A Winter Love Song

by Rita Bradshaw

  Bonnie stood listening to the particularly sweet sound of the organ for a moment or two more, and she was just turning to make her way home to the wagon she shared with her da where she’d put herself to bed, when a large hand clamped itself on her shoulder, making her jump.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing gallivanting about at this time of night? Your grandma’ll have your guts for garters if she catches you.’

  That word again. Gallivanting. She didn’t like it and she didn’t like Franco either, Bonnie thought, as she stared up into the dark handsome face of her grandma’s husband. Not that he was unkind to her – he wasn’t, and there were times when he would actually take her side against her grandma – but she didn’t like the way he was with Miss Nelly. Always laughing and joking and teasing her. She’d said that once to her da, hoping, she supposed if she was being honest with herself, that it might prompt him to look more closely at how pretty Miss Nelly was, but her da had just shrugged and said that was the way Franco was with everyone. Even in her child’s mind she had known he meant it was how Franco was with the lassies, but it was different with Miss Nelly. She knew it was. She had seen how Franco had stared after Miss Nelly a number of times when she’d either ignored him or made it plain she didn’t like his attentions; it was a hungry look, as though he’d seen something he wanted to eat.

  Her thoughts made her voice tight when she said, ‘I’ve just had a baked tattie I bought for my supper and I’m going home now.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’ Franco squeezed her shoulder before letting her go. ‘You should’ve been in bed an hour ago.’

  Huh! It was all right for him. He didn’t have to sit with her grandma all day, did he! He wouldn’t enjoy that any more than she did; in fact, sometimes she thought Franco didn’t actually like her grandma one little bit. Her voice frostier still, she muttered, ‘I was hungry. I didn’t have any tea cos we were busy. Me grandma bought herself a bag of chitterlings but she didn’t give me any.’

  ‘Aye, well, likely she forgot.’ Even to himself it sounded weak. He fished in his pocket for a coin and pressed it in Bonnie’s hand. ‘Get yourself a toffee apple to eat when you’re in bed, all right? And straight home once you’ve bought it.’

  Franco stood watching the child as she scampered off, and inwardly he was cursing his wife. She was a vicious so-an’-so, eating in front of the bairn and not giving her so much as a bite. Bonnie was her only grandchild and yet Marge had allowed the bad blood between herself and John to colour her view of the lassie. She was one on her own, his wife. How he had been persuaded to marry her, he didn’t know. And then he shook his head at himself. Of course he knew. He’d had his fun with Marge the way he had with so many others, but he’d caught his toe with her. First she’d convinced him he’d got her pregnant, and then she had told him unless he married her without further ado she’d make his name mud in the family and the rest of the travelling community. And what had happened? Two weeks after they’d got wed, suddenly she wasn’t pregnant any more. At first she had tried to soft-soap him that she’d lost the baby, but then in one of their rows the truth had come out. And there he was, saddled with a wife who had gradually got too old to give him bairns and, worse, who looked her age and more. And she was a shrew to boot. Aye, if ever a man had been taken for a fool, he had.

  Frowning darkly, he made his way to the big tent where he was due to perform his fire-eating act once Nelly had finished her show with the dogs. He didn’t enter the tent by the flap that opened at the back of the canvas structure for the performers; he wanted to watch Nelly first although he knew it would be sweet torture. He didn’t think he had ever wanted any female as much as he wanted Nelly. She must be getting on for thirty but she didn’t look a day over eighteen, possessing a fragile daintiness that set her apart from most of the fair women. But then she hadn’t been born a traveller. She had arrived at the fair one summer’s day not long after he and Margarita had got wed, driving a lorry that had been converted into her home, complete with stove, cooker, bedroom, cupboards, and oriel windows of diamond leaded glass. Outsiders were rarely allowed to join their community, but when she had shown Ham and the other elders her performing dogs they’d made an exception.

  His hands thrust in his pockets, Franco stared at the object of his desire. He was used to lassies falling into his hands like ripe plums, but not Nelly. A woman of mystery, no one knew any more about her or her former life than the day she had arrived at the fair. Her voice was accentless and her speech and manner suggested she was a cut above, but as to her past life, no one had a clue.

  The dog act coming to an end, Franco exited the tent and walked round to the back of it, entering the smaller structure which led into the main one. He nodded to José, his nephew, who he was training in his art and who was stationed waiting with the equipment, and then as Nelly emerged from the larger tent he smiled at her. ‘Good crowd in tonight.’

  She nodded, her answering smile polite but cool, and after clicking her fingers at the dogs, left the tent. His eyes followed her, his gaze fixed on the piled coils of her hair as he wondered how she would look stripped naked with her silken tresses falling down her slender back.

  Feeling himself harden, he jerked his mind back to the matter in hand as José said, ‘Uncle Franco? It’s time.’

  Aye, it was time all right, time he put a stop to this cat-and-mouse game between himself and Nelly – although she was no mouse and therein lay the trouble. He had never come across a woman like her before – beautiful, independent and seemingly needing no man in her life. But he was determined to have her.

  He squared his shoulders, peeling off the shirt covering his spangly vest top and pulling free the band that held his thick black hair in a ponytail. The lassies seemed to like it loose, especially the young ones, and these days he found he was partial to girls in the springtime of life. The one he’d had the night before had been no more than fifteen or sixteen and a virgin to boot. She’d told him he looked like a pirate with his long hair and he had liked that. She had cried afterwards, saying she didn’t want to be left with a bairn, and he’d spent some time petting her and reassuring her until she was smiling again. He’d walked her back to the gates of the big country house where she worked as a kitchen maid and where she assured him her pal, who worked with her in the kitchens, had promised to leave the scullery door unbolted so she could slip in late, and the cook – a tartar – would be none the wiser.

  A kitchen maid . . . As Franco walked into the big tent with José following him he was remembering the girl’s smooth, unlined face and shining eyes. Lassies were worked to death in service and the bloom of youth would soon fade. But not with Nelly. It was as though she’d drunk a magic elixir.

  And then the crowd claimed his attention, full of bright eager faces, and after José had announced him the clapping went on and on, especially from a group of giggling lassies at the front of the staging. Flicking back his head so his hair rippled on his shoulders, Franco took the torch José had just lit, seeing the girls’ eyes widen and their soft mouths form oohs of awe.

  Putting everything else out of his mind, he began his act.

  Chapter Three

  It was now July and the fair had moved to Sunderland and was camped on the old town moor. Bonnie was sitting in bed staring at her father, and her eyes, always the window to her soul, were troubled. This was the fifth night in a row he had closed his tent early and left the fair for the town, and she knew why. Oh yes, she knew why, she thought bitterly, because hadn’t her grandma caused such a ruckus when she’d hollered at him that everyone had heard them fighting like cat and dog? And she knew full well her grandma had done that on purpose to put her da in a bad light. Lots of men gambled, her grandma had screamed at him, and there was nowt wrong with a flutter now and again, but it was a sickness with him and one that would bring his daughter down too. That was when her da had gone barmy and there had been such an uproar that Ham and Franco had had to get between them.

 
Bonnie chewed on her thumbnail. It was nine o’clock and she had already been in bed half an hour. Since the barney between her da and grandma, her da had told her to keep away from Margarita and not to talk to her. Normally this would have filled her with joy, even though her da was insisting she was washed and ready for bed at eight-thirty prompt, which she thought was far too early, but with her da all upset and out of sorts, Bonnie’s world was grey. Her voice small, she said, ‘You . . . you look smart, Da.’

  John had been about to pull his jacket on but now he paused and looked across the cramped space in the wagon at his daughter. Bonnie was sitting up in her bed which converted into a table during the day. It was positioned under a little arched window, one of four – two on each side of the wagon – and she had an open story book on her knees although she hadn’t turned a page for some minutes.

  He sighed. Damn Margarita. The bairn hadn’t been the same since that old harridan had vented her last dose of venom, and he knew Bonnie was worried about him. If Margarita had but known it, the row had made him all the more determined to leave the fair at the first opportunity. He didn’t want his little lassie within ten miles of her grandmother. The woman was poison, sheer poison. But first he had to get some money behind him, he knew that. The likelihood of finding work in the present climate was poor and he had no trade; his only hope was hitting a winning streak. When the fair had trundled into Sunderland, his old stamping ground, he had wasted no time in looking up a bloke he knew who could set him up with a few games where big money could be won – and lost. Aye, and lost.

  Walking across to Bonnie, he crouched down at the side of the narrow bed and ruffled her hair. ‘Listen to me, hinny,’ he said softly, ‘you forget about the shindy with your grandma, all right? She knows nowt about nowt, and what she doesn’t know she makes up. What I’m about tonight, and what I’ve been about the other nights, is to make us some money so we can leave here and your grandma and set up on our own. I want you to have some proper schooling, better than I can teach you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  Bonnie’s eyes were stretched wide. She could see her da was all fired up about this and she didn’t want to disappoint him but . . . ‘Leave the fair?’ she gulped. ‘Leave everyone?’

  ‘And your grandma,’ he reminded her.

  ‘But can’t we just not talk to her, like we’re doing now? And she wouldn’t talk to us. She pretends she doesn’t see me the last two days since . . .’ She swallowed hard. ‘We don’t have to go away, Da.’

  ‘You can’t have an education, not the sort I mean, while we travel, Bonnie. You see that, don’t you? Think about when we stop somewhere for a while in the winter when the weather’s bad and you’ve gone to a school for a few weeks. You’ve liked that, I know. Learning things, hearing about different places like when that teacher in Boldon or wherever it was told the class about Africa and India and other countries. You’ve got to think about the future, lass, and what you could accomplish if you have an education.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’re bright, hinny. Brighter than most. And I’m not just saying that cos I’m your da. You don’t want to waste what the good Lord’s given you.’

  ‘But He’s given me my singing, Da. And that’s what I want to do when I get bigger.’ She’d like to do it now if her da wasn’t so against her performing in the big tent. ‘I can do that here, in the fair, and—’

  ‘No.’

  It was so definite it caused Bonnie to put her hand to her lips which had begun to tremble.

  Seeing this, John said quickly, ‘Don’t cry, hinny. Come on, don’t cry. We can talk about this tomorrow – now is not the time, with me having to go out. But I wanted you to understand that what I’m doing, I’m doing for us, lass. You and me. And I’d never stop you singing, hinny. I love to hear you sing, you know that. But not for money, not in the big tent. You sing for yourself, an’ your old da, right? For pleasure. Like the birds when they welcome the sunrise every morning. Now give me a big smile so I know you’re all right afore I go.’

  Bonnie took the handkerchief he proffered, wiped her eyes and gave a wan smile. She could hardly believe her da had suggested they leave the fair. This was down to her grandma, she thought grimly. If she hadn’t upset her da so badly he wouldn’t be talking like this now.

  ‘Now a few minutes reading and then you snuggle down and shut your eyes.’ John leaned forward and held her close for a moment, kissing the top of her head before he stood to his feet. ‘And like I said, we’ll decide what we’re going to do together, lass, so don’t you go upsetting yourself while I’m gone. Promise?’

  Bonnie nodded. Her small world had righted itself again. She would never want to leave the fair and everyone she knew and loved here, so she knew what she would decide.

  Once her father had gone Bonnie read for a little while longer and then dutifully put the book away and slid down under the covers. Mrs Carlini had made the small bedspread especially for her and it had birds and flowers crocheted in an intricate design that was quite beautiful. As her fingers stroked over it, the sense of bewilderment and amazement that her da could ever think of leaving the fair swept over her anew.

  But it wasn’t what her da really wanted, she told herself comfortingly. She knew it wasn’t. How could he want to leave the best place on earth?

  The July evening was warm and noisy; the sound of music and folk screaming and laughing and shouting outside the wagon loud and raucous, but it acted like a lullaby on Bonnie’s tired mind. It was what she had grown up with and meant safety and security and happiness.

  Within a minute or two she was fast asleep.

  John was kicking himself an hour or so later as he sat at the game he had been desperate to get into earlier in the week. He’d known at the heart of him that it had been risky to come here tonight, stupid even. Patrick Skelton was not a man to get on the wrong side of – he had his bony fingers in so many pies in the criminal underworld of Sunderland that he was known as Jack Horner. Not that anyone would have been foolish enough to call him that to his face.

  He licked his lips nervously. They had gone dry after he had noticed two of Skelton’s henchmen enter the room where the gambling school was operating. There were such places all over the town, some in houses, factories and steelworks, and others in backyards and even the collieries. Anywhere, in fact, where a group of men gathered together in their free time or during their tea and lunch breaks. But the serious gambling, such as this particular card game, took place under the cover of darkness with lookouts posted to keep watch for the police. You had to have a pound or two in your pocket for entrance into the gambling dens Skelton controlled; there was nothing tinpot about them.

  John tried to concentrate on the cards in his hand but his eyes kept flickering to the two men standing impassively still. He knew them to be Skelton’s bodyguards; he had seen them with their boss before. They looked what they were, brutish thugs who were handy with their fists and boots. Bullet-headed and broad-shouldered, they were built like brick outhouses and had as little feeling. He had a fair idea of why they’d turned up here. Someone had told Skelton he was playing.

  The one window in the room was boarded up and the only exit was through the door against which the men were standing. An oil lamp hanging from a thick chain anchored in the ceiling cast its light directly into the middle of the long wooden table at which John and several other men were sitting, cards in hand. The room was ostensibly the office of the warehouse below them but hadn’t been used as such in years. Patrick Skelton utilized the warehouse for storage, but what was in the crates and boxes that appeared and disappeared with regular predictability no one would have dreamed of enquiring. Neither would the word ‘smuggling’ be mentioned in Skelton’s hearing.

  John surreptitiously eased the collar of his shirt. He didn’t think he was imagining the way the atmosphere in the room had changed since the two near the door had entered.

  Looking at the cards in his hand, he groaned in
wardly. He had lost four games in a row and this one would be the same. Why hadn’t he done what he’d intended to do when he had pawned Louisa’s jewellery, and handed the money straight to Skelton? But the thick gold earrings, bracelets and necklaces that had been Louisa’s Spanish grandmother’s, and which she’d inherited when she was twenty-one as was their custom, had fetched more than he’d expected, and the devilish inner voice that always came to tempt him had whispered that with such a stake he could win enough to pay his debts and retrieve the jewellery from hock. It was Bonnie’s, after all, for when she was older.

  He was a fool. His stomach turned over. And he’d been an even bigger fool to borrow money from Skelton’s pal a couple of nights ago, but he’d hit a winning streak for the first time in months. Of course, now he could see it had been a set-up – the ‘select’ game for four players, the way he’d won six times on the trot before the stakes had been raised sky high, Skelton’s lackey suggesting he’d lend him the wager and they could split the winnings between them . . . stupid, stupid, stupid. But to be fair, how could he possibly have known his benefactor was in Skelton’s pocket? Although perhaps he should have smelt a rat. Skelton had been keen to get him on the payroll for a while, ever since he’d had too much to drink one time the year before when the fair had been in Sunderland and he’d told his fellow players about his plans to settle in the town in the future. Skelton had come to watch him at the fair after that and then offered him a job. He hadn’t been too pleased when he’d refused.