Age of Legends

by James Lovegrove

  Ajia and Smith arrived at a small market town, one where modern housing estates encircled a quaint, picturesque core as though the new world were laying siege to the old. A poster pasted to a disused telephone box caught Ajia’s eye.

  “SUMMER LAND,” it declared in looping, fanciful capitals. “WHERE THE SUN NEVER SETS AND THE JOY NEVER ENDS.”

  She tugged Smith’s sleeve. “That’s not it, is it? That’s not the Summer Land we’re looking for.”

  “It is the very one,” said Smith.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Well spotted.”

  He squinted at the poster. To Ajia, it looked like a flyer for a travelling funfair, the kind that used to set up near her home––in West Ham Park, say, or Mile End Park––for a week or so. Her father, the grumpy sod, had always thought them a rip-off and refused to go, but her mother had taken her a couple of times and watched, smiling, as Ajia enjoyed the rides and negotiated the mirror maze. The funfairs still came, but Ajia couldn’t remember when she’d last visited one.

  “It’s here for the next three days,” Smith said, running a finger down the dates printed on the poster. “All we have to do is find where this ‘North Common’ is.”

  They got directions from a postal worker out on his rounds, and shortly they were approaching North Common, a large meadow on the town outskirts which had been designated public land. A funfair was not what Ajia had been expecting, but she was obscurely excited by the prospect. It was a lot more appealing than the image she had conjured of a rag-tag campsite inhabited by a bunch of displaced randoms who might, or might not, have powers like Smith and her. Funfairs were, well, fun.

  She was quickly disabused of that notion when the fairground came into sight. Above the entrance, an arch-shaped hoarding spelled out SUMMER LAND, or would have if the placards sporting the “U” and the “L” hadn’t been missing.

  Summer Land itself consisted of some of the grottiest-looking attractions Ajia had ever seen. Even the word “attractions” was a misnomer. Admittedly it was early in the morning, the sun barely up, the sky still pearly grey. The funfair wasn’t open, and the rides and stalls were unattended. There were no flashing lights, no jaunty music, no laughing punters, not even the smell of candyfloss to enliven the atmosphere.

  But still, as she and Smith made their way through the site, traipsing along muddy paths worn by fair-goers’ feet, Ajia’s overriding impression was of seediness and grubbiness. Everywhere, there was rust and rotten timber. The paint on the carousel horses was peeling. The wavy slides were riddled with splinters. The shooting gallery looked like a fire hazard. The dodgems could not have been dodgier.

  The artwork adorning the rides was just as bad. It was tricky deciding whether the animals airbrushed onto the sides of the waltzer were dogs, cats or unicorns. Whoever was responsible for the panels on the central column of the swinging chairs, which depicted famous buildings from around the world, he or she appeared to have only the most basic grasp of perspective, proportion and colour harmony. As for the faces on the helter-skelter, meant to convey delight, these were so cack-handedly done that they looked more like portraits of dismay.

  “The artist in me is dying, just being here,” Ajia remarked. “Plus, I think I’m getting tetanus.”

  “It isn’t the most salubrious of venues,” Smith said, “but you’ll find, after a while, it grows on you.”

  “Like mould,” Ajia muttered.

  They came to an area at the edge of the funfair where an assortment of lorries, cars, vans and caravans were parked, higgledy-piggledy. These matched the attractions in decrepitude. The newest of them looked at least twenty years old, and Ajia lost count of the number of bald tyres she saw and the number of windows patched with gaffer tape. In some instances the vehicle’s bodywork was so dirty, it was hard to tell what colour it was supposed to be.

  A man was sitting on his haunches outside a Volkswagen camper van, shirtless, washing in a bucket of water. He was squat, pallid and thickset, with a bulbous nose and tiny eyes. The hair on his head was thin and lank, but his back, chest and upper arms were covered with so much of it, and so densely, it resembled fur.

  Warily the man looked up at Ajia and Smith.

  “Smith,” he said, scowling. “You’re back.”

  “Morning, Vic,” Smith replied. “Is Mr LeRoy up yet?”

  “Doubt it. Likes a lie-in, he does. You know where to look for him.”

  Vic resumed scrubbing his armpits with a tattered flannel.

  “Friendly,” Ajia murmured to Smith as they strolled on.

  “You’ll have to make allowances,” Smith said. “Everybody here has had their share of traumas. These are damaged individuals. Outcasts, to a man and woman. A positive outlook, if they ever had any, has long since deserted them, and with it the social graces. Mind you, Vic is a boggart, and they, of course, are famously grouchy.”

  “Boggart? Right. I remember them from Harry Potter. They can change shape to resemble your worst fear.”

  “Fiction again. What did I tell you about fiction?”

  “It’s not the same as folklore. A stream, not a river.”

  “Precisely. Boggarts like to cause mischief, somewhere at the malevolent end of the scale. If your milk goes sour unexpectedly, or your dog goes lame, or your horse bucks you for no discernible reason, chances are a boggart is to blame.”

  “If only he was called Humphrey rather than Vic.”

  “Humphrey?”

  “Humphrey Boggart.”

  Smith remained stony-faced.

  “Not funny?” Ajia said.

  “It’s not that I don’t get it. It’s just that you shouldn’t make fun of boggarts.”

  “He couldn’t hear me.”

  “All the same, they don’t have a sense of humour, and if you mock one, it could go badly for you. So, as a rule, it’s best to play it safe.”

  “Okay,” Ajia said. “Message received and understood.”

  The largest of the caravans was also the most dilapidated. It was box-shaped, with sides clad in corrugated aluminium that was coming away at the corners and that someone had daubed in a shade halfway between oatmeal and diarrhoea. Thin cotton curtains hung askew in the windows.

  Smith knocked and, after a long wait, knocked again.

  The door was opened, eventually, by a slender, beautiful young man wearing just his underpants.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said, running a cursory gaze over Smith. His eyes were perfect ovals, like polished gemstones, and his long hair, tied up in a man bun, was silvery white.

  “Perry,” said Smith. “Always a pleasure. I take it Mr LeRoy is still asleep.”

  “Bron, are you still asleep?” Perry called into the caravan’s interior.

  “Wide awake, dear boy,” came the reply. “Who is it?”

  “Smith.”

  Ajia liked the V-shape of Perry’s torso and the way his abs flexed as he spoke. She chose to think that her admiration of his physique was purely pragmatic. One person who kept in shape appreciating another person who kept in shape, that was all.

  “Smith?” said Mr LeRoy. “The Smith? My goodness! The prodigal returns. Give me a moment, Smith. I’ll just pop some clothes on. You can come in when I’m decent.”

  A couple of minutes later, Smith and Ajia were invited in. Mr LeRoy, in a towelling bathrobe and stripy silk pyjama bottoms, made a great fuss of Smith, shaking his hand warmly and embracing him. He was a rotund man with a halo of curly golden hair and soft, cherubic features that made his age difficult to gauge. He could have been anything from forty to sixty.

  “We’ve missed you, Smith,” he said. “Is this a passing visit or are you back to stay?”

  “To stay, I suppose.”

  “For good?”

  “For a while. Can’t promise anything.”

  “Well, a while is better than nothing. Wonderful. So many things round here need mending. Proper mending, not the bodge jobs we’ve had to make do with. Not that having
you back isn’t a delight in itself, of course, but still… I can give you a list, if you’d like.”

  Smith shrugged. “It won’t hurt to make myself useful. Earn my keep.”

  Mr LeRoy turned towards Ajia. The moment he laid eyes on her, the air of warmth and affability he gave off intensified.

  “Good grief!” he exclaimed. “I do believe… It can’t be. But it is. It’s you.”

  Ajia frowned. “Do we know each other?”

  “Not as such,” said Mr LeRoy slyly. “And yet we do, don’t we?”

  Ajia had to admit, there was something familiar about him. Was he an actor? Someone off the TV? He had the over-loud voice and the slightly camp thespian manner. But then, if that was the case, how come he was claiming he knew her?

  “Bron LeRoy,” he said, clasping Ajia’s hand in both of his. “But to you, I’m more than that, and I think you realise it, my girl, don’t you? You and I, we have had a relationship.”

  Ajia looked askance.

  “Not like that!” Mr LeRoy said. “Definitely not. Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with you. You’re attractive enough––for a female. But you were once my… Well, I hesitate to call it servant. Sounds so lordly. My messenger. Weren’t you? You ran errands for me. And, when my spirits were low, you would sing to me, or dance, to cheer me up. You were my Puck, and I your king.”

  “Bron,” she said. “Short for Oberon.”

  “Yes. Mine’s the Auberon that’s spelled with an ‘AU’ instead of an ‘O’, but otherwise, he and I are one and the same. Like him, I am ruler of the faery folk. Unlike him, I am also ruler of the funfair folk.”

  He was still holding Ajia’s hand, but only now seemed to realise it.

  “I do apologise,” he said, letting go. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “My lively, lovely Puck. After all this time, we meet, or rather we meet again. It feels like fate. Please, sit down, both of you. Perry? Would you be a love and make us coffee?”

  Perry busied himself in the caravan’s tiny kitchenette, bashing around the kettle and the mugs with a somewhat surly expression on his face. Ajia could only assume he was Mr LeRoy’s significant other and was used to being bossed about by his lover, but didn’t necessarily like it.

  Mr LeRoy ushered her and Smith to a bench seat which was upholstered in some coarse fabric that felt marginally softer to the touch than sandpaper.

  “How good of you to bring her to me, Smith,” he said, sitting opposite them.

  “I thought you’d be glad.”

  “And you, Puck…”

  “Ajia,” Ajia said. “I’m not used to being called Puck, and I’m not sure yet whether I like it.”

  “Ajia, then, if you prefer. You have only lately joined our ranks. A relative babe in arms. If it’s asylum you seek, or somewhere simply to stop awhile and take stock, you’re more than welcome. Summer Land can be your home.”

  “Thanks,” she said uncertainly.

  “No pressure. Just know that you’re amongst friends. Everyone here has been through what you’ve been through. They’ve known the disorientation you’re feeling, the sense of dislocation, as though you’ve woken from a long sleep to find yourself in a foreign country. We’re a family, in a strange kind of way, because of it. That doesn’t mean we all get along. Some of us don’t see eye to eye at all. Nevertheless there’s a bond that unites us. I hope you’ll come to realise it and cherish it, as we do.”

  “Okay.” Truth be known, Ajia was feeling a little overwhelmed just then. Partly it was exhaustion after four days on the road, and partly it was Mr LeRoy’s sheer, unbridled openness. People never normally were this kind unless they wanted something in return.

  “There is a catch, though,” Mr LeRoy said.

  Here it comes.

  “You’ll be expected to work. Everyone at Summer Land has to pull their weight. There are no free rides. That’s the rule for the punters, and that’s the rule for us too. No free rides. We’ll find you some sort of job, whatever suits your talents best.”

  “That’s it?” she said. “To stay, all I have to do is work?”

  “That’s it. Staffing the stands, or helping out with the practical nitty-gritty like cleaning and cooking. Anywhere there’s a vacancy.”

  Ajia thought for a moment.

  “I know exactly what I can do for you,” she said.

  “My dear, I am all ears,” said Mr LeRoy, leaning forward.

  Chapter 9

  THE REDECORATING BEGAN the very next day.

  Mr LeRoy supplied her with paints and brushes, none of them good-quality, but serviceable. Ajia set to work, starting with the animals on the hoardings of the waltzer. Whatever those abominations were supposed to be, they were as ugly as sin. It was almost painful to look at them.

  Perching on a stepladder, she covered them over with a wash of white, sketched in fresh outlines and filled in the spaces with colour. She had decided on an undersea theme, and it was all clownfish and dolphins and lobsters and mermaids, cartoony but with a degree of polish and sophistication. For the background she depicted a coral reef set against layers of deepening blue.

  Halfway through the process she thought, Hold on a moment. I have super speed. Can’t I get this done a bit faster?

  She tried, but the results were shambolic. Her hand moved too quickly for the paint to lay itself down with sufficient thickness and precision. Her brushstrokes were scratchy smears.

  Better just stick to running fast.

  She worked from morning until mid-afternoon, when the fair opened for business. Throughout, her constant companion was the tolling of Smith’s hammer, sometimes close by, sometimes further away. He was moving around the fairground from ride to ride, repairing.

  The next day, she started again, this time repainting the gallopers––the carousel horses. She chose a pastel palette, giving the horses a makeover that she thought might be garish, a bit too My Little Pony, but in the event was pleasing to look at. She added plenty of texturing and dappling, for a semblance of realism.

  She couldn’t finish all of them in the time available. By the following afternoon, however, the job was completed.

  In the meantime, she was learning about the different beings who made up the funfair folk, as Mr LeRoy had called them.

  There were perhaps sixty people in all working at the fair, and they comprised various types of faery, each with its own abilities and affinities. There were the boggarts, like Vic. They weren’t exactly a barrel of laughs, and mostly they kept themselves to themselves. They ran the game stalls, such as the hook-a-duck and the shooting gallery. If a punter was doing too well, they would exert some of their malign influence, and all at once the person would experience a streak of bad luck. It kept them amused and saved money on prizes.

  Then there were the elves, of which Perry, Mr LeRoy’s lover, was one. They could be quite charming when they wished to be, and so they worked primarily as barkers on the rides, luring punters over with catcalls and come-ons, a talent known as glamouring. The females were as beautiful as the males, and they all preferred to wear their hair long. Often it was hard to tell one gender from the other.

  The brownies were the friendliest of the lot––helpful and industrious––and their duties were mainly in the catering and cleaning departments. Brownies cooked the hamburgers and hot dogs and supervised the candyfloss and toffee apple stalls.

  Pixies were small and childlike. Some of them could even pass for children. Therefore they were put in charge of the “juveniles”––the rides designed for the under-tens.

  Goblins were small too, but lumbering and muscular, and not very bright. Menial labour suited them best, although they took it in turns to manage the high striker, the machine which permitted you to test your strength by hitting a lever with a mallet to send a puck shooting up towards a bell. A goblin was strong enough to make the bell ring every time, with scarcely any effort, and punters, seeing
someone small achieving this feat, thought it easy to replicate and would keep paying for yet another go until they succeeded.

  Another area of responsibility for the goblins was security. They patrolled the fairground after closing time, like sentries, and if there was trouble during opening hours, they dealt with it. Ajia witnessed this for herself on her third evening with the funfair folk––the last before Summer Land decamped to another site––when a gang of local lads with a bit too much cider in them got lairy. The youths abused other fair-goers, but it was the funfair folk they were particularly offensive towards, swearing at them, spitting at them and calling them “gyppos” and “pikeys”. The goblins stepped in. When the youths would not leave quietly, as invited, the goblins evicted them by force. It was not pretty to watch but it was immensely satisfying. The goblins stopped short of causing serious physical harm, which might result in police involvement, but they roughed up the troublemakers just enough to deter them from returning.

  The next day, Summer Land moved on.

  THE SMALLER RIDES could be folded up, becoming self-contained towable trailers. The larger ones had to be dismantled and the pieces stowed in the backs of lorries. The caravans were then hitched to the lorries.

  The entire procedure, which the funfair folk had down to a fine art, took less than eight hours. By mid-afternoon, a convoy of vehicles was winding its way out from the site, leaving behind a field criss-crossed with muddy ruts and dotted with geometrical-shaped patches of flattened grass.

  On her first night, Ajia had been assigned a bunk in a caravan occupied by three female brownies. The brownies were hospitable. They were also house-proud, and the interior of the caravan was spick and span, always smelling like fresh flowers. She felt fortunate to have them as roommates.

  She thought she would be travelling with these three, up front in the cab of the lorry pulling their caravan. However, Mr LeRoy asked if she would come with him instead.