Omens at the Fair
AFTERTHOUGHT By JOHN WELLS FROM the crumbling off- yellow sand at the sea- shore, littered with sodden egg-boxes and crisp packets, the seaside town of Seaton Carew, . on the bay between West Hartle- pool and Middlesbrough,
looked subtly beautiful
77 y last Sunday afternoon.
There was a whiff of
' chlorine in the wind from the ICI works over the horizon at Billington, the sea that came hissing up the sand was slate- black, and away beyond the town the chimneys of the South Durham Iron and Steel Works smoked silver-white into a dove-grey sky. The houses facing the sea had the vertical simplicity of illustrations in a children's story book, some of them painted pink and some blue. In the foreground dark figures stood about fully clothed in the stilted attitudes of holidaymakers in old seaside photographs, and at the end of the flat promenade the yellow framework of a Big Dipper and the slender spokes of a red and yellow Ferris Wheel rose above the corrugated- iron fence round the Fun Fair. Near us on the beach an old man in a dark-blue pin-stripe double-breasted suit with very wide shoulders and a flat cloth cap stood lopsidedly with his hands behind his back, watching it all.
As we kicked our way closer across the powdery sand, the rattle of the ratchet on the Big Dipper became audible against the amplified twanging of guitars, and we watched the little red-painted car being drawn at snail's pace up the forty-five-degree incline to roll rumbling round the iron curves, down the mechanical
slope, and up the other side. One party of six adults managed a feeble scream of pleasure as the car plunged downwards, but most of them rushed down the dip in sophisticated silence. The fairground was shabby inside and floored with rough asphalt. The slowly drifting crowd was predominantly young: there were teenage girls with their hair chopped short and dark stockings, some of them dancing in twos and threes in corners to the deafening beat of the music—the confused cacophany of other fair- grounds had been reduced here to the pillar- shaking din of a single loudspeaker system— boys in check trousers and windcheaters leaning against the railings round the Bumper Cars, a few older parents with little fat boys in double- breasted jackets and matching shorts with white ankle socks. A baby with unusually large and lustrous brown eyes leant back on its mother's breast, pointing with one finger like an Infant Christ in an Adoration of the Magi, and silently mouthed the word 'Bow-wow.'
The bow-wow in question was a sandy-haired Alsatian, a mean-looking dog held back on a short black leash by a policeman in a sharply- raked peak cap. Other children who toddled up to pat it drew back screaming with their hands over their faces as it gave a white-toothed snarl and tried to spring forward, dragged back finally by its handler. As I looked more closely at the crowd I became aware of more police- men, all standing solitary and watchful, ignored by the pleasure-seekers.
Sensing some dim Bergmanesque symbolism in the emergence of these tight-lipped black angels of death and determinism into the bright pageant of life, I resolved to abandon the role of cynical bystander immediately and to -step into the bright pageant before it was too late.
The two little girls who had suggested the fair in the first place said we should go on the Chair-o-planes. I clambered into the rusty bucket- seat that hung twisting on four thin chains, con- cealed my misgivings and assumed a bland smile. The chains on which we depended appeared to be ancient, rusty and fragile: the trajectory we swung out on as the tower began to turn passed perilously close to the roofs of nearby booths,— a white painted sign saying 'Hot Water and Jugs of Tea' and 'Drink Hubbly Bubbly' whirled past inches away with increasing frequency and momentum—and soon the thickly-peopled earth began to lurch sickly and heavily beneath us, the whole horizon at one stage appearing to tip and wobble. With the asphalt still unsteady beneath my feet, I allowed myself to be led by an infant hand to an appalling device called The Caterpillar. Trapped underneath a canvas hood, we sat in pathetic silence among the childish laughter and squeals of delight, flung up and down, thrown against the outer side of the little train, rattled and jolted over the rollers. Assisted down the steps, I was just about to re- affirm the validity of cynical bystanding as against painful commitment when it was sug- gested that I should visit the Lady Palmist.
I had been warned that the Lady Palmist in question tended to see the future mainly in terms of Men in Uniform, Large Buildings into which one went to sign important documents, and assistance from Middle-Aged Men. Nevertheless, considering the policemen still standing silent in the crowd, I felt doomed finally to face up to the mysterious powers of limiting destiny and judg- ment. As a last defence, I assumed a thick French accent, entered the booth, which con- tained a sofa, an upright chair, a bare table, and bade the Lady Palmist a good afternoon. She placed a small glass ball on the palm of my left hand and told me that she could see a water-crossing ahead. I raised my eyebrows in gallic surprise. She also saw a man in uniform, perhaps from across the water. Then she saw a large building into which I should have to go to sign an important document. That, she replied in answer to my hesitant question, might be across the water too. I could also expect help from a middle-aged man. I asked her if he was French. She said she didn't think so, but he had travelled a lot abroad. I thanked her and asked her how she knew all this. She looked at me nar- rowly with her extraordinarily perceptive grey eyes, and replied, 'It's a gift, dear.'
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