As the steak plates are cleared away and the dessert menus handed round, conversation has died away to a minimum and I’m wondering who’ll be first to say, Let’s give up.
It won’t be me. No way. I’m here till the bitter end. But it might be Janice. She’s looking a bit frayed around the edges. I bet she’s longing to get back to Oxshott.
“So can I get you folks anything for dessert?” Our waitress, Mary-Jo, has approached the table.
“You don’t know any way to get in touch with Raymond Earle, do you?” I say impulsively. “We’re here to see him, but he’s being a bit reclusive.”
“Raymond Earle?” She wrinkles her brow. “Guy up at Red Ranch?”
“Exactly.” I feel a surge of hope. “Do you know him?”
Maybe she works for him part-time, I think with sudden optimism. Maybe I can get into the ranch with her, pretending to be her assistant—
“Sorry, hon.” Mary-Jo’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “We don’t see a lot of him. Hey, Patty?” She turns to the woman at the bar. “These folks are after Raymond Earle.”
“We don’t see a lot of him,” says Patty, shaking her head.
“That’s right.” Mary-Jo turns back to us. “We don’t see a lot of him.”
“Oh well. Thanks anyway,” I say, deflated. “Could I have apple pie, please?”
“He’ll be at the fair tomorrow.” A hoarse voice comes from the corner, and I turn to see an elderly guy with a beard and a proper cowboy shirt with those metal collar tips. “He’ll be showing his pots and such.”
Everyone at the table swivels round in excitement, even Minnie.
“Seriously?”
“Will he definitely be there?”
“Where’s the fair?” Luke inquires. “What time does it start?”
“It’s up at Wilderness.” Mary-Jo looks surprised. “Wilderness County Fair. I assumed that’s why you folks were in town. It’s going on all week, you can’t miss it.”
“And Raymond will be there?” persists Mum.
“He’s usually there.” The bearded guy nods. “Exhibits his pots in the ceramics tent. Charges silly dollars. No one buys ’em, far as I can make out.”
“Y’all should go, if you’ve never been,” says Mary-Jo with enthusiasm. “It’s the best fair in the state. You got the livestock show, the pageant, the line dancing….”
Line dancing? Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to do line dancing.
I mean, not that we’re here to do line dancing. I shoot a guilty look at Suze, in case she read my thoughts.
“OK, this sounds like a plan.” Luke is addressing the table. “We stay overnight, hit the fair first thing, find Raymond in the ceramics tent, and pin him down.”
There’s a huge air of relief around the table. At last, Mum’s anxious frown has melted away. Let’s just hope this Raymond character comes up with the goods, I find myself thinking. Otherwise, we really will be at the end of the road, and I don’t know what I’ll do with Mum.
—
The next day I awake full of optimism. Wilderness County Fair, here we come! We slept at the Treeside Lodge, Wilderness, last night, which had a big cancellation and was very glad to have some last-minute visitors. Janice and Mum had to squash into one tiny room, which isn’t ideal, but it was that or the RV.
Every other guest at the lodge is here for the fair, which we discovered at breakfast. The other families were all wearing WILDERNESS COUNTY FAIR T-shirts and baseball caps and talking about their plans for the day, and the excitement was contagious. I googled the fair last night, and it’s huge! It has a zillion tents and stalls, plus a rodeo, livestock shows, and a huge Ferris wheel. According to the map, the ceramics tent is situated in the northwest of the fair. It’s near the best-decorated sheaves tent and the clogging festival, while nearby is the rodeo arena, which will hold the wild-cow milking, the pig scramble, and the mutton bustin’.
It’s like a foreign language to me. A whole tent for decorated sheaves? How do you decorate a sheaf, anyway? And what’s “clogging”? And what on earth is a pig scramble? Let alone mutton bustin’?
“Luke, what do you think mutton bustin’ is?” I say, looking up from the laptop.
“No idea,” he says, putting on his watch. “A mutton-eating competition?”
“Mutton-eating?” I make a face.
“There’s an Oreo-stacking contest, in case you’re interested,” he adds. “Saw it on the website last night.”
Now, that sounds good. I think I might be rather brilliant at stacking Oreos. I can already see myself presiding over a ten-foot stack, beaming at the audience as I receive first prize, which is probably a packet of Oreos.
Not that we’re going to enter the competitions, I hastily remind myself. We’re here for business. We’ll probably only stay for half an hour.
“Ready?” I say to Luke, as he reaches for his wallet. “Ready, Minnie? Ready for the fair?”
“Fair!” shouts Minnie joyously. “See Winnie-the-Pooh!”
Hmm. This is the trouble with taking your child to Disneyland. They then think all other fairs are Disneyland too, and it’s no use trying to explain to a two-year-old about branding and copyright, like Luke did last night.
“We might see Winnie-the-Pooh,” I say, just as Luke says, “We won’t see Winnie-the-Pooh.”
Minnie looks from Luke to me, confused.
“We won’t see Winnie-the-Pooh,” I amend quickly, just as Luke says, “We might see Winnie-the-Pooh.”
Argh. Every parenting book says the most important thing you can do is present a united front, otherwise your child gets confused and starts to exploit the differences between you. Which I do totally believe in, but it can be a challenge. There was one time when Luke said, “Mummy’s just going out now, Minnie,” when I’d changed my plans, and rather than contradict him, I went out of the front door, shouting, “Byee!” then climbed back in through a window.
(Mum said I was totally mad and that parenting books cause more harm than good, and she and Dad never bothered with all that nonsense, and, “Look how you turned out, Becky.” Whereupon Luke made this stifled noise and then said, “No, nothing,” when we all turned to look at him.)
I’ve dressed Minnie up in her little blue jeans and a new fringed suede vest, which Luke bought her yesterday, and she looks absolutely delicious: a proper Western girl. I’m wearing shorts and a sleeveless top and I’ve glanced at myself in the mirror and…I look fine. I’ll do.
Somehow I can’t get excited about what I look like anymore. I’m waiting for some bit of my brain to click in—the bit that would normally go: Woo-hoo! County fair! What’s the perfect outfit for that? But it doesn’t. It’s silent.
“Ready?” says Luke, at the door.
“Yup.” I force a smile. “Let’s go.”
It’s fine. Whatever. Maybe I’m just finally growing up.
As we arrive down in the lobby, everyone is assembled and there’s an air of anticipation.
“OK, so we’ll head straight for the ceramics tent,” Luke addresses the group. “Jane will approach Raymond, along with Becky, with the rest of us on standby.”
There was a bit of a tussle last night about who should accompany Mum to accost Raymond. Janice reckoned she was Best Friend, but I countered with Daughter. Then Suze suggested, “Couldn’t we all go?” but got shouted down. Anyway, I won, on the grounds that whatever Raymond says about Dad, good or bad, Mum and I should hear it first.
The only person who wasn’t remotely interested in meeting Raymond was Alicia. In fact, she’s not even coming to the county fair. She says she’s arranged a meeting in Tucson. A meeting in Tucson? I mean, honestly. Who arranges meetings in Tucson?
Well, I suppose people who live in Tucson do. But, you know. Apart from them.