The Broken Man (12 page)

‘We-hey!’ Sally could not contain her excitement. ‘Yarmouth, here we come!’

‘Behave yourself.’ Anne laughed out loud. ‘You’re like a kid on her first outing to the seaside.’

‘Oh, but I do love the seaside!’ Sally would not be quietened. ‘We’ll go on every ride there is. And afterwards, if it’s warm enough, we’ll go for a swim in the sea. Let’s hope there are no sharks or anything nasty like that. Then we’ll lie in the sun and get a tan … and after that we’ll get ourselves one of them pedal-things and whizz down the promenade—’

‘Woah! For now, let’s just concentrate on getting a parking place.’ Anne laughed.

‘No worries. We’re early enough, so there’ll be plenty of space on the front. Look!’ She drew Anne’s attention to a second sign. ‘Parking, turn right.’

‘Good. But it’s Saturday, don’t forget, and it’s looking a bit busy already.’

Anne turned right, only to find that this particular car park was full. ‘Let’s drive along the front. You never know, we might just be lucky.’

She drove the entire length of the front, and there was not a parking place in sight.

‘Dammit!’ Sally groaned. ‘I expect we’ll have to park miles away.’

Then she had an idea. ‘Why don’t we park in that hotel car park?’ She brought Anne’s attention to the newly refurbished Victorian hotel opposite the beach. ‘Perfect!’

‘We can’t park in there.’ But Anne smiled at her friend’s mischievous idea.

‘Why can’t we?’ Sally was not easily put off.

‘Because all the places are allocated for guests, look.’ She pointed to the large white-painted numbers in each parking place.

‘But half of them are empty.’

‘That doesn’t matter. They could turn up any time, and anyway, with our luck the manager’s bound to turf us off.’

‘Worth a chance, though.’

‘Hey! Who’s driving this car?’

‘You are, more’s the pity. If it were me, I’d have been in there like a flash!’

‘Then it’s a good job I’m the driver, isn’t it?’ Anne’s gaze roved along the seafront. ‘Hey! Look! There’s a fella pulling out of a parking place … up there, d’you see?’

‘Where?’

‘There, right in front of that little café.’

Sally began to panic when she saw the driver backing out. ‘Hurry up, Anne, before somebody else nicks it.’

Anne manoeuvred into position, but as they drew close, the driver of a black Austin Morris tried to edge in front of them from the other direction. ‘Cheeky devil!’ Sally wound down the window. ‘Hey, you! That’s our place, so back off!’

Seeing the whites of her eyes, the man backed off, and Anne shot in quick. As the irate driver pulled away he made a rude sign at them.

‘And you!’ Sally did the same back.

Anne started chuckling, then Sally was sniggering, and now the two of them erupted in laughter.

‘You’ll get us arrested,’ Anne told her.

‘Huh! If the arresting officer is tall and handsome, and extra kind with his truncheon, you won’t see me putting up a fight.’

‘You’re a liability, and with a doting husband at home!’ Anne was beginning to relax. It was so good to get away for a day.

The next few hours were filled with non-stop fun.

Their first ride was in the caterpillar.

‘I hope they don’t roll the roof over,’ Sally whimpered as they climbed in. ‘I don’t like closed-in spaces. They make me nervous.’

‘Let’s get out then,’ Anne suggested. ‘There are plenty of other rides we can go on.’

‘Not likely!’ Sally was adamant. ‘We’ve paid our money and we’re staying on.’ She yelled out to the fairground attendant, ‘They won’t roll the roof over, will they? I don’t like it.’

‘Naw!’ Skillfully throwing his chewing gum from one side of his mouth to the other, he assured her, ‘We don’t roll the roof down unless it’s raining.’

‘There you are!’ Anne said.

Sally settled into her seat and tried to relax. ‘I hope they don’t go too fast … I get giddy when they go too fast.’

Anne climbed into the seat beside her. ‘Let’s just enjoy the ride. Oh, look! We’re off already.’ The ride started slowly at first, then it gathered speed, and as the caterpillar flew round and round the tracks, they held onto the bar, laughing and giggling, and occasionally screaming with delight.

Sally noticed it first. ‘Can you hear that?’ she yelled above the screams and laughter of other joyriders.

‘What?’

‘Just listen!’

Anne listened but she couldn’t hear anything untoward.

Suddenly it began to get dark, and the screams grew louder. Sally was panicking. ‘The roof’s coming over! Look at the roof. Bloody Nora, get me out of here!’

She screamed so loud, the ride was stopped and they both climbed off.

‘You lied to me!’ Sally vented her anger on the ride-owner. ‘I asked about the roof and your man said it would not go over unless it rained, and it didn’t rain, so I want my money back.’

‘You’ll not get no money out o’ me!’ The burly ride-owner sent them on their way. ‘You knew what the ride was about and you still got on it, so don’t come that old game about getting your money back. Go on, bugger off out of it!’

As they made their way back to the main walkway, he continued to swear and curse after them. ‘You want locking up, trying to cheat a poor bloke who works hard for a living. Don’t show yer faces round ’ere again, not unless you want a kick up the arse!’

Sally was all for going back to sort him out, but Anne took hold of her and marched her to the goldfish stall. ‘Can we please have two fishing-lines?’ She handed four small coins over to the homely-faced woman.

Just as Anne had planned, the two of them got engrossed in trying to catch a fish. In the end, though, they came away empty-handed.

Half an hour later, they made their way over to the rifle range.

Whether it was anger because she failed at the goldfish pond, or maybe it was her determination to get the better of something after her row with the ride-owner, but Sally proved to be a hotshot with a rifle.

She quickly won two big adorable teddy bears; one for her and one for Anne. ‘Am I a hotshot, or what?’ Punching the air with a clenched fist, she did a little dance on the spot. ‘I’m ready for anything now.’

Anne was amazed at Sally’s brilliant shooting. She herself hadn’t even hit a single coconut, while Sally had sent them all flying. ‘How did you do that?’ Anne asked.

‘Easy. I imagined I was aiming at the ride-owner,’ Sally quipped. ‘It worked a treat, didn’t it?’

Anne smiled but wisely gave no comment. ‘Come on then. Let’s see what else is on offer.’

A few minutes later, they stopped to rest their aching feet. Sally dropped onto the sandy bench like a sack of potatoes. ‘I’m worn out!’

‘Stay here a minute,’ Anne suggested. ‘I’ll go and put the bears in the boot of the car.’ She took hold of the prizes. ‘And no swearing at anybody while I’m gone.’

Just then a couple of middle-aged men sauntered by. They glanced at the two young women, then looked away. Then one of them glanced back to have another look as they wandered on. Unfortunately, Sally was still in fighting mood after the caterpillar ride.

‘So what are you two staring at?’ she snarled.

‘Hey!’ Anne calmed her down. ‘Don’t take it out on strangers, just because that ride-owner got the better of you.’

‘It’s not that! Did you see them, turning round to stare at us? Did he think we were on the lookout for a couple of paunchy, middle-aged men, or what? Bloody cheek of it! And anyway, that boy on the ride told us a lie, so the ride-owner should have given us our money back.’

‘Forget about it.’

‘Am I being a pain?’

‘Yes.

‘Sorry,’ Sally apologised. ‘It’s just that I always panic if the roof comes over.’

‘Yes, I got that one.’

‘I’ll shut up about it, shall I?’

‘Might be an idea.’

‘Not another word, I promise.’

‘Good.’

‘We can still have a good time, though, can’t we?’

‘Course we can!’

‘D’you want an ice cream?’

‘OK, I’ll take the bears back to the car, and you get the ice creams?’

‘Good idea!’ Sally’s sour mood quickly disappeared. ‘So, what kind of ice cream do you want?’

Anne didn’t have to think too hard. ‘A double dollop of vanilla ice cream with a chocolate flake on top.’

‘Right! It’ll be my treat.’ Sally’s mood brightened. ‘You can get the fish and chips after we’ve been on the other rides, and no more mention of the caterpillar. Deal?’

‘Yes, deal! And you can stop apologising. To tell you the truth, when I saw that cover coming over, I didn’t like it either.’

‘Ah! You didn’t kick up a fuss, though, did you? In fact, you never seem to get het up about anything. I remember when you first started at Woollies and the manager piled more work on you than any of us. And you just got on with it, without a word of complaint. If he’d done that to me, I’d have been up in arms!’

Anne had her reasons for keeping quiet, but she kept them to herself. ‘In my experience it pays not to make ripples.’

‘Even when you’re being taken advantage of?’

‘Yes, even then.’

Anne’s memories carried her back over the bad years, when she’d been unafraid to speak out. But then she’d been made to pay dearly for her boldness. ‘Sometimes confrontation can lead to more trouble than you can handle.’ Her answer came in a whisper, almost as though she’d forgotten Sally was there.

‘Anne?’ Sally had a feeling that something was wrong. ‘“More trouble than you can handle”? What’s that supposed to mean?’

Lost in the horror of her past, Anne did not hear.

‘ANNE!’ Sally raised her voice.

‘Oh …’ Anne took a deep breath, ‘I was just … oh, sorry.’

In her mind she could see the baby, small and vulnerable. Her baby. Her own flesh and blood. She shut it from her mind. But she could not shut it from her heart.

‘You’d best queue up for the ice creams. I’ll only be gone a few minutes.’ Grabbing the two bears, she hurried away, while secretly wiping away the tears.

Seeing the stranger earlier had really shaken her and now she could not get Edward Carter out of her mind. She could see his face, angry. Hateful.

She could hear his voice, so refined, so wicked.

Shivering, she quickened her steps, silently praying,
Dear Lord, will I ever be free of him?

At the car, Anne retrieved from the boot two brightly striped shoulder bags, each containing a towel, swimsuit and sunhat. She then climbed into the front seat of the car and sat for a time, her thoughts covering the years before she sought refuge with her beloved aunt Ada.

You’re free of him, Anne
, she felt the need to reassure herself.
He hasn’t found you all these years, and he won’t find you now. Besides, he’s probably found some other poor woman to terrorize. With luck he’s forgotten you ever existed
.

Feeling calmer, she hoisted one bag onto her shoulder, and carried the other over her arm. As she walked back, there was the tiniest of smiles on her face. When she caught sight of Sally, she waved and grinned, and for the moment all seemed well with the world.

‘Where the devil have you been?’ Sally had expected her back ages ago. ‘It’s a good job there was a long queue at the ice-cream van. What took you so long?’

‘It only took a minute to leave the teddies and collect the bags, but I sat inside the car for a minute or two … had to think.’

‘What about?’

Anne shrugged. ‘Just something and nothing.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yes, everything’s fine.’ She reached out to collect her ice-cream cornet. ‘Thanks, that looks good.’ She licked the trickling ice cream from the sides of the cornet. ‘What next then?’ She sat down next to Sally.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, we haven’t been on any other rides, and we said we’d spend some time in the amusement arcade trying to win a bit of spending money. Then there’s the beach. We promised ourselves a swim and a lie on the beach to try and get a bit of a suntan. But I was thinking, it might be best if we leave that till last. What do you think?’

Sally was in agreement. ‘But don’t forget, we’ll need to get something to eat along the way.’

Anne chuckled. ‘You’re always hungry.’