by Gary Crew
‘Because no matter what, the show must go on.’
Rosa was an avid reader of Circus Tatler. Someone among the folk – probably Wanda the Wire Walker, who was that way inclined – had left a copy in the ladies’ lavs. Rosa loved the rag; it taught her so much about Business Contracts and Being Ambitious and Star Ego and other Management News, especially how the Show Must Go On.
But Augustus laughed. He planted his tiny feet and threw back his head and laughed. ‘Rosa,’ he gasped, ‘that’s so corny. That is so corny.’
Again, she determined to be strong. To give nothing. To reveal no weakness. She said off the cuff, ‘Your snivelling was worse.’
‘I don’t like being yelled at,’ he said. ‘Performing artists are sensitive, you know.’
‘So are managers,’ she got in. ‘Now, shut up and listen. I want you to make an appearance at dinner in the mess tent tonight. Yeah, yeah, you can still eat with Moira and Donny after. Donny told me he’s having Chinese.’ This was a lie. She had yet to inform Donny what he was having for dinner. If the debut was a success they could all have Chinese; if not, it was bread and dripping, alone with Buddha. Bugger Little Donny and the Chinese.
‘Okay, so I’ll have Chinese with Donny and Moira. But what do you mean by “an appearance”? Didn’t your brother Cristo say he was going to set up something for me with that Bertie Sullivan?’
‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But when you’ve known the Colleanos as long as I have, I wouldn’t trust any of them.’
‘You’re a Colleano.’
‘Yeah …,’ she baulked, ‘but I’m a girl.’
‘Eh?’
‘Forget it. Do you want to?’
‘What?
‘Make an appearance.’
‘You mean to sing?’
‘Of course to sing, stupid! For the circus crowd. While they have their dinner.’
‘Love to. And will you introduce me?’
She had to come up with a reason why she couldn’t. So she said, ‘No, I want your appearance to be a surprise. I don’t want to get in your way. This has to be all about you. After all, nobody has seen you, let alone heard you. Except for Donny, who doesn’t count.’
‘Won’t he be there? Or Moira?’
‘I just told you. They’ll be getting the Chinese ready.’
‘Oh.’
‘So, what sort of song will you sing?’
‘I’m not sure. Something will come to me. It always does. There’s a song for every situation, you know.’
‘Did you learn a lot of songs?’
‘About two a week for every year I spent squatting under that piano.’
‘A lot then.’
‘They’re all in my head, and when the time comes to project my voice into a space, the right song comes to me,’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘a song that suits the architecture, I always say. That completes me …’ Seeing that she had no idea what he was talking about, he added, ‘And my audience, of course.’
‘Okay …’ she said hesitantly, ‘so do you know a song to suit a mess tent?’
‘Eh?’
‘A song about the pleasure of eating.’
‘I don’t hardly eat anything.’
‘Hmm,’ she sighed, glancing at her gut. ‘I only have a bit of bread and dripping myself and look at the size of me.’
‘We agreed that we would never talk about size,’ he reminded her.
‘Well think of a song, stupid!’
‘Rosa, please don’t speak to me like that. And I already said that something will come to me. But since you’re going to manage me, you might as well know that you should never pressure an artist. Discussion is one thing; pressure another. You understand?’
Rosa chose not to reply.
Since the place was empty, Augustus made his way to the main arena, beneath the big top, to gather his thoughts. He liked to shuffle through the fresh sawdust spread over the surface ready for the night’s performance, scented the aromas disturbed beneath his feet. This day he stood in the very centre of the ring, looking up at the faded blue of the canvas firmament above. My voice can reach that far, he thought. My song can fill this place – and those who inhabit it. Turning to shuffle away, he found himself confronted by the substance of the massive central pole, all sturdy and erect, a veritable Pillar of Hercules, and he reached out to touch it, his tiny hand pressing flat against its varnished surface. Like a leg of my mother’s piano, he mused, holding up my world, and, ignorant of the irony, he wandered off in search of Rosa.
Mid-afternoon Rosa said, ‘Augustus, I want you to have a rest while I set up for tonight. If I find that you have left this wagon, I will wring your neck. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
Satisfied, she went to tell Little Donny what was for dinner.
‘I already got sausages,’ the dwarf complained. ‘I sent Moira out special this morning.’
‘I don’t care,’ Rosa snapped. ‘I promised that boy Chinese and that’s what he’s getting.’
Having sorted out dinner (Chinese would be served), she made her way to the mess tent. She could hear Slops banging and cursing in the galley, otherwise the place was empty. There was the spittoon, squat and brassy, just inside the entry flap. Snatching it up, Rosa withdrew to the ladies’ to rinse it out, her mouth puckered as a prune. Horrible as this pot is, she thought, it’s big enough for him to squat, which he likes, but low enough for him to be seen as he stands to surprise them. She poured caustic soda filched from the makeshift laundry into the thing and gave it a swish. ‘I better rinse this out good and proper,’ she muttered, ‘else if the golly doesn’t kill him the lye will.’ Anyway, she thought, he can’t say I didn’t try.
When Augustus woke to learn what he was to spring from, he was not so convinced. ‘A spittoon? Rinsed in lye? What about my clothes? Why about my skin? What about my vocal chords? I’m not getting in that.’
‘Augustus,’ she said, adopting an authoritative tone, ‘didn’t your mother tell you that a little astringent is good for your vocal chords?’
‘No,’ he answered, ‘she told me nothing. But I was under that piano long enough to understand an astringent is only used to clear the throat. And since I don’t have a cold – not even a chill – I don’t have any phlegm blocking me up.’
‘Not at the moment, stupid,’ she snapped. ‘But you are about to hide in a spittoon. Think about it.’
Smart as he was, her caustic logic got the better of him.
When Augustus had been dressed in Needly’s suit (the high hat pressed flat beneath his arm), he allowed Rosa to lower him into the spittoon without further complaint. Here the boy squatted (his vocal chords stripped clear as a bell) while the girl returned the vessel to its spot inside the tent.
‘Sit still and shut up,’ she hissed. ‘When you hear Slops yell “Tea’s up!” you are to stand and sing. You’re on your mettle remember. On your own. So you had better be good.’
‘Sure,’ he gagged. ‘Anything to get me out of here.’
‘Smart,’ she whispered, ‘very smart,’ and was gone.
Augustus squatted, stiff and silent, determined to get none of the caustic slick on his suit, or any of the residual golly either, and presently he heard the mob entering the tent. As their words tumbled into the urn, despite the less than ideal space confining him, Augustus listened, taking their communications in: their fears, their woes; even their occasional joys. And so a song came. Their song. The song he would sing for them.
When Slops bawled ‘Tea’s up!’, the boy knew the time had come.
Not standing as he had been told, not springing up to cheapen himself as any common artist might, but crooning only so his voice resounded (rich, thrilling) within that potted space, Augustus’s song drifted out in languorous swirls – some say the odour of sandalwood filled the tent – to settle among the jostling crowd. And when they sensed it, there was a hush, a calm, a stillness – and those who stood were suddenly seated and those who spoke
were suddenly silenced and those who laughed fell quiet as the grave.
‘Please …’ Augustus crooned, ‘please …’
And straightening, he rose.
First his hat, then his lovely face, his shoulders, his chest, his waist then his tiny hands (palms open, thrust forward), and turning as one, the folk saw him and caught that glorious voice.
Not in the Ireland of tenors, nor the Europe of countertenors, nor on the wind off the Prairie, nor upon the sigh of Bedouin sands had one heard such song. And the hearts of the people were replete.
‘Please,’ Augustus sang:
‘Please give me a penny, Sir,
My mother dear is dead,
And oh, I am so hungry, Sir,
A penny, please, for bread.
All day I have been asking
But no one heeds my cry.
Will you not give me something
Or surely I must die.
Oh! Please give me a penny,
Sir, my mother dear is dead,
And oh! I am so hungry, Sir,
A penny, please, for bread.
The tent was silent. Some stood, some sat, some remained, suspended as it were in an airy space of their own making. Until the flap flew up and the redhead appeared. ‘Was he any good?’ Rosa bawled. ‘Was he? Eh?’
Then the mob sighed: the pent-up exhalation came all in a gushy rush sweeping Rosa’s fiery hair from her skull, flattening her faded frock against her ample body. ‘Awww …’ the mob moaned. ‘Awww …’
So Rosa knew she had backed a winner, but Augustus demanded the performance as his own.
‘Please?’ he cried, reaching out. ‘Please?’
The crowd gaped.
‘I am Augustus Trump. And I sing.’
The crowd roared.
‘And Rosa Colleano is my manager,’ he cried.
The crowd fell silent.
‘I am,’ she declared. ‘And I am here to tell you that this child – this four-year-old – wants to join our circus. Wants to perform under our big top. Wants to sing on our Saturday Night bill. What should I tell him?’
‘Awww,’ they sighed. ‘Awww …’
Out of the crowd strode Cigar Sullivan, the Boss, the Big Man himself. Cigar was the life blood of the circus: the manager, the financier, the Boss. His fleshy lips sucking the butt of a long-dead cheroot, Cigar was not to be messed with. No doubt a role model for his colourful son Bertie, Cigar wore a vest of scarlet wool over a black and white polka-dot shirt, braces in yellow, coat in blue, trousers in red, string tie in slick black buffalo, crocodile boots in patent – but no hat (never a hat, neither sombrero, nor fedora, nor beret) that might hide the carefully oiled gleam of his naked skull.
‘Yeah!’ Cigar roared. ‘Sign that idgit up!’
Rosa was taken aback. The Big Man rarely ate with the crowd, preferring to belch in solitude at a table behind the pie stall, his proximity to food being essential. But there he was, Cigar Sullivan himself, bawling, ‘Sign that idgit up!’
Rosa’s ambitions had extended only as far as the approval of the crowd. Where was her copy of Tatler when she needed it? Where was that article on ‘Doing Deals’? (Where was Moira? Even Little Donny?). Where?
‘Mr Sullivan?’ she said, advancing.
‘I never heard nothing like that kid,’ he growled. ‘He’s worth two a that misery Little Donny. How much you want?’
‘Now, now,’ Rosa wheedled, attempting to be coy, ‘let’s not be hasty.’
‘Hasty? Hasty? The kid could write his own cheque.’ And dismissing Rosa with a hairy hand, Cigar turned to Augustus. The boy stuck out of the urn like a flower in a vase –a top-hatted daisy, some said, later, over a beer, recalling his sunny smile. ‘How much you reckon, kid? Come on, tell me.’
Augustus, of course (never having read Tatler), had no idea.
Rosa used both hands to sweep her hair up in a fiery crown. ‘I will do the negotiating,’ she declared, stepping between Cigar and the boy, her hair effectively blotting the child from sight. ‘I am his manager, Mr Sullivan. If you would follow me to my wagon, we will talk,’ and she led the Big Man away.
Bony hands lifted Augustus from the urn. The boy looked up to see Stan Platten grinning at him. ‘You was really good,’ the roustabout said. ‘You made me proud. Hogie would have been too, the darlin’.’
‘Thanks,’ Augustus replied, being placed on a table top. ‘I’m glad you liked it. But why would Rosa leave me? I did my best.’
‘That’s the circus, I reckon,’ Stan mused. ‘Tough place, the circus. Never mind, I brought someone who wants to meet you …’
A face as thin as a splinter was thrust into his, long yellow teeth grinning. ‘Phyllis,’ the teeth said. ‘I thought yer was good too. I made the suit that yer wearin’ yer know. Fer the monkey.’
‘Oh,’ Augustus grunted. ‘Thanks.’
‘Luv,’ she said, ‘luv, ’cause yer so good, I was gunna say, if there’s anythin’ yer ever want made, free like, yer let me know. Nothin’s too good fer yer, kid. Nothin’. Yer made me cry, yer did.’
‘Oh,’ Augustus said. ‘You liked my song?’
‘Liked? I loved it. That was my song, yer know. ’Ow did yer know that?’
‘Just one of those things,’ the gracious Augustus shrugged.
‘Yer got that right. Me dad sung that ta me years ago. Just afore he died of the lockjaw. Stood on a nail, he did. Shame … Yer got a father, have yer?’
‘I believe he’s in the navy,’ the boy said, looking desperately for rescue. ‘An officer. With gold braid on his cap.’
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Just lovely. Like yerself, I reckon,’ and she nipped his tiny cheek with her skinny fingers, hurting.
‘Ow!’ he jumped. ‘Well, Stan, well, um … I must go now. I’m having dinner with friends.’
‘And we ain’t yer friends?’ Phyllis demanded, thrusting her face forward. ‘Kid, I feel like I known yer fer years.’
‘Sorry, Needly,’ Augustus gulped. ‘I really must go,’ and jumping from the table, he exited through the open flap.
‘Needly?’ she squawked. ‘He called me Needly!’
Stan said nothing.
Augustus did not go in search of Rosa, nor did he go back to Little Donny’s for dinner. Feeling strangely depressed (had his performance really been okay? Or was his mood a result of the poisonous contents of that spittoon?), he found a spot near a willow beside a dribbly creek at the bottom of the park. Here he squatted, thinking.
What was to become of him? He was not sorry that his mother had given him away. If he had stayed in her world he would never have met Rosa and Stan, both of whom might help him. Rosa was hard and Stan dim, but together they could provide him with the chance to sing, to tell the world who he was. His mother would never have done that. If he thought of her and the big white house at all, he mostly remembered that special place where he had squatted (as he did now) beneath the piano. But he could not dwell on such matters, not since he heard that doctor declare him a midget, and never once had his mother protested, ‘But he’s my boy, and I love him all the same!’
Of course he knew that size didn’t matter.
Of course he knew that his voice was his life.
Yet, he also knew that to grow – to recreate himself through the poetry of song – was his calling.
If he could do it.
If he could find the right place.
The right song.
And if his voice allowed.
Then he might grow.
Then he might become …
Yet he was not entirely convinced.
Not quite, not utterly.
He was not there yet.
And if he stopped to wonder, to doubt, as he did now, he had to admit that he would give anything to be that man in the uniform; to have his big hands, to have his deep chest, to have his long legs, to have his power, his manhood.
To be, in a word, normal.
Why am I so condemned? he wondered. Why?
Sobbing, he got to his feet to stand beneath the willow. He had visited this melancholy place before; in his heart, his head.
I should sing, he thought, I should find a song, to relieve perhaps, and raising his eyes to look beyond those mournful leaves, to search the vast and careless sky, he sang:
On a tree by a river a little tom-tit
Sang ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow!’
And I said to him, ‘Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing “Willow, titwillow, titwillow”?’
‘Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?’ I cried,
‘Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?’
With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
‘Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!’
He slapped at his chest as he sat on that bough,
Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow!’
And a cold perspiration bespangled his brow,
Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!
He sobbed and he sighed, and a gurgle he gave,
Then he plunged himself into the billowy wave,
And an echo arose from that suicide’s grave
‘Oh willow, titwillow, titwillow!’
So, he thought, at least I can admit my weaknesses, and willing himself to be taller – if only a little – he toddled off to enjoy his Chinese.
At sun-up, having completed her negotiations with Cigar Sullivan, Rosa strode away to inform her new charge of his good fortune.
Finding Augustus talking to Stan Platten outside the roustabout’s wagon, she announced, ‘I’ve done the deal. Cigar gave me seventy quid for your first performance, and if that goes okay, it’s a hundred-a-week contract for twelve months, at just one performance per week. To rest your voice, I told him.’
‘A hundred pounds?’ Augustus gasped. ‘That’s a lot.’
The figure cited was a lie. Cigar had offered two hundred for the first show and two hundred a week if the crowd liked the kid – big money indeed, but Cigar was a big man – although as a result of her nocturnal meditations Rosa had come up with the lesser figure, the difference to be deposited in her panty drawer where – ignorant as he was – the chaste Augustus would never look.