Off To See The Wild West Show Part 2 Chapter 4 (4/5) By Frank Beill

(1/5), (2/5), (3/5), (4/5), (5/5). Part 1 Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Part 2 Prologue, Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4.

'Fancy a new dress?' I regretted my words. Did they sound like an insult? I did not mean them to be. Her eyes remained fixed on the display of expensive silk dresses. How beautiful she would look wearing any one of them, coming down a wide staircase beneath glittering crystal chandeliers. Cascades of red curls would tumble over milk white shoulders. Every eye would admire her grand entry into the ballroom. A Cinderella to end all Cinderellas. 'Aye, but not from here. Too good for the likes of me.'

'Nothing's too good for you, Sal.' I wasn't going to let her demean herself. She was special. The feeling that overcame me the previous night was back again. 'Don't go bein' daft, Sammy!' She slipped her arm into mine and her head came to rest on my shoulder. 'You sound like Stan when he was home from sea ... an' drunk!'

We made an unusual sight - the fishwife and a brown man dressed in buckskin. I was conscious that people were staring at us. Something for them to gossip about. We were both innocents but I should have known better. At any moment we could have been subjected to a torrent of abuse because the sight of a white woman accompanied by a brown man might have offended someone. Fortunately, all we got were strange looks and whispers behind our backs. I was used to them.

'I'm serious, Sal. Would you like a new dress? I want to treat you.' 'Aye, but let's go down the market. A posh frock's not much good for donkey stoning the step in.' She looked up at me and smiled. I'd never seen Sal smile this way before. The only person who ever smiled at me like this was Laughing Waters. I felt very happy but I also felt very sad. 'What's up, Sammy? Are you cryin'?' Her hand reached up and touched my cheek. The skin on her fingers was rough but the touch was magic. 'Nowt!' I slipped back into my old dialect without thinking. 'Let's go down the market.' * * *

There was still one person who I needed to find. I decided it was best if I found Mary on my own, so I put Sal on a Hessle Road tram with her bundle of shopping. I caught another but it was the Anlaby Road service. My timing was right. Hordes of children were teeming out of the yard of Tweed Street Board School like the raging torrent of a river in flood, which then split up into a hundred new tributaries across an empty plain. A thousand small eyes stared up at the strange sight, which was cutting through their throng like a ship heading upstream against the tide.

The entrance to the school was through a pair of green doors in a tiled porch. One solid looking door was open and I entered. The lower part of the corridor walls was decorated in polished white tiles that covered halfway up to the high ceiling. A single run of brown tiles indicated the end of the tiling and the beginning of yellow distempered walls. My boots echoed on the scrubbed flagstones as I walked past rows of hooked coat pegs on the other side. The matronly shape of a middle-aged woman blocking any further progress beyond the doorway at the end of the corridor.

Continued... Next Page (5/5)

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