watched them as they got into their seats, and then from her position on the ground below she saw them soaring up into the sky, descending and then soaring again. She waved to them as they turned on the large red wheel. And Hugh waved to her in return but Sheila was staring straight ahead of her, cool and self-possessed as ever. Up they went and down they came and something in the movement made her frightened. It was as if the motion of the wheel was significant amidst the loud beat of the music, the crooked guns and darts. As she saw the two outlined against the sun she knew that they belonged to her, they were her only connection with reality, with the music and the colour of the fair. If something were to happen to them now what would her own life be like? She almost ran screaming towards the wheel as if she were going to ask the operator to stop it lest an accident should happen and the two of them, Hugh and Sheila, would plummet to the ground, broken and finished. But she waited and when they came down to earth again she clutched them both, one hand in one hand of theirs.
‘That’s enough,’ she said, ‘that’s enough.’
The three of them walked to the car. She unlocked the door and got into the driver’s seat, Hugh beside her wearing his safety belt, and Sheila in the back.
Sheila suddenly began to become talkative.
‘Mummy,’ she said, ‘you were fat in the mirror. You were a fat lady. You had fat legs.’
Ruth looked at Hugh and he smiled without rancour. They were sitting happily in the car and she thought of them as a family.
‘Did you think of anything to write about?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said but he didn’t say what it was he had thought of till they had reached the council estate on which they lived.
He then asked her, ‘Do you remember when we were at the shooting stall?’
‘Yes,’ she said eagerly.
‘Did you notice that the woman who was giving out the tickets had a glass eye?’
‘No, I didn’t notice that.’
‘I thought it was funny at the time,’ Hugh said slowly. ‘To put a woman in charge of the shooting stall who had a glass eye.’
He didn’t say anything more. She knew however that he had been making a deliberate effort to tell her something, and she also realised that what he had seen was in some way of great importance to him.
What she herself remembered most powerfully was the gross woman who had filled the tent with her smell of sweat, and whose small eyes seemed cruel when she had gazed into them.
She also remembered the two boys with the green and white football scarves who had gone marching past, singing and shouting.
She clutched Hugh’s hand suddenly, and held it. Then the two of them got out of the car and walked together to the council house, Sheila running along ahead of them.
THEY TIED UP the boat and landed on the island, on a fine blowy blue and white day. They walked along among sheep and cows, who raised their heads curiously as they passed, then incuriously lowered them again.
They came to a monument dedicated to a sea captain who had sailed the first steam ship past the island.
‘A good man,’ said Allan, peering through his glasses.
‘A fine man,’ said Donny. ‘A fine, generous man.’
‘Indeed so,’ said William.
They looked across towards the grey granite buildings of the town and from them turned their eyes to the waving seaweed, whose green seemed to be reflected in Donny’s jersey.
‘It’s good to be away from the rat race,’ said Donny, standing with his hands on his lapels. ‘It is indeed good to be inhaling the salt breezes, the odoriferous ozone, to be blest by every stray zephyr that blows. Have you a fag?’ he asked Allan, who gave him one from a battered packet.
‘I sent away for a catalogue recently,’ said William. ‘For ten thousand coupons I could have had a paint sprayer. I calculate I would have to smoke for fifty years to get that paint sprayer.’
‘A laudable life time’s work,’ said Donny.
Allan laughed, a high falsetto laugh and added,
‘Or you might have the whole family smoking, including your granny and grandfather, if any. Children, naturally, should start young.’
The grass leaned at an angle in the drive of the wind.
‘We could have played jazz,’ said William, ‘if I had brought my record player. Portable, naturally. Not to be plugged in to any rock. We could have listened to Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by her friend Louis Armstrong who sings atrociously, incidentally.’
‘Or, on the other hand, we could have played Scottish Dance Music each day. “The Hen’s March to the Midden” would not be unsuitable. I remember,’ he continued reflectively, keeping his arms hooked in his lapels, ‘I remember hearing that famous work or opus. It was many years ago. Ah, those happy days. When hens were hens and middens were middens. Not easy now to get a midden of quality. A genuine first class midden as midden.’
‘The midden in itself,’ said William. He continued, ‘The thing in itself is an interesting question. I visualise Hegel in a German plane dropping silver paper to confuse the radar of the British philosophical school, and flying past, unharmed, unshot, uncorrupted.’
‘I once read some Hegel,’ said Allan proudly, ‘and also Karl Marx.’
Donny made a face at a cow.
They made their way across the island and came to a pillbox used in the Second World War.
‘Sieg Heil,’ said William.
‘Ve vill destroy zese English svine,’ said Donny.
‘Up periscope,’ said Allan.
The island was very bare, no sign of habitation to be seen, just rocks and grass.
‘Boom, boom, boom,’ said Donny, imitating radio music. ‘The Hunting of the Bismarck. Boom, boom, boom. It was a cold blustery day, and the telegraphist was sitting at his telegraph thinking of his wife and four children back in Yorkshire. Tap, tap, tap. Sir, Bismarck has blown the Hood out of the water. Unfair, really, sir. Bismarck carries too strong plating. Boom, boom, boom. Calm voice: “I think it’ll have to be Force L, wouldn’t you say, commander?” And now the hunt is on, boom, boom, boom, grey mist, Atlantic approaches, Bismarck captain speaks: “I vill not return, herr lieutenant. And I vill not tolerate insubordination.” Boom, boom, boom.’
William looked at the pillbox, resting his right elbow on it.
‘I wonder what they were defending,’ he mused.
‘The undying right to insert Celtic footnotes,’ said Donny.
Allan said,
