Pastworld

by Ian Beck

  ‘I have never danced ever,’ I said, and then surprising myself, ‘I should very much like to dance. I have never walked on a rope, and I should very much like to walk on a rope.’

  ‘Well, then you shall,’ said Jago with a smile, and he clicked the horse into life again.

  I sat beside Jago and watched the passing buildings. Everything was in a state of disrepair, was ruined even. The street lights were mostly dark and there was no sign of life.

  ‘It’s very dark,’ I said.

  ‘We’re off the beaten track, on an unsupervised, undesignated route. One of the cracks in the perfect facade, the cracks we like to slip through. This area is awaiting completion or restoration, whatever the Corporation call it. Looks bleak, doesn’t it, but don’t worry, we are safe. I may be slight but I am fit and strong and besides I am well armed.’ He patted the seat beneath us and so I presumed he had a weapon hidden there.

  ‘Jack, my guardian, never told me about the reality of this place,’ I said. ‘He kept me in as much as possible, and we always went outside together. I thought all this time that we were living in London under the reign of Queen Victoria.’

  Jago smiled. ‘There are other undesignated places, wild tracts of woodland and deep forest not far from the city where we sometimes go and refresh ourselves in the real open air under real trees.’

  None of this explained why Jack never mentioned a word of this to me in all of our quiet attic life together. I had accepted the world I lived in as the only real world, which it was of course for me. But why had Jack kept me hidden? Jago had no answers to that. Jack sounded eccentric to him, perhaps even a little mad. Why would anyone lock a young girl away in an attic and keep her in ignorance of where she really was?

  .

  ‘Come on, wake up, sleepy head.’ It was Jago’s voice.

  I had been lost in a dream, floating high in the air on a great wave of red silk, a scarf that extended all the way across the night sky. The flap was pulled back. Grey light filtered in. It was cold. I was to meet the ‘family’. The warmth from inside the wagon was sucked out like breath into the frosty air. Snow was falling in big white flakes. I climbed out of the wagon. I stood shivering, wondering at the snow, wondering just how it was made, how high was the skydome that covered and surrounded us. We had stayed overnight in a square, something like the big market at Farringdon, but here the buildings were vacant, half destroyed. There was broken glass at the windows and old, tattered curtains flapped in the empty spaces. Our wagon was one of several, which were all drawn up in a loose half-circle; the horses steamed in the cold air. Jago had walked over to a group who stood together laughing and holding mugs of what I hoped was some good hot tea.

  Among the group I could see a huge woman dressed in bright red, and next to her was an equally large man draped in a leopard-skin tunic, his arms so huge they looked like legs. Between them, standing on a barrel, was a tiny man about a third my height. He wore an enormously long pair of shoes – they measured at least two feet – and as he chatted and laughed with the others he lifted himself up and balanced improbably on tiptoes until he reached above their heads.

  ‘Come over, meet everyone, Eve, and have some breakfast,’ said Jago.

  I walked over and stood among the group of odd-looking people. One woman had her back turned. She wore an elegant coat with a big fur collar. I was surprised when her collar moved independently and a bright pair of eyes looked back at me. The collar was a living animal – a familiar little spotted cat. It was the cat lady. The very one that Jack and I used to meet on our evening walks. I wasn’t anxious for her to notice me up close. She would surely tell Jack where I was and then I would be brought back and he would be in danger all over again. She was talking to another perfectly ordinary-looking woman; ordinary-looking in every way, except that she had a big dark beard. Nearly everybody was dressed in some exotic or eccentric costume.

  Jago gave me a mug of tea, and it felt good to wrap my cold hands round it.

  ‘This is the whole circus. This is our part of the city and so far it is mercifully free of Corporation interference or any spy cameras, for now anyway. It’s a welcome sort of no-man’s-land, that’s what we call it.’

  ‘No-man’s-land.’ I rolled the words round in my mind, no-man’s-land. I looked around. There were clowns and harlequins, Pierrots and tumblers, acrobats and freaks of all kinds, not very much like the lithographed circus pictures in the books at home, with all the lions and tigers and bears.

  ‘Look, no Gawkers here either,’ Jago said. ‘Never seen one yet anyway. Only our people, our family.’

  ‘Family,’ I said, holding the mug of hot tea against my cold cheek. ‘Family.’

  ‘All of us,’ said Jago, ‘the big ones, the little ones, the strong ones, the weak ones, why even little Malcy over there on the barrel, we all look out for each other, like brothers and sisters, just like your Jack tried to look out for you, Eve. It’s horrible being on your own in here – it’s an old-fashioned dog-eat-dog kind of a place, but at least you can rely on us.’

  I looked around at the friendly-looking crowd and nodded and then Jago grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into the very middle of the group. I stood there wrapped in the blanket, very nervous of them all gathered round me.

  ‘This is Eve,’ said Jago. ‘I rescued her from a ragged man and the streets. She hopes to be trained in the mysteries of our arts.’

  They laughed and one cheery voice called out, ‘Good luck, love.’

  The woman in red put her huge arm round my shoulder. ‘Welcome,’ she said, and squeezed me, which made me instinctively draw free, the blanket fell from my shoulders and I shivered.

  The cat woman was next to her and she put her head on one side and said, ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, my love. I wouldn’t forget a pretty face like yours.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

  The strongman interrupted. ‘She’s got the build for it, Jago. Dainty little feet, ain’t they?’

  There was some more good-natured laughter at this. The strongman crouched down in the snow in front of me. ‘Don’t mind me, miss,’ he said. He held my arms tight, squeezing at my muscles, then patted me down, pressing at my body as he went, at my thighs and calves; he shaped my ankles with his fingers and thumbs as if I were a horse. I had never been touched like that before by anyone. I felt a flush of anger, of shame even, and something else, a spark, a thrill. Then he stopped and drew his hands away. He hesitated and looked at me a little oddly. If I had not known better, I would swear that a moment of doubt, almost of fear, had crossed his face as he held my gaze. Then he grabbed me again around my waist and lifted me off my feet and straight up into the air, as if I weighed no more than a feather. He hoisted me up into the gently spinning snowflakes above his head. I wobbled and waved my arms to steady myself. Jago was watching me intently and with a serious expression on his face, while the others around us were smiling.

  Later Jago set up the poles and strung the rope between them. The strongman helped him to secure the guy-ropes so that the poles were steady. I watched him practise walking across the rope, back and forth over and over. It still looked like something I wanted to do.

  ‘Could I try the rope, please?’ I said.

  ‘You can’t just start on the rope,’ Jago said. ‘There is more to it than just running and dancing along a straight line. It’s dangerous for one thing.’

  ‘Just let me try once, please,’

  Jago looked at me seriously with his big dark eyes. ‘You really want to try it?’

  ‘Oh, please,’ I said.

  The strongman encouraged him.

  ‘Go on then, Jago,’ he said. ‘Why not give her a go? She’s got the shape for it and she felt strong to me. I’ll catch ’er for you if she falls. Ha ha, pretty little thing like that.’

  So Jago put a leather safety harness around my middle. He tested the buckles and the rope. The strongman lifted me up and I stood as straight as I could. I wa
s high up on a tiny wooden platform at one end of the tightrope, at least fifteen feet up over the square. I was cold, and I nervously flexed my toes while Jago lifted me a little off the platform to test the support rope.

  ‘Remember, try not to look down,’ he said. ‘If you feel wobbly, just stand still and breathe slowly, and remember you’re safe, there is the harness and if you fall you’ll just swing on the safety rope, so don’t panic.’

  By the time I was ready, some of the wagons had left, trailed off into another part of the city. The strongman had stayed to help Jago, and I could see him below, warming himself at a brazier. It was my own fault; I had begged to try the tightrope, I had wanted to try it, but it meant I must learn the hard way.

  I stepped out on to the rope. I kept my feet close together, one behind the other in a straight line. I felt an instinctive need to curl my toes over and around the rope, but the rope felt too thick.

  I swayed and I raised my arms straight out from my body, parallel to my shoulders, and I looked straight ahead to the other pole, twenty feet in front of me. I raised my leg and felt my weight shift suddenly on to the other leg. At first I couldn’t bring the other down in front of it and I began to wobble. I flailed my arms to keep my balance. Suddenly I was swinging free on the safety rope and my breath had been pushed out of me in a visible cloudy rush as the harness pulled up on my chest. I swung past Jago, who was standing at the top of the ladder, and he smiled at me as if to say, ‘I told you so.’ I felt a fresh determination and a little lurch in my stomach as I was lifted up and dumped back on to the platform.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ said Jago. ‘Just walk forward slowly, confidently, as if you were on a pavement, and you had to walk only on the cracks, one foot behind the other. Didn’t you play that as a child?’

  ‘Not that I remember,’ I said.

  I stood for a moment hunched forward, breathing hard, with my hands on my knees. I straightened myself, and I tried again.

  This time, emboldened by the smile from Jago and an appreciative whistle from the strongman, I launched myself at speed. I walked forward without thought, with my arms outstretched. I imagined that the rope at my feet was like a wide road opening up on either side of me. I would show Jago. I crossed the rope, and this time the sky didn’t turn over and the harness didn’t tighten.

  ‘That’s better, good, amazing, in fact,’ Jago said. ‘Try again but don’t try and run before you can walk.’

  I spent the rest of that cold morning trying the tightrope over and over. The strongman watched me from below, huddled by the brazier, warming himself as Jago paid out the line. My tenacity and Jago’s patience had impressed him. Despite the cold, and the dangerous height, I was gaining confidence with every one of my simple walks along the rope. I lost count of the number of times I crossed it. Then Jago had a try. He climbed up the support rope and stood bouncing in the middle of the tightrope; he balanced on one leg and twisted his hips so that his body faced outwards. In one hand he held his brightly patched parasol. He flung the parasol up in the air so it turned over and over. He caught the parasol on his head as it fell and held it there, so that he stood balanced on one leg and with the parasol upside down on his upturned head. I was on the platform, shivering but impressed all over again by Jago’s skills. If I could only master a little of that skill, I thought, I might be allowed to stay with them, to hide for ever. Anything but go back to living a pretend life in fear in that little attic room. I had discovered something that I could do, and do well, and perhaps it would be my ticket to freedom and a new life.

  .

  Jago seemed pleased, and surprised enough with my progress as we packed the stuff into the wagon. He allowed me to help harness up the skinny horse. ‘Where did you learn to do that? You’ve obviously done it before,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve never done it before, I told you so,’ I said. ‘I just somehow felt that I could.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I really think that we might make something of you.’

  ‘What’s the name of the horse?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s called Pelaw,’ said Jago. ‘She’s the same colour as Pelaw wax shoe polish, so that’s what I chose to call her.’

  ‘Pelaw,’ I said, and the horse snorted a little and showed her teeth, shook her mane from side to side. ‘She knows her name,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Jago. ‘She knows her name.’

  The woman with the cat collar was warming herself at the brazier. She walked over to me.

  ‘I know just who you are now, dear, I’ve worked it out. You’re the girl that sometimes walks with poor Jack, near my lodgings,’ she said. ‘You’re his daughter, surely?’

  ‘I think you are confusing me with someone else,’ I said brazenly, blushing in the cold air.

  ‘Sorry, dear, but I could’ve sworn,’ she said, and looked at me hard for a moment while she stroked her cat’s neck.

  She knew that I was lying.

  .

  I stayed happily with Jago and the family of other travelling players. For Jago my mystery was not where I had come from and why, but my mysterious ability to balance on the rope. Where had that come from?

  I began to perform with the harlequin troupe in market places and on street corners. We travelled together on our routes around the fringes of the city and I began to recognise the extent of the gulf between the ‘official’ beggars and the hordes of pinched-looking illicits that we passed and played to every day. I knew I had to continue my new life, my real adventure. I had a strange natural instinct for the tightrope. Within a few short days I could run and skip the narrow rope, for it now really did feel as wide as a road to me. My inner confidence was complete and Jago was pleased.

  A few days later the woman with the cat found me again. ‘It is you, my dear, isn’t it? I was right before,’ she said. ‘I know it is you because I saw poor Jack in the street and he said you had gone, run away, and he was in a terrible state worrying about you.’

  I had no reason to treat Jack cruelly, even if he had hidden me away and hidden the truth of my situation from me as well.

  ‘You are right,’ I said. ‘I did run away. I can’t tell you why, but I am happy and safe and want to stay here with Jago. Perhaps I might write a note that you could give to Jack from me to reassure him.’

  ‘I think that’s the least you could do. It would be a nice thing, dear, for poor Jack.’

  So I wrote him a note of reassurance and gave it to the lady with the cat, and she said she would deliver it to Jack. I felt a clear conscience. Jack had brought me up in ignorance. He had never spoken of my father and mother once, and for whatever reason of his own had denied me almost any truth, as well as letting me live in the belief that the world around me was all there was, when it was an illusion, an imitation of life.

  Soon I was performing in front of bigger crowds. I remember one afternoon I was wearing a flowing white dress. I often felt moments of real fear, standing at the top of the support pole, the crowd all gathered below me. Jago was at the bottom of the ladder wearing his one-man-band kit, banging on the bass drum with a foot pedal and playing his quivery little tune on the cornet. That afternoon a harlequin from one of the other wagons was balanced half-way up the ladder looking up at me, and holding the balancing parasol in case I felt I should need it. As usual I wanted to show Jago that I could dazzle on the rope. My feet just fitted neatly on to the little platform at the top of the striped pole. There was no safety harness now, no net, no second chance, I was on my own. The strongman was somewhere in the crowd too, waiting in case I should fall. The cornet music stopped, and Jago started playing a sharp roll on the snare drum, which rattled and echoed in the cold air. I knew that when it stopped I would walk forward to the other side of the rope, and no turning back. I looked down at Jago and he nodded. The tumbler held the parasol up to me but I shook my head. Finally the drum roll stopped.

  Down among the colourfully dressed crowd were a group of people who were there just to keep the brazi
ers going. They wore leather gloves and aprons, and poked at the brazier coals with long iron rods. This sent bright orange sparks up into the frosted air like fireworks. I could see jolly muffin sellers, and pork-pie sellers, and standing at the front of the crowd there was one particular boy of about my own age. I had seen him before at our other shows, and there was something about him I liked. Something about him attracted me. It was a very odd feeling, something I had never experienced before.

  He was looking up and watching me closely. It’s hard to put it into words, but I liked seeing him and my heart lifted a little. He had such a nice smile across his face. Our eyes met, but in that split, silent moment with the crowd hushed and expectant it unnerved me and I wobbled just a fraction on the rope. A gasp went up from the crowd. I recovered myself quickly but the silence from below was deafening. I moved forward very deliberately, and Jago started the drum roll again. I skipped out across half the length of the rope. The rope dipped down in the middle, and despite the fact that I was as slim as Jago, and as light as a feather, the rope still swayed from side to side in the cold air. I shivered and felt goose pimples on my arms. I was halfway across and almost swinging back and forth on the rope, from side to side. The wind loosened my hair and it blew across my face. I was cold. The drum roll rattled on, and I found myself for a moment glued to the spot. I could move neither forwards nor back. Some of the Gawkers in the crowd shouted up at me. I couldn’t hear clearly what they said, but every shout was followed by laughter. Some part of my mind thought about the balance parasol, and for a split second I wished I had taken it, and I craned my neck and looked back. The harlequin was now near the top of the striped pole, and held out the opened parasol for me just in case. I reached out for it but it was caught by a sudden flurry of wind and snowflakes, and was wrenched out of his hand. We both watched as it sailed out high over the heads of the crowd.