Authors: Margaret Dickinson
Nick laughed and pretended to be galloping his charger. Faster and faster the music played and faster and faster the world spun around, so that soon the faces of those watching became a whirling
blur to Maddie. She began to feel slightly sick and was thankful when the ride slowed and the earth began to regain its rightful shape.
‘You all right?’ Nick said as he held up his hand to help her slide down from the horse. ‘You look a bit green.’
‘Don’t you dare tell them,’ she muttered.
‘They’re round the other side. Let’s go over there,’ Nick suggested, ‘make out we haven’t seen them. Just till you’ve recovered.’
‘Thanks,’ Maddie said gratefully and followed Nick towards a shooting gallery, willing her legs to stop feeling quite so wobbly.
‘There you are,’ came Michael’s voice.
Nick turned. ‘Couldn’t see you,’ he lied glibly. ‘We thought you and Jen had gone off together.’
‘Not ’til I’ve challenged you to a shooting match. I might just stand a chance of beating you while you’re still dizzy from that roundabout.’ He turned to the two
girls. ‘Nick’s a crack shot. Much better than I am.’
‘Only ’cos I always get the job of going out to shoot rabbits in the fields or rats when the outside buildings get overrun with them,’ Nick muttered, but Maddie could see that
he flushed at Michael’s compliment.
As they approached the shooting gallery, Nick’s grin widened. ‘It’s a tube shooter. Ah well, you’ve no chance now, Michael Brackenbury.’
‘What’s a tube shooter?’ Maddie asked.
‘The guns are fired through a tube at the target,’ Michael pointed. ‘Look.’
On the side of a gaily painted wagon she saw that there were two guns mounted on stands, each pointing down a long metal tube which passed right through the wagon and out the other side.
‘It looks like a gypsy caravan,’ Maddie said and Michael laughed. ‘It is – in a way. The chap who owns the gallery lives in the wagon. I saw inside it last year and those
tubes run right under his bed.’
‘However do they move it all?’
‘Like everything else on the fairground, it all comes to pieces and then he packs it all on the top of his wagon and off he goes. I like to come and watch them taking everything down. Talk
about “a fine art”. Everyone knows exactly what he’s got to do. It’s a sight to see, I can tell you.’
Maddie glanced at Nick, who was already moving towards the man collecting the money. She didn’t think she had ever seen him looking so animated, so clearly enjoying himself. When he was
smiling happily, he looked a different person to the sullen boy going about his work on the farm under his mother’s watchful eye.
‘Go on, Nick,’ she called above the organ music coming from the roundabout, so loud that it dominated the whole fairground and even echoed into the surrounding streets. ‘Win me
a prize.’
He glanced back over his shoulder at her, a look of incredulous delight on his face. ‘Right. I will.’
‘Don’t worry, Jen,’ Michael said. ‘I’ll win one for you.’
Jenny, with a daub of vanilla ice cream on the end of her nose, smiled shyly up at him.
The girls stood side by side and watched the two boys take up their positions, covering their ears a moment later at the resounding bang, bang, bang from each one.
‘They sound like real guns,’ Maddie said when they came back.
‘They are,’ Michael said. ‘With real live ammunition.’ He smiled. ‘So don’t go standing near the end of those tubes – just in case!’
The man was coming towards them with the two cardboard targets in his hand. ‘The one on the left . . .’ He glanced from Michael to Nick, who said, ‘That’s
mine.’
‘Well, young feller. Bull’s eyes every time.’ He grinned, showing worn, brown-stained teeth. ‘I’ll have to give you a prize.’
‘What about me?’ Michael asked.
The man slapped the target playfully against Michael’s chest. ‘You, son, will have to go away and practise harder. Way off the bull, you were. Every time.’
‘Let the lady choose what she wants,’ Nick said and Maddie followed the man to his wagon.
Sitting on top of a box, resplendent in a blue silk gown edged with lace, was the prettiest doll Maddie had ever seen. Her eyes widened when she saw it and she didn’t even need to speak
for the man to reach up for it and then place it in her arms.
‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful?’ Jenny breathed when Maddie returned to them.
‘Sorry, Jen, I’ll . . .’ Michael began, but at that moment they heard Frank’s voice behind them.
‘There you are. We’ve been looking all over for you. Come along now, we’d better go and get that lunch else there’ll be none left.’
In the dim interior of the White Hart, Frank said, ‘Now, you young ones sit at that table together and we’ll sit over here in this quiet corner. All right,
Harriet?’
As Maddie slid into the bench seat, she noticed the look of concern on Frank’s face as he held out a spindle-backed chair for his housekeeper. Harriet looked pale and her eyes darted
nervously about her. She kept the brim of her felt hat pulled low over her forehead and sat with her back to the other diners.
Maddie shrugged and turned her attention to Jenny, who slid onto the seat beside her, her wide eyes drinking in all the sights around her.
Jenny reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘This is fun, isn’t it?’
Maddie nodded as she sat the doll between them and watched as Jenny touched the frilled skirt gently, almost reverently, with her small fingers. ‘Isn’t she lovely?’ Maddie
heard her murmur, more to herself than to anyone else.
Then she looked up and smiled around her, nodding across to where Frank and Harriet sat. ‘Isn’t Mr Brackenbury kind?’
Michael squeezed himself into the seat opposite Maddie and Nick perched beside him. He seemed almost as ill-at-ease as his mother and kept glancing furtively over his shoulder towards her.
‘What about me?’ Michael teased, hearing Jenny’s remark. ‘Aren’t I kind too?’
Jenny blushed. ‘Oh yes, you’re all very kind. But I mean, him offering for me to join you for dinner. He doesn’t even know me.’
‘If you’re a friend of our Maddie’s, then that’s good enough for us,’ Michael said and winked at Maddie. She felt a warm glow suffuse her and felt sure now that
Michael was only being friendly towards Jenny for her sake. He was not pushing her out in favour of a new and prettier little face.
She glanced at her friend. In the short time since Maddie had left the Home, Jenny seemed to have grown and filled out a little. Today, no doubt in honour of the interview with a prospective
employer, she had on her Sunday best navy dress and a short blue jacket. Her hair, though clean, lacked the shine that Maddie’s now had. How Maddie longed to give her friend some of the
precious shampoo that Michael had bought for her. Then Jenny’s, too, would be a shining golden halo. And hers would be curly, whereas Maddie’s was straight.
As if reading her thoughts, Jenny turned to her and said, ‘Your hair’s ever so pretty, Maddie. I like it cut short around your face. And it shines so now.’
Maddie glanced across the table at Michael. ‘That’s because I can now wash it in some lovely shampoo instead of that awful carbolic, Jen.’
The younger girl’s eyes were envious as her glance roamed over Maddie’s hair. ‘I wonder if mine would shine like that?’ she murmured.
The young waitress was standing at the end of their table, notepad in hand. Michael ordered for them all and as the waitress left them again, Jenny stared at Michael and Nick, glancing from one
to the other. ‘Are you brothers? You don’t look much alike.’
‘No, we’re not related but Nick and his mother have lived with us since we were both babies. We’re like brothers, though, aren’t we, mate?’
Suddenly, Nick grinned and Maddie marvelled once more at how different he looked. Gone in an instant was the sulky mouth, the resentful look in his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, ‘we
even fall out like brothers.’
Michael laughed. ‘That’s very true.’
Maddie opened her mouth to ask what had happened to Michael’s mother and to Nick’s father but before she could speak, Jenny leant against Maddie’s shoulder and said, ‘Me
and Maddie always say we’re sisters. Don’t we?’
Feeling guilty now about her earlier feelings of jealousy, Maddie nodded.
‘Of course, we’re not,’ Jenny went on. ‘We know we’re not, but we like to think we are. Maddie always stuck up for me. The others tease me, you know. Me being
small.’
‘I know what that’s like,’ Nick said suddenly, but Maddie noticed that he glanced swiftly towards his mother before he spoke and he kept his voice low. ‘The kids at the
village school used to tease me and Mam sent me to another school. I had to travel miles on a bus all on my own to get there.’ He paused as the remembered pain flitted across his eyes.
‘I didn’t like it there much either.’
‘So that’s why you never came to our school,’ Maddie said. ‘I wondered why I couldn’t remember either of you. Did you go to the same school as Nick,
Michael?’
‘Part of the time.’
‘He went to the Grammar School here in town. He’s clever, is our Michael.’ Once more, there was a tiny hint of resentment in Nick’s tone, but Michael laughed it off
easily. ‘Oh, an absolute genius, that’s me. I must say I use a lot of French on my milk round.’
‘Did you learn French?’ Jenny was round-eyed with admiration.
‘Well, they tried to teach me it,’ Michael said, ‘but I don’t think I learnt a lot.’
‘He could have gone to university if he’d worked harder and stayed on,’ Nick contradicted.
Michael pulled a face as if in embarrassment but, at that moment, their meals arrived and the subject was dropped as the hungry foursome picked up their knives and forks.
‘Oh I couldn’t eat another thing.’ Jenny leant back in her seat and placed her hand over her stomach. ‘I’m full right up to busting.’
‘Me too,’ Maddie said.
‘Yes, not bad. Not bad at all,’ Michael remarked and, raising his voice, he called across to his father and Harriet. ‘Not up to your mark, Mrs T, but not bad at all.’
‘Oh, go on with you, Mr Michael,’ but Maddie could see that the housekeeper, flushed with the drink that Frank had bought for her, was flattered by Michael’s remark.
As they stood up to leave, Maddie noticed that as Frank went to pay the bill, Harriet, with head lowered, scuttled towards the door and out into the street. As they followed her, Maddie
whispered to Nick, ‘Doesn’t your mother like crowds?’
‘Eh?’ His grey eyes were owlish behind the lenses of his spectacles. ‘Oh – er – no. She doesn’t really like coming into town. Likes to keep herself to
herself. Says the townsfolk are a lot of nosey parkers.’
‘And do you?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Like to keep yourself to yourself?’
He shrugged and for the first time she heard the bitterness in his tone that this time was most definitely directed at his mother. ‘I ain’t had much choice one way or the
other.’ There was a significant pause before he added, ‘Yet.’
Maddie grinned at him, confident that, given another year or so, he would stand up to his mother and be as rebellious as she would be in his shoes.
As Frank and Harriet joined them and they were about to cross the street towards the cattle market once more, a large black motor car drove slowly towards them, the market day shoppers parting,
like the Red Sea, to let it pass.
‘That’s Sir Peter’s car,’ Maddie said, immediately recognising the vehicle she had seen parked outside the Home on many occasions.
They stood on the pavement for the car to pass by but as it drew alongside them, Harriet suddenly stepped off the kerb and stared in at the windscreen.
‘Harriet!’ Frank cried in alarm. He grasped her arm and pulled her away from the moving vehicle, steadying her as she tripped against the kerb. ‘Whatever are you doing? You
could have been knocked over.’
But her gaze was still on the black car moving on beyond them now. Maddie, too, stared after the car and saw, through the rear window, the pale face of a young woman. Long blonde hair curled
onto her shoulders, though her eyes were shaded by the brim of her hat. The car moved on and the image became blurred.
‘Good Lord!’ Frank exclaimed. ‘That must be Miss Amelia. You don’t often see her out. I . . .’ Frank stopped whatever he had been going to say and looked anxiously
towards Harriet.
But Harriet Trowbridge did not appear to have heard a word he said. She was staring after the car, transfixed as if she had seen a ghost.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, Harriet?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine, Mr Frank. I – wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry. My mind was on other things.’
‘Well, you must be more careful, my dear. There’s getting to be more traffic about now than we’ve been used to.’
‘I don’t like the town. You know I don’t. I didn’t even see the car.’
Maddie glanced at Harriet. Why, the woman had been staring straight at it. She looked at Frank and saw the puzzled expression on his face. Maddie could see that even he, this time, did not quite
believe Harriet.
‘In that case,’ he said slowly, ‘you’d better take my arm, Harriet.’
Maddie watched as he held out his crooked arm towards his housekeeper and she, with a sudden smile of satisfaction, put her hand through it.
‘Now, are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Oh yes, Mr Frank. I’m fine. It – just shook me up a little.’
‘I want to have another look at those beast in the cattle market and then I think it’s time we went home.’
‘I’m just popping into that shop over there,’ Michael said. ‘I shan’t be a minute. I’ll catch you up.’ Whistling, he sauntered across the street, his
hands in his pockets, his cap set at a jaunty angle.
Maddie’s gaze followed him until she felt Jenny suddenly clutch her arm. ‘Look, there’s that gypsy from the fair talking to that woman. She’s holding her hand and looking
at her palm. I bet she’s telling her fortune. Oh Maddie, let’s have our fortune told.’
‘I haven’t any money,’ Maddie whispered.
‘Oh.’ The girl’s face was crestfallen. ‘Neither have I but I thought you would have. Now you’re working.’
‘Ssh,’ Maddie said, ‘I don’t want . . .’