Page 7 of The Midnight Carousel

By the time they’ve won a bag of sweets on the hoopla, then wasted a penny each on the coconut shy, Maisie feels comfortable with Miss Catherine.

Nice in a quiet sort of way, she seems quite taken with the stories about Canvey Island, encouraging Maisie with her smile and clapping in delight at Maisie’s retelling of the bold escape with Aunty Mabel.

They pass amusement after amusement, lost in non-stop chatter.

When Miss Catherine asks what Maisie wants to do when she grows up, however, there’s a long pause; survival was the main preoccupation of her previous life.

Managing to eat enough, keep warm and dry, avoid the Sixpences in order to live another day.

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ Maisie answers eventually. ‘What about you?’

‘A crime novelist,’ Miss Catherine replies without hesitation. ‘I want to write stories about a lady detective who solves murder mysteries. The female answer to Sherlock Holmes.’

Maisie keeps quiet. No one at Jesserton, not even Aunty Mabel, has guessed the shameful secret that Maisie can’t read, let alone write, and she prefers to keep it that way.

‘I’m glad you’ve come to Jesserton, Maisie,’ Miss Catherine says with warmth, as though she means it. ‘Since my mother died, the house has seemed terribly empty.’

Maisie feels a growing kinship with Miss Catherine. Despite their different starts in life, they have the absence of a mother in common.

They are passing a red-and-white tent when Miss Catherine stops partway through an explanation of where to find the strawberry bushes at Jesserton.

Maisie notices irritation pinching the older girl’s face as she stares at a gang of mid-teen boys some way off.

Pointing at passing ladies, they laugh uproariously.

To Maisie’s surprise, the tallest boy waves at them.

Miss Catherine pulls Maisie towards the tent.

‘My annoying cousin, James,’ she explains. ‘His school term won’t have started yet. Let’s wait in here and hope they go away. We can watch the show.’

Inside the tent, a circle of light bathes a vacant chair, above which is a large, painted sign.

Ten rows of benches crammed with paying customers are arranged in a semicircle.

Miss Catherine leads them to an empty place in the third row.

There isn’t long to wait before loud applause erupts.

Through the spectators, Maisie can only just make out the figure of a wide-hipped woman approaching the chair, with her back to the crowd.

‘Lift up your skirts, love, and show us if your other beard is just as long,’ a man in the audience shouts, standing up to bow as everyone roars with laughter.

The lady ignores him as she settles on the chair. Her spine straightens and she removes a handkerchief that Maisie can now see has been covering her lower face.

There’s a collective gasp, and someone shrieks. The woman holds still, unflinching as everyone stares. Maisie is spellbound. There she is: a lady with a thick, brown beard down to her chest, gazing out with cat-shaped eyes.

By the time they leave the tent, Maisie has seen the double-headed serpent man, a leopard woman, Siamese twins from Russia, and she doesn’t quite know what to think.

‘Looks like she should be in the freak show with the others.’

Maisie looks over to where the voice originates. A freckly boy in a straw boater– part of the rowdy group from earlier– is pointing at her while his friends snigger.

‘Dirty little scum,’ he spits. Malice glints like sharpened knives in eyes that are locked on to Maisie.

But I washed this morning, she says to herself. Without thinking, Maisie touches her face to check. The boys jeer, nudge one another.

‘That’s not going to help your dirty, scummy skin,’ a second boy scoffs.

Like mist clearing, the truth dawns on Maisie.

They mean her complexion. She feels sick to her stomach.

Having noticed the sideways glances from the crowd this afternoon, she was too absorbed in the fun of this place to grasp that it’s because hers stands out as the one dark face in a sea of paleness.

It’s exactly how she was treated by everyone on Canvey Island, apart from Tommy.

The next thing she knows, Miss Catherine rushes forward to spread her hands on the freckled boy’s chest and drive him backwards. ‘You ought to know better, Edward,’ she says with surprising forcefulness.

Maisie could hug her new friend for sticking up for her. James rolls his eyes as though he can’t see what the fuss is about.

‘It was just a bit of harmless fun, Catherine.’ He breaks off from his friends, watching as they head towards the dodgems. ‘Boys just trying to get the attention of a pretty girl.’

He redirects his stare at Maisie. The way his bright blue eyes take her in makes her tingle uncomfortably and she looks away. That’s when she sees it.

In the corner of her eye, an object of unparalleled wonder appears: a circle of horses rotates like a spinning top, galloping to nowhere.

Some soar in the air and come down again.

Others edge forward. She pinches herself.

There’s no waving flag, the colours aren’t exactly the same, but, yes, this dazzling ride is remarkably similar to the picture she and Tommy found on Canvey Island.

If only she could rush back and tell him that such a wonder really exists.

‘What’s that?’ Maisie asks, so overcome with awe that she isn’t sure if she spoke out loud.

Miss Catherine follows her gaze.

‘The sign says the savage factory’s olde england carousel .’

A carousel. The word has the taste of mystery, of faraway places.

Transfixed, Maisie is unable to tear her eyes from its beauty.

Drawn closer, she pushes past dawdlers, not caring about the buzz, the chaos of crowds, even forgetting the recent incident with the boys.

She’s walking in a dream, a dream that is real.

‘Would you like a ride?’

Aunty Mabel is back, her cheeks glowing the colour of the heart-shaped ruby brooch she’s wearing. Coughing, she produces a lace handkerchief and wipes her nose.

‘Yes,’ is all Maisie is able to say.

‘Let’s all have a turn,’ Sir Malcolm declares as if he too is enraptured. ‘You as well, James. What a coincidence to find you here.’

James shakes hands with Sir Malcolm. ‘Yes, Uncle. It was a bit of luck that Catherine and I bumped into one another.’

Maisie notes Miss Catherine making a face.

They wait for the ride to slow and the current riders to dismount, then choose their mounts.

Picking the most beautiful is difficult: the ginger horse with the yellow mane or one that is striped purple and pink?

But there’s shoving and a panicked rush; both those horses are quickly taken; and Maisie worries that if she’s too slow there will be none left.

Miss Catherine is already sitting on a dark cream stallion, next to which is a dainty, pale brown pony.

Yes, this is a good choice. She plants one boot on the footrest, swings the other leg over, sits in the saddle.

Gripping the brass pole, Maisie pats and strokes the painted coat. Magical.

‘Giddy-up, boy, or you’ll end up down the knacker’s yard,’ James jests from the other side of Miss Catherine.

In the row behind, Aunty Mabel and even Sir Malcolm laugh.

Maisie has an inkling that it isn’t normal for a master of the house to mix with staff like this, but she’s too excited to pay further attention to it.

There’s a gentle hum, a vibration up her spine.

They’re moving, slowly at first, then speeding up.

Her hands tremble as she feels the lift of the pole, the sensation of rising and surging forward, the sea breeze streaming past her face.

Rising, falling, rising again, she whips past the group of waving spectators, a view of the pier, dodgems, then her eyes return to the spectators.

She couldn’t imagine anything better than sneaking off with Tommy in Mr Sixpence’s boat, or pelting over the flats from Canvey Island with Aunty Mabel, or riding in Sir Malcolm’s carriage with her face stuck out of the window. Until now.

Too soon, the ride slows, jerks to a stop. Maisie is breathless, her cheeks flushed. If she could remain here for a second, third, fourth turn, she would, but the others are already clambering off. With a final pat of her horse, she reluctantly dismounts.

On the way home in the carriage, she is jubilant. There’s talk of Maisie spending more time with Miss Catherine and even becoming her companion now it’s been shown that the two girls get along.

Leaning in, Aunty Mabel whispers, ‘And let’s ask the governess to help you with your reading.’ She says this with eyes so full of affection that Maisie thanks her lucky stars she’s ended up at Jesserton.

As they enter the house, Aunty Mabel coughs violently, then stumbles as if her knees have turned to blancmange, knocking over the vase of chrysanthemums on the console table.

Her cheeks are beetroot red now, a colour so unnatural that Maisie can’t help staring.

Sir Malcolm calls for one of the maids to clear up the mess while Aunty Mabel composes herself, tells everyone not to fuss and retires to her bedroom for a lie-down.

Maisie herself feels the beginnings of a sore throat and struggles to swallow her supper.

After eating, there’s just time to creep to the bathroom and turn on the taps.

She pours bath salts under running water.

and soon fragrant lemon steam clouds the room.

Usually, Maisie would perform her evening ritual to ward off bad omens while she waited for the tub to fill, arranging a handful of dark and light stones from the gravel driveway on her bedroom windowsill.

But she is tired tonight. Besides, after a such a glorious day, she can’t imagine that anything bad will happen in this fancy house.

For the first time in her life, she feels safe, protected.

Undressing, she clambers into the tub. Her body aches as she uses the scrubbing brush to remove every speck of dirt. Scrub, scrub, scrub, until her skin glows. But once the redness fades, she’s still left looking beige.

Dressed in her nightgown, Maisie sits on her bed, waiting to have her hair brushed. Her face begins to feel burning hot. It grows dark outside, owls hooting from the branches of the sycamores, ten chimes of the grandfather clock, and still Aunty Mabel has failed to turn up.