Fair

Another little story from my past

In a northern mill town, nothing is quite as exciting to a young person as a travelling fun fair pitching up. For a few days a year, a gaudy flamingo nests its spindly limbs among the pigeon urban sprawl .

As a child, you are delightfully deceived by the dazzle of the fairground. The flashing and booming cancels out all else. You are of it, vibrating as thud and throb, your heart leaping with every squeal, your hungry eyes lancing every light.

Goldfish in bags are suspended as globed Ready Brek glows, circling promises of amber. There are loud, commanding men and shifty, shadowy figures who haul things around saying nothing.

The fair is a not just an experience but a land you visit, may as well be at the top of the Magic Faraway Tree for its proximity to reality. You know it will only be there a few days, yet you also know that when it disappears, the land lives on elsewhere. How tantalising that the endless entertainment continues to exist…. somewhere! And one day….one special day…..it will return!

When you are a child, the fair is simply marvellous.

When you are a teenager, however, things look slightly different.

The same adults who cultivated your fondness for it, now condemn the place as a waste of money. Its charm becomes rather kitsch as you unmask the mystique of those brash, coloured boards. Michael Jackson’s eyes now look slightly wonky on that spray painting of him on the side of the funhouse.  You realise someone has touched up an old Marilyn Monroe to try and pass her off as Madonna.  The panels and backdrops have that ‘Changing Rooms’ quality that may cause them to keel over should a rogue gust of wind hit. It’s glamour on the cheap.

But it’s still glamour, and for the inexperienced, both lamé and leaf count as gold.

It’s 1989 and the fairground has been hastily erected behind Rochdale town hall. The town hall is a most illustrious building, apparently so grand Hitler had wanted it dismantling and recreating in Germany should they have won the war. Seems odd to me they’d stick it there, a fun fair, yet there they stand together, unlikely neighbours - a stuffy, distinguished municipal building slightly embarrassed for its pink wafer playmate.

I am here today with Angie. A plain brown mouse of fourteen but with more life experience than many of her elders. I met her a few weeks ago round at Joyce’s. Joyce is a vacant diplodocus of a woman who keeps open house on one of the local estates. For this reason she is popular with teenagers seeking refuge. Whatever time of day or night it is, Joyce can be glimpsed, unlikely beacon of light through a grotty window, wedged like a sturdy doll in the confines of her fireside chair, eyes glazed and micromeshed knees parted.

I am certain Joyce is used for more than adolescent shelter. Perhaps she supplies temazepam. It’s a common practice in these parts, for older women to plead anxiety to their GP, obtain a prescription for them and sell the goods - jellies - to local addicts.

Having met Angie’s mother Sue, I can see why Joyce and her house is a draw.  Sue looks like one of The Fat Slags from Viz. Her ample bosom and bottom forever shoehorned into shiny black clothing like bobbing balloons forced into a bin bag. Sue is the sort to offer a couple of B&H for babysitting the younger kids.

I have met a few of these types before but Sue plunges new depths when I hear her tell Angie that her latest bloke has left ‘cause his new girlfriend probably has a tighter fanny’. Sometimes I shudder at the way some parents converse with their offspring.

These kind of mums have, in recent months, made me appreciate my own mother that little bit more - although, naturally, like any teenager, I’d never tell her that…..

So, here we are, me and Angie.  I’m wearing my pale denim jeans, chunky belt, off the shoulder red striped top and large hoop earrings. I convince myself I ooze continental sophistication as I try to adjust the bra straps so not show outside of the top, to give the illusion my chest is scaffolded by Mother Nature alone. It’s either that or put a strapless one on, but they make my teenage tits look as attractive as two bandaged tennis balls.

At fifteen, although I notice all the fakery of the fair, one thing stands out for me as being most definitely real. Or should it be, one person.

He’s tanned and muscular, with messy brown hair, moody almond shaped eyes and ‘bar room brawl’ qualities I find curiously appealing. Maybe a couple of years older than me, his job - a most important role by all accounts- is to spin the waltzers. For some reason, he does this bare chested. Is he a boy or is he a man, I muse as I study him. He’s certainly not a boy, yet ‘man’ just sounds too scary - men expect ‘stuff’ after all. I settle on ‘guy’.  Yeah, guy. There’s a magazine called ‘My Guy’ and they write it on ‘Loveheart’ sweets too. That’ll do.

I’ve always loved the waltzers, their brightly painted self contained oval carriages, the squee of dizziness I feel when I go over a dip. And the best bit - when the operative comes over to give your personal waltzer that extra bit of welly.

I admit, when this guy pushes my waltzer, everything whirrs and blurs. I giggle and blush, smile and bat my eyelashes like sultry black lace fans.

“How much have you spent on that ride over the last few days, Ju?”

Angie enquires teasingly.

“Oh….. I don’t know. £15?”

I guess.

“But he’s let me have loads of free goes too. So I’ve more than had my money’s worth…..I think he might like me”

I say.

“Would you go out with him? I mean if he asked you? Would you? What d’yer reck?”

I pause and tilt my head, trying to look as though this is the first time I’ve considered this idea. Truth was, for the last couple of days, I’d thought of little else.

My head had been alive with ‘run away to the fair’ fantasies. Imagine if I did! Perhaps I too could be trained to operate a fairground ride! Maybe the fair would roll up at the seaside ……Maybe in my time off I would get free turns on whatever I wanted……Big Wheel, Twister, Dodgems…….

I was suddenly aware of my starry eyes giving me away.

“Yeah….might do. He seems alright doesn’t he?”

I answered casually.

Angie raised her eyebrows and smiled. I knew what she was thinking. She was going to put a word in or see what she could find out.

For a moment I was torn. The pull-push internal mechanism that wants to both further and box a possibility.

I say nothing and decide that what will be will be.

And there she is, talking to him, glancing back over as I dart my eyes away then do my best ‘Princess Di peering through her fringe’ impression.

Moments later she returns beaming with news like a satisfied village gossip.

“He’s gonna come and meet you on his break. Half two. Over there near’t hotdog van”

She says, pointing to said vehicle.

“D’yer find out his name?”

“Yeah, Coco”

“COCO! Really? Coco?”

I say in disbelief. My amusement park Adonis has the name of a clown or a granny’s bedtime beverage! Fucks sake!

I look over and he’s giving me a little wave and I raise my head and give a shy half smile back.

Sure enough, at midday, there he is, striding over to me.

Shoulder length hair, a few tattoos, the epitome of ‘bit of rough’. As his presence meets mine, all feels deliciously dangerous. I smell midnight, adventure and run away horses….

“So…..how long are you here?”

I ask

“Oh just a couple of days”

I try to place his accent but can’t. That just makes me like him all the more.

“Then we’re moving on….”

Moving on….

Oh the romance of it!

The idea of travelling from town to town, wherever fancy took you……

“Bolton I think next, then Oldham…..Huddersfield…..”

Bolton! Oldham! Huddersfield!

The words fall upon my ears as ‘New York, Paris and Rome’.

“Oh that’s so cool…..so I won’t see you around after that then….”

“No”

“Oh”

I wasn’t used to these conversations. Not really sure what I was supposed to do next. Jessica from ‘Sweet Valley High’ was still my ‘go to’ in that department. I’d read them all a couple of years earlier. She always knew what to do. What would Jessica Wakefield say….

As I contemplated this, Coco was a step ahead.

“I suppose we’d better make the most of it now then….”

He said leaning in to kiss me. It was short yet powerful. As I opened my eyes I noticed there was an audience and I felt like Sandy at the end of Grease with Angie my Rochdale Rizzo.

“I have to go back to work now….but look, I knock off at 8 if you want to meet me.”

Meet him?At 8?

That was almost night, wasn’t it?

Meeting a A GUY in the dark!

Did I want to meet him?

The rest of the afternoon my heart was a flutter with that kiss. Probably only about the fifth I’d had in my life.

I go home and spend the rest of the afternoon preening myself to my version of relaxed perfection. My hair is at a ‘funny stage’ as people tended to say politely in reference to me growing out my first perm or ‘body wave’ as my cousin insisted on calling it. I apply lipstick, a push up Rimmel I got free on the front of a magazine. After much deliberation of outfit, I decide upon a bright red T-shirt dress and black cropped jacket, pretty yet casual.

I survey my selection of perfumes and body sprays. There’s Dewberry, Chic, Exclamation! and some vanillary smelling shit. I do have some patchouli oil too, which smells all earthy and slightly dirty. Too dirty? Hmm…

Which scent playfully whispers ‘fairground by night’……..

Finally, I arrive into the town centre on the chariot otherwise known as the orange and white 471 double decker, giddy as my brain leapt ahead.

As I approach the town hall carpark, I hear sirens. There is a gathering crowd and a police van. A blonde female, maybe 17/18, is lying on the ground, her face bruised and bloodied as two paramedics climb out of an ambulance.

Then I spot Angie.

“Fuck Angie! What’s gone down?”

I ask.

“Supposed to be meeting Coco here in a bit”.

Angie unleashes a slightly nervous yet cynical cackle.

“You’ve had a lucky escape there! “

“What d’yer mean?”

“Turns out he already has a girlfriend here at the fair. Works on the dodgems…”

“No?”

“AND turns out some other girl had got off with him this afternoon too - THAT girl - and ’is bird ’ad seen ’an it all kicked off”

She gestures toward the girl spark out a few feet away. My eyes widen and jaw drops as I digest the news.

“Really?”

“Yeah, turned into a right scrap. Look at her. She’s proper kicked her head in”

I stare at the girl, pretty in a pastel blue shirt dress and knee high boots.

“Could’ve been you….”

Angie says.

“She’s not here now is she? Coco’s girlfriend…”

I say, suddenly mindful of my own safety.

“I mean she might have seen me kissing him earlier too….”

“Nah, police have got her, loads of witnesses, you’re safe”

My heart thumps in my chest as I take deep breaths.

“I’d never fight over any guy, ever”

I say truthfully, horrified there were girls who did such things. Talk about letting the side down! The sheer logic of it - if a person wanted someone else…..let them go.

We wander tentatively away from the scene and I remember a book I had as a child.

‘Lost at the fair’

It was a tale about some dormice who visit the fair, have an unexpected adventure aboard the back of a blackbird, then head back home, unscathed, their heads full of devilish dreams and ‘what if’.

I decide that ‘what if’ plays rather a large part in life.

When humans aren’t wondering about what could happen, so often we’re preoccupied with what would have been if life had taken a different turn at a certain point.

If I’d ran away to the fair.

If Coco’s irate girlfriend would have seen us.

These parallel versions of events exist in our minds like an assortment of ‘Choose your own adventure’ endings.

But there’s only one story we live and all other takes are nothing more than distraction, aren’t they?

Absorbing yourself in fictitious and fantastical endings only subtracts from your actual story - the real one - right here, right now.

I suggest to Angie we go hang at Joyce’s for the rest of the evening. Tonight, a few hours stroking feral dogs and watching randoms do hot knives in the kitchen seems the most enjoyable option on the table.

I buy a final stick of candy floss and leave the fair, giving a farewell glance, wondering when this enchanting land will next return and the magic it might bring…..

I lose myself in pink sugar.

PS: I write lots of different things. If you appreciated this piece, you may appreciate more of my stories, both real life and fictional, located under ‘Stories’ at the top of my ‘Mother Of Hope’ home page.