Stealing the Show Read online

  ‘Did your mother say anything to you?’ Fiona stubbed out her cigarette, and ran her fingers across his chest. ‘About anything?’

  Jack shook his head and stopped Fiona’s fingers moving downwards. She laughed softly in the darkness. ‘Maybe later?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Jack was calmer now. More in control. ‘She said you’d got a surprise for me – but I didn’t think too much about it. My mother still thinks I’m five years old and should get excited about new socks.’

  ‘Don’t be cruel. She’s sweet. Anyway, it’s tons better than new socks.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  Fiona reached across and switched on one of the very angular black lamps. ‘What are you doing the first Saturday in September?’

  Oh, God. Not September. The gallopers would be ready. St Giles’ Fair in Oxford was the first Monday and Tuesday in September. The gallopers could make their debut. He and Nell and the rest of the Downland Trust would feel like proud parents.

  ‘September isn’t good for me, Fiona. It’s always busy. You haven’t booked a holiday, have you?’

  She gurgled with laughter. ‘No, darling. I’ve booked the Register Office. We’re getting married.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Saturday night had become increasingly muggy. Claudia leaned her elbows on the edge of the hoopla stall and watched the King’s Bagley stragglers spending their money. The rides were on their last knockings but even the Macs’ juvenile still had a few sleepy customers, allowed to stay up long past their bedtime because of the balmy temperature.

  Giddy shafts of rainbow light swirled across the sky catching moths and bats transfixed in their beams. The thundering music from the waltzer, dodgems, and paratrooper gathered together in distortion and then swooped to freedom among the highest branches of the copper beeches.

  ‘Excuse me. How much a go?’

  Claudia unpeeled herself and drifted towards her customer. ‘Five rings for two pounds.’ She indicated the sign swinging above her head. ‘Two rings for a pound. Or tonight’s special offer – ten for three pounds.’

  ‘Two.’

  The exchange was made and Claudia resumed her perch. It was almost too much effort to instruct the eager man with the two small children that leaning over was forbidden. What the heck! The day had drained her. The night was like warm silk. And there was still pull-down to go.

  ‘I got one, Daddy!’

  ‘Me too!’

  Claudia looked. Both rings were caught like slipped haloes across the scarlet plinths. She started to shake her head and to go through the routine of all hoops having to fall flat to win a prize, then looked at the beaming faces. Sod it! They were the last punters of the night. Danny’d never know.

  ‘Well done.’ She hooked the hoops expertly back on to her arm. ‘You’ve each won a goldfish.’ She raised an enquiring eyebrow at the father. ‘Is that OK? I can do an alternative prize if you’d rather.’

  He shook his head, gawping at the dark glossy curls, the diaphanous floaty dress, the heavy gold earrings. ‘We’ve got a tank at home. Two more will go nicely.’

  Claudia preened herself as she dispensed the goldfish into polythene bags, delighted by the attention. The country-gypsy look obviously had its admirers. As the two squirming fish were borne away proudly to their new home, the man turned and waved at her.

  She was still smiling when Sam swung himself in beside her. ‘We’ve finished. Nell and Danny are doing last rides. It’s so damn hot. I’m going to the pub before they shut – do you fancy it?’

  ‘I fancy a gallon of vodka, an entire iceberg, and a freshly squeezed orange grove.’ Claudia started to pull the swag boxes from beneath the hoopla’s centre canvas. She and Sam had still not regained their easy-going relationship. ‘But not until this lot is done. Anyway, I thought boozing on pull-down night was strictly verboten by Gruppenführer Danny.’

  ‘Try telling that to the gaff lads – especially when they’ve been paid.’

  Claudia emptied the remaining goldfish into their tank ready for the journey and sprinkled ant’s eggs liberally across the surface. She watched the hungry mouths plop open and shut. ‘Who else is going to the pub?’

  Sam was gathering up the plinths. ‘The Macs, no doubt. Danny won’t, of course, because as you say it’s whip-cracking time. And Nell looks pretty sick. No one’s got a word out of her all evening. Terry said he gave some punters change for a tenner instead of a fiver and when he confessed his sin she just laughed.’

  ‘Bloody hell. That sounds terminal. I think I’d better talk to her later.’ She squinted across the field as the lights started to dim. Nell was outlined in the shadowy pay-box. She fastened a plastic lid on the aquarium. Nell had been gone all day – and no one knew where to.

  Claudia could picture the bank manager’s red-brick Oxford semi full of sensible furniture and books on wine-making. And Nell, who’d been wearing the leather trousers that Claudia coveted but couldn’t wear because of her new milkmaid look, would probably have prepared them a nice little salad and a fruit cup which they’d have had in the garden sitting on plastic chairs from Argos and … She realised that Sam was staring at her. ‘Er – so it would just be you and me going for a drink?’

  ‘Last orders in a pub full of people is hardly just you and me.’

  ‘Yes it is. So, no thanks. Not a good idea.’

  Sam shrugged and started to help with the packing. Claudia watched him in irritation. She didn’t need any help. She’d been doing this since she’d been tall enough to see over the side of her parents’ stall. ‘Sam, go away. Go and have your drink. Leave me alone.’

  ‘I can’t.’ He straightened up, a clutch of plastic watches in each hand. ‘You know I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’ She snatched the watches from him and dumped them into their box. ‘Dead easy. Walk away. Now.’

  He laughed. ‘I do love you.’

  ‘Bugger off.’ Expertly, Claudia rolled up posters of the latest boy band and dragged out swathes of bubble-wrap for the more fragile items of swag. The last bass note of that week’s number-one hit single ebbed from the waltzer as the cars rocked to an unsteady halt and the occupants staggered drunkenly down the steps. ‘There. Now you’ll have to. Danny’ll be looking for a spare pair of hands at any second.’

  Sam shrugged and swung his legs back over the side of the stall. She watched him stride off into the darkness that gathered in black shadows around the edge of the green, emerging again in the cloudy pool of light round the Nutmeg and Spice. It had probably been called the Red Lion for years, Claudia thought, resuming her haphazard packing. Things changed. But could she? Could she re-educate her body?

  ‘Not a hope.’ She stuffed several rather out-of-date posters of Samantha Fox at her most pneumatic into a box. They still went down well with the middle-aged fawn mac brigade. ‘Change is one thing – miracles are quite another.’

  The work went on, as it always did, in semi-darkness, with good-natured jeering and bad-tempered bawling. The generators, providing light, drummed as rhythmically and unnoticed as a heartbeat while everyone swarmed around, gathering the vital bits and pieces without which the fair wouldn’t function. The packing – slabs of wood which slid beneath the rides to make them level – was stacked beside the Foden, along with cable clips and copious reels of masking tape; the rubbish sacks grew fatter; the gaff lads – dragged back from their ice-cold Beck’s in the Nutmeg and Spice by Danny – swore mutinously as they undid nuts and bolts, and lifted cars and platforms, steps and rounding boards.

  How much easier it would all be, Claudia thought, stepping across the folded bulk of the hoopla’s red-and-green-striped canvas tilt and placing the ropes inside with precision so that they were in exactly the right place for building up again, if Ross got his way and Bradleys had hydraulic rides. Imagine the bliss of sitting at a console, pushing a button, and watching everything neatly fold away. Heaven!

  The hoopla was flat-packed now and she lifted the brightly painted panels wi
th an ease born of familiarity. Even the Mackenzie grandchildren were loading poles into the swing truck while singing along with their personal stereos. None of them considered it hard work. It was part of their life. If you could walk, you could work. If you couldn’t walk, you made tea.

  King’s Bagley church struck midnight. The audience was smaller. A few King’s Bagley residents who were finding it too hot to sleep, and a policeman with a bicycle and constantly buzzing radio, hovered at the edge of the green watching with drowsy interest. The joints were dismantled. The Mackenzies’ side stuff, which, including the shelves of prizes, was built into the sides of lorries and folded away neatly, was loaded and locked. The family was now lending its collective muscle to the skeletons of the rides. Several local teenagers, who had been co-opted by Danny, were getting in the way and were being snarled at by the gaff lads.

  Claudia closed the tailgate on the smaller of the Foden trucks and shot the bolts into place without chipping her nail varnish. A mechanical roar of protest indicated that one of the lorries was being driven, as usual, in the wrong gear and she side-stepped the Scammell as it reversed at speed between the remnants of the paratrooper and the waltzer. Barry grinned down at her from the cab, his teeth, which were yellow in daylight, looking as brilliant as a toothpaste commercial.

  ‘Nell could do with a hand, I reckon,’ he shouted above the engine, nodding towards the darkly dismantled dodgems. ‘She’s a bit off-colour and she’s only got Terry with her at the moment. Any chance?’

  Claudia gave him a thumbs-up and scrambled across the tow-bar of the pay-box which was standing locked and isolated like an amputated limb, her sandals silent in the grass.

  ‘Jesus!’ She blinked in the darkness. ‘Nell?’

  There was a scrabbling and panting and the sound of zips.

  ‘Piss off. Oh, shit –’

  Terry blinked at her with his fallen-angel eyes. Karen, looking more whey-faced than ever in the darkness, seemed to be trying to find her knickers.

  The dodgem plates, the floor of the ride, were stacked waiting to be loaded on to the truck. The fibreglass cars were already packed. Claudia glared at Terry. ‘Can’t you keep it under control for more than ten minutes at a time? And for God’s sake get her out of here. Shove her back into the Beast Wagon or something. Danny’ll go completely bananas. You’re supposed to be bloody working.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Don’t bollock me.’ Terry was tucking in his T-shirt. ‘I was waiting for Alfie an’ Ted to give me a hand with the plates, that’s all. Nell’s had a really bad headache all night. She went back to her wagon to get some tablets and there wasn’t much doing, so –’ he looked at Karen and shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like.’

  Claudia couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  Clutching her skimpy shirt around her, Karen started to skip away across the grass, then turned and gave a smug smile. ‘He calls me Martini.’

  ‘Martini?’

  Terry winked. ‘Any time, any place, anywhere. Oh, balls – Nell’s here.’

  ‘Haven’t Alfie and Ted started on the plates? Terry? Terry? If – you’ve scarpered I’ll –’ Nell appeared from between the Scammell and the Seddon-Atkinson and frowned at Terry and Claudia in the shadow of the pay-box. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

  ‘Nah.’ Terry pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. ‘You missed the best bit. I’ll go and give the lads a shout to shift the plates. How’s your head?’

  ‘Thumping.’

  ‘Probably the weather.’ Terry looked solicitous. ‘My mum always used to say that hot weather –’

  ‘Bugger off and get some work done!’ Nell growled. ‘No work, no food.’

  ‘Slave-driver.’ Still grinning, Terry loped off to round up Ted and Alfie.

  Nell waited until he’d disappeared behind the Scammell. ‘What the hell was that little tête-à-tête all about?’

  Claudia shrugged. ‘I came over to give you a hand. He said you’d gone to get some paracetamol, that’s all. Oh, bloody hell – don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t a cosy twosome or anything. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘And I’ll put that remark down to your headache.’

  Nell sighed heavily. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound preachy. Just thank your lucky stars it was me and not Danny who caught you and Terry snuggling up in the shadows.’

  ‘We were not snuggling up! Terry has his physical needs catered for by the rather insanitary Karen, believe me. In fact, he was just having them well and truly catered for when I wandered over and spoiled things.’

  ‘Really?’ Nell started to grin, then winced as the headache kicked in. ‘Ouch. You mean they were actually doing it?’

  ‘Up against the pay-box, no less.’

  Nell giggled. ‘I didn’t even know she was still with us. Oakton was weeks ago. D’you reckon she’s over-age?’

  ‘I suppose she must be – although she doesn’t look it. Still, we haven’t had any irate parents screaming about returning their daughter. Anyway, don’t accuse me of grappling with the gaff lads again, please. Now, do you want any help or are you going to assassinate my character even further?’

  ‘Help first, character assassination after pull-down – you know the rules.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The rules.’ Claudia climbed over the pay-box tow-bar again and hauled on a cable. ‘Aren’t those the things that say shareholders and business partners shall not abdicate their duties on a Saturday, and shall not disappear all day without saying where they’re going?’

  ‘The very same.’

  Claudia peered at Nell to see if she was smiling, but it was too dark. She could have stamped with impatience. ‘Oh, come on. Stop messing around. Where’ve you been all day?’

  With pull-down nearly completed, lights were flickering on in various living wagons; different late-night television programmes splintered out through open doors; the curses were beginning to lose their edge, and the generators beat their perpetual tattoo. Nell picked up a pair of pliers and said nothing.

  ‘Nell! You irritating bitch! Tell me.’

  ‘Not a chance.’ Nell poked out her tongue. ‘You’d only tell Danny.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. Promise. Is it something to do with Ross?’

  ‘No.’

  Claudia nodded. It had to be the bank manager. ‘What’s he like?’

  Nell put the pliers carefully on top of the tool-box. ‘Who?’

  ‘The man you were with today.’ Was she mistaken or did Nell catch her breath? She squeezed her arm. ‘Your man in Oxford. Is it really the bank manager, Nell? You can tell me – you know we share everything. I won’t breathe a word. Just tell me what you did today.’

  ‘OK.’ Nell lowered her voice. ‘But you mustn’t tell a soul.’

  ‘I won’t. I swear.’

  ‘I spent today buying a set of three-abreast gallopers and a Gavioli organ.’

  ‘Oh!’ Claudia nearly screamed in exasperation. ‘And I thought you were going to tell me the truth. I hate you, Nell Bradley! I really hate you!’

  ‘Get a move on and stop cackling like a pair of kids!’ Danny’s voice barked through the darkness. ‘We’re waiting!’

  ‘Wait on, then,’ Claudia muttered under her breath, but she moved anyway. It wasn’t worth rocking the boat.

  She and Nell worked together, coiling cables and storing screws, as the dodgems disappeared around them. Eventually it was all done. The paratrooper was loaded; the waltzer folded away on to its truck. Claudia perched on the battered chrome bumper of the Foden and blew a lock of damp hair from her face. ‘I need a shower – and you must be baking in those leather trousers. Give me half an hour and come up to the wagon. I’ll mix the biggest jug of iced vodka the world has ever seen.’

  ‘Sounds great – and should go extremely well with the handful of paracetamols I’ve just taken.’ Nell looked at her watch. ‘It’ll be nearly three by then – and I’ve still got to feed the lads. And don’t suggest I giv
e them salad because it’s a hot night. If they don’t get eggs and bacon in at least half an inch of fat they’ll riot.’ She stood up. ‘But I’ll hold you to the drink – even if mine has to be non-alcoholic. And remember – not a word to Danny about the gallopers.’

  Claudia sat in the darkness for a moment longer, enjoying the cool breeze wafting round her face, and the chill from the grass between her toes. Moths swooped unseen, their wings beating gently in the soft night. It would soon be light again. And in daylight they’d be on the road to Henley. She enjoyed Henley Regatta with its arcane social traditions, its glamour, its similarity to their own nomadic existence. All those people coming together for a few days each year to do exactly what they’d done for years previously. Why on earth they wanted to row furiously up and down the river completely escaped her, but she was glad they did. She loved the fashions and the haw-haw voices and the enduring quality of it all.

  She turned her head and watched Sam jump from his living-wagon steps, look towards her and Danny’s van, and then cross King’s Bagley green towards her. She enjoyed looking at him – even more so now. He was more handsome than Ross Percival and a much nicer person than Danny. She sighed.

  ‘Has Danny dropped his bombshell yet?’ Sam squeezed his denim backside on to the bumper, his thigh brushing hers. ‘Or is he saving it until we’re all together?’

  ‘Which bombshell? I don’t think so. Oh, God – what have I done now?’

  ‘Nothing. Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s nothing to do with you.’

  Claudia was ashamed at her relief. She always felt guilty these days. Even the pill packets, secreted behind the veneer in her bedside cabinet drawer, seemed to bleep betrayal. ‘Is it to do with Ross and the merger?’