Diamond

by Jacqueline Wilson

  I was in earnest, but Hetty and Madame Adeline both started laughing, though the tears were pouring down their cheeks.

  ‘Dear Heavens, look at the three of us!’ said Madame Adeline. ‘We’re crying fit to rival Niagara Falls.’ She fetched several handkerchiefs from her dressing table. ‘There, girls, let us mop ourselves up. We’ve no call to be so sad. I am long past retiring age, as Tanglefield pointed out so unkindly. I am very lucky that dear Mr Marvel has made me such a generous offer.’

  ‘But do you love him, Madame Adeline?’ Hetty said doubtfully.

  ‘No, I can’t truthfully say I do, but perhaps I will grow to love him,’ said Madame Adeline. ‘He is a good kind man.’

  ‘Yes, he is. He’s been very good to me. I think I love him,’ I said. ‘And I know I love little Mavis. I will miss her so much as well.’

  ‘Oh dear, I wish I was as keen. I don’t really care for those ugly little monkeys. I hope Mr Marvel doesn’t expect them to be my babies too,’ said Madame Adeline. ‘I will invite him to tea, but I don’t really want the monkeys clambering over all my pretty things.’

  ‘Yes, maybe that would be just as well. They can be very rude at times and they do little messes everywhere,’ I said.

  ‘One of them once used the top of my head as a water closet!’ said Hetty, and we all laughed shakily.

  Mr Marvel came to tea wearing his best suit, an outfit he’d clearly not worn for many years. He must have been a much bigger man at one time, because he could have buttoned two Mr Marvels and all four monkeys inside the voluminous jacket, and the trousers rivalled Beppo’s clown costume, the hems trailing on the ground and totally obliterating his shoes. He had given himself such a fierce scrubbing that his face shone red and raw. His eyes were red too – perhaps he had had a private weep. But he presented Madame Adeline with a little posy of flowers and smiled at her radiantly. He gave me a kiss on my cheek and patted Hetty on the shoulder, but simply nodded shyly at Madame Adeline, clicking his heels together in salute.

  I saw Hetty and Madame Adeline exchange glances, and for an awful moment I thought they were going to laugh at him, and that would have been quite dreadful – but Madame Adeline composed herself, exclaimed over the flowers, and sat Mr Marvel down in her best armchair.

  She boiled a silver kettle on her spirit stove, made a large pot of tea and served her delightful pink and yellow cake, giving us all two big slices.

  Mr Marvel drew a picture for her of his cottage and labelled each room: our parlour; our kitchen. He delicately omitted pronouns for the two small bedrooms.

  ‘Perhaps you two little misses would like to come and stay with us next winter?’ he suggested.

  ‘Oh, yes please!’ I said, clapping my hands.

  ‘And if you will be kind enough to write down the exact address of this lovely cottage, Mr Marvel dear, I hope that you, Hetty, will write to me regularly to let me know how you both are,’ said Madame Adeline.

  ‘Oh, Hetty never writes letters,’ I said without thinking.

  I had paid close attention to her memoirs. I had begged to know more about Bertie the butcher’s boy and Freda the Female Giant in particular, but she had never managed to stay in touch. She didn’t even write to her own father, as far as I knew.

  Hetty looked stricken now. ‘I will write!’ she said. ‘I will write to you every week, Madame Adeline – and I will send you the schedule of our shows so that you will always know where to write back to me. You mean all the world to me, and I am going to keep in touch with you no matter what!’

  HETTY WAS AS good as her word. Every time we set up in a new field or meadow, she took her paper and pen and wrote at least two pages to Madame Adeline. She always left a little space at the end where I could scrawl Love from Diamond. At least I could spell my own name correctly now, though most long words still defeated me.

  It was wonderful getting letters back from Madame Adeline. She said she was settling in splendidly, and found Mr Marvel a very pleasant companion.

  ‘Does that mean she loves him now?’ I asked Hetty.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Hetty. ‘I think she’s maybe making the best of things.’

  Madame Adeline said the cottage had proved very damp and dirty at first, but she had spring-cleaned determinedly, and Mr Marvel had papered and painted every room. During most of the decoration he’d had to keep all the monkeys in their cage – after the first disastrous day when Marmaduke had snatched a brush and set about painting everything in sight, including himself, and little Mavis had gone for an ill-advised paddle in the bucket of wallpaper paste. But now the cottage was spick and span, and Madame Adeline had arranged all her pretty furniture and ornaments in her new parlour so that it looked almost like her wagon.

  She had given us her old wagon so that Hetty and I could travel together, with Sugar Poke to pull us to each new venue. Mister was totally against such an idea – but surprisingly, Marvo and Julip and Tag stuck up for me.

  ‘She’s already getting too big for that tiny hammock and there’s no room in our wagon for an extra bed,’ said Marvo.

  ‘She’s not such a tiny girl any more. It’s unseemly for her to share with us boys,’ said Julip.

  ‘Besides, she snores like a pig and keeps me awake half the night!’ added Tag.

  ‘I do not snore!’ I hissed.

  ‘I know, but I’m trying to help you get your own way, idiot,’ said Tag.

  It worked too! Maybe Mister knew that travelling together would be the only way to keep Hetty and me working hard at the circus, because we were missing Madame Adeline so sorely. He gave his permission for us to share the wagon – and for a while we were jubilant.

  It wasn’t quite such a splendid wagon without Madame Adeline’s furniture and trinkets, but Hetty begged Mr Tanglefield for another advance on her wages, and we bought two small second-hand beds, a battered chest of drawers, and a big sagging armchair, large enough for us both to squeeze into at one go. It all looked very bare and shabby and ugly at first, but Hetty made a blue and white coverlet for both beds, and big cushions embroidered with bluebirds for the chair. She showed me how to make a rag rug, and I sat on the bare floor in between practices and performances, tatting away, Hetty beside me.

  We also painted pictures for the walls. Hetty did the drawing part, but I came into my own when it came to applying watercolours. We did a portrait of dear Madame Adeline with her long red hair and her pink spangled dress. I was especially careful painting her face so that she looked beautiful, her eyes shaded blue, her cheeks very pink, her mouth a smiling crimson. Hetty drew a second picture of Midnight, though she had to stare long and hard at the new horses to make the legs bend the right way.

  I painted Midnight a glorious black, with streaks of white to emphasize his glossiness, and gave him lots of green grass to stand on, and a whole field behind him so that he could gallop around in carefree fashion whenever he fancied it.

  Madame Adeline assured us in her letters that he was loving his new settled life in the country and was nowhere near as lame now that he didn’t have to go through his paces three times a day. We hoped she was telling the truth and not just writing to reassure us.

  Hetty was similarly tactful in her letters to Madame Adeline. She never told lies, but she was often economical with the truth. She wrote about our daily life of course, and always said we were well and quite happy – which we were some of the time. She didn’t tell Madame Adeline that she was suffering from a series of sore throats, so that she had to gargle with salt water every day and gulp down Mr Tanglefield’s medicinal whisky to manage any kind of speaking voice for the show. One day she was so bad she could scarcely croak, and Mr Tanglefield called in a local doctor. He made Hetty open her mouth wide and shook his head gravely.

  ‘Her throat is very badly inflamed – she needs complete rest,’ he said.

  ‘She can’t rest. She’s a vital part of the show,’ said Mr Tanglefield.

  ‘That’s why she’s in such a state, shout
ing at the top of her voice twice daily,’ the doctor told him. ‘She should stay completely silent for at least two weeks. She has severely strained her vocal cords.’

  ‘She’s just got a sore throat! Can’t you give her a cough syrup or soothing lozenges?’ said Mr Tanglefield.

  ‘Are you deaf, sir? The only cure is rest,’ insisted the doctor.

  ‘Very well,’ said the ringmaster.

  He resumed his role that evening, but he was out of practice and his own voice sounded squeakier than ever. The crowd fidgeted and talked through his announcements. He came out of the big top white and fuming.

  ‘Ah, he’s sorely rattled now!’ said Mister gleefully. ‘He knows he’s not really up to the job himself. So if your little friend doesn’t recover her shrew’s tongue in a hurry, my guess is he’ll find a replacement for her. There’s many a pretty young girl who’d jump at the chance – and not try to throw her weight around and interfere.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Hetty. He’s just trying to frighten you,’ I said, though my own heart was beating fast.

  But we all knew how ruthless Mr Tanglefield could be.

  ‘If he dismisses me, who would look after you, Diamond?’ Hetty whispered.

  She went into town and bought her own syrup, her own lozenges, and doctored herself.

  ‘I am able to perform now,’ she whispered to Mr Tanglefield – and she just about managed it, though there was a permanent huskiness to her voice now and it was nowhere near its old strength.

  I worried about Hetty’s health and she worried about mine. I’d had a little growth spurt, and it made my arms and legs and back ache far more than usual. When Mister cricked me in the morning, I often felt as if my limbs would snap straight off. Although I was only an inch or so taller and maybe a few pounds heavier, I could not get to grips with my new, slightly sturdier body. I started misjudging simple somersaults and found using the springboard more of a nightmare than ever. I was terrified I’d lose the knack and fail to land with the pinpoint precision I needed. Each time, by some miracle, I managed it – but one day I was so scared, I couldn’t get on the springboard at all, and the act finished without my flying finale.

  Mister was waiting for me when we came out of the ring. Hetty was still busy announcing the other acts and couldn’t protect me. He ripped my costume down to my waist and beat me on the back, where it would not show. It hurt terribly. I’m wincing now as I remember. When he was finished at last, I hobbled off to the wagon and hid underneath, shaking with sobs.

  Marvo and Julip and Tag had been silently watching. Tag surprised me by wriggling under the wagon and lying beside me. He didn’t say anything, but he took hold of my hand and squeezed it hard. We lay together on our stomachs, while I felt the blood trickling down my back. Tag squeezed even harder, his fingernails distracting me from the pain. He’d had his fair share of beatings in the past. He knew just how much it hurt.

  I managed to get back into the ring for the grand parade, my costume sticking to my oozing back – and for many nights after that I undressed using my nightgown as a tent, pretending to Hetty that I’d suddenly become modestly bashful. I knew if she saw the stripes on my back, she’d challenge Mister – and then he might beat her too.

  So both Hetty and I glossed over accounts of our own performances in our letters to Madame Adeline. We wrote comments on Flora, or Bruno and his bears, or the mighty Elijah – but we never mentioned Mr Benger or Daffodil or Cornflower in case Mr Marvel shared Madame Adeline’s correspondence.

  They were incredibly popular additions to the company. The chimpanzees had the advantage of being much more visible in the ring. Mr Marvel’s monkeys had been so small that folk up in the back seats could barely see them and failed to appreciate their tricks properly.

  Daffodil and Cornflower made their presence felt, and interacted with the audience, scampering around the ring and suddenly snatching a cap here, a bonnet there. They tried them on themselves, preening ridiculously. When Mr Benger pretended to admonish them, they hung their heads and made little whimpering noises, and then rushed to return the headgear – only, of course, they generally put the gentlemen’s caps and bowlers on the ladies’ heads and saved the really elaborate old ladies’ bonnets for likely young men.

  They continued their fun and games with Mr Tanglefield, who always stood at the side watching each act. Cornflower gave him many more rabbit punches, and stuffed a cushion up inside his own sailor suit in glorious imitation.

  I knew that all these seemingly spontaneous tricks were patiently taught day after day, the chimps generously rewarded with titbits. I don’t think they knew why the audience laughed at their cheeky capers, but they certainly enjoyed their applause, and always stood and clapped themselves, grinning hugely.

  We didn’t write a single word to Madame Adeline about Cowboy Jonny and Lucky Heather either, though they were indeed the stars of the show now. They had a full twenty-minute slot right at the end. Cowboy Jonny always dressed in full Western regalia, his magnificent Stetson hat a permanent fixture on his head. In the ring he wore chaps too – fringed leather garments worn to protect his legs, which looked particularly dashing.

  He rode Riley, a spirited chestnut who was extraordinarily agile. When Cowboy Jonny was on his back, he responded to the slightest pressure and pranced about the ring, in and out of a series of little fences, as if he were weaving intricate patterns, spinning round, even walking backwards.

  Lucky Heather rode Sox – no, they danced, moving swiftly, gracefully and seemingly effortlessly to music. Sox’s four white hooves were like elegant little kid boots. My eyes always watered watching them. I was so glad Madame Adeline couldn’t see just how good they were.

  Then the dogs bounded into the ring. Sammy, Joe and Honey jumped through hoops and over fences and stood up in a row together, all teetering on their hind legs, while little Albie deliberately knocked over each hoop and fence, and then hurtled into the three German shepherds, sending them flying.

  ‘You’re like Albie, Diamond,’ said Tag, roaring with laughter.

  ‘Yes, but who does the crowd love best?’ said Julip, listening to them clap their hands sore at the little black and white spaniel’s antics.

  Then there was a wonderful riding interlude, with Cowboy Jonny and Lucky Heather leaping from one horse to another – not just Riley and Sox; they rode swift grey Rosie and dominant Ritzy and beautiful little Bella, all of them racing round and round the ring.

  They finished their act with a wonderful Western set piece: Cowboy Jonny and Lucky Heather practised their sharp-shooting skills, firing loud blanks from their smoking guns and making everyone jump. It was such an exciting climax to the show that the grand parade of all the artistes and animals was almost overshadowed.

  Hetty was determined to hate them because they had taken Madame Adeline’s place, albeit unwittingly. I found it difficult to resist the dogs, especially Albie – and of course the more I petted them, the more they wanted to be my friend. I saved all my orange tributes in the ring to give to them later as treats.

  I was more wary of the horses, but one day, when I was watching Lucky Heather grooming Bella, she handed me a brush and said, ‘Do you want to come and give me a hand, Diamond?’

  I brushed my own hair every morning and felt indifferent about the whole process, but brushing Bella’s mane and tail was another glorious matter altogether. She snuffled softly, obviously enjoying herself too. I rushed to groom her every day, and she always greeted me happily.

  ‘She likes you, Diamond! Perhaps you could have a little ride on her back, if I hold you very steady?’ said Lucky Heather.

  ‘Oh, please!’ I said. When I was straddling Bella’s beautiful chestnut back, I was so full of pride that I had to shout at the top of my lungs, ‘Look at me, Hetty, look at me!’

  But Hetty would not look. Lucky Heather offered her a ride on any of the horses, but Hetty shook her head curtly. She wasn’t a good horsewoman, so perhaps she wasn’t tempted
too much. It was another matter when Cowboy Jonny let Tag try on his Stetson and have a go at firing his gun. She couldn’t help watching enviously.

  ‘Would you like a go, Hetty?’ asked Cowboy Jonny.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Hetty, with pinched nostrils.

  ‘You’re silly, Hetty,’ I said as we got ready for that evening’s performance. ‘Cowboy Jonny and Lucky Heather are lovely. Why won’t you be friends with them?’

  ‘You know why,’ said Hetty, pulling on her boots.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not really their fault that Madame Adeline had to leave,’ I said.

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Hetty, and she tied her boot so fiercely that the lace broke, which made her curse. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault! Why do you always have to blame other people all the time?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t you start lecturing me!’ shouted Hetty. ‘You’re half my age.’

  ‘But you know I’m right,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you just calm down and try to make friends with folk like a sensible girl?’

  She always laughed at me when I tried to talk like an adult. I hoped she’d do this now, and we’d stop this silly quarrel – but she lost her temper completely.

  ‘Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut, you priggish little fool!’ she cried, and stormed out of the wagon.

  I was left trembling with rage. Hetty really could be so difficult at times. I’d never really dared stand up to her before. I felt she was being very mean now. I knew she expected me to go running after her to apologize – but I wasn’t one bit sorry. Hetty was being childish, not me.

  ‘She’s just jealous because I’m friends with Lucky Heather,’ I said to my reflection in our looking glass. ‘Well, silly her. I shan’t say sorry. I shall wait until she says sorry to me . . .’ Though I knew I might have to wait a long while.

  I struggled to pin my own fairy wings on myself, but managed it somehow. I walked over to the big top to line up with Marvo, Julip and Tag. Hetty was there at the front, sucking lozenges for her throat. She didn’t so much as glance in my direction, though she must have heard the silver boys greeting me.