Tickled Pink

by Christina Jones

  The crystal ball, tarot cards and palmistry kit – all loaned by Tatty and arrayed on a green baize bridge table – meant absolutely nothing to her, but it didn’t matter, did it? It was only a bit of fun after all.

  Crossing the gypsy’s palm with silver seemed to be adding to the Letting Off Steam coffers very nicely indeed. Dozens and dozens of people passed through the darkened tent during the afternoon. Peering into the crystal ball or turning over tarot cards or reading gnarled and grubby hands, Posy made it all up as she went along.

  After telling everyone, over and over again, exactly what they wanted to hear – lottery wins, marriage to tall, dark and handsomes, astounding career successes she was very hot and completely exhausted.

  Just as she was wondering if she could sneak off for a pint of shandy before dehydration took a serious grip, the tent flap opened again.

  Ellis grinned at her. ‘Just thought I’d give you a try. After all, you never know what the fates have in store, do you?’

  Posy narrowed her eyes. ‘Sit down.’

  Ellis sat.

  Posy moved her hands mystically over the crystal. ‘Okay, I see a rushed wedding in the near future. And a baby. And a stonking success at many, many business ventures. And total, total lifelong misery, you bastard.’

  ‘Hey –’ Ellis blinked. ‘Steady on, Pose. That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’

  ‘Because of you, Lola’s leaving Steeple Fritton with a broken heart. What the hell did you expect me to predict?’

  ‘Oh, Christ. . . Okay. But you know how I feel, don’t you? I love her so much. If I could change things I would, like a shot.’ He ran his fingers through his spiky hair. ‘I’m so bloody unhappy. Can’t you tell me something nice?’

  ‘I’m not real, you know. This is only pretend.’ Posy’s heart softened. ‘Oh, okay . . . after all if it hadn’t been for you nagging me, none of today would have happened and we’d all still be in the doldrums. I owe you something. Give me your hand.’

  She peered into Ellis’s palm. It looked much the same as any other palm, only cleaner than most she’d seen today. The meaning of the lines and whorls was a complete mystery.

  ‘I see an unexpected solution to all your worries. You will be released from the burden you’ve been carrying. You will be free to follow your heart. You’ll briefly travel over water, but return to the village where you’ll make your home. You’ll live a long, happy, healthy and successful life, and marry the woman of your dreams.’

  She sat back. Ellis blinked and said nothing.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Posy sighed. ‘That’s the best I can do.’

  Ellis stood up. He looked as though he was going to burst into tears. ‘Thanks. I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  He barged out through the tent flap just as Flynn walked in.

  ‘Jeeze –’ he looked at Posy, ‘what the hell did you tell him?’

  ‘The truth, and then what I thought he’d like to hear.’ She grinned. ‘So, which do you want?’

  ‘Well not the truth,’ Flynn sat down, stretching his long legs under the table, ‘not if it’s going to make me cry.’

  ‘Crystal, cards or palm?’

  ‘Palm, definitely.’ He reached across and closed his fingers round hers. ‘Sorry they’re a bit dirty. Engine stuff.’

  ‘Engine stuff is fine by me.’ Posy shivered with delight as Flynn did the sensual finger stroking again. ‘Um, let me see. Oh, yes, well, you’re going to live until you’re a hundred and three, and you’re going to have fourteen children, and you’ll be amazingly happy all your life because you’ll have followed your heart and – what?’

  Flynn leaned closer across the card table. His hair feathered towards his slanting eyes. There were faint smudges of coal dust on his cheeks. He smelled of heat and engine oil and smoke and lemons. It was the most erotic cocktail in the world.

  ‘Do an Ellis on me. Tell me what you think I’d want to hear.’

  Posy sucked in her breath. ‘Dangerous territory. What I think you want to hear, and what you think you want to hear, might just be poles apart . . . Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Okay, then. You’re going to make a major life-change. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a country other than the one of your birth. You’ll follow your heart – sorry, that bit crept in again. It did that with Ellis, too. Must be one of Madam Za-Za’s strong points, following hearts. Er, sorry, where was I? Oh, yes, you’ll make your living doing the things you enjoy most and will always be happy.’

  ‘And –’ Flynn was smiling. ‘What about the marriage and the fourteen children?’

  ‘Um, well, the marriage will come as something of a surprise to many, being not what is currently on the cards. That’s a mystic reference there, in case you missed it. Your heart will be captured by a foreign love. It will be a love that lasts forever. And will be blissfully happy. A true partnership. And, um, there will be four children and –’

  ‘What happened to the other ten?’

  ‘Unless you’re Tatty Spry, four seems more than enough to me.’ Posy smiled back at him. She couldn’t help it. She adored him. ‘How does that sound?’

  ‘Perfect.’ Flynn leaned across the table and brushed his lips gently against hers. ‘Just perfect. Exactly what I’d have predicted for me, too. Such a shame you’re not a real fortune teller. If you had been, I might just have believed it could all come true.’

  Chapter Thirty-one

  By nine o’clock the evening was dissolving into a warm navy and lilac dusk. Bats swooped and dived, catching unsuspecting moths on their downward trajectory, and the air was filled with the scents of crushed grass and fried onions and hot oil. The Memory Lane Fair was blaring its triumphal noise across the common, an aurora of lights arching across the darkening sky, with snakes of people still waiting to scramble on to the rides.

  It had been the best day Steeple Fritton had ever known.

  The pub was packed; the entire population of the Frittons and beyond were squeezing in and out of The Crooked Sixpence’s doors, and hordes of drinkers had also spilled out into the car park waiting for the Limonaire to start playing.

  ‘Going to be a bit of commotion,’ Posy yelled at Lola behind the bar, ‘what with Stars In Their Eyes in here and the organ out there.’

  ‘We’re going to take it half an hour at a time,’ Lola poured four lager tops in one go. ‘Mind you, to be honest, with this many people making so much noise, two lots of music probably wouldn’t make any difference.’

  Ritchie and Ellis and Vanessa were also working flat out behind the bar. Flynn was busy getting Queen Mab ready for her evening stint. Sonia, still wearing her full regalia and with apparently no regard for Ritchie’s feelings, was nose-to-nose with Florian Pickavance by the jukebox. Baby Bradfield, snug in a Mothercare carry-basket, was asleep under the table.

  ‘Three Guinness when you’ve got a moment, Pose!’ Neddy Pink bellowed across the heads. ‘I know it’s not your strong suit, duck, but yon Yankee bloke is busy outside. Give it a whirl, gel!’

  Posy whirled. She’d learned to pour a reasonable Guinness at last, thanks to Flynn. Thanks to Flynn, she’d learned an awful lot.

  Neddy Pink and the coven were still in their Four Horsemen guise, but then few people had bothered to change. She was still Madam Za-Za, Lola was still a carnival princess and Vanessa was still Ginger Spice. For strangers, wandering into the pub in search of rural refreshment, it must have looked very parallel universe.

  The vicar, also still dressed as Liberace, was hosting Stars In Their Eyes. Posy felt he was muscling in on stuff that didn’t concern him, but as Flynn was usually in charge of the pub’s karaoke nights and obviously couldn’t be tonight, she hadn’t raised too many objections.

  There was a general murmur circulating that the diocesan council were going to have the devil’s own job getting the vicar back to sermons and flower arranging rotas.

  The nonparticipating members of the audience had
been given score cards. This was serious stuff. Tonight there was going to be a prize winner. The prize was to be presented by Florian, of course.

  The vicar tapped the microphone. ‘Welcome to Stars In Their Eyes! Our first few plucky soundalikes are just getting ready in the lavatories, and in a very short time I’m going to be introducing . . .’ he peered at his notes. ‘Er, Meat Loaf, Cleo Laine, The Seekers, The Village People, Adam Ant, Tommy Steele, Dusty Springfield and many, many more!’

  There was the customary Steeple Fritton stamping and clapping.

  ‘Dominic Nightingale is going to be videoing the entire show for village posterity. And also –’ the vicar put on his Jonathan Ross smirk, ‘to make the voting a lot less biased, we’re not going to tell you who’s being who!’

  ‘Oooooh!’ Steeple Fritton was impressed.

  ‘Shame no one’s taking bets,’ Posy muttered as she concocted six snowballs, i’d have a thousand quid double on my dad being Meat Loaf and Malvina being in the lavs as we speak doing the make-up.’

  Lola grinned. ‘Hope she goes easy on the lip gloss then, otherwise it’s going to be a pretty silent sing-along. And, I know we’re still frantically busy, but do you want to sneak off outside for ten minutes or so, while, um, the V-word is otherwise engaged in here?’

  ‘You’re a star,’ Posy ducked out from beneath the counter hatch. ‘And I’ll do the same for you and Ellis one day.’

  Lola gave a lingering glance along the bar to where Ellis was morosely mixing martinis, and then across the packed pub to the fireplace where Tatty and the kiddies were sitting with the coven.

  She sighed. ‘Nice thought, Posy. But somehow I doubt we’ll ever need it.’

  Outside, in the darkness, Posy caught her breath. Queen Mab was ablaze with lights: hundreds of bulbs round the canopy and over the cab illumined the twisted brass and the deep red gloss of the paintwork. Thrusting through the bodies and squeezing close to the hedge, Posy made her way slowly towards the engine.

  Alongside and towering above her, the Limonaire was also lit up, the pipes and drums and cymbals gleaming, and Harlequin and Columbine poised ready to dance. It was all so wonderful. Better than they could have ever imagined it would be. If only . . .

  She shook herself. Tonight was definitely not the time for if onlys.

  The crowds beside the engine were five or six deep, scrambling everywhere, pressing dangerously close to the shimmering boiler, ignoring the hissing steam and the red-hot glow of the coals. Mr D, Mr B and Flynn were keeping them clear as best they could.

  ‘This is completely mad . . .’ Nell Bradley leaned down from the stage in front of the Limonaire and gave Posy a huge grin of delight. ‘I haven’t seen anything like this for years, not since our first outing with the gallopers. Queen Mab is going to be one heck of an asset to our outfit.’

  So Flynn hadn’t told Nell and Jack that he was going back to Boston, then. It didn’t mean he wasn’t, of course, but it might just mean that he hadn’t yet decided.

  ‘Who’s in charge of your, um, roundabout, er, gallopers, tonight?’ Posy raised her voice. ‘Has Jack got it to himself?’

  Nell shook her head. ‘No way. Jack’ll be along to help me out in a moment. He wouldn’t miss this bit with the engine for the world. Sam and Claudia, my brother and sister-in-law, are being left in full galloper-charge. We travellers are all pretty versatile, as you’ll probably find out. . .’

  ‘I wish, but you know I said that Flynn and I aren’t –’

  ‘I know exactly what you said,’ Nell pushed her shaggy red-gold fringe out of her eyes. ‘And I still don’t believe you. You were made to be together, and if the appearance of his long-term girlfriend makes that a bit tricky, then –’ she shrugged expressively. ‘Well, like I said before, no one could have had more stumbling blocks than me and Jack.’

  Posy sighed. If she and Flynn could be together and half as happy as Nell and Jack it would be total bliss. But, despite Madam Za-Za’s cleverly tailored predictions, she knew it simply wasn’t going to happen.

  Nell pulled a sympathetic face. ‘All you need is a bit of faith, and a lot of luck. Oh, and if you’re just on your way to visit Flynn, which I guess you are, can you pass this to him, he’s going to need it if we’re going to have any music tonight. Tell him it’s connected my end, so I’m ready when he is.’

  ‘Oh, yes, right.’ Posy took the end of the huge coil of grey cable from Nell. It weighed a ton. ‘Will he know what to do with it?’

  ‘I’d put money on it,’ Nell laughed.

  So would I, Posy thought hotly, as she managed to burrow underneath a couple of dozen armpits and an equal number of fists clutching beer mugs, feeding the cable out as she went and not garrotting anyone.

  Eventually she pulled herself and the snaking cable up Queen Mab’s steps.

  ‘Bloody hell! It’s boiling up here! It’s like a –’

  ‘Furnace?’ Flynn raised his eyebrows, stepping away from the blazing firebox. ‘Nice on cold mornings though. Great to see you up here at last – oh, and is that for me?’

  ‘Nell said you’d know what to do with it.’

  Flynn obviously did. As Posy sat back on the heap of coal in the tender and watched, he slithered out of the cab, dropped easily to the ground, unhooked a stepladder, and with Mr D and Mr B as assistants and a lot of less than helpful suggestions from the dense crowd, fastened the ends of the cable to two connections at the front of Queen Mab.

  ‘Okay,’ he grinned, clambering back into the cab. ‘We’re connected to the Limonaire. Now the electricity generated by Queen Mab will drive the mechanics of the organ. Simple, huh?’

  ‘As astrophysics,’ Posy said, impressed. ‘And on a slightly larger scale than what I’ve been used to, with the model railway, I mean. So, go on then. What happens now?’

  ‘We have to keep the fire going to heat the water in the boiler which turns into steam which builds into pressure. Okay?’

  ‘Okay. Steam train stuff. And?’

  ‘The pressure drives the piston and the crank shaft. Once we’ve reached the right steam pressure, which shows on this meter here, then we have to maintain it at constant, so that the belt there will be driven evenly by the flywheel and become an electrical generator and we’ll have power. Still making sense?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely.’

  Flynn poked out his tongue. ‘As soon as the organ bellows have enough air electrically pumped into them, then the pressure will open the pipes, and as Nell feeds the music books through the keyframe, like Jack did for us at Fox Hollow, we’ll have lights, music, action!’

  ‘So simple and so perfectly explained.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  His enthusiasm was infectious, and even if she didn’t totally grasp all the principles of making electricity, it was a heck of a buzz to be up here, high above the ground, being stared at enviously by so many people. She’d been stared at enviously a lot today, she thought. It was heady stuff. She could become used to it.

  What was even more of a buzz, and what she could become even more dangerously used to, was being with Flynn.

  ‘Will you teach me to do all this?’

  ‘Sure thing. Hang on while I just –’

  Posy watched as Flynn pushed Queen Mab’s levers and the huge belt slapped and flapped, and the massive circle of the flywheel whirled so quickly that the colours blended into transparency, and the engine hissed and rocked and roared, and the glorious evocative smell of steam and coal smoke filled the air.

  Nell leaned out of the front of the Limonaire and gave them the thumbs up.

  Posy held her breath. With a wheeze and a thunderous drumroll, the Limonaire burst into ‘The Can-Can’.

  It was an ideal tune to start with. The blare of noise and the blaze of lights was absolutely electrifying. Instantly, everyone in the massive crowd was dancing, high-kicking their way round the car park. People were running from both the commons to look. Children were being shoved to the front or hoisted on to sh
oulders for the best vantage points.

  Flynn turned and curled his arms round Posy’s waist. ‘God, this is dream come true stuff, huh?’

  She snuggled against his chest, aching to kiss him. ‘Just what I was thinking earlier. It’s wonderful. . . Flynn, are you crying?’

  ‘No way. Are you?’

  ‘Course not.’

  They grinned at one another. This part of the evening was theirs. Posy looked up at him. ‘And what happens next?’

  ‘With us or Queen Mab?’

  ‘I’m not that naive. Queen Mab, of course.’

  He kissed the top of her curls. ‘All I have to do now is make sure the pressure doesn’t drop. Nell and Jack will be doing the hard work playing the organ and I’ll be out here taking the glory.’

  ‘And you have to stay up here all the time? No sneaking off?’

  ‘Why? Did you want to sneak off with me into the bushes during your break?’

  ‘You know bloody well that I do.’

  ‘Me, too . . .’ He traced the outline of her mouth with his forefinger. ‘Trust me, Posy. Please. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Oh, goody . . .’ She gently bit the end of his finger. ‘I wish I did. So, you’re up here for the whole evening are you?’

  ‘Mr D and Mr B have volunteered to take over – will take over – when I need a break, which is kind of them as it means they’ve had to forgo their Judy Garland bit on the karaoke, and no doubt Norrie will be up here faster ’n greased lightning once he’s finished being Meat Loaf again.’

  Posy sighed happily. ‘Oh, good. So there’ll be plenty of time to teach me everything that you’ve already taught Vanessa.’

  ‘I think you’re way ahead of Vanessa on all counts.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘This is killing me. You know it is, don’t you?’

  She nodded. The Limonaire was playing ‘Liberty Bell’. Everyone was still dancing.

  ‘Don’t spoil tonight by talking about it,’ she swallowed. ‘Whatever you’ve decided to do will hurt someone and I really, really don’t want it to be me tonight. Okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ he nodded. ‘When I was leaving the States I thought I’d never get over Vanessa not caring enough to come with me. I missed her when I was in Tralee, but it got better. When I came here . . .’ He stared out into the navy sky. ‘Well, when I came here I was actually glad that she’d stayed behind. You know? And then –‘