The Circus

by Olivia Levez

  Here are only boats, gape-sided wrecks, forgotten hulls, broken and cast-off. Once alone, I stumble and almost faint. Slide down to sit on the shingle and weed. Collapse on my hands and knees to try to breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  I fumble in my bag for my pills but there are none. Suz has taken those too.

  I have searched every street.

  She has taken everything.

  I have nothing.

  The clouds are knitting together as I emerge onto the common on West Hill, following the path to the top. There are no stars tonight, only the smudged clouds, purple-bruised and sullen. A group of men shout, ‘All right, love?’ and I ignore them, fix my eyes forward, try to focus on walking purposefully.

  And all the time, a voice throbs and sneers:

  No money. You have no money.

  What are you going to do now, Willow? How are you going to live, Circus Girl?

  At the top of the hill there’s a children’s playground, and inside I sit on a swing and pull out the Happiness Kit and hold it to my cheek. I think of Daddy’s card which I gave to the homeless girl at Paddington, think of the smooth, crisp notes of my gap year money. With trembling hands, I line up the objects on the swing seat next to me, realign them, reorder them, one by one.

  A plaster to heal you when you hurt.

  A diamond to bring a sparkle to your eye.

  A Love Heart sweet so you know that someone loves you.

  I whisper the words over and over, like a mantra. Like all of these random things will somehow hold me together.

  On my wrist is the grubby string of the friendship bracelet that Suz wrapped around me, the first time we met. I yank it off viciously, stare at the orange and black threads. Then I place it in line on the swing.

  A friendship band, to remind you of things broken.

  I take Beanie’s head girl badge and pin it to my coat. Wonder when I stopped talking to her in my head. At the bottom of my bag are the two photographs: my mother and the folded newspaper clipping of me and Spook. I unfold it and stroke his nose. At the bottom, there is the caption: Miss Stephens and Spook, all smiles after their big win.

  Miss Stephens.

  Mrs Fox had been going through my things in my room.

  It wasn’t because she knew I was a runaway. She hadn’t read about me in the paper, after all. Which means…

  Which means I could still be in my room right now. I might never have met Suz. Might never have lost my money.

  I left too soon.

  Somewhere, a dog howls.

  Not since those first days at St Jerome’s have I felt so alone.

  Willow, Aged Six

  It is fun at first.

  I sit at a scratched wooden desk, and I try to keep my legs still as the lady asks me lots of questions. ‘Just to see what we’re dealing with, you understand.’ I have to sit a numbers test and an English test and a science test, and she sighs at my answers. ‘Very good at storytelling,’ she tells Daddy. ‘Your daughter’s a very imaginative little girl.’

  Daddy says something to her in a low voice, and she smiles and takes firm hold of my arm. ‘We’ll make sure she’s safe here, Mr Stephens, don’t worry.’ She’s wearing a man’s tweed jacket, and gold glasses hang from a chain over her large chest.

  She steers me through a doorway and makes me sit on a polished chair in a room that smells funny. Later I will learn that the smell is beeswax. Beanie’s house smells like this, and Miffy’s and Lexy’s. Opposite hang rows of photographs of stern women in Victorian clothes, their eyes sliding over me as I drum my feet on the shiny floor.

  Words drift: ‘Not had much of a firm hand…au pairs…’ and ‘Work commitments…new business venture…’

  I look to see where I can escape, but this room is high up; the school brochure said that you can see three counties from here. Daddy comes out at last, followed by the lady.

  He’s smiling, like he is about to give me a huge present.

  Instead, he rips my world away.

  ‘Mrs Threshbold says she’ll be happy for St Jerome’s to be your new home,’ he says. ‘You’ll be a weekly boarder.’

  He squats down beside me, but I can tell his eyes want to slide to his watch. ‘That means you get to come home each weekend and we’ll go out for treats. Would you like that?’

  He turns to the lady again, who is looking at me kindly-but-firmly, as if she likes a challenge.

  ‘We keep a very close eye on our girls, don’t you worry. She’ll be safe and sound with us.’

  Daddy shakes her hand, and inside I scream and scream.

  Transcript of Telephone Conversation between DS Tracy Scallion and Willow Stephens, Saturday 21 May 2016 at 10.23 A.M.

  Scallion: Willow? [pause] Where are you, love? You need to tell me where you are.

  Willow: [pause] Is it just you?

  Scallion: Willow Stephens?

  Willow: I need to know if it is just you.

  Scallion: Yes, it’s just you and me, love. How are you? Tell me how you’re doing. Where are you staying, lovey?

  Willow: I’m not telling you. I’m not coming back.

  Scallion: No one’s making you come back. We just want to know if you’re safe.

  Willow: You can’t make me come back.

  Call ends.

  Dear Beanie,

  So I’m a street performer now, just until I get my big break. It’s a real haven for creative types, Hastings. I wish you could see me. I can juggle fire!

  I get crowds, Beanie, watching me as I do my routine. Of course it’s not exactly the Cirque du Soleil, but it’s amazing experience and keeps me practising my skills for when I’m in the ring. Sawdust and fire and dancing, Beanie. I wonder what name I shall call my act. I wonder what I should call myself, I wonder –

  Cliff Hanger

  There are caves inside this cliff, hundreds of them, pressing deep beneath me, wormholes, secret places where smugglers and wreckers would push French brandy and tobacco and tins of tea into crevices.

  The information sheet is splattered with rain. I climb over the thin railing, and pick my way past the danger sign to a rock. Below me, the sea is grey froth at the bottom of a deep ravine.

  A seagull, sleek as a king, lifts itself into the sky. Opens its red mouth and jeers at me, juddering in mid-air.

  I lean over, and rip all of my letters to Beanie into tiny shreds. Feed them one by one into the hungry sea.

  Watch them fly.

  Act II

  Money in Money out

  £4.17 (total of cash in pocket) Rest of gap year savings

  Total spent:

  £653.76 £-

  New total: £4.17

  Night Cradle

  I pull my hat down, far below my ears, to keep out the wind, which is picking up now that the night’s coming. I choose the bus shelter on the seafront in the end. It’s the fourth place I’ve tried. There’s someone else fast asleep, curled up in the corner, bundled in their sleeping bag.

  I lie down on the slatted bench, tug my sleeping bag hood over my head and under my chin. I am fading away, a stray dog, an animal. Snakelike, I shed skins, creep inside others to try them on for size. To try to find out who and what I really am.

  The ridges are hard under my hip. Drunken noises rise from the bar opposite the beach. A group of men stagger, shout and swear. A can is kicked, strikes the iron leg of my bench with violence. One of the men lurches, his hand splayed psycho-like against the glass of the shelter. Then it’s gone, and there’s only the sound of retching, and laughing.

  Shredded voices in the sea-slapped night. Somewhere, the fairground screams.

  A sound, slow and hard and endless. The men are back. One of them is pissing up against the side of the shelter. I clench my hands inside my sleeping bag. Take the first object I can find out of my Kit of Happiness and squeeze it tight. Try not to breathe. Pray that they will not come inside and discover that I am a girl.

  A hand, splayed brief
ly. A face, beery and full. The glint of a street-lit eye. I squeeze my eyes shut. The feel of breath, warm and faecal. Then he’s called back, lets his friends pull him away, back to their lives, back to their homes. I hear him call me something vile and ugly, but I don’t care. They’re gone, and when I open my hand, I see that I am clenching a button.

  Is this what going mad is like?

  The noise retreats. And I lie awake, in the slow ticking hours, watching the stars prick out one by one, listening to the slow sad slop of the sea and the birds and the fussing wind.

  The sea’s getting restless. It heaves itself in great sloshes, thick as paint.

  You can never sleep properly out in a public place.

  If I thought my room at Mrs Fox’s was bad, with its spidery bath and staring dolls, this is a thousand times worse. I think of my bedroom at home, my banks of books and clothes and cuddly toys that I can’t bear to give away. My desk with the vintage typewriter that I asked for and never used. My horses, scratching their chins on the stable doors. The stables, top of the range, deluxe, with private shower and tack room.

  I would kill for that now.

  Loose Change

  When it’s light, I follow the promenade along the seafront, towards the fairground. A sleeping fairground: all empty Waltzers and trodden-on chip papers. My stomach growls. My hip aches where I’ve slept on it.

  I slump against the sea wall. Huddle into my hoodie. I’m still cold after my night on the bench. A thin, bitter wind knifes me. I pull out my sleeping bag and tuck it over my knees, trying to think what to do. First I’ll get a coffee, and then I’ll resume my efforts to find Suz. And then –

  Something chinks at my feet and I look down.

  A pound coin.

  A little girl darts away to her smiling mummy. They’re already walking away, the little girl clutching tight to her mother’s hand. They’re pushing a buggy too; I can just make out the soft furl of the child’s hair.

  Oh god. They think I really am homeless.

  But you are homeless now.

  Night Music

  Do you miss me, Daddy? Do you?

  I want you to miss me.

  The bundle beside me sighs in its sleep, something between a groan and a whimper. It kills me, that sigh, because I think about how it’s a sound that, normally, no one would ever hear. A little lost sigh amongst the wind and the waves and the sea. I pull my sleeping bag over my face and lie awake for a long time, thinking about it.

  Can you hear me, Daddy? Will you ever –

  will you

  ever read

  this?

  Scarecrow

  I clean my teeth at the public lavatories on the seafront, wash my face and spit. I unwind the plastic bag and stare at my hair in the speckled mirror.

  I am not me. I am completely transformed. My hair is short and bleached, the colour of straw. It is a nasty yellow, but at least I no longer look like Willow Stephens, Runaway Schoolgirl. I wash it with liquid soap in the freezing cold water, and dry my hair as best as I can with paper towels.

  I wonder if my hair will fall out with all of the bleach I took from the cleaner’s cupboard. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to afford conditioner again.

  The face in the mirror is a pale, frowning thing. I lean forward and stare deep, ignoring the sidelong looks of the mother at the basin beside me. Her child hollers for more loo roll and still I stare, trying to find who I am. I feel like I have shed my skin; as though worlds and words and fragments have blown it away, like torn-up photographs. I don’t know who I’ve become.

  Inside a cubicle, I get changed, ignoring the wails of a child outside my door – ‘But I need a wee, Mummy!’ I have no clean underwear, no clean socks or tights. I use roll-on under my arms, and wear my cleanest-looking leggings. Turn yesterday’s socks inside out.

  When I emerge, I see that the woman has left her handbag next to the basin as she crouches in front of her child in the cubicle. There’s a lipstick on the basin, on its side. I take it. A credit card poking out of an overstuffed purse. Quick as a whip, I reach inside and slide it out, between thumb and forefinger. The girl in the mirror looks grim-faced; she is not someone I know.

  I put the card inside the pocket of my yellow coat. Walk straight out, shoulders back, head high. Inside I have shrunk smaller than a child.

  Using the wing mirror of a parked car, I pull the lipstick over my lips until it is a bright, bold slash. Belt up my coat against the wind. Feel the rounded edges of the woman’s bank card inside my coat pocket. I go into the budget supermarket and fill my basket with bananas, crisps, white sliced bread and chocolate. Pot noodles. Things we’d buy and share at St Jerome’s. Black market, boarding-school fare.

  At the till, I wait behind a bearded boy and a girl in a hijab. They have a trolley full of squirty cream, and are trying to pay with vouchers. I reach automatically for my pills, and then remember that I don’t have any, not now. I try to visualise something calming, like snow falling or lapping waves, and all the time my breath comes dry and rapid.

  The till drawer rings. The woman at the till laughs. Passes them their receipt, and then looks at me enquiringly.

  ‘Any bags?’ she says. I shake my head. Zip open my rucksack.

  The items are rung through quickly, and I stuff them into my bag, trying to control my shaking hands.

  ‘Getting colder,’ says the woman, whose name badge says Pleased to meet you. She is called Margaret.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  The last item is scanned. Two bars of fruit and almond chocolate. I force myself not to tear open the wrapper there and then, and cram the whole thing into my mouth. Place it neatly inside my bag instead.

  ‘Ever so cold. You should have come down last week, love. Had a heatwave, we did.’

  She laughs comfortably and presses a button.

  ‘Do you have a Save ’n’ Spend card?’

  I shake my head. Force myself to take out the cash card of Ms Christine Jones and hand it over.

  ‘Contactless, please,’ I say.

  She looks pleased. Waves the card over the sensor. ‘There, done. You enjoy the rest of your day now.’

  And she passes me my receipt.

  Easy as that.

  Exposure

  Only eight hours to kill until it’s dark again.

  Eight hours till I have to clench my teeth against another night.

  I shiver, and take my sandwich, press a handful of crisps over the squashed banana with filthy hands that don’t belong to me. I sit on the edge of the sea wall, hunched up, watching a gull peck the life out of a ham sandwich. It’s warmer in my coat, but I feel too exposed, like a blob of bright paint. I wanted to reinvent myself, to turn myself into someone different, uncrumple myself like a newly emerged bright butterfly. But instead I am a grub that must burrow itself into the shadows.

  I eat my sandwich mindlessly, as the seagull fixes me with one red beady eye. I read a newspaper left behind by a holidaymaker.

  I turn from the gull as it is ripped away by the wind, and start to fold up the newspaper. As I do, the wind lifts the top page and ruffles it as if to get my attention.

  And there I am.

  Daddy’s used my school photograph – the awful one where I was trying to copy Beanie and her friends’ fishtail plait and it hasn’t quite worked and I look shy and stupid.

  Trust him to get it wrong.

  Has he even got any photos of me that he took himself? Has he? Martyna and Sonia and the others were always taking pictures: me on the swing, me on my pony. Ask Martyna! I want to scream at him. She’ll have plenty of pictures of me on her phone. If she hasn’t deleted them all because I was such a bitch to her.

  I get such a pang then that I have to stop and do slow breathing for a while before I read on. Martyna, who was always baking with me, when she was just the au pair, not our housekeeper. She would try to show me how to make paczki – those Polish doughnuts she loved so much – getting me to sprinkle them with orange peel
and chocolate and powdered sugar. Afterwards, when the kitchen smelled of the wild rosehip jam she’d make to fill the doughnuts, we would sit eating them with cups of sweet coffee.

  But I could never finish mine. I would eat one to please her, but I didn’t like it much; it tasted of homesickness and tears.

  I turn my attention to the article.

  MISSING: MULTIMILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER VANISHES ON HER FATHER’S WEDDING DAY Schoolgirl Willow Stephens, 17, disappeared during the wedding preparations for her father’s big day. Gary Stephens, 54, is a wealthy businessman who made his fortune buying and selling amusement arcades.

  My nails dig into the paper as I read. I feel my breath coming hot and quick. Amusement arcades! Daddy with his wonderful businesses. Our oh-so-nouveau house with its monstrous fake Roman pillars and its pretend-ancient wisteria that Daddy had three gardeners transplant to make us seem authentic. Our mini ha-ha, which took the gardener three days to mow, and our manmade lake with its pissing cupid in brand-new stone. And now everyone will know how he made his money.

  I look up, and there’s an old man, snowy hair ruffled by the breeze, reading the same newspaper. His head lifts and he meets my eyes. I flinch away. Will they know? Will they all recognise me now, the people in shops, passing me on the street? Do they know who I really am?

  SIGHTING

  Oh god.

  Brian Pickles, a lorry driver from Essex, claims that he picked up a young hitchhiker resembling Willow on the day of the wedding. ‘She seemed edgy,’ he told us,‘like she was running away from something. I was worried for her wellbeing as she is the same age as my granddaughter.’

  CCTV footage shows a young girl entering train toilets and coming out with shortened hair. Police want to hear from anyone on the London Paddington train from Oxford on Saturday lunchtime.

  BIZARRE

  In a bizarre twist, a homeless girl is being charged with fraud after over two thousand pounds was found taken out of Mr Stephens’ gold bank account. It is believed that Willow set up the homeless girl, known only as Nat, in an attempt to establish a decoy for the police. Willow Stephens, a high-performing boarder at St Jerome’s School for Girls, suffers from anxiety and depression. It is believed that her disappearance is linked to her father’s marriage to twenty-seven-year-old Kayleigh-Ann Evans, his personal assistant.