The Freak Show
A Kind of Loving.
Earlier this week my Nanan died. She was 93, but could easily have made 100, though she was adamant she didn’t want that. She was lonely and had watched enough episodes of ‘Pointless’ ‘The Chase’ & ‘Tipping Point’ to drive the sanest human being to a long stay at Bedlam.
She had visitors of course, my mum, Aunty & sister have all been brilliant. Living nearby, they have shopped, bathed, changed beds and made tea for her, but sometimes that’s just not enough. My Grandad died around ten years ago, their life together was small but enough for them. They had few if any friends, no social circle to speak of, just family, but mainly, just each other. They bickered like it was an olympic sport, back and forth came the digs. One memorable one was an argument over the pronunciation of ‘Quiche’
‘It’s Quwitch’
‘Don’t be daft Margaret, it’s Quweetch’
‘No it’s not it’s..’
And so on, a game of verbal ping pong while we looked on unable to intervene and stop play, because somehow, it was those small interactions that glued their lives together. He spent his happiest times leant over the radio listening to football and cricket, and she clutching the hot water bottle she insisted she needed for her bad back and which he was ordered (and always did willingly) to fill. By the way, after his death, she never asked us to step into hot water bottle duties, it seems it was just another small thing they did for each other. Diamonds and pearls? No, for them love was a hot rubber bottle and enough peace and quiet to fill in the Pools coupon and listen to the results.
Strange Attractions.
What, you may well ask, has any of this got to do with all things dark? Well one of the kind things they did for us grandchildren was to take us on holiday. Caravan holidays to Skegness, a trip to Alton Towers and most memorably, a holiday in Bridlington, taking me and my younger cousins, Kerry and Sarah.
We stayed in a bay windowed terraced B&B. The three of us shared a bedroom, my little cousins, 8 & 9 at the time sharing the double bed, with 12 year old me on a camp bed laying across the bottom.
What could be better than a week of chips, sticks of rock and paddling in sea cold enough to damage nerve endings? I’ll tell you what could be better…
I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame…The red and white striped canvas tent erected along the seafront caught my eye instantly. Everything about it drew the horror loving, wax work patronising, circus visitor to it. Above the entrance, a beautifully creepy sign announced,
Freak Show!
I don’t remember any resistance to my pleas to Nanan & Grandad. They must have forgotten that I once got them on the Log Flume at Alton Towers (that photo down the final drop is a sight to behold), so somehow a benign exhibition on the seafront seemed like a lovely thing for us all to do.
My little cousins followed me in like lambs to the slaughter, unaware of what their older, clearly irresponsible cousin was about to subject them to. My memories of the displays are still clear all these years later. Enough body parts in formaldehyde to put Damien Hurst to shame and rows of glass cases containing re-imagined figures of two headed sheep and terrible taxidermy. There were also many photographs of human freaks which we now know, was not strange at all, but explained by medicine. For very good reasons these are, for the most part, no longer exhibited or referred to as ‘freaks’, but in 1980’s UK seaside resorts, political correctness and empathy for ‘other’ was still just a twinkle in daddy universe’s eye.
The 12 year old me became very interested in an exhibit entitled ‘Caterpillar man.’ I don’t know if he was a real thing that had existed, but a mock up of a body with just a head and a short, limbless body positioned as if crawling along a piece of faux grass lay before us. By now my unnerved cousins and slightly regretful Grandparents had seen quite enough, and so with the promise of a trip to the arcades I was lured from the tent and we made our way to the 2p push penny machines and more clouds of candy floss on sticks.
That night I tossed and turned in bed, staring up at the high ceiling, slightly peeling wallpaper and listening to my cousin’s sleepy chatter. High on sugar and my mind buzzing with the visit to the side show, sleep seemed impossible. When my cousin’s finally began to settle, a seemingly genius idea came into my head.
Silently I pushed back my covers and got out of my bed and crawled stealthlike onto theirs. Slowly slithering up the sheets and whispering in a low unnerving voice, ‘I am the Caterpillar Man, I am coming to get yoouuuuu.’
Now apparently, with moonlight shining through dark curtains, the shock of my strange voice and movement, this was not a wise thing to do to an 8 & 9 year old. By the time I had shimmied up beside them to reveal myself Ta da! they were both in such a state of trauma that my Nanan had to come to the room to calm them down.
The joke it seemed, was on me, because now they couldn’t sleep at all and feeling guilty I agreed to sleep with them. Now there were three of us squashed in the bed, two trembling and one still high on sugar and a berating from Nanan. Sleep? Not so much.
Reunion.
Next week we cousins will meet again, the inevitable family gatherings that seem to happen only at funerals. We will however laugh at all the good memories and stories about our Nanan, the tactless comments about our hairstyles, the meals of tinned mince and fried eggs atop greasy chips and those holidays they very kindly gave us. Another trip to Bridders girls? I suspect they will politely decline…