by Lynda Page
Copyright © 2014 Lynda Page
The right of Lynda Page to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook in 2014 by
Headline Publishing Group
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 0 7553 9847 8
Cover photographs: www.headdesign.co.uk (girl); Mirrorpix (fairground)
Cover design: www.headdesign.co.uk
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Also by Lynda Page
About the Book
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
About the Author
Lynda Page was born and brought up in Leicester. The eldest of four daughters, she left home at seventeen and has had a wide variety of office jobs. She now lives on her daughter’s holiday park in North Lincolnshire.
Follow her on twitter @LyndaPage9
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By Lynda Page and available from Headline
Evie
Annie
Josie
Peggie
And One For Luck
Just By Chance
At The Toss Of A Sixpence
Any Old Iron
Now Or Never
In For A Penny
All Or Nothing
A Cut Above
Out With The Old
Against The Odds
No Going Back
Whatever It Takes
A Lucky Break
For What It’s Worth
Onwards And Upwards
The Sooner The Better
A Mother’s Sin
Time For A Change
No Way Out
Secrets To Keep
A Bitter Legacy
The Price To Pay
A Perfect Christmas
The Time Of Our Lives
Where Memories Are Made
About the Book
Jolly’s campers are guaranteed to have a holiday to remember, but that’s not always easy to achieve thanks to the array of colourful characters who pour through Jolly’s gates.
Jackie Sims works in the general office and her ambition is one day to be in charge. But she never wanted her lucky break to come about through such tragic circumstances … While Drina Jolly goes away to help her family come to terms with their grief, she puts her faith in Jackie to keep the business running smoothly and Jackie is determined she will do whatever it takes not to let her down.
Despite her resilience and resourcefulness, Jackie can’t run the camp on her own and the abrupt, unapproachable temporary camp manager, Harold Rose, seems unwilling to help her. But she has an ally in fun-loving, red-headed receptionist Ginger Williams whose support she will need to help her through the turmoil, chaos and heartbreak that is about to come her way.
Following on from The Time of our Lives, Lynda Page’s nostalgic saga of fun, frolics and mayhem at a seaside holiday camp is sure to delight anyone who has ever enjoyed an English holiday beside the sea.
For my precious daughter Lynsey Ann Page –
No words are strong enough to express my deep love for you, my admiration for your achievements, my respect for you. Without you by my side I would never have survived the things that life has thrown at us. I could never have wished for a better daughter than you.
All my love as always
Mum x
CHAPTER ONE
Hard rain lashed down from an angry black sky, stinging the faces and soaking through the clothes of the three people gathered at the base of the ferris wheel in Jolly’s Holiday Camp.
Shouting to be heard over the scream of the gale-force wind blasting in over a furious sea, fighting to keep herself upright, Rhonnie Buckland grabbed her husband’s arm and shook it frenziedly. ‘Dan, please wait for the Fire Brigade! They said they’d be here as quickly as they could. They shouldn’t be long now.’
Dan shook his head, not by way of an answer but in an effort to clear his face of the streams of water running down it. ‘Listen, love, there’s no telling when they’ll get here. This storm is bound to have blown a few trees down or else the brigade received a more serious call out after they got ours. That poor woman and child up there will be terrified. All I’m going to do is climb up and assure them we’re doing everything we can to get them back down safely.’
Blind panic filled Rhonnie. ‘Please, Dan, no. To climb up there in this weather … it’s sheer madness. I know you mean well, but I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you … especially not now,’ she emphasised meaningfully.
He pulled her to him, hugging her tightly. ‘You know there’s nothing more important to me than my family – and now more than ever. I’ve climbed up the wheel more times than I’ve had hot dinners, my darlin’, know every rivet and bolt better than the back of my hand. I’ll be fine.’
Another voice cried out, ‘This is all my fault! I should be the one to go up …’
Dan cut in resolutely, ‘This isn’t your fault, Adam. You didn’t know that belt was going to snap. Even I couldn’t have foreseen it. I checked the wheel thoroughly myself only the day before yesterday and it looked as sound as a bell then.’
‘Yes, but if I hadn’t let the little girl persuade me to give them another go round as it was the last night of their holiday, they’d be safely down now. You’d sent word that a storm was coming and for us to close the fair early and get the campers back up top …’
Dan interjected again. ‘Not even the weather station realised how quickly the gale would reach shore or how bad it’d be, Adam. When all’s said and done, you were doing what we all try to do at Jolly’s, and that’s giving our visitors a holiday to remember.’ He glanced up, his face wreathed in worry. Although the wheel was lit with an array of colourful bulbs he was unable to see the topmost seat that held the stranded campers. The wind was driving the rain into shifting veils. ‘That little girl won’t forget this holiday in a hurry. Nor her mother neither,’ he said grimly.
Despite feeling duty bound to help the campers until they were rescued, the wel
fare of his beloved wife was the most important thing to Dan. ‘Rhonnie, there’s nothing you can do here so why don’t you go and join the rest of the campers and staff undercover?’ he urged. ‘You’re soaked to the skin and I’m worried you’ll catch something nasty if you stay out in this weather much longer. And you’ll need to update Drina and Artie …’
She cut in, ‘When I leave here it’ll be with you by my side. Until then, I stay.’
He knew there was no point in arguing the toss with her. He wouldn’t be able to rest either if it was Rhonnie about to attempt such a dangerous act.
She urged him, ‘As soon as the brigade arrive you’ll come back down and leave them to it, won’t you? Promise me, Dan?’
Cupping her wet face in his hands, he kissed her and replied, ‘I promise.’ Then added softly, ‘I love you.’
She replied without hesitation, ‘I love you too.’
Rhonnie watched Dan step over to the side of the wheel and begin to climb up the spars of one of the two towering metal towers that held the eighty-foot wheel between them. She wasn’t religious but nevertheless said a silent prayer now for his safe return along with the two stranded campers. She felt a presence by her side and turned her head to see that Adam had joined her, his eyes fixed on Dan, obviously as worried as she was. To make him feel useful she ordered him back to the main entrance to the camp, telling him to wait by the gate to give the fire crew directions once they arrived.
Dan was a quarter of the way up the tower by now and she saw him place his foot on the next metal spar, ready to haul himself up, when it slipped and left him clinging to the framework to either side while he firmed his foot hold again. She gasped in horror and screamed, ‘Dan, for God’s sake, be careful!’ Her plea was carried away on the wind. Suddenly the funfair was plunged into darkness as all the lights went out. The storm had taken down power lines. What had already been a dire situation had taken a turn for the worse. Dan had no light whatsoever to guide him up the tower and she had completely lost sight of him so had no idea how he was faring.
Unexpectedly something touched her arm and she jumped in alarm, spinning round to see her father, Artie Fleming, shining a torch at her.
‘Oh, Dad, Dan’s climbing up the wheel to reassure two campers – a mother and her daughter – until the Fire Brigade arrives. I begged him to wait until they got here but he wouldn’t listen.’
Artie immediately shone the beam of his torch upwards, fanning it around, trying to locate Dan’s whereabouts, but the torrential rain and ferocious wind were too much for the wavering beam.
Artie greatly admired Dan’s compassionate nature but inwardly damned it now for making him immune to Rhonnie’s distress. He shouted reassuringly, ‘Dan’ll be fine, love, stop worrying. He’ll be back down before you know it, wanting you to tell him what you’re cooking for his dinner.’ Artie only wished he felt as confident as he sounded.
Forty feet up in the air, Dan’s strength was beginning to ebb. He flattened himself against the metal frame while he paused for breath. He knew he still had a way to go before he reached the top. Several times, as the wind and rain blasted him so hard he’d feared he would be blown to certain death, he’d wished he’d listened to Rhonnie and waited. But he had a responsibility to the two terrified campers above, and so Dan kept going.
It seemed an eternity to him before he finally reached the top of the tower. He was mortally relieved to find that the cab holding the stranded campers had come to its abrupt halt as it travelled past the support tower, which meant he’d be relieved of the task of working his way around the actual wheel to locate it. The wind seemed to be far more turbulent up here and was violently swinging all the cabs backwards and forwards. The two people he’d come to reassure were visibly terrified, both clinging to the flimsy metal safety bar in front of them for dear life, their frantic screams carried away on the wind.
He’d manoeuvred himself around the tower support and was now on the inside face. His sudden appearance had the woman scream piercingly, obviously having trouble deciding whether she was seeing an apparition or if in fact it was a real person. Finally she made up her mind and called to Dan: ‘Oh, thank God, thank God! You’ve come to save us. I thought we’d been forgotten about. I thought we were going to die up here.’
Sitting at the far side of the seat, she was barely five feet away from Dan but the wind was preventing him from hearing everything she said, though he did manage to make out that she was glad to see him. Then, to his horror, he saw her flip back the safety bar and encourage her terrified daughter to stand up and stretch out her arms towards Dan. The mother obviously believed he was part of a rescue team. But even if he could have managed to anchor himself safely and lift the child over to the tower, there was no way a little girl could climb back down in any weather, let alone a gale. He’d be left fighting to keep her from being blown away as they descended, as well as looking out for himself. She was far safer staying in her seat until the rescuers arrived. In desperation Dan hollered at the woman to explain this, but couldn’t make her understand him.
Sobbing in terror, the young girl was now standing on the short footrest, wobbling precariously despite her mother holding on to her legs, arms outstretched towards Dan. Panic engulfed him. It was inevitable that the wind and lashing rain, which at the moment the slight-framed youngster was miraculously managing to brace herself against, would knock her off balance – and then there was nothing between her and the ground eighty feet below. Somehow he had to make the mother get her child seated again and the safety bar pulled back. The only thing he knew he could do to achieve that was get closer to her so she could hear what he told her.
Under normal circumstances, jumping from the tower on to one of the wheel-support bars spanning the middle of two perpendicular spokes, a distance of a yard or so, then swinging himself monkey-like across the gap between the wheel and the seat, was something Dan wouldn’t have thought twice about, but conditions now were anything but normal. He would need to time his jump with the unpredictable swaying of the seat, and it was vitally important that he didn’t brush against the child or he’d be responsible for sending her crashing to her death.
He was preparing to launch himself when, to his utter shock, he realised the woman was now actively urging the reluctant girl to jump across to him. Panic rushed through him. Any second now she might just do it. Without another thought, he took a leap over to the wheel-spoke bar, just managing to keep a grip on the wet, slippery metal. So far so good. Then, with a huge effort, he swung his body against the relentless wind to give himself momentum and launched out towards the cab, praying that its forward swing would coincide with his landing.
As he made to grab the cab’s bars, though, the wind blew it backward. The bars were suddenly out of his reach. He found himself grasping at thin air, and the next thing he knew he was plummeting downwards.
Dan’s last vision was of his beloved wife; his last thoughts that he would never gaze into her beautiful blue eyes again, hold her in his arms, feel her lips on his, be a father to their children. His last emotion was one of indescribable sadness that the long life together they had planned had been cut so cruelly short.
CHAPTER TWO
In deep concern Artie Fleming watched Drina, the woman he dearly loved and hoped some day to make his wife, as she paced back and forth on the kitchen floor, her homely face wreathed in worry, wringing her hands together. Shaking his head in utter helplessness, Artie said to her, ‘I’ve no idea what to suggest, love. I’m at a loss, I really am.’
Drina Jolly stopped her pacing and turned to face him. ‘So am I. But there must be something we haven’t tried yet to make Rhonnie see that her life is still worth living. I was so hoping for an improvement in her today, but in fact she’s worse. I’ve hardly had a word out of her. She didn’t attempt to eat any of her breakfast, and when I called in late this afternoon she hadn’t touched the lunch I had made for her either. How did you find her when you went in today?’
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br /> He sighed heavily. ‘Same as you, love. Lost in her own world, hardly acknowledging I was there. It’s like she doesn’t feel she has anything left to live for, and is willing her own death so she can be with Dan.’
Drina came over to the table and took a chair opposite him. She fiddled anxiously with a button on her pink twinset. Fixing her eyes on him, she said with conviction, ‘In Rhonnie’s defence, if I lost you so unexpectedly then I’d feel life wasn’t worth living either.’
Artie leaned over, gave her hand an affectionate pat and tenderly told her, ‘The same goes for me too.’ He sat back and rubbed one hand over his chin thoughtfully. Artie had vowed to himself on the day they first got together that he would do everything in his power to give her a happy and contented life from then on – to try and make up to her for the misery and betrayal she’d endured from her late husband Joe Jolly.
He had been a destitute travelling Romany who had seen his chance to better himself by marriage to an heiress. Artie couldn’t deny that Joe had used his wife’s legacy to build a profitable holiday camp business, and had given her a lavish lifestyle. Through hard work and determination Joe had come to be perceived as a pillar of the community and a respectable family man, above reproach – though he was anything but.
In material terms Joe had been generous with Drina; emotionally he had been withdrawn and a serial philanderer who had deceived her with a succession of women, though only one had meant anything to him. The worst thing of all was that Drina had known all about his infidelity, and had been forced to turn a blind eye as Joe kept a stranglehold on the family finances and business. Their son Michael bitterly resented his father’s authoritarian stance and they had fallen out. Michael had been banned from the family home at the time of Joe’s death – though this hadn’t stopped Drina’s son from returning to the camp and robbing the safe and walking away from his father’s fatal heart attack without lifting a finger to help him.
Until the reading of the will neither Drina nor Michael had had any idea that Daniel Buckland, the child of Joe’s deceased cousin and his wife, had in fact been Joe’s all along and neither had Daniel himself either. His mother had been the true love of Joe’s life, he having persuaded her to stand back and go along with his plan of bettering life for the three of them by marrying a wealthy girl.
