‘Helped, dangled them out of windows by their ankles, whatever you want to call it,’ she joked. Or I assumed she was joking and when she saw the concern in my expression, she laughed. ‘I’m kidding. I mean, that happened once, and it was Tim doing it to Sam, but we got there before he dropped him.’ She wrinkled her nose as she thought about it. ‘I think it was hardest for Sam actually. He’s naturally quiet and kinda stuck in the middle. Lucy, Tim and I only have a year between us each. Then Sam’s four years younger than Tim. He’s closest in age to the twins but obviously they are their own little unit too.’
‘What about Daisy?’
‘Yeah, she’s a lot younger, but Daisy…well, let’s just say, nothing fazes her. I reckon she could handle anyone or anything.’
She sounded a lot like another Kingston woman I knew. I looked around and experienced an odd sense of detachment. My father had been here. He’d walked by this beach and these rides, worked on them. I drained the rest of my cocktail, eager for the sharp tang of citrus to cut through the dull feeling in my chest.
‘Take it easy there, bud.’ Noelle raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to carry you back to the train if you drink too much on an empty stomach. Ready for a corn dog yet?’
‘Is there nothing…healthier available?’
‘We’re at the funfair, Stephen, live a little.’
‘That’s why I like healthy food. To increase my probability of living a lot.’
‘Pssh. A little of what you fancy does you good too y’know.’
‘Oh, I’m aware of that,’ I said softly as my eyes grazed over her face. A pink flush stole across her cheekbones and my momentary thrill at her response immediately crashed as I remembered what I’d promised her. No flirting. Was she right and I was incapable of interacting with her any other way? I cleared my throat. ‘Look, I’ll eat the corn dog if it’s that important to you. But…only if you beat me at one of the games.’
Her eyes immediately lit up. ‘Okay, you’ve got a deal. What game?’
‘You can choose.’
‘So sure you’re gonna win, huh?’
I just smiled. I had what I wanted from earlier – her excitement focused on me – so it felt like I already had.
We finished our drinks and she dragged me around the stalls, deliberating between hook a duck, basketball tossing and the shooting gallery, finally settling on the latter. ‘Ladies first.’
‘Great.’ She picked up the rifle and tucked it into her shoulder, squinting down the barrel at the sliding targets inside the booth. She blew impatiently at the wisps of hair straying across her face and I reached out without thinking, smoothly them back and tucking them behind her ear.
Her eyes widened and caught mine. I dropped my hand and stepped back.
She took a deep breath and proceeded to shoot down every single target, like a secret assassin or the terminator I’d likened her to the other day. A siren went off, red lights flashing, proclaiming her as a winner. She lowered her weapon, an impression left from the butt of the rifle in the smooth skin of her shoulder. She bit her lip, trying to control the huge, proud grin on her face.
‘You hustled me,’ I accused her, but I was smiling too.
‘This was your idea, and I did tell you I came here loads when I was a kid.’
The attendant came over to ask her what she wanted to claim as her prize. She turned to the kid who was playing next to her, a little boy of nine or ten, struggling to hold the long rifle in his skinny arms, and offered for him to pick what he would like.
‘It hasn’t put you off kids then?’ I commented when she turned back to me finally after an in-depth discussion with the boy and his parents about how they’d been enjoying their day out.
‘What hasn’t?’
‘Having to help out so much with your younger siblings all the time.’
‘Of course not. And the thing is, the helping out goes both ways. For all the support I give, whenever I need it, they’re always there for me too.’ She picked up my rifle, attached by the long wire to the counter, and passed it over. I lifted it to my shoulder, looking for the little glass sight-finder, which was scratched and blurry. Not that there was much point in the exercise.
‘What could you possibly need help with?’ I asked, only half-joking. ‘Don’t you know everything?’
She moved closer, my senses suddenly full of the scent of her coconut suntan lotion and the warmth of her body. She put her hand around mine to guide me into a better position with the barrel, my skin tingling from the touch of hers even as she quickly stepped back again. ‘Weallneed a little help from time to time, Stephen.’
Chapter Eight
By the time we’d eaten our corn dogs, Stephen looking like I was making him chow down on uncooked roadkill, and we’d played a round of hook a duck, which we both equally sucked at, over thirty minutes had passed.
When we went to the little maintenance hut, we found a large man in overalls with curly dark hair and an attitude that made me think the rides gave him a permanent migraine. The conversation was brusque but efficient. Trevor had been good at fixing the dodgems but left to become a taxi driver. That was all he knew, although he did have the address of where Trevor had lived with a woman called Lorna for a while.
