Candyfloss

  ‘So do I, dear. Though I know it might seem a bit cramped to some people.’ She looked at Saul and raised her eyebrows at him.

  He laughed at his mum. ‘I want a bit more space now, Mum. And a proper roof over my head. I want to live with the same girl in the same street. That’s not so strange, is it?’ He put his arm round Jenny, who smiled and snuggled up to him.

  ‘Well,’ said Rose, struggling. ‘As long as you’re happy, son.’

  ‘So how are you coping by yourself?’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh, I get by fine. I always used to run the stall by myself when Saul was little. It’s a bit of a struggle sometimes but I manage.’

  ‘Talk to me about it!’ said Dad. ‘So who’s looking after the stall tonight?’

  ‘Monday’s always our quiet night, when we’ve just set up. Liz from the Lucky Darts stall is supposed to be keeping an eye on it for me.’

  ‘Where is your fair now?’ I asked eagerly. ‘Dad and I have looked and looked for it.’

  ‘Have you?’ said Rose, looking pleased. ‘Well, we’re over in Felting this week, not too far away. Are you going to come and visit us?’

  ‘You bet!’ I said. ‘We can, can’t we, Dad?’

  ‘Of course, darling. Now, let’s get some tea organized. Will you be a lovely helpful girl, Floss, and put the kettle on for me? Then, as I can’t get at my fingers just now perhaps you’d also like to dial the pizza place?’ He looked apologetically at Rose. ‘I’d love to cook you a proper meal, but it’s a bit awkward just now, as you can see.’

  ‘Pizza would be lovely! It’s definitely our treat though.’

  Rose ordered four different king-size pizzas, and then ice cream for afters. I had a big slice of all four pizzas (triple cheese and spinach, chicken and mushroom, pineapple and bacon, and sausage and sweetcorn and tomato) and then a bowl of strawberry and vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Then I felt so full I had to undo the buttons on my school skirt.

  Saul and Jenny stayed for a while. Saul let me try on his great big rings. I had a dragon on one finger, a snake on another, three different skulls, an eye ring, and frogs on each thumb. They looked so cool. But then they said they had to get going because they wanted to see some film.

  ‘I suppose I ought to be going too,’ said Rose.

  ‘Oh no, do stay,’ I said.

  ‘Your dad probably wants some peace and quiet,’ said Rose.

  ‘I certainly don’t!’ said Dad. ‘Please stay a bit longer, Rose.’

  ‘Well, I’ve certainly still got to examine those poor sore hands,’ said Rose. ‘We’ll take those bandages off and have a look. They’ve given you fresh dressings, I hope. Let’s see how you’re healing.’

  I peered fearfully as she gently unwound the bandages. I was terrified that Dad’s fingers would have turned black and cindery like burned toast. It was a huge relief to see they were just a little swollen and shiny red – but very recognizably still my dad’s dear fingers.

  Rose peered at them carefully, holding his hands in hers.

  ‘Are you reading Dad’s palms, Rose?’ I asked.

  ‘I might be,’ said Rose, smiling.

  ‘What do they say? Is Dad’s luck going to change?’

  ‘I think maybe it already has,’ said Dad softly.

  He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Rose.

  She stayed very late that evening. Dad let me stay up but I was starting to feel very tired. I’d had hardly any sleep the night before . . . and a lot of excitement. I curled up in a chair with Lucky on my lap. My head started nodding. Dad tucked a cushion under my neck and covered me with his sweater.

  I woke up once to wriggle round and rearrange Lucky. I saw that Dad and Rose were sitting very close together on the sofa. Billy the Chip’s mother and father were frowning out of their photograph at them, but Dad and Rose didn’t look as if they cared one jot.

  When Dad came to meet me the next day from school he said, ‘Guess where we’re going!’

  It didn’t need much power of deduction but I played a game with Dad.

  ‘Are we going shopping? Up to London? The seaside?’ I said, trying to seem completely innocent and dumb.

  Dad kept going, ‘No! No! No!’ Then he said, ‘Come on, Floss, where would you like to go most of all?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘THE FAIR!’ I shouted.

  Dad whooped and punched the air with his bandaged fist and went, ‘Yay!’

  He still couldn’t drive, of course, but he’d checked out how to get to Felting on the bus. He’d brought fruit juice and apples and nuts so we had a snack on the journey.

  ‘I thought we’d eat really healthily now so that we can overdose on candyfloss when we get to the fair!’ said Dad.

  ‘Does Rose know we’re coming?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Dad . . . you like Rose, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I like her. You like her too, don’t you, Floss? I think she’s a very kind lovely lady.’

  ‘Yeah, but I meant, do you fancy her, Dad?’

  ‘Floss!’ said Dad. His cheeks were carnation-pink.

  ‘That means you do!’ I said.

  ‘Now then. Little girls shouldn’t be talking about fancying people, not to their dads,’ said Dad. He paused. ‘But say I did fancy Rose, would you mind?’

  ‘I don’t think I’d mind a bit,’ I said. ‘So, is Rose going to be your girlfriend, Dad?’

  Dad flushed from carnation to peony. ‘Well, it’s early days, darling. I’m not sure a gorgeous lady like Rose would really want to spend much time with a dull old dad like me. We’ll have to see. But whatever happens, Floss, you know you’ll always come first with me. You’re my little princess, and you always will be.’

  I hitched right across the seat onto Dad’s lap and he gave me a big cuddle.

  We got off the bus at Felting Junction and found the fair on the village green. We hurried towards it, hearing the hum of the hurdy-gurdy music, smelling the fried onions and warm sugar. It was as if we were walking back into a wonderful dream. But it was all real. There was the Big Slide and the Stargazer ride, the Ghost Train and the Crooked Cottage, the Teacup Whirlies and the Tin Can Alley, the Ferris wheel and the Wacky Waltzer. There was the Victorian carousel, with Pearl galloping round and round, her pink mane and tail flying in the wind. There was Rose’s candyfloss stall, with her big pink teddy waving her fat plush paw at us. There was Rose herself, looking lovely in a low-cut pink blouse with a little red enamel rose on a gold chain.

  She let me go right inside her van. She even let me pour different coloured sugars into her candyfloss cauldron, and then set it spinning so that little wisps of floss started forming. I carefully wound them round and round my stick until I’d made my very own pink, lilac and blue candyfloss.

  Dad and I wandered all round the fair, and I had one two three rides on Pearl, but every ten minutes we came back to chat to Rose. After an hour or so she got her friend Liz from the Lucky Darts to keep an eye on the candyfloss stall.

  Rose took us into her magical cosy caravan for a spot of supper. She had red wine for her and Dad, and cranberry juice for me, and little savoury tarts and battered prawns and sausages in honey and chicken with peanut sauce and all sorts of crisps and olives and crunchy vegetables with dips, and then there was pink iced sponge cake with little red sugar roses and the most amazing giant strawberries dipped in white chocolate.

  ‘Oh Rose, love, you didn’t need to go to all this trouble!’ said Dad, but he looked absolutely thrilled about it.

  ‘No trouble at all, Charlie,’ said Rose. ‘I like fiddling with little bits. It’s not often I have the opportunity, especially now I’m on my own.’

  ‘It’s like party food,’ I said.

  ‘Well, this is our little party, isn’t it?’ said Rose. ‘And you and your dad could certainly do with a bit of cosseting.’

  Dad found it a little difficult picking all his food up with his bandaged hands, so sometimes I popped a prawn or a sausage i
nto his mouth, and then Rose fed him iced cake and strawberries. We ate and ate and ate, but there was still a lot left over when we were absolutely full. Rose packed all the snacks up in tinfoil and put them in a great big red plastic box.

  ‘You can take them for your dinner at school tomorrow, Floss,’ she said.

  ‘I shall share them with my best friend Susan!’ I said.

  23

  SUSAN AND I had a positive feast the next day at lunch time. Everyone looked at our food enviously – especially the cake and the chocolate strawberries.

  ‘Give us a strawberry, Floss,’ said Rhiannon.

  I goggled at her astonishing cheek. ‘No way,’ I said firmly. ‘Here, Susan, have a strawberry. Aren’t they delicious?’

  ‘I didn’t really want one. I bet they taste of chip fat,’ said Rhiannon.

  ‘Yeah, Smelly Chip, like we’d risk eating your dad’s gross food,’ said Margot.

  ‘Smelly Belly Bum Chip,’ said Judy.

  They all three held their noses.

  I stood up and glared at them. ‘You three are so infantile,’ I said. ‘And if you’d only let go your snotty noses and take a big sniff you would see I don’t don’t don’t smell of chips – on account of the fact that my dad’s stopped frying them.’

  ‘What’s he going to do then?’ said Rhiannon.

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ said Susan.

  ‘No one asked you, Swotty Potty,’ said Rhiannon. ‘So what sort of other work can your dad do, Smelly Chip? That’s all he knows about – though he’s not much use at that, is he? He lets your café go bust and he lets the chip van go up in flames. My mum says she’s going to have to go to the social services. She says you need someone to look after you.’

  I took a step closer to Rhiannon, so we were practically nose to nose. Well, she’s quite a bit bigger than me, so were kind of nose to chest.

  ‘You tell your mum she doesn’t need to worry about me any more. She can send a whole army of social workers to see me if she wants, but it’s a complete waste of time. To start with, I’ve got my mum, and she’ll be coming back this autumn. Then I’ve got my dad, and he’s just great at looking after me. And lastly I have my Auntie Rose.’

  ‘You haven’t got an Auntie Rose,’ said Rhiannon.

  ‘I have so. She came to see us on Monday and we went to see her on Tuesday and we’re going to see each other heaps and heaps. She made me my special lunch. She’s brilliant at everything. And she can tell fortunes. She’s got all kinds of extraordinary occult powers and she says I’m highly receptive, so she’s going to teach me to channel them properly, and then when I’m up to speed you three had better watch out. Now, would you and Margot and Judy just bog off and let Susan and me enjoy our lunch in peace!’

  They did just that! They scuttled off, looking quite scared. Even Susan seemed a little disconcerted.

  ‘You said exactly one hundred words again. Do you really have occult powers, Floss?’ she whispered.

  ‘Hey, you’re meant to be the brainy one, OK? Of course not!’

  ‘Honestly, Floss, you make things up so they sound so real! So haven’t you even got an Auntie Rose?’

  ‘Well, I have, sort of. She’s not a real aunt but she’s a new friend of my dad’s, and she’s ever so nice and she does tell fortunes and I’m sure she really will teach me if I ask her nicely. And she made the food for us so she is a really brilliant cook, isn’t she? Susan, would you mind if I saved that biggest strawberry, the one with the most chocolate?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s your lunch, after all.’

  ‘It’s not for me.’

  I wanted to save it for Mrs Horsefield. I put it on her desk at the start of afternoon school.

  ‘This is a little present for you, Mrs Horsefield,’ I said shyly.

  ‘Oh Floss, it looks lovely. But I I can’t eat your special strawberry, sweetheart.’

  ‘I’ve chomped my way through your special iced buns with the cherry on the top. It’s your turn for a treat, Mrs Horsefield,’ I said.

  ‘Well, thank you very much, Floss,’ said Mrs Horsefield. She took a big bite of chocolate strawberry, breathed in and went ‘Mmmm!’ She rolled it round her tongue. ‘It’s delicious!’

  ‘My Auntie Rose made it,’ I said proudly.

  ‘I didn’t know you had an auntie!’ said Mrs Horsefield, sounding delighted.

  ‘Well, she moved away,’ I said vaguely. ‘But now she’s moved nearer again.’

  Felting wasn’t really that near – but Dad and I caught the bus over to the fair again on Friday night. We spent most of Saturday there too. Rose let me serve candyfloss again. I even managed to give the right change to people even though I’m such rubbish at maths.

  Dad hung out with us a lot of the time, but then he went off for a stroll and palled up with Jeff, the guy in charge of the Stargazer ride. He was having a spot of bother changing a dodgy wheel. Dad couldn’t help much because he still had his bandages on, but he squatted down beside Jeff and peered at all the silver nuts and bolts and talked earnest engine talk.

  ‘Look at them!’ said Rose fondly. ‘Does your dad know much about machinery, Floss?’

  ‘Well, he thinks he does,’ I said.

  Rose roared with laughter. ‘You’re like a little old woman at times!’ She paused. Then she looked me straight in the eye. ‘So. What do you think about your dad and me, eh, darling?’

  I shrugged shyly.

  ‘I know it’s early days yet, but your dad and me, well, we really seem to hit it off,’ she said.

  ‘Yep,’ I said.

  ‘And this time, when we move on tomorrow, we’re going to make sure we stay in touch.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said.

  We both paused to serve two customers with pink and lilac candyfloss. Rose went on winding a stick round and round the sugar cauldron even though she wasn’t making candyfloss for anyone else.

  ‘I know I’m quite a bit older than your dad,’ she said.

  ‘Are you?’ I said, surprised. ‘I didn’t know that. You don’t look it.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, thank you!’ she said. ‘I also know just how close you and your dad are and that’s lovely. I want you to understand, I don’t want to get in the way of that. When my Saul was young I had a few boyfriends who were rather hard for him to handle. It caused quite a lot of trouble.’ Rose stirred and stirred, her candyfloss getting bigger and bigger.

  ‘So is Dad your boyfriend now?’ I asked. ‘He says you’re his girlfriend.’

  ‘Did he! Do you mind?’

  I thought about it very carefully. ‘I used to think I’d mind if Dad had a girlfriend, but I don’t seem to mind a bit if it’s you. Rose, that candyfloss is simply ginormous now.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. It’s a special big fluffy floss for you,’ said Rose, handing it over with a flourish.

  I ate it as carefully as I could, but I still ended up with sticky sugar all over my cheeks and spangling my ears and nose.

  ‘You’ve even got wisps in your hair,’ said Rose, picking them out carefully. ‘You’ve got such lovely fluffy curls, darling. You’re just like candyfloss yourself.’ She played with my hair, fluffing it out. ‘Yes, if we coloured it pale pink you’d look like perfect candyfloss.’

  ‘Oooh, could we?’

  ‘I don’t know what your dad would say!’

  ‘I can get round Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you can, sweetie. But what would they say at school if you turned up with pink hair?’

  ‘We’ve only got one more week and then it’s the holidays!’

  ‘All right then. When you’ve actually broken up we’ll see about turning you into a real candyfloss, OK?’

  I told Susan that Rose had promised to colour my hair for me.

  ‘You lucky thing,’ she said. ‘It’ll look prettier than ever. But promise it won’t make you go all silly and clothes-mad and boy-crazy like Rhiannon and Margot and Judy.’

  ‘I promise promise promise, sil
ly!’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘Maybe you could come to the fair with Dad and me one day and Rose will colour your hair too.’

  ‘My mum would go demented,’ said Susan.

  ‘Well, we could pretend it was like spraying your hair red for Comic Relief. Oh Susan, if I get my hair dyed pink I’ll match Pearl! She’s this horse on the roundabout. She’s got a wonderful pink mane and tail, and she’s snowy white with big blue eyes. She’s my absolute favourite, but you can have first go on her when you come to the fair with me. Sapphire’s lovely too – she’s white as well but with a blue mane – and Amber’s great too – he’s a glossy brown with a yellow mane and tail.’

  ‘You sound like you belong to the fair already,’ said Susan.

  ‘Oh, I wish!’ I said.

  I worried that we wouldn’t be going to the fair so much the next week because they moved on way past Felting to a town called Bromshaw about forty miles away. But Dad went back to see the doctor on Monday morning and had his burns inspected, and she said they were healing beautifully. He could leave his bandages off and drive the van again.

  ‘It feels so good, Floss,’ said Dad, waggling his fingers at me one by one. ‘It’s great to have my wheels back too. Let’s go for a drive, darling. How about checking out the fair at Bromshaw? I thought it would be fun to see if it looks completely different there.’

  I looked at Dad. ‘You think Rose will be selling burgers and Pearl will be stuck onto the Stargazer ride?’ I said.

  ‘No! Are you teasing me, Floss?’

  ‘Of course I’m teasing you, Dad! We don’t need any excuse. Yes, let’s go to the fair.’

  ‘You can always do your homework in the van.’

  ‘I haven’t got any homework, Dad. We break up on Friday.’

  ‘Oh lumme, yes.’ Dad sighed. ‘What are we going to do with you during the holidays, sweetheart? I’ll have to find some kind of job to keep us going, and I very much doubt I’ll be able to take you with me.’ Dad paused. ‘Maybe it’s time for you to go and join your mum, darling. We’ve had a lovely time together but I’ve been having sleepless nights, worrying about you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’m fine. We’ll work something out for the summer.’ I held my hands out in front of my face, palms up. ‘Aha! Rose isn’t the only one who can tell fortunes. I can see a big curvy line on each palm. They’re like smiley faces. That means I’m going to be very very happy.’