Golden Hope

by Johanna Nicholls

  Yet he felt unaccountably nervous. For once it really seemed to matter.

  Chapter 6

  The electric feeling in the air before Show Time never failed to send Clytie’s pulse racing. Yet tonight there was something intangible in the air.

  The setting sun was a blaze of red and gold behind the hills encircling the oval. The circus hands had worked their magic to transform Hoffnung Cricket Ground, swiftly erecting the Big Top and tiers of seats around the sawdust ring, the lights and bandstand. Bunting and flashing coloured lights festooned the Big Top and the small booths for hoopla, fortune-telling and the fire-eater.

  Clytie obeyed her mother’s rule never to eat before a performance, but as she passed the cricket grandstand her mouth watered at the tantalising smell of hot pies, sausage rolls, and the popular new lamington cakes. The ‘adult soft drinks’ supplied by the Diggers’ Rest were no doubt beer in disguise.

  She instinctively avoided the guy ropes as she sauntered around the perimeter of the oval, drawing her shawl close to cover the spotted ‘kiddie’ dress worn in readiness for her first appearance.

  What was different about tonight? She felt a curious sense of nervous excitement welling up inside her. We were destined to come here. Why?

  Clytie returned the cheery waves of the younger roustabouts who were her classmates in Pedro’s circus school. They ran like clockwork to avoid Boss Gourlay docking their pay.

  She felt a deep wave of affection and loyalty to the only life, the only family she had ever known. Yet tonight she felt another emotion, somewhere between nostalgia and an unfamiliar, wistful pain for something she had never known.

  Hoffnung’s distant twinkling house lights seemed to beckon her – a symbol of her long dormant wish to taste the experience of ordinary folk who lived out their entire lives in one place from one sunrise to the next. What would it be like to have a real family home, a bedroom of her own and school friends? Time to grow a garden, observe the changing seasons, to wake to the laughter of kookaburras each morning, knowing she would sleep in the same bed every night.

  Why can’t we just stand still for a while?

  ‘Am I being selfish?’ she asked herself out loud. ‘No!’

  Clytie felt driven by a growing sense of urgency. It would be months before Wildebrand travelled to their customary winter base to rest, repair their props and equipment and rehearse new routines. She needed to buy time now. Mama needs to rest – no matter what Vlad says.

  Hearing Madame Zaza call her name, Clytie paused by the fortune-teller’s booth, its canvas wall showing an exotic gypsy with palms held over a crystal ball. Painted twenty years earlier, it was touched up each winter during the lay-off period. The fine cracks in the canvas now mirrored the lifelines on the old woman’s face.

  ‘Tiche told me what happened last night. You know the rules. We try not to interfere in domestic problems. But a Romani woman never turns her back on a friend. Your mother needs help. I will stand by you – if I can.’

  ‘I know you will, Zaza. But I can’t make Mama see the truth. She’s under so much pressure from Vlad, I’m afraid she’ll start again. She won’t, will she?’ Clytie added nervously. ‘She crossed her heart this time.’

  No need for me to spell it out. Her problem with the bottle is an open secret.

  It was a practice heavily frowned on. No matter how diligently they rehearsed and performed they were always shadowed by the threat of bad luck, injury, death.

  Madam Zaza plucked at her sleeve and whispered against possible eavesdroppers.

  ‘Dolores Hart loves you more than her life. She would never intentionally break her word. But you must watch Vlad like a hawk, yes?’ She gave a low moan of warning. ‘Something terrible is coming . . . I see money – a bank.’

  ‘You mean a bank hold-up? Like Ned Kelly’s gang?’ Clytie asked in disbelief.

  ‘No! Let poor Kelly rest in peace! But it will come before the moon wanes – and change everything!’

  Clytie failed to hold her tongue. ‘I’d be grateful for any clues, Zaza.’

  Clytie held her breath while Zaza focussed on the crystal ball. Her response was a mumbled Romani phrase that sounded ominous.

  ‘Here they are again! Those two young men. The one with the silver tongue. The other has no name. Hold a tight rein on your heart, girl – love is a runaway horse.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m too young for all that stuff,’ Clytie said in quick denial.

  ‘You’re past fifteen. Legally old enough to marry. Men believe they’re born to rule over women.’

  Does she mean Vlad and mother? Or someone in my life?

  ‘How can I tell the good ones from the rotten apples in the barrel? Mama hasn’t had much luck choosing men.’

  ‘I’ve watched Dolores since she was a little sprat younger than you. The Flying Harts were top-liners in all the great circuses across the water. Astley’s, Barnum and Bailey, and all. Her parents trained her well, but they spoilt her. She always led with her heart – threw caution to the winds when some handsome man promised her the world.’

  ‘Is that what my real father did? You know who he was, don’t you? Please, Zaza, tell me!’

  Zaza shook her head. ‘If you want your family history, ask Dolores.’

  ‘I’ve always wondered, do you tell the truth to all the townies who pay you?’

  ‘I am a proud Romani,’ Zaza corrected firmly. ‘I do not lie. Sometimes I just tell them what they want to hear – because the truth would be so painful it would spoil what little happiness remains to them.’

  ‘How difficult to decide how much to reveal. Are you hiding bad news from me? I can take the truth.’

  The old hands fluttered like fragile birds to dismiss her. ‘Go child or Vlad will be on your tail. May the Bari Weshen Dai guard you and your mother.’

  The Romani name for the Great Forest Mother – a blessing.

  Clytie bent and kissed the withered old cheek. ‘Thank you, Zaza.’

  Drawing her shawl around her shoulders, she headed towards the Hart wagon, her unwanted thoughts stuck like flies to flypaper.

  That Rom Delaney has a silver tongue – and he’s quite handsome in a roguish kind of way. If he tries to trick me, he’d better stand warned. Two can play that game – and I’ve cut my teeth on Vlad.

  Pedro the Clown was hovering a short distance from the Hart wagon, clearly waiting to waylay her. His extremely tall, stalk-like frame gave the impression he was walking on stilts even before he had strapped them on. Already in costume, his long mournful face was made up with the individually registered clown make-up that no other circus clown would dare copy. Pedro had taken the twelve-year-old Tiche under his wing after the boy’s well-to-do family placed him in the circus, relieved of the embarrassment of having a dwarf in the family. Fluent and eloquent as Pedro was as a teacher to the circus children, his speech when nervous was splintered with a heavy stutter.

  ‘Clytie – I need to warn you. Tiche told me about Dolores. More trouble is brewing.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Pedro. I can handle Vlad.’

  ‘This time it’s not so simple, girlie. I want you to know – we are always on your side. I’m proud to have taught you – you are always so hungry for knowledge. If our paths should ever part – please continue to study.’

  He seemed so distressed Clytie touched his sleeve to detain him.

  ‘Pedro, tell me the truth. There’s talk of a mutiny.’

  He mimed a sad, bewildered shrug and at the sound of Gourlay’s warning bell, hurried away.

  The moment Clytie entered her mother’s wagon, trouble was indeed waiting.

  Vlad stood toe to toe with Dolores, shouting down at her. Clytie flinched with anger at the sight of the dark smudges of kohl make-up around her mother’s eyes – a clear sign of tears. But for once Dolores was challenging him.

  ‘I never agreed to this, Vlad! I won’t let you do it.’

  ‘You have no choice. Do it or you’re on your own. I wipe my
hands of you.’

  ‘Mama, what’s wrong?’ Clytie demanded.

  Her mother’s tragic blue eyes and the pleading note in her voice struck Clytie with the sudden realisation. Their roles were reversed. Dolores had regressed to a child, leaving Clytie to play the role of mother.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault, Clytie. I didn’t break my promise. I just didn’t realise it had vodka . . .’

  She gestured helplessly to the flask. Vlad grabbed it and smashed it against the wall.

  ‘Stop lying, Dolores!’ he yelled. ‘You’re a boozer, a hopeless case. I was crazy to put up with you all these years.’

  He rejected Dolores’s tentatively outstretched hand, lunged out and sent her flying. Hitting her head against the wall, she cowered in the corner, sobbing like a child.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch my mother, you brute!’ Clytie flew at him, pushing him against the wall with a strength that surprised them both.

  Vlad backed away, hands held up in surrender. ‘Face the truth, girl. She’s too drunk to stand up – let alone perform on horseback. You can’t blame me for that. I’m not her keeper. Gourlay will sack the lot of us when he catches her in this condition.’

  ‘You won’t tell him?’ Clytie asked in horror.

  ‘What choice do I have? I can’t perform without her in my new act. Unless . . .’

  Dolores screamed. ‘No! I won’t let you. Not now – not ever.’ She collapsed weeping, rejecting Clytie’s attempts to calm her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Clytie felt her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth.

  ‘It’s too late to sober her up. I need you in her place. Just hand me my props – that shouldn’t be too difficult for you.’

  Vlad’s dark face was stony and expressionless as he tossed a parcel at Clytie.

  ‘Work it out between you,’ he said, slamming the door behind him.

  Clytie gasped when she opened the parcel.

  ‘How beautiful! Look what Zaza has made for you.’

  Held in her hands, the new costume bedazzled the eye with its myriad fragments of light.

  Dolores stared at it then turned her face to the wall. ‘Not for me.’

  Clytie was chilled by the truth. The costume was too small for Dolores. A red film of rage clouded her vision.

  Vlad ordered Zaza to make this for me – she tried to warn me. Mama’s too drunk to go on. I have no choice but to take her place.

  Dolores was out cold. Clytie placed a pillow beneath her mother’s head. With trembling hands she shed her old kiddie costume and unbound the bandage that flattened her breasts. The shimmering new costume fitted her like a glove.

  The face of the older girl in the mirror was the face of a stranger. Clytie read the expression in her eyes. Watch out, Vlad. This girl is capable of murder.

  Chapter 7

  The horse plodded along the quartz road past Hoffnung Mineral Springs, carrying Doc and his medical supplies. On one side lay a wide arm of the creek. The other side of the road was lined with mullock heaps from long abandoned diggings, silent witness to the local history of Crimea Point. This almost derelict end of town had in its heyday produced the richest gold nugget ever to come out of the whole Hoffnung goldfield.

  The long neglected place was reduced to a few lean-to shacks. The sun-bleached sign of Cobb and Co still swung over a corner building which had once served a thriving, boisterous community. Now its broken doors rattled in the wind, its windows boarded up like blind eyes in a wrinkled face. This end of town had once boasted eleven shanty pubs and an overflowing population of tent-dwelling diggers, including 12,000 Chinese fossickers.

  Doc was here to pay a social visit to Long Sam, Hoffnung’s last surviving ‘Celestial’, one of the 20,000 who had arrived in Victoria in a single year, equalling the number pouring off ships from Britain and Europe. Some had later returned to China, others remained in the Colony to become successful businessmen.

  Doc did his best to keep an unofficial eye on Long Sam’s health, a difficult feat considering the man was too proud to visit him as a patient. Reduced to poverty and a lonely life in a decrepit shack, Long Sam tended the Chinese graves of his last four friends in the cemetery, and to supplement his frugal diet, grew herbs and vegetables in his small patch adjacent to the creek.

  Doc was never resigned to the fact that Long Sam and his four fellow countrymen were once famous for their cabbages and had supplied the whole town with vegetables grown on the land they had cleared and farmed beside the Lerderderg Creek. Councillor Twyman had commandeered the farm of the last survivor, Long Sam, for the town’s use as Hoffnung Cricket Ground. Doc knew that Long Sam had been paid nothing, on legal grounds that he had not officially owned any title to the land.

  Here, the sole area that was sealed off from invasion by dogs, bush animals and the pranks of schoolboys was Long Sam’s vegetable plot. An ironic reminder of the past, it was fenced with curiously marked timber palings, their flecks of bright paint sole evidence of the Joss House where Chinese diggers had once worshipped.

  Doc’s horse-drawn cart came to a halt in front of the neat stone pathway to the cabin, the borders of which were unfenced but marked out by a line of white-washed quartz stones. Long Sam’s straw coolie hat rose above the vegetables he had trained along the trellis and his face broke into a welcoming smile.

  ‘Doc Hundey, how good to see you. You have time to take tea with me?’

  ‘I was counting on that, Sam. No tea as refreshing as your China tea.’

  Sam chuckled with pleasure and hurried off to bring the mugs of tea.

  Doc joined him on the log seat and after admiring his garden and casually mentioning the news from China he had read in the newspapers, he opened up the subject of his visit.

  ‘You remember Herbie Muddlestone, the old digger at Barnaby’s Ridge? He told me your cabbages were the world’s best.’

  Long Sam nodded and smiled. ‘Very kind old gentleman, he is well?’

  ‘He thought highly of you too, Sam. I was with him last night. He died peacefully in his sleep. He had ordered new spectacles but never got to wear them. He asked me to pass them on to you in case they were of any use to you.’

  Sam was clearly moved by the unexpected gift. He opened the case with care and ceremoniously placed the glasses on his nose. His face broke out in a radiant smile.

  ‘You have grey eyes, Doctor. I can see the colour of the lorikeets clearly – no longer a blur. How kind of Mr Herbie to think of me.’

  Doc smiled and looked away. He had learned over the past ten years how to conceal a lie that hurt no one. He had ordered the spectacles to be made up by an optician in Bitternbird, following his own rough calculations of Sam’s eyesight taken without his knowledge.

  ‘I can have them adjusted for you if one eye is short or long sighted.’

  ‘No, no,’ the Chinaman hugged them to his chest as if threatened by the loss of them. ‘They are perfect.’

  Doc gave a sigh of satisfaction.

  ‘I suppose you heard what happened this morning. You know Rom Delaney, that handsome lad with the silver tongue? Don’t ask me how but he managed to convince Wildebrand Circus to change their route and perform here in Hoffnung.’

  ‘A real live circus?’

  ‘What’s more, the manager gave me two free passes for tonight’s performance. I have a patient to visit. My sister may well attend in my place. That leaves one ticket going begging. Pity to waste it. Could you use it, Sam?’

  He held out the ticket in the palm of his hand. Sam looked stunned.

  Doc pressed on. ‘Chinese acrobats are the cleverest in the world, I’m told. I don’t know how good this circus is, but we’re never likely to have another one visit Hoffnung, are we?’

  Long Sam accepted the ticket with a trembling hand. ‘Thank you, Doctor, I can’t believe my change in fortune. This morning while I was drawing water from the creek two schoolboys broke into my house. They stole a box of precious things. Now the day has ended with these gifts.’


  Sam held the glasses and the circus pass as if he had discovered two golden nuggets. He bowed low. ‘Thanks to you, Doctor.’

  ‘My pleasure, Sam. Thanks for the tea. I must be off home now – it’s been a long day.’

  Long Sam was still waving as Doc steered the cart around the corner, cutting him off from sight.

  Doc’s thoughts returned to the problem of his difficult sister. He had not allowed Adelaide to appear in public since she collected her last remittance cheque from the Post Office, sent by registered mail from England to prevent anyone steaming the envelope open.

  He remembered the times as children when Father took them both to the circus.

  Me in my sailor suit. Adelaide in her long dress, her wild red hair streaming down her back . . . how delighted we were when Father explained that in circus life all are of value – stars, clowns, dwarves, bearded ladies. There are no outcasts in a circus.

  At the thought of the orthopaedic boot that had isolated Adelaide as a child, the target of the cruel taunts of village children, Doc patted the ticket in his vest pocket and encouraged the horse to increase its speed.

  Adelaide will need time to ready herself for a rare public appearance.

  Chapter 8

  Rom Delaney prided himself he was never one to turn down a windfall. Despite his triumph earlier in the day, and the heady promise of an account for twenty guineas at Tribe’s Mortgage Bank, he was pleased by the note delivered by Pius James’s messenger boy, offering him a few hours’ work shovelling coal that afternoon.

  What’s his hurry? Mine not to reason why – it’s cash in hand.

  Rom was confident he could finish in time to attend the circus.

  Humming a racy music hall song under his breath he worked to its rhythm, shovelling the final stage of the pyramid of coal into the cellar at the rear of Pius’s Farm Produce Store and the Blacksmith’s Forge. Pausing to free the tail of his damp shirt from his trousers, he mopped the sweat running down his face.

  Never having possessed a timepiece, Rom had learned to record time in his head. Anxious not to miss the opening act of the circus in case it involved Little Clytie, he kept an ear out for the whistle blast from the mine head that signalled the end of the miners’ day shift. Boss Jantzen had closed the mine for the next day to enable the miners to attend the circus with their families – and save him paying their wages.