Stealing the Show

by Christina Jones

  Singing along with Heartbreak Hotel and Jailhouse Rock – Adele stoutly maintained that Elvis’s early hits were the best ones, although Peter favoured the ballads – the journey was over in a flash. Adele parked the Jag behind Wantage market square at just gone quarter to nine, slipped on the high heels, belted the trenchcoat – and prepared to sort out her children’s future.

  This particular move would affect Nell most, of course, but Nell was a sensible girl. She’d come round. Adele had also made a mental note to discuss fertility treatment with Claudia and Danny later. And then there was Sam. Adele was having some rather worrying thoughts about Sam. Sam might be the most difficult of all to deal with. She’d thought at first it might be drugs – an anathema to her after what had happened to dear Elvis. But, after several whispered conversations at Showmen’s Guild Ladies’ Nights, she had decided he wasn’t showing any of the tell-tale signs. Adele was pretty sure he wasn’t gay – he seemed to have cut a swathe through a host of pretty girls despite being a vegetarian – so that left only one thing. A married woman. She blinked rapidly. There had never been a scandal of that nature in Bradleys, and she wasn’t going to let it happen now. She’d have to keep a very careful eye on her younger son.

  But one step at a time, Adele thought. Danny and Sam’s individual problems would have to wait. Tonight she intended to organise the future of all three children, thereby ensuring that Peter had a stress-free retirement. No one could blame her for wanting that.

  It was still raining, the street lamps were reflected in the puddles like fallen rainbows, and the noise from the fair was a steady damp thud of excitement. Pausing only to remove the headscarf, belatedly remembering her mother’s exhortation that women who wore headscarves or rolled up their sleeves were beyond the pale, Adele headed towards her quarry.

  The fair filled the market-place and beyond. Lights swirled across the dark sky, plunging King Alfred’s statue in and out of a dazzling coat of many colours so quickly that he looked like a rather confused stripper. Despite the rain, there were crowds of people, jostling, shoving, laughing. Adele’s spirits soared at being back amongst the familiarity. It was like looking after other people’s children – lovely at the time, but blissful to think it didn’t have to be for ever. Raising her hand in greeting and mouthing hellos to various old friends, she threaded her way through the mob.

  ‘Adele!’ Clem Percival’s East End bark sounded above the cacophony. ‘Whatcher, Princess!’

  Adele grinned delightedly as he hurried towards her. Clem Percival, big noise in the Showmen’s Guild, tall and broad-shouldered, as always wearing a sheepskin jacket and a chequered cap, and with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, parted the punters as easily as Moses had parted the Red Sea. The Percival children had had their cockney edges smoothed by Millfield. Clem’s still bore all the traces of the Elephant and Castle.

  ‘Lovely to see you. You’re well missed. Mind, flatty life certainly seems to suit you. You look a million.’ He squeezed her hands, practically cutting off the circulation, then gazed over her head. ‘Where’s the old man, then?’

  ‘Not here.’ Adele wriggled her hands free. ‘I’m flying solo. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Yeah. Several for you.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Come to see the Ice-Breaker, have you?’

  Adele hadn’t particularly, but it would be useful, and she knew that to say no would be like telling any proud new mother that her baby wasn’t of the slightest interest. She nodded. ‘One of the reasons.’

  ‘The other being our bloody kids, eh?’ Clem roared above the Bay City Rollers, linking his arm through hers and practically yanking her from her feet. ‘Ross ain’t here. He hot-footed off to Oakton about an hour since. Taking Nell to some swank gaff for a meal or summat. I told him –’ he broke off and shook his fist towards a knot of denim-jacketed youngsters who were tussling against the side of the big wheel. ‘Either queue up properly or piss off!’ He smiled at Adele again. ‘Little bleeders. Sorry. Yeah, I told him that your Nell wasn’t one to be swayed by flash restaurants or wads of money. If she ain’t going to marry him she ain’t, and that’s that. Quite a lot of the Emily about that gal, eh?’

  ‘Emily?’

  ‘Pankhurst.’ Clem dragged Adele past phalanxes of brightly lit rides. ‘Dunno what we can do about them, really. I’d be more’n happy to see them hitched.’ He sighed. ‘Don’t seem to make no difference, though. She’s as stubborn as –’

  ‘Her mother?’ Adele yelled. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  ‘So? Are you on your way to Oakton, then? Going to drop in on them and make sure all’s as it should be? Give ’em a bit of the old parental?’

  ‘Not tonight. I’ve never appeared without giving them warning. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  The rain had once more softened to a drizzle. ‘I hope everything’s OK, like. Ross said there was a HSE bloke round here yesterday. Said he’d be going over to Oakton tonight.’

  ‘Rather them than me then – and another good reason to keep away.’ Adele wrinkled her nose. ‘Honestly, I’m glad to be out of the business. I don’t think I could keep up with all the new rules and regulations. Actually, Clem, I wanted to talk something through with you and ask your opinion on – oh, goodness –’

  ‘Yeah,’ Clem’s eyes and voice softened. ‘That’s it. The Ice-Breaker.’

  Adele gazed in amazement. The Ice-Breaker, a huge circular construction of silvered chrome and electric blue fibreglass, towered into the night. Surrounded by scenes of wildly tossing waves, the cars swirled round in an ellipse, soared thirty feet into the air while tumbling upside down, and plunged immediately into hair’s-breadth gaps between massive spiked glaciers and icebergs before starting the journey again. Glass-cold blue and white lights flashed blindingly. Deep bass music thundered. Each car held two frantically screaming passengers securely in place with padded shoulder bars, and the queue waiting to be terrified snaked out of sight.

  It was a goldmine. And Clem owned the factory that made them.

  ‘One-fifty a ride,’ Clem nodded. ‘Three quid a car. Nine cars. One and a half minutes a shot. Six hours a night, six nights a week.’

  ‘Good God,’ Adele said faintly, totting this up with the mental agility of all showmen. ‘That’s –’

  ‘Just under forty grand a week.’ Clem sucked on a further cigarette. ‘It had paid for itself and made a profit in under ten weeks. And now I’ve bought Jessons I’m leasing them, and similar rides, all over Europe. No wonder your Danny and Sam want a slice of the pie.’

  No wonder indeed, Adele thought dizzily. It relegated the Bradleys’ dodgems, waltzer, and paratrooper – good earners though they were – into non-league status. No wonder Nell’s refusal to join the gravy train was causing ructions.

  Realising that someone was waggling bony, over-ringed fingers in her direction, Adele gave herself a mental shake and nodded greetings at Clem’s austere wife, Marcia, in the Ice-Breaker’s pay-box. They were the same age and she wondered fleetingly if Marcia was going through the Change. She doubted it. Perplexed hormones wouldn’t dare to rampage around Marcia’s rigid body. Whatever other reasons her daughter had for not being sure about marrying Ross, Adele really couldn’t blame Nell for not wanting Marcia Percival as a mother-in-law. Marcia made Vlad the Impaler seem like Mary Poppins.

  Marcia stretched thin lips over slightly protruding teeth and cackled into the microphone. ‘Percival Touring Entertainments proudly introduces the Ice-Breaker! Hurry along there! This is the thrill of a lifetime!’

  ‘Got time for a cuppa if you want to talk.’ Clem grabbed her arm again, tugging her once more through the melee. ‘Marcia and the kids can do without me for a bit. Come on, Princess. Best foot forward.’

  Adele noticed that the Percival daughters and their husbands were all busily employed on the Ice-Breaker and Clem’s other big rides. Danny and Sam would be in seventh heaven, she thought, and probably Claudia too. Claudia would have a fortune to spend on
clothes and knick-knacks. While Nell – Adele shook her head. Nell’s stubbornness would cause more problems in the family than her and Peter’s retirement ever had. And she simply couldn’t let that happen.

  Clem and Marcia’s living wagon was like Chatsworth on wheels. Everything was antique, priceless, and gleaming from Marcia’s ferocious polishing. Entire rainforests of potted greenery fronded from every surface. Matching oil portraits of Clem and Marcia looking grim hung over the mantelshelf. Perching gingerly on the edge of a plush Queen Anne chair, Adele leaned forward to peer at the array of wedding photographs on the sideboard while Clem made tea.

  The two Percival daughters, Melody and Clementine, had made good marriages in recent years to showmen’s sons of equal status who had been delighted to join the Percival hierarchy. They’d diligently produced two children each, three boys to carry on the Percival tradition, and a girl who was, according to showland gossip, destined for marriage to one of the Royal princes. As the child in question was still at the Pampers and dribbly rusk stage, Adele felt they might be a little over-optimistic. But the point was that Ross Percival was the only son; the one to carry the family name; the one to pass this revered name on to his son; and her damn stubborn daughter simply didn’t want to know.

  ‘Thanks.’ She accepted the Royal Creamware cup and saucer from Clem as he plonked his bulk opposite her on something in claret and gold with very spindly legs. ‘So? What’s to do?’

  Having removed his cap and sheepskin, and stubbed out the cigarette in a Royal Doulton saucer, Clem sat back and crossed his legs. With his silver hair and handsome florid face he was everybody’s idea of a rather dodgy used-car salesman, and would be a wow as a walk-on in EastEnders, Adele thought.

  ‘You tell me.’ He sipped his tea. ‘I know you haven’t come belting up here on a piss-poor night just to admire the rides and have a cup of tea. Most of what we’ve said could be covered on the dog’n’bone. You think Nell and Ross should get married, don’t you?’

  Adele nodded. Clem had added about six spoonfuls of sugar to the miniature teacup. It was like drinking treacle. She tried not to pull a face. ‘They get on well together, they’ve known each other for years, they’re equal in education and intellect – and Ross would provide the security and the means to expand into the future long after Peter and I are pushing up daisies. And yet –’

  ‘Nell don’t love him?’

  Adele’s guitar earrings jangled wildly. ‘Love! Bloody foolish notion these youngsters have. Love came second for us. For you and Marcia probably. Maybe even for your daughters. Certainly for Danny – although I think Claudia was always gooey-eyed. It isn’t even as though Nell would have to give anything up, is it? Ross is happy enough to join their outfit. And Danny and Sam are all for it.’

  Clem rotated the tiny cup on its equally tiny saucer. The porcelain looked strangely out of place in such beefy hands. ‘Nell don’t want to expand the business neither, does she?’

  Adele groaned. ‘She’s got some half-cooked idea about the good old days. She’s about as up-front and astute as it’s possible to get and yet she wants love and nostalgia! I could slap her, honestly I could.’

  ‘So?’ Clem shrugged. ‘As long as Nell digs her toes in, then your two boys don’t have any say in the business, is that it?’

  ‘Sadly, yes. It was the way Peter and I arranged things. They each own a ride, but any decisions on buying, selling, merging – anything – have to be unanimous. Not a two-thirds majority. All three signatures on the business cheques.’ She gave up on the syrupy tea, and shook her head. ‘At the time it seemed the most sensible thing to do. But without Nell’s agreement, Sam and Danny won’t be able to buy into your machines. And without the machines there’s no point in Ross joining forces. So, I’ve come up with this – um – idea.’

  Clem Percival finished his tea and frowned. ‘What sort of idea?’

  ‘I’m convinced that if Ross travels with our lot then Nell will change her mind about him. They’d be together all the time then, wouldn’t they? And she’s dithering, Clem, I know she is.’

  Clem lit a cigarette and inhaled luxuriously. ‘Yeah, but Ross won’t join ’em unless he can get them to go shares in one of our new rides. You said that had to be a majority decision, and Nell won’t agree to the expansion –’

  ‘There’ll be expansion, Clem.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’m following you, Princess.’

  ‘It’s simple. But I need to have your backing before I go any further. Do you and Marcia absolutely have no objections to Ross leaving you?’

  ‘None at all.’ Clem blew smoke rings. ‘We’re all pretty close-knit, aren’t we? Never far away. I could even put some bigger gaffs their way so’s we’d meet up all the time. And me daughters and sons-in-law are blinding workers. No, there’d be no objection this end. But there’s really not much point unless your three want the bigger rides. And Nell definitely doesn’t. So – no ride, no Ross.’

  Now that the moment had come, Adele wasn’t sure that she could go through with it. She suddenly felt very hot. Guilt or hormones? She stared at the marble fireplace. The marble fireplace stared back. Get on with it, it commanded in a voice very similar to her mother’s, and stop shilly-shallying.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I want to look at your catalogue – Jessons’ catalogue. Now I’ve seen the Ice-Breaker at first hand, it’s even more spectacular than I’d imagined. It’d be too big for the kids though, so what I want is something smaller.’

  Clem mulled this over before speaking. ‘Let me get this straight, Princess. You’re saying that you are going to buy a ride? Straight out? And give it to your kids?’

  Adele nodded. ‘Well, it’ll be theirs then, won’t it? And Nell won’t be able to reject it because a third of it will be hers. It won’t be a Percival ride. My buying it won’t eat into the company money – and it will be the start of the Bradley-Percival union. Nell won’t have any grounds for objecting to Ross being with them with a similar ride, because they’ll already have one of their own. I think it could sway things.’

  ‘And that’s what matters most to you? Ross and Nell getting hitched? More important than the expansion of the business?’

  ‘Absolutely. Although I’m sure that if we can achieve the first, the second will be a piece of cake.’

  Clem raised his eyebrows and ambled across the living room, pulled down the flap of a rather gorgeous Davenport, and frisbeed a glossy booklet across to Adele. ‘And how much does Peter know about –?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Adele shook her head very quickly, making the golden guitars even more agitated. ‘And I’d prefer it stays that way until it’s a fait accompli, if you don’t mind. I – I just think that he may put a spanner in the works if he gets wind of it early on. He’s got some pretty moralistic ideas.’ She flipped through the pages. ‘I’ve still got my parents’ inheritance money, and a fair bit salted away from over the years.’ She bit her lip and looked up at Clem from beneath rock-hard eyelashes. ‘The tax man doesn’t need to know everything, does he? Ah – now what about this one?’

  Clem leaned over her shoulder. ‘Nice machine. Good money-maker, the Crash’n’Dash. Very popular in Europe – and of course builds up and pulls down with hydraulics off one trailer. They’re in production. We could get one in six weeks or so.’

  ‘As long as it’s no longer.’

  ‘You have my word.’ Clem swallowed noisily, still looking a bit shell-shocked at the speed of the transaction. ‘And how much can I tell Ross about this?’

  ‘Whatever you like – as long as he understands that neither Nell nor Peter must know anything about it. The ride must be delivered before they know what’s going on. I think I might let Danny in on the secret. He won’t breathe a word.’

  ‘Devious. Very devious, Princess. You’re a lady after me own heart. Great idea. What about terms?’

  ‘Cash.’ Adele worked some saliva into her mouth and fanned herself with the brochure. ‘After Henley Regatt
a the kids’ll be at Haresfoot. That’s when Ross was planning to join them. I still want him to.’

  ‘You’re on.’ Clem rubbed his hands together. ‘And no one else will get a sniff of it, I promise you. The Bradleys’ very own Crash’n’Dash will be delivered to the fairground at Haresfoot.’

  ‘And Ross?’

  ‘No worries on that score.’ Clem stretched out a hand to shake on the deal. ‘Ross will be there as well.’

  Chapter Eight

  Jack Morland’s roar of fury as he scraped the remains of his breakfast cornflakes into the bin echoed round the tidy, all-white kitchen. Hurling his Habitat cereal bowl to the floor, he started to scrabble through the bin’s debris, discarding herbal tea bags and the remains of the previous evening’s pasta in his wake.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Fiona’s voice stopped him in mid-delve. ‘We’ve got precisely seven minutes before we leave for work – it’s hardly time to be indulging in reclamation.’

  Jack straightened up amidst the detritus, his hands bunched round several screwed-up pages of newsprint, spaghetti strands dangling from his fingers. He brandished the newspaper in Fiona’s direction. ‘Did you throw this away?’

  ‘What? Probably – oh, and if you’re going to say it should have gone into the recycling box, then I’m sorry but I simply didn’t have time.’

  ‘It should,’ Jack’s voice was dangerously level, ‘have been left exactly where it was. I wanted to keep it. You know I wanted to keep it. I do hang on to things for more than thirty seconds, Fiona. Unlike you. This,’ he waved the messy pages beneath her nose, ‘is important to me.’