Close to Home

by Janet Gover

  Then she heard the crack, as loud in her mind as it had been that day in the tent. And the screams. And then she heard the sudden silence.

  Her daughter’s voice at the funeral haunted her still. ‘This is your fault, Madame. My children chose you, instead of their mother. And look what you have brought them to. My daughter is dead because of you. My son will be in pain, a cripple, for the rest of his life because of you. Are you satisfied now, Madame? Have you punished me enough for leaving your precious circus?’

  Her daughter’s back as she walked away that day had been ramrod straight—far more so than when she had been a circus performer—and Lucienne wondered just who was punishing who. They had not spoken since.

  She reached for the sparkling clip that lay on her dresser and added it to her carefully coiffed silver hair. Losing people you loved was so very hard. Far harder even than growing old. But she had done it before. She would do it again. Her concern now was for her grandson, and for le cirque. They were her family.

  She picked up the fan lying on her dressing table. Her eyes went slightly misty as she stroked the soft feathers. Not all memories were bad. Then she turned away from the truth of the mirror and went in search of Simon.

  Simon leaped to his feet as she entered the kitchen. ‘Grand-mère, how wonderful you look!’

  ‘Thank you, chéri. You are kind to lie to an old woman so.’

  ‘Old? Lucienne Chevalier? Never.’

  How she wished that was true. But it was fair to say that today she looked, and felt, better than she had for some time. She was wearing a beaded black dress that fell to her knees in a shimmer of light. Jet teardrops encased in silver hung around her neck and dangled from her ears. She wore a jet and feather headpiece that had been the height of Paris fashion when she was young.

  ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Of course, Grand-mère. The others are waiting.’

  It was nothing compared to the old days, when her circus had paraded through the great cities of Europe with elephants and cages of wild animals and strings of horses with feathered headstalls and gilded harnesses. But there was no doubt about the welcome their little convoy of vehicles received at the school. Children of all ages lined the fence as the cars drew near. The crowd was tiny compared to those she had once known, but the looks on their faces were exactly the same as on the faces lining her memory.

  The two teachers kept the eager youngsters out of the way as the cars and two small vans pulled through the open gates and parked near the school buildings.

  Meg greeted them as Simon opened the door for Lucienne.

  ‘Thank you for coming. The children are so looking forward to this. They’ve talked about nothing else all week.’

  ‘You are very welcome. It is our pleasure.’ Lucienne inclined her head graciously, while noting the look on Simon’s face. Lucienne liked what she could see. Her grandson might not realise it, but Lucienne knew Cupid’s arrow when she saw it. And it appeared Simon wasn’t the only one.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lucienne saw Finn Whelan also looking for a certain someone. The boy had insisted on being part of this little display. When he found the face he was looking for, the girl Jenny, Finn’s eyes lit up and he smiled. Lucienne knew that smile. She’d seen it many times in her youth—even once on the face of royalty. The smile pleased her too. Finn was a good boy, a little headstrong perhaps, but who was she to criticise that? She had been the same once. At some point, he and his father would make their peace, and all would be well.

  Meg led them to an area protected by large canvas sun sails, while her colleague mustered the children. It was the work of just a few minutes to lay a thick practice mat over the bitumen surface. A chair was provided for Lucienne and Meg did the introductions before inviting Lucienne to talk.

  Simon stepped up, extended his hand and bowed grandly. Lucienne put her small hand on his and rose to her feet. Then Simon stepped back and Lucienne spread her arms wide.

  ‘Mesdames and messieurs. Les enfants. Mes amis. Bienvenue au Cirque Chevalier.’

  She saw it, the excitement and wonder in their eyes, particularly in the eyes of the younger children in the front rows. This was the joy of her life. She dropped into a shallow curtsy, the light shining on the beads of her dress.

  ‘It is our great joy to bring le cirque to your place. Your home. Your school. For all of the history of mankind, the circus arts have entertained, enthralled and inspired, and it is our hope that today we will entertain, enthral and inspire each and every one of you. To begin—voilà. The Brothers Kobliska!’ Lucienne gestured with her left arm and stepped back as two men strode onto the practice mat. Both wore plain grey lycra costumes that highlighted their muscular frames. As Lucienne resumed her seat, the brothers began a sequence of acrobatic manoeuvres.

  Neven, the older brother, was the bigger of the two, and the children oohed and aahed as he tossed his smaller sibling, Dejan, over his head with the ease of a child throwing a doll, then stood rock still as Dejan rolled in midair to land upright on his brother’s broad shoulders. Simon stood nearby, acting as spotter in case of trouble.

  When the brothers bowed deeply at the end of their short performance, it wasn’t just the children applauding. Lucienne could see Meg’s eyes shining while she clapped, as excited as any of her students.

  Lucienne nodded at Simon, who took the floor. ‘Acrobatics has been around for more than two thousand years. Can anyone tell me where it was found in the ancient world?’

  ‘Greece,’ one of the older students offered.

  ‘That’s right. We see acrobats on ancient vases and in murals …’

  Lucienne had heard this a hundred, a thousand, times before. As ringmaster of one of the great circuses of Europe, her beloved father had believed in showing pride for the circus and its history. Without knowing it, the audiences at Le Cirque Chevalier had always been taught history as they had been entertained. The sound of her grandson’s voice somehow morphed into the sound of her father speaking a different language, telling the same stories to faces equally eager to hear them. Lucienne lost herself for a few moments, then pushed away the memory. Perhaps this was the future for Simon. He might not ever fly in the big top again, but as ringmaster, he could still be part of the world they both loved. She felt hope flare inside her. If only she could convince Simon.

  The audience broke into another round of applause, which became even louder as Simon turned to someone behind him, who tossed him some juggler’s skittles, which he spun into the air with ease and confidence. Lucienne hid her surprise. Like most circus folk, Simon had learned to juggle almost as soon as his hands were big enough and sure enough to hold a rubber ball. Even after finding his love for the trapeze, he’d juggled the way most people doodle; an instinctive, thought-free activity to keep his hands busy while his mind was elsewhere. But this was the first time she had seen him do it since the accident. She glanced to where Meg was standing behind her students and wondered how much she was responsible for this.

  Lucienne took centre stage again, this time to talk about her years in the circuses of Europe; stories of triumphant marches through the streets of Paris and Vienna, with lines of beautiful white horses tossing plumed harnesses, and slow-moving elephants draped in golden cloth.

  ‘Do you have elephants here?’ a small voice asked in the front.

  Lucienne smiled down at the girl. ‘No, ma petite. Not any more.’

  ‘Was it cruel to have elephants?’ This from one of the older children.

  ‘We loved our animals. All of them. And we did what we thought was best for them. Now, we no longer have animals in the circus. But—’ she winked broadly, ‘—next time you go to the open plains zoo, stand outside the elephant paddock and call for Rani. You never know what might happen.’

  The original questioner giggled, her eyes wide.

  ‘So, enough of listening to an old lady talk,’ Lucienne said. ‘Here is our Finn.’

  As Finn stepped forward, he tossed
skittles high above his head, juggling with an ease that gave lie to the difficulty of what he was doing.

  At the rear of the crowd, Jenny’s eyes glittered as she watched Finn build his balancing tower. She was smiling, and every time the boy looked her way, she ducked her head. Even from this distance, Lucienne could see she was blushing. Her friends were giggling behind their hands and whispering in her ears, which simply served to make her blush all the more furiously. Lucienne remembered when she had felt like that: when she first met her Jean-Luc. It was a feeling that hadn’t faded in the years of their marriage. Loving him had been easy and losing him had been hard, but they’d shared much joy. Losing Michelle had been different. Harder. Michelle had been so focused on her work, she had never taken the time to fall in love. It was unutterably sad that Lucienne had never seen her granddaughter look at someone the same way that Jenny was looking at Finn.

  Finn added the sixth and final skateboard to his tower. It was now almost as tall as he was. And it wobbled. That was the whole point. Placing his hands carefully on the top skateboard, he jumped lightly onto the bottom plank of the tower. It moved. Of course it did. The plank was resting on a cylinder that itself rolled slightly each time the tower above it moved. Level by level, Finn brought his feet, clad in soft, supple leather, higher and higher until he was on the top of the tower. He slowly straightened. Keeping his arms wide to maintain a precarious balance, he heard applause from the audience. Was Jenny applauding? He didn’t dare look. His total focus had to be on keeping himself and his tower upright.

  ‘Ready?’ Simon was standing behind him.

  ‘Yes.’

  Simon stepped back and, with a seemingly casual flick of one wrist, sent a skittle spinning towards him. Finn caught it with his left hand. Then a second skittle floated almost magically into the palm of his right hand. Slowly, every muscle alert to the slightest movement in the stack of skateboards, Finn tossed first one skittle then the other into the air. Once, twice—then one skateboard moved a fraction of a centimetre too far. Finn flung out one arm to balance himself, letting the skittle fall. It crashed into the skateboard tower and Finn struggled for a moment, but it was too late. His tower was falling. He leaped sideways, knowing that Simon would be there to steady him as he landed. The tower toppled, sending skateboards and cylinders crashing to the floor.

  Finn landed lightly, Simon’s hand on his back. Finn didn’t need his help, what he really needed was the floor to open up and swallow him, and he heard laughter from the watching crowd. His face burned as he bent to pick up the pieces of his toppled tower. He didn’t dare look for Jenny in case she was laughing too.

  ‘So you see, it really is not as easy as he makes it look,’ Simon told the class. ‘And as you saw, I was there to catch him. These tricks are dangerous, so never never try them and certainly not on your own. Now, let’s hear it for Finn.’

  The group applauded. Finn stepped forward to take his bow, but without his usual flair. As he straightened, he caught Jenny’s eyes. She was clapping loudly, her face lit by a brilliant smile. Suddenly he didn’t feel all that bad. He gave the skittles a flick into the air, juggling with one hand as he moved away from centre stage to make way for the next performers. One of the contortionists put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder as she passed.

  An hour later, it was all over. The smiles and applause seemed to indicate the visit was a resounding success, but there was only one opinion that really mattered to Finn. As the circus took its leave, he caught Jenny’s eye again and she smiled at him.

  Driving home, he barely heard what was being said by the rest of the group. As soon as all the gear had been properly packed away, he looked for his father, only to be told that Ron had driven into Glen Innes to pick up some supplies. By now, school should be out. Without a moment’s thought for the licence he didn’t have, Finn took the motorcycle that wasn’t yet his and rode into town.

  He found Jenny and her friends in the park and this time Jenny didn’t hesitate to come to talk to him.

  ‘That was so good!’

  ‘Nah. I blew it.’

  ‘But you had nine skateboards on top of each other! That was awesome.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Yeah, everybody thought so.’

  He liked the way she was looking at him as if he was some sort of hero. Then he heard the giggle of her girlfriends, watching them from the other side of the park.

  ‘Can you come for that ride on my bike now?’

  She glanced across the road at the real estate office. The door was shut, suggesting her father was out showing a property to a potential customer.

  ‘He’ll never know.’ Finn was a master at the art of keeping secrets from his father.

  Jenny hesitated for only a second, then nodded. ‘I’d love to.’

  That was when he realised he hadn’t brought a spare helmet. Safety first had been drilled into him for so long, it was second nature. He would never risk hurting Jenny, but he wanted to be alone with her so much.

  ‘Here. You take my helmet.’

  ‘But what about you?’

  ‘I’ll be careful. I’m a professional. Well, nearly.’ He slipped the helmet over her head. ‘Is that okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He carefully tightened the chin strap. When his fingers accidentally brushed the soft skin of her cheek, they both blushed.

  ‘Where should we go?’ he asked.

  ‘We could go to the creek. It’s behind the school. It’s nice there, even though there’s not much water, what with the drought and everything.’

  The ride took just a few minutes, but Finn wished it could have taken longer. He liked the feel of Jenny behind him on the bike, her arms wrapped around his body, holding tight. River gums lined the waterway, which glinted, reflecting the blue sky. The trees cast shade on the creek bank, where it was clear several generations of teenagers had come to be alone. A couple of fallen tree trunks lay like benches, the dry timber polished by many, many pairs of jeans.

  They sat down and for a while neither of them said anything.

  Finn thought he heard movement behind them. He turned, but saw no-one. Jenny frowned at him.

  ‘I just thought it might be … you know … someone else down here,’ he explained slowly. ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble. And, well, I get the feeling some people in town don’t approve of us—the circus folk. Especially your aunt.’

  Jenny’s face grew pensive. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with Aunt Alice. I mean, she’s a bit of a dragon. And she likes to run the place. But she’s basically kind. She’s not rude. Well, not normally.’

  ‘What has she got against us?’

  ‘I don’t know. My father’s the same. He and Mum argued about it last night. Something to do with her talking to her friends about the circus. But I don’t care.’ The last words were spoken defiantly. ‘If I want to see you, I will.’

  ‘But if they catch us … between my dad and your aunt, we’ll be grounded for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘It’s easy for me to walk down here after school. I could check to see if it’s free and then text you so you could meet me. Then no-one would know.’

  ‘I don’t have a phone, remember?’

  ‘Sorry. Everyone I know has a phone.’

  ‘I’ve never really had the need for one.’ He didn’t add that he didn’t have the money either. As a performer, he earned a salary, but his father took it all. Every cent of the allowance he got and any scraps of money he earned on the side had gone towards buying the motorbike. That had seemed far more important than a phone. Until this moment.

  ‘Your boss, Madam Lucienne. She’s wonderful.’

  ‘Madame?’ Finn had always respected her, even though he hadn’t had much to do with her. As Jenny said, she was his boss, but his father had always been the one he answered to.

  ‘She’s been all over the world. She’s seen so many things. Important people and all the places I will never see.’

  �
�You could see them too, Jenny. The world isn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘And neither am I, at this rate. I so envy you, Finn, travelling all the time like you do. I’m trapped in this stupid little town and you’re free.’ She reached over and ran her fingers down the tattoo on his forearm. ‘Saoirse.’

  The word had never sounded better to him. The feel of her fingers sent a warm rush through him. He watched her stroke his arm, then lifted his eyes to meet her steady gaze. Her eyes were blue, but not sky blue, nor the blue of a kingfisher’s wings. They were blue-grey. No, not grey. Violet? It seemed for a moment that the whole world paused. The creek stopped flowing, the breeze in the branches of the gums stilled, even the distant kookaburras fell silent.

  Her lips, when he kissed her, were soft and tasted of fruit. They tasted of a future that he suddenly wanted more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Simon was feeling good as he ran easily along the road towards the school. He felt even better when he saw that Meg was there, not running, but waiting by the gate to talk to him.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Hi.’ She looked as pleased to see him as he was to see her. ‘Before we start, I want to say thank you for yesterday. It really was great of you to arrange that.’

  ‘It looked like the kids enjoyed it.’

  ‘Oh, they did. And they weren’t the only ones.’

  Her smile was like a shaft of sunlight on a dull day. How come he hadn’t noticed that before? Or maybe it was because she was becoming more comfortable with him. Perhaps she was even beginning to trust him. He found himself, not for the first time, wondering what—or who—had put that fear in her eyes. And hating them for it.