by Peter Bunzl
For a second, he considered the possibility that they had come to the wrong place and wondered again if sneaking out of the party had really been such a good idea. If something went wrong John would have no idea where they were.
“We should get the cabbie to wait,” he mumbled, but it was too late – the hansom had already turned round and was trundling off up the road through the thick fog. “Now how are we going to get home?” he complained.
“Robert’s right,” Tolly said, watching the steam-hansom vanish into the night. “It’s too dangerous to walk back in this weather.”
Malkin looked at them crossly. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“I didn’t think,” Robert said. “It was Lily’s plan and I assumed—”
“Never assume anything,” the fox said snootily. “Assumptions are always a mistake. Look at Lily – not one of life’s planners, and yet she assumes everything will turn out rosy because—”
“Quiet!” Lily snapped. But the truth was Malkin was right. She hadn’t thought her plan through and already it was going wrong. She had expected at least a few hansoms and steam-wagons belonging to the earlier crowds to be parked here, and she had hoped that one of them might offer them a lift home later. But there was no chance of that. The place was deserted.
Beside her, Robert and Tolly shrunk into their coats, and even Malkin was on high alert, his hackles raised. She took a great gulp of air to try and calm herself, but her fear still fizzed and fizzled in her. She couldn’t let her sudden sense of dread distract her from her earlier excitement over the chance to find out more about Mama’s work. Someone at the Skycircus – maybe Angelique, maybe another act – had sent Mama’s notebook, and they must be able to tell her more about it. She took out her pocket watch and checked the time.
“It’s already seven twenty-nine. We’d best hurry, if we want to catch the start of the show.” She pushed open the gate and stepped into the foggy field beyond.
“Wait for me!” Malkin cried, rushing behind her with his tail down.
Tolly glanced at Robert. “Come on,” he said apprehensively, and together they both followed the others through the gap.
A narrow path, lined with flickering candles in glass jam jars, led them down into the dell they’d seen earlier from the tower, where the high circular wooden fence of whitewashed slats stood, plastered with bold posters of circus folk. Behind it was the striped canvas Big Top and, behind that, was the gigantic red-and-white hot-air balloon – big as a harvest moon and twice as bright.
Lily was relieved to see through the mist that a last handful of villagers were standing beside the ticket booth and a gated entranceway in the fence, paying for their tickets. She and the others joined the line behind them. When they’d finished, they pushed through the high spike-tipped iron gates one by one and disappeared beyond the fence.
Then Lily found herself at the front of the line.
Inside the kiosk was a man in clown make-up and a frilly collar. His ghostly face was white with powder. A black make-up snake squiggled round one eye and a painted teardrop fell from the other, making him look positively frightening.
Lily smiled at him, and got a grimace in return. Then he reached up and began pulling a metal grille down over the window. “Sales are closing,” he explained through the bars. “The show’s about to start – if you want to join the crowd, you’ll have to be quick-smart.”
“We’ve a VIP ticket. A personal invite.” Lily placed their ticket on the counter in front of him. The clown examined it.
“So you do. This looks fine! And since you’re in line, you’re most assuredly on time!” He ripped the ticket into tiny pieces and giggled, throwing them over his head like confetti. Then, leaping out of a side door of the booth, he tipped his triangular white hat at them and bowed so low that the red pom-poms on the front of his polka-dot clown suit squashed together about his tummy. Coming up he was all smiles, which was disconcerting as there was already a sharply outlined grin painted on his lips.
“Come along, good fellows, follow me. Outside the Big Top there’s nothing to see!” He ushered them through the iron gates, locking them behind him, and was only slightly taken aback when Malkin slipped through the bars and joined the rear of the line.
The mist had yet to penetrate beyond the fence. A red carpet, edged with more glass-jar lanterns, and furry as a tongue, had been unfurled across the grass and between the taut guy ropes. It ended at a wide-mouthed archway hung with lanterns, where the last few stragglers they had just seen were making their way into the Big Top. A jingle of accordion, drum and fiddle music accompanied them, mixed with a chatter of expectant voices that drifted from the tent.
“My name’s Joey the clown,” Joey said. “I smile more than most, but sometimes I get down.” He pointed to a painted teardrop on his cheek and gave a leering approximation of a sad face.
Robert thought Joey very odd indeed. The clown’s sing-song jabbering was not putting him any more at ease. It had an awkward nervous quality to it, beneath the light jokey tone. He wondered if everything the clown said was always in rhyme. Surely that would drive him crazy, if he wasn’t so already?
As they neared the canvas entrance, a mechanical man lumbered into view, his limbs creaking like the screech of un-oiled brakes. He was about eight feet tall – taller than any human, and bigger and wider too.
The mechanical man turned his head and stared at them as they passed, and his neck joints made a horrible crunching sound. His eyes were as big and dead and empty as the round headlamps on a steam-wagon, while his mouth ran straight across his face in a flat expression that was neither a smile nor a frown. His bulky body looked like it was made from discarded parts of heavy machinery, and his arms clanged as he folded them across his chest. Robert shivered. They were as thick and square as brick pillars, with hands that looked big enough to crush a skull. Lucky that mechanicals were programmed not to hurt humans.
“That’s the Lunk,” said Joey. “He stands guard. Guards the stand. He’s our mechanical strongman. He creaks the whole time because he never uses an oil can.”
Lily and Tolly stared worriedly at the Lunk, but they didn’t have the opportunity to consider the mechanical any more, for Joey was guiding them down a short canvas tunnel into the Big Top, where the smoky aroma of roasting chestnuts and burned candyfloss mixed with a smell of canvas, wood shavings and stale sweat.
They passed a gaily painted cart in the entranceway, behind which stood a second clown, whose face looked entirely different from Joey’s. White rings surrounded his eyes, red lipstick splurged around his mouth, and his hair, which stuck out at every angle from beneath a battered bowler hat, was dyed a bright orange colour that reminded Lily of a raw carrot. To top it off he wore a suit of loud, mismatching checks draped over his squat body like an oversized tablecloth. It looked like it had been assembled from the remains of an explosion in a tartan factory.
“Roll up! Step right this way!” he called out, waving at the jars of sweets laid out on the counter of his cart. “Tracks and sneats! Gine wums, shemon lerberts, stickerish licks, drocolate chops, fandycloss and choast restnuts – you too can taste these trondrous weats…”
Robert didn’t know what any of those were but they sounded quite disgusting!
“This is Auggie,” Joey said. “He’s a bit of a spoonerist, gets his words all mixed up, but if you listen carefully you’ll get the gist.”
“We don’t have money,” Lily told the clowns.
“That’s ferfectly pine.” Auggie reached out one big-gloved hand, plucked a small, red-and-white striped heart-shaped box from beneath the wagon’s counter and passed it to Lily. “Another gift yor fou.”
“Oh, I forgot to say…” Joey added. “Compliments of the house, since it’s your birthday.”
“Thank you.” Lily’s grin couldn’t quite hide the confusion she felt inside. She took the box of chocolates and handed them to Robert. She didn’t recall telling the clowns it was her bi
rthday, but somehow they seemed to know. Could they be the ones who’d sent the first present?
Joey led them past rows of tiered wooden benches, which were arranged five deep around the tent and filled with everyone from the village who hadn’t been invited to Papa’s party. Lily recognized various local faces among them. The schoolmistress, out with the butcher’s boy from the High Street, was trying to ignore a gaggle of her pupils sitting directly behind her. The baker and his wife and their two children were sharing a box of popcorn, the littlest one dropping half of his on the floor. Beside them, the old man whose job it was to light and snuff the five street lamps around the village green was busily puffing on his pipe.
Other notable local faces filled the rest of the stands. People who nodded to Lily and Robert, but then immediately turned to their neighbours to gossip about them when they’d passed. Lily imagined they were probably wondering why she wasn’t at Papa’s party scoffing platefuls of the food Mrs Rust had been out purchasing in their local shops all week.
“Here we are!” Joey stopped at a handful of empty wooden chairs beside the central sawdust ring that had been cordoned off by a red ribbon. “The Vee–EYE–pee area!” he said, pulling his left eye wide with one finger, and rolling the eyeball about. Then he blinked. “Sorry! Feeling a bit sick – bit of a tick… Tick-tock! Ha-ha… Wondering what it is that makes you tick…”
Lily stiffened. He’d said exactly the words from the card, that had rhymed too. She was starting to suspect he’d written it, and she was beginning to have terrible misgivings about this whole adventure, but Joey was already whisking the ribbon from the aisle and ushering them into their seats.
While they were taking off their coats, he pointed out the red velvet curtains on the far side of the ring. In the shadows stood the four-piece band – three men and a woman dressed in patchwork suits – who were playing their jangle-sharp warm-up tune on their instruments as the last of the audience settled in for the show.
“This spot might not look like much to you,” Joey explained, “but rest assured it has the best view. Happy birthday, Lily, on our behalf, and look for me in the very first half.” With that, he saluted and was gone.
Lily looked anxiously around, uncertainly trying to determine what they’d let themselves in for. One thing the clown had said was true; they were in the best seats in the house. She could see everything from where she sat.
A quartet of poles around the ring held up the roof. From them radiated swathes of canvas hung with black, white and yellow bunting. Smaller side-poles around the edges were hung with individual oil lamps. Gradually, the babble of the crowd died away as the two clowns, Joey and Auggie, moved among them, laboriously and with much slapstick, snuffing out each of the lamps.
Finally there was only one flame left. It guttered and died and the entire tent was plunged into darkness. The band stopped playing their jittery tune and Lily found she was holding her breath.
She wondered if the next hour would give her the answers she hoped for, or if coming here had the makings of a grave mistake.
Lily’s eyes were still adjusting to the inky insides of the tent when a single limelight flickered to life, illuminating the sawdust ring with a lurid glare, accompanied by a strong smell of burning calcium. The soft bowing of the fiddle cut through the air. Soon it was joined by the beat of the drum, then the squeezed wheezings of an accordion and finally the plunk of the double bass.
As the jaunty fanfare became louder, the velvet curtains parted, rising in swags from the centre, to reveal a black backcloth sewn with tiny fragments of mirror that caught the light from the auditorium and twinkled like little stars.
Two figures – a man and a woman – paraded out onto the sawdust. They set off walking in opposite directions around the ring. The man wore a high top hat with a broad brim, which shaded his gaunt clean-shaven face and a pair of dark, deep-set eyes, and he carried a black horsewhip. His red swallowtail tuxedo flapped with each stride, while the woman’s loose blonde hair bounced with every gliding step. She wore a vermilion dress and twirled an open red-and-white parasol about her head. Her face was painted with brightly coloured make-up and she had a long blonde beard that matched the colour of her hair.
The two met at a point directly in front of where Lily and her friend were sitting, and threw their arms up in the air in unison.
The man swept off his top hat and bowed to the assembled crowd, flashing them a sparkling smile crammed with gold teeth. “LAAAAAADIES AND GENTLLLLLEMEN! Welcome to our Big Top! Tonight, in our ONLY BRACKENBRIDGE SHOW, you will witness MAGNIFICENT ESCAPADES of UNIQUE QUALITY!”
“Blimey!” Tolly whispered. “He’s got the patter, hasn’t he?”
“It’s almost as stale as the smell in this tent,” Malkin sniped.
“My name’s Slimwood,” the man continued. “I’m the ringmaster of this circus of ROUSTABOUTS that you’ve the pleasure of witnessing this evening, HEREABOUTS and THEREABOUTS! Allow me to introduce MY BEAUTIFUL ASSISTANT – MADAME LYONS-MANE, our bearded lady and ringmistress.” He threw a white gloved hand out to his companion. “We have come to RELIEVE YOUR SUFFERING! Create a little AMUSEMENT in your dull lives… Our acts will perform the MOST OUTRAGEOUS tricks of DANGER and DARING for your DELIGHT and DELECTATION!” He waved his hands at the crowd as if these wonders were already visible.
Madame Lyons-Mane stepped forward. “Before we begin, one of my clowns has told me that tonight is someone’s birthday!” She glanced at Lily. “Would you please join me in the ring?” she asked in a melodious voice.
Lily stood and obliged, feeling an odd pull in her stomach.
“A big hand for Miss Hartman!”
The crowd applauded and Madame Lyons-Mane opened her parasol in front of the pair of them, leaning in to whisper in Lily’s ear: “Happy birthday, Lily. I’ve another present for you.” She motioned to Auggie, who dashed over and handed Lily a bunch of wild flowers wrapped in newspaper.
“Font dorget to water them,” he chirruped as Lily took the bouquet and he sprayed her with a squirt of water from a fake silk carnation in his lapel.
After that, Madame Lyons-Mane indicated she should return to her seat.
Lily sat back down and put the wilted flowers on the floor beside her.
“Don’t go chewing those,” she told Malkin, as she wiped her face on the end of her scarf.
“It couldn’t make them any blooming deader,” Malkin muttered from under her chair. “By the by, that woman shouldn’t be opening umbrellas indoors. It’s bad luck. Everybody knows that. You’d think circus people would too.”
Tolly tapped Lily on the arm. “Did you ask her about Angelique?”
“There wasn’t time,” Lily said. “I’ll do it later. Maybe she’ll—”
But their conversation was interrupted by a loud drum roll as Madame Lyons-Mane flipped her open parasol in the air and caught it by the handle, balancing it on her palm, before finally snapping it shut.
Then Slimwood shouted: “Remember – THERE ARE NO RULES OR REGULATIONS, AND NO SAFETY NETS! Merely the GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH… And now, LET THE EXTRAVAGANZA BEGIN!”
Lily settled back in her seat, distracted by the thought of Madame Lyons-Mane. Something about the sharp scent she wore had seemed familiar. When she’d leaned in close to whisper, the aroma had cut through the sawdust and animal smells of the circus ring. It lingered like a memory Lily couldn’t quite place, faint and out of reach.
But she didn’t have time to contemplate it, for the show was now in full swing. They saw plate-spinners, tumblers, jugglers, dancers, and Lily found herself drawn more and more into the drama of each act.
“PRESENTING THE FABULOUS BOUNCING BUTTONS!” Slimwood announced as the show reached its halfway point, and a family of three dark-haired, tanned-looking acrobats entered the ring. He pointed at them one by one: “Bruno, Gilda and Silva!” Silva was the youngest, about Lily’s age, and Lily thought she had to be the daughter or the sister of the other two. “See the
m jump like tiddlywinks! See them shine in their astounding acrobatic act!”
The Buttons sprang about, performing backflips and cartwheels to the tunes of the band. Meanwhile, with much screeching, the Lunk brought out a see-saw. Carrying it as though it was as light as a matchstick, he placed it in the middle of the ring and lumbered off again.
Silva Buttons stood on one end of the see-saw, while Gilda climbed onto Bruno’s shoulders to create a human tower. Silva nodded to them and slapped her hands to her thighs and, as one, they hopped on to the other end of the see-saw, sending Silva flying through the air, so that she landed atop their tower.
Silva wobbled momentarily, and it looked like she might fall; she glanced nervously offstage at Slimwood and Madame Lyons-Mane, waiting in the wings. Behind them lurked the great square shadow of the Lunk, shifting from foot to foot. The sight seemed to make Silva sway even more, almost as if she was more worried about getting the trick wrong in front of them than she was about the audience.
Then Gilda threw her arms around Silva’s legs to steady her, and she seemed to regain her confidence and balance. The music swelled in encouragement, then dropped into a drum roll.
Silva pasted a nervous smile back on her face and, throwing her arms up, leaped from the top of the human tower…
She bounced onto her hands, somersaulted across the sawdust and landed with a flourish, closely followed by Gilda and Bruno, who vaulted into place beside her. Then the three Buttons lined up, opened their arms, and gave big extravagant bows to each corner of the tent, exiting to applause.
The Fabulous Bouncing Buttons were followed by Dimitri Grai, the Youngest Horseman of the Apocalypse, who wore a Cossack riding outfit and rode two stallions, one black, one white, round the ring simultaneously.
Then came an ancient-looking man who ate four flaming fire brands, which he washed down with tea straight from a teapot, before polishing off an entire set of crockery from the same tray as if each piece of china were merely a cream bun.