So Long at the Fair

by Pat Herbert

  “All right, Dad, we’ll go. Are you sure you’re up to it? It’s not so warm today. And the forecast says rain later.”

  “I’ll be fine, Son, don’t fuss. Just put a blanket over my knees. That’s right.”

  Albert settled his father into his wheelchair, and they left the house, both deep in their own thoughts. As they neared the park where the fair was in full swing, Albert spoke.

  “Is the reason you want to go to the fair because you want to see where your mother died?”

  It was a morbid thought but, now that it was all out in the open, it made sense of a sort. To lay the ghost, as his father had said.

  The sun, which had been shy all morning, suddenly burst from behind a cloud as they entered the fair. Everything looked bright and new in the light: the red of the tents looked redder, the green of the grass greener and the Big Wheel looked almost aglow. The dark cloud that had been obscuring the sun loomed over it, but the sun’s rays penetrated just above the top of the Wheel to give it an almost ethereal look. Albert watched his father’s reaction to this phenomenon and smiled. The old man was smiling too.

  So, at last, he seemed at peace. Albert was glad. It had taken years, but now he knew his father would go to his grave without regret for what might have been. If only he’d had the sense to speak of it earlier, he could have been a happier man. But there was no point in recriminations. The sun was shining, and they were there to enjoy themselves.

  “Let’s stand here awhile, Albert,” said his father from his wheelchair. “I just want to look at the Wheel.”

  “Can – can you see anything, Dad?” Albert asked tentatively.

  “Yes, I can see the Wheel and people enjoying themselves. I’m glad.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, nothing,” said Albert. “I just thought you might have …” He trailed off.

  “Might have? What is it, Son?”

  Albert knew it was now or never. Should he tell his father what Robbie and the others had seen? Would he be well enough to take it? Would he deny it was his mother? Would he accuse him of being cruel? All sorts of scenarios came and went in his head. No, he finally decided. It was better left.

  As he thought this, he turned his head away from the Wheel, afraid he might see something himself; something he had no wish to see. He wasn’t psychic as far as he knew, so it was unlikely, but he didn’t want to run the risk. Looking across the fair at the other side of the well-trodden path he could see booths galore. He would have a go at shooting the ducks later on, he thought. But, right now, he and his father could do with a cup of tea. The tea tent was just visible behind that red tent he had first noticed when they had entered the fair. The sun still shone, but the red of the canvas was a normal dull shade now. The magic, it seemed, had worn off.

  He studied the sign outside: Madame Zonya, reads your palm, tells your fortune.

  No doubt she was a fake, but you never knew. He bent down to his father. “D’you fancy having your palm read, Dad?” he asked, expecting him to tell him not to be so daft.

  Just at that moment, an elderly woman came out of the tent, dressed in the time-honoured gypsy get-up that fortune tellers wore. Everything was there, from the red kerchief around her head to the long flowing ornately patterned dress and the large hooped earrings. Albert noticed that, although she was probably somewhere in her late forties, she was still a handsome woman. Tall and straight as a ramrod with dark, penetrating eyes. He could almost believe she was the real thing. The spell was broken, however, when she produced a packet of Senior Service from her pocket and proceeded to light up. Real psychic mediums had no need for stimulants, thought Albert with a sigh. Or at least he supposed they didn’t.

  He watched her as she blew an expert smoke ring into the air and rested her elegant frame against the tent pole. Then she caught his eye.

  “What are you staring at, young man?” she asked him in a not altogether unfriendly tone. Her voice was silky and seductive. “Never seen a gypsy fortune teller before?”

  “Er, not many, no,” he stuttered.

  Ernest seemed to be dozing, but suddenly he was wide awake and staring at the woman. She, in turn, was now staring at him. The looks on their faces mirrored each other’s.

  “Ernest? Is that you?” Her voice was suddenly high-pitched and less seductive than before. She stood up straight and stamped out her cigarette.

  Ernest turned his head to look at Albert. “Wheel me into the tent,” he ordered, his voice stronger than his son had heard it for many months.

  “No,” said the woman, “I’ll do it.” She grabbed the arms of the chair before Albert knew what she was doing.

  “Dad!” he called as she disappeared with him into the tent.

  “Don’t worry,” he heard him say. “I’ll meet you in the tea tent later.”

  Albert stared at the tent which was now closed firmly against him. At that moment a couple came up to it and looked disappointed.

  “I thought she said she’d be free at this time,” said the man, looking annoyed.

  “Er, something came up,” said Albert. “She won’t be long.”

  At least he hoped she wouldn’t. Who was she and what was she doing with his father?

  

  Albert’s prediction that she wouldn’t be long proved a little optimistic. It was, in fact, some twenty-five minutes later when Ernest wheeled himself into the tea tent. Albert quickly went to the counter and fetched him some tea. When the old man had drunk his fill, Albert asked him who the woman was.

  “I don’t quite know how to tell you,” said Ernest. His hands fiddled nervously (and somewhat dangerously) with the wheels of his chair.

  “Just tell me,” prompted Albert.

  “That woman, Son, is your mother,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  June 1959

  Sonia Williams looked around her small flat. It was only two rather small rooms, but without Jimbo in them they stretched to infinity. The loneliness welled up inside her again as it did every evening when she returned from her inconsequential work as a fairground fortune teller. She had been able to carry on her so-called profession while Jimbo was alive as it added to their meagre subsistence but without his input, the money she earned didn’t keep her in shoe leather, let alone three square meals a day. One, if she was lucky. Oh Jimbo, she constantly asked, why did you have to die?

  He shouldn’t have died; he’d had no business to die like that. He was younger than her, barely forty. But he was always getting drunk and getting into fights. Time was when the fights he picked were only with her. But lately, he had taken to quarrelling with practically anyone who spoke to him. One particular night, the man he picked a quarrel with retaliated so violently, he had ended up in hospital. The knife wound was pronounced superficial by the doctor, but Jimbo died anyway. From what, she had never been entirely sure. The death certificate contained great long words which she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. The only word she vaguely understood had been ‘aneurysm’. Anyway, he was dead, of whatever cause didn’t matter. Only his death mattered. To her and her alone. Jimbo hadn’t been exactly popular with anyone else.

  And there was a time she had meant to leave him herself. She had left her dull husband and little son to go and live with the handsome fairground tinker, but she had soon regretted it. At first, anyway. It wasn’t long before their idyllic love affair became a sordid nightmare. Night after night he would arrive home the worse for drink and hit her for just being there. Despite this, her love for him had never wavered, but her bruises had told her she couldn’t carry on like that. Even though he was always sorry when he sobered up, she knew the next night would be the same story.

  She had started thinking about Ernest, her husband, who would never have hit her in a million years. But she didn’t love him; she never had. How could she go back to him, even if he would have had her back? And what about little Albert? She missed him, but not as much as she though
t she should. She had never been a particularly maternal woman, and her parting from her child had been easier for her than it would have been for most women. Jimbo was her life until one day she decided she had had enough.

  That day, she had sat down and written to her husband asking to meet him somewhere on neutral ground. Their meeting in the little café opposite the park where the fairs were held every spring and late summer, where she had first met Jimbo, had been difficult for both of them. But, in the end, he had agreed to take her back. She should have been grateful and relieved but, instead of just going home with him, she had made an excuse that she needed to collect her belongings first. These had been few, and she hadn’t been particularly attached to them, but she wanted to tell Jimbo what she had planned to do. So, she had agreed to meet Ernest the next day at the same cafe.

  But what she had hoped would happen, had. When she told Jimbo what she proposed to do, he had fallen at her feet and wept, promising to never hit her again if she would stay. She hadn’t even tried to hold out.

  Jimbo had never kept his promise, and she had known he wouldn’t. But that didn’t matter. She had stayed with him and never returned to her husband. She didn’t even write and explain.

  Today she had met Ernest Williams again for the first time in nearly two decades. The shock had been great for both of them, although Sonia had often wondered if he would cross her path sometime. He lived near the fairground, and she was always there when it was on, so it was on the cards that they would meet sooner or later. But now they had done so at long last, it was clear to her that he wasn’t long for this world. All sorts of scenarios had crossed her mind while they’d talked, and she was still wondering what would happen so many hours later. They had come to an arrangement, one that suited both of them. There was no love between them, but she didn’t want that. She wanted security now, and she would have that if things went her way. They were still married, after all.

  The only fly in her ointment was her son. She had seen how tall and good looking he had grown, and she had felt proud. Of course, she had no cause to feel proud as Albert’s upbringing had been done almost solely by Ernest. She had to admit it looked like he had done a good job of it, better than she could ever have done. Ernest had told her about her son’s impending marriage, and she had voiced the hope she would be invited to the wedding. That, her husband had told her, was up to Albert. Ernest had forgiven her; he had forgiven her long ago, he had told her. But would Albert forgive her? A mother who abandons her only son was beyond forgiveness, she reckoned, and she could hardly blame him if he didn’t. In fact, she blamed her husband more for being such a fool as to forgive her so blindly. Like a faithful, stupid dog.

  Then she remembered what Ernest had told her long ago about his own upbringing and about the mother who had abandoned him at the orphanage. She had sympathised with him at the time but had felt in her heart more sympathy for the woman who had abandoned him. Deflowered and left to fend for herself: that had been her lot. Why shouldn’t she desert her child and try and start a new life?

  Sonia Williams had done exactly that. Olivia Ayrton-Williams had just been looking after her own interests, wasn’t that what most people did? She had no regrets for her life. She had loved unwisely and only too well. Jimbo hadn’t really deserved her love, but he had got it anyway. Ernest had deserved it but had never got it.

  But now she could make some amends by returning to him and looking after him in his last illness. If only Albert would agree. She knew he would resent her at first, but bridges could be built, and she would do her very best to look after them both. Make up for lost time.

  She told herself this over and over as she undressed and climbed into the rickety bed she had shared for so long with Jimbo. She hugged her pillow, envisaging her dead lover beside her as she drifted off into an unhappy sleep.

  

  “How could you even think of taking her back, Dad?”

  Albert and his father were seated together that evening, still trying to make sense of what had happened earlier that day. Ernest shivered under his blanket as his son poured him some more hot tea.

  “I – I think I should, Son. I think it’s for the best.”

  “You’ve had a shock. It’s set you back, seeing her again,” Albert observed, handing him the full mug carefully, ensuring that the old man’s quivering hands were securely holding it. “That woman is nothing but bad news.”

  “You’re forgetting that ‘that woman’, as you call her, is your mother.”

  “She never showed any interest in me. I never even knew her.”

  “I know, Son, I know.” The old man sipped his tea, nearly spilling it as he raised the mug to his dry lips. “But she couldn’t help it.”

  “What d’you mean, she couldn’t help it? She left me – us – to go off with some gypsy! I hate her!”

  “Oh, Son, don’t say that. She’s very sorry for – for everything.”

  “Sorry? She’s sorry, is she? And that makes it all right, does it?”

  “It’s a start.”

  “Where was she when I was growing up? When all the kids around me had mothers and laughed at me because I didn’t?”

  “I did my best to be a mother and father to you.”

  Albert’s voice softened. “I know, Dad, and you did me proud. I love you. And that’s why I don’t want her anywhere near us. Ever!”

  “She – she’s offered to come and live here and look after me,” said Ernest, finishing off his tea.

  “What?” Albert almost screeched. “And you agreed? Yes, I can see you agreed. It’s written all over you. Without even consulting me. How could you?”

  “I didn’t agree – not right away. And I told her it would depend on what you said.”

  Albert gave him a long stare. It was if he was looking at a stranger. “You want her to come back, don’t you? You want to take her back just like the last time when she didn’t even have the courtesy to write and explain. For all you knew, she could have been dead.”

  “Look at it this way …” Ernest took out his handkerchief and coughed into it. Albert knew there was blood in it. “You’re a busy man. Out all day working. And you’re going to get married soon. You’ll have your hands full without having to take care of me as well.”

  “But I want to take care of you, Dad. You took care of me, now it’s my turn to take care of you.”

  “I don’t want you to sacrifice your life for me, Son. Don’t you understand?”

  “So, this woman’s prepared to leave her bloke to come back to you, is she? Out of the goodness of her heart – or what passes for her heart.”

  Ernest looked at the mantelpiece and then out of the window. Anywhere but at his son.

  “Dad? Is that what she’s prepared to do? At least it would show she’s a bit sorry for what she’s done, I suppose. Better late than never, isn’t that what they say?”

  Ernest coughed again. Then he spoke. “Her – her bloke’s dead, Son.”

  Albert smirked. “I guessed as much. So, now she’s on her own and got nowhere else to go. Isn’t that about the size of it?”

  Ernest nodded. “Yes, Son, that’s about the size of it. But I’ve missed her, and I want her here with me. I haven’t got long. Please don’t refuse me my last wish.”

  “Oh Dad, I don’t want to do that, but …”

  He knew in his heart he would give in. The old man had given him everything, and this seemed a little thing to do in return.

  “All right,” he said slowly. “But don’t expect me to – to like it.”

  “No, of course I won’t. What she’s done to you is the worst thing any woman could ever do.”

  “You know how it feels, Dad. It happened to you.”

  “Yes, it did. But I tell you this, Son. If my mother walked back into my life today, I’d fall into her arms.”

  Albert’s eyes filled with tears, although he knew he would never fall into the arms of Sonia Williams. To him, she was only ‘Madame Zonya’, a
fake medium, and a fake human being.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  July 1959

  Albert had given in to his father’s wishes with a regretful heart and, over the next few weeks, Sonia Williams did nothing to make him regret it the less. He found her manner awkward, almost cold towards him, although he could see she was obviously trying to ingratiate herself. To be fair, he didn’t make it easy for her either.

  “You don’t like your mother at all, do you?” Faith had suggested one evening as they were strolling back from the pictures. “I thought you’d like having her around, cooking your meals and taking on the burden of looking after your dad.”

  “You don’t understand, do you?” He had bristled at once. Faith could have no idea how difficult it was for him. She’d had her mother there all her life, a mother who doted on her and gave her everything she wanted.

  “I do, Bert, but surely it’s time to forgive the past. We’re going to get married, and I’m sure you’ll want her at your wedding.”

  She said this as a statement, not a question, and Albert bristled again. “Over my dead body,” he declared as they reached her garden gate.

  “Oh, come on,” wheedled Faith, “every mother wants to be at her son’s wedding. You can’t deny her that.”

  “She wasn’t even at the christening!” he lied. In fact, Sonia Williams had been at his christening in a new hat and looking the picture of elegance.

  “Oh dear! Look, I’m sorry, Bert. I guess you know your own mind.”

  “Actually, she must have been at the christening,” he amended, “as she didn’t leave until I was three.”

  Faith laughed. “There you are then. She’ll be there for all the important occasions in your life, at least.”