Circus Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  Santa was aghast.

  ‘But you had a broken hip and he had a broken arm and you’d never been on a trapeze.’

  Ted got up.

  ‘Must be dinner-time. My hip mended and his arm got all right. I soon picked up the routine. We did very nicely.’

  Santa caught at his coat.

  ‘When did you go back to your father and brothers?’

  ‘When dad died. The four of us took on the horses.’ He held out his bag of sweets. ‘Have another? You should, they’re cooling to the blood. You need them in the spring.’

  ‘Will you really teach me to tumble?’ Santa called after him.

  Ted did not exactly answer, but he gave a kind of nod as he went out.

  Peter and Santa got up to go to lunch. They walked round the ring fence and out through the front entrance.

  ‘Do you really want to learn to tumble?’ said Peter. ‘What for?’

  Santa hopped over a guy-rope and opened the gate in the fence.

  ‘To have something to do while you’re riding.’ She shut the gate in his face. ‘Bet I get back to the caravan first.’

  Gus had a stew nearly ready. Peter and Santa laid the table. Gus looked round from his stirring.

  ‘We’ve all the kids coming to tea.’

  A cold feeling gripped Santa’s inside.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cabbages and cheese! Why not?’ Gus tasted the stew and added a little more pepper. ‘It’s a good day for it; no performances.’

  Peter knew what was worrying Santa.

  ‘Fifi doesn’t have tea, and I don’t believe the Petoffs do. And the Schmidts drink coffee.’

  Gus put three plates on the stove to warm.

  ‘But they can eat hot cross buns, can’t they?’ He nodded at an enormous bag on the floor in the corner. ‘Just been out and got two dozen of them.’

  Santa put the cruet-stand on the table. She looked at Gus with suspicion.

  ‘What made you ask them?’

  Gus gave his stew a final stir.

  ‘Seems you told the kids you could play the violin. They’ve gone home and told their dads and mums you can play the violin. Now the whole circus has heard you can play it. Well, if you can, what’s the harm in your doing it?’

  Santa held out a plate for him to fill with stew.

  ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘Then why did you say you could?’

  Santa’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Well, they were saying Aunt Rebecca had taught us nothing; that we were like new-born babies.’

  ‘I see.’ Gus turned to Peter. ‘Is that why you said up at your school that you’d had a tutor to teach you Latin?’

  Peter looked at Santa, with her flushed face and held-back tears. He saw red.

  ‘All right, laugh. Perhaps everything we’ve been taught is wrong. But at least we aren’t sneaks, coming home and telling all the circus what somebody said at school.’

  Gus helped out the other two plates of stew. He sat down. He looked apologetic.

  ‘Look here. I don’t want to be hard on you kids. But you don’t seem to have any horse sense. You come up here dressed for Buckingham Palace—’

  ‘That’s mean!’ said Santa.

  Gus sighed.

  ‘This tutor business.’ He took a mouthful of stew. ‘Can’t you see you go about things all wrong? I never have known what’s the good of Latin, but as sure as eggs, if there’s any good in it, then it’ll turn up handy. One day somebody’ll say: “Anybody know Latin?” Then you just say “Yes,” and there you are.’

  ‘I had to say something,’ Peter burst out angrily. ‘The boys were saying I didn’t know anything.’

  ‘What if they did?’ Gus finished chewing his mouthful. ‘Maybe they’re not far out. But, boy, why do you want to go telling the dancing-girls that they shouldn’t help with the pull-down? You had them all laughing fit to split their sides. They’ve christened you Little Lord Fauntleroy.’

  Peter scowled at his plate.

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  Gus ate a moment in silence. Then he looked up.

  ‘There’s none of us can see ourselves. But there are people going around just asking to have their legs pulled. You’re like that and you want to watch your step. Don’t go talking silliness. It’s all right to speak nicely and be clean and all that. But you want to look as if you could give someone a sock on the jaw if you had to.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I could. You don’t know that I couldn’t.’

  Gus nodded.

  ‘That’s right. Perhaps you could. All I know is when I was your age if I’d found myself in a circus I’d be around with the men or the other boys. I wouldn’t be walking around with my sister looking as if I’d come to sing in the choir.’

  Santa got up to get some more stew.

  ‘It’s no good trying to separate me and Peter. We’re used to each other. And you like us to be clean, otherwise why are you always sending us to the public baths?’

  Gus looked at the stewpot.

  ‘Give me a bit more of that while you’re up, Santa.’ He passed her his plate. ‘I’m no good at putting what I mean into words. I don’t want you to get me wrong, Peter.’

  Peter looked at him bitterly.

  ‘I shouldn’t think I could.’

  Gus took his plate back from Santa.

  ‘Can’t you really play that fiddle?’

  ‘Only one tune, and that terribly badly.’

  Gus laughed.

  ‘Puts me in mind of a clown was once with us. He wasn’t much of a clown. Never knew how he got round Mr Cob to take him on. But could he talk! To hear him, there was nothing that man couldn’t do. One day old Ben hears him criticizing the jockey act. “You ride?” Ben asks. “Ride!” The clown, Fred his name was, laughed. “Ridden since I could stand.” Well, Ben he says nothing more at the time, but he goes to Mr Cob and together they fixes a joke. All the circus is in on it. “Fred,” says Mr Cob, “I hear you ride. There’s a horse we want breaking. Would you come in the ring in the morning and see what you can do with it?” Well, Fred tries to find an excuse. But it’s no good. Mr Cob keeps saying: “Just as a favour, Fred.” In the end he has to say he’d be there.’

  ‘Goodness! Could he ride?’ asked Santa.

  ‘Him! No. Didn’t know the back end of a horse from the front.’

  Peter laid down his fork and knife.

  ‘Why wasn’t he killed, then?’

  Gus chuckled.

  ‘That next morning we was all there. All the men and everybody. There was Ben holding the horse. It was kicking and rearing all over the place. Fred took one look at him and turned the colour of a lettuce. But it was no good. Ben was there, and he and Cob shoved him on. He was in such a state he looked like a sack of coals. Ben gave the horse a slap on the flank. Away they went into the ring. Laugh! I never saw such a sight. I thought I’d split.’

  ‘But didn’t he fall off?’ asked Santa.

  Gus chuckled at his memories.

  ‘He couldn’t. While Mr Cob and Ben were fussing around getting him up they slipped a lunge round him. Specially made, it was. A light thing he never noticed, being in the state he was. Well, first buck and he’s sent flying, but not on the ground, for the boys pulled on the lunge rope and there he is dangling in the air. Then they caught the horse and back he’s put again. Must have gone on putting him on best part of half an hour. Then in comes one of the Kenets. They can hang on to anything. Gets up on the horse, and rides him round as if he’d got him out in a park. We never heard much talk from Fred after that.’

  Peter and Santa washed up the lunch things. They looked round the circus. A holiday peace was over it. The children’s voices could be heard playing round the big top. There was some barking from the poodles. One of the horses neighed. Otherwise everybody was resting or asleep. They washed up without talking for a bit. Their minds were on the argument at lunch.

  ‘It’s funny,’ Santa whispered at last. ‘Being here is t
he nicest thing that ever happened to us, but it keeps getting spoilt somehow.’

  ‘Anything would with Gus,’ Peter said bitterly. ‘He isn’t even fair. It’s not my fault we’ve been brought up differently to the way Gus was. I say things wrong, but they weren’t wrong when we lived with Aunt Rebecca. How’m I to know?’

  Santa washed out a teacup. They always had tea after lunch. Gus liked it.

  ‘Gus doesn’t mean it. He means to be nice.’

  ‘Funny way to show it. It’s all right for you. It’s me he minds.’ He leant over the basin to Santa, and whispered: ‘I’m going to ask Ben not to tell him he’s letting me ride. If he knew he’d bring people to laugh.’

  Santa nodded.

  ‘That’s a good idea. But Gus is often in the big top. Won’t he see?’

  ‘No. Some of the horses are exercised early. I’ll get Ben to let me learn then.’

  Santa said nothing. She thought it a good idea. It was just what Gus wanted. Peter going off alone. Queer how lately people kept trying to separate them. Not that they could, but she wished they would not try.

  Olga, Sasha, Fritzi, Hans, and Fifi came tearing along to tea at half past four. They could not comfortably all have tea in the caravan, so the boys sat on the steps and Gus passed out buns as they wanted them.

  ‘Has your violin come safely, Santa?’ asked Olga.

  ‘Good deal too safely to please Santa,’ said Gus. ‘She says she can’t play it.’

  Fifi laid down her bun. She shrugged both shoulders and lifted both hands.

  ‘Impossible! Why should one travel with a violin which one cannot play?’

  ‘But I didn’t travel with it,’ Santa protested. ‘I left it behind.’

  ‘You said that you could play,’ Fritzi broke in. ‘How is it then you cannot?’

  Sasha stuck his head in at the door.

  ‘Have you got a mood, Santa?’

  Peter pulled him back:

  ‘Shut up, you fool. She can’t play. She makes a beast of a row.’

  Hans shook his head.

  ‘Always it so is. There is one artiste in the family the rest they cannot understand.’

  Peter took a large bite of bun.

  ‘Rot.’

  As soon as the tea was eaten Gus pointed at the violin case.

  ‘Come on, Santa, tune up.’

  ‘But no.’ Fifi jumped up. ‘I must fetch papa and maman. They too wish to hear her play.’

  ‘That is so.’ Hans climbed down the caravan steps. ‘Mine father and mother they too her will hear.’

  Fritzi nodded comfortingly to Santa.

  ‘They the music understand.’

  Santa went miserably to the corner and took out the violin. The E string had broken. She looked in the box part of the end of the case and found a new one. Most unwillingly she fastened it in. How awful this was going to be. How she wished the caravan would fall over or something, anything so that she need not play.

  The Moulins and the Schmidts arrived. Gus, with a twinkle in his eye, put chairs for them outside. He put down a rug so the children could sit on the ground. He made Santa stand on the caravan step where they could all see her.

  Santa rosined and tightened her bow. She had tuned the violin as well as she could, but she had not much ear and was lost without a piano to give her an A. She put the velvet pad into her neck. Then she looked beseechingly at Gus.

  ‘Please. I can’t. You know I can’t.’

  Gus grinned.

  ‘Come on. You told the other kids you could. Now let’s hear you.’

  ‘I can only play Art thou weary, art thou languid?’

  Gus turned to the Schmidts and Moulins.

  ‘That’s a hymn.’

  Mrs Schmidt nodded in contentment.

  ‘That will beautiful be. It is nice on a Good Friday.’

  The Moulins made approving noises. They sat like people at a concert. Holding their breath for the first note.

  Santa, seeing that she had got to go through with it, put her bow across the strings.

  There had never been a moment since Santa started the violin when she had not made a disgusting noise on it. The noise she made that afternoon was worse than she had ever made before. The violin was out of tune. Her fingers, damp with fright, slipped on the notes. The bow scooped. Art thou weary, art thou languid? is rather a doleful tune. As played by Santa that afternoon it sounded like the moan of somebody in the most excruciating pain.

  The Moulins were polite people. Mr Moulin and Lucille sat with fixed smiles as if they were pleased. Fifi, less controlled, put her fingers in her ears. Lucille at once gave her a slap, so she took them out again and also sat with a fixed smile.

  The Schmidts were musical. They came of families who all played some instrument or other. When together they made up quite a good little orchestra, playing purely for pleasure. It was to them sacrilege for anyone who could make such a noise as Santa was making to touch an instrument. They shut their eyes and tried to think of other things.

  Olga and Sasha had been brought up without hearing much music. But they had a little music in their blood. They thought at first that Santa was being funny. They looked round at the serious pained expressions of all the others. They bore it for three lines of the hymn, then they could stand it no more. They rolled on the ground screaming with laughter.

  It was very rude, but from Santa’s point of view much the best thing that could have happened. In a moment she had stopped playing and they were all laughing. Mr Schmidt was the first to recover.

  ‘Never,’ he said, wiping his eyes, ‘have I such sounds heard.’

  Mrs Schmidt tapped him on the knee.

  ‘That is not kind, Heinrich. The poor little Santa. It is not the wish of the lieber Gott that all gifts should have.’

  Fritzi got up.

  ‘But how is it, Santa, that you tell us you do play?’

  Mr Schmidt shook his head at his daughter.

  ‘It is finish. We will some music make to take the noise away. Stand up, Hans, and you, liebchen. We will sing.’

  People who can sing always collect other people round them. The Schmidts sang German folk-songs. They sounded lovely. Some of the ring-hands and tent-men came across to listen. Then they sang in Welsh. Then someone started a tune that was familiar to them all even if the words they put to it were in various tongues. One song led to another. Half the circus people were standing outside Gus’s caravan. It began to get dark. Lights popped up here and there.

  ‘What shall we finish with?’ said one of the men.

  Gus looked round. He caught Santa’s eye. She could see his lips forming the word ‘Art’. She gave him a desperate look. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t be so mean. Gus grinned at her.

  ‘How about The long, long trail?’ he said. ‘I was always partial to that.’

  11

  The Riding Lesson

  Two things happened in Blackpool. The first was on Easter morning. Gus had a puncture on the way down and his was the last caravan to arrive. As he turned the car into the ground Olga and Sasha jumped up on the running-board. Olga stuck her head through the window.

  ‘Peter and Santa, will you come to our caravan? We have eggs and paska.’

  Sasha pushed his head through beside hers.

  ‘We have asked Fifi and Fritzi and Hans. But Fifi has gone to Mass, and Fritzi and Hans have eaten something bad. They have both been sick. They had to stop the car on the way over so they could be. So it will only be you. Will you come?’

  Gus stopped the car.

  ‘Hop out, you two, and go and get your Easter eggs. I’m not driving any farther with these two hung on like that.’ He leant out and gave Sasha a slight slap. ‘One jolt, and you’ll be under the wheels. And what’s the good of Easter eggs then?’

  Olga did a flip-flap and turned a cartwheel.

  ‘I’m so glad it’s Easter,’ she said, when she was the right way up again. ‘We have a feast.’ She held out her hand to Santa. ‘Come on.�
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  There were eggs dyed all colours. There were some kind of herrings soaked in oil with mushrooms round them. There were salted cucumbers. There was a meat dish. Most exciting of all was the cake, the paska. Peter and Santa had been given small chocolate eggs on Easter Day but there had been no kind of party. They stared at the table in amazement. Especially at the paska; they had never seen a cake like it before. Mrs Petoff was making a pot of tea. She turned beaming to Peter and Santa.

  ‘A happy Easter. We had thought maybe you was lost on the road.’

  Peter explained about the tyre. Maxim patted the place next to him.

  ‘Come, Santa, you will sit beside me. We are the good friends. Peter will sit by my wife. Sit down, all of you.’

  It was extraordinary how they all fitted in, but somehow they managed. And what a meal they all ate! Something from every dish. Then, to finish up with, a great slice of paska. You would not think a rich cake was the sort of food to have for breakfast as well as meat and herrings and cucumber, but it all went down very well. When they had finished Mrs Petoff handed round the eggs. They were in a basket. Santa took a red one and Peter a green. They were ordinary hens’ eggs, boiled hard and dyed. They stared at them curiously, because they had never seen Easter eggs like that before. Maxim had a blue one. He turned it over in his fingers. He smiled at Santa.

  ‘You have never seen such an egg? No? When I was a little boy in Russia I have seen these being coloured. I would think then time is so slow. Easter will never come.’

  ‘Did you always have a party for Easter?’ asked Peter.

  Mrs Petoff nodded.

  ‘I do not remember, but I have heard it was the great feast. Before there was a long fast.’

  Maxim made a face.

  ‘For that there was sunflower-seed oil instead of butter, and not much to eat. Three days it lasted. And imagine what was going on. The kitchen was in excitement. Dish after dish is cooked. The herrings as we have today, only better, you cannot get them good in England. The cucumbers. The great roasts. Then the paska! We children would stand round, our mouths watering. Such a mound of curds and sugar and raisins and almonds. It was hard to see it made when we were fasting.’