Ballad of Favour Read online

  It was all too much for her. This time, Favour, you’ve tried this poor messenger too hard. ‘I’ll do anything for you, anything,’ she told him, lifting the front wheel of Old Paint to pretend it was the grey horse taking off, ‘but I’ve got to know what it is I have to do.’

  When Rose got back to the hotel, Ben was there. His father was going to rent a boat next summer, and he and Ben had come down to look at it.

  ‘Been out running?’ he asked, when Rose trudged in, flushed and tired from the ride back from Newcome.

  ‘Out on my bike. It’s on its last legs. I’m getting a new one, you know. Silver and white.’ It was going to be called Great Grey Mare, as a compliment to Favour. ‘They’re keeping it for me at the shop, and I may have enough to get it next week. So this is the swan song of poor Old Paint. I want him to have a few last flings with me in the evening of his days.’

  ‘Going to have him put to sleep?’

  ‘Or let him rust quietly away behind the shed by the twisted crab apple tree, in the garden he loved so well.’

  Ben put his hand to his heart and bowed. ‘He was a very gallant gentleman.’

  That was one of the things that was different about Ben. Most boys didn’t like that sort of talk.

  ‘Listen.’ He picked up the local paper from a table in the hall. ‘There’s a fun fair over at the horse show fields, the other side of Newcome.’

  ‘Is it starting today?’ It was a shock to hear him talk about it, after it had been part of the puzzle in her mind.

  ‘This afternoon. Let’s go there before I have to go back. Dad says he’ll take us.’

  ‘All right.’ Perhaps Rose was meant to go to the fun fair today. Perhaps today was the day that all the Morgans were going. Perhaps fate or Favour had put it into Mr Kelly’s mind to come and look at the boat this Sunday. ‘Can we take Abigail? She’s riding over to lunch.’

  Jim Fisher had helped Abigail and Rose to fix up a small fenced enclosure round the open shed at the bottom of the garden, so that Crackers could stay there when Abigail was at the hotel. She was going to leave him there while they all went to the fun fair.

  At the last minute, something happened.

  Rose and Abigail had put a load of lunch plates into the dishwasher. When Rose switched it on, and it started its Niagara noise, she could hardly believe her ears. Favour’s tune was rising through and above the roar and rush and racket of the antiquated machine, which was on its last legs, like Rose’s bicycle.

  What was she going to do? Mr Kelly was waiting on the verandah to take them to the fun fair. She couldn’t ask him, ‘Please wait while I just run up to Noah’s Bowl and back.’ She could not explain to any of them. She would have to miss the fair. What excuse could she invent?

  Looking out of the scullery window for inspiration outdoors, where it was always more easily found, she saw Crackers grazing contentedly in his little plot of orchard grass.

  Thanks, Crackers, you’re a life saver.

  Rose went through to the verandah where Ben and Abigail were fitting in some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle a guest had started.

  ‘Guess what?’ Another phrase she had picked up from Abigail. ‘Would you two mind terribly if I don’t go with you?’

  Abigail said without looking up, ‘It’s a free country,’ but Ben looked up, with real disappointment in his nice, open face.

  It gave Rose a pang like being stabbed through the heart to have to say, ‘I’d really love to take Crackers out on my own for a bit. Would you mind, Ab?’

  ‘Help yourself. You’ve been doing fine on him. Just take it easy.’

  ‘Oh, I will. Oh thanks.’

  Ben shrugged and said to his father, ‘Let’s go then,’ and Rose tore herself away, drawn by the imperious tune and powerful force which no attachment in her life was strong enough to resist.

  Since the unhappy jumping session at Joyce’s stables, Abigail had let Rose ride her dun pony, to recover her confidence. She had given her a few tips, although Rose would never be a good rider, which was odd, considering how splendidly she rode Favour in his galloping flight.

  They had been out on the moor a few times, with Abigail on her mother’s big pony Cheese, and Rose knew that she should not let Crackers trot or canter too fast, because he was hard to stop when he got going.

  But she was in a hurry now. The tune was still in her head. She had a sense of Favour waiting impatiently, tossing his lovely Arab head and striking sparks from the rock. She knew that she would have to plunge blindly down through the perils of the mist, and reach the bridge as quickly as possible.

  Once through the wood, she turned right to skirt the walled sheep pasture, and trotted Crackers steadily across the moor, following the paths she knew so well, turning when she saw the cone-shaped hill. He crossed a stream neatly and she let him stride out fast up the slope beyond it. She was going to pull him in before they got to the top, but as she shortened her reins, a bird started up right under his feet. He jumped sideways like a cat, put his head down and took off with her down the slope on the other side.

  It was rough and rocky, the bed of a dried-up stream, and Rose was terrified that he was going to stumble. She sat back and pulled on the reins. She tried shortening one rein to turn him. Nothing worked. She sat tight and tried to do what Abigail would tell her if she were there.

  ‘Think positive,’ Abigail always said, so Rose sat still and thought that at least she was getting there quickly, and there was rising ground ahead. She would be able to slow him down there.

  At the end of his disorganized descent, Crackers felt so good that he put his head down even farther and bucked. Rose did not fall off, but she flopped forward, and went up the opposite slope clinging round the pony’s neck.

  Well done.

  Whose voice in her head? It couldn’t be her own, because she didn’t think she was doing well at all. Mr Vingo? It didn’t quite sound like a human voice. It was as unexplainable as the gentle force that helped her back into the saddle, so that she could gather up her reins and her wits and pull Crackers to a stop at the crest of the hill.

  There was the bulky dark rock, solid and reassuring, as if it had been the voice of the rock that spoke to her. At the edge of the thicket, she got off and had to commit the unpardonable sin of tying Crackers to a sapling by his reins. (Sorry, Abigail, sorry, Crackers, shan’t be long). She pushed her way through the trees to where the white mist lay over the valley as if it really were the surface of the lake, and charged down through it, shouting, ‘Out of my way, you devils!’

  They laughed at her, as if she were a very small puppy yapping at a big man’s heavy boot. It made her feel small and puny, but she shouted again and went on. Her throat and nose were full of mist and the acrid smoke of their fires. She coughed, and could not shout any more, but she was almost at the bottom now. She was out into the sunlight. The horse was there, and they were off. Sorry again, Crackers, but this is much easier than riding you.

  Through the singing roar of the wind came a different kind of music, a tooting, whistling, cymbal-clashing, oom-pah-pah kind of music that grew louder as the flight of the horse descended. His speed and movement changed. He was going gently up and down and round and round. The music was the blaring steam organ of a roundabout. Favour was one of its horses. He wasn’t Favour. He had become a wooden horse with gaping red mouth and nostrils in a high, staring head, and shiny dappled paint.

  On his back, Rose had become someone else in torn shoes and a wide black skirt, holding on with grubby hands to the curved wooden mane and watching the fair ground revolve round her – people, faces, tents, caravans – through half-closed eyes, pretending she was riding a real horse.

  So Rose was at the fun fair after all. But not as Rose, wandering round with Ben and Abigail and wishing she had more money to spend. She was this girl who climbed off the wooden horse when the roundabout slowed and stopped, and jumped down on to the trodden grass.

  ‘Thanks, Vince.’ She waved to the round
about man above her.

  ‘OK, Meggie. Free ride for you any time.’

  Meggie went past some of the other rides and ducked under some wires and went round a big generator truck to walk between two rows of amusement stalls, waving and calling out to the people who worked there. She went towards the Hoopla stall, which stood by itself in the middle.

  ‘Here we go, here we go, step right up here and try your luck! Three rings for 10p, don’t be shy ladies and gents, three rings for 10p – win a lovely watch, all kinds of valuable gifts! Step right up and try your luck!’

  The girl inside the Hoopla stall stopped shouting when Meggie came up, and said, ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘On the roundabout. What’s it to you?’

  ‘Like a bloomin’ kid, you are.’ The older girl shook her head. ‘Come in here while I go back to the van for a bit. I’ve got things to do.’

  Meggie vaulted over the barrier and went inside among the assorted prizes, which stood on a big round table on stands of different levels and sizes. The other girl took off an apron with big pockets full of coins, and Meggie put it on and took up the stick that had a lot of wooden rings on it.

  ‘Step right up!’ she called to the people who were wandering by. ‘Three rings for 10p, it’s a gift! Try your luck, I say, step right up and try your luck!’

  ‘You all right then, Meggie?’ a thin man with a grey, unshaven face and hands that were as dirty as Meggie’s were from handling coins, called over from the Roll-a-Ball booth nearby.

  ‘Piece of cake.’ Meggie tossed her head when she spoke. ‘Not that much business, anyway.’

  ‘What a lousy town.’

  Rose wanted to tell them that most of the tourists were gone and that Newcome people ate large lunches on Sundays and then sat on the ends of their spines, sleeping or watching television, or both, and didn’t go out until a bit later; but Meggie had been here before, and knew that.

  ‘It’ll wake up this evening, Dad. Keep smiling. You won’t take their money if you look at ’em with that face like a dead codfish stranded at low tide.’ Or, as Abigail would have put it, ‘Think positive.’

  And there was Abigail, strolling along through the sparse crowds, eating an ice lolly, her eyes going from side to side, missing nothing, grinning at everybody, creating her own good time, as she always seemed able to do. Rose looked her straight in the face through Meggie’s sharp eyes, but there was no sign of recognition, except the general grin that was for everybody.

  Abigail walked over to Roll-a-Ball, tried a few and got nothing, and laughed.

  Meggie’s father said, ‘Have another go, now you’ve got the hang of it,’ and Abigail laughed again and allowed him to persuade her.

  Rose was looking beyond her down the strip that was lined with stalls and booths. She was looking for the Morgans. Beyond the stalls and booths, huge lighted wheels turned, and piston arms swung shuddering rocket cabs high into the air. The Dodg’em cars crashed together, the pennants at the top of the roundabout went round and round, and there was always someone new – the Morgans? – coming through the door at the top of the helter-skelter with their mouths open to begin screaming as the mat took off with them.

  Behind and above everything rose the huge frame of the Loop. As each captive load – the Morgans? – rose to the top of the curve and plunged into the dive, you could hear the shrieks from here, above half a dozen different kinds of amplified music, and the shouts of the fairground people.

  ‘Come on, don’t be shy! Step right up, and try your luck!’ Meggie tossed her head and threw out her quick-fire patter. ‘Take your chance now while there’s still room to throw – get the best prizes while they last!’

  Rose spotted Ben, working his way methodically down the booths on one side. He picked up a rifle and aimed very carefully at the moving line of ducks, and Rose saw the shooting gallery woman reach up and hand him something small from a shelf.

  At Roll-a-Ball, he won two magenta and silver balloons. He gave them to Abigail, and they both wandered over to the Hoopla, chatting and laughing, the helium balloons travelling over their heads like a banner.

  Rose looked at Ben and Abigail with dreadful jealousy. Meggie looked at them with an optimistic commercial eye.

  ‘There you are!’ she called, as if she had been waiting for them. ‘Just in time to win the gold watch. Only one watch given away tonight – and it could be you!’

  She put her hands in the apron pockets and jingled the change invitingly. ‘Three rings for 10p, miss.’ She slid the rings off the stick and held them out to Abigail. ‘Three for you, mister.’

  Ben took them without looking. He was concentrating on one of the prizes, judging the angle and distance.

  ‘You want the watch?’ Abigail asked him. ‘The stand looks as if it’s too big for the ring to go over.’

  ‘Now, now, now,’ Meggie warned her. ‘This is Carson and Sons Novelties.’ They still called it by its name from her grandfather’s time, even though now it was Carson and Daughters. ‘Everything fair. Everything square. What you see is what you get.’ Because if it’s not so, Rose heard Meggie think to herself, the inspector will be along, measuring and nagging, and you lose a day’s profits, like we did at Scarborough over the silver bowl, though if anyone thinks you could make a living actually giving away prizes like that, they must be daft.

  ‘Not the watch,’ Ben said. It probably wouldn’t run more than a day.’.

  ‘’Ere, ’ere, ’ere,’ from Meggie.

  ‘See the little horse up there?’ He nodded at one of the horse figures with red saddles and bridles and feathers for mane and tail that usually the girls went for. ‘I’m going to get that for Rose.’

  Rose’s heart leaped up so abruptly that Meggie hiccuped.

  ‘Oh, swell,’ Abigail said. ‘Good old Rose, I wish she was here. She should have come with us. She can ride that pony any day. She’s crazy.’

  ‘Raving mad.’ Ben took a wooden ring in his hand, felt the size and weight of it, and got his balance. ‘Like all girls your age.’

  Meggie, who was about the same age, said, ‘’Ere, ’ere, ’ere,’ automatically, although she was giving change to another customer, and Abigail nudged Ben off his balance.

  He started again, missed the first time, set his jaw, swung, threw, and the hoop settled neatly over the little blue-grey horse.

  Meggie was pleased. It didn’t pay to have too many people winning, but the horses came cheap from Hong Kong, and people had to win some of the time, to keep them spending money.

  Ben and Abigail tried a few more throws. Rose had stopped watching them. She was still looking for the Morgans. At last she saw some familiar figures among the small crowd at the ice cream van.

  The Morgan family. They were dressed up a bit, the father in a bottle green jacket, the mother in a dress like a tent, wearing her teeth. Arthur quite flashy, Mavis with a new hairdo. Carol wore her same old clothes and led Gregory by the hand. They turned from the van, all licking cornets. Nobody was carrying Davey.

  He must be toddling after them. Don’t lose him in the crowd, you fools! The colour had gone out of the day. All the fairground lights were on, and there were more people now, strolling, jostling, carrying huge purple plush animals. This was no place to let go of the hand of a child that age.

  The Morgans came towards the Hoopla, stopping at other stalls, not spending money, just watching the players, laughing, teasing each other, having a good time. Nobody looked round for the little boy. The truth of it broke on Rose with a fearful simplicity.

  Davey was not with them.

  This was why the horse had brought her here, to show her that they had left him at home. Alone? They would never do that. Perhaps with someone cruel or careless, who had abandoned him.

  Carol and Mavis came up to the Hoopla stand and looked at the watches and the jewellery, and told each other, ‘I’d like that,’ and, ‘I’d go for that.’

  ‘Have a go then.’ Meggie held out the sti
ck and shook the rings at them. Mavis fished out a coin and took three throws that were wild enough to make Meggie take pity on her and give her a free ring.

  ‘You chuck it.’ Mavis gave it to Carol, who aimed at a small soft rabbit, and missed.

  ‘Not that, stupid. The bracelet.’

  ‘I wanted it for Davey.’ As Carol turned away with Mavis, Rose heard her say, ‘Poor little beggar. I wish we’d brought him.’

  ‘He’s much too young.’

  ‘I hope he’s all right. She’s a bit daft, that Gwendolyn or whatever she calls herself.’

  ‘At least she’s cheap.’

  Gwendolyn. So this was where she and her birthday fitted in. This was why she couldn’t go out with gape-jawed Vernon. They’re right, thought Rose grimly. She is daft. Could she possibly be cruel as well?

  Meggie’s sister came back and took the apron and the rings, and Meggie and Rose ducked out of the stall and ran towards the noise and music and the circling lights that made the fair seem more glamorous than it was. When the roundabout stopped, Meggie hopped on, and pushed a boy out of the way to dart for the horse she always rode, the dappled, rearing one to which Favour had brought Rose. The machine groaned. The whistles blew and tooted. The blank-eyed ladies on the front of the organ clashed their cymbals, and as the roundabout gathered speed, Rose was whirled off it, right out of the person of Meggie, through a brief spinning vacuum and straight into a familiar, fat, gyrating body. Gwen was swaying about in front of the television in the front room at the Morgan’s house.

  When the programme ended and the commercials came on, Gwen felt hungry. Her mind got the message from her stomach and turned slowly in the direction of the frying pan on Mrs Morgan’s stove. Time for some chips. On the way to the kitchen, she lumbered upstairs to look at Davey, sweetly asleep in Carol’s bed, his cheek flushed, his fine fair hair damp with the intensity of his sleeping. Gwen fell over a toy and stepped on the loose squeaking floorboard, but he did not wake.