Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
the hobby horses they rode under the musty green hood of the Caterpillar, and on the Dodgems with their blue sparks and thundering crashes, and on the Octopus, and all the others even down to the toddlers’ roundabouts at the outer edges of the magic circle where Benjy swooped on the fire engine and rang the bell furiously as he trundled around, while Thomas squeezed himself into a racing car or helicopter and scowled at Annie every time he came past.
When they had ridden every roundabout they plunged into the sideshows, from the bleeping electronic games that all three of them adored, to the tattered old stalls where Annie and Tom vied with each other to throw darts at wobbly boards or shoot the pingpong balls off nodding ducks. Benjy was furiously partisan, pulling at Annie’s arm and shouting, ‘Come on, Mummy. Why don’t you win?’
Annie laughed and threw down her twisted rifle.
‘It’s no good, Ben. I’m not nearly as good as Thomas is.’
‘Here you are, baby,’ Tom snorted, thrusting the orange fur teddy bear that he had won at Benjy. ‘Is this what you wanted?’
‘I just wanted Mum to win,’ Benjy retorted. ‘I don’t want her to be sad.’
‘I won’t be sad,’ she promised him. The outside reached in, just for a moment, between the caravans and flags. ‘I won’t be sad. Let’s go and see the funny mirrors.’
They lined up in the narrow booth and paraded to and fro in front of the distorting mirrors. The images of the three of them leapt back and forth too, telescoping from spindly giants to squat barrels with grinning turnip faces.
The boys roared and gurgled with laugher, clutching at one another for support. ‘Look at Mum! Look at her legs!’
‘And her teeth. Like an old horse’s.’
Annie laughed much more at their abandoned enjoyment than at the gaping figures. Adults never laugh like this, like children do, she thought. Not giving themselves up to it.
In the end she had to pull them away from the mirrors to make room for the press of people coming in behind them. She hauled them out into the sunshine, blinking and still snorting with laughter.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘I’m so hungry.’
‘And me.’
They picnicked on hot dogs oozing with fried onions and ketchup, and Annie bought them huge puffballs of candyfloss that collapsed in sticky pink ridges over their beaming faces.
‘You’re letting us have all the bad things, Ma.’
‘Just for today,’ she said severely.
When they had finished the repellent meal they turned to her again.
‘Is it time for the Big Wheel now?’
By unspoken agreement, they had saved it until last. They crossed the trampled grass now and joined the queue in its spidery shadow. Benjy tilted his head backwards to peer up at the height of it.
‘I was too little last time.’
Annie crouched beside him, straightening his jacket, an excuse to hold on to him.
‘You’re big enough now. After the Waltzers you’re big enough for anything.’
They grew so quickly. They were here and now, together. Wasn’t that enough? As they inched forward in the queue the cold fingers from outside reached in to clutch at Annie. She tried to shake them off, and hold on to the day’s hermetic happiness.
It was enough, because it would have to be.
At last their turn came. The attendant let them in through the little metal gate and they climbed into the little swinging car, the boys on either side of Annie. The safety bar was latched into place and the wheel turned, sweeping them upwards and backwards. As they soared up they felt the wind in their faces, scented with grass and woodsmoke up here, above the packed crowds and the hot-dog stalls. When they reached the highest point the wheel stopped turning and they hung in the stillness, rocking in windy, empty space. Ben gave a little squeak of fear and burrowed against her, and Annie held her arm around him, hiding his eyes with her hand. But Tom leaned forward, his face turning sombre.
Beneath them spread all the tumult of the fairground, suddenly dwarfed. Beyond was the undulating green of treetops, rolling downhill, and the houses edging the heath, a jumble of slate and stone. London stretched out beyond that, pale blue and grey and ochre.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Tom said.
Annie felt tears in her eyes, and ducked her head. She put her arm round him and drew him close to her.
‘It is,’ she whispered. ‘It’s very beautiful.’
They sat silent in the rocking chair, and looked at it. In that moment of stillness Annie felt that she loved her children more than she had ever done before.
And then the wheel jerked and began to turn again, sweeping them down towards the ground.
After the ride they stood in the shadow of the wheel again.
‘What shall we do now?’
Annie took out her purse. She opened it and showed them the recesses. ‘Look. We’ve spent all the money. I’ve got just enough to buy you a balloon each to take home.’
They peered into the purse, needing to be convinced. Then they sighed with reluctant satisfaction. They agreed with the logic of staying until every penny was spent, and then of having to go home. On the way out of the noisy, joyful circle they chose a pair of red and silver helium balloons, decorated with Superman for Tom and Spiderman for Benjy. And then with the balloons tugging and twisting above them they plodded back down the hill to the car.
When they were inside it, insulated from the people streaming by, Tom turned to Annie.
‘That was so good,’ he said simply. ‘I can’t think of anyone else’s Mum who would have gone on everything, like you. Well, I suppose they might have done. But they wouldn’t have enjoyed it, like you did.’
‘I did enjoy it,’ Annie said. ‘Thank you.’
Benjy scrambled forward and laid his face briefly against her neck, stickily, his own form of thanks.
Then Annie started the car up and turned towards home. Martin would be waiting, and the ache of Steve’s absence would be waiting for her too.
It was not many days after the funfair that Tibby’s doctor took Annie and her father aside. ‘If you were going to ask her son to come home and see her,’ he said, ‘I think it should be done quite soon.’
Annie’s brother was working as an engineer in the Middle East. Annie and Jim put through the call at once, as they had agreed with Phillip that they would.
‘I’ll be home within forty-eight hours,’ Phillip said.
Tibby lay in her hospice room, surrounded by flowers that Annie brought in from her garden.
‘There must be a fine show this year,’ she said politely, when Annie had arranged them.
Annie sat by the bed, watching her mother’s transparent face. Tibby was usually awake, but she rarely spoke. When she did speak, it was about small things; the doctors or one of the other patients, or the food they brought her that she couldn’t eat. She didn’t even talk about her grandchildren any more. Annie knew that her mother’s world had shrunk to the dimensions of her hospital bed.
It was hard for Tibby to be dignified under such circumstances, even though the staff who looked after her did all that was possible to control her pain. But she clung tenaciously to the silence that she had maintained about her illness. She didn’t talk any more about getting better, but she wouldn’t admit the fact of approaching death either. In the beginning Annie had seen the refusal as a kind of graceful courage. But as the months had passed her frustration had grown. She felt the silence now