1939-01-06 — Page 15

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CHINA MAIL

FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JANUARY 6. 1939

UKE had not worried about his world until he met Suzanne. Then all his dreams seemed different; altered. Suzanne had made it so. She painted the life he was living as tawdry, tar- nished, cheap; making him stless, resentful, of the things he had once been proud of.

re-

Luke had been born in Luna Park on the site where the Ghost Train ran. 'That, of course, had been before the permanent place was built. He had been born in the bunk of a caravan with the fair at its fullest blast. With the whistles of his father's round- about screaming a Dixie ditty. And all his youth he had lived there, knowing no other world; accepting the sounds and scents and touch because they were part of him.

The fairest things his mind could find along the pathway of the past were related one and all to Luna Park. All his dreams and phantasies were of the fair which was his world:

Mornings a thousand years ago, or maybe yesterday. A baby in a basket by the wheel of a coloured van. High above a gipsy sky,

Short Story

laughing in a vivid light. fair around a hundred hills; canvas covered city.

The

a

Not until noon would the fair awake; would tarpaulins be taken away, and sunken in Luke's sub- conscious mind was the hub of that waking hour: workers one to another the scenic scene. The chug- chug-chug of a power plant. Whis- per of waking steam

The shout of across

But the memory which was most vivid was his mother at the Rifle Range. He remembered her push- ing long, glittering guns

into the hands of passers

by, as he clung in ecstatic worship to the folds of her voluminous skirts.

Never had he been frightened of the rifles" violent bark. His mother's skirts were friendly, pro- tecting him from fear, Neither had he wanted much to shoot the guns himself.

But as babyhood merged into boyhood and life became a longing, he craved with a passing very real to run the Rifle. He wanted to hold the rifles, one in each of his hands, just as his mother had held them years before. He wanted to pounce on the passing crowds and echo her battlecry:

"Try your skill at the Rifle Range! Every bottle made to break!"

There were other things, too, în Luna Park that Luke had longed to do, in those dream-filled days when youth was very young, but nothing he wanted so desperately as to run the Rifle Range.

To be a "rider" on the Alpine Climb, collecting coppers from "repeats." Hanging to the painted woodwork at the back of the fore- most car, whilst it rattled slowly, laboriously, high up above the fair. Then the crashing down from the crazy heights. The bellowing round the bends.

Life was so exciting in world which was his own.

this

So

"THE

!

RETURN"

muck more music, movement, colour than in the land beyond Luna Park. Every job in the fairground was steeped in high adventure, from stoking power fires to scenic switch control.

In turn he had tasted every- thing when he was still but a boy. He had been "control" of the Whirlwind Racer and also the Alpine Climb. He had seat the Ghost Train rattling оп its screaming, crazy journey. Had been "Keeper" of Kelly's Cottage; "Captain", of the Water Chute.

But always he came back to the Rifle Range-the same which his mother had run-and it was with glittering guns in his firm, brown hands that Suzanne first had seen him.

Luke had not noticed Suzanne in the crowd. Had not seen her till she stood by his side. Very close indeed she had been, her white arms touching his brown, and something in his bloodstream had quickened. The world was a wild awareness.

By John Gray

With the first mad moment over he was filled with new-found pride. He held the glittering guns still higher as he called to the crowd about. Into his tones there seemed to creep some age- old battlecry.

Suzanne had stood on by the Rifle Range and he knew it was he who held her, Had not Linda Romney, who sang at the Haunted Mill, told him a dozen times al- ready he was the best-looking boy in the fair? And had not. Robins, the Circus Master, said his figure was made for trapeze.

It was four o'clock in the after- noon when Suzanne stopped by the Range. At five o'clock when the crowd was thinning to answer the call of tea, the girl still stood there, watching. Luke gathered courage to speak at last:

"Like a shot, Miss?" he asked very boldly, as a cloak to his ner- vousness. "Come along! Let me show you! Won't be anything to

pay..

After the ice was broken it seemed they had known each other years, and 'only natural that Luke should leave the Range in other hands that evening, whilst he con- ducted Suzanne proudly round the rest of Luna Park.

A wild, mad evening it was for both, prelude of the quiet to come. They rushed from one scenic sen- sation, from one machine-made thrill to another. They jerked to horizontal in shallow, yellow swing, ignoring the red plush ropes. Crashed to crazy abandon to the depths of the Devil's Bowl. Lost themselves in laughter on The Shute.

But they sat în silence side by side through the "horrors" of the Haunted Mill, and when they stepped from the floating tub the silence was still with them.

It was not on the first evening that- Suzanne spoke about it: was not until they had been walking

out for several weeks, in fact.

Luke had wanted to hurry things in the headstrong way of youth: He would be twenty in ten month's time, and sho twenty-one. What, then, was to stop them marrying now?

Was

"But you must get a proper job, first, Luke," Suzanne had said in reply.

+

as

Luke became bewildered, though something had suddenly struck him. He had never thought of a life outside Luna Park.

"A proper job!" he stammered. "But I get man's money from Dad!"

"But Suzanne had her side of the matter all indexed and prepar- ed. She had been waiting for this moment for weeks: To potter about in Amusement Parks was all very well when single, but things were different when you married. You had responsibilities

In vain Luke tried to make her see that the fair was the family business. That both his parents, single and married, had lived their whole lives in The Park. And that he had been born there, too.

That was no reason, emphasised the other, why should he live and die there. Why, they might have children to study later. Luna Park must be left.

And Suzanne had painted the life he was living as tawdry, tar- nished, cheap, making him rest- less, resentful, of the things he had once been proud.

Although Luke's mind was fully made up, he went to his friend, the Seer, Before, when life had worried, he had gone to the paint- ed tent, and Amir the Great, as he styled himself, had given out good advice.

Amir was closing down for the night when Luke appeared at his pitch. He said he would like to speak with him. To ask about his future.

They had sat in the tiny, dar- kened hut and talked far into the night. Had sat until the fair about the tent was draped in tar- polin sheets. Until dancing stars in the high night sky were the only lights that lived.

"

"You will go," the Seer had said, slowly and quietly. "You will leave the land of your people and the life the stars decree, but one day and I see it clearly-you will return, my boy..

His talk with the Seer had cheered him. The pendulum swung again. But when, a week before the wedding, Suzanne had asked for the promise, he knew he would never break it. That there could now be no return.

Suzanne's father was a master builder. He took Luke under his wing. When the honeymoon weeks were over, he started work with bricks and mortar.

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The father had had them house built at the end of a new- made road. Slips of plane trees edged the pavements. They wore bordered, too, with grass.

"Oakdene" was painted on the gate. The walls were white with roughcast." Suzanne went into raptures about the place from the very first, but somehow to Luke of Luna Park the prim, just-so- ness grated.

Only he himself knew just how

hard was the great adaptation, how gaping was the gulf between Suburbia and Luna Park; and al-: though with the years the life became more easy, deep

in his.

mind was a yearning he dared not bring to life.

The building business quickly grew. The boom

was at

its.

he

height. Luke, finding that had a flair for drawing and de- signing, went in for architecture and came out with highest.

honours.

་

Desmond, their son, was ten years old when they moved away from "Oakdene.” For a fully qualified architect a smarter house was needed. So they moved to a more exclusive suburb. Had a garage and a maid.

Step by step was the ladder climbed which led to social heights! but in a haze about the bottom rung was the ghost of Luna Park. Though only when Luke was quite alone would his memory wander there.

Sir Luke he had headed the honours list for his work for ar- chitecture--was only forty-five- wher: Suzanne passed away. The illness was swift and merciful, although they had been prepared. Sir Luke and his son, now twenty- five, were present at the end,

Suzanne's last words to her husband were of the promise that' once was made.

"You never regretted, did you, Luke?" she asked with dying breath. But the man had: nơ time to answer. Death would wait no longer.

"What did she mean?" asked Desmond. "What did you pro-

mise her?"

The father looked back down the distant years to where the Gilded Valley lay. "hen he looked the. other in the eye.

"It was the promise about a ghost, my son, that can never live again." His voice was strangely quiet. It sounded far away.

He whose name was chiselled on so many modern buildings, he who a King had recognised and award- ed fullest honours, was hearing Dixie ditty jerk out from screaming whistles; was dashing past crazy framework down the drops of an Alpine Climb.

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Now that Suzanne had left him, his memory would not rest. Night (Continued on Page 7)

MENNEN BORATED POWDER

-ANTISEPTIC-

Soothes and Protects

MENNEN Antiseptic

BORATED POWDER

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