Stealing the Show

by Christina Jones

  She felt a stab of foreboding and stared more closely. Bloody hell! The spiky red letters spelled out ‘Crash’n’Dash’ on one side and ‘Bradleys’ Fun Fair On Tour’ on the other.

  Lean and debonair and with sons at Eton, Art Maycroft was leaning against the trailer of Burton’s Toy-Set watching with everyone else. He winked as Nell elbowed her way towards him. ‘Great picture of you and Claudia in the paper this morning. Dead sexy. I got three copies.’

  But Nell didn’t have time for niceties. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Crash’n’Dash. Straight from Jessons. Smashing, eh?’

  ‘Why,’ Nell asked slowly, ‘does it have our name on it and what is it doing here? There’s got to be some mistake.’

  ‘No mistake, Nell. It’s all yours. Well – and Danny’s and Sam’s, of course. You kept it very quiet – not that I blame you. Bradleys must be doing even better than I thought.’

  ‘It’s not ours,’ Nell insisted. ‘Honestly. We only rented space for three machines – our three machines –’

  ‘The ground was organised some time ago – I did a deal with Clem Percival, although I didn’t know what machine we were getting. I must say this is a mega-bonus. We’ll have ’em in in droves with this. Thank God I’ll be with you lot at Marsh Minster, too. This’ll line a lot of pockets.’

  ‘But –’ Nell felt she was drowning in treacle. ‘It isn’t ours. Really. We haven’t bought anything like this. I don’t know anything about it.’

  She stopped. Clem Percival … Clem owned Jessons. Ross had always intended joining them at Haresfoot whatever she said. Ross, the conniving bastard, had bought the ride, had it liveried to Bradleys, and thought that he’d get away with it!

  Ignoring Art’s murmur of appreciation as the spectacular Crash’n’Dash was borne aloft from its tri-axle trailer, Nell thrust her way through the mob. The air was electric with excitement. Danny was up there with the driver, she could see the flash of his tawny hair – and Sam – the two-faced quisling! And, yes – as she’d suspected – Ross bloody Percival!

  She charged towards them. A ride like this must have cost millions – well, hundreds of thousands at least – and Ross had thought that was what it would take to get her. And she’d been simple enough to believe that once she’d spent her money on the gallopers and refused to sign business cheques, Bradleys would be safe from his financial fiddling! She’d kill him!

  The Crash’n’Dash was already half erected, its dual tracks curving into the air. The murmurs of appreciation had grown into a simultaneous intake of breath. Nell, blinking in disbelief, looked at the machine in horror. She thrust aside the open-mouthed Mackenzie twins, and grabbed Ross’s arm just as the cars started to climb.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  Ross’s eyes were diamond bright. ‘Sure. Later. I’m a bit busy right now. If it’s about the photograph, I thought it was excellent. I’ve ordered an enlargement of the original.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the photograph. I want to talk to you. About this. Now!’ Nell tried not to look at the vibrant paintwork, the huge garish paintings of high-speed two wheel chases and tumbling cars, the towering tracks. ‘Now, Ross.’

  Danny and Sam were swarming over the damn thing like children in an adventure playground, with Mick and Alfie, Ted and Barry not far behind. Terry wasn’t there. At least one of the gaff lads was showing some solidarity. But then – neither was Claudia. Oh, let them get on with it. She had more urgent problems to deal with.

  ‘Take it away.’ She glared at Ross. ‘Take it back to your father and tell him thanks but no thanks. We don’t want it – we can’t afford it – we will not be running it –’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’ Ross was grinning in the most irritating manner. ‘Honestly, Nell. Nothing to do with me at all. It is exactly what it says – Bradleys’ Crash’n’Dash. Ordered from Jessons, yes. But not by me.’

  Nell sighed heavily, her patience sorely tried. ‘OK. Let’s try again. You were joining us at Haresfoot; your father owns Jessons; Danny and Sam wanted a hydraulic ride. Right so far?’

  Ross nodded, still grinning. Fighting the urge to slap him, Nell continued. ‘And here we are – at Haresfoot. Your living wagon is parked next to Danny’s. And what else do we have? Surprise, surprise! A bloody Jessons machine. Come on, Ross. Don’t treat me like a fool.’

  ‘I never have.’ He seemed eager to get away from her all of a sudden. ‘Look, Nell. Believe me. I didn’t put a penny into this. I didn’t order it, commission it – nothing. We’ll talk later. Danny and Sam’ll need a hand. I’m here to run it, yes. But it’s not my machine. It’s yours.’ He moved away. ‘Oh, by the way, I love the new hair-do. Very wild. Did you have it done in Haresfoot?’

  She glared at him. ‘No. Actually it got like this because I was tearing about the countryside on the back of a powerful motorbike without a crash helmet. The motorbike was driven by a gloriously sexy artist who’s just about to marry his pregnant girlfriend but wanted to take me out for a drink.

  OK?’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Ross nodded. ‘Glad you had a nice time. Look, sweetheart, don’t you want to come and look at your new toy?’

  ‘Ross! You must know who paid for it! Who?’

  ‘Of course I know, but my lips are sealed. I’ve been sworn to secrecy. But I swear it wasn’t me. Now, I’ve got work to do – and so have you. We’ll have a drink later. In my living wagon. OK?’

  Nell groaned with fury as he strolled back towards the now almost completed Crash’n’Dash. It was, as they’d all said, child’s play to build up. And Ross was a permanent fixture. They’d said that too – and she hadn’t believed them. And he expected her to shimmy up to his granite and leather and marble palace for cocoa. Tonight and every night for the rest of her life. Self-satisfied bastard. Complete and utter pig!

  But actually, much though she didn’t want to, she believed him about the Crash’n’Dash. She’d known Ross for ever. She knew when he was lying; he went all bombastic and bristly. So, if he hadn’t bought it, then just who had? Danny? It had to be Danny. But where would Danny have raised the cash? Even if he and Sam clubbed together they would have still needed her signature. Or maybe they wouldn’t. She’d bought the Savage and the Gavioli without anyone finding out, hadn’t she? Were they all being equally devious?

  ‘Pretty cool, isn’t it?’ Claudia, in another Monsoon dress and looking very perky, was standing beside her. ‘Bit of a surprise, though.’

  ‘Is it?’ Nell peered at her sister-in-law. ‘And where were you just now? Your wagon door was open and you weren’t around. You weren’t with Terry, were you?’

  ‘No. Why? Oh, God – not that again. I was having a nose round Ross’ van, if you must know. While he was otherwise engaged. Pretty hedonistic, Nell, isn’t it? God, the place is made for orgies!’

  ‘I really wouldn’t know. So, how much did you know about – this?’ Nell jabbed her finger towards the Crash’n’Dash. ‘How much did Danny tell you?’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it until it arrived. It was as much a shock to me as it was to everyone else. Danny is over the moon, though.’

  ‘Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? He’s obviously bought it.’

  ‘Dream on! We don’t have that sort of money. It would have to be a three-way thing, and you and Sam didn’t – I mean, well, I assume you and Sam didn’t –’

  ‘I certainly did not! Ross says it was nothing to do with him – and strange as it may seem, I believe him.’

  Claudia grinned. ‘Yeah, well, you know him better than most. Did you know he’d got satin sheets and a goatskin rug in front of the hearth?’

  Nell did. She didn’t want to talk about it.

  Claudia changed tack. ‘I like your hair. Did you have it done in Oxford?’

  ‘I wasn’t in Oxford. What on earth makes you think I was in Oxford?’

  ‘Dunno. The bank manager, I suppose.’

  ‘Why do you keep on about bank managers? Oh
, hell – what’s happening now?’

  ‘HSE and Jessons’ engineers,’ Art Maycroft informed them, nudging his way through the throng. ‘They’re going to do the installation and safety checks and a trial run. Any volunteers?’

  The crowd surged forward, eager to be first on as soon as the all-clear was given. Nell, shaking her head, turned away. It had to be Danny. It simply had to be. But whoever it was, it would toll the death knell for Bradleys as she’d known it. They were moving up into the Percival league. And Ross Percival was here. Complete with sybaritic living wagon. She’d really be expected to marry him now. Even more so now that Bradleys owned four rides – and one of them was the Crash’n’Dash. She was no longer a poor relation. Her dowry was at last acceptable. What on earth, she wondered, would her parents think? They’d probably be pleased. They’d see it as a pathway to the future.

  Feeling exhausted, Nell turned away from the feverish excitement and headed for her living wagon.

  An hour later, after a shower and having washed the tangles out of her hair, she leaned from the window and watched the Crash’n’Dash’s first trial run. It was scarily spectacular, she had to admit, even in daylight when the lights weren’t shown to their best advantage. At night it would certainly pull people in from miles around. Which was exactly what they were supposed to do. They were in business, mobile business, to do just that, weren’t they?

  There was a tight knot of pain in her chest as she watched. The pulsing heavy metal music drowned everything else; the car-crash sound effects were terrifyingly realistic. It didn’t matter what she thought about it. Ross and Danny, Nyree-Dawn and Mercedes Mackenzie and all the gaff lads, including Terry – the turncoat – were already clambering into the seats. The Crash’n’Dash and Ross were here to stay.

  Sam and Claudia must have missed the inaugural flight because she couldn’t see them as the cars swooped up into the sky; she could see everyone else, though. Intending to be completely detached, she watched as the tracks revolved faster and faster, and the cars swung, climbed, and fell. At the point where the tracks first moved together and the cars were on a breakneck collision course, she caught her breath.

  ‘Sod it,’ she muttered, ‘it’s brilliantly designed. It looks like a dream – and it’ll outshine everything else at any gaff we go to. It’ll make our fortune and I hate it!’

  She watched two further test runs, and then when the HSEs and the Jessons engineers were satisfied, the machine was opened to the public. Word had spread rapidly and soon massive queues wound through the fair almost as far as the living wagons. Nell couldn’t help working out the takings. They were phenomenal. It didn’t matter. She still hated it.

  Turning away from the window, she dried her hair, pulled on a pair of tailored shorts and a silk shirt, and went to work.

  The dodgems were packed all night. Word of the Crash’n’Dash must have spread to three counties and the crowds were shoving and laughing, waiting for their turn to be terrified, and riding on everything else in the meantime.

  ‘Great to be back.’ Terry swung up to the edge of the pay-box and handed Nell the takings. ‘I always knew I had excellent timing. Bloody brilliant machine that Crash’n’Dash. We’re making a fortune. I might even ask for a pay-rise.’

  She watched him leap from car to car, and was only faintly surprised to see that the girl with the cropped hair and the navel ring whose thigh he’d autographed earlier, was entwined sinuously round one of the pillars. He had probably told her that Rudy Yarrow was on location, or that he was getting background for his next role. Either way she felt a pang of sympathy for Karen.

  Sam was elated on the paratrooper; even Danny was grinning and playing The Beach Boys on the waltzer. Claudia, with her hair gathered up into a trailing silk scarf and looking wildly gypsyish, had got all three Mackenzie girls working with her and had men hurling hoops like there was no tomorrow. Everyone, Nell thought, was overjoyed. It was like winning the lottery. A huge unexpected bonus. Was she being churlish not to share in their pleasure? She could see the plus points, of course she could. Even her fears that the gaff lads would be out of work were groundless. With Ross in the Crash’n’Dash’s pay-box they’d probably need more staff – not less. And whoever had put up the money had done it for the benefit of the whole family. She groaned. She was tied to this arrangement now as surely as if someone had welded her bracelets to the Crash’n’Dash’s rocket-like hydraulics.

  They closed very late. Nell had carried a tray of bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea over to the Beast Wagon, and passed Art Maycroft counting his takings.

  ‘Better’n Nottingham Goose Fair,’ he grinned at her. ‘I’m reckoning on putting up the rents at the next gaff. Great night, Nell. And a great step forward for Bradleys. I’ve had Meridian telly on the blower. They’re going to come to Marsh Minster and do a feature. Brilliant stuff, huh?’

  Ross was waiting for her in the darkness outside his living wagon, looking elated. He’d changed from his working jeans and T-shirt into the navy trousers and shirt from the Blenheim concert. Nell hoped he wasn’t going into seduction mode. She simply wasn’t in the mood.

  ‘I’ve poured you a drink – tons of ice, and I’ve made some food.’ He climbed the steps and opened the door for her. ‘And don’t frown. I’m not going to pounce on you the minute you walk in. You said you needed to talk – I just thought we’d do it in comfort.’

  She smiled. He was OK. He was, she told herself firmly. He was just ambitious. But she still didn’t love him. The large Martinis stood on an ebony tray, and he’d made open sandwiches with prawns and iceberg lettuce and thin slivers of tomato. The lights were dim and Oscar Peterson spilled softly from somewhere unseen and flowed across the marble and pearlised leather. I am such a fool, she told herself, perching on the edge of one of the huge chairs and feeling the rough hair of the goatskin rug tickle her toes: he’s rich, he’s got style, he’s handsome, and he wants to marry me. Why, oh why, isn’t it enough? Why can’t it be what I want?

  Ross handed her her drink, a plate of sandwiches, and a napkin. God, Nell thought, he even uses linen napkins – not bits of kitchen roll like she did. He sat opposite her. ‘I’ve dreamed about this. Being here like this. Breaking away from my parents at last. Gaining my independence.’

  She balanced the prawns precariously, glad that he hadn’t thrown her in there as a bonus. Maybe he was just glad to escape from Clem and Marcia. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘And glad to have the Crash’n’Dash?’

  ‘It isn’t mine.’ He managed to bite into his sandwich without dropping any of it. ‘But yes, for the time being. Once we’ve drawn up new agreements, then I’d like to add another Jessons ride, maybe a Moon Mission. We’d be well on the way to the big time then. Danny could run the Crash’n’Dash and put Claudia up in the waltzer. We’d take on a few more lads. And –’ he leaned forward, ‘I’ve applied for ground rights at Wallingford, Abingdon, and Newbury in the autumn. With Dad’s Guild influence it shouldn’t be a problem. We should even be able to let some ground out. Strike out on our own. Be like Dad or Art Maycroft – or even Irvins or Collins.’

  ‘Or Wilsons or Mellors or –’ Nell gave up trying to eat graciously and picked the prawns up in her fingers. It was, as she’d feared, all slipping away from her. She’d never be able to amalgamate the Memory Lane Fair with the ranks of hi-tech, white-knuckle rides now. The Savage and the Gavioli would never sail round in stately splendour on village greens. The ghost train and the caterpillar would remain in the shed at Fox Hollow. Jack and the Downland Trust would have to find a new home – again.

  She thought fleetingly about Jack, and how very different it had been with him at lunch-time. How relaxed; without threat. The wild bike ride, the laughing, the whole friendliness of it all. She wondered if he was sitting at home with Fiona, planning his wedding, choosing names for their baby, dreaming of the gallopers. But Fiona was away in London being businesslike, wasn’t she? Still, she was sure of one thing – he
wouldn’t be thinking about her. Jack had his future organised while hers just flapped lamely like a broken branch in the wind, being pulled in all directions at once.

  She realised that all the time she’d sat with him at the Maybush, on the bank of the river, in the sun, she hadn’t worried about her freckles. Not once.

  Ross was still talking. She scooped up strands of lettuce. ‘Oh – sorry? I – er – didn’t catch that last bit.’

  ‘I said it’s symbiotic.’ Ross sipped his Martini. ‘Everyone benefits. Fairs change. I mean, it’s not that long ago – certainly within the memory of the older generation – that crowds flocked to fairs to ogle malformed animals. And God forbid, even people. Siamese twins in preserving fluid – three-legged sheep – freak shows, for Christ’s sake. Thankfully we’ve moved on since then. That’s what we do. What all businesses do. Move. Forwards.’

  Nell still wanted to move backwards. Not to the freak shows; of course not. But to the days when things were calmer and gentler and you didn’t pay to be frightened out of your wits. She knew he wouldn’t understand, so she stayed silent.

  Ross was well into his stride. ‘Of course there will be places we can’t take the new machines, but I don’t see that posing a problem. Quite the reverse. You and Sam can take the dodgems and paratrooper to one gaff while Danny and I take the hydraulic rides and the waltzer to another. Diversification. Expansion. All to the good, Nell. Where on earth is the problem in that?’

  She didn’t know. She couldn’t see one. It just wasn’t what she wanted.

  She put her empty plate back on the ebony tray and took a mouthful of Martini. It was perfect. Ross even knew how to mix Martinis. ‘Just tell me one thing. I do know it wasn’t you who bought the Crash’n’Dash. I happen to believe you. So, how did Danny manage to pull this one off?’

  Ross slid from his chair and sat on the goatskin rug at her feet. He ran his hand up her bare leg to the bottom of her shorts and stroked her knee. She wished he wouldn’t. He took her free hand and kissed it. ‘Oh, well, you’re bound to know sooner or later, Freckle Face. I don’t suppose it matters any more. It wasn’t Danny. He knew nothing about it. It was your mother.’