‘Cry-baby! See, Julip, she’s even turned Marvo against me. And did you see Beppo smarming all over her! We do all the work and yet all we get is blows!’ Tag shouted, and he stormed off across the field.
‘Oh, Tag, please, come back! Don’t be cross. I promise I won’t dance about next time. I won’t do anything,’ I cried.
‘Leave him, Diamond. He’s just cross because he usually gets all the attention. You did perfectly – and if you please Beppo he’ll be all the sweeter to us too,’ said Marvo.
‘He won’t ever be sweet to me,’ said Julip, and he mooched off in the other direction.
‘Oh dear,’ I said, sniffling.
‘Don’t worry. They’ll both be back for the grand parade at the end of the show. Come, let’s go back to the wagon, little girl. You’re shivering.’
I had three real older brothers, but they’d never treated me as kindly as dear Marvo. I couldn’t stop shivering even back in the wagon, so he wrapped his huge greatcoat around me to warm me up. It trailed across the floor when I walked and my arms came only halfway down the sleeves, which made us both laugh.
‘I think we need a little tonic,’ said Marvo, and he produced a bottle of ginger beer. We shared it, sipping from the neck alternately. Marvo rummaged in his tea-chest and found an old pack of dog-eared cards.
‘Here, I’ll light a candle. Can you play Beggar my Neighbour, Diamond?’
I couldn’t, but I learned soon enough and we had a grand game together. Marvo didn’t have a pocket watch, but he knew by instinct the correct time to return to the big top for the closing parade. When we got there, Julip and Tag were already waiting. Julip gave me a little nod. Tag still glared, but when it was our turn to go into the ring he clasped my hand. We stepped out, all four in a line, and when I saw the smiles spread across the faces of all three boys, I made myself smile too, and the audience roared louder. Someone threw something at me and I ducked, startled. Another object came flying towards me, and I gasped, wondering why I was under attack.
‘They’re oranges,’ said Marvo. ‘They’re throwing them at you because they like you! Gather them up. We’ll share them out tonight.’
So I gathered up a great armful of oranges. Tag had a fair share too. Beppo took three and juggled with them, capering along beside us. He was still smiling when we got out of the ring.
‘Well done, all four of you!’ he said. ‘We’ll have a slap-up supper to celebrate.’
Marvo grinned, Julip squared his shoulders and even Tag smirked. We didn’t have the usual dubious stew. Beppo sent Tag running to the nearest butcher’s for five fine chops. He fried them with onions and streaky bacon and mushrooms, and then we each sucked an orange for afters. I asked if I could take an orange to Madame Adeline as a present, and Beppo was in such a good mood he just nodded cheerily.
‘For me, darling?’ said Madame Adeline, when I shyly handed her the orange. ‘But it’s yours, my love. You eat it.’
‘You’re always giving me nice treats, Madame Adeline,’ I said. ‘Please take it.’
‘Bless you, child . . .’ She looked as if she might cry, and insisted on giving me a slice of cake and a special violet chocolate in return.
‘Don’t stuff yourself too much, little one,’ said Beppo, seeing my full mouth. ‘We don’t want you sicking it all up in the second show for all to see.’
I found I was desperately nervous all over again for the evening performance – and this time I worried even when I was in the ring, though I took care to keep a big smile on my face. I knew I had to perform the way Beppo wanted or he would beat me – but I didn’t want to make Tag hate me even more, so I gave a very subdued performance, trying not to prance too much. I was so anxious that I stumbled when I did my back somersault and very nearly landed with a bump on my bottom in the sawdust – but this mishap made the crowd love me even more. ‘Aaah, the little pet!’ they cried. ‘Nearly took a tumble, and no wonder, she’s so tiny.’ ‘Doesn’t she look a real star? Such a pretty baby!’
I felt my face flushing – while Tag’s was scarlet with rage. When we came running off he pushed me violently again and called me terrible names. Beppo saw and heard it all, though Tag didn’t seem to care.
I thought Beppo would be angry, but he simply chuckled.
‘My, the boy’s jealous! What a temper!’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, it’s all my fault,’ I said.
‘No, you haven’t put a foot wrong. Well, you did, actually – that was a hopeless back somersault and you should be ashamed of yourself, little Miss Fairy – but it didn’t matter a jot, did it? They loved you even more, God bless ’em.’ Beppo pinched my cheek. ‘Five guineas well spent!’
I COULDN’T HELP feeling proud, especially when folk lingered outside the big top and called my name excitedly, wanting another smile and wave from me. I wished Mary-Martha could see me, and Matthew and Mark and Luke and little John. I wished Pa could see me too, though it might upset him. But we’d already moved on from my home town. We moved on most Saturday nights, everyone working together the moment the show was over.
I had to help too, collecting up the cushions from the best seats and storing them in great boxes. I helped Madame Adeline wrap all her pretty china in newspaper for the journey and helped Flora pack up her perambulator and her parasol and her long tightrope in a special trunk. All the menagerie artistes wanted to feed their own animals and secure them in their travelling cages. I certainly did not want to go near the great yellow lions who smelled so rank and devoured their meat so ferociously.
I was even a bit afraid of their water cousins – the males were too big and whiskery and they barked their heads off at the sight of a bucket of fish. I was certainly too much in awe of great Elijah to stand too close to him. But I started to help cage the troupe of performing monkeys, and loved packing up all their props and tiny costumes. I adored the monkeys – especially little Mavis, the baby.
These monkeys were much more interesting than surly little Jacko. They looked just like tiny, ugly people, but with such cute faces and lovely furry bodies. They had a special cage with real trees planted in great pots, so that the monkeys could swing amongst their branches, clinging on with their tiny hands, sometimes upside down, using their curling tails.
When I could get away from Beppo and the boys, I’d go and watch the monkeys in their cage. It took me a while to sort out all the adults, but right from the start the baby was my favourite. Most of the time she rode on her mother’s back or clung upside down to her stomach, but would sometimes wander off on little forays of her own, especially if she spotted a choice nut or apple chunk that had fallen out of the feeding tray. She’d suddenly dart off, seize the morsel, scamper right up to the highest branch she could find, look around furtively to see if any of her older relatives were watching, and then nibble happily at her treat.
I don’t know if the older monkeys were all relatives, but Mr Marvel, their trainer, got them decked out as a real family when he showed them in the ring. The oldest male was Marmaduke, and he had a tiny top hat and wore astonishing miniature boots on his hind paws. When he sat down on his little velvet armchair he kicked them off one at a time while his ‘wife’, Melinda, scurried to his side with a tiny pipe and a pair of diminutive carpet slippers. Their grown-up ‘daughter’, Marianne, went to a ball with a ribbon about her neck and waltzed round and round with a very small fiancé monkey called Michael, who kept trying to puff on a toy cigar while dancing. Marianne objected, and eventually seized the cigar and bit it in two.
Baby Mavis was by far the funniest little performer. Melinda would fetch her from the ‘nursery’, tenderly lifting her out of her little rocking cot and giving her a real bottle of milk. Then she made a great to-do of patting her on the back until Mavis made a rude windy noise, which made everyone laugh.
Melinda tried to get Mavis dressed in a napkin and little knitted jacket, but Mavis kept wriggling, attempting to get away, until eventually Melinda lost patience and sat on he
r head to keep her still. When she was dressed at last, Melinda took her for a walk in the perambulator while Mavis peeped out coyly, waving to everyone.
Mr Marvel then did a whole set piece where he was a photographer, and the entire family had to squeeze up together on the sofa to pose for their portrait. There was a great deal of pushing and shoving, and Mavis stole her father’s pipe and puffed at it rakishly. When Mr Marvel had them all assembled in their positions, Michael put his paws over his face – and then they all did, even Mavis. Mr Marvel shook his finger and muttered at them, pretending to give them a talking to.
‘Smile!’ he commanded them – and simultaneously they all opened their mouths and gave great monkey grins.
For their finale Mr Marvel gave them each a little sparkly silver bow, as if they were tiny members of the Silver Tumblers’ act! They all turned somersaults with immense agility and then stood in a line, clapping their paws. Whenever I watched them, I clapped until my hands hurt, and I took to visiting them every day in their cage.
Mr Marvel didn’t seem to mind too much. Sherzam was very wary about folk pestering Elijah, and Carlos shouted angrily if anyone came too close to his lions. Even dear Madame Adeline was very protective of Midnight and scolded me gently when she caught me feeding him a piece of my cake. But Mr Marvel let me share some of my oranges with the monkey family. I cut them into segments and poked them through the bars. Soon baby Mavis chattered excitedly at the sight of me and clung to the bars, her little mouth open and shutting. She didn’t mind too much if I couldn’t muster an orange or a few peanuts – she just seemed happy to see me. She sniffed my fingers and gave them little approving licks.
‘Watch out or she’ll bite you, lass,’ said Mr Marvel – but she never did.
‘Reckon you’ve got a way with my monkeys,’ he told me.
I liked Mr Marvel. Most of the circus men were too grand or busy to talk to me, or downright cruel and threatening like Beppo – but old Mr Marvel was a quiet, kindly gentleman. He looked a bit like his own monkey troupe. He was very brown, with so many wrinkles that you’d run out of pencil if you tried to draw his face. His little brown eyes were sunk deep into his head and his mouth contained two or three teeth at most. He looked some great age – eighty or ninety at least. Tag insisted he was over a hundred years old. Madame Adeline said this was nonsense: she reckoned Mr Marvel was around seventy.
I plucked up courage and asked Mr Marvel himself. He squinted at me and said, ‘As old as my eyes and a little older than my teeth,’ which told me nothing.
Another time I asked him if he’d thought about retiring.
‘I’ve thought about it, yes, missy, thought about it a lot – and concluded it’s not an appealing thought. I’d be sitting in the same chair every night twiddling my thumbs, and Marmaduke, Melinda, Marianne, Michael and little Mavis would be rattling around in their cage, bored out of their skulls. They love performing in the ring and so do I, so we’re not going to stop if we can help it.’
‘Well, you would disappoint hundreds and hundreds of people if you did,’ I said politely. ‘Yours is the most popular act – well, you and Madame Adeline and Midnight.’
‘Yes, dear Addie is another old trouper, bless her. She used to have six fine rosin-backed horses but that was in the old days. It’s too expensive to feed so many horses on the pittance old Tanglefield pays now.’
‘Well, I’ll certainly help you feed all your monkeys, Mr Marvel,’ I said earnestly.
‘You’re a good little lass. You’ve taken to this life like a duck to water. Anyone would think you were born to it.’ He looked at me carefully. ‘Beppo’s not too hard on you, is he?’
‘Well . . .’
Beppo was starting to be very hard indeed. I had thought my small success in the ring would be enough, but he had much bigger plans for me. He was training me up to be a proper acrobat and it was proving horribly hard. My bones ached from all the cruel cricking and I had bruises all over my body from the tumbles I took during rehearsals. Mister was threatening me with a royal beating if I didn’t shape up.
I felt panicky just thinking about it. ‘I wish . . . I wish I was part of a monkey act like yours, Mr Marvel,’ I said wistfully.
‘Do you not enjoy doing all your pretty tricks, Diamond?’
‘I can’t do many things,’ I said, swallowing hard, scared I might start crying. ‘I don’t think I’m any good at acrobatics. I’m all right on the ground, when it’s not too far to tumble. But now I have to try the springboard – and I haven’t enough spring. And I can’t even do a forward somersault yet. Mister Beppo says I’m a disgrace.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear, poor little maid,’ said Mr Marvel. ‘Maybe Beppo’s not training you right. I teach all my monkeys to do acrobatics and they love it. It’s all done with kindness and encouragement – and titbits as a reward. I can’t learn you any springboard tricks because that’s specialist work, but I’ll help you with your forward somersault – that’s simple.’ He leaned forward on his bowed legs, curled himself into a ball, and turned over in the air, landing neatly right way up in his carpet slippers.
‘Oh my goodness!’ I said, clapping him.
‘You’ll learn in no time, little lass,’ he told me. ‘It’s just one simple twirly over, forwards instead of backwards.’
‘But I always land on my head and it hurts,’ I said.
‘We’ll put my old mattress on the floor, and then if you tumble it won’t hurt a bit. That’s what I use for my monkeys. Oh, they love a little bounce on my mattress!’
Mr Marvel encouraged me for several days. Each time I tried a forward somersault he gave me a piece of chopped date whether I landed properly or not. He clapped me no matter how clumsy I was, and consequently I lost all fear and could soon do the front somersault effortlessly.
‘Bravo, Diamond! I knew you were a natural,’ he said.
‘Oh, wait till I show Mister Beppo!’ I said gratefully.
‘Don’t tell him I helped you. He won’t take kindly to it,’ Mr Marvel warned. ‘We don’t interfere with each other’s acts. I’m a mild man, but if I caught Beppo training my monkeys I’d be furious. Let him think he’s taught you.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘You need some tactical common sense, dearie.’
So the next rehearsal with Mister, I deliberately made several clumsy attempts at the wretched forward somersault, with Tag jeering, Julip staring moodily into space, and Marvo smiling encouragingly.
‘Dear Lord save us, it’s simple enough,’ Beppo said, raising his hand to hit me. ‘Watch Tag one more time and then do it!’
‘She’ll never ever do it because she’s useless,’ said Tag, doing an effortless somersault and then thumbing his nose at me.
‘Could you show me, Mister Beppo?’ I said, lisping like a little girl.
‘Stop that baby nonsense,’ he said, but he turned a somersault all the same.
‘Ah, now I see,’ I said – and copied him perfectly.
They all looked astonished.
‘Again!’ ordered Mister.
I turned one again – and again and again.
‘So we have the knack at last!’ he said. ‘Right! Now we’ll work out a proper routine for you.’
I started to wish I hadn’t mastered the forward somersault after all. Mister worked me extra hard for weeks, trying to make me perfect various bizarre kinds of somersault. I begged Mr Marvel to help me master the monkey’s somersault and the lion’s somersault and the Arab somersault, but he had never learned these himself, and couldn’t help me. I was blue with bruises again, and had to paint white greasepaint on my arms so they wouldn’t show in the ring.
‘She’ll never learn,’ said Tag – but I did start to master each somersault, one by one. I grew thinner than ever, but now I had hard little muscles in my arms and legs, and my stomach grew so strong that I didn’t flinch when Tag punched me.
He punched me a great deal, because Mister had worked out quite an elaborate little routine for me now, and it in
creased my popularity. I could have taken a bath in orange juice every night with all the fruit thrown by the admiring audience. Sometimes they waited outside the big top with bunches of flowers, or once, wondrously, a very large box of chocolates.
‘It’s not fair. She gets all the praise and presents while we do all the real work!’ Tag complained bitterly.
‘You got your share of her chocolates,’ said Marvo. ‘I don’t see what you’re moaning about.’
‘Me neither,’ said Julip. ‘You carry on and take over the whole act, Diamond – and then I can escape.’
‘I’m only a little part of the act,’ I said. ‘I can’t use the springboard.’
‘Not yet,’ said Marvo kindly. ‘But in a few years you might be ready. Tag was only twelve when he started springboard work.’
‘I’m not twelve for years and years and years,’ I said quickly. ‘And even when I am, I never want to do springboard work.’
‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ said Mister, overhearing. ‘In fact we might as well start training you up now. Think what a draw it would be – the little fairy who really can fly through the air! All the big circuses would be interested in such an act. We’d maybe make Askew’s and have a permanent gaff in London.’
I hoped desperately that Mister wasn’t serious, but at the very next rehearsal he had me try the springboard.
‘Ha!’ said Tag. ‘You’re going to come a cropper.’
‘She’s still too small, Beppo,’ said Julip.
‘If she misjudges her leap, she could break her neck,’ said Marvo.
‘She won’t misjudge it, not if she concentrates. And we’ll have her in the training harness,’ said Mister.
‘She can’t wear the harness for performances,’ Marvo persisted. ‘You can’t risk her doing springboard work, Beppo, it’s not right.’
Mister went to stand beside Marvo, his eyes narrowed, his mouth so set that his lips disappeared. Marvo towered above him – and yet took a step back, looking fearful.
‘Are you telling me what I can or can’t do?’ Mister asked.
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