‘There was a man . . .’ she began, and giggled. ‘He thought I was wonderful.’ She drew out the syllables and Grossmith bit his lip. ‘He fell in love with me. The fool.’ True venom dripped from the words. Grossmith wondered if Pretty Iris had ever loved any man and why she was so set against the species. ‘So he took me out to nightclubs and he bought me presents. He said he wanted me to marry him. But he was only after one thing. All men are only after one thing.’ Her voice had deepened. She was forgetting her baby-doll affectations. ‘So he tried harder. He began to tell me secrets as though his secrets would bring me closer to him, make me love him. One night when he had been drinking he told me all about a woman—he called her his perfect woman. He loved her like billy-o. She lived in the same house and she wouldn’t look at him. I wasn’t interested. Every bloke has a perfect woman they want to tell you about. A girl could get jealous, I said. A girl didn’t wanna listen all night to a drunk mooning about after his lost perfect woman. So he said, “I’ll tell you a secret,” and I said, “What secret?” And he said, “I’m going to make a lot of money very soon.” And I was interested, so I said, “How?” and he leaned real close and he said, “Exit.” I said, “I never heard of it,” and he smiled and said, “No,” so I pressed him.’
Grossmith was listening intently. Pretty Iris bloomed under the attention. She ordered another sherry. When it came Jack Black put his hand over the glass.
‘Not until you tell the rest,’ he said. Pretty Iris pouted again and wriggled in her chair. ‘Beast!’ she complained.
‘Go on, Iris,’ said Jack Black unsteadily. She raked him with her eyes.
‘So he said he was going to get a lot of money from Exit. I asked what it was and he laughed again and said it was a funeral parlour. And he said that it was real big. Not just small time, he said. He said he was going to get hundreds of pounds from Exit. I asked him what he was going to do and he wouldn’t tell me. I asked him who else was in it. He said three names: Damien Maguire, William Seddon and Ronald Smythe. I asked him who was helping him and he said the ’Roy Boys. No, actually he said that it was Albert Ellis. But Ellis isn’t in anything on his own. I made like I didn’t know the name and then he got sober all of a sudden and begged me to keep schtum. I said I would,’ Pretty Iris ended artlessly. ‘Or otherwise he would have got cross.’
‘You’re a talented woman,’ said Grossmith slowly. ‘And I can see why they call you Pretty Iris.’
Iris glowed. She patted him on the hand again. Jack removed his palm from her glass.
‘You’re a good girl,’ he told her. ‘A very good girl and Jack’s going to get you a present.’
‘Ooh!’ squeaked Pretty Iris. ‘A present!’
Grossmith could stand no more. As he got up he said, ‘Thanks, Jack. What was the man’s name, Iris?’
‘Smith,’ said Iris with infinite scorn. ‘Robert Smith. They’re all called Smith, aren’t they?’
Grossmith left the pub, thinking hard.
Phryne Fisher crept back into the women’s tent in the early morning, noticing that several other beds were empty. She was sated and dreamy. Once the initial frenzy born of long frustration was over, the clown had been an excellent lover. His touch went deep, right through to her bones. His body was strong and smooth and sweet to the mouth. He might well prove addictive.
She burrowed into her quilt and slept like a log for three hours, after which she was woken by Dulcie.
‘Up you get, Fern. Breakfast is on and it’s time to fall off a horse again.’
Phryne stretched, dragged on the cotton dress and decided to omit washing. She rebound her pink turban and went to the cook-tent for brackish tea and wodges of bread and jam. Not even if she was starving would she consider Mrs T’s porridge. It heaved sullenly in its cauldron and appeared to be semi-sensate.
She walked into strong sunshine, blinked away dust and went to fetch Missy from the horse lines. Her supply of peppermints and carrots was holding out. Missy sidled up to her to be groomed.
Miss Younger was standing in the middle of the ring. The big top looked so permanent that Phryne could not believe it had been disassembled before her eyes the day before. She led Missy into the ring and released the leading rein.
Moving round and round, in a smooth canter, Phryne slid easily up onto her knees and gently into her hands-and-feet bridge. This was the point where she usually fell off. Listening for the command to stand and feeling her tights slide across and squeeze, she was overcome by a vision of the clown. She smelt greasepaint and felt the electric fingers. Sweat dropped from her forehead to spot Missy’s grey back. And without remembering that she had fallen off before, she stood up and stayed up.
The ring flew past. Various lookers-on shouted congratulations. Phryne did not hear them. She was standing up on Missy’s back, one foot either side of the spine, her arms by her sides. Miss Younger smiled for the first time in Phryne’s experience. She directed Missy into another circuit and Phryne stood like a pillar, leaning inwards, wondering why this skill had taken so long to learn.
‘Both hands down,’ ordered Miss Younger. ‘Right at your feet. Now stand on your hands.’
Recalling the clown’s face upside down, Phryne laughed and lifted her legs. She stayed upright for three beats, then sat down astride. The muscles in her upper arms trembled with fatigue.
‘You ride tonight. Get them to give you a costume and some weights to strengthen your arms. Well done,’ said Miss Younger. ‘Joan! You’re next.’
Phryne allowed Missy to walk out of the ring. Dulcie, sitting casually on a trapeze ten feet above the ground, caught the balls she had been juggling with her partner Tom and called, ‘I told you you could do it, Fern!’ Phryne, dizzy with achievement, laughed aloud.
She was passed by a running, rolling, tumbling group of dark men. The Catalans shouted a cheerful greeting as they bundled into the space behind the ring not yet occupied with seating.
At the door Phryne met three clowns. Jo Jo in practice dress and with his own face, leading Toby his brother, attended by Mr Burton in shorts and a paint-stained shirt. Phryne slid down from Missy and bounced as her feet stung.
‘It’ll get you like that,’ said Matthias. ‘Jump, rather than get down too gently. Congratulations, Fern! I knew you had it in you.’ He grinned, an intimate and challenging grimace, crinkling the corners of his eyes. Something deliquesced in Phryne’s middle. ‘Fern, Fern, makes my heart burn,’ he added, clutching at his chest and turning the corners of his mouth down. ‘When will you love me, Fern?’
Phryne mouthed, ‘Tonight?’ and the clown’s eyes glowed. He gave a slight nod. ‘Oh Fern,’ he yelled, reaching out stiff arms, ‘come to me, Fern!’
Phryne felt eyes upon her from knee level. The rapport between herself and Matthias must not be revealed to Mr Burton’s acute gaze. She turned on the clown a look of withering scorn.
‘Garn,’ she drawled and led Missy out into the light, ignoring Jo Jo, who howled like a dog after her.
‘I did it,’ Phryne exulted to Bernie, who was leading Bruno into the tent. ‘I did it!’
The man smiled at her. Bruno, recognising a friend of bears, sniffed at her pocket until she gave him a peppermint. He licked her hands rather thoroughly in case any should remain, then got up and waltzed slowly in a circle.
‘Good bear,’ said Bernie absently. ‘Well done, Fern! Dulcie said you’d manage it. Come on, Bruno.’
Missy, who objected to bears, tugged at her rein. Phryne was recalled to the present. She hummed as she brushed Missy, combed out her mane and tail, and left her tethered in the horse lines munching hay.
Having now nothing to do, she went questing for a job. Delight fizzed in her head like champagne. She had stood up on a horse and was now a trick rider in Farrell’s Circus.
She threaded her way through the maze of guys and pegs around the big top and found herself in a canvas alley among the flesh eaters. Voices were raised. Amazing Hans was not happy.
‘
Farrell, I have known you for years. I came to you with only three beasts and no money. I know that. I am under an obligation to you.’ The lion tamer was shouting. Phryne decided that she needed a cigarette and stopped, fumbling in her pocket. It took her a long time to separate the cigarettes from her handkerchief and then find her lighter. She listened hard.
‘But now what this Jones wants me to do, it is impossible. I used to put my head in old Joe’s mouth but he was ancient and tame and had no teeth. My lions are young. They are strong. Lions have a natural instinct to bite anything that is put between their teeth. Do I not know? Was I not trained by the great Hagenbeck? What I am demanding of the beasts is not foreign to their nature. That was Hagenbeck’s skill. These creatures are gentled. They love me, they do not fear me.’
‘Scared, eh?’ said Farrell’s slow Australian drawl, scathing to the pride. Phryne heard Amazing Hans draw in a deep breath. The lions moved uneasily in their cages, catching their trainer’s mood.
‘Yes!’ he yelled, loud enough to make Phryne jump. ‘Yes, I’m scared. I, the Amazing Hans, am afraid. And I am not ashamed of it. I will not do as this idiot asks. And I will leave your circus. Sole’s want another trainer. I shall take my lions and go. Now get out of my tent.’
Farrell had just begun to answer when someone grabbed Phryne by the shoulder. ‘Snooping, Fern?’ asked Mr Jones.
She held out the cigarette and the lighter and remembered her accent. ‘Just trying to get a light.’
He lit her gasper with a flourish. Up close, Mr Jones was less attractive than he had seemed, and he had never posed any threat to Valentino. He was tall, running to fat and overdressed in a suit and tie. He had white hair and flat brown eyes. He stank of Californian Poppy, cigar smoke, and mouthwash with an underlying reek of rotten teeth.
‘I reckon you were snooping, Fern,’ he said slowly, and the hand moved to pinch her breast. ‘You be nice to me and I won’t tell Mr Farrell and get you sacked.’
What would Fern do? thought Phryne as the hand took further liberties with her body. Treacherously, it was beginning to react, recalling the touch of Matthias and Alan Lee. Phryne made up her mind that Fern was a good girl.
‘Sorry,’ she said, refusing to meet his eyes. ‘I’m not that kind of girl.’
Mr Jones had evidently met this response before. He gripped her chin and forced her to look into his face. It was a face that might have been carved out of soap. One gash made the mouth.
‘It’s your job, Fern,’ he said softly. ‘You wanna walk home from Rockbank?’
Deprived of the response of Miss Phryne Fisher, which would have been a swift knee in the privates, Phryne was at a loss. She twisted out of the grip.
‘Please,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I need this job.’
Farrell could be heard leaving the lion tamer’s tent. Jones was either anxious to accompany him or still a little in awe of him. He released Phryne from his gaze.
‘Remember that you owe me a favour,’ he said, and Phryne watched him walk cockily away. She noticed that her hands were trembling. The cigarette smoke wavered, tracing blue squiggles on the still, hot air.
‘I’ll remember,’ she said softly, enraged at her helplessness. ‘Oh, I’ll remember.’
The next person to catch her by the shoulder was Molly Younger, and she stepped back a pace as Phryne turned on her fiercely, fists clenched.
‘Oh, sorry, Miss Younger.’
‘Who did you think I was?’ demanded Molly Younger.
‘Mr Jones,’ admitted Phryne.
Miss Younger’s face grew grimmer. ‘Him.’ She summed him up comprehensively with one phrase. ‘He don’t belong. Now, girl, I want a word. Come to my caravan, I’ve got to change.’
Phryne, wondering what this was all about, followed Miss Younger’s straight back as she stalked through the circus to a neat painted wagon with shafts. Miss Younger did not like trucks.
‘Come in,’ she snapped as Phryne paused. ‘Shut the door.’
The caravan was sparsely furnished. Only rows and rows of blue ribbons and rosettes decorated the walls. The bed was flat, hard, and covered only with a thin blanket. Phryne sat down on it and looked at Miss Younger.
She had pulled off her hat and her fair hair was dragged out of its severe plait. With her hair loose she looked more female. Pouring water into a tin dish on the floor, Miss Younger peeled off her shirt and riding breeches. She was wearing a pair of battered silk shorts and the rest of her body was bare. She stepped into the dish.
Phryne watched without comment. Nudity was common in the circus, when it was a matter of changing clothes or washing. The etiquette was not to look, or not appear to be looking. Phryne wondered if this rule applied in a private caravan. Molly’s face was set and her lips tight. She did not seem pleased and Phryne wondered what she wanted with Fern.
‘I told you when you came,’ said Miss Younger, sponging dust off her body, ‘that if you behaved like a tart you’d be treated like one.’
Phryne nodded. The fair hair bobbed across Miss Younger’s shoulders. She had almost no breasts, and strong muscle was outlined and shadowed by her hair.
‘Then you went and did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘I smelt you. I can smell you now. Greasepaint and lust. You slut!’
Phryne sat back on the hard bed and stared. She had not remembered that one cannot keep secrets in a circus. Miss Younger stepped out of the dish and flung the water out the door. She did not dress but stood, hands on slim hips, glaring.
‘You tart!’ she yelled suddenly. ‘I could smell the polecat stink of you from Missy’s back. You haven’t even washed.’
Phryne decided to say exactly what she meant.
‘I haven’t done any harm,’ she began.
Miss Younger’s chest heaved and she began to breathe in short, painful gasps. ‘No harm? No harm? You’ve only been here a few days and you lie down with a clown!’
‘I like him,’ said Phryne coldly. ‘What business is it of yours?’ She decided to attack. ‘Haven’t you ever had a lover?’
Hands shot out to her throat and began to strangle. Phryne choked, broke the grip with both thumbs biting into the tendons and punched Miss Younger in the stomach. Her fist bounced off muscles like rubber. Miss Younger screamed at Phryne, ‘Slut!’ and Phryne slapped her across the face with all her force. The woman crumpled to the ground.
‘He’s dead,’ said Miss Younger, flatly. ‘He’s dead.’
Phryne accepted Miss Younger into her arms. The woman knelt with her face against Phryne’s breasts and moaned. ‘He’s dead. Mr Christopher is dead. Murdered.’ Phryne did not know what to say. She had not realised just how much the man had meant to the horsemaster. Molly Younger was now weeping freely, with her head buried in Phryne’s lap, kneeling between her knees. Her tears were soaking the cheap cotton dress. All Phryne could do was embrace Molly close and say nothing.
After ten minutes, bitter lamentations were whispered just above hearing.
‘He wanted us to travel together,’ she heard the woman say. ‘He wanted us to live together, to share a caravan. I said we couldn’t because . . . because we weren’t married yet and I wasn’t a tart. It hurt his feelings. He went back to his boarding house and . . . I wanted him,’ she sobbed. ‘I never wanted a man before. They say I only love horses. I do love them. But . . . you stink of love,’ she snarled suddenly. ‘A little slut off the streets, out of the dancehalls, and you’ve . . .’ She drooped. ‘You’ve got love, even the clown, even though no one sleeps with clowns.’ She groaned, then demanded shrilly, ‘Did you enjoy him, then, slut? Did he please you, Jo Jo the clown? Did he touch you and kiss you until you were dizzy? And did you lie down and open your legs and . . .’ Her voice choked again.
‘Yes,’ said Phryne, treading very carefully. ‘I lay down with him and he loved me and I loved him.’
‘You won’t do it again!’ Miss Younger clutched at Phryne’s hips and sank her fingers in around the bon
e.
Phryne winced. ‘Not again,’ she said softly. ‘Not if you say not.’
Miss Younger made a convulsive movement, forcing Phryne back onto the bed. She slid upwards, rubbing her body against Phryne’s as though she wanted to penetrate it, to be inside her skin and bones. Her rigid lips gaped and she kissed Phryne’s mouth with great force.
Phryne held her tight and kissed her back. The mouth was strong, with a muscular jaw, and Molly kissed wildly and clumsily as though she would bite. Phryne was seized with great pity. Mr Christopher and Miss Younger. Man–woman and woman-man. They were made for each other and no one else would fit. Miss Younger broke off the kiss and shoved Phryne away.
‘It’s all right,’ said Phryne gently. ‘It’s all right for you to love women. I know two women who live together in the country and they are perfectly happy. No one has even noticed.’
‘No!’ Miss Younger screamed, mouth still wet from contact. ‘No! Not you, not any woman! I’m not a freak, not a pervert! I have done without love, I can forget about love. Only when I smell the stink of sluts on heat, like you, does it come back.’ She was panting and the grip on Phryne’s arm was bruisingly tight. ‘I only ever wanted one person in the world, the only one I could love. I never thought there’d be anyone. I’m a man, you stupid bitch. I’m a man. Cursed with this body, which is wrong and bleeds and betrays me. Formed wrong. Born wrong. And so was he. Born different. Born for me, my only one, my dear love. And he’s dead. Gone. I’ve lost him forever. And I never lay with him, never found out about love while I had the chance. Leave me,’ she said harshly.
Phryne stood up and moved away. She stopped at the caravan door as the woman gasped, ‘The clown.’
‘Yes?’
Miss Younger veiled her eyes in the cloud of her hair. ‘Do you really want him?’
‘Yes,’ said Phryne honestly.
‘Then take him,’ said Miss Younger. ‘Even if he is a clown. Take him while you can get him.’
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