All is Fair Read online

  Despite knowing that Ren would be just as appalled and upset over what she had witnessed, Jenny didn’t feel it right to tell her about it, and so when she rejoined her friend, she forced herself to appear her normal cheery self, telling Ren that Julie had been about to resume her practice session and that, not wanting to interrupt her concentration, she would collect her handbag later.

  But secreted in the Wall of Death gallery someone else had witnessed Dicky’s unwarranted abuse of his wife. It was far from the first time either. Their eyes narrowed darkly. Very shortly Dicky Otterman was going to pay the price for believing he could treat others in any way he felt fitting.

  Chapter Eight

  Since embarking on his journey, Tom had readily accepted any job that had been offered to him. He had humped heavy bags of coal, dug ditches, mended fences, picked fruit, grubbed through mud in trenches for potatoes, fixed roof tiles, mowed lawns and swept paths, along with many other labour-intensive manual tasks, the payment he’d received for his drudgery an insult considering the long hours and exertion he’d expended. Some bosses had treated him with respect and shown appreciation for the work he had done for them; others had been decidedly rude, expecting him to be grateful for the favour they were doing him in affording him the opportunity to eat that night. He had met a variety of people along the way, from a mixture of backgrounds, all travelling around in search of work for their own particular reasons. Some of these he knew it wise not to turn his back on, but there were also those who would have given him their last halfpenny if his need had been greater than theirs.

  Here at Grundy’s, he humped and hammered, fetched and carried, doing what he was asked to make sure the punters enjoyed themselves. He worked for twelve hours a day, with only two short breaks, the money he received for his labours as insulting as the pittance he had earned for all the other jobs he had done. A few of those he worked for were surly in manner and didn’t show any appreciation for the job he did, but most thanked him for his contribution and treated him affably. As in all communities, there were those within Grundy’s he had sussed he would be a fool to trust, but the majority he knew he could depend on for his life. And although there were some who gave him a hard time because of his upbringing, he felt welcome and comfortable with this band of fairground folk, and would certainly miss them when it came time for him to move on.

  Tonight, he had been commandeered to assist Fran Grundy at the Tunnel of Love. Fran was in the pay booth whilst he installed punters safely in the swan boats before he gave the all-clear for the ride to begin. It had just started off, and with nothing to do until the train returned, he leaned back against one of the supports and looked out at the rest of the fair.

  It was teeming with people of all ages, shapes and sizes, from the very poor to the well off, and it would take a better man with words than himself to adequately describe the electric atmosphere that the punters and the fairground community were creating between them. Even the most depressed person would find it difficult to remain miserable whilst paying a visit to the fair, in Tom’s opinion. A momentary wave of sadness washed over him. It was a pity that his father could not have been persuaded to visit and discover what it felt like to have some actual fun. Maybe both their lives might have been different as a result.

  He felt extremely honoured that despite the fact that he had only worked here for a matter of days, he had been invited to a community party after the fair closed tonight. It had been a personal invitation too, from the woman who owned the candy floss and sweet stall, who told him she had wanted to make sure he knew he was included. In truth, by the time the fair closed tonight, all he’d be fit for was downing a bottle of beer before he crawled into bed, but he would stay for a while at the party and felt sure that everyone else would be enjoying themselves far too much to notice that he had taken his leave.

  After work, he returned to his van for a wash, and changed out of his work clothes into a pair of light-coloured slacks and a blue round-necked jumper. The party was in full swing when he arrived carrying his contribution of half a dozen bottles of beer. Most of the attendees were the younger members of the fairground community, apart from a couple of old men who never missed an excuse for a booze-up. Laughing and chatting together, people were sitting either on chairs or on the ground in a rudimentary circle, several dancing in the middle. Two lads were twanging on guitars and a big, muscly black man, a boxer in the booth, whose name was William White but fought under the nickname of Basher Bill, squatted beside them banging rhythmically on a pair of bongos.

  Tom’s van mates had already arrived at the party. Owen and Marvin had each brought a girl with them they had met earlier that evening during work, and were canoodling with them. It was obvious what they were hoping would happen before they waved the girls off on their way home later on. Roger hadn’t managed to get himself a date, and his eyes were skipping over the rest of the gathering for a possible candidate amongst the fairground girls.

  Tom had barely sat down on a rough patch of grass next to Roger when a young woman squeezed herself in between them, hooked her arm through Tom’s, thrust out her chest at him and said meaningfully, ‘You’re dancing with me tonight, handsome.’

  Dulcie Pickering was an attractive 19-year-old with a thick mane of chestnut hair and a shapely figure that tonight she was showing off in a tight skirt and low-cut red blouse. Her parents owned a side show, a magic act; her father was the magician and her mother his assistant, while Dulcie and one of her sisters, dressed in sparkling leotards and fishnet tights, would parade up and down in front of the booth enticing customers to watch the show and her other sister sat inside the ticket office taking the money.

  Had Dulcie not been ordering Tom to dance with her, he would have been happy to oblige – for one dance at least, as although he hadn’t a clue what his type of woman actually was, Dulcie definitely wasn’t it – but after his father’s death, he had promised himself that his days of being told what to do were over. He eased his arm out of hers and said politely, ‘Thank you for the offer, but I wouldn’t wish to deprive all the other men here who want to dance with you.’

  But Dulcie didn’t want to dance with anyone else. She had bragged to her friends that she was going to land the latest recruit to Grundy’s tonight, and she wasn’t prepared to return to them to face the embarrassment of having failed. She hooked her arm back through his and brazenly told him, ‘It’s you I want to dance with, not anyone else.’

  She shifted closer so he got a better view of her breasts, a move that made Tom feel extremely uncomfortable. He again removed his arm from hers and told her, ‘I don’t want to dance, but again, thank you for your offer.’

  She gawped at him, stupefied for a moment that this man had the audacity to refuse her advances and she now faced humiliation in front of her friends. Then she jumped up and leaned down to slap him hard across his face, sending the bottle of beer in his hand flying. ‘Just ’cos you speak like the queen’s yer mother, you think you’re better than me,’ she cried. ‘Well, yer can’t be if yer working as a casual for a travelling fair. In fact, it’s me that’s better than you as my dad is an international magician and owns his own side show.’ Her father had done a season in a seaside town in Northern Ireland, but in her ignorance, Dulcie did not realise that even though they had crossed the sea to get there, they were in fact still within the British Isles. ‘Now you listen here you jumped-up toe-rag. I felt sorry for you, being new to Grundy’s, and was only trying ter be friendly, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered with you. You’re not exactly Rock Hudson, are yer?’ Then with a haughty shake of her head, she spun on her heel and stormed off, leaving a stunned Tom rubbing his smarting cheek and his three van mates and the two girls with them laughing hysterically.

  * * *

  A few minutes earlier, Jenny had arrived with her contribution of two large bottles of Woodpecker cider and half a dozen of Babycham. As she put them on the trestle table along with the rest and began to pour a measure
of the cider into the mug she had also brought with her, Ren joined her.

  She looked her friend over before she said drily, ‘You didn’t make any special effort for the party then.’

  Jenny was wearing a straight black skirt and a checked shirt, with a broad black belt around her slim waist and flat red pumps. She would have preferred to wear stilettos, but they were unsuitable for the ground the party was being held on. She playfully slapped Ren’s arm. ‘Cheeky. Nothing wrong with trying to look your best.’

  ‘You look great. If the man has eyes in his head then he won’t be able to take them off you. He’s over there with Owen, Roger and Marvin. Oh, and I found out that his name is Tom.’

  Jenny liked the name. It was strong-sounding. Her heart did a little leap of anticipation as she discreetly turned her head to look in the direction Ren was indicating just in time to see Dulcie leap up and slap Tom hard around the face, then shout something at him before storming off.

  Both girls were silent for a moment before Ren said, ‘Oh well, whatever he said to her didn’t make her very happy, did it? It must have been insulting to make her slap him so hard.’

  Any hope Jenny had been harbouring that Tom was the sort of man she’d have liked to get to know better completely dissipated, and she sighed despondently. ‘Well he might talk posh, but he’s obviously not a nice man, is he?’ She took a long swallow of her drink, now regretting the extra time and trouble she had taken over her appearance in the hope of attracting the attention of Grundy’s newest recruit.

  Forever the optimist, Ren said cheerfully, ‘Thank goodness you didn’t waste any time on him.’ She spotted a man taking a close interest in Jenny and added with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, ‘Not like you’re short of admirers. Mickey Dickens can’t keep his eyes off you. He’s drooling that much you can almost see the saliva dripping off his tongue.’

  Mickey Dickens was a thoroughly unsavoury character. He was tall and skeletally thin, his long, sharp face covered in pockmarks from a bout of chickenpox as a child, along with acne as a youth. Every other word that came gruntingly out of his mouth was of the blasphemous type, and he didn’t know the meaning of the word hygiene, nor seem to realise that clothes needed to be washed at regular intervals. Unsurprisingly, no one would share accommodation with him, so he lived alone in a tiny van that the rest of the community insisted was parked well away from theirs in case they caught something nasty. Mickey himself was kept away from members of the public too. The only reason that he had not been sacked was because he worked as hard as two men put together and never complained about any task given to him. Over the time he had been with Grundy’s, a few women had tried to take him in hand but had failed miserably. It was clear to everyone that he was one of those people who didn’t care about the effect his personal care had on others and so it was assumed he must be happy as he was.

  Well aware that Ren was poking fun, Jenny looked over at Mickey lurking on the periphery of the party, drinking beer from a bottle, and said matter-of-factly, ‘I’ll be generous and leave those delights for the rest of the girls to enjoy.’

  The musicians started to play a popular jive and Donny bounded up and grabbed Ren’s hand. ‘’Bout time you had a dance with me, woman.’ Without waiting for a response, he dragged her off into the middle of the dance area, leaving Jenny looking longingly at them. What she wouldn’t give to have a relationship that mirrored Ren and Donny’s. They were madly in love and totally at ease with each other; they trusted each other implicitly and shared much in common. She would like to think that there was a man out there somewhere that she would be as happy with, and wished he would show himself, as she was getting a little fed up with waiting for him to appear. She wasn’t desperate to get married and have a family, but she was twenty-two now, an age when most women had found their mates and were happily settled, so she was starting to get a little worried, though she would sooner remain a spinster than settle for second best. Not one for dwelling on matters that she could do nothing about, she put her disappointment aside to concentrate on enjoying the party.

  As she sipped her drink, she watched the dancers, who now included her brother Jimmy, accompanied by his current girlfriend, while her other brother Robbie stood in the midst of a group of lads on the sidelines. She spotted Julie arriving arm in arm with her husband and was reminded of the incident the other day when she had witnessed Dicky punch her in the head. The pair now looked so happy and contented together, the perfect couple in fact, and no other onlooker would have had any idea that Julie was hiding the awful secret that she was married to a vicious bully. Jenny hated to think of her friend constantly living in fear of being on the receiving end of her husband’s temper, and felt helpless that there was nothing she could do about it but support Julie should she ever decide to confide in her.

  After having a few dances and chats with friends, she returned to the refreshment table for another drink. Once her glass was replenished, she leaned her backside against the table and looked around as she sipped. Her eyes reached the place she had last seen Jimmy, canoodling with his girlfriend. Now, though, there was no sign of the pair. Probably sneaked off for some private time together, she thought. Robbie was still there with his group of friends, although several girls had joined them now. One in particular was showing an interest in him, but he wasn’t taking the slightest bit of notice. If she was going to get anywhere with him, then subtle hints would do her no good; she’d need to wave a big red flag in his face with I Fancy You written on it. Robbie was nowhere near as self-assured as his brother was. A girl had only to glance in Jimmy’s direction and he would automatically believe that she was besotted with him. Jenny was going to have to give her little brother some sisterly advice of the romantic sort or she feared he would remain a bachelor forever.

  Just then her ears pricked as she heard muffled giggling. She looked around, but then realised it was coming from under the table. A couple of teenagers seeking the privacy to have a kiss and a cuddle, she assumed, but then it struck her that the giggles were childish ones. She put her drink down, then stooped to take a look. Three young boys were huddled together, sniggering gleefully as one of them tried to take the top off a bottle of beer using a stick.

  ‘You’ll need a proper bottle opener to get that off,’ Jenny said.

  At the sound of her voice, they all jumped in shock, then stared at her guiltily. One of them blustered, ‘We weren’t doing nuffink, honest, Miss Grundy.’

  ‘So, your parents allow you to drink beer then?’

  They all stared sullenly at her.

  ‘I thought so. I very much doubt that Ivy and Bert would be happy to see you coming home drunk, Col. Thank goodness for you that you couldn’t get the top off.’

  Ten-year-old orphan Col had joined the community last year after Solly had rescued him from a man who was using him to help him steal money for beer and cigarettes. The boy was in a sorry state at the time, but Ivy and Bert had gladly welcomed him into their home, and thanks to their love and care, he bore no resemblance to the waif he had been then. He was a nice lad, good-natured and honest, although the same couldn’t be said of Olly Champion, one of his companions, who was always up to no good in some way or another and getting a thick ear for his misdemeanours from one of his long-suffering parents. It was Jenny’s opinion that he was the one who had put the other boys up to this caper.

  ‘It was only a bit of fun, Miss Grundy. We just wanted to know what beer tasted like, that’s all,’ Col pleaded.

  ‘Well I’m sure you will in a few years’ time, when you’re old enough to drink alcohol, but until then you stick to pop. Now give me that bottle and all of you skedaddle back home before your parents discover you’ve sneaked out.’

  ‘You won’t tell our mams and dads, will yer, Miss Grundy?’ Col asked anxiously.

  ‘I will if I catch you doing anything like this again,’ she warned.

  She waited until the offending bottle was safely in her hand and the three boys
had scooted off before she had a chuckle over the incident. She herself had been guilty of one or two childhood transgressions and knew it was all part of growing up, so she had no intention of snitching on them. She put the bottle back amongst the others, although there were only a handful left now, so before all the cider disappeared, she downed what was in her own glass and poured herself another. Apart from her disappointment earlier over Tom, she had enjoyed herself. It was getting on for one o’clock and the party looked like it would continue for a long time yet, but Jenny’s bed was beckoning, so once her drink was finished, she would head back to her own van.

  She was just about to say her goodnights when she spotted Julie’s husband Dicky acting in a way she could only describe as suspicious. He was a few yards away from her, standing well back from the rest of the partygoers, and if there hadn’t been such a bright moon tonight, Jenny wouldn’t actually have seen him. It was apparent to her that he’d had a few drinks just by the way he was swaying, but it was the fact that his eyes were darting searchingly around that was rousing her curiosity. She wondered who or what he was looking for. Then his eyes seemed to settle on something and she saw a smile kink the corners of his lips. It was obvious he had found his quarry.

  Jenny automatically glanced in the direction Dicky was looking and saw Julie chatting and laughing with Ren and Donny by the steps of their van. So, Dicky was checking where his wife was. She wondered why. She looked back over to him, but he was gone. She searched around but could see no sign of him. Then it struck her like a thunderbolt. He had been checking that his wife was occupied so she wouldn’t notice him slipping away. Her curiosity rose higher. He had to be up to no good or otherwise it wouldn’t have bothered him if Julie had seen him leaving. Was he slipping away for an assignation? She dearly hoped not, for Julie’s sake. But she meant to find out one way or another.