Someone Special (28 page)

‘The fair!’ Nell exclaimed before Hester could answer. ‘Oh, Mummy, if only we could!’

‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a go,’ Dr Burroughes said. He had followed on Barbie’s heels and stood listening in the doorway. ‘You’re going to feel a different woman after the repair.’

‘Repair! That make her sound like an old traction engine,’ Barbie objected. ‘Never mind, eh? You’ll be well again, Hester, and that’s what count.’

‘You’re all so kind to us,’ Hester said, with trembling lip. ‘I’ll never be able to repay you. We’ve been nearly desperate at times, Nell and me.’

‘Don’t worry about it; we were put on this earth to help one another,’ Mrs Burroughes said briskly. ‘And now, if everything’s settled, I think it’s time we had a meal and then made for our beds. Tomorrow will be a full day, one way and another.’

Matthew sat in the lodge kitchen, preparing the vegetables for a beef stew. He had not come to terms with losing Hester, but about a month previously he had looked at his situation and decided that something must be done. Here we are, two grown men, letting the lack of Hester drive us, in our separate ways, to perdition, he had told himself. Mr Geraint’s taken to drink, he’s half-seas over by eight most evenings. He kicked Mrs Clifton out because she taunted him with mucking up his life and then he dismissed the girl he had brought in to manage the castle while Hester was away. Now he sits up there, hunched over his whisky bottle, and damns the eyes of anyone who tries to interfere. Even me, and he’s always listened to me in the past. Besides, in a way we’re in the same boat, though I’ve got a real reason for missing Hester. All Mr Geraint misses is his well-managed house, his comfortable existence.

Not that I can criticise him, Matthew’s thoughts continued. Not while I continue to let the house go to rack and ruin, and don’t eat properly, or enjoy my life. All I do is get through each day’s work and then spend the evenings moping. What I ought to do is take heart, use my head. She’ll come back; Mr Geraint says so when he’s sober, and what will there be for her here if I don’t pull myself
together? Nothing, that’s what there’ll be. So I’ve got to eat right, sleep right, keep the place decent and learn a bit of patience. If I do that she’ll come back, and come back to something worthwhile, what’s more.

He missed his wife and daughter horribly. Couldn’t seem to come to terms with loneliness the way he had before, now that he’d had them to share his life. But Mr Geraint was behaving so badly that it made him see he must reform or go under.

He finished the swede, carrots and onions and tossed them into the pan in which the meat already simmered. It wouldn’t be like one of Hester’s beef stews – he winced – but it would be comforting after so many scrap meals, and he needed whatever comfort he could find.

He was setting the table when a knock sounded on the back door, which immediately opened to let his employer into the kitchen. Mr Geraint, Matthew was pleased to see, was looking almost respectable, almost himself. He was unshaven to be sure, and his hair was hanging over his collar, but he seemed in command of himself. He glanced around the kitchen, sniffed appreciatively, then sat down in the chair which Matthew had drawn up beside the table.

‘Matt – I’ve news.’

‘Oh?’

There must have been hope in his tone, for Mr Geraint shook his head, his eyes softening. ‘No, not that news. Sorry. It’s Uncle Leo. He’s dead.’

‘Sorry to hear that,’ Matthew said conventionally.

He had known Leo Clifton of course, though not particularly well. An old rip, Matthew’s father had called him, but indulgently. Folk liked Leo, for all his bad habits, and the place he had farmed – Sagebush Farm – had done well for him. He was reckoned to be a good employer too, though with the family weakness for a pretty face.

‘Don’t be sorry. It could be the making of us. He’s left me Sagebush Farm; I’m thinking of shifting.’

‘Reckon you’re right,’ Matthew said after a few moments’ thought. ‘You’ve lost interest in Pengarth, haven’t you?’

‘Aye. But what about you? Want to come or stay here? I’d leave you in charge, of course, you could do as you pleased. But it’s up to you. You’ve got as good a reason as I for wanting to leave – better.’

Matthew did not have to think. He shook his head and reached for the salt. He added some to the stew, then turned to face his companion. ‘I’ll stay here. You think they’ll come back, don’t you?’

‘I did. But it’s near on a year. Still, you must please yourself. There’s no one I’d rather leave in charge, you must know that.’

Matthew nodded. ‘Aye. I’ll not cheat you. When will you leave then?’

He could see that the mere prospect of moving on had brightened the older man’s eye, given him back some of his optimism. Typical, Matthew thought indulgently. Cliftons could take things to heart, but only for so long, then their appetite for life and excitement would begin to come back and they would charge at the nearest obstacle and forget the temporary setback.

‘Oh, there’s no desperate hurry, not now that I’ve somewhere to go. I’ll be able to write there. Can’t do it here any more, don’t really know why.’

Because you miss my little girl and my young wife, Matthew thought without anger, with compassion even. They were never yours, but you’d come to think of them as a part of Pengarth. Yes, you’ll be better away from here.

Aloud, he said: ‘Let me know and I’ll drive you down. I can come back by train.’

He knew Geraint would not leave the car but then he would not need it either. But the older man was shaking his head. ‘No, I’ll drive myself. In a week, two perhaps. What’s in the pan?’

Matthew grinned. He knew what was coming.

‘Beef stew. Care to share it, Mr Geraint?’

‘Good of you, Matt. Got any beer in the house?’

‘Aye, in the cupboard under the sink; it keeps cool down there.’

The older man began to rummage under the sink, then stood up with a couple of bottles swinging from one hand. He walked to the sideboard and got down a couple of pint mugs, then poured the beer into them.

‘Then you’ll definitely stay? Be my foreman, manager, whatever? You won’t be lonely?’

Matthew shrugged. ‘I’m used to it,’ he said gruffly. ‘Twon’t be no worse with you down in Kent.’

‘I’ll come back a couple of times a year, see how you’re making out. You’ll probably do better than I’ve done. You always were steadier, more single-minded.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Matthew said stolidly. ‘Here, get some plates down and I’ll dish up.’

Hot August sunshine burned down on Nell’s head as she swung on the gate watching Wally, Annie Gate-leg and Tod play hopscotch with a piece of slate and squares scratched in the dust. The gaff had been set up, the gallopers, the dodgems, the swingboats and the joints were all ready, sitting patiently in the sunshine waiting for customers. Already, though it was only eight o’clock in the morning, the flattie kids were gathering. Nell had trailed around after the others, putting up the posters in the village last night and they had spoken to several kids then, reminding them that the fair was in Gaffer Thorne’s long meadow for three days, so they had best make the most of it.

The trailers were parked in the shade of a stand of beech trees and Nell could see the thread of blue smoke from her mother’s cooking fire – or, rather, the Allinghams’. The Allingham family was a large one but they closed ranks
against strangers. Hester had been grudgingly accepted because she was useful, but Nell was still very much an outsider so far as the fairground kids were concerned.

Which was probably what always happened, Nell supposed, looking wistfully at the other children. Annie and Tod were Nell’s age: Annie redheaded, freckled, sharp; Tod plump, dark-haired, slower. Wally was Annie’s little brother, a redhead like his sister but lacking her quick wits and repartee. Nell had seen how the children closed ranks against outsiders but she always tried to hang about near them, hoping – so far in vain – for an invitation to join them.

The older people were all right with her and with Hester, thanks to Barbie. Barbie had liked her Mum and when she liked someone she was prepared to put herself out. And then there had been the broken-wrist-that-wasn’t because, although Nell hadn’t realised, Barbie’s bandage covered a perfectly healthy arm.

‘But I wanted an excuse to train someone else up wi’ Phillips,’ she told Hester, just before she left. ‘Tis only me that’s ever handled him for I never thought, you see, that I’d fall head over heels for a flattie, but that’s just what I went and done. My John can’t abide snakes, as I said, nor he don’t want me handlin’ ’em, he want us to get married and work his farm. But no one else wouldn’t take Phillips on, so I had to think o’ something. I was going to advertise, till I met you at Doc Burroughes. That seemed like a miracle, when you put your hand in the bag and stroked Phillips, a bloomin’ miracle. So I set about recruitin’ you, acourse.’

‘And wasn’t I happy to be recruited?’ Hester had replied, giving her friend a hug. ‘You and Phillips between you are just about the best thing that ever happened to Nell and me. And I knew about the wrist from the moment you picked Nell up, chair and all, and moved her along in
the doctor’s waiting room. No one with a damaged wrist could have done that.’

‘Oh well, one little mistake ain’t much,’ Barbie said, returning the hug. ‘Doc Burroughes he give me a rare rollickin’, but he laughed afterwards. He know John, you see.’

‘Lucky John. We’re all going to miss you badly,’ Hester told her friend. ‘But your Mum says Nell and I can share your bed in the trailer when winter comes, which is a worry off my mind, and Nell will go to school in Lynn when we’re fixed there.’

‘She read right well now,’ Barbie had pointed out. ‘What else do she want school for?’

Swinging on the gate, with the glorious smell of crushed grass and woodsmoke in her nostrils, Nell quite agreed with Barbie; who needed school once they could read? She certainly hadn’t missed formal lessons, though each night before they got into their bedrolls in the tiny tent which Barbie had taught them to pitch, Hester insisted on Nell doing sums, geography and history, with quite a lot of practical work as well. Nell would have liked to carry her pencil and the oddments of paper outside, away from the stuffy little tent, but Hester would never let her.

‘You wouldn’t work the same,’ she insisted. ‘You’d be distracted. And I do want you to keep up with other children your age, love. Try to put up with it – you’ll have real school again when winter comes.’

It did not help, though, that she did lessons while the other kids played. They thought her stuck-up, conceited, they even called her flattie Nell, a real insult. They wouldn’t let her join in, though she didn’t tell her mother, who would have been distressed and who might have tried to insist on acceptance. One day they’ll need me, Nell dreamed now, swinging on the gate. One day they’ll see I’m not a flattie any more, I’m fairfolk, like them.

‘Flattie Nell, ain’t you a dream, then? Your ma’s shouted you twice, now she’s a-wavin’ like a windmill. Breakfast’s ready, I guess.’

Nell climbed over the gate and dropped into the long, whitening grass with the other kids close on her heels. If her breakfast was ready the chances were that they too were about to be called. The four of them raced across the grass and threw themselves on to the ground by the fire. The illusion of friendship brightened Nell’s cheeks for a moment, then the other three moved away from her. Not too obviously, but definitely enough for Nell to notice.

Never mind, she told herself. The delicious smell of sausages cooking had brought the mongrel dogs around, eyes bright, tails wagging with anticipation. Nell adored the dogs, told herself their companionship made up for the other children’s scorn. Now, she fussed them, knowing they might not get the sausages, definitely would not get them, but they would probably have slices of bread dipped in the fat when the pan was empty. Hester too loved the conglomeration of dogs which slept under the trailers at night and gave the fair folk warning of intruders. They never went short when she was cooking.

‘Good girl, Nell, you came very quickly. Pour the tea, will you?’

Enamelled mugs were set out on the trailer step and the big, blackened enamel tea-pot stood beside them, steam rising gently from its spout. Nell hefted the pot – not without difficulty, for it was heavy – and filled the mugs, then looked around for milk. She had seen a couple of the older boys going off with jugs earlier so she knew it would be somewhere close at hand, keeping cool. It was under the step. Nell picked it up, sloshed some into each mug, then went back to her mother who was wrapping sausages in thick slices of bread and handing them round.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said, her mouth watering as her fingers closed round the untidy, delectable sandwich. ‘Is your show all set up?’

There wasn’t much to setting up, not in this weather. A fine array of pampas grass and dried bulrushes plus any plants or other foliage which could be cadged or borrowed, wreaths of ivy pulled from the trees and wrapped round the tent-pole and the rail of the enclosure in which Hester and Phillips ‘wrestled’ at every performance, and sand on the ground simulated what Mr Allingham imagined were jungle conditions. Nell was occasionally roped in, to be covered in Cherry Blossom boot polish and dressed in a raffia skirt. She took the money, turned the handle of the gramophone which blared out what Fred Allingham thought of as suitably foreign music, and made chattering noises when she thought of it, which wasn’t often.

‘The tent’s up and the sand’s down, but I could do with a hand, dinnertime,’ her mother admitted. She gestured to where her tent stood with the sign outside proclaiming, ‘See the Snake Woman Wrestle with Venom, the Poisonous Python, Hear the Tale of how She Saved His Life and Tamed Him to her Touch!’

‘The red lettering is fading in the sun and needs touching up; and I don’t want to put the jungle in until the last minute; the plants flag in this heat.’

‘I bet you and Phillips will flag a bit, too,’ Nell observed, speaking thickly through a mouthful of bread and sausage liberally laced with crispy fried onion. ‘Shall I paint up? Only the boot polish runs in the heat.’