It used to be a real treat when a travelling carnival rolled into town. A little makeshift village would pop up overnight and people would throng the fairground. They’d buy candy floss, hook plastic ducks, catch a strongman performance. Then, as quickly as it came, the carnival would vanish, leaving nothing but a few food wrappers on the ground and divots where tent-poles had briefly stood.
These days, no-one’s really that bothered about the carnival. Crowds have been in decline for decades. They prefer to stay at home and have the entertainment come to them at a time of their choosing. Even more so as the Autumn evenings turn cold and damp.
Which how Charles Treadwell came to find himself in a nearly empty fairground one Halloween night. As he trudged through the soft turf, battling a bitterly cold drizzle, he reflected on how this wasn’t really his idea of fun. Even if the weather had been fine, this still wouldn’t have been his first choice for an evening’s entertainment. For a man more used to a meal in a fine restaurant followed, perhaps, by a challenging theatre piece, a night of hot dogs and sword swallowers felt a little tawdry and, frankly, beneath him.
