At the Fair

At the fair

The flashes of fairground lights confused her. Spun her in a state of disorientation. How long had it been since she had lost her friends? Minutes ran like hours when she was alone. Lucy wandered round and tried to catch a glimpse of Tracy’s brown hair, or Matt’s red jumper, but a blur of faceless people obscured her vision. Obtrusive trance music spilled from the waltzers, and she watched them whirl wildly. Did they lose her in the crowd deliberately? She walked over to a hot dog stand, stood on its step and arched her neck to get a better view of the crowd. Next to her a child screamed for some candy floss, his mouth painted red with ketchup, his arms stretched wide. His dad swooped, picked up his son and scowled at Lucy, as if it was her that had given the idea of candy floss to his petulant child. She threw him an apologetic smile and jumped off the step. Rejoining the masses of people as they swarmed, like red blood cells, around the mutated body of the fair.

Panic began to swell in her like a bruise. Her eyes darted about, pleading for recognition. Screams echoed around her as a ride flew in the air over her head, and was gone, whipped in a different direction. She jumped as a gunshot fired to her left, breath caught in her throat. A boy had hit a target with an air gun and grinned triumphantly at his girlfriend. But he was not Matt and she was not Tracy. Lucy sighed, and moved on, pushing her way through the crowds. Next to her a group of men yelled as one of them pounded a punch bag and won the highest score. The game attendant grunted and handed them a hideous Winnie the Pooh imitation. Its crossed plastic eyes stared at Lucy dumbly, its mouth gaped open. She shook her head and moved on.

Finally, she began to face facts. Tracy and Matt had probably gone somewhere private to kiss. She had not suddenly become popular, she had been used. Tracy had invited her along as a back up should things not work out with Matt. The fact that Tracy rarely spoke to her should have been enough warning, but loneliness can do strange things to a person’s perception. She lent against a ticket stand and closed her eyes. The noise of the fairground drifted away as she considered what to do next. She could wander around and try to find them, but she was haunted with humiliation and felt lost. A weight pressed down on her chest and she opened her eyes. Really there was only one option. Cursing herself for leaving her mobile at home, she bit her lip and darted through the crowds, making her way round the back of the rides to a phone box.

Behind the rides the street felt otherworldly. The din of the fair drowned by the hum of generators, the music muffled, the lights dim. The squeak of her trainers was her only company as she walked towards the blue phone box. She glanced around, opened the door and stepped inside. A putrid, stale smell confronted her and she looked down; on the floor was an empty takeaway container, half full of urine and with two dead flies floating in the scummy surface. Lucy gagged and fumbled in her pocket for twenty pence. She jammed it in the slot and punched in her home number. After the customary three rings her mother’s breathy voice whispered down the phone.

“Hello?”

Lucy sighed and cupped her hand around the phone, “Hi mum, it’s me.”

“Lucy, why are you calling? Is something wrong?” Her mother’s voice jumped an octave in concern. She wasn’t used to Lucy going out on her own.

“No. Well, not really. Its just, Tracy and Matt have gone off with each other and I can’t find them. We’re supposed to be getting picked up in a minute and I don’t know where from. I think they’re gonna go without me.” Her voice wavered a little, admitting it out loud made her abandonment all the more poignant.

“Oh darling, I thought something like this might happen. I’m going to have words with Tracy’s mum about this. She can’t just leave you to wander around on your own.” In the background Lucy could hear canned laughter crackling from their TV.

“No, no.” Lucy implored, “Don’t say anything mum, I can handle this. I just need picking up, that’s all.” She toyed with the phone cord and watched the dead flies bob in the container at her feet.

“Alright. I need to get some milk anyway. But next time be more careful about who you choose to hang around with. Boots is near the fair isn’t it? I’ll meet you there in ten minutes, Ok?” Applause trickled from the TV in the background and she could hear her little brother laughing.

“Ok, thanks mum. I love you. Bye.” Her mother hung up. Lucy listened to the dial tone for a second, then put the phone down.

A loud bang on the door made her jump violently. She spun round and saw five girls, all about a year or two older than her, circle the phone box. The girl in front of the group, a dirty gold tooth gleaming in her menacing smile, punched the door again and held it shut.

“Thanks mum. I love you mum.” The girl mimicked Lucy in a high, nasal voice. “You’re facking pathetic.” The other girls jeered. The one who had spoken made a loud croaking noise at the back of her throat and spat phlegm on the glass in front of Lucy’s face. The spit trickled down the other side like a tear.

A strange, chemical smell clung to the air around them. A ginger girl with glasses held a can of lighter fluid and tottered in her high heels. Her dilated eyes were wide and her mouth hung open in an ugly sneer. “What the fack you looking at? Eh?” She screeched like a harpy and wobbled forward, tapped the glass with the lighter fluid. “I said WHAT THE FACK YOU LOOKING AT? Are you trying to be clever?”

Lucy’s panicked breath steamed up the glass between them. Her chest tightened as her heart sounded like a machine gun in her ears. She opened and closed her mouth wordlessly. A sob choked in her throat as she tried to push the door, but the blond girl held it shut and grinned inanely. A few yards away Lucy could see a middle aged couple glance over at the phone box, then turn and return into the fair.

“Oi, dipshite.” A girl with greasy hair approached. “She said are you trying to be clever? Are you deaf?”

Lucy shook her head, her mouth still open. The ginger girl tapped the lighter fluid against the glass again. The taps progressed into violent bangs which cracked the glass. Lucy flinched with each impact and pushed the door again, but the girl with the gold tooth cackled at her.

“I’m…gonna…fack…you…up.” Screamed the ginger haired girl with each sharp crack. Shards cascaded on Lucy’s arm and she whimpered, pushing at the door. With one final smash the glass broke and the ginger haired girl shoved the can through into the phone box and sprayed. A high acid smell flew into Lucy’s face and she gagged, eyes bulging. She felt light headed, dizzy. Everything seemed to slow down. The pounds of her heart in her ears became louder and more pronounced. Her head spun. Eyes rolled back. With one final effort she threw her body at the door. The golden toothed girl yanked it open and Lucy toppled forward, throat tight, gasping for air. It was then that the punches began.

*****

Tabatha gulped down yet another mouthful of candyfloss. The sugar crackled in her mouth as her head swam. The fair lights blurred as tears pooled in her eyes, and she looked skyward to prevent them from falling. The music from the rides flew around her, encompassed her in a mass of synthesized beats. In front of her, on a gargantuan ride called ‘The Superbowl’ a group of teenagers screamed as they flew head first over the crowd of gawping onlookers. She followed the motion of the ride as it doubled back for another swing. Hair swayed wildly in faces and the teenager’s screams were dragged away with the ride as it turned in a different direction. Beside her a young boy threw up bright orange vomit on the pavement. As she looked down at the child, the sensation of bile rising in her own stomach, a shrill voice screeched behind her. “Alex, Alex. I told you not to eat anything before you went on the rides!” Tabatha shuddered, turned and rejoined the mass of people wandering round the fair.

She clenched her hands and suppressed a sob as she remembered looking through Paul’s mobile phone a few days ago. “Meet me by the fair, @ Boots, 8.00. I need 2 see you XXX.” Since then her life had been suffused with doubt. Unable to sleep, eat or concentrate as a fear he would repeat past mistakes clouded her thoughts. Finally, she decided she had to know. It wasn’t stalking, not if you’ve been together for six years. It wasn’t stalking, he had probably just forgotten to tell her. It wasn’t stalking, just following.

She stopped by a ‘Hook the Duck’ stand and closed her eyes as she remembered the scene at boots. Of following Paul’s balding head through the crowd, as the noise from the nearby fair had enveloped her in a chaos of screams. Hidden in the shadows, she had watched, as he kissed a young blonde girl, and held her in a tight embrace, right in the centre of town. Tabatha choked. A sharp pain hit her ferociously in the stomach as Paul and the young girl had walked over to his car and drove away. Not again. Not again.

A child bumped into Tabatha’s legs and crashed her back to the present. The little girl looked up at her for a moment and then wobbled off into the crowd, tumbling into other people on her way. A teenager followed her wake of destruction and screeched, “Anistasia. Get here NOW! Anistasia!”

Tabatha stuffed the last of the candyfloss in her mouth and chewed; her cheeks puffed out like a hamster. She threw the bag on the ground, walked up to a burger counter and pulled out her purse from her Prada handbag. The white florescent light gleamed off the grease on the burgers, and a rank smell of burning fat assaulted her nostrils. A grotesquely obese man stood behind the counter, his apron smeared with fat. Tentatively she ordered a cheese burger and handed over a five pound note. The man, his face as oily as the food, shoved the money in his pocket and grunted. He handed her a plastic looking burger wrapped in a napkin. Without a word of thanks, Tabatha turned and walked round the back of the stall.

On the other side of the stalls the street was surreally calm. Here was a place for escape, for contemplation to grow from the seeds of despair. She examined the foul burger, her hand dripping with excreted grease, and thought of Paul. Her lips parted and she brought it to her mouth slowly, as if surrendering to her grim future.

Someone giggled behind her. She turned round, and saw a group of girls about thirty yards away, kicking something on the floor by a phone box. One of them held a can to her nose and inhaled deeply. She threw her head back, laughed, and swung her leg in a wide kick. Tabatha dropped the burger to the ground as she realised that what lay on the ground was young girl. Her hair matted with blood, her face pale.

“Hey, hey!” The words were out of Tabatha’s mouth before she had a chance to stop them. Like most other people, she would normally turn the other way. But the night felt monstrous, and she had nothing more to lose. “What are you doing? Leave her alone.”

“What the fack’s it got to do with you, eh?” A ginger girl in track suit bottoms approached her, waving a can of lighter fluid in the air. “Who the fack do ya think ya are?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m telling you to stop it now or I’ll…I’ll call the police.” One hand reached inside her bag while the other waved wildly at the girl on the floor. “Are you ok?” She called, trying to ignore the girls circling her like sharks on the scent of fresh blood. The girl on the ground coughed. Thick blood oozed from her lips.

Tabatha’s fingers touched something plastic in her bag. As she tried to pull it out she felt a hard thud on the back of her head. Her body lunged forward. Another pound followed the first and she fell. Cold ice fire rained down on her as the group of girls kicked her in the stomach, the head, the chest. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move and as she opened her mouth to scream, something hard hit her in the face. Breaking her nose with a loud ‘crack’. The ginger girl wobbled the gas canister in front of her face and giggled madly. Her eyes wide and wild. Warm blood ran down Tabatha’s face as she tried to bring her arms up to defend herself, but there were too many and she couldn’t move. In a last effort before she blacked out she pulled her left hand free from her bag, hoping to dear God it was her phone. A girl with dirty blond hair saw what she was doing and wrenched the thing out of Tabatha’s hand, pulling hard.

There was a quiet click and a deafening siren pierced the air. The kicks stopped and the girls clapped their hands to their ears. The blond girl stared, mouth open, at the plastic thing in her hand. Tabatha’s rape alarm. The girls looked at each other, tried to shout above the noise, then turned and ran into the flashing lights of the fair.

Tabatha choked and spat blood. The siren screamed on. Soon people would come. Soon people would help. Her face felt numb and her body sore, and still the siren screamed on. She reached over and shook the girl crumpled on the ground. She lay still, her face grey, eyes closed. Why wasn’t anyone coming to help? The metallic taste of blood filled Tabatha’s mouth and she spat again. One of her teeth was missing, her gum swollen and abrasive. Her eyes felt heavy and the world swirled in a blurring haze of blood, pain and lights. Darkness clouded her. And still the siren screamed on into the dark, deep night.

2510 words