CHAPTER 10
Sunday morning made its way through the curtains, and I wriggled out from the bed, leaving Ken asleep and snoring. I tried to make as little noise as I could opening the sliding door, but from his snores I needn’t have bothered.

“Morning, Debbie!”

“Morning, Loz”

“Cuppa, love? Kettle’s just boiling”

“Please! What are we doing today?”

“We see Fester once Sleeping Beauty joins us, then we see how many people still have some cash left. Stop here tonight, then hit the road on Monday. Got a couple of midweek markets in a place near Salisbury and another not far from Newbury. Weekend is a folkies thing between Thame and Aylesbury. Ken’s got some other T-shirts for that one. It’s just the one night, so we’ll be taking a break for a couple of days afterwards. There’s a farmer we know, just outside Dunstable, and he lets us park up for free. We need to go into Luton for some stock in the week, so it gives us somewhere to park the trailer”

“What are these places like?”

She raised an eyebrow, then grinned.

“Keep forgetting how little you’ve seen of the world, love. It’s been a bit frantic, hasn’t it?”

I couldn’t argue with that statement, but ‘frantic’ wouldn’t have been my choice of word.

“Loz?”

“Yes, love?”

“What’s going to happen with me? I mean, later? What happens when I’m well again?”

She cocked her head to one side, simply looking at me for a few long seconds of silence.

“What would you like to happen, love?”

I sat in my own silence for a little while, feeling as if I was being set a test, an examination that needed a correct answer. I needed to work things out in my own mind before I could explain them adequately, but the one thing I couldn’t face would be a return to Runcorn. Where could I go? My mother, in her fear, had made it plain there was no longer a home for me with my parents. If I called on Nana, I would be snatched up and sent back to hell as soon as the authorities discovered where I was.

Other memories, though, were speaking to me, whispering promises. I knew I wasn’t really a girl in a purely physical sense, but it seemed that I was accepted as one by everyone who met me. I felt right in my skin, I felt right with Rosie and Sam, I felt more than right dancing to the music that made my stomach jump and my eyes close.

I fingered my leather wrist band, tracing the letters stamped there, and remembered those days on The Rows looking through shop windows at posters of family groups, always smiling, always seeming so happy and loving. Could I have that? Dare I ask for it? I drew a deep breath.

“If I could stay with you and Ken…”

Her tears were immediate and shocking, but she shook them away and wiped her eyes quickly with a tea towel from the little rack that held our stove and crockery.

“Of course you bloody can, love! No way we are ever leaving you to the bloody Man, after what they did to you. Come here!”

She wrapped me up in a hug, and I could feel her tears start again as I did my best to squeeze her as tightly as she was holding me.

“Debbie, love. Ken and I can’t have kids. That hurts, for both of us. Just to let you know this is not all one way, that you are giving as much as we are. Some day we will talk, but not today. Too much to think about right now. We do have to sort one thing out, though, and that’s who you are. Oh. Morning, lazybones! Tea’s still warm in the pot”

I waited until he had filled a mug and joined us at the little table.

“What about who I am, Loz?”

“Who you are? I, we’ve got some ideas on that one. I mean, we’ve both seen all of you, so we know what the midwife said you were. She wasn’t right, though, was she?”

I shook my head, reluctant to speak and break the spell.

“Yeah, Ken and me, we thought you were another like Christine, right from the outset, so if that’s what you are, that’s who you are. Makes it easier, as they will be looking for a lad. Now, there are some things we can do to help that along. Ken, love?”

“Yeah?”

“Is our filthy friend going to be at the Beer Barrel?”

“Think so. Ah. Course. I’ll get a letter in the post tomorrow and ask him to bring some down. Deb, if you let your hair grow, it’ll look more like people expect to see. We make sure the little bastards are all gone, you can grow it out, if you like. Now, I think we need to go and see Fester. My guts need some grease”

Lorraine snorted out a laugh.

“They needed less beer last night, love!”

“Well, tough! This is always a good party, and I will be buggered if I am going to avoid a decent night’s boogie and liver damage!”

He sipped his tea, then stuck his head into the van, returning with a few sheets of paper.

“Get the letter written, duck, then make a list. We need to get those mitts made up for Horse, we need some new stock from that place in Luton, and I really think…”

He stared at me for a second or two, but it was with a genuine smile that reached his eyes.

“Not to take this the wrong way, Deb, but I think Loz will need to restock her first aid kit. There is also school”

My heart sank. Surely not? How on Earth could I ever enter a school, with all the record-keeping and intense scrutiny that would involve? He put his hand on mine, one finger tracing the leather band.

“No, duck, not like that. It’s a Romany thing. We school you at home, wherever that is. If we stop somewhere long enough, you spend a few days in a proper school, but not all booked in and stuff. There’s O-Levels and things to take there and… Loz? How far in the future are we bloody planning? Deb, whatever you decide will be the way we go with this. That do you?”

Lorraine hugged him.

“We have already agreed that one, Deb and me. I’ll get started on that list, and we’ll add the schoolbooks to it. Later, though. Fester’s open, now”

That was the end of the discussion, it seemed, and I was a little stunned at the implications of the casual remark about O-levels, as I would normally be sixteen when I took such examinations. I had only had around a week of freedom, and now we were almost casually looking four years into the future. Not only that, but the future in question was not Billy’s but Debbie’s. It was almost too much to contemplate, but I decided to do my best.

The rest of the day passed as I expected, the campers slowly packing and loading after a seriously long queue at Fester’s had been supplied with all of the usual necessities involving grease and hot liquids, and rather fewer people had visited our long table to pick up that last little thing to remind them of a couple of days they might not be able to recall in a lot of detail, if at all, with respect to any events that might have happened after their first visit to the bar.

Vans arrived from the company that had supplied the marquee, and it was packed away remarkably quickly as people left the field in pairs or small groups. We had finally decided to close down our stall, after a three-way discussion that warmed me in its inclusion of Debbie as a full member of our little family, when I spotted two smaller figures running over the grass toward us. Sam and Rosie, of course. Rosie’s voice was both the louder and the more coherent.

“DEB-BEE! We’re going soon and Dad said you were a rally virgin but not anymore and we missed our chance but it wouldn’t have been right and all because you are not well and he said you should have this so people know you’re not a rally virgin anymore!”

She pushed a small object into my hand, shouting “POOH STICKS!” as the two ran off again. I opened my hand to find one of the little metal badges all the other people were wearing. It showed a pig lying on its back, clutching a beer mug, and was labelled ‘Farmyard Fumble’. Ken took it from my hand, pinning it to the front of my denim vest, grinning broadly.

“Off you go, then, and don’t get too muddy!”

Monday dawned wet and miserable, but we had already packed away our frame tent and stand, so it was simply a matter of lurching out of the field, which wasn’t yet breaking up into mud. Back along the rough track I remembered, from what seemed like years ago, then slowly through the country lanes until we finally joined the road to the East and England, which we reached by way of that huge bridge.

I felt a sharp pang of hiraeth as I left my country again, but the alternatives were unthinkable. This was new life, new opportunities, and I wasn’t going to let any of that escape.

Midweek markets on a permanent table under a fixed plastic and metal roof, or in large car parks where we sett up the stand on its own. Nights spent parked up in a layby on some quiet country road, lulled to sleep by the sound of rain on the van’s roof, or woken on a bright morning as a skylark rose from the other side of a hedge. Odd place names, like Enham Alamein or Marsh Gibbon. Music, so much of it, from Ken’s own singing, which was actually rather good, as well as from his cassettes. More music at that ‘folkies thing’, where I was first shown how to dance in a set with a caller, and our stand was set up in a corridor between two halls, each holding a different musical group, so that as the doors opened, we were treated to snatches of their particular music.

I learned so much each day, whether it was about that other music from the larks and the yellowhammers, or about what I could safely eat for free from hedgerow or edge of field. Lorraine did as she had threatened, and the learning became more formal, in English and maths to start with, but underneath everything lay laughter and simple, deep affection.

Our stop near Dunstable was a highlight, as it was a sheep farm, and in the way of such things everywhere, the farmer had a pet lamb, or rather a young wether. Barry came when called, and liked attention to his ears and the back of his neck, and I ended up so much in love with him I would have smuggled him into the van if there had been any opportunity, or anywhere to fit him in. Once we had stocked up again in Luton, which was a real contrast in that it was exactly as promised in being a complete shithole, space was at a premium, and we were sleeping in the tent for our few days of rest. Finally, though, the weekend was once more upon us, and we set out for the Beer Barrel.