Page 19 of The Midnight Carousel
Silver Kingdom is already alive when Maisie draws open her bedroom curtains. Her stomach flutters. After three weeks of preparations, liaising with agents and photographers, Mary Pickford and her entourage will be here today.
From this height, she can see two men hauling crates of flour to the corn-dog stand, and one of the ticket-sellers adjusting the angle of her hat before unlocking the office.
Out by the lake, Mr Levander begins to clean the small yellow boats in which his customers plough across the water.
Closer to the house, Mrs Papadopoulos is unloading huge vats of milk from her cart with Eric’s help.
Noticing her staring through the window, she waves and then breaks into a smile when Maisie puffs out her cheeks and mimics a Strongman.
Maisie now spends the first few minutes of every day like this, observing the inner workings of the amusement park from her bird’s eye view.
None of their visitors would ever guess the layers of hard grind that go into running Silver Kingdom.
To them it’s simply a land of dreams. One minute, you can imagine yourself as an eagle on the Ferris wheel, the next you’re plunging on a floating toboggan on the Jules Verne ride, Journey to the Centre of the Earth , with the carousel casting a golden dome of light over everything.
Though nothing can beat gliding through the air on a wooden horse, Maisie has now sampled every other attraction, bar one.
She would never be seen dead near Madame Rose’s idea of a storytelling corner.
A large red velvet tent decorated with golden stars has been erected in a quiet spot between the shore and a maple tree.
Customers almost always leave in wide-eyed awe, shaking their heads and exclaiming ‘How does she know?’ Maisie considers her own belief in charms and rituals is a far cry from claiming to speak to the dead, and she would have put an end to the woman’s supernatural nonsense long ago if Madame Rose and Her Crystal Ball wasn’t the biggest draw at Silver Kingdom after the carousel.
She watches a broad-backed man carrying a toolbox step out of the path of Mr Parry– he of the Popcorn Palace – doffing his cap.
A hierarchy has quickly established itself at Silver Kingdom.
The five former carnival labourers– the Crew , led by Lucky Nate– are right at the bottom.
Above them are the nine Ride Jocks : Arnold and a pair of operators for each of the four other rides owned by the Randolph brothers.
And, above them, are the concession holders, or Jointees , almost fifty in number, who have their own internal pecking order.
Management – Sir Malcolm, Hugo, Maisie– have needed to allot more time to them than they had expected.
Slotted between the Jointees and Management are Silver Kingdom’s royalty.
The Money Girls sell tickets, count takings and hand out wages every Tuesday morning.
Well turned out, Gloria, Betsy and Gayle command everyone’s attention with their striking presence.
Tearing herself away from the window, Maisie dresses and hurries outside to muck in with the others.
Every available pair of hands is needed to make sure the park is in tip-top condition today, and she spends the next few hours scrubbing stalls and setting up bunting, and fielding questions from the Crew about where to erect the pavilion for the park’s special visitors.
Having decided to allow the actress thirty minutes of private time for the photo shoot before they open to the public, Sir Malcolm is pacing the entrance hall when Maisie arrives back inside to collect him a few minutes before 11.
00 a.m. With the money they’re now making, he’s been able to resume business with their tradespeople, including the tailor.
He is dressed in a new suit, with his hair slicked flat, smelling of cologne rather than alcohol for a change.
Thinking back to how withdrawn he was last year, Maisie finds that Sir Malcolm is like a different person, purposeful now, almost back to his former self from the days of Jesserton, as if he too is letting go of the past.
The crowd outside the gate roars. Maisie peers through the front door’s glass pane and spies a tall graceful beauty with long curling hair waving with one hand, holding the hand of a little girl with the other.
Hugo steps forward to greet the actress but is beaten to it by Nancy.
It’s a surprise to see her here. Years have passed since the two women have met in person.
From the telephone conversations between the brothers, Maisie imagined that Nancy would seem diminished, but, adorned now in a sapphire dress and maroon lipstick, she is all smiles, embracing Miss Pickford as if the two are the best of friends.
‘Ready?’ Sir Malcolm asks.
Maisie tugs at her cuffs, smooths her hair, soothes her nerves. She is ready.
To a cheer from the crowd, Mary Pickford and her niece enter Silver Kingdom.
The press swoop like locusts, gobbling information and snapping photos of the actress, as well as the Money Girls perched in a row on the carousel platform, their heads tilted playfully and wearing wide smiles.
But, for all the glitz and glamour of these women, the sparkle of the carousel cannot be eclipsed.
In the early May sunshine, paintwork shines and metal glints as if studded with tiny diamonds.
After fifteen minutes of posing, the actress declares that the photo shoot has been successfully completed, and that it is time to open the gates to everyone else.
The thrum of music accompanies stallholders shouting out invitations to their entertainments.
Arnold is standing on the carousel platform in his best attire, fidgeting with his green bow tie as Mary Pickford watches her niece choose a carousel horse.
Catching his eye, Maisie gives him an encouraging thumbs-up.
The noon heat warms her skin. After all those years cooped up, it’s good to be part of the world again.
Sir Malcolm joins her, and she accepts a glass of champagne from him.
They toast and watch the carousel move off, smiling as the speed of the ride picks up and colours flash past. On this perfect, bright day, Maisie’s childlike rituals, the fear of curses and her belief that something bad always happens seem foolish.
‘Which would you choose?’ Sir Malcolm asks, indicating the horses.
Maisie watches oranges and browns, whites, reds and yellows, swirl by. Mary Pickford’s niece circles into view, then is gone again.
‘The horse with the caramel coat; there’s something special about it,’ she replies.
Sir Malcolm nods. ‘Yes, I seem to remember you liked a pale brown pony at Clacton too.’
Maisie is astonished that Sir Malcolm recalls anything about her, let alone something that specific from so long ago. She feels a warmth around her heart as his eyes fill with affection for her.
‘How about you, Sir Malcolm?’ she asks.
He taps his champagne glass and nods as though he’s taking the question very seriously. ‘Any one of them that will support my weight,’ he answers, his mouth twitching at the corners as he strokes one hand over his rotund stomach.
This sliver of humour is more like Hugo than the stern Sir Malcolm that Maisie knows, and she can’t help smiling.
Nancy totters over. Up close, Maisie notices that the woman’s appearance is less polished than it looked from afar: lipstick stains her front teeth; her hair looks unbrushed at the back; there’s a tiny rip in the hem of her dress.
As Nancy sways, Sir Malcolm steadies her just in time.
Hugo comes running from nowhere, as though he’s attuned to his wife’s mishaps.
‘You seem a little unsure on your feet, dear,’ he says, his voice all forced cheer. ‘I told you to take your tonic this morning,’ he whispers to her, although not so quietly that Maisie can’t hear.
‘But Dr Carlton says we can’t try for a baby while I’m on my tonic,’ Nancy pouts. She leans into her husband and kisses his cheek. ‘And trying for a baby is such fun, isn’t it? You weren’t complaining this morning.’
Hugo looks like he wants the ground to swallow him up. He removes Nancy’s hands from around his neck and takes a step back. ‘But you promised you wouldn’t drink,’ he hisses.
‘Oh, but it’s been ages since I’ve been able to have fun like this,’ she giggles.
Maisie doesn’t know where to look. It’s been so long since she’s seen Nancy in person that the concerned, caring woman who searched for Billy has been the enduring image in her head. This attention-seeking is more typical of the Nancy from Maisie’s childhood.
Nancy must spot the tiny movement to her right because her gaze suddenly alights on Maisie, picking at fingernails.
‘Be a good girl and fetch my shawl from Hugo’s car, would you?’ she orders. ‘It’s getting a little nippy.’
Glad of the excuse to remove herself from the situation, for once Maisie doesn’t mind being spoken to like a child or a member of staff, and she agrees to the request.
As Maisie finds the shawl tucked under the passenger seat of Hugo’s car, she notices a flash of red in her peripheral vision.
‘Be careful,’ someone says in a low voice. ‘There’s trouble coming from across the ocean.’
A hand alights on her arm. She turns to find Madame Rose staring straight at her with disproportionately large eyes for such a small face.
Maisie shrugs off the woman and hurries through the front door.
None of Silver Kingdom’s workers would dare follow her into the house.
Leaning against the wall in the hallway, she takes a minute to compose herself.
What on earth does it mean? What trouble?
It makes no sense. Then Maisie catches herself.
Madame Rose tells all sorts of silly tales in the hope of parting people from their money.
Feeling like a dark cloud has lifted, she heads outside and arrives back with the Randolphs at the exact moment Mary Pickford begins shouting. Maisie feels a prickle of dread.
‘Has anyone seen my niece?’ the actress calls.