The Girl in the Painted Caravan (7 page)

BOOK: The Girl in the Painted Caravan
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No, she didn’t run off with the ring. She was cleverer than that.

Once she had the ring on her finger, she would go for a long walk with her victim, leading him either to a stream or somewhere where there was tall grass. Then she would pick an argument and, in
a temper, she would pull off her ring, throw it and storm off. She’d leave the bewildered victim searching for the ring, having seen it, with his own eyes, flying through the air. Except that
this wasn’t the real ring, but a cheap paste one bought from Woolworths. Even if he found that ring, he would keep searching, as he would know it was not the one that he had bought and placed
on her finger.

The trickster family would then sneak out of the village in the middle of the night. As far as I know, they never were caught.

When spring came, the family headed back to Skegness. On the bracing east coast, away from the frightened towns, there was a different atmosphere, Depression or no. The gorgers
were on holiday to forget their troubles, be it for a day or a week.

The girls had discovered an open-air theatre along the beach called the Arcadia where, every day, talent competitions were held. The sisters, though used enough to making their own entertainment
and joining in with fellow Romanies, had never really experienced this kind of theatre before, where they could perform before the public. And this was exactly what they decided to do, having
watched the gorgers’ attempts at singing and dancing, which, to be honest, they found rather amateur. They had been brought up singing and dancing every night and so were miles ahead when it
came to experience and training. Mummy and Vera would tap dance together and had worked out many routines to their favourite songs. Lena, with her Marlene Dietrich-style voice, would sing
‘Underneath the Lamplight’.

They knew, of course, that their parents would never have consented, so it took quite a bit of daring each other before one of them eventually went on stage. Sure enough, Lena won the Talent of
the Day prize. Thereafter, it became a little monotonous as, day after day, one talented sister appeared after another, and it must have seemed to an increasingly restive audience (for they
weren’t all day-trippers) that this was some kind of benefit for the Petulengro family.

The manager was in fact accused of this, after all five of the older girls had won the contest in turn and were happily queuing up ready to win again. He called them aside and tactfully
suggested that they were more or less monopolising his theatre, not to mention scaring off the talent among the holidaymakers, which it was the purpose of the show to encourage. The girls were a
little sad, but they understood and, in any case, there were new horizons ahead. A number of professional talent spotters, or people who claimed they were, had already approached them after their
appearances, offering them jobs in show business.

This would never be more than a dream, they knew, but the idea was thrilling and they were proud and flattered that they had been asked. The manager of the Arcadia was impressed too and he
couldn’t see why they shouldn’t have their chance. Thinking to give them a pleasant surprise and not knowing anything about Romanies, he found out where Naughty’s caravan was
parked and went to see him. He congratulated him on his beautiful and talented daughters and told him that he would like to be their manager and give them training for careers on the stage.

Although he listened politely, Naughty’s face froze as the mystery caller talked. At first he thought the manager must be a gorger lunatic, rambling on senselessly. Then, as the penny
dropped that it really was his precious daughters the man was talking about and that they had been performing on stage in front of a lot of gorgers, he began to feel his blood boil. He somehow
managed to calm himself down and remain polite, although his negative answer was so emphatic the manager realised he was not to be argued with.

When the girls came home, they took one look at their father’s face and realised they’d been rumbled. They were lucky they shared the blame equally and Naughty didn’t know
which one to start with. For some reason, though, he did not get as angry as he thought he would; he felt more sadness in his heart, for he realised that this was another turning point. On the
road, always travelling, this would never have happened. In the intimate confines of the vardos there were no secrets to be kept from each other, no chances to conspire. Things were different
now.

It is true that the Romanies know little of culture outside of music and dancing; literature and art are not part of our lives, but we are all artistic in our own way. One particularly important
craft among Romanies was always that of woodcarving, a practice put to good use making toys, bender tents and pegs for hawking. Our arts, or skills, are on the whole practical; we do not take a
commercial view of them, as this story shows.

One day the family was pulled up near to a farm and the farmer, knowing the Romany reputation, asked Naughty to attend to one of his sick horses. Naughty worked through the night on the horse
and managed to save its life, much to the relief of the farmer, whose favourite mare it was.

Naughty refused payment, for they were parked up on the farmer’s land and it was what he would have done for any sick animal. But the farmer was adamant that he should have something for
his night’s work and, taking Naughty into the living room of the farmhouse, he insisted that he choose one of two paintings that hung there as a reward.

It was not a difficult choice for Naughty since one of the paintings was a seascape and the other was of a horse. The horse, naturally, was the one he chose and the farmer wrapped it up for him
to take away, at the same time mentioning, quite casually, that it had no value at all but that the seascape was valued at a hundred guineas. But Naughty couldn’t have cared less. He
couldn’t understand why someone would want to hang an ugly picture on the wall just because it was worth lots of money!

In spite of the social restrictions placed on the girls, particularly by Naughty, there were no bars to their enjoyment of life, and as time went on, one by one they fell in love and married.
Cissie, the eldest, was the first. The family moved to a winter stopping ground alongside the Lees and a mutual attraction sprang up between her and a young man called Laurence, so they eloped. If
this sounds disrespectful to her parents, that wasn’t the case at all. Eloping is the traditional Romany way.

The courtship of the Romany is vastly different from that of the gorger. Even now, a Romany girl is a virgin when she marries. She marries one man for life, and even if widowed when young, it is
unlikely that she will marry again. This is not preached as a virtue, it is simply understood as one. We are brought up in a society which has strict moral standards and we think and behave in that
way, as did our parents and grandparents and theirs before them. The close, tight-knit Romany society has not been exposed to, nor is it receptive to, the changes that have characterised the gorger
way of life. If, in some ways, we are now reluctantly being drawn into the gorger society, these walls of strict morality, which we built to protect the purity of our Romany life, will be the last
to crumble.

Marriages are not arranged, but usually the parents will have a mate in mind for their sons or daughters. When they think the time is right they will make sure that they and their prospective
in-laws are travelling in the same direction, thus allowing a discreet meeting between boy and girl, safely supervised by two sets of parents.

When my mother was travelling, young people were allowed to look at each other, so long as the looks were not too familiar, and the first stage of casting glances went on for quite a while. They
would eventually move on to talking, but would certainly never go out with each other. Even to be seen alone together would straight away set the elders asking questions, and any answers had to be
good ones.

There is nothing immoral about the elopement and there is no sex involved; it is simply a commitment on the part of the young couple. They are not considered married, nor do they consider
themselves married, until the Romany ceremony has taken place, regardless of whether they have been through a ceremony in a church or a register office or anywhere else. Every member of my family
has eloped, including me. It is the way in which a Romany man claims his bride. Traditionally, they run off to the nearest group of Romanies, where they spend the night. Separately, of course.

Aunt Lena was the next to get married, to Terence Hewitt. Terence and his family were from Great Yarmouth and they had known each other for a long time through their families. The Hewitts were a
good Romany family, as were the Herons of Blackpool. Vera married Cardy Heron when they were both nineteen. Then Adeline fell in love with Sydney Holt, who was a gorger, which initially caused
quite a bit of commotion in the family. But he soon took to the Romany way of life and proved himself to be a wonderful husband to Adeline, so it wasn’t long before he was well and truly
accepted into the fold. It was now only my mother and Shunty who were yet to find husbands.

SEVEN

Secret Liaisons

Skegness was bustling in the summer of 1936. At Ingoldmells, Billy Butlin had opened his first ever holiday camp, in what was once a farmer’s field, housing his guests in
rows of chalets and providing food and entertainment for the sum of thirty-five shillings a week. The family must have been busier than ever that season, with the influx of holiday camp guests to
the Butlins amusement park, but they were coping with sadness too.

That year Naughty had suffered two strokes. It was hard for them to see this once vigorous man, with his twinkling eyes, laid low. Granny always said that she blamed the fact they had stopped
travelling for his illness. When they travelled, he walked for miles most days, had good food and lots of fresh air. Once they settled down, he seemed to start shutting down too.

On 27 June, Aunty Vera gave birth to her first child, a little girl. When he was told the news, Naughty asked that she be named Honour, after his mother. He died three days later from a third
stroke. He was only sixty years old.

He was buried at Gorleston cemetery, alongside other members of his family, and Granny chose a big white marble angel as his headstone.

His death was not something Granny talked about – she preferred to remember the many happy years they’d shared. But I can imagine how devastated she must have been and also how she
must have forced herself to stay strong for the sake of her family.

More change was on the way the following summer, when my mother met my father, Eddie Price. He was born in Nottingham in 1913. His father was a tailor and his mother died when he was young. Now
aged twenty-three, Eddie was his own man, without a care in the world. He was working at the Butlins amusement park, erecting the hall of mirrors, when, strolling through the crowds one day, he saw
a pretty girl standing by the entrance to Madam Eva’s palmistry booth, getting some sun while waiting for customers.

He took her by surprise when he tried to talk to her, and she immediately noticed something about him that she’d never noticed in anyone else before. Something intriguing, even
captivating. She felt herself blush and an urge came over her to talk to this young man to find out who he was. But, knowing she’d be in trouble if her brothers caught her, Mummy told him to
go away. Every day for three days he walked that way again, hoping to see her, but each day one of the other sisters was working there instead.

One evening he took himself off to the dance hall at the holiday camp and there, by happy coincidence, he found my mother again. She was with several of the travelling girls from the amusement
park and her eagle-eyed brothers, but there was no objection to her dancing. They spotted each other immediately and exchanged glances, so when the band struck up ‘I’ve Got You Under My
Skin’, my father seized his chance. He asked her for a dance and she agreed. Mummy tried to avert her gaze while she danced with him, but every now and then, when she thought he wasn’t
looking, she’d peek up at this stranger who had made such an impression on her. Eddie was an attractive man, resembling some of the South American heartthrobs she had seen in the movies. With
his slicked-back hair and his pencil moustache, he was obviously a bit of a lad, or so Uncle Nathan thought disapprovingly. Still, Mummy was having fun for what felt like the first time in her life
and she was determined to enjoy every minute of it.

My father did his best to monopolise her for the rest of the evening. He knew better than to go outside the grounds of what was right, but over the next few weeks he did manage to make himself
Mummy’s regular dancing partner. He tried to make friends with her brothers too, but they knew that he was carrying a torch for their sister and they went out of their way to discourage him
as much as possible. He was far too cocky for their liking and wasn’t even Romany, so anything more than a dance was out of the question.

Aware of this hostility, the couple managed to snatch a number of short, secret meetings on the promenade during the summer. Before too long, Daddy proposed to Mummy and, almost to her surprise,
she accepted. She was too terrified to tell her family anything about it. But they went ahead and, as the season was drawing to an end, made the necessary arrangements, and one morning they took
the plunge and were quickly and secretly married in a gorger church.

Still, Mummy was too frightened to tell anyone and, despite Daddy’s pleadings, she actually continued to live at home as a single girl for six whole weeks until, one day, she managed to
pluck up enough courage to tell her mother. Granny insisted that the young man be brought before her immediately.

My mother went to get my father and she led him into the field where the family wagons were resting. There was a whole crowd of Romanies jostling around him and he thought for a moment that he
was actually going to get lynched.

Granny’s first words to the newlyweds before her were ‘You horrible little people.’ But she followed this up with a stern question to Daddy: ‘What will you have to
drink?’

BOOK: The Girl in the Painted Caravan
13.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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