The Girl in the Painted Caravan (23 page)

He nodded and I ran to the newsagent’s and all the way back, holding in my hands what I hoped would be the key to getting us out of this miserable way of life. Lo and behold, a palmistry
place was advertised in Brighton. And before the day was over, plans to go and investigate were being made. My parents drove from Northampton to Brighton and, when they returned, we started
packing. No wagons were allowed in Brighton, so we’d have to sell the vardo. My mother, beaming, said, ‘I found a fully furnished flat, and we can move straight into it. And guess what
else,’ she added. ‘On the way back, your father and I stopped at a pub on the outskirts of Brighton. You’ll never guess who was sat there drinking a pint each. Richard Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor! The town is full of film stars!’ My father reluctantly said, ‘We’d better pack then.’ Of course, it wasn’t that simple. For us, moving out of our
vardo and into a flat was as big a step as it would be for people about to emigrate to a country they had never seen. ‘Shall we? Dare we?’ were the unspoken questions in all our minds.
‘No, we won’t’ and ‘Yes, we will’ were the hopelessly confused answers, varying in shades of passion according to our moods. Sometimes not a word needed to be spoken.
We had only to look at each other and read each other’s secret thoughts – pretty obvious, during this period – and we would burst out laughing. It was crazy. We were all like kids
about to take on a dare.

As the time for moving grew nearer, the butterflies increased until they were swarming. Our feelings of excitement and fear were intense.

As with most things, the anticipation was perhaps more exciting than the actual move. I suspect that for Romanies, even more so than others, it is always better to travel than to arrive.

The tension continued to mount until the last day. In the vardo, after we had all gone to bed, we would lie in the dark thinking about what the future would be like. The silence was heavy and
usually, after ten or fifteen minutes, someone would have to break it. I remember Nathan calling out at the top of his voice, ‘I’m going to be a gorger!’ My own thoughts ran more
along the lines of: Thank God there will be no more carrying water! How luxurious it would be to have a bath and then pull out a plug, as I’d seen them do in the pictures! And no more long
treks to the toilet! The pluses were beginning to mount up.

TWENTY-THREE

As we drove into Brighton, I fell in love with it immediately. We passed the clock tower and continued along the seafront, taking in the sights of all the big hotels and the
Regency architecture. We turned into Cannon Place to see a charming little row of Regency cottages. As I stepped out of the car, I remember thinking, Am I having a dream? Am I actually going to
live here?

Eddie and Anne were running up and down the road, whooping and hollering with excitement. Nathan and my father were unloading all our goods and chattels, which had been packed into the car. We
spent a couple of hours exploring the flat and deciding who would sleep where, then we started to get hungry, so Mummy sent Nathan off to buy fish and chips for four.

‘I’m hungry too, Mummy,’ I said.

She shushed me and winked. When Mummy winked there was always something naughty or exciting about to happen. She looked at me mischievously and said, ‘Come with me.’ I followed her
through the front door and she said, ‘You’re quite grown up now and we need to celebrate. You’ve never had a glass of Champagne, but you’re going to have one now, and so am
I.’

She was obviously very excited. We walked into the Grand Hotel, which was on Brighton’s seafront, with glorious views out to sea. We made our way to the bar and sank into two luxurious
seats. ‘We’re celebrating the move, you and I.’ Her eyes gleamed as she beckoned the waiter over to us and ordered two glasses of Champagne and an assortment of sandwiches. As we
waited, we drank in the ambience of this lovely hotel. We didn’t need to speak. We had arrived where our dreams had led us. When the drinks arrived, she clinked her glass on mine and said,
‘This is what you should have had on your birthday, to celebrate, and that’s just what we’re doing now. Cheers!’

‘Cheers!’ I beamed.

We talked excitedly about the palmistry booth, but then I brought up the fact that there was only enough room for one of us to give readings at a time. I suppose the Champagne helped me to pluck
up the courage to say, ‘I suppose I could find another place?’ She looked a little startled and didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she smiled and said, ‘If that’s
what you want to do. I worked on my own when I was your age. We’ll have a look round tomorrow.’

When we got back to the flat, we told the family what we planned to do. We then spent the rest of the night giving the kitchen and bathroom a good scrub. Not that they weren’t already
clean, but when you’ve cleaned something yourself, you know there aren’t a stranger’s germs around.

That was the very first night I ever went to bed in a house! What I realised, as I lay there, was that I couldn’t hear the elements: the rain, the wind. It was strangely quiet, so I turned
up the radio and had to turn it off again when Anne, whom I was sharing a room with, complained, ‘Daddy said we’ve got to go to school.’ She was worried and needed someone to talk
to. I spent a long time explaining how lucky she was and how I would have given anything to have had the opportunity.

‘But I don’t want to go to school,’ moaned Anne.

‘But, Anne, you need to,’ I urged. I decided to give up and turn the radio back on again. I was flogging a dead horse, trying to talk her into it when she had watched the rest of us
live our lives with each other instead of being sent off with a load of strangers. It wasn’t our decision anymore anyway. We were becoming part of a society where schooling was not an option
but a legal requirement.

That night I slept like a baby, but when I woke up I had no idea where I was! It felt very strange when I realised I was in a flat and not our vardo, like every other morning of my life so
far.

We settled in quite well, I suppose, considering that as a family we had always lived in one room, the same room we travelled in. Now there was no more walking miles to find a phone box, because
the telephone was at hand. No more filling up the water tanks, running out of Calor gas, finding an obliging person near the site who would allow us to plug in our electric leads. From now on, with
a big kitchen, we were going to be able to buy a whole week’s worth of shopping in one hit. We could make the beds and not have to put away the blankets before breakfast. It was going to be a
new life.

It felt strange for quite some time and even though we all loved our new home, we found ways to make sure we were all in the same room together as much as possible. Whenever I wanted to make up
my face or do my hair, rather than stay in my bedroom, I would take my cosmetics or my hairbrush wherever my family were. It would take a long while for us to get used to having so much space.

There was no such thing as a two-way conversation in my family; everyone always joined in. If my mother was working in the kitchen, we would all follow her in there to tell her and each other
our thoughts on a particular subject. Or my father might be shaving and whatever conversation we were having at the time would just shift into the bathroom, with everyone having their say.

Things became easier for Mummy and me once the twins went to school. Eddie was just as nervous as Anne, for in our family only Daddy knew what they could expect. It must have been very hard for
them – they were twelve years old and couldn’t read or write. It was obviously ridiculous to put them in with the infants, though this would have been the correct standard for them, so
they were put into classes with children of their own age who had been attending school for about seven years. There was a kind of streaming system at the school – with A, B and C classes and
so on – and, of course, they were put into the C class. It was actually rather amusing because, on that first day, we all anxiously waited for them to come home, hoping they wouldn’t
feel too inferior, and Eddie reported to us with a shrug that the kids in his class were all so thick most of them couldn’t read or write either!

Funnily enough, neither of them seemed to learn too much at the school, but it did have the effect, I suppose, of giving them the impetus to learn to read and write. Before very long they both
started to teach themselves and got on quite well. Anne decided that nothing was going to stop her from being able to read fairy stories to her children when she married.

It was now April 1960 and we wanted to get to work quickly and make the most of the summer season. I found a house almost opposite the West Pier that was owned by a Jewish lady
who also owned a shop in which she sold fur coats. Her name was Mrs Gold.

When I approached her, she was quite agreeable about allowing me to open a palmistry place on the forecourt of her house – for a price, of course. Within three days, I had put up a garden
hut up, which I carpeted inside, and the outside was adorned with a sign reading: ‘Eva Petulengro. Palmist and Clairvoyant’. I furnished it with a card table covered with a beautiful
silk paisley shawl, two comfortable chairs and a table lamp. I was in business!

Other travelling people in Brighton soon noticed the two new palmistry places and, as they do, came to talk to us to see if we knew any of their families. This gave me the perfect opportunity to
quickly make new friends, one of whom was Iris Taylor. She lived in a big house that belonged to her parents and she was left in Brighton to look after the house while they travelled. She rented
out the spare rooms and ran a hoopla stall in the arcade where my mother’s place was. Iris had no travelling mates and, like me, she didn’t really know how to mix with non-travellers,
so we had both found a friend to go to the cinema and shopping with. It was Iris who introduced me to the local dance hall, the Regent.

Nathan was very happy to escort Iris and me around and act as our minder when he wasn’t working his own darts stall on the pier. His job, Mummy said, was to look after me, which I always
considered a cheek as I was three years older than he was! But I never minded, as I loved spending time with Nathan. He was also a bloody good dancer, so was hardly an embarrassment to be seen with
in the dance hall. Nathan and I loved our new-found freedom. It was all so exciting. Now that the twins were at school, it was even easier for me to let my hair down.

My new palmistry business seemed to be flourishing. One pleasant day I was sitting outside my hut when a young man sauntered towards me. He was extremely good looking and was dark enough to pass
for a Romany boy. He introduced himself to me. ‘Hi, my name’s Michael. Michael de Costa.’

‘Did you want a reading?’ I enquired.

‘No, I just wanted to have a chat with you,’ he replied.

That took me by surprise, so my nerves made me quickly say, ‘I don’t have time for chats. I’m here for business.’

He smiled and said, ‘I’ll go away if anybody wants a reading.’

My nerves started to die down a bit and I began to feel more intrigued than embarrassed. ‘Are you an actor?’ I asked him. He had all the hallmarks of one and my clairvoyance kicked
in and made me blurt out this question.

‘Yes,’ he responded, and promptly started telling me about his colourful career. I could sense this young man was going places.

I told him that if I talked to him any more I could never give him a reading, as we don’t give readings for friends or family – to know too much about somebody can prove very
misleading for us. Sometimes what people tell us can lead us away from following our natural senses.

I liked this boy, but only as someone I found interesting and could imagine myself becoming good friends with. I told him to pull up a chair, but just as we started to chat properly, I glanced
up to see Iris walking towards me along the promenade. ‘Ah, here’s my friend,’ I announced.

I don’t know what made him think of it, but he quickly said, ‘Eva, please don’t tell her that I can speak English. Let’s have a laugh.’

I knew I liked this boy for a reason. I’m always up for a laugh. When Iris approached us, I said, ‘Iris, can you speak Italian?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Why?’

‘Because this fella can’t speak a word of English and we’ve been trying to communicate with each other.’

‘Really?’ she said.

I nodded. She looked at him and then said, ‘He’s bloody gorgeous!’

Michael sat there with an innocent smile on his face. He was a good actor! Iris and I began attempting to talk to him in pidgin English.

A client approached and I went in to read their hands, leaving Michael and Iris sat outside, all the while trying to communicate with each other, or so she thought. By the time my reading was
over, they were both laughing their heads off. It wasn’t long before the three of us became firm friends.

Michael went on to go to Hollywood and featured in a series called
The Zoo Gang
with stars such as John Mills and Lilli Palmer.

TWENTY-FOUR

All my mother’s good feelings about Brighton were proved right, as always. It was a great summer for us and at the end of it we made the decision to stay there, to give
up being travelling people, for a while at least, and become the same house- and flat-dwellers that we had always felt so separate from. Why? Hard to say, looking back. For money? It was a good
season, but we’d had good seasons before. It wasn’t just for money. For comfort? Yes, we were comfortable in our new home and if we were going to stay, we would make ourselves even more
comfortable. At the same time, we missed the close companionship of the travelling life, but, as I’ve already said, doors couldn’t stop us from spending practically all our time
together.

Was it Brighton itself? Well, we loved the town, and we loved the bracing air. It was good for business and near to London, where we loved to go shopping. But it wasn’t just this. It was a
combination of all these things, plus an absolute confidence in my mother, who predicted that good things would happen for us in Brighton. We were also all aware that the Romany life we had known,
the freewheeling migrant tradition which had existed for centuries, was dying now – if, indeed, it wasn’t already dead – and we didn’t want to die with it.