by Gary Crew
Dedication
In memory of an upright piano, a mother,
and a boy who sang.
Contents
Cover
Dedication
THE PIANO
THE TENT
THE HOUSE
THE LIBRARY
THE TEMPLE
THE NECROPOLIS
THE SANDSTONE SPRING
About the Author
Copyright
THE PIANO
ON THE EVENING OF his twenty-first birthday Rosa hoisted Augustus onto a stool beside the piano so that he might be seen to better advantage while he sang. Being just thirty-seven inches tall, as he was swept upwards he caught a glance – somewhat askew, since he was so unceremoniously whooshed – of that liminal space between the keyboard and the floor. This space had formed the architecture of his childhood: the underside of the keyboard his ceiling, the piano-legs pillars, the whole a shadowy vault where he might crouch unseen in the boom of the strings, observing the miracle of his mother’s feet as she crushed the papery soles of her black velvet slippers against the pedals.
But like all childhood architecture, that space had been lost. And though Augustus mourned, wondering what might have been, his mother did not mourn at all. Not since the day when Mrs Trump, having learnt from her physician that her son was a dwarf (‘A midget?’ she gagged, incredulous, into her hankie. ‘A damned midget?’), handed him over to the circus passing through town. Which allowed her to return to her piano, striking the ivories with even greater appassionato, as her new-found freedom allowed.
THE TENT
AUGUSTUS NOW ENTERED ANOTHER space, striped with tigerish light, scented with the potpourri of elephant dung and sawdust, beneath the slatted benches of the big top. Here it was that, upon hearing his peculiar song, Rosa first discovered him squatting on his grubby heels warbling like a nightingale. Being wise to the opportunity of freaks, the girl stooped to haul him out.
‘Ooo-er,’ she gasped, goggle-eyed. ‘What are you?’
‘I am not a What,’ he declared (being a precocious talker), ‘I am a He. And I can sing.’
‘Really?’ Rosa snickered. ‘So can the fat lady when she’s on the sherry.’
Dumbfounded, Augustus shut his mouth. In that moment Rosa reached down, gripped his elbows and hoisted him onto the bench that he had been lurking under (thus establishing a lifetime precedent) to take a really good look.
‘Ooo-er!’ she declared, seeing him in his entirety.
The creature before her was a sideshow in himself, guaranteed to draw a crowd whether he could sing, dance or walk the wire.
‘You’re a queer one, you are. Look at your arms! Look at your legs! They’re like straws. Like drinking straws sticking out of a pumpkin.’
Augustus looked down at himself, wondering. ‘What?’ he said. ‘I’ve had these arms and legs nearly five years and they haven’t broken off yet. And you can’t blame me for this romper suit. The pants might look like pumpkins, being orange and round and puffy, but that’s what I was wearing when she handed me over. And the moustache lady hasn’t changed me.’
‘Ooo-er,’ Rosa said, spinning him about. ‘How old are you?’
‘I already told you. I am four, going on five. How old are you?’
‘Thirteen,’ Rosa grunted and spun him around again, suddenly conscious of the size of his waist, how her fingertips touched, encircling him. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘so who gave you to Moira?’
‘Eh?’
‘Moira. The bearded lady. The moustache lady. Who gave you to her? And why?’
‘My mother,’ he said, bold and clear. ‘She teaches the pianoforte. She says my voice is liquid silver. My pitch is perfect. She says only Melba could compete.’
What is this thing? Rosa wondered. Having lived all her life beneath the big top and seen so much that was freakish and queer, she could not comprehend what stood before her: dressed as he was in pumpkin pants, a sweet little blouse and those tiny black shoes (were they off a doll?), with limbs as frail as straws. He was, nevertheless, perfectly proportioned, unlike the other little people she knew: Big Atlas in the red and black wagon had a head the size of a melon and a body the size of a toad. No. This little thing was a proper mannikin: his face pleasant (even pretty); his eyes pale grey (the colour of the trapeze artiste’s silky pants); his yellow hair slicked back (with Hairy Moira’s spit?); his ears flat; his little teeth white and even; his mouth a rosebud.
‘Nellie Melba?’ she demanded. ‘That’s stupid.’
‘Why?’ he asked, caring little. And he dreamily turned his eyes up to take in the enormity of the marquee, that mighty pyramid of space yawning above him. No longer the dim, secret ceiling of the piano keyboard, but an architecture of light.
‘Because I seen her,’ Rosa informed him. ‘And I heard her too. She came here to sing for a war rally.’
‘A war rally?’
‘There has been a war, you know.’
Augustus did not know, being ignorant of the ways of the world.
‘She stood out there,’ Rosa said, indicating the vast expanse of centre ring, ‘in her black dress with her big bosoms and her guts pulled in with a corset. Whalebone, Moira reckoned. Pearls, she was wearing, wrapped round her neck but hanging down her back, not over her front. Down her back and over her big bum …’ and the girl turned and stuck out her own backside to demonstrate.
So Augustus gave his attention to her. Not because, at four years, he had any particular interest in a girl’s anatomy, but because in his own childish way he had already judged her bum to be pretty big (especially in that uncharitably shrunken red dress), and because her bulk (which was considerable, particularly her mass of frizzed, carroty hair) blocked his view of the sawdusty shaft of sunlight striking down from the hole where a pole pierced the canvas. And since his view was interrupted, he thought he might as well sing to prove his point.
‘So what did she sing?’ he asked.
‘Some silly muck,’ the girl sneered. ‘Home Sweet Bloody Home, or something.’
‘Hmm,’ he sighed. ‘Then I will show you what she might have sung …’
Throwing back his pretty throat and casting his eyes towards that hole in the air, he opened his mouth, again revealing his perfect little teeth, to sing Puccini:
One fine day you’ll find me,
A thread of smoke arising on the sea
In the far horizon
And then the ship appearing,
Then the trim white vessel glides into the harbour …
As a circus girl with no knowledge of opera, Rosa slammed a freckled hand over his mouth.
He gasped, spitting. ‘What? You can’t say that was no good.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she grunted, stamping her tired boots. ‘Yeah, yeah. You can sing. Not as good as that Melba, but. She could out-roar the lions. The elephants even. But yeah, you can sing. Only, you never answered one question that I asked.’
‘What? I sang …’
‘Why your mother gave you away.’
Now while Augustus could sing like Melba, he was hardly more than an infant, so this question hurt. She of the pianoforte and the velvet slippers was still, after all, his mother. And the thought came to him that he missed her. ‘I don’t know,’ he snivelled, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I sang as best I could. I tried to make her happy. I really did.’
‘There, there,’ Rosa cooed, kneeling before him to play the mother herself. ‘There, there. She might have needed to go shopping.’
‘For two days?’ the boy wailed. ‘She left me with that Moira two days ago and I haven’t seen her since.’
‘Did she now?’ Rosa mused. ‘And where would a piano teacher meet Hairy Moir
a, pray tell?’
‘At the hotel.’
‘The hotel?’
‘The pub,’ he blushed. ‘The Fortitude Valley pub. Round the back. Where she picks up her gin.’
‘No!’ Rosa gasped. ‘And her teaching the piano.’
‘“Gin’s my poison”, I heard her tell Mrs Hardwick.’
Envisaging the said Mrs Hardwick wearing elbow-length gloves, a black cloche hat and rouged to the eyeballs, Rosa declined to bite. ‘And Hairy Moira was there?’ she asked. ‘Round the back of the pub?’
‘Yes. With another person. I don’t know if it was a man or a woman because he – or she – was hairy too. Wearing pants and a woolly jumper and a beret.’
‘Ah …’ Rosa nodded. ‘That would be French Betty. She’s Moira’s special friend. Betty’s not one of us, you know. Not a sideshow person. She lives in the real world, like. She’s working as a storeman, you know.’
‘So French Betty is a man?’
‘Oh no. Though she might as well be,’ and Rosa gave Augustus a sly wink, which meant nought to him. ‘The word storeman has nothing to do with what you might call her sex. At the moment she’s stacking crates of grog, but she sometimes does other stuff.’
‘Um,’ he said, ‘well, they were talking to me, Moira and French Betty, while my mother was collecting her order. Moira was making me laugh, curling her moustache, and that Betty, she was egging her on, laughing too. When Mother was done and came out with a man loaded up with her stuff, she said, “Oh, so you have made some friends?” And when I said that I had, they started talking so I wandered off. I know that money changed hands because I saw my mother digging into her purse and then she called me over and said that these nice people would take me to the circus. I thought that sounded pretty good so I climbed into this handcart Moira had and she pushed me through the Valley, talking and laughing all the time, until we said goodbye to Betty at another pub and we came to this park where I saw the circus and she took me to her wagon and made me a sandwich. She was very polite, and … Oh!’ he declared, ‘speaking of manners, I do beg your pardon. What is your name?’
‘Rosa Colleano,’ she said. ‘I am the sister of the Tumbling Colleanos, who are acrobats. What’s yours?’
‘Augustus Trump,’ he said, smudging his cheeks, now grubby with tears. ‘And do you do acrobat things like cartwheels and handstands?’
‘No,’ she said, turning away a trifle wistfully, though this may have been no more than pretence intended to endear. ‘I have the wrong body.’
‘Really?’ he said.
How dumb was this kid? Any dick could see that she was as fat as a pig. She looked him up and down, as if for the first time. ‘Hmm,’ she said, wondering.
He looked out over centre ring, ignorant of her attention.
‘So, would you like to be an acrobat?’ she asked for the sole purpose of keeping him talking.
‘Oh no,’ he giggled. ‘If I did that, I would probably not have the energy to sing. Can you sing, Rosa?’
Rosa boasted very few skills regarded as being valuable to young ladies of the day. She could read, thanks to the perseverance of Hairy Moira (who had once been a rosary away from taking the veil), but she could neither sew, draw, dance nor sing. And at this particular moment, nor could she imagine what she was good for, other than making plans for this little beauty. This little blond treasure who had sung his way into her life.
So she said, ‘No, Augustus, I can’t sing. Although I could find ways for you to sing for a crowd. I could do that. But first, tell me, why did your mother give you to Moira? I am busting to know. Goodness, if you were mine, I would love you forever …’ And she clasped her hands behind her back to stop herself hugging him to death.
Although the young Augustus never did articulate why his mother had given him away or sold him (did she?), Rosa nevertheless began the long and intricate machinations of how she might bring this protégé (as she very quickly considered the boy to be), to the eyes and ears of the world.
First she consulted Moira, since she was the person to whom the child had been given. ‘Moira,’ Rosa said as she loitered outside the hirsute one’s wagon. ‘Moira, what do you know about that child’s mother?’ And she slipped a meaningful glance in Augustus’s direction.
‘Hmmm …’ Moira began, inspecting what might have been a rip in her checked flannel shirt. ‘I dunno.’
‘Moira …’ Rosa warned, ‘you and French Betty talked to her. And, I am told, you took money from her. So tell me what you know, or else …’
Moira was a lumberjack of a woman. Although her beard was Elizabethan (not unlike Sir Walter Raleigh’s) and rather debonair, she was disconcertingly pleased to display the shaggy mass of matted fur that sprouted from the open neck of her shirt. For all of Moira’s swagger, it was an issue of consequence to be threatened by Rosa Colleano. Even among hardened circus folk – Hairy Moira included – the red-headed Colleano kid was feared. So if Rosa said, ‘Or else …’ one should be afraid, as was the case when the India Rubber Man mocked Rosa’s ample backside, or Skinny Eddie laughed at her crazy hair, or the corpse of that chimp (poor Hogarth) was discovered nestled in Zena the Ape Woman’s bustier when she declined Rosa’s demands for a bite of that marshmallow rabbit the previous Easter.
So Moira took a furtive look to see if the midget was occupied – he was, examining the wheels of her wagon – then she hummed and hawed for a minute before muttering, ‘Ten quid, she give us. To mind him for a week.’
‘Ten quid!’ Rosa spat. ‘She gave you ten quid?’
Moira twitched one hairy lip, indicating that the girl should move away from the wagon, out of earshot. ‘He could hardly eat ten quid’s worth of anything,’ she hissed. ‘Not in six months. Look at him. He’s a weed. He’s likely to be dead in a day or two. And if he ain’t, Betty and me will leave him behind the Valley pub where we got him. She’ll be back for more booze, that mother of his, I guarantee. She’s a real drinker, she is. Should see what she hauled away that day. Cartons full. Fill a keg, I reckon …’
‘What about his clothes?’ Rosa wanted to know – not because she cared, but because she wanted to be seen to care. To be thought responsible. From the beginning. From the very outset. So at some future time, if she were asked, in a court maybe, or even casual conversation, she could remind people that Augustus was hers and always had been. ‘He can’t wear that lot much longer. Horrible, they are. Grubby. And I got nothing that would fit him. Poor kid.’ And putting on what she thought was a caring face, she sniffed loudly, to make an impression.
Seeing this tête-à-tête, and having the wit to figure that it was about him, Augustus sidled over. ‘What?’ he said.
‘We were saying,’ Moira hastened to explain, ‘that you’ll need a change of clothes.’
‘Why would I need a change of clothes?’ he wanted to know. ‘I will be home soon, won’t I?’
Moira looked to Rosa, who had always been quick. ‘And where is home exactly?’ the girl asked.
‘The big white house,’ Augustus answered off pat.
‘Hmm …’ the girl replied. ‘And you could take us there?’
Augustus blanched.
‘I mean,’ she persisted, ‘to that address?’
‘No,’ he admitted, the tears welling.
Glances were exchanged.
‘Most likely your mother will come here,’ Rosa suggested to cover his ignorance. ‘In the meantime, I’ll flog a singlet from my brothers and get you some clean pants from Little Donny. He’s bigger than you – taller and fatter round the middle – but I’ve got some belts in my wagon. Come on …’
‘And you think my mum will come?’ Augustus called.
‘Course she will. She knows you’re at the circus, doesn’t she? If not today, then tomorrow. She can’t go letting you have too much of a good time, eh?’
Convinced of her authority, Augustus toddled after her.
Little Donny was a dwarf who would evolve (under the Darwinian influence
of Disney) into Grumpy, of the Snow White species, although in his present incarnation he was no more than a depressed and sadly sentimental little man. With a preference for bright clothes (particularly his scarlet coats), Donny wore a drooping bow in his long grey beard, the colour changing daily. Being stout and in his sixties, he walked with the rolling gait of an aged sailor, the silver buckles on his ancient black boots always aglitter. He lived in a squat tent of his own design featuring a different striped canvas on each of its four sides: one being red and white, one yellow and white, one green and white, one blue and white. The roof was a panoply of faded cobalt, the underside covered in stars of red and yellow fabric so clumsily stitched that some dangled and hung as if about to drop, rather than fall, as any self-respecting and romantic star might expect as its end. Sometimes, if he was sad, Donny would look up at these peeling constellations thinking, Like yourselves, my star has faded too, and give himself over to weeping and stroking the silky ears of his two Great Danes, Bonzer (who was tan) and Bozo (who was black), until he fell asleep wrapped in the comforting paws of his canine companions.
Although Rosa was not known for her compassion, she did have a soft spot for Donny, possibly because she had not yet achieved fulfilment herself. And since she was eager to introduce the bearded dwarf to Augustus (both being of a kind), she stooped to lift the flap of his tent, allowing the boy to peer inside. There Bonzer and Bozo squatted with Donny sitting cross-legged on a cushion between them, sucking on a hookah. He had long been attracted to the possibility that his current ignominious body was not permanent, as evidenced by the fantastical metamorphosis of the caterpillar in Wonderland.
‘Ah,’ he sighed, when Rosa entered. ‘You have come to cheer me up.’
‘Not really,’ she said, shoving Augustus in ahead of her. ‘I’ve come to introduce you to a new friend of mine.’