by Olivia Levez
The music changes.
The clowns’ bicycle act stops, and Garibaldi does his thing with the new stooge.
Almost my turn.
There seems to be an awful lot of new front-of-house boys. There’s another that I don’t recognise; he gives me a hard stare as I pass, and scratches at the top of his fishnets. He looks awkward in his tailcoat and high boots. His face is young and red and sweaty.
The Chinese acrobats prepare to do their tumbling. As their finale, one of the girls – the youngest – climbs right to the very top of her sisters, flips onto her hands and quivers, just slightly, as she balances. Below her, the banked-up girls tense and smile, their bodies contorted into impossible positions.
The lights snap off, and the harsh white spotlight is on the one at the top, who can’t be more than five, and nobody breathes; no one digs in their hand to take another mouthful of popcorn.
But she flips lightly into a seated position, waves, and the audience applaud, relief spreads.
My turn.
I dance out, force the grit from my throat, try to remember to breathe. And then I’m climbing high up the swinging ladder, waving and arching to the audience as Lala has taught me, smiling my painted smile. I reach the platform, where I’ve spent so many nights scribbling into my journal, and then my hands are on the trapeze bar; I grip the familiar curve of it through my bandaged hands. Next, the resin – pat, puff! Like a professional, my costume swinging and shimmering, the straps just digging into me a little where Ana’s sewn in the modesty strip.
I stare straight ahead, wait for the violins below to pick up my rhythm. Focus.
Breathe.
Tighten my grip.
And then.
I am flying, over the blurred crowds, the packed seats, the cameras flashing.
I swing, count to three, hear Lala’s voice in my head shouting ‘huuupp!’ and then I’m hanging, ready to let go, ready to swing back onto the platform.
Remember to focus, I think. It feels wonderful, this whoosh of air, this swoop of freedom. I am a bird –
Watch me fly, Suz. Watch me fly! Suz’s paper birds flutter and fly, bright and beautiful, her laughing eyes the colour of sea glass –
Something’s wrong.
There’s someone standing up in the front row, someone who has been there all the time but I didn’t register, was only concentrating on my routine. The woman’s blonde and stocky. She’s dressed in mufti, T-shirt and jeans instead of her usual too-tight skirt, but I know her. I’d know her anywhere.
Scally.
She’s there, in the front row, and now she’s speaking into something in her hand; she’s squeezing past a bald father and his two children. A flurry of spilt popcorn. She’s stepping over the barrier, in her plain clothes, her too-tight jeans, her hair messily held back.
Scally looks up, and her eyes widen as they meet mine.
She’s found me.
And by the time I see that there are others rising up out of their seats, I am falling, tumbling in mid-air, into the safety net, and I’m gasping, bouncing,
and the music
withers
and
dies.
Catch Me If You Can!
I lie, bouncing in the net, and there’s Scally peering down at me, one eyebrow raised sardonically.
‘Here we go again, lovey,’ she says in her Manchester accent. ‘Come on, up you get…All right, all right,’ she shouts, over the excited chatter that has replaced the fiddles. ‘The show’s over.’
‘Stupid thing to say,’ I whisper.
‘What’s that, love?’
‘Stupid thing to say, in a circus.’
And then I close my eyes, but not before I see Kit’s eyes slide away from me, like he can’t meet my gaze.
And that’s when I know.
‘It was the reward money, wasn’t it?’ I shout as the ring boy, now stripped of his spangled tights and frock coat and back in his yellow luminous police jacket, grips my arms tightly and marches me to Scally’s car.
But Kit’s gone. He slipped away like smoke, like a lie, as Tilly and Delilah tried in vain to get the audience together and settled back down in their seats.
Ha! Good luck with that! Not much chance when the show’s moved outside.
The constable holding me is the one I saw by the portaloos earlier, of course. How cunning Scally is! It was all carefully planned, wasn’t it, so that she knew I couldn’t run?
‘I’m sorry!’ I shout to Delilah. She’s standing there, holding Kahlo, her mouth dropping open. ‘I’m sorry I lied, about everything.’
I’m not sure I even know myself what is true any more.
I sit in the back next to the male officer, who still has traces of greasepaint by his ear. I long to take a tissue and rub it off for him. Instead I smile at him brightly. He doesn’t react. Just stares straight ahead, occasionally looking out of his window.
‘Lovely legs you got there, Constable,’ remarks Scally from the front. She’s driving, a half-smile on her face, manoeuvring the car with short deft turns of the wheel. Her fingernails are filed short.
‘Shurrup, boss,’ mutters Lovely Legs. He scratches the top of his thigh, and I wonder whether he’s still wearing his tights underneath his regulation police trousers.
The indicator ticktickticks. We stop at the lights.
‘Don’t you try any funny-business, lovey,’ Scally warns. I take my hand away from the handle. It will be childlocked anyway; I suppose she’ll have made sure of that.
It’s ages since I’ve been in a police car. The last time, I think I was thirteen. They found me in a garden shed at the bottom of my friend’s garden. I lived off apples from their tree, and managed to squeeze in and out of the dog flap. I knew the girl and her family had gone away on holiday. She hadn’t stopped boasting about going to Dubai all term.
She wasn’t really my friend. I made that part up.
I stare at the back of Scally’s head, at her rooty, bleached hair, and wonder what she really thinks of me. Does she think I’m mad?
The police station room she puts me in has a fluorescent light that flickers. I hate that. All of a sudden I have a headache, and it is one of those screeching, pulsing ones that begins and my temples and sends little spikes and jabs into my brain.
I lean on the table and lay my head on my arms. I miss Delilah. I wonder how Kit knew. It must have been my journal. Had he been reading it? Had he found it in my room? Had he seen me in the newspaper too? Or on TV? Did everybody know who I was, after all?
‘How much?’ I ask the police officer on a chair in the corner. She looks up.
‘Sorry?’
‘How much did he put out for me, this time?’
She sighs. ‘Thirty thousand pounds, I think.’
Enough, then, to pay for tuition fees at a good university. I remember Kit’s impatience when we were talking about our dreams. I should have listened. I only ever think about myself. Is that who I am, then? Is that what you think of me? The spoilt little rich girl who doesn’t know she is born? Needing everyone to run around after her, to validate her existence…
But there has only ever been one person I needed to come and find me.
The door opens, and it’s Scally again. She nods at the officer sitting down, who gets up and leaves.
‘I need you to come with me now, Willow,’ she says, and there is a sigh in her voice. ‘There’s someone wants to see you.’
She leads me down the corridor, and I am counting the naff pictures on the walls, and counting the tiles on the floor, and then I am in a small waiting room, and she’s right, there is someone to meet me.
‘Hello, Daddy,’ I say.
Interval
He stands, shadowed against the window, checking something on his phone. He slides it into his pocket when he sees me.
‘You look different,’ he says. ‘Your hair…’
I wait. My heart’s tripping.
He’s come, I think. This time, he’s
actually come to find me.
‘Why, Willow?’ he says, and he doesn’t sound angry, only tired.
I can’t speak; I just wait for him to come closer. My fingers dig into my palms, feeling the ridges, the hardened skin, the calluses. I slow my breathing. Watch him walk forward into the light.
He clears his throat. ‘Shall we sit down?’
I know then that it’s not going to be any different. Nothing’s changed. He doesn’t come to hug me, doesn’t crush me into his arms because he’s been so worried, he’s missed me so much, he’s been desperate to know where I am, what I’ve been doing.
He doesn’t do any of that.
We sit together on the sofa that has been put there for this purpose. It’s a grotty green, with coffee cup stains on the arms. A Monet print hangs behind us: sun-dappled people in a flowery garden, sugar-sweet. Somewhere, a photocopier cranks. All this I notice, while the space between us yawns wider than decades.
Daddy clears his throat.
‘Well,’ he says.
‘Well,’ I agree.
Silence tightens like a terrible chat show.
I look over at the window, and wonder if I have the energy to try the sash and how high the drop is. I wonder what they’d all do if I scrambled down, Spiderman-style, and webbed my way through the streets, to some secret cave. Would they all chase after me? Would it ever stop?
‘Kayleigh-Ann was very upset at what you did to her dress,’ he says.
Buzzzz. Wrong beginning.
‘I’m sorry.’
I trace the callus on my hand, circle it, think of Kit pouring over balsam. Nothing will change, I think. It is always going to be like this.
Daddy shifts gear. ‘Kayleigh-Ann’s been looking after the horses,’ he says. I almost laugh at this. Well, good for her! What a star she is. Not letting my horse starve to death. I bet she’s been looking after our house too, wondering what little changes she can make now that the difficult stepdaughter’s off the scene. But I don’t say this. Instead I make an effort.
‘How’s Martyna?’ I say.
Daddy looks surprised. ‘Oh, she’s, well, fine. Just as usual.’
‘Do you ever speak to her?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Do you ever speak to her?’ I say, and I am surprised at how my voice sounds, harsh and broken. ‘Do you ever ask her about her family?’
‘What do you mean, love?’ He scratches his head. He’s not sure where this conversation’s going. Nor am I for that matter.
‘Did you know she has family, back in Poland? That she probably hasn’t seen since forever? That she cries, sometimes, in the kitchen?’
‘What are you talking about, love?’ He’s looking at me now, but I don’t want to look at him, because if I do, I feel like I would scream and punch him. And then they’d probably lock me up. Put me somewhere nice and safe and secure and finally give up on me.
It would be a relief, probably, for all of us.
Daddy sighs. You can tell he has no idea how to continue with this conversation, that’s he’s itching to get at that phone, which has been buzzingbuzzingbuzzing in his pocket.
‘She’s lonely,’ I whisper. ‘They’re all of them lonely.’
Daddy stands up. Is he going so soon? Is that it? This delightful little father and daughter moment over so suddenly and sweetly.
But no, it’s not over. Not by a long shot.
‘There’s something I need to tell you, Willow.’ He hesitates. Walks over to look out the window again. ‘It’s about your mother.’
I stiffen. And all at once I am buzzing, but not in a good way. Because hardly ever in my life has Daddy mentioned my mother. He’s always avoided it, coughed, changed the subject. I shift round to look at him, but all I can see is the dark shadow of his back against the window. Outside, between the rooftops, the evening is settling over the sea.
Breathe, I tell myself.Just breathe.
And Daddy’s voice as he speaks to the window is that of a stranger spinning stories. Except I don’t think this one’s make-believe.
‘I thought she was beautiful,’ he says. ‘I met her when I was interested in buying up fairgrounds. I was just diversifying my business into carnival attractions. Always knew there was some money to be made.
‘She was working the Waltzers, spinning them fast, to make the kiddies squeal. I’d had a few drinks by then. It had been a long day. When she saw me watching, she pulled me inside one, laughing, said she’d show me how it was really done. I knew she was trouble, but there was something about her dark eyes, her strong arms, spinning, spinning me – she had the strength of a man, despite her petite figure. It was like she…bewitched me.’
Daddy hesitates. I dig my nails deeper.
‘We went and had a drink, and then we…got close, outside the arcades. I thought that was it – it was just something in the moment. I’m not proud of this, love. I was in my thirties and should have known better but, what I’m trying to say is that…your mother was no circus girl. She was just a girl who worked the Waltzers. That picture you have. It’s all fake. She had it done at the photographic booth at the fairground. Even the snake’s fake. It was all set up. You could choose any background you wanted…
‘I thought nothing of it, just a mad moment when I’d had a drop too much to drink. And then, nine months later, there she was, she’d found out where I lived. She turned up on the doorstep with this baby in her hands. She was laughing and crying, rain streaming down her face.
‘“It’s yours, Gary,” she said. “Doesn’t have a name. Not yet. I need a place to stay. I’m at rock bottom.”’
I look up then. ‘Stop it,’ I say. ‘Just stop it.’
But he’s gazing out of the window, at a pigeon ruffling up on the roof. And he doesn’t stop. I can’t make him stop.
‘I took her in, what else could I do? Tried to make a go of it. I had everything a man could want: cars, designer suits, a stunning house. But I was lonely, and I couldn’t seem to settle down with anyone. It was like there was something missing.
‘I really believed that we’d make a go of it, your mother and me. I tried. I helped out with the bedtimes, the nappy changes, feeding you your first food. But she…was distant. As if a light had been switched off inside of her. At first I thought it was postnatal depression, but then I found she’d been meeting other men behind my back, disappearing when I was away on business, leaving you to the au pair, coming home drunk.
‘The last straw was when I found her with the gardener, when she’d left you alone in your cotbed, screaming to be fed. I told her to leave.
‘The last words she said to me were…were…’
But I already know.
‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to know any more.’
I feel cold and shivery. When I look down, my nails have forced open the rip in the palm of my hand. I don’t feel a thing.
‘Stop it,’ I whisper.
But Daddy’s still talking; it’s like a stopper has been released and all this poison is coursing out, acid-burning everything in its path.
‘She threw back her head and laughed at me,’ he whispered. ‘Said that you weren’t mine, never had been. That she only said that because she found out that I was loaded, that I was the best plan she had once she’d got herself into trouble.
‘She didn’t even stop to go up to you. You had been put down for your afternoon nap, and had woken up hungry. You were three years old.’
He looks up, and his face is that of a stranger. I don’t want to look at it.
‘I named you Willow,’ he says. ‘Your mother didn’t even bother naming you. After she left, I went to your bed, looked down at you, snuggled round that little stuffed monkey she’d won for you at the fairground, and it was like something had shifted inside me. I couldn’t let you go. I had my responsibilities. But things were never the same after that. Every time I looked at you, I saw her.’ His voice breaks. ‘And I saw him too, whoever he was.’
He come
s close, tries to take my hand. I flinch it away.I make my legs stand me up from the sofa.
‘So, can we go home now?’ I say. It’s like I’m forcing my voice out through treacle. Like one of those dreams where everything slows down and you can’t get your limbs to perform the simplest tasks, like walking forward or focusing and especially not running.
Daddy hovers, hopeful, blinking at me through his pale eyes.
I pat his hand. ‘It’s fine, Daddy. It’s totally fine. Thank you for telling me. It must have been hard, keeping all of that a secret for so long.’
And I put on my brightest smile.
Bright as glass. Sharp as a scream.
Leopard Act
So what’s a girl to do, after learning that a) her glamorous circus-performer mother is nothing but some fairground slapper whose baby was something of a hindrance to her afternoon fumblings with the (delete as needed) gardener/chauffeur/pony-nut delivery man? Not only that, but dahdahhhh! Turns out her father doesn’t love her either, because the very sight of her reminds him of said fairground-trash mother.
What is she to do?
Answer: run away of course!
And the way I went about it this time? You’d be proud of me, Suz, you really would.
There is admin to get through, before I can escape. The police officer with the kind eyes leads us through into a room with no windows. Daddy shuffles.
‘Is all of this really necessary?’ he asks.
‘Your daughter Willow has been found in possession of a credit card belonging to a Ms Christine Jones, believed stolen. She also travelled on the South Eastern Line without purchasing a ticket, and committed two acts of deception and fraud when she handed over your personal bank card to a homeless woman known as Naz. As well as wasting police time, these are serious charges,’ the officer says patiently. She has a line of script inked on the inside of her wrist as she fills in the forms. I wonder what it says.
‘Yes, yes, I know all that,’ Daddy is saying impatiently. In a moment he’ll get out his chequebook and try to pay her off. Offer to buy them a new police training centre or something. Or say that he knows a top lawyer –