by Paul Gallico
Toby went back to the elephant, not quite knowing what to do or say. She had left off the side-to-side swaying movement and was now nodding her head up and down in a bobbing motion, which the Indians who deal with elephants call “pounding the rice.” Her trunk was curled and half upraised, revealing her mouth which one could almost imagine split in a wide grin. Her little eyes were shining and were filled with intelligence and satisfaction.
Toby said, “You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you?” But his febrile imagination could not keep off the subject that was tormenting him again. Rose! Rose! Rose! And the wetted blouse which had outlined a breast.
His father came down the steps of the wagon and said to him, “What the hell do you mean, talking to your mother like that?”
Toby said, “Oh, leave me alone, will you? The kid got it, didn’t she? What did Ma have to go on picking on her for? If she’d have been killed, I’d have been to blame.” He strode away to be alone with his mind pictures.
That night Jackdaw Williams said, “I hear the Walters family gave you the laugh this morning.”
Rose looked up momentarily from the pan in which she was frying sausages, and at the memory the tears welled into her eyes again. Several of them dropped into the fat, where they sizzled fiercely.
“I’d keep away from them if I was you,” Jackdaw went on. “They’re a rum lot. Harry Walters is a rat and his woman thinks she’s God Almighty.”
Rose’s face was flushed red again from more than the heat of the stove. She said, “I’ll get even with them if it’s the last thing I do.”
Williams said, “Suit yourself, but feuds don’t do nobody any good when you’re travelling with a show. I seen too many of them.”
The two had fallen into a modus vivendi that was agreeable and convenient to them both. Rose looked after his creature comforts and he did not interfere with her in anything she chose to do outside this area, as long as she was at hand when he wanted her. His calls upon her person were less frequent now and as always left Rose unaffected.
Later that night, lying in the darkness on the thin mattress which had been purchased to lay upon the costume locker, Rose asked, “What don’t elephants like?”
Jackdaw’s voice issued from his bunk on the opposite side, dry and matter-of-fact: “Something unexpected in the dark, or small animals suddenly yapping about their feet, or something even like opening up an umbrella. Some people say elephants are afraid of mice, but I never seen one that was. I once saw an elephant step on a rat and squash it flat like a piece of paper. They don’t like horses sometimes, or kids. Judy now, she don’t like women. But I guess you found that out.”
There was a moment of silence which Rose did not choose to break, for the thoughts of her recent humiliation had returned most vividly.
Then from the nearby bunk came a chuckle: “You might try firecrackers.”
“Oh!” said Rose, startled that Jackdaw had been reading the purpose behind her queries, and then: “Would they hurt her? I wouldn’t want—”
“Hell, no!” Jackdaw replied. “Just give her a bit of a stir-up. I’ve got some I used to use in an act you can have. Whizzers and shriekers, that just sort of scuttle about on the ground.” The chuckle filled the gloom of the wagon again. “You might give the Walters a bit of a treat while you’re at it.”
This time a laugh broke from Rose as well, for in her imagination she suddenly saw not only Judy and the Walters family but Toby hopping about and this last gave her intense satisfaction.
The following night, shortly after twelve o’clock, Rose crept out of the caravan, bearing a small package that Jackdaw had given her along with his cigarette lighter and approached the living wagon of the Walters family.
On the far side of it, some ten yards off, she could see the recumbent form of the elephant lying on her side, her trunk neatly coiled like a length of garden hose, her massive head pillowed on a pile of hay. Concealed in the shadow of the wagon Rose removed the six squibs from their box labelled LITTLE DEVILS, fired the fuses, and distributed them. Two she tossed over in the direction of the sleeping elephant and the rest she tipped through the open window of the big caravan and then stood off to observe the results.
The ensuing hullabaloo was completely gratifying, though in the case of the elephant more than she had bargained for or would have wished, and she realised that Jackdaw had used her to satisfy his peculiar sense of humour. The whizzers and shriekers that darted about on the ground fizzing, whooping, and squealing brought the great beast to her feet quivering with terror and the next moment she was heaving and plunging against the chains that held her by her two legs fore and aft and in her panic giving vent to an ear-splitting trumpeting which, combined with her lungings and thrashings and the jangling of the chains, ruptured the quiet of the night.
In the meantime the Little Devils set alight on the floor of the caravan were doing their work and sent the Walters family tumbling out of the back door, and in the case of the more agile boys, the window. They came out bewildered, sleep-drunk and cursing, none louder than Toby who at once recognised the dangers inherent in the plunges of the frantic elephant and ran to her as naked as the day he was born to try to calm her before she broke free and it was too late. Jacko and Ted slept in the raw as well, but Ma and Harry Walters were encased in cotton nightgowns, and the two girls enveloped in nylon. All of the women had curlers in their hair and were screaming.
The noise brought the other performers likewise hurrying from their quarters and rushing to the scene, where the spectacle of the Walters family quickly sent them into paroxysms of laughter, for the Little Devils were still whizzing and shrieking inside the caravan, and those on the ground outside fizzing among their bare feet were sending them into a kind of Indian war dance that would have done credit to a Wild West show.
What had to be coped with immediately was Judy, to whom neither the shouts of Toby nor the frantic soothings of Mr. Albert, who had quickly appeared upon the scene, had penetrated. Joe Cotter and Pete, the mechanic, and the three veteran tentmen who were to make the trip to Spain, as well as the horse grooms, tackled the fear-stricken beast. Under Toby’s direction and with the help of Fred Deeter, the ex-cowboy, they managed to get ropes around the two free legs of the elephant to immobilize her.
At this point Rose walked into the picture. She said to the Walterses, “Well, why aren’t you laughing? Everybody else is.” And to Toby, “Maybe this’ll teach you to keep your bloody big gasbag under control.” Then she turned upon her heel and marched off into the darkness back to her van where Williams still appeared to be sleeping, undisturbed by the pandemonium.
There was an inquest the following morning in the office of a furious Sam Marvel. It was attended by Jackdaw and Rose, and Mr. Albert and the Walters family, and Marvel chewed them out thoroughly, concentrating upon Rose and Jackdaw but not ignoring the Walters family, who had been getting on his nerves of late. He threatened to sack Jackdaw and take the elephant act away from Toby.
There was no dismissing the dangerous nature of what Rose had done or the consequences it might have entailed had Judy broken loose, yet Jackdaw remained unimpressed by Marvel’s tirade and merely said, “They put the laugh on the girl. They’ve been picking on her and trying to get her chucked out. You tell ’em to leave her alone. Thev had it coming to them.”
For the first time Rose felt something almost like affection for Williams which was not connected with the fact that he was the owner of their home. Like her, he had an impenetrable independence of spirit.
The following day, Rose had encountered Toby on the lot. The boy was going to ignore her, but she blocked him by walking deliberately into his path. She said, “Toby! Please! I’m sorry for what I done. It wasn’t right. I could of done it to you, but I shouldn’t of done it to Judy. She’s an animal. She doesn’t know any better, does she?”
Her apology was so straightforward and unexpected that it took the boy unawares and robbed him of his pride, his anger, and hi
s defences. And besides, though he was not aware of it, the impudence, the toughness, and the directness of her action, of getting some of her own back, had impressed him, and he felt a kind of respect for her. She was still all they said she was, no doubt, but she suddenly stood out more as a person, somebody with a backbone. If she was living in sin with Jackdaw Williams, then it was because she wanted to.
He said, “Look here, Rose. I’m sorry about the other morning. I didn’t mean to be so rough with you, but I don’t think you understand. That elephant is a killer.”
The girl looked at him incredulously. Toby went on, “Mr. Albert says that you’ve been getting along with his cats and the other animals. That’s fine, but don’t come around Judy expecting her to do the same, because she’s different. She doesn’t like women. They say she killed one once, and that’s why I got to watch her.”
Rose said, “I suppose I was foolish. I thought I could make any animal love me.”
Toby said, “Well, don’t be foolish any more. Judy knows it was you played that trick. Keep away from her, that’s all.”
And, Rose thought, included by implication in his last sentence and the way he turned on his heel and walked away was unspoken—and keep away from me too.
And so a kind of truce was declared. The incident had in no ways diminished the love and the yearning that Rose felt for Toby. Repressed and sublimated, it expressed itself then in her affection for the wild animals of the circus, and she spent more and more of her time in the company of Mr. Albert in the long barn where the menagerie was housed. Nobody interfered with this, for nothing escaped the gimlet eyes of Sam Marvel and he saw that she was making herself useful by helping the old man to clean out the cages and feed the beasts.
Under Mr. Albert’s tutelage, she progressed in her courtship of the animals, and particularly, to her great delight, with Rajah the tiger, who first had ignored her but then, when she appeared more frequently at the side of Mr. Albert and dealt him his meat bone, began to take more of an interest in her, and even permitted her to touch him.
But the real conquest occurred one day when Rose turned up before his cage wearing some Californian Poppy scent to which she had treated herself at Woolworth out of her savings.
Rajah padded over, sniffing, then flopped down, turning on his side, making his satisfied noise in his throat, and pushed his head against the bars. Rose put her arm in, scratched and petted him, and he purred like a kitten.
Excitedly she called to Mr. Albert: “Look, look, Mr. Albert! Come here! He loves me!”
Mr. Albert came over and contemplated the phenomenon, sniffed himself, and said, “He likes that good smell you’ve got on.”
“Smell?”
“Sure, some of ’em love good smells. Didn’t you ever see a cat go around sniffing flowers?”
From that moment on, Rose doused herself with toilet water, until one night Jackdaw Williams asked, “What the hell is going on here? This place stinks like a whore’s boudoir.” But when she told him he only laughed and said no more about it.
It bothered Rose, however, that she was not loved entirely for herself, and one day she appeared scentless. Rajah came over just the same and played with her, while Mr. Albert watched fondly. Rapport had been established. Rose was happy. There was a monkey that adored her; Pockets, the kangaroo, was her friend; the small brown bear was obviously smitten; and her life took on a wholly new meaning. The love flowing from her warmed the menagerie, and for the first time in her life she had a fast, firm friend in the person of Mr. Albert.
Slowly but surely the performers and the tight, streamlined show rounded into shape. The three cats worked obediently enough for Fred Deeter, with Rose again assisting, but from outside the cage which pleased him and made up for the extra work he was called upon to do. And the youthful, handsome Toby in his glittering Indian potentate’s costume presenting Judy was as effective in the end as a whole ringful of pachyderms. Sam Marvel was satisfied with the outcome of his ideas.
Two full dress rehearsals, one for charity and the other for the inmates of the local orphanage, went off without a hitch. And in April they packed up, moved up country to Liverpool without incident, where they boarded ship and sailed to Spain. By mid-July they were showing in the heartland of the country, the broad, flat, seemingly limitless plain of La Mancha. They also found themselves in the midst of an appalling heat wave.
C H A P T E R
7
Jackdaw Williams, preceded by the insane shouting of the bird perched on his shoulder and followed by a burst of laughter and ripple of applause from the arena within, plunged through the exit curtains into the back-entrance enclosure.
“God Almighty!” he cried. “Have you seen her?”
He was dripping with sweat except where it had not been able to force its way through the thick make-up of the Auguste, the wide bands of vermilion forming the blubbery lips, the chalk-white of the eyelids, and the surprised circle of eyebrows painted with black crayon.
Fred Deeter, the American ex-cowbov, already perspiring in stock, white jodhpurs, and long-tailed red coat for his doubling as Signor Alfredo, said, “What’s up?”
The two Walters sisters who did the wire act had previously come off, their soaked costumes clinging to their slender bodies. In the arena Gogo and Panache with Janos, the Hungarian dwarf, were burlesquing the wire act, while Mr. Albert and four of the Spanish roustabouts were engaged in dismantling the supports for the steel wire to clear the ring for Fred Deeter and the Liberty horses to follow.
Williams said, “You tell me, cul,” and parted the curtain a trifle at eve level for the American to see.
It was hot enough in the confined enclosure where the performers waited their turn to go into the ring, but the furnace blast of heat from within which blew through the aperture was appalling. The July sun had been baking the unrelieved Spanish plain for twenty consecutive days, and since early morning had been cooking the atmosphere within the circus tent to boiling point. Nine hundred spectators packed in tiers into the enclosure added their body heat to the stifling, stagnant air.
Rose appeared at the rear of the enclosure clad in a long spangled gown of blue sequins which showed off the smooth copper shine of her hair and the milky skin that went with her colouring. She carried a whip in one hand, preparing to go on with Fred Deeter and the Liberty act, and a towel in the other. She went over to the clown and removed the jackdaw from his shoulder, carrying it to a perch at the rear of the back entrance where it settled in a heap of miserable ruffled feathers. The heat was affecting it, as it was every human and animal connected with the circus. Then she returned and with the towel mopped the sweat from the steaming back and neck of the Auguste, who ignored her, and glancing through the opening said, “Over there on the left. You can’t miss her!”
Deeter applied an eye to the aperture for an instant and then drawled in genuine amusement, “Well, Jee-sus Christ! What the hell do you call that?” Then he said, “You’re sure that ain’t a Gee put up by Sam Marvel?” using the circus term applied to a performer who pretends to be a member of the audience until he or she joins the act.
“Nunti,” said Williams. “I saw it come in.”
They were playing the matinée performance in Zalano, a town of some six thousand population in the midst of the Spanish wine and olive country, and where an evening performance had been scheduled as well.
The creature who was the object of their attention was so obese that the broad spread of her hams, encased in what seemed to be countless layers of ruffled skirts, spread over three of the star-backed folding chairs of the front row, her knees almost touching the red wooden circle of the circus ring. Out of the voluminous skirts arose a thick torso over which swelled, seemingly about to burst from their confinement, breasts as huge as melons. A black lace shawl covered her shoulders, but her enormous arms were free. No neck was visible; the woman’s head, monstrous and grotesque, rested upon the triple folds of chin dewlapping her chest. Her face, chal
ked in powder as milk-white as her arms, had two precise circles of crimson rouged onto the cheeks which seemed almost an imitation of those on the countenance of Gogo, the white-faced clown. Her mouth, which was ridiculously small for the rest of the vast expanse of her, had been meticulously painted with a fine hand-brush into a tiny Cupids bow. Her eye make-up was startling. The eyes themselves were as green as a cruel and stormy sea, but the eyelids were silvered with some kind of metallic paste, the dark pouches beneath them emphasised with purple, with black pencilled lines drawn to the corners. Some illness or accident must have left her as bald as an ostrich egg, for her head was surmounted by a towering peruke, brick-red in colour and consisting of tiers and masses of stiff artificial curls and ringlets. Topping off this formidable pile was a majestic ten-inch tortoiseshell comb.
She must have been six feet tall and appeared to be almost as wide. The fingers, like five fat white slugs, which held an enormous black lace fan which was never still, were covered with rings, and two enormous pear-shaped emerald pendants dripped from her ears.
She stood out against the drab background of the poorly clad audience, for by the simple expedient of buying up half a dozen seats on each side of her as well as several rows behind, she was able to sit removed from the rabble; alone except for her entourage of attendants arrayed behind her but within call. These consisted of her personal maid, a smartly liveried chauffeur, and an elderly man who in spite of the heat was clad in striped trousers, short black jacket, white shirt, and stiff collar.
Her name, as they ascertained later, was the Marquesa Felicia de Pozoblanco de la Mancha. She was sixty years old and immensely rich, owning vineyards, olive groves, and saffron fields in the environments of Zalano as far as the eye could reach. The residents of the town regarded her with a mixture of fear and superstition. The elderly man accompanying her was Don Francisco, her major-domo, who never once during the performance kept his eyes anywhere but fixed upon the broad expanse of the back of the Marquesa awaiting and prepared for the slightest signal from his mistress.