Holiday of the Dead (3 page)

Our wheels span and we left the couple behind. Dad soon had us off the main drag and onto a dizzying set of single lanes. A half hour later I spotted the sign for Appleby. This would be our holiday; the biggest gypsy horse fair in Europe. 

‘Are you sure you’re a proper gypsy?’ Daz said to Dad, tipping me the wink. This was another of our little games – see how wound up we could get Dad.

‘Are you taking the fucking piss, Daz? I have pure Romany in these veins.’ He slapped his chest with a fist, getting slightly red-faced now. ‘My olds rode a horse and tented cart all through Romania and those Carpathians. Purest gypsy through and through, no word of a lie.’

‘I thought our great grandparents were Irish potato farmers. Perhaps they just went to the Carpathians on holidays?’ I said.

‘Are you reaching for a slap?’ Dad’s head was a beetroot. ‘Your great grandparents were wrong ’uns in a fine line of gypsy stock. They fell in love with growing those stupid, boring vegetables. Lived in a house; bricks and mortar. They sold out. Thank God my ma and da saw the light and took to the road again.’

‘But we own a house, Dad,’ I said, hiding a smile. ‘Doesn’t that make us just as bad as potato farmers?’

‘Yes I have one. Yes I may even like it. But I have this too. We are out on the road; we are keeping the travellers’ trades alive. Stealing, robbing and selling; we are living the life.’

‘Fair dues,’ I said. ‘But isn’t it time you bought your own caravan. Why do we always have to borrow Uncle Fester’s old one. It leaks and it’s full of rabbit shit. It smells worse than Daz’s wank towel.’

‘That caravan is a bargain. And don’t be so rude about your uncle. He was just born fat and bald …’ Dad stopped speaking. There was a policeman in the road ahead, waving us to stop. Behind him was a patrol car, its blue light flashing. No siren. ‘You do the talking, Conrad,’ Dad said, giving Daz a stern look.

The police officer made a motion with his hand to roll the window down. The copper wasn’t exactly in the spring of youth. He had a grey face and eyes that looked wrinkled and baggy from too many late shifts. I guessed this fella wasn’t far from a retirement of model train building and gardening, or whatever the fuck these country folk did in their spare time.

Close up I could make out individual stains on his fluorescent jacket; blood on the collar, oil on the sleeves. ‘And where might three fine folk such as yourselves be heading now?’ he asked, looking past us and into the van. Too dark back there to see and the stolen generator was covered in a blanket.

‘How are you doing there, officer?’ I said. ‘Is there anything we can help you with?’ Never give a straightforward answer to a copper; that was the rule.

The policeman sighed. A faint dabble of voices could be heard from his ear piece. He pressed the button on the radio clipped to his jacket. ‘Roger; received that.’ I thought the game was up.

‘You know after twenty five years in this job I know you lads have something back there you don’t want me to see. You in the middle look more nervous than a nun at a Hells Angels’ Christmas party,’ he said, looking at Daz. Daz squirmed in his seat next to me. ‘But you know what, I don’t care. I’m an hour past the time I should be at home with my feet up and having a beer. Finding something on you guys just doesn’t do it for me, I’m afraid. Now listen, round the next corner is a wreck. A caravan went over on its side, quite the mess. One of your pals, I think.’ He waved us on.

‘Thank you sir,’ my Dad chirped in, crunching his way into first gear. Driving forward, Dad looked at us, a wide grin on his face. ‘Dodged a bullet there. Nearly lost our holiday stuck down the cop shop. We’ll shift the gennie in Appleby fast like.’

‘Why do you reckon he didn’t know about the car we smashed?’ Daz asked.

‘Maybe he did. Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore. Bored of the game,’ Dad said.

Around the corner sure enough there was a caravan on its side. It was coned off and blocked one lane of the road. Debris ranging from smashed crockery to stripy socks covered the tarmac. Two young men stood at the side of the road with an older man and woman. They all seemed to be gesticulating and angry with each other; the blame game. Alongside them was a red Range Rover with its front end folded around a thick oak tree.

The Maldoon family saw us and stopped their bickering, staring at us idling past. Dad hit his horn and waved at them. ‘Spot of bother, I see,’ he shouted out of the window. Jimmy Maldoon, a wiry red-head and the youngest there, picked up a handful of gravel off the road surface and launched it at the van. ‘Touchy,’ Dad said and picked up speed again.

For as long as I can remember, the Maldoons and the Beeches hated each other. They hated my Dad, Frankie Beech most of all, ever since he’d bitten the ear off the now deceased Arthur ‘Tiny’ Maldoon during a particularly dirty bare fist fight back in 1978. It also didn’t help that Dad was prone to loudly retelling the story in public when drunk, adding little embellishments such as how he kept Tiny’s ear in a pickle jar on his mantel-piece at home. This is, of course, a complete lie as we don’t even have a fireplace. Ever since we were kids Daz and I have had nightmares of being pinned down and having our ears chewed off. I wondered if the Maldoon children ever had the same dreams? I’d never dared ask them.

  Dad steadily drove the last few miles to Appleby, through the winding country roads, woods and fields that surrounded the area. I knew we were getting close when the road snaked across a barren hill side, with nothing but nonchalant sheep watching us as we rumbled past. A signpost read, ‘One Mile to the Historic Town of Appleby-in-Westmorland.’

Traffic began getting heavier, and we found ourselves behind a long line of expensive campervans and caravans being pulled by glossy 4x4 vehicles. ‘Look at those show-offs,’ Dad mumbled. ‘You’re just renting them. You’re not fooling anyone there.’ It was fair to say that Dad didn’t buy into the general gypsy consensus of trying to appear ten times more affluent than you actually were. That is why we rattled around in an old Ford transit van, and borrowed Uncle Fester’s caravan year after year.

‘Isn’t it about time you upgraded, Dad? I mean you can’t keep repairing the engine with nylon tights and bribing Dodgy Dave at Auto Hot Bodies with a bottle of whisky every time it needs an MOT certificate,’ Daz said.

‘You are not exactly renowned for making a good point, but you might have something there. Maybe we do a swap with something in your uncle’s fleet,’ Dad said.

Daz and I just groaned. Uncle Fester’s fleet amounted to a frightening range of chopped and shopped vehicles, mostly stolen, and all dubiously incapable of ending any journey without evacuation of fuel, oil or water, or sometimes all three.

‘You should’ve kept your mouth shut, brainiac,’ I hissed to Daz. 

The first thing you notice about Appleby is it’s really quite small. There’s just not much to it when it comes to buildings. Just a criss-cross of roads lined with Victorian terraced houses, small and a little bit poky. A wide, shallow river runs through the heart of the place, giving the town a little more dynamism than it deserves.

We snailed our way past the first of a number of tin-pot pubs that littered the centre. Small places, not big enough to swing a cat in. It was midday and already our fellow travelling folk were outside, spilling through the pub tables and filling the curb-side. A group of forty plus men played and bet on the coin game – a simple but addictive gamble where you would bet on a head or tail throw of a coin. Daley, a gypsy with the gift of the gab orchestrated the game from the middle of the crush. I saw him taking wads of cash from gypsies prepared to throw hundreds of pounds on the flip of a coin. ‘We should get down here,’ Daz said. He loved the game, seemed to have a gift for it.

‘Later,’ Dad said, driving on. ‘Let’s find your uncle. Get settled.’ Daz pulled a disapproving face and sulked in silence.

Driving over the bridge we looked down and saw horses being washed in the river. Great, gleaming stallions being readied for barter and sale. Other travellers waited patiently on the banks with their mounts, waiting for a turn in the level, crystal waters. On the left was the community centre, out of bounds for the likes of us. It was the feeding point for the dozens of police in their black riot gear under their fluorescent jackets, and the dreaded animal squad, the RSPCA who would look for the slightest infringement to justify confiscating an animal from its owner. If you walked a bleeding animal down into the town it was as good as gone.

More police lined the long dragging hill up to the campsites and show grounds. Dad pushed the van into first gear as we followed a restless horse and its bare-back rider. I saw three kids no more than ten years old clinging to the back of a motor home driving down the hill with the driver oblivious. Two police officers on a junction reacted and started shouting at them. Deftly, the three boys scattered and vanished back into the crowds of people walking up and down the road.

‘Look at the talent,’ Dad said. ‘Some pretty lasses for you boys to chase the tails of this year.’ He meant the teenagers in the bright oranges and greens, luminescent colours on their tiny skirts and crop tops, which were meant to signify they were available. Ready for courtship and marriage and all those things that came with it. Our women came colour coded, and whereas Daz looked forward mainly to the gambling and the boozing, my own desire was always to become acquainted with the prettiest ‘day-glo girl’ I could find.

At the top of the hill, more jaded looking policemen beckoned us under the bridge leading to the huge gypsy fields. We followed the horse all the way, the stupid nag. I’d never bought into all the horse stuff, the riding and trotting endlessly up and down the Appleby hill, and the carriage racing up here on the heights. I just found it nice that we were all here with our people, proud of our heritage.

Dad took the van right through the gate and paid the toll – fifty notes straight off the bat to old gypsy Cyrus in his hunting jacket. He owned the field, and was rich they said, but still liked to take the money personal-like; feel the fresh notes in his hand.

‘You got a field full this year, Cyrus,’ Dad said, making the small talk out of the van window. The vans, cars, jeeps, caravans, campers, tractors, horses and horse boxes stretched as far as the eye could see. Here and there the fence line divided them, subdividing the expanse of grass into separate enclosures. On each field there was a man to take the coin. Cyrus wasn’t the only one getting rich up here.

‘Have you seen my brother around? Not answering his phone as usual,’ Dad said.

‘Aye, he’s up here, vehicles everywhere. That caravan you like is looking on the weary side this year, Frankie,’ Cyrus said. Daz and I groaned and smiled; another trip living in that heap on two wheels. I swore I’d find a woman with something better.

Dad drove on and navigated the grass roads. To either side, the traveller camp was in full swing. Stalls lined the track, containing everything from reconditioned microwaves to horse shoeing services. Further inside the hubbub there were food vans selling suspect burgers and homemade donuts that would lay heavy on your stomach and then give you the shits all the next day. The queue was long; I guess people here just weren’t that fussy.

Uncle Fester was never that hard to find. A portly man in his fifties with a foot long grey ponytail tied back. Typically he was wearing a blue boiler suit and had his head down in the engine of one of his heap of junk vehicles. ‘Now there’s your problem right there,’ I caught Fester saying to the unhappy man next to him. ‘With this model you need to check the oil every day. These old army seals are tricky, but you’ll get the hang. She’s running sweet again now.’

I could see a lot of blue smoke coming out of the green Land Rover’s exhaust pipe. There was severe denting and paint scrapes over one side of it, like it had rolled at some point in its life. I wondered if Fester had perhaps found it in a scrap yard or a ditch. ‘Anymore problems and you know where to find me,’ Fester went on. The man didn’t look any happier, and with a crunch of gears and a cloud of smoke drove away. ‘Poor sod has bit the lemon with that one,’ Fester sighed to us.
You don’t fracking say
, I thought to myself.

Fester walked us over to our digs, a Viscount caravan that was probably somewhere near the bottom of the range back when it was built in the 1970’s. It was spacious for one, cosy for two and for three felt something akin to being forcefully squashed into a sardine can with the odour of rotting vegetables and lime green mould.

Daz and I dumped what stuff we had with us in the caravan. Dad said something about going to talk to a geezer about off loading the hot generator. It freed us up to go and have an explore around the camp. Finally we were going to have some fun.

‘Do you think Angel Taylor will be around?’ said Daz.

‘That bull dyke will be probably munching some carpet somewhere round-a-bouts,’ I said, mystified as usual at my brother’s appalling taste in crushes. ‘Maybe you should try somebody else this year, Daz. She knocked a tooth out when you finally got the courage to talk to her last time.’

‘Aye, but I’d had a beer that time. I’ll do it sober this time around. I’ve matured you know.’

‘Yeah and she’s matured too. She must be at least thirty pounds heavier by now. A big fat lezzer!’

Daz started to chase me then, a big shit-eating smile on his face. He wanted to play fight, and that would hurt. I jumped over a roped off area and dashed between two static caravans, less than a metre apart. I knew it would slow Daz down with his big shoulders and stomach. Jumping out the far side I cut left and then left again. I got a full view of the fields. There must have been thousands of us up here now and hundreds of vehicles, travellers from everywhere in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I loved it. It was epic.