The Sequin Star

by Belinda Murrell

Rosina nodded. ‘Jem sends almost all of his pay to his family.’

  ‘That’s a big responsibility,’ said Claire. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to support your whole family.’

  ‘I’ll get to see them all in a few days when we’re in Sydney.’ Jem shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen them for a year.’

  ‘That will be nice,’ said Rosina. She had a wistful note in her voice.

  ‘What about you, Rosina?’ asked Claire. ‘You said your name was Rosina Sterling. Are you related to the Sterling Brothers?’

  Rosina leant back, crossed her arms and shook her head. ‘Lula is my family,’ she said, stroking the monkey. ‘Rosina Sterling or Princess Rosina or Red Winona are my stage names. Most circus folk have a nom d’arena.’

  Rosina straightened Lula’s costume before continuing. ‘I was orphaned when I was nine. My parents were killed when a motorcar hit the horse and buggy they were travelling in. My father’s sister raised me for a while, but it was difficult. She had a large family of her own, and not much money, so she gave me away to the Sterling family. Alf and Malia didn’t have any children then, and they needed children to train for the circus. I’ve lived with them ever since.’

  Claire inhaled deeply. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose both your parents in an accident. To be left all alone in the world. ‘I’m sorry, Rosina. That must have been terrible.’

  Rosina pulled herself up tall. She smiled her showgirl smile. ‘It was a long time ago. But now I think we should get to bed. Lula is tired and tomorrow is moving day, so we have an early start. It’s a longer drive than usual tomorrow – all the way to St Leonards in Sydney.’

  Jem leant over and stroked Lula on the head. Lula chittered and chattered. ‘Gosh, if Lula is tired, we should all hit the sack as soon as we can. No one would dare cross the very important star of the show: Lula.’

  Rosina smiled gratefully. ‘Come on, Claire. You can bunk in with Lula and me.’

  5

  Pull-down

  Rosina woke Claire early the next morning. Claire stretched, feeling stiff all over. The bunk was hard and narrow with scratchy blankets and a lumpy pillow. She thought of her own bed at home with its squashy cushions and snuggly turquoise doona.

  ‘It’s pull-down,’ said Rosina. ‘We need to get everything packed up and ready to go.’

  Claire yawned and rolled over. ‘But it’s so early,’ she mumbled.

  Rosina stood over her bunk. She was already dressed in jodhpurs, boots and a blue shirt, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Lula scampered down and sat on Claire’s feet, jumping up and down, as though to wake her up.

  ‘You’d better get moving or you’ll be left behind. The boss won’t let anyone stay on who doesn’t pull their weight. You can come and help me with the horses.’

  Claire groaned, then reluctantly sat up and looked around the caravan. On the table was a slice of bread smeared with margarine and a mug of milky tea.

  A pair of jodhpurs and a short-sleeved shirt landed on the bed next to her. ‘You can wear some of my clothes,’ Rosina said, hands on her hips. ‘Yours are grubby and way too unconventional for the country folk. They’re shocked enough at my clothes as it is.’

  Rosina dashed out the door. Claire looked at her dirty jeans and the singlet top she had slept in. She decided Rosina was probably right, so she pulled on the jodhpurs, along with her own brown ankle boots.

  Outside the caravan was a bowl of water, where Claire washed her face and hands. She nibbled on her slice of bread as she crossed the lot.

  Claire could see that the Big Top and the other tents had already been dismantled. Roustabouts were running back and forth to the lorries, carrying piles of canvas, perfectly coiled ropes, strings of flags, benches and equipment. She saw Jem rolling along a large elephant tub, with Jaspar panting along beside him. Jem grinned and waved at her.

  Alf Sterling, the owner, strode back and forth, giving directions and barking orders. Claire slipped around the back to avoid him. She felt nervous of the imposing ringmaster.

  The golden lionesses paced back and forth in their cage. The lion roared with anger. Dogs yapped and barked. The elephants trumpeted to each other at their pickets, swinging their trunks and flapping their ears.

  Claire found Rosina in the field with the horses. There were six dazzling white horses with long manes and tightly plaited tails. In stunning contrast were the six coal-black horses. They were all graceful and muscular, and closely matched in size. Claire could tell just by looking at them that these were valuable, well cared for animals.

  There were also half a dozen miniature ponies and five brown-and-white skewbald horses. Rosina was in the process of catching and tethering them to the fence.

  Two of the white horses were bickering over a net of hay. ‘Move over, Florian,’ scolded Rosina. ‘Stand up, Chantilly.’ She rubbed Chantilly between the eyes as he snatched a wisp of hay from Florian’s net.

  Two horse trucks were backed up with their ramps down. A groom was spreading sawdust on the floor of one.

  ‘Do you want to give me a hand?’ Rosina suggested. ‘Can you help me groom the horses?’

  Claire hesitated, leaning on the other side of the fence. The horses looked enormous up close. ‘Do they need to be groomed before they go on the truck? Why don’t we just do it when we get there?’

  ‘We’ll do a parade when we get to the next stop,’ Rosina explained, tossing a curry comb to Claire. ‘So everyone will have to look their best. You can start with Pluto.’

  Claire ducked between the timber crossbars of the fence. She tentatively stroked the black horse with the curry comb. It stamped one hoof and whinnied, pulling back against the lead rope.

  ‘Not like that,’ said Rosina. ‘You need to use firm pressure – like this – in big, sweeping circles. Put some muscle into it.’

  ‘What sort of horses are they?’ asked Claire as she brushed Pluto’s satiny coat. To her surprise, she found the repetitious work soothing.

  ‘The black and white horses are our liberty horses,’ Rosina explained. ‘They are trained to run free in the ring, without bridles or saddles. The white ones, like Chantilly, are Lipizzaner stallions from Spain, while the black ones, like Pluto, are Friesians from Belgium.’

  ‘Aren’t the stallions dangerous?’ asked Claire. She wasn’t used to animals and she felt nervous of the huge ones.

  Rosina laughed as she lifted up one of the Friesian’s shaggy hooves. It was the size of a plate. She started to clean out his hooves with a pick. ‘We always use stallions because they are so strong and showy. As long as we don’t have any mares for them to fight over, they are mostly well behaved.’

  The two girls brushed each of the horses until their coats gleamed in the sunlight. Rosina painted their hooves with black oil, and each of the horses had their long manes and tails in lots of little plaits tied with black ribbon to stop them from knotting.

  ‘We’ll take the plaits out before the parade,’ said Rosina. ‘They look splendid with their flowing manes and tails.’

  It was an exhausting morning. The entire camp had to be packed up and loaded onto lorries. The caravans were hitched up behind cars and vans, which were to be driven by various roustabouts and performers. Lastly, the animals were loaded onto trucks. The cavalcade could now move out.

  Rosina jumped in the front of one of the horse trucks behind the driver’s wheel. Lula climbed up beside her and sat in the middle.

  ‘Jump in,’ invited Rosina. ‘You can ride with me.’

  Claire looked at Rosina askance. She kept her feet firmly planted on the ground. ‘Aren’t you a little young to be driving a truck?’

  Rosina shrugged. ‘I’ve been driving the truck since I was thirteen. Before that, I learned to drive the Model T Fords around the lot. We have so many vehicles that nearly everyone in the circus ha
s to drive.’

  Claire looked around. Everyone was already in their vehicles, ready to push on to Sydney. She slowly climbed up into the passenger seat. She reached to fasten her seatbelt, only to find there weren’t any.

  ‘Do you have a licence?’ asked Claire.

  Rosina laughed as she turned the key in the ignition. ‘No, silly. As you said, I’m too young. I’m only fifteen, but I mostly drive on country roads. When we get into town I don’t usually drive. I just ride Elsie in the parade.’

  Rosina reversed the truck back carefully then swung it into position behind one of the elephant lorries.

  ‘Aren’t you worried about getting caught?’ asked Claire.

  ‘No,’ said Rosina. ‘Alf just pays the fine. Anyway, the police officers are usually very kind. Hardly any women drive at all, so when people see a teenage girl driving a truck, they are so surprised they have to pick their jaws up out of the dust. Besides, we’re from the circus – no one expects circus girls to be conventional.’

  The long line of horse trucks, lorries, caravans and animal cages pulled out onto the road. The vehicles in front spun up a thick cloud of choking dust that swirled around the convoy. Claire wound up her window quickly.

  ‘It must be exciting,’ said Claire. ‘Do you like travelling around?’

  Rosina steered the large horse truck through the narrow field gate. The truck jolted as they drove down the ditch and then bumped up onto the dirt road.

  ‘Sorry, boys,’ murmured Rosina in the rear-view mirror to the horses in the back. She turned to Claire. ‘I love travelling. I think that’s the best part, actually – moving from town to town, seeing so many new people and places.’

  Rosina waved her hand out the window at the dusty grey-green countryside.

  ‘We’ve crossed the Nullarbor, we’ve performed up the east coast and down the west coast, we’ve played in tiny country towns and huge, sophisticated cities,’ said Rosina. ‘One day I’m going to perform in Paris and New York and Rome.’

  Claire nodded. ‘I’d love to visit those places, too. My grandmother told me some wonderful stories about her travels when she was younger. She travelled all through Asia, Europe and America when she was just a few years older than me.’

  The memory of Nanna’s adventure stories was painful. It brought back the image of Nanna lying crumpled and small in the hospital bed, and Mum looking so sad and helpless. Claire quickly pushed the thought away.

  ‘You must meet some interesting people?’ Claire asked quickly.

  Rosina glanced at Claire, then turned her eyes back on the road. She stroked Lula’s head.

  ‘Yes, we do, but the townies have a funny attitude to us. They love the excitement of the show, but they don’t always like us. They don’t think we’re very respectable. I can’t tell you how many times a local minister has complained about the indecency of the circus women showing their legs.’

  Claire laughed in disbelief. ‘Do you mean like the costumes you wore last night?’ she asked.

  ‘The very same,’ Rosina grinned. ‘Ab-so-lutely shocking!’

  The cavalcade progressed slowly over rough country roads, churning up clouds of red dust. Through the front windscreen there was little to see except the grey rump of one of the elephants in the lorry in front, and the dry bush on either side of the road.

  Occasionally, they would pass a small group of men tramping west along the road. They carried billies and a few meagre belongings wrapped in a swag or blanket.

  ‘Swaggies,’ Rosina said. ‘The poor men walk hundreds of miles, looking for a spot of work. There are more on the roads now than ever before.’

  Claire stared at the thin men with grubby clothes and boots. They didn’t look like the jolly swagmen she had seen in picture books with corks hanging from their broad-brimmed hats.

  At first Claire felt nervous sitting up high in the big horse truck, with no seatbelts, driven by a girl not much older than herself. However, Rosina drove well and she soon relaxed.

  The girls continued chatting about their lives. Claire found herself telling Rosina about her grandmother and her parents.

  ‘I’m an only child,’ Claire explained. ‘My mum had me when she was quite a bit older. My parents are strict and won’t let me do lots of things the other girls are allowed to do. My friend Amy has parents who aren’t around all that much, so she goes out whenever she likes, stays up late, wears make-up and hangs out at the shops.’

  The thought of Amy’s freedom always made Claire feel frustrated with her own parents. Amy’s mother was fashionable, gorgeous and carelessly indulged the girls. Claire loved spending time at Amy’s house, where they could do pretty much whatever they liked.

  ‘My mum is always nagging me to do my homework and tidy my room,’ Claire continued. ‘She fusses about me. She’d have a fit if she knew I was driving with you now.’

  Rosina stared ahead through the dusty windscreen. She chewed her lip, then smiled. ‘They sound like they love you very much. You’re very lucky.’

  ‘Yes, but –’ Claire began. Then she remembered that Rosina was an orphan. She felt petty complaining about her own parents and their silly rules. She lapsed into silence.

  The circus convoy trundled through a number of small country towns that looked poor and neglected. Shops were boarded up and empty. Passers-by stopped to stare at the passing procession. The country people looked thin and grey.

  Claire smiled when she saw a couple of housewives pointing and gossiping about Rosina driving the truck. Lula waved at them out the window.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Claire observed. ‘They don’t know what to make of you at all.’

  ‘It’s all part of the act,’ Rosina said flippantly.

  In the mid-afternoon, after eight hours and a packed lunch on juddering roads, they pulled into the outskirts of Sydney. The cavalcade of trucks and lorries slowed down. There was a lot more traffic on the road – old-fashioned Model T Fords, vans and even the odd horsedrawn sulky. Claire stared around, noting the quaint, drab clothes. This Sydney seemed nothing like the Sydney that she knew from her own time. Everything looked foreign and strange.

  At last the convoy pulled over onto the side of the road. Drivers jumped down from their vehicles and stretched, chatting and laughing. Alf the ringmaster strode up and down the verge, barking orders.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Claire. ‘Is this where we’re stopping?’

  Rosina shook her head and raised her arms. She stretched her neck from side to side. ‘This is where we unload for the parade into St Leonards. Everyone gets dressed in costume. You’d better get dressed too. I’ll lend you something.’

  Claire looked at Rosina in horror. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t need to get dressed up.’

  Rosina smiled. ‘But Alf will expect you to add some glamour to the parade. Even the grooms have to wear uniforms. The circus is all about creating the illusion of being the biggest, the boldest and the most spectacular.’

  ‘But what will I do in the parade?’ asked Claire. ‘Just walk along?’

  ‘I think you can ride Empress, the second elephant,’ Rosina suggested with a grin. ‘She’s not as big as Elsie.’

  ‘I can’t ride an elephant,’ retorted Claire. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’

  Rosina looked like she was enjoying herself. She tickled Lula’s belly. ‘We’ll have a menagerie groom walking beside us. All you have to do is hold on with one hand, wave with the other, keep your back straight and just keep smiling. I think you can manage that.’

  Claire felt a bubble of excitement well up inside her. She was going to ride an elephant in a circus parade.

  ‘Oh, and make sure you don’t look back during the parade,’ Rosina added. ‘It’s bad luck, and we certainly don’t need any more of that.’

  Once more it was a flurry of ac
tivity and a quick meal standing around the trucks. Brownie the cook handed out slabs of rabbit pie with slices of buttered damper, served with mugs of hot tea.

  Afterwards, all the animals had to be unloaded from the trucks, harnessed, costumed and tethered in the shade while the circus folk changed from their everyday clothes into costumes. The ribbons were removed from the horses’ manes and tails, and the hair detangled with their fingers so that it flowed, long and wavy. The horses arched their necks and lifted their tails, ready to show off.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ Rosina declared. ‘Now it’s our turn. But we have to hurry.’

  The girls rushed to the caravan to get ready.

  Rosina lent Claire a turquoise-blue tutu spangled with silver stars, along with pink tights and satin ballet shoes that tied around the ankle with ribbons. She wore her dark hair pulled back with a blue headband sparkling with sequins. Rosina helped her apply some heavy stage make-up: foundation, powder, rouge, black kohl around the eyes, mascara and bright, red lipstick. It reminded Claire of preparing for one of her ballet concerts.

  Rosina wore the scarlet and diamante tutu from the night before. She peered in the mirror as she fixed her headdress in place. The pink-and-white ostrich feathers were attached to a headband and held in place with a diamante and sequin jewel.

  She examined Claire’s appearance critically. ‘Just a touch more lipstick and you’re ready.’ She slicked some added colour on Claire’s lips. ‘Now you look like a real circus girl.’

  Claire stared at the mirror. She didn’t recognise herself, but she quite liked what she saw. She looked exotic and adventurous. She twitched the headband lower on her forehead. The turquoise made her eyes look very blue.

  Outside, the roustabouts, now dressed in their brightly coloured uniforms, helped position the animals in the procession. The three young Sterling children were running about, dressed in miniature clown costumes with thick white make-up and bright red noses. They waved to Rosina and Claire, who thought they looked adorable in their tiny suits.

  Rosina ordered Empress to lift Claire up with her trunk.