A Family Affair Page 5

  ‘Oh my lord!’ Julia said. ‘We don’t want to get mixed up in this!’

  Heather had recognised several of the lads – Brian Jacobs amongst them.

  ‘It’s the Purldown boys after the ones from South Compton. They’re mad their girl didn’t win.’

  ‘Stupid fools!’

  ‘You’d better not let them see you. After all, you came third. Their girl didn’t come anywhere.’

  A lone policeman on a bicycle came into their line of vision – PC Dark, stationed at South Compton. He waded into the mêlée but the lads were in no mood to have their fun spoiled. As Heather and Julia watched in horror one of the lads grabbed the bicycle and threw it into the river, then, as PC Dark turned on him furiously, several more grabbed him and threw him in after it. One minute he was bent backwards over the rails, arms and legs flailing, the next there was a great splash and a cheer from the watching crowd. Apart from a few scuffles on the outskirts the fighting had stopped, and as the policeman’s head appeared over the river bank the immediate crowd began to disperse, making a run for it before they could be recognised. PC Dark clambered out of the river – which fortunately was less than a foot deep despite the recent rain, water dripping from his heavy cape in a steady stream. He gave chase up the High Street and the girls crept out of the doorway, unable to resist the temptation to see what happened.

  At that precise moment a car they recognised as Jim Fisher’s taxi cruised down the High Street on the opposite side of the river.

  ‘There he is! Come on!’

  They began to run away from the scene of the fight, towards the corner by Wiltons’grocery store where they had arranged to be picked up, but in their high heels and flowing skirts it was like trying to run in a bad dream. The taxi had stopped outside Wiltons, but they were still thirty yards from it when it began to pull away again.

  ‘No! No – wait!’ Heather was running and waving wildly at the same time, but it was no use. With no sign of his fares waiting where they should be and gangs of rampaging youths the length of the High Street, Jim Fisher had no intention of hanging about and becoming involved in the trouble. As Heather reached the broad part of the pavement where the river ran under the road, the taxi accelerated away and disappeared around the corner.

  Breathless, almost sobbing, Heather stood looking helplessly after it. Some way behind her Julia was hobbling to catch up. In the mad dash she had broken the heel of her shoe.

  ‘He’s gone without us! Why did he go without us?’

  ‘I expect you told him half past one, not one o’clock,’ Heather said, despair making her angry.

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘Well, he’s gone, anyway. He thought we weren’t here, and he’s gone.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Julia, too, was close to tears.

  ‘I don’t know. We can’t go back up the High Street with all those louts fighting.’

  ‘They pushed the policeman in the river! Did you see … ?’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to dial 999 and tell somebody. Then maybe they’d give us a lift home.’

  There was somebody in the telephone box. Incredibly they hadn’t noticed before, intent as they had been on trying to catch their taxi. Now, as he opened the kiosk door, Heather recognised the young man who had rescued her from the unwelcome attentions of Brian earlier. He recognised her too. He let the door slam to behind him and stood staring.

  Julia caught Heather’s arm in panic.

  ‘It’s one of them! Come on!’

  ‘No – he’s all right,’ Heather said. She went up to him. ‘There’s a fight. They threw the policeman in the river. We want to dial 999.’

  ‘Don’t worry – I already have.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Why are you still here?’ he asked. The unfamiliar accent sounded even thicker now than it had in the Palais.

  ‘We missed our taxi. We’re stranded.’

  ‘You should not be here. At this time of night, on your own.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell us that!’ Julia wailed.

  ‘We don’t know how we’re going to get home,’ Heather said.

  He only hesitated a moment. ‘OK – I’ll take you.’

  ‘You’ve got a car?’ Heather asked.

  ‘An old one, yes. But it goes. Come on.’

  Julia grabbed Heather’s arm again. ‘Heather! We don’t know him!’

  ‘He’s all right, I tell you.’ She turned back to the tall young man. ‘Where’s your car then?’

  ‘Over there. In the Island.’ He nodded towards a square, surrounded by shops, on the other side of the road.

  Yells and the sound of running feet from the direction of the High Street announced that some of the rampaging gangs were heading back towards the town centre.

  ‘Come on!’ he said sharply. ‘You don’t want to get mixed up in that.’ He began to cross the road and this time Julia did not argue.

  The car – an Austin Seven – was the only one still parked in the Island. He unlocked the doors and Julia tumbled into the back seat whilst Heather got into the front. Looking over her shoulder she saw that the fight had started up again in the very spot where they had been standing minutes before.

  ‘You’d better tell me where you live,’ he said, starting the engine.

  ‘Hillsbridge,’ Heather said, and sank back against the battered leather seat shivering with relief – and something else. Though she didn’t have the time or the inclination to analyse it yet, it felt rather like excitement.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about him. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt this way – well, actually yes, she could remember, but it was so long ago it seemed as if it had happened to a different person, not to her at all. To wake in the mornings with a sense of anticipation bubbling inside, to go to sleep at night picturing his face, hearing that heavily accented voice speaking in her head, and feeling a glow that began in the area around her heart and spread little shivers of warmth into her veins.

  She knew his name now – Steven Okonski – and she knew that he was Polish. That much she had learned from David by questioning him discreetly. But that was all she knew. Since Steven was a miner and David worked in the carpenters’shop there was no real point of contact. Each day after lunch she set off eagerly down the hill, hoping to see him there squatting under the wall opposite the colliery waiting for his coach, and each day she was disappointed. He must be on a different shift, she supposed. And what good would it do her if he was there? He was hardly likely to say anything to her in front of the other men. She just wanted to see him. For the moment, with the thrill of attraction new and exciting, that would have been enough.

  On the night of the dance he had dropped off first Julia and then her. He had been pleasant and polite but that had been the end of it. In the slight pause when she got out of the car – he had come around and opened the door for her – she had thought – hoped! – he might ask to see her again. But he hadn’t.

  That, perhaps, was part of the attraction. Used as she was to being chased and propositioned, the fact that he showed no sign of interest posed a challenge. And yet she had the unmistakable feeling that, contrary to the evidence, he was interested. There was a spark in the air between them, a frisson that she was sure wasn’t all one-sided.

  Well, there was nothing she could do about it except perhaps try to be in the places where he might be too. But she didn’t think he was much of a one for the social whirl of the young and unattached in Hillsbridge and the surrounding villages. She couldn’t remember ever having seen him at the weekly dance at the Palais – and if he’d been there she felt sure she would have noticed him. No, he was definitely different, and the difference and the slight air of mystery that surrounded him helped to make him a romantic figure, the stuff that dreams were made of.

  After a week or so of savouring her new-found emotions, impatience and a nagging feeling of helpless impotence began to set in. If it had been summer she would have gone for walks in the
general direction of Purldown, but it wasn’t summer. It was November, and no-one in their right mind would be going for walks in the cold and the dark unless they had a good reason. Heather didn’t want to be so obvious and, in any case, the chances of bumping into Steven in those circumstances were practically nil.

  By the night of the carnival she was close to despair. She was going with a crowd of others, a big loose group who ‘got around together’as Carrie called it. Some of them met up in the centre of Hillsbridge, on the corner outside the Rectory, and gathered up several more as they walked towards South Compton.

  The road was thronging with people all with one objective in mind, and the carnival spirit was already evident even before they reached the outskirts of the town and the first of the booths selling candyfloss and hot dogs.

  Heather and her friends made their way back along the route the carnival would take. They wanted to get an early view of Julia riding in the Queen’s Coach and later, when the procession had passed, they could slip through a short cut to the town centre, catching the tail end of it again and being in the right place to enjoy all the attractions of the street fair and the squibbing – the ritual setting off of firecrackers – which would follow.

  They found a vantage point on a wall and before long the collectors who always circuited the route were rattling their buckets on the pavement beneath them. Heather dug into the pocket of her coat which she had filled with loose change and tossed some in. The proceeds from the carnival always went to local charities. By the time the procession was over her pocket would be empty and so would the pockets of all her friends.

  At seven thirty on the dot a rocket soared up into the night sky, signifying that the procession had begun and a hum of anticipation ran through the crowds now lining the route three-deep. Someone in front of Heather had lifted a child on to his shoulders to give her a good view; Heather offered to hoist her up on to the wall beside them and they all squashed up to make room and put their arms around the small girl, smiling at her eager face. That was all part of the spirit of carnival. And besides – they didn’t want their own view obstructed.

  The procession came into view, one of the local fire engines leading the way to clear the route, then the town band, playing their hearts out, and then the Queen’s Coach. All the girls looked beautiful in their ball gowns, velvet fur-trimmed capes and small sparkling tiaras, but Heather still thought Julia was far and away the most attractive. As the coach moved slowly past, flanked by the Boy Scouts with their flaming torches, she cheered until she was hoarse.

  Behind the coach came decorated collecting vehicles, groups of comic masqueraders and more bands, all interspersed between the floats – or carts as the carnival club members called them – which were the highlight of the procession. And what floats! Most had taken months, if not the whole year, to build, the carpenters, electricians and artists working late into the night whilst their womenfolk stitched costumes and planned make-up. Some of the enthusiasts even took their two weeks’annual holiday to enable them to compete at every single carnival on the North Somerset circuit.

  The most famous of all these torchlight carnivals was, without doubt, Bridgwater. But the villages and towns such as South Compton who were on the circuit saw almost as impressive a spectacular. There were features where gaily-dressed characters danced choreographed routines to the popular tunes that blared through loudspeakers, and comedy floats that squirted water and bounced fake sausages on long strings of elastic at the watching crowds. But best of all Heather loved the tableaux. How on earth could anyone manage to stay so still on a jolting cart for the entire length of the procession? she always wondered. Each and every character looked like a waxwork figure at Madame Tussaud’s. Of course, those who had to stand slipped their feet into shoes that were bolted to the floor and there were certain places on the route known as rest areas where they could relax for a few minutes and coax their numb and aching muscles back to life, but their achievement was still little short of miraculous and Heather thought that every one of them deserved to win one of the coveted trophies. Tonight she clapped wildly as they passed by: The Beheading of Anne Boleyn, the cart depicting the Court of Henry VIII, Anne kneeling meekly with her head on the block; an Egyptian scene, complete with Pharaoh and handmaidens; a Victorian tableau that might have come straight out of A Christmas Carol.

  All too soon it was over and Heather and her friends joined the scramble to run down the alley to the High Street so they could see the end of the procession pass by again.

  The High Street was even more crowded than the spot from where they had watched the procession and the nearer one got to the town centre the more frenetic it became. Here the street fair was already in full swing, with dodgems and a switchback known as the Noah’s Ark in the Island and a big wheel on the wide pavement outside Wiltons’grocery store. There were booths and sideshows too and as they passed a shooting gallery Heather spotted David taking aim at the tin ducks that sailed across a make-believe river. She stopped to watch as he picked them off one by one and squealed with delight as the stall holder handed him his prize – a huge pink teddy bear.

  ‘David – you fool!’

  He turned, pleased with his performance but embarrassed by his prize, and saw her.

  ‘Hey – you can have this!’

  ‘It’s yours! You won it!’

  ‘Not bloody likely!’ He thrust the teddy bear into her arms, moving on, laughing with his mates.

  Heather looked around for her own friends but they had disappeared into the milling crowd. She began making her way towards the rides, looking for them. They couldn’t have gone far. But in the wake of the procession the Island had become a mayhem, a cacophony of the whirr of the generators and the music blaring from the Noah’s Ark, the crashes and flying sparks from the dodgems and the general gaiety which had escalated a notch too far into frenetic merrymaking. An unsolicited squib scattered the crowd, carving a zigzag path through the revellers, then hopping in a totally new direction, heading straight for her.

  Heather made a dive for safety as the squib followed her like a guided missile homing in on its target – or so it seemed to her. Once when she had been a little girl a Bonfire Night rocket had gone off course, zooming horizontally across the garden and catching Heather on the shoulder as she stood watching. Her thick woollen coat had saved her from injury, but she had fallen off her stool in terror and been too upset to watch the rest of the fireworks. Ever since then they had reawakened echoes of that terror; now, for a moment, she became a child again, faced with a danger over which she had no control.

  She screamed, trying to get out of the way, but the crowd was thick and she cannoned into a solid body. Then, without warning, as the squib changed direction yet again, popping its way across the street, she turned to apologise to the person she had bumped into.

  ‘I’m sorry …’ Her voice trailed away, her heart pounding suddenly not from fear but something quite different.

  It was Steven.

  He smiled at her, that slow, almost lazy smile that she had been seeing every night in her dreams.

  ‘Hello. Having trouble again?’

  ‘Well … yes … it does seem like that, doesn’t it? I don’t know why … I’m not usually like this …’

  ‘Perhaps it is me. I cause chaos for you.’

  ‘Oh no! I’m sure that’s not true …’

  They were shouting to make themselves heard over the noise of the generators and the blaring music, but to Heather they might have been in a world of their own.

  Steve spotted the teddy bear.

  ‘You win that?’

  ‘This?’ She looked down, almost surprised to see she was still clutching it. ‘Oh no – not me. David did. He gave it to me.’ She saw his face go closed-in and realised what he was thinking. ‘David is my brother. Don’t you know him? He works at Starvault Pit. David Simmons.’

  ‘Oh – yes.’ But she got the impression he didn’t really know him. ‘Are you on yo
ur own? Your friend was in the procession, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She looked smashing, didn’t she? I came with a whole gang from Hillsbridge. I seem to have lost them though …’

  ‘So – would you like to come on the Big Wheel with me?’

  Heather smiled, and the reflection of the bright lights made her eyes sparkle.

  ‘Why not?’

  They joined the queue, waiting their turn to climb into one of the little gondolas and Heather was very aware of Steven’s solid presence beside her. Once in the car she caught at his hand, pretending to be scared as they jolted upwards, one station at a time whilst the other cars were loaded, and he put his arm around her, so that they were squashed together, the teddy bear cuddled into her lap. From the top of the wheel the whole of the town centre was spread out beneath them, an ever-moving sea of people speckled red and blue and green by the twinkling lights. Heather spotted some of her friends standing on the deck of the Noah’s Ark and wondered if they were looking for her, wondering what had become of her. She hoped they wouldn’t see her and come rushing over to spoil things.

  They didn’t. If they had seen her they had the good sense to realise she wanted to be left alone. After the Big Wheel, Steven took her on the dodgems and then they walked up the street where the sickly-sweet smell of candyfloss mingled with the pungent aroma of onions frying on the hot-dog stalls and hot petrol, to another small square where the Wall of Death had been erected. Here it was the roar of motorcycle engines that was the predominant sound and a voice distorted by a megaphone attracting customers. They went up the steps to the viewing gallery, marvelling at the skill of the riders as they roared up the sheer side of the drum.

  It was getting late now. They’d missed the squibbing and Heather was glad. She had had enough of fireworks for one night, even if it had meant she’d met Steven because of one.

  ‘I cannot offer to drive you home tonight …’ he said and her heart sank like a stone.