Circus of Thieves and the Comeback Caper

by William Sutcliffe

  Only when Narcissus delivered a modest but well-aimed quantity of camel goo onto Wanda’s cheek did she finally go quiet. Not because she now accepted that Hannah knew what she was doing, or because she could tolerate being spat on by a dromedary, but because she fainted.

  Her commentary would no longer have been audible anyway, because Hannah had just pulled off her final stunt, and a deluge of clapping, stamping and cheering was rising from Hockney Marshes.

  Not far away, a man with a droopy moustache and alarmingly tight trousers, leaning against an enormous lorry, gave three small claps – possibly sarcastic, possibly not.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not good,’ he added. ‘But not bad.’

  Hannah, meanwhile, was surrounded by congratulators, huggers, hand-shakers and back-slappers. Ernesto was the first to tell her how wowed he was by her talents, but he was also the first to retreat, rapidly thinking through his running order to find a place where he could fit Hannah into his show.

  When the bustle and excitement had subsided, Hannah felt Ernesto’s strong hand grip her shoulder.

  ‘I’ve found a spot,’ he said. ‘In the second half.’

  ‘For . . . you mean . . .?’ Hannah hardly dared think, let alone say, the words that were on the tip of her lips.

  ‘You’re ready. I’d like you to perform in my circus.’

  Joy of joys, rapture of raptures, thrill of thrills, etc. of et ceteras – Hannah’s greatest dream had at last come true. She could hardly believe her ears. Or her eyes. Or her nose.

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Really. You’re good. You’ve got something. When you were up there it reminded me of . . .’

  Ernesto’s voice tailed away. His eyes glistened.

  ‘My real mum? Esmeralda Espadrille?’

  Ernesto nodded. A heavy, velvety silence settled over them.

  ‘You’ll have a safety net,’ he said, eventually. ‘You have to promise me you’ll never perform without a safety net.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  This promise reminded her of her other mother. Hannah hadn’t yet looked to see why Wanda’s barrage of objections had stopped halfway through her performance. The dual snore emitted by an unconscious Wanda and a snoozing Narcissus gave her the explanation. Narcissus seemed to have decided that Wanda’s stomach made a perfect pillow, and he was drooling contentedly onto this resting place as he dozed.

  ‘Welcome to the troupe,’ said Ernesto, extending a leathery palm towards Hannah.

  She reached out and shook his hand, her heart kabooming against her ribs like a gorilla trapped under a xylophone. This was the happiest moment of Hannah’s entire life.

  Meanwhile, not far away – but a little further away than a moment ago – another man with another droopy moustache and strangely loose tracksuit trousers (who bore a striking resemblance to the first droopy-moustached man in the strangely tight ringmaster trousers) was leaning against a white van. He was looking angry. Which is how he looked all the time. But he was also looking puzzled.

  ‘Flaming ’eck!’ he said. ‘There is two of them. Two Big Tops. Right next door to each other. And is that? . . . It can’t be! . . . No way! . . . Blow me down! It is! . . . That’s my bleedin’ brother!’

  Seven hundred and thirty-two tantrums

  LET US GO BACK FOR A MOMENT TO WHEN Armitage was in short (rather than tight) trousers. A little scamp, he was. A proper tearaway. Look – there he is, crouched in the dirt, pulling the legs off a spider. And there’s Zachary, perched in a nearby tree, preparing to throw fistfuls of conkers at his brother’s head. Ah, family life. How sweet!

  But all was not well in the Shank household. A hideous rivalry had already begun, which was to cloud the lives of the Shank twins for decades to come. For Armitage’s fifth birthday he’d been given the best present of his life: a toy vehicle – a tiny enormous lorry. This tiny enormous lorry was his pride and joy. He loved that tiny enormous lorry.

  But one day, when Zachary was off school with a cold (which Armitage would always insist was faked) he ‘borrowed’ the tiny enormous lorry from the top-secret hiding place where Armitage always stashed it.16

  When Armitage returned from school, he found the tiny enormous lorry back in its hiding place, broken.

  He threw a tantrum. Which was not an unusual occurrence. As you know, he still throws tantrums to this day.

  Armitage’s mother did what she usually did when he threw a tantrum. She caved in and bought him another one.

  Which Zachary also ‘borrowed’.

  And broke.

  Leading to another tantrum.

  And another tiny enormous lorry.

  And another not-secret-enough hiding place.

  ‘Borrowed’.

  Broke.

  Tantrum.

  New tiny enormous lorry.

  And so on, until Armitage and Zachary’s mother finally said, ‘That’s it! I’ve had enough! No more tiny enormous lorries. I’m sick of it.’

  ‘BUT HE BROKE IT! IT WASN’T MEEEEEE! IT’S NOT FAAAAIIIIIIIIIR! HE KEEPS STEALING THEM! HE’S BREAKING THEM ON PURPOSE. IT’S NOT FAAAIIIIIIIRRR! WAAAA WAAA WAAAA NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR! NOT FAIR!’

  So she brought Armitage another tiny enormous lorry.

  Which Zachary broke.

  After seven hundred and thirty-two lorries, and seven hundred and thirty-two tantrums, Armitage’s mother finally stood up to him. There were to be no more tiny enormous lorries.

  So then Armitage ‘got a cold’, ‘borrowed’ everything Zachary owned, took it all out into the garden, and lit a huge, satisfying and extremely naughty bonfire.

  From then on, relations between the two brothers deteriorated.

  Zachary and Armitage should have made very good siblings. They should have got on wonderfully. After all, they had so much in common: deceit, moodiness, dishonesty, treachery, meanness, selfishness, disloyalty – they were a perfect match. Except things didn’t turn out that way.

  They loathed one another.

  So when Zachary saw his brother and his Big Top and his enormous enormous lorry parked right in the middle of Hockney Marshes, next to another Big Top he couldn’t identify, he concluded this was a deliberate provocation. To which there was only one response.

  Revenge!

  But Zachary didn’t just plan to do him over. Oh, no. That wouldn’t be nearly good enough. He wanted to really hit Armitage where it hurt, and stealing his cash was only half the job. Zachary knew Armitage better than anyone, and he knew there was one thing almost as precious to Armitage as money. His audience.

  If Zachary really wanted to kipper him, he had to nick both. If he could pull that off, there would be no doubt left in anyone’s mind as to who was Brother Number One.

  How, you might wonder, can you steal an audience? In particular, how can you steal the audience of a show that has been put on for the specific purpose of stealing the audience of another show? And how can you do this without confusing the bejeezus out of anyone attempting to follow what is going on?

  Well, Zachary had a pretty good idea that Armitage would be up to something. He knew Shank’s Impossible Circus was more than just a circus, and that Armitage was bound to be sneaking off at some point during the show to make mischief of one kind or another. Which, of course, would create a rather enticing window of opportunity for a brother of almost identical appearance: a brother who could very easily slip into a pair of tight trousers, a billowy shirt and a red tailcoat, and could then quite easily go on stage in the guise of his brother and . . . well . . . he hadn’t quite decided what he’d do just yet, but the goal was simple. To wreak havoc!

  Zachary took out his phone and sent an urgent text to Frankie Geezer, Chippy Barnet and Vince Hurtle:

  YOU BOYS ARE BACK IN BUSINESS!

  I GOT A JOB FOR YOU. HOCKNEY MARSHES.

  NOW. IT’S GONNA BE A BIG ONE.

  Vince almost texted back, taking issue with his use of the word ‘gonna’, but decided against it.r />
  ‘A big one,’ said Frankie, to Chippy and Vince. ‘I don’t know about that. I was thinking of going straight.’

  ‘You couldn’t go straight if you moved into a monastery,’ snapped Chippy, who was staring intently into the mirror, working on his hairstyle, which consisted of eight strands of hair, all of them growing from just above his left ear, carefully combed across his skull to the other side. In high winds, the eight hairs stood straight up, which made him look as if a skydiving octopus had landed on the side of his head. Chippy Barnet usually stayed home on windy days.

  ‘I could!’ said Frankie. ‘But a little something to get me started might help. Maybe I’ll just do this one, then retrain as a potter. I’d like to make coffee cups.’

  ‘Make coffee cups? Hah! That’s a mug’s game,’ said Chippy, which is such a bad joke this chapter has to end right here before things get any worse.17

  The giant knicker puppy quicksand illusion

  YOU’RE PROBABLY WORRIED ABOUT Wanda, aren’t you? Passed out, locked in a cage with a hungry camel. Or maybe you don’t really care. She is kind of annoying.

  Well, worried or not, you will be pleased/disappointed18 to hear that she came round not in the hairy, foetid embrace of a flatulent dromedary with a fondness for Greek dips, but in Mitzi Schnitzel’s comfortable, cosy, calm, congenial caravan.

  This wasn’t quite as soothing an experience as you might think, since Mitzi’s taste in interior decor was eccentric, verging on alarming. Her home was one of those arched gypsy caravans with steps up to the door, and was painted all over with marigolds and daisies. More than once, in summer time, she had parked in a meadow and completely lost the entire caravan, so effectively was it camouflaged.

  Inside, her decorative eccentricity had really blossomed. Mitzi loved frills and fripperies and draperies and tassels and doilies. Every single surface of the walls, floor, windows and ceiling was given over to some kind of lacy, dangly decoration.

  Wanda’s first thought when she woke up was, ‘Stalactites! I’m in a cave! Made of lace? It’s not a cave! I’m in a huge pair of frilly knickers! But that’s not possible! Where am I? I’ve gone mad! I’m hallucinating giant underwear!’

  ‘Cup of tea for you, dear?’ said Mitzi. ‘It’s my own blackberry, ginseng and arnica blend. Perfect for a fright.’

  ‘Am I inside a huge pair of knickers?’ replied Wanda, which is what people often said in Mitzi’s caravan, so she wasn’t too offended.

  ‘No, dear, you’re in an authentic, traditional caravan fashioned from original timber, hand-assembled by local artisans on a vegan diet.’

  ‘Does it meet with approved fire regulations?’ said Wanda, who was never off duty. Health and safety was not just her career, it was a true passion. This is often said about the world’s greatest artists; less often about the world’s greatest health and safety officers.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Mitzi, ‘and I don’t even care.’

  Already, they weren’t getting on. Wanda simply never clicked with circus folk. Then a new terror overtook her.

  ‘I’m in a quicksand!’ she shrieked. ‘I’m drowning! It’s sucking me under!’

  ‘No, dear. Don’t worry,’ replied Mitzi. ‘That’s just what it feels like to have your feet licked by seventeen puppies.’

  Wanda looked down. Seventeen puppies were licking her feet.

  She did not like this. Not one little bit. Seventeen wet, leathery little tongues tickling between her toes. This was a hygiene catastrophe.

  ‘Where are my shoes and socks?’ she snapped.

  ‘I treated you to a spot of reflexology while you were out cold. Your chakras were screaming out for realignment.’

  Wanda stared19 at Mitzi blankly. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand a single word of what you just said,’ she replied, ‘but I hope it doesn’t mean you touched my feet.’

  Mitzi stared back, even more blankly. This conversation wasn’t going well.

  Wanda raised her legs off the ground, crossed them safely out of puppy range, and took a sip of tea. It tasted of compost, but out of politeness she pretended to like it.

  ‘Nice tea,’ she said, hauling her lips from a pucker of revulsion into what she hoped resembled a smile. ‘Refreshing.’

  ‘I’ll tip it away if you hate it,’ replied Mitzi.

  Wanda wasn’t very good at pretending.

  ‘Thanks,’ Wanda replied, handing back the cup (which was so frilly and lacy it looked less like a cup than . . . well . . . a tiny pair of knickers) and saucer (which had all the solidity and heft of a spider’s web) and teaspoon (which was roughly the size of a matchstick).

  Mitzi hadn’t really expected20 Wanda to hand back the tea with such haste, but she tried her best to conceal her hurt feelings.

  These two were not destined to be pals. An awkward silence descended.

  Another awkward silence rose up through the floorboards.

  Then one more came in through the window and another one down the filigree cast-iron chimney.

  Four silences in a row is pretty much the maximum before medical help is required. Mitzi decided to try one last attempt at conversation.

  ‘Would you like to see my collection of porcelain unicorns?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ replied Wanda. ‘Not today, thanks.’ She wasn’t in the mood for porcelain unicorns. She had never been in the mood for porcelain unicorns, and never would be.

  Three more silences seeped into the room: a chilly one through the keyhole, a frosty one from the fridge, and a smelly one from under the toilet door.

  Three quarters of the way into silence number eight, Hannah burst in.

  ‘I passed the audition! I passed the audition!’ she yelled. ‘Ernesto is giving me a slot in the show! I’ve made it! I’ve gone circus! I’m officially a tightrope-walker! A real one!’

  This news was almost as unwelcome to Wanda as puppy-tongue reflexology.

  Mitzi leaped up and gave Hannah a huge hug. ‘That’s wonderful!’ she said. ‘You deserve it. Your audition was brilliant.’

  Wanda roused herself and realised this is what she should have said, what with being Hannah’s mother and all. She had almost forgotten her Pretending to be Nice is Your Only Option When Your Kid is Going off the Rails regimen.

  ‘That’s what I was going to say,’ said Wanda, a little unconvincingly. ‘But the law states that you have to be sixteen to undertake paid employment. Never mind. It’s not long to wait.’

  ‘I don’t want to be paid.’

  ‘It’s only four years. It’ll give you more time to practise.’

  ‘Mum – I have to do it.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  ‘You can’t stop me!’

  ‘Oh, yes I can.’

  ‘Mum! Please! Pleasepleasepleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaase!’

  ‘I’d love you to take part, Hannah, I really would, if it was safe. But it isn’t. Perhaps they’ll let you tear the tickets or something like that.’

  ‘Tear the tickets?’

  ‘Paper cuts are a risk, of course, but as long as you’re careful . . . ’

  ‘MUM! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!’

  ‘I understand perfectly well. Why do you think tightropes are always so high off the ground?’

  ‘Because . . . because it’s more exciting.’

  ‘Exactly. The only reason people pay to watch tightrope-walking is because they’re excited by the idea that the performer might fall off and get hurt. It’s ghoulish.’

  ‘No! They want to watch because it’s beautiful and inspiring and magical!’

  ‘Piffle! I won’t let you do it. It’s against all my principles.’

  ‘Which principles?’

  ‘Two principles I hold very dear. Health and safety. Imagine what my colleagues would say if—’

  Before Wanda could elaborate on the professional embarrassment attached to having her daughter join the circus as a tightrope-walker, she was interrupted by an unexpected knock at the door. Then two
more, louder and angrier than the first one, though less unexpected.

  ‘Come in,’ said Mitzi, warily. ‘It’s open. Mind your head on the flamboyant fandango of frills, fripperies and fancies.’

  And who was it?

  Who?

  (This is how you build tension. You ask pointless questions.)

  Who, you ask?

  At the door?

  Knocking?

  But not coming in for a bit?

  (It gets kind of annoying after a while.)

  Knocking?

  At the door?

  (Maybe I should stop now.)

  Are you tense enough?

  Are you ready?

  Now?

  (I can’t stop. I don’t know what’s happened to me.)

  Why is this happening?

  Why am I stuck asking pointless questions?

  How long is this going to last?

  OK, OK! Enough!

  I’ll tell you who it was.

  Right now.

  Immediately.

  In the next paragraph.

  Now I’m making pointless statements.

  Which makes a nice change.

  ENOUGH!

  OK.

  This is the moment.

  Now.

  It was . . .

  . . . GRANNY!

  Waving her stick!

  With an unusually determined look on her face.

  Without so much as a hello, or a ‘how do you do?’, or a ‘would you like a mint humbug?’, Granny marched towards Wanda, pinioned her with a mesmerising stare, and spoke in a voice so steely you could have used it to rivet a bridge. ‘You listen here, my girl,’ she said. ‘I struggled my whole life to bring you and your sister up, and you were very different girls with very different needs, but the most important thing you need to know as a parent is that whatever you might want for your children, they are individuals and they have their own needs and desires. I’ve known Hannah here since she was a baby and I’ve always known that she’s circus! She just is! It’s who she is and it’s in the blood and there’s nothing you or Hannah or anyone can do about it so we all just have to stand back and let her be the person she wants to be and at the moment that is a tightrope-walker. It’s so obvious it’s like a plank of wood whacking us all in the face and if you stand in her way you’ll just make her miserable and disappointed and angry and more determined to go ahead and do it anyway. Ernesto’s a good man. He’ll give her a safety net and you might not like it but she just has to go up on that tightrope this evening and perform. No ifs, no buts, no quibbles, no HEALTH AND SAFETY! And that’s that. Got it? And if I hear one word of complaint, you’ll be going to bed early with no supper. OK? Now I’m halfway through a very exciting episode of Celebrities You’ve Never Heard of Strictly Baking Cakes on Ice in the Jungle so I don’t have time for any objections, cheek or backchat. That’s all I have to say. Goodbye.’