The Girl in the Painted Caravan (16 page)

The
World’s Fair,
a newspaper which advertises markets and fairs and acts as a notice board for funerals, weddings and getting in contact with other travelling people, was my
parents’ first port of call. By scouring the pages, they learned to their delight that Hearsall Common, on the outskirts of Coventry, was having its annual fair the following week. Mummy was
confident that if the tobermush (the boss of the fairground) would let them on, she could earn some money again.

Although we weren’t bona fide members of the Showmen’s Guild, the tobermush would let us have a pitch if we paid him a decent rent. We pulled into the tober (fairground) at Hearsall
Common and were allocated a place next to a man rattling cases of bottles as he set up his lemonade stall. ‘Lemon, lime and orange,’ he’d call. ‘Come and get your lovely
lemon, lime and orange.’ Behind him was a row of swinging boats, gaily painted yellow and trimmed with green, red and blue. The husband and wife proprietors were busy setting them up. The
wife, an elderly, plump, blonde lady, was hammering bolts through the framework while her husband secured the nuts. On the other side was a darts stall.

Everywhere there was tremendous bustle and excitement, the sound of generators chugging away and the bitter smell of diesel oil, as the travellers erected their stalls and side shows, assisted
by their pinafored women, curlers peeping out from beneath their head-scarves.

What a different picture the fair presented at night, though, when the fairground was alive with people and the hurdy-gurdy sounds mingled with the latest pop records and the giant wheel turned
and everything was a splash of colour. It was at that time of day that those mousy traveller wives looked like so many film stars, with their hair now perfectly set and their faces beautifully made
up, dressed to kill. They were as much a part of the decoration as the painted scrolls on the roundabouts or the dazzling lights; they helped build up the gay, garish spectacle that is the
fairground and that enchants us all.

I still remember the beautiful floaty dress Mummy wore on the first night as she stood out so much from the rest of the women. There was just always something about her, and it was that
something that made her who she was. She seemed to float around the fairground that evening, taking in the colours, the smells and the sights around her. She felt as though she’d come home
again, as she was never more at ease than when she had set up shop and was watching the familiar sights of the other travellers selling their wares and rides and making their living, just as she
was hers.

The women travellers work every bit as hard as their menfolk, not only during the show, but when setting up as well – building their stalls, painting their caravans, lugging huge cans of
water and heavy pieces of equipment which would make the average woman faint just to think about. In the fairground world, everyone mucks in, including the children. It is the system – one
for all and all for one – a kind of extension of the Romany family idea, and is why the fairground is the one place outside our own camping ground and family where we can feel at home and can
live side by side with the gorgers, because all fairground people have a similar idea about life.

Just as she looked forward to meeting her Romany family and friends on the road, exchanging information about who was doing what, so she did with the travellers. Not all of them stay together
from fair to fair; they split up, as Romanies do, and go their own way. So when they arrive at a new fair it is a time to meet up with old acquaintances. Mummy knew many of the people at Hearsall
Common and met many more who would become firm friends.

She kept Nathan and me busy picking up the litter around the wagon, cleaning the windows and generally helping out. I also had to keep an eye on all the other travelling children. Around six
o’clock on the first evening, before it got really dark, she sent Nathan and me for a stroll around. She knew how curious I would be – just as curious as she had been at the same age.
The fair wasn’t fully underway at that hour and she knew that all of the stallholders had a strict understanding to keep an eye on each other’s children.

The fairground was great and Nathan and I loved the throb of the generators. They seemed to create a sense of excitement inside us as we picked our way over the heavy cables that ran from them
and were hitched up to the rides and lighted stalls, or joints as we used to call them. The smell of the diesel oil mingled with the tempting smell of candy floss, toffee apples and hot dogs with
onions. And, of course, there was the music: Guy Mitchell singing ‘She Wears Red Feathers’, Johnnie Ray belting out ‘Cry’.

One of the show people touted at Nathan and me. ‘Come on, love, try your luck at Fishing for Ducks.’

‘Traveller,’ I shouted back, feeling very grown up to use the password that showed I wasn’t an outsider. The rosy-faced woman on the stall just winked at us. ‘I know,
love, I know. I’m just playing with you.’ She called us over and let us play on her stall while she waited for the evening bustle to get underway. What we were really doing, of course,
was ‘geeing’ for the lady – pretending to be a customer having a go at the stall and then standing holding a big prize, as though we had won it. It is a time-honoured way of
creating a crowd.

As we made our way around the stalls, we also agreed to gee for a girl on the hoopla stall and got talking to her. Nathan, who was rather good at it, managed to get a hoop over a plinth which
had a sparkling watch on top, as a prize. We hadn’t paid for the games and weren’t entitled to anything, but six-year-old Nathan, of course, didn’t understand this. He started
screaming blue murder because he wanted the watch he thought he had won and I had to try to explain to him. The girl in charge was very kind and understanding and even offered him a rubber ball for
his efforts, but this only served to make him scream even more.

I apologised, explaining that he must be tired, and somehow managed to drag him home, clutching the rubber ball that he’d screamed he didn’t want. After that I refused to let him go
near any more stalls because of the way he had shown me up. I pushed him into the vardo, where Mummy told me to wash his hands and face before dinner, after which we were both promptly told to go
to bed for embarrassing our parents. I had never really protested against my parents’ discipline before, but on this particular evening I thought it was far too unfair to punish me for
something Nathan had done. Besides, I’d been having so much fun and was so excited by the buzz of the fair that there was no way I could have gone to sleep then. I was fed up with the
injustice of it all.

‘I’m older than he is,’ I said crossly, ‘and I don’t want to go to bed yet. Why should I?’

Almost to my surprise, no one fought me. ‘All right then,’ said Mummy. ‘Put Nathan to bed and you can stay up for a bit.’ Hardly able to believe my good fortune, I
revelled in my new-found responsibility. I was nine years old, but I felt like the most grown-up person in the world.

The fair lasted several days and we all enjoyed ourselves, for the weather stayed fine, business for Mummy was bustling and money was rolling in at last. Daddy took up the Aptus camera and was
snapping away, strolling around the fair looking for customers for his pictures while Mummy was busy dukkering. At the end of it all, they were more than a little pleased with their profits.

While Mummy was giving readings, as usual I would sit in and learn from her. Getting customers to relax is an art in itself, for usually they are petrified, and often their palms will be sweaty,
which is why we don’t always touch their hands, but use something like a chopstick or a pen to avoid picking up any germs. I would sit watching my mother work in awe and would try to test
myself, to see if I could come to the same conclusions as she did. Sometimes clients seem to assume that they have to sit down and tell you all their problems, so getting them to shut up is another
art. I was taught by Mummy early on that before they can get their bum on the seat and start talking, you just say, in a loud voice, ‘Now, I’m going to tell you what I see and what I
feel’.

Mummy loved the fair – the sound of laughter and people enjoying themselves. It reminded her of the good times she’d had with her sisters and the laughter they used to share. She was
a different person with her sisters, lighter, freer, always laughing. I know she wanted that for her own children, but Daddy seemed determined to keep us separate from her people.

Now that they had lined their pockets and could be sure they had money for food and other essentials, Mummy was looking forward to joining up with her family and showing off her new twins.
Little did she know that her husband had other ideas.

Daddy had disappeared from the fairground one day and had not told Mummy where he had been and what he had been doing. I had been left with the job of looking after the twins and Nathan as
usual, and the past few days had been too busy for Mummy to think of anything but working, cooking dinner and then getting her and us children to bed, ready for the next busy day. However, now that
their work here was done, she realised that she had no idea what her husband had been up to. She was about to find out, and it was not something she would be happy about.

Daddy walked into the wagon, beaming from head to toe. Mummy knew this smug look and swallowed hard before saying to him, ‘What have you done now?’

‘I’ve bought a shop in the middle of Coventry,’ he announced proudly. It wasn’t until that day that I realised my mother could use filthy language. She let him have it
left, right and centre.

‘How dare you do such a thing without talking it over with me, Eddie? You know we were supposed to go and join up with my family. You know how much it means to me that they see our new
babies, and that I see them.’

‘It’s my life too,’ he hissed. ‘I’ve got lots of ideas. The shop is in a really a good position and I know what I can do here.’

Mummy sat down on the side of the bed, her shoulders slumped. She knew that she couldn’t turn up to see her family with four children on her own because that is just not the Romany way.
It’s frowned upon not to stick by your man and divorce is almost unheard of in a Romany family. The full realisation of her situation struck her. She screamed at him, ‘You’re a
control freak, Eddie. You always have been and you always will be.’

‘I’m the man of this family. We will do things my way. The sooner you understand that, the better.’

Mummy had never felt so trapped in all her life. She knew now in her heart that this was not the man she thought she’d married. Everything clicked into place like a jigsaw puzzle and she
saw how he’d been dying to separate her from her family from the beginning.

Mummy’s brothers had warned her, but she had wanted to believe that he was her Prince Charming. Mummy started crying, but then she turned her back on her husband and made herself stop. She
was her mother’s daughter, she told herself, and she would not let him see her cry. This one he had won, but from here on in, she would be one step ahead of him. She knew his game now. He
didn’t feel man enough, he felt inferior to the real Romany men, and this was his way of making himself feel better. There was a reason why she should have married into the race, and it was
right before her, although she knew many gorger men would not behave like this. She had believed he was a good person deep down, but now she knew she could never really rely on him to put her or
their children before his own silly ideas.

SEVENTEEN

It was sad when the fair broke up, all that cheerfulness and gaiety packed into boxes on wheels and hauled away. Most of the travellers were going to another site, a large fair
at Ilkeston, near Derby. Others were going to different gaffs, or fairs, and they cheerily made plans to meet their fellow travellers when they left. But we were going nowhere. We were staying in
Coventry.

We drove back into the centre of the city, in all its desolation. It was a far cry from the small market towns of Lincolnshire, surrounded by the undulating fens. Or the village of Ingoldmells,
where the smell of the sea was carried on the breeze and the excitements of Skegness were there for us every day. Now the dusty city, with its grey buildings, greeted us as we pulled onto the site
alongside the other caravan dwellers, who were all gorgers. This meant there would probably be no chance for me to make friends and I screwed up my face as I stared at Nathan and realised that my
annoying little brother was going to be my only playmate.

After many explosive days of arguing and then of not talking at all, Mummy had reluctantly agreed to go and view the premises Daddy had bought. Why not? She knew that she had no choice but to go
eventually anyway.

It was a shop built on a large plot of land, in which were sold household ornaments: silver tea services, chandeliers, brass boxes, plaques and the like. This wasn’t what Daddy had planned
for the shop, though. He had a huge sale and got rid of the goods for a price people couldn’t refuse. He had big ideas and he now turned the back of the shop into a film laboratory for
developing and printing, and put a team of photographers on the streets of Coventry, with Happy Snaps as their logo.

He also put a stall at the front of the shop for fruit and vegetables. As for the land at the side, he rented it to spivs (wheeler dealers) and market workers.

Somehow Daddy had managed to get permission to do all of this and had hired people to work on every part of the business, so he didn’t have to man anything himself. He’d buy large
consignments of a product to get the best possible price, then advertise it as being free to old-age pensioners or anyone spending £1.50 or more. It got him some good publicity – the
Coventry Evening Telegraph
carried pictures of the queue of OAPs waiting to be served their freebies!

He told Mummy he didn’t expect her to get involved in his businesses – she had the children to look after. She wasn’t able to do readings and earn a living because Coventry
wasn’t a holiday destination, so she was effectively isolated and dependent on him. He would leave early in the morning and arrive home very late at night. Sometimes he’d stay away all
night, claiming he’d been to Evesham, which was known for its market gardening, and where he said he could get better prices than at the Coventry wholesalers. Sometimes he went to Birmingham.
In her heart, Mummy knew these were not business trips.