It.

We’d been waiting for some time for It to arrive, and at last, It was finally here. There had been flyers posted all around our town, everywhere you looked and probably places where you didn’t. On dark, dim ‘ex’ shops, with their shutters forever pulled down, the dilapidated walls of many of our ‘no longer required the Internet has been invented’ shops.

Not much happens and that’s the polite way of saying it.

Our town comes to life only very briefly, during the Great British Summer. It is still a fairly depressing place to live, and we take our fun when we can, the flyers had told us that This Week-End we could.

I was, of course, not the only person to know that it was happening this week-end, my friend and her children were also very excited, well, more like, over excited. For me it was just an excuse for some clever people to exploit a sad old town and it’s inhabitants. Another way to remove money from us, on something that used to be fanciful and expensive, that was now ultimately dour and dank, with much grime and tardiness hidden behind the bright bulbs of ultra-violet light, or glaringly white light – the type that sears your retina’s for weeks afterwards. Full of those grubby yet, somehow attractive young men (you wanna run awaay..?) who lean in on your Waltzer as you scream for him to push harder, further, longer, make it whirl, make it make me giddy and the ultimate, make me so ill I never want to get on another one again, types.

The build up to this event had been going on for quite some time, until eventually, it was here. Tonight in fact, and the entire house hold was buzzing with anticipation. The lovely climate, a summer evening in a sea side town, was all set to ensure the full potential of taking as much money from the general pocket as is possible, counting on the fact that an evening like this was one to take full advantage of. Everyone would be there, all ages, all incomes, a great excuse to go out and let down your hair. Scream until your voice leaves you, vomit like there’s no tomorrow… We seem to glory in this, as Nations? As a Species? I don’t know, lots of money to be made though, so why not, eh?

My friend was not looking forward to the event as much as her children, she had become agitated, their constant questioning of ‘when we were going?’ was grinding her down. A costly night was on the cards. We had been saving though, so I was a bit uncertain as to why it was having such an affect on her. “Oh well”, I thought, “it will be what we make it, no more, no less”.

No need for coats or wellies, it was a tee-shirt and sandals kind of evening, the warm air buffeting all around as we stepped out and headed towards The Fair. Of course the noise hits you way before the flashing lights, that constant pounding of unknown music, blaring out for all the encircling villages to hear and supposedly pique their curiosity just like the good old Pied Piper of Hamelin had done.



As we entered the cordoned off area, the delegated to The Fair area, and stepped into a solid wall of noise and lights that instantly surrounded us like a big fluffy cotton wool ball, like the ones your mum used to use to remove her make-up with, before those horrid ‘super thin circles’ of compacted ‘fluff’ had been invented. We fell in to the ongoing, anti-clock-wise circle of people, were pushed right, like the good sheep we are and were caught up in the maelstrom and fervour of a slowly building mania. Everyone seemed to be rushing. Rushing to the next ride, rushing to stuff their mouths with candy floss, popcorn, rushing to scream, rushing to spend money, rushing, rushing. The desperate ones looking to win a poor, poor goldfish, or a ridiculously over large, ugly cuddly toy (that then follows you around for years, taking up one full quarter of your bedroom or worse, left to glare at you from the top of your wardrobe as a constant reminder in that ‘whoever it was that won it for you’ kind of way)



I was expecting someone else to join us for the evening, and as we stepped in to the Fairground Arena, she landed. All bursting with excitement and fidgety, my friend was suddenly skipping on in front of me, her hand shielding her eyes from the glare of fluorescence and brassy reflections being thrown on to the ground we were trundling upon, well, like I said, she was skipping, most were trundling. She was so delighted to be there, wanting to run (rush?) everywhere and ask so very many questions… “can we go to the Waltzers? Can we go to the doughnut man? Can we go on the big wheel? Can we, can we, can we?” she ran back towards me and her hand slipped in to mine… I know it must look so strange to those who don’t know her, or her understand her background, one minute an excellent mother of two very bright and intelligent children, the next only a child herself. That is how she is. I meet her daily and we have an immense amount of fun, then she leaves and someone with more weight and responsibility on their shoulders lands and my day shifts to more practical issues, those of (how to pay the) rent, food bills, gas, bin bags…

The Fair was in town and nothing was going to stop her coming out and enjoying It. I don’t know how hard she worked to get herself out, I was just pleased that she had. Her children see their mothers behaviour as a little bit odd, to be fair, it is a little bit odd, just not so odd when you’ve known nothing else. Actually, how odd it is, does not become clear until you meet enough other people to judge it from, so their mum holding my hand was just one of those things that they accepted, “Mum, Mum, we’ve found the big wheel, come on, race ya!’, her 8 year old said, and off ran my friend, shouting “wait, wait for me, let’s all skip, wait for me” and disappeared into the throng. The ten year old glanced back at me, and smiled happily. Then she ran to catch up to her Mum.

Between the four of us we planned to experience most rides and stalls. Thankfully we didn’t win any goldfish, and none of us really wanted the giant cuddly toy. Some of the rides had queues, we moved on from the ones that were too long, deciding to go to other less exciting places, let the masses go first, the rides will still be there in an hour, we’d go back. My (little) friend was desperate to go on the Ghost Train,




absolutely desperate. I was unsure whether this would be a wise move… she is only 9, and you don’t share a body with other people without a good reason, usually something to do with fear, terror, pain, trauma, so, taking a 9 year old into the Ghost Train could be quite a novel experience (for all involved). She knew exactly where the Ghost Train was, kept looking at it as we passed it by, like a ballerina focused on the one ‘spot’, as she pirouettes, round and round.
“Please, please, please..?” Against my better judgement, and admittedly with some curiosity, I conceded. “Ok, ok”, I eventually put my hands up in supplication, “ok, we’ll go on it”. Whoops of joy, a triumphant dance, a huge grin and a very excited little girl ran to the short queue, chattering about who knows what. “I know, I know,” she said to anyone listening, “I know it is meant to be scary, I know we are meant to be scared, I know, and I am tired of it. Why can everyone else go on it and not us?” She really does ask the most infuriatingly annoying succinct and unanswerable (by me) questions. “We just have to be careful” I said to her, “you know, remember others can be affected by what is happening outside, and they may not even realise we are outside. You could cause many sorts of fears to return, are you prepared to do that?”
“yes”
“to everyone?”
“yes”

We clambered up the steps, (dread, anticipation). The little cart shot out from the darkness on our right, 2 people exited the cart and we shuffled forward, I looked at her questioningly, eye brow raised, a la are you sure? Huge eyes staring back at me, big grin and she (bravely) stepped into the cart….
Of course I knew what to expect, it is only a tired cart clacking and bouncing along a tiny causeway, knew that things would be left to touch our heads or bang into the side of our cart, those echo-y noises, distant screams, much nearer howls, things dropped in front of us, or suddenly lit up in blood red light, something to fly (bat?) out, at and then above us. I was ready. She thought she was ready. As soon as we felt the initial jolt of forward movement, she was already holding my hand, (that didn’t take long, did it?) sitting closely too me, not quite so chatty anymore, inside I was, admittedly, smiling. Clueless as to how she would react. It’s only a couple of minutes, it’ll be all right.

What can happen?



We were shunted towards the opening, the painting of an open mouthed monster encasing the entrance, welcoming us in, heading towards a horrible heavy plastic fringed and flappy screen. Instinct makes you duck your head and shut your eyes tightly and then boosh! Straight through it and into almost complete darkness, jerky forward motion and a loud clattering to our right, (that was the side she was nearest too), I heard her laugh in glee? Excitement? Fear? Holding on to my hand with some strength. Once she became accustomed to the meagre light she moved slightly away from me. We settled in to the bumpy rhythm of the cart and made a sharp right and quick left, a strange floaty shape stuck in an alcove and then something whizzed by our heads, on a loose spring, I saw it, it was too late to point it out to her, show her it wasn’t really real, whatever it was. She’d covered her face with her hands. Hmm, not going too well. The ride straightened up and then stopped suddenly, launching both of us forward, it started again with a drop of about (one hundred feet) a couple of inches, we both shouted out in surprise, the cart kept up its momentum and we followed another group of sharp turns, lots of creepy, crawly, dangly things glowing in the dark recesses of the corners, the screaming was the worst. By far. She was bravely trying not to hold on to me too tightly and was failing miserably, I truly believe that if she could have climbed in to me, she would have and I was thinking, let us out, please let it be finished. I was ready for her to try and break free of the cart entirely and run in any direction available to her, and there weren’t many. Blind panic inside the Ghost Train is not going to be pleasant, ever. We turned right again and I thought, please, let it be over, as we were being forced to ride underneath some over hanging archway, all tendrils and screeching, the speed had been maintained and like the final crescendo of a full blown orchestral piece we dramatically were shunted in to the heavy plastic curtain and into the relative safety of a normal summer’s evening at a fairground. I turned to see how she was coping as we went through the curtain and I saw someone older, calmer, wiser, with less panic, literally ‘drop’ into the place my little friend had left. Someone else, controlling the un-sourced fear was looking at me, surprised to have been called for so suddenly, so instantly. With such intensity. I asked who I was looking at, she told me her name and we both absolutely collapsed with laughter, as we realised what had happened. “Scared the little one?” she asked me. “Ffs, she was absolutely terrified.” More laughter. We couldn’t exit the clackity cart for laughing. I have never seen someone land somewhere they are already part of. It was amazing. “Not a surprise, to be honest, she did well to make it almost entirely through. Glad she called for me though, now I get a chance to be out and outside. Safe.”