The fat man has only one eye that can see; the other is a dark hole with something blue glinting at the bottom. His pale tattooed flesh is pressed up against the glass on every side; he only just fits into the tiny booth. Anyone without a quarter can already admire his entire troupe on his arms: the bird-woman is whistling out of his armpit, the mermaid is coiled around his upper arm and, on his neck, the dwarf is playing cards with a skeleton wearing a top hat.
Lampie takes a deep breath and walks over to the booth. “I’ve already paid once this afternoon, sir,” she says. “But I’d like to take another quick look. Can I go in for free?”
The man does not even look up from his yellowing newspaper. “In is in,” he mumbles. “And out is out. Only a quarter.”
“I don’t have any money,” says Lampie. “But I still need to go in, just for a minute.”
The eye glances up from the newspaper and at her face. Then the man shakes his head and goes on reading.
“What if I promise to bring it tomorrow?”
“We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Well, what if I…”
“Pay up or clear off.”
Lampie looks at the man in his filthy shirt. With all his tattoos and with that eye, he could easily be a pirate. They used to give her money sometimes, when she sang sailors’ songs for them. The sad ones worked best, the ones about someone who was longing to be where they were not: at home or at sea. Then the tears would run down their cheeks and they would give her everything they had in their pockets: copper, gold, pearls, they did not even look first to see what it was. Sometimes it was pieces of string and fish hooks. She used to have a whole chest full of treasure, which was all hers, her mother said, for when she was older. But one day her father had found it, and the next day it lay empty on the floor. She clears her throat.
“Sailor, sailor, where do you roam?” she begins to sing. It is far too quiet; he does not even look up. Again. “Sailor…”
“What are you doing?” whispers Fish, sitting up a little. “When are we going inside? We were going to go into the tent, weren’t we?”
“Shh!” hisses Lampie. “And don’t move an inch!”
The man in the booth is still looking at his newspaper. Did he really not notice anything? She stands up, taps on the glass and starts again, louder this time.
“Sailor, sailor, where do you roam?
Have you no mother who’s waiting at… um…”
He looks at her as if she has gone mad. She does not see any tears in his eye or rolling down his cheeks.
“The lips of the sailor’s bride taste like salt…” Lampie begins, because that one always worked. But it is no good – she can see that already.
“Well, well,” says the man, with a strange laugh. “A serenade for Uncle Earl. Fancy that! Why would you?…”
“I wanted… to make an exchange…” whispers Lampie, with a very red face. “I thought, um… a song for an entrance ticket, or… but never mind.” She looks around. If this won’t work, what else can she do?
“Oh, it was a swap you wanted, was it?” Now the man has put down his newspaper. His eye looks the girl up and down, from head to toe, and he leans as far forward as he can, with the counter pressing into his stomach. “Sweet and silly songs are no good to me.” He smiles, but it is not a very friendly smile. “But I can think of something else…”
He beckons Lampie closer. Curiously, she takes a step towards him. What could she have to swap? What does she have that he might want?
The big man purses his lips like a fish. He points at them with one fat finger. “How about a little kiss? Just one? Here?”
“What?” It takes Lampie a second to understand. “Oh,” she says, taking a step back. “No, thank you.”
“Two. Two kisses. One for you and one for your cart?”
“No, I’m sorry.” Lampie bends down to grasp the handle of the cart, but instead slips and falls down in the cold mud. The fat man laughs so much that the whole booth shakes.
“Don’t be scared, sweetheart. Just one would be fine, and you can leave your little cart here. Uncle Earl will keep an eye on it.”
Lampie walks away, slipping along in the mud, pulling the cart behind her.
“Ohhh…” she hears from behind her. “Ohhh, what’s just one little peck?” Then he bursts out laughing again. “Mwahaha! The look on her face! Oh, they love me, they do, all the girls! They love me!”
Three tents on, she can still hear him laughing. She drags the cart roughly over a clump of grass.
“Ow! Hey!” Edward calls from under the blanket. “Ow, stop it! Careful!” Then he bangs his chin on the cart and falls silent. Lampie finds a spot between two tents, with no one else around.
“Bleurgh,” she says, shivering. “Oh, bleurgh. Yuck.”
“What?” asks the boy. He is sitting up now. “What happened? What did he want?”
“A kiss,” spits Lampie.
“A what?”
“A kiss.”
“From you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lampie shrugs. “He just did,” she says. “That’s what men want, isn’t it? That or a quarter. But I don’t have any quarters.”
“But you do have kisses?”
Lampie sighs. Yuck, oh, yuck.
She rubs her hand over her lips. What should she do? How are they going to get inside that tent? It is getting darker and colder and before long everything will be closed. And she does not want to go back home. Fish will see his mother today – and that is that. So should she just do it? She sighs. Just one, two, three, eyes closed – and hup, they can go into the tent. She thinks about Uncle Earl and she feels a bit sick.
Inside the cart, Edward is wondering what he is actually doing here. He feels cold under his blanket and the world around him is suddenly so big: music, noise and shouting on every side. Someone might come along at any moment and pull off his blanket, and look and point and scream. He is tired of all the new things around him, tired of getting frights all the time, and his head is suddenly filled with all sorts of thoughts about things he never had to think about before. Mothers. Lips. Kisses.
He fidgets around; the cart is terribly uncomfortable. Why would anyone want to do that, to kiss someone? To have someone else’s spit on their cheek. On their mouth. In their mouth…
“Bleurgh,” he says, just like the girl. He peers up at her; in the semi-darkness he can just about make out her face, her mouth, her lips, which look pretty soft, and pink, and spit-free too.
“Fine!” he says, so loud that it makes her jump. “Then we just won’t do it. We’re going. Take me home. Now.”
He wishes he was already there, under the bed as usual, where he belongs.
“No.” Lampie shakes her head. “We have to do this. I’ll do it. Come on, it’s only a kiss.”
She pushes Edward back under his blanket, even though he still has a lot to say, and pulls the cart back across the field, past a group of slurring men who almost stumble over her.
“Hey, look out!” she barks at them.
“Look out yourself, chickie!” one of the men shouts while the others go on singing:
“Oh, down on the quay where the red lights shine,
We’ll drink our fill of whisky and wine!
A night of good cheer, with flagons of beer,
And…”
“Hey, wait a moment, chickie,” the same voice calls again. “Where are you off to with that cart?”
Get lost! thinks Lampie. All of you, you can just get lost! She is going to walk on, straight ahead, and go over there to the man in the ticket booth. She’ll give him a kiss, or even two if she has to, and then Fish will get to see his mother. It is going to happen, even if…
“Lampie?”
She almost bumps into someone again. But then she is not looking where she is going. She sees a tall, thin man leaning over towards her. He is standing with his back to one of the torches that are being lit all over the fairground now, but she still recognizes him instantly.
“Hello, Mr Rosewood,” she says.