know I would if I could, but Chicken Joe’s giving me tuppence if I stay. Anyway, where have you got money for the flicks all of a sudden? And what are you minding?’

‘The junior scenic, only there aren’t going to be no kids out in this, not if they’ve got a home to go to,
anyroad. ’Sides, our Pete can manage without me on a quiet afternoon. Aw, come on, Nell, you’ll freeze, else.’

‘I wish I could, but I need the tuppence,’ Nell said obstinately. It went against the grain to deny Snip, but she was very short of money and she wanted to get Hester something really good for Christmas. Also, she planned to send Dan a Christmas card and that meant money for a stamp, too. ‘Christmas is coming, Snip, I’m saving up.’

‘There’s plenty of time before Christmas, another …’ Snip came forward into the circle of light from Nell’s joint, his face screwed up with concentration ‘… another fourteen days for earnin’ money, just about. You’ll have all the cash you need by then, without Joe’s tuppence. ’Sides, he’ll be back quick enough if folk start to arrive, he won’t leave you in charge then, you might snabble some of his cash. Come on, let’s have three pennorth o’ dark!’

‘Snip, you know I can’t,’ Nell said patiently. Snip might be her hero and her saviour, but boys could be awfully stupid when it suited them. ‘Any more than you could leave the junior scenic if you were minding it alone. I suppose you can get your leg loose if Pete lets you, but there’s no one here apart from me. Besides, you never have any money and if you did have, you wouldn’t spend it on the flicks. So what’s your game?’

‘There’s a side door to the place. I found out yesterday how to lift the bar and slip in when the doors part for a minute; it’s easy,’ Snip said sulkily. It was plain he did not like to have his generosity questioned and then thrown back in his face. ‘Aw, come on, Nell, we’ll get some chips when we get back an’ all. Sara’s cooked a lot, she’ll be handing ’em out later.’

That bit was definitely true, Nell thought longingly, sniffing the rich smell of fried potato drifting across from the chuck wagon, where Sara stood whenever the fair was open, dispensing chips, fat, split-sided sausages and cheese and onion pies which she made herself. The
only good thing about a wet and chilly day was that Sara’s chips wouldn’t get sold and by ten at night she was happy to hand them out to the fairground kids. But even so, Nell had no intention of leaving her post until Chicken Joe reappeared.

Snip glanced behind him at the junior scenic; Nell, following his glance, saw Snip’s older cousin, Pete, lying in the whale-car, with a motorcycle paper in his hands. Pete wanted to be a Wall of Death rider one day but so far a push-bike was all he could run to. Still, he was saving up …

‘Pete don’t mind,’ Snip said. ‘Come on, Nell, or we’ll miss the beginning.’

‘I’ll come as soon as Joe gets back,’ Nell said. ‘I love a cowboy film, but I can’t let Joe down. He’s been gone an hour already, he’ll be back any minute I shouldn’t wonder. Tell you what, if we go to this matinee, why don’t you come back to our trailer afterwards? My Mum will make us supper and we can play cards when we’ve eaten, if they don’t need us here.’

She felt grand, giving an invitation like that. All the grander, probably, because until quite recently she and Hester had lived once again in their little tent and worried about the coming winter. In previous years the three coldest months of the year had been miserable and Nell had felt very much the poor relation among the fair kids. Despite her resolve to take life as it came, she could not help remembering, with real wistfulness, how different life had once been. The lodge, the castle, the wonderful countryside, all hers! A roof over her head, a fire, warm clothes; her own Daddy, permanent friends, school. But it had all ended after she had been rescued from the cave, and since then she had done her best to accept it and stand by Hester through thick and thin. She was doing her best to forget that part of her life before the fair. She tried to behave as if the first seven years of her life had
been wiped out and, faced with a clean slate, she meant to follow her mother’s example and make a new life for herself. The move had not helped because at ten or so, you need a home, friends, family almost more than you need anything else.