by J. M. Walker
Doris could hear humans screaming and arguing. She squinted and looked back through the darkness at the Big Top. She couldn’t spot Bessie or Bear. She thought she glimpsed the old leopard’s shape slinking into the long grass, but her attention was instantly drawn back to the tent. The flag upon it stopped flapping in the wind and the tall black silhouette of the Big Top began to collapse and fall. Orange flames burst out from its base, as the tent caught fire.
After The Show
No one died that night. All the paying customers made it to their beds, having seen a performance beyond any they could have expected for the entrance fee. Six orphans went missing for two days, but only their friends noticed or cared. And they found their way home anyhow, being used to running the streets, treating it as a holiday from the boarding house.
Lord Morgan scuffed a knee and his terrier had been cut by the old leopard, a tooth catching the dog’s hip. However, both felt slightly exhilarated by their encounter. Lord Morgan had much material for his academic research, while his dog had a story to tell the young pups.
The Ring Master did not feel the same way. He only got off his back for an hour or so, just enough time to escape the burning tent and rage against the injustice of it all, before hitting the bottle and falling down once more, staring and moaning at the stars. For the first time ever, he left the running of what was left of his circus to Jim the Strongman and the most steely of the performing girls.
Bessie was beside herself. In all her years she had never seen such a show. But worse that that, Bessie feared she was the one to have burned it all down. She remembered dropping the flaming stick from her beak on to the ground, as chaos filled the tent. She had looped and circled in the air as below her the leopard ran amok, and the people fled. She had tried to shout to Doris and Edward, and pleaded with Bear to wake up and escape Doris’s nervous feet. But the moment Doris charged, and the canvass walls caved in, Bessie flew straight upwards, heading for the tiny open circle at the top of the tent that led to the safety of the stars.
As she popped out of the Big Top she saw Doris running across the field. Though the moon shone, even an elephant soon disappeared into the black night. Bessie stayed aloft long enough to see the flames lick at the tent, and the circus boys scurry for the buckets of water stacked behind. She watched as the tent’s spire began to crumple, and as the people inside fled, trampling the grass and rabbit droppings underfoot. One young factory lad carried out a girl upon his shoulder, revealing her long socks and suspender under her skirt. Another pulled away his mate, both buzzing about the rogue cat and their near escape, while two more stayed to check no one had been left trapped. It was the company men who came in carriages that forgot themselves as they made for the gate, spitting and cursing.
Bessie didn’t know how Lord Morgan made it out. But she saw him surveying the scene from near the hot air balloon, which itself was half deflated. His fox-terrier stood next to him, still on guard. She spied the hedgehog looking for a quieter field, and she flew a circle around the circus, searching for her friends. Though surrounded by fleeing people and wildlife, she realised that she was alone. An owl hooted, sending a chill down her spine. The night felt cold. A bat flew past and Bessie suddenly felt different, an alien. She sought the refuge of the willow tree, and alighted upon a suitably small branch, unreachable by weasels. She fluffed out her feathers and buried her beak into her blue chest. She closed one eye, and rested.
By the morning the incident had attracted the attentions of the writers at the Bristol Mercury, as they searched for any story that might stave off the collapse of their own paper, assailed as it was by the growing number of national titles. The constabulary then visited the meadow, word having reached the local station of riotous behaviour in the fields, a not uncommon occurrence among people in those parts.
The young policeman struggled to get much sense out of the Ring Master. The policeman asked after the welfare of the paying public that had attended the still smouldering Big Top, and made passing inquiries to the health of the human members of the circus troupe.
Strangely though, he forgot about the animals. He disregarded the empty cages and wagons, the chains and collars lying on the grass and the straw bedding that had not been slept in. He failed to read the posters and the sign advertising the fire-juggling monkey. Or to wonder where in Bristol an elephant from India, a leopard from Africa, and a giant anteater and tufted capuchin from South America might now be hiding. He saw Bessie sitting in the tree, surveying the scene in the warm morning light. But not being a twitcher, or having any interest in birds, he didn’t realise that English budgies shouldn’t be flying free with the starlings.
So the policeman left the meadow full of drunk, stunned and sleepless performers and filed a small report noting the state of the burnt Big Top, still standing but only half tall and half black.
Bessie flew down from her perch and tried to catch the attention of one of the clowns. But he was in no mood to appreciate a dazzling bird dancing about his feet. He looked sad, his face still white with make up and shock. She bobbed on to a high wire girl, who sat on the stairs of a wagon twirling her hair, staring out down the meadow and the road to the city, with its regular jobs. She flitted over to Jim the Strongman, who was rousing the Ring Master from his crapulence. She pecked at the Ring Master’s boots and he opened his eyes.
“We’re finished,” he said.
Bessie heard him mutter about money. The Ring Master cursed the reputation of his circus and Charity the clairvoyant woman for not seeing this would happen. Bessie listened as Jim the Strongman reasoned with his boss, hoping to preserve some future for them all.
“Those stupid animals. They’ve burned the place down,” said the Ring Master, rubbing his hair, ignoring the strongman. “But without them we’re finished. You can’t have a proper circus without the animals.”
Bessie pecked at his boots some more, telling the Ring Master that all was not lost, that she was still here. As she listened some more, she started to feel as an eagle might. She spread her wings, and felt the wind against them. She took to the air and soared fifty feet high, looking down on the scene below.
“You can’t have a proper circus without the animals,” she said. “You can’t have a proper circus without the animals.”
And in that moment, she decided she could save it all. She would find the others, and they would return to Whyte and Wingate’s Big Top. They would wait for the circus boys to stitch the tent, and then they would once again put on a show, the greatest on Earth, or at least in Europe.
As she flew away over the willow tree and into her very own New World, she didn’t hear the Ring Master say one more thing.
“That scientist was right. You can’t teach animals anything. They are stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid and I’m going to have them all for it.”
Anteaters, especially giant ones, are quite resilient to fire. They like to forage out in the open, and across the pampas they roam, sticking their nose into everything, searching for any meal of more than a hundred ants or termites at a time. In the forests they rest, possibly because forests are warmer than grasslands on cold days and cooler on hot days. And when the flames come, as they do every season in South America, they do one of two things. Either they take to a burrow, in which they sleep, their huge bushy tail furled around their body and across their face. Or they take to the water, and swim for it, their powerful front legs digging through the wet.
Despite the weeping willow, there was little water near Whyte and Wingate’s circus, save for the buckets and water butt. But Bear the giant anteater knew how to burrow. The moment Doris the elephant ran from the tent, the seven-year-old eater of ants looked around. He was too slow to follow in Doris’s steps, and he didn’t want to tempt the old leopard in his hunting frenzy. He couldn’t navigate the fleeing humans, and could see the tent catching fire. But he could d
ig. So he did what all anteaters do when trapped by fire. He pawed at the ground, striking his talons with such verve that he tore at the sawdust and soil underneath. He dug and he excavated, his survival instinct removing whole clods of earth as the tent emptied and the canvass began to fall. He made a hole big enough to accept his rump, and in he went, curling up in a ball of resilient hair.
He closed his eyes and spent the next two hours in suspended animation, as the circus collapsed around him. Only when the shrieks stopped did he emerge from the tent.
Gently he wandered across the meadow, as about him the humans argued. He meandered down to the gate, which by now flapped open in the cool air. Bear sniffed for dogs, and then reasoned he was hungry. It was time to sample the local ants, he thought, and off he plodded up the path, seeking a suitable mound to break into.
Soon he reached another gate, and walked into another field. This was different from the meadow, less wild. Even in the darkness he could see it was flooded with yellow flowers. He stuck out his tongue and tasted the air, recognising it had been planted with oil seed rape. The animals often talked about the fields they travelled past. All apart from the leopard had wanted to sample rape, though they knew it was as rare in these parts as a crop of wild bananas. He pulled down a stalk and sniffed at the yellow heads. He didn’t like the taste. Then he saw a ladybird sitting quietly on the stem. With a flick of his tongue it was gone and Bear had begun to learn again how to feed himself.
He walked through that field eating what must have been a hundred ladybirds, some red with black spots, a few black with spots of red. He reached the other side and paused. He had come to a hedge, growing to his left and right into the distance. He looked back at the yellow jungle he’d just traversed and felt tired. So he pushed himself under the hedge, carved out a little wallow and curled up to sleep.
He was awoken by a flock of seagulls harassing a tiny English budgerigar. Bessie had taken refuge in his hedge and was busy hopping from branch to branch within the thicket, as above several herring gulls followed her movements with beady yellow eyes. Each minute or so, a seagull thrust its neck into the hedge and snapped at Bessie’s tail feathers. The little budgie didn’t know if they were trying to make friends or eat her.
As their webbed feet crashed down upon the small shiny leaves of the hedge, two tiny wrens hopped through to where Bessie was hiding. They quickly introduced themselves and beckoned Bessie to follow down the small tunnels they used to navigate the hedge’s innards. Bessie went after them, grateful, but feeling a little fat compared to the wrens, each one third of her own light weight.
The male wren led, darting forwards, ignoring a cranefly he’d usually spear and eat this time of year with his fine, pointed bill. The female followed, her plumage and manner the same as the male’s. But unlike her partner, she would think to turn and look behind, to ensure Bessie was keeping up. As the inside of the hedge darkened, the three birds hopped and darted until they reached a hollow, a spherical hole in the thicket safe from the wind and seagulls above. Bessie asked the birds their names, but they cocked their heads, bemused. They did not have names, they said. Why would they have names, they asked?
Bessie thought for a moment.
“So you know who you are,” she replied.
“We know who we are,” they answered together.
“How do you get each other’s attention, if you don’t have a name?” Bessie asked.
“It’s easy,” the birds replied. “We sing.”
And with that the tiny male wren opened his chest and beak, producing a loud, powerful stream of warbles and trills. Bessie was surprised and impressed by the beauty of his song and its volume. He was a natural performer, she thought.
“It’s best you stay here a while,” the female wren said to Bessie. “At least until the seagulls have gone.”
“Are they dangerous?” asked Bessie.
She had seen plenty of common gulls before, and a few of the gulls with black heads once competing for a chipped potato dropped by a small boy. And she had spotted herring gulls out to sea, when the circus had set up near a beach town. But she’d not encountered herring gulls until now, and found their manner confusing. Unlike most birds, herring gulls stamped their feet. They also seemed to peck at anything that moved.
“They can be,” said the male wren.
“It depends on the time of year,” said the female, ruefully.
Bessie welcomed their hospitality and rested, grateful for the opportunity. But after a hour, she awoke to find herself alone again. She realised the wrens had left her, and that by flying from the circus, she was even further from her friends. She bobbed down the tunnels until she found a hole in the hedge. She peered out, searching for the gulls, only to see a giant anteater below, digging at the soil.
“Bear!” she exclaimed, as she launched herself from her perch, pulling a loop in front of his nose.
Inspired by the wrens, she sang as she flew, her voice a constant chatter. She landed upon Bear’s back and chattered some more, contended and happy. For years, the circus had been her family, a bizarre flock of two and four-legged members, a flock she had never been separated from. Bessie was grateful to be reunited with her anteater.
Bear was surprised to see Bessie. It hadn’t yet occurred to him that he too had been alone since the fire, so wrapped up had he been in his own sleep and adventure. He’d had no time to rationalise his predicament, or fear for his future. Instead, he thought he’d put in a great performance. The escape from the Big Top had been a bit of a thrill. He’d enjoyed his night under the stars, the ladybirds and his field of yellow flowers. But Bessie greeted him with such joy that he began to think something wasn’t quite right with their situation.
He looked left and right along the hedge under which he’d slept. He peered back through the stalks and yellow flowers, only to see more of the crop obscuring his line of sight. He realised he was lost.
“Where are we?” he asked the budgerigar.
“Near the circus,” she answered. “Near the circus.”
“But where is the circus?” said Bear.
And Bessie realised she didn’t know. She thought to ask one of the homing pigeons that often flew past the Big Top, hurrying on their way to somewhere or other. They always knew where they were, she thought. She flew a few feet up into the sky, and noticed the field was free of pigeons. She climbed a little higher, and glimpsed what she thought was the top of a circus wagon parked in a lane that ran alongside the field of yellow. Then everything went black.
Bessie’s instinct instantly confirmed she’d been struck by another bird, but she couldn’t tell if by a beak, wing or two taloned feet. As she tumbled to the ground, the air knocked out of her lungs, she reasoned it couldn’t be a hawk or falcon. Raptors rarely miss, and instead of falling to earth, she’d be moving sideways by now, held in a firm grasp, taking her last breaths before being dispatched in a tree. Then she saw a large yellow beak and heard it clumsily snap the air. She spread her wings, braking her descent, and hit the ground, the impact cushioned by a stand of bluebells. She was saved by Bear, who stood over her body, rearing up on to his hind legs. He planted his bushy tail into the soil, and swiped at the herring gull that had tried to pluck Bessie out of the sky. He caught the big white and grey bird with his two leading talons, splitting its flight feathers, forcing it too from the air. As the seagull crash-landed next to the bluebells, Bear dropped his body, a massive front foot pinning Bessie’s attacker into the soil. He would have growled if he could.
“Don’t!” he heard Bessie cry. “Don’t! You’re not like the leopard.”
Bear curled back his paw and lifted it off the herring gull’s body. The bird looked at him with mad, confused eyes. It struggled to flip itself on to its chest. It then ran down the gully between the hedge and field desperately trying to make its wings work, and fl
ee this strange hairy monster with a long nose.
The shaken budgie and anteater watched the seagull fly away.
“Stay low Bessie. Stay with me,” said Bear.
He stuck out ten inches of tongue and licked Bessie’s dishevelled feathers, realising it was his turn to comfort her as she had him the previous day.
She hopped upon his back and Bear surveyed the terrain. He would use his nose to retrace his steps back through the yellow field and find the track that led to the meadow and circus.
The anteater and budgie emerged from the oil seed rape without being seen by another creature. The gate to the track was still open, so the two animals meandered through. Bessie had gained her bearings and became excited at the thought of seeing the circus wagon she had glimpsed before being attacked.
Down the path they walked, expecting each corner to reveal a throng of dressed-down clowns and circus boys and girls, all escorting the horse-drawn wagons as Whyte and Wingate’s Big Top rolled on to tomorrow’s pitch.
But the track was quiet. Bear put his nose to the ground, sniffing for the scent of his cage, for Doris and Edward, for the whip even. He sighted markings in the dried mud, lines of them matching the gauge of the wagons he’d spent much of his adult life riding. He cantered along the track, reaching the gate through which he’d passed the night before. He saw the sign advertising a fire-juggling monkey and ran into the field, hoping to see Doris in a harness, pulling tall the burned and deflated Big Top. But the meadow was empty.
“They’ve gone,” he heard Bessie chirp. “They’ve all gone.”