Flight of a Starling

by Lisa Heathfield

  “Why haven’t they phoned again?” Rob is pacing up and down through the center of us all.

  “It doesn’t mean anything is wrong,” Ernest says. “Just that they’re busy.” I know he’s saying the words for me too, using ones that I need to hear. Spider and I were born within days of each other, so his parents treat me almost like their own.

  “And she’s not concussed,” Helen says. “Ray said they just need to check that nothing’s broken.”

  I imagine the camera looking through to my sister’s bones, and in my mind I make them a smooth white with no chips or cracks.

  “She’ll be OK, Lo,” Spider tells me, squeezing my hand.

  “It’s not your fault, Rob,” Ernest tells him. “Things go wrong.”

  “Rita could’ve died,” Rob says.

  “But she didn’t,” I remind him. He shouldn’t feel guilty about this. He only pushes us because he wants our circus to survive.

  “You made her wear the helmet. You made us all do that, so in a way you saved her.”

  “I’m not sure your dad will see it like that,” Ash says. He’s ripping little shreds of white paper and chewing them into balls. He spits them careless into his hand and drops them in the waste bin. I’m glad Stan and Carla have taken Sarah back to their van, so she won’t see him looking so worried.

  “Spider says she’s going to be OK, Ash,” I tell him, but I’m speaking quickly, trying to wash away my own guilt. If I had landed properly, if I had got it right, then Rita would be safe with us now.

  Ash looks up at Rob, lets his eyes follow his pacing. “The flatties don’t need so much danger when they come to see us.”

  “I think they do,” Rob says.

  “So you’re still going to keep in the motorbikes?” Ash asks. Rob looks so briefly at me that I doubt he sees me nod.

  “Yes,” he says.

  Spider’s mom takes a thick cloth from a hook and reaches into the oven. She pulls out two trays covered in steam, and a sweet smell clings to the room. No one says a word as she picks out her thin china plates from the cupboard. Her spoon sinks deep and steady through the bread pudding.

  “Spider,” she says, without looking up. “Pass it ‘round.” And he gets up.

  I’ve never once seen him falter in his mom’s demands. Ernest and Helen wanted children enough to line the tent with but were blessed only with Spider. Sometimes I think their dreams for him are too heavy on his shoulders. Sometimes I imagine lifting them off bit by bit and letting the real Spider roam free.

  He passes me a plate. I don’t want to have it, not without Rita here, and I know I won’t feel like it until she walks through the door. But I’ve been given the food, and so I must eat, the sugar tasteless on my tongue.

  It’s ten o’clock when Ash and I see the lights of Dad’s car swing into their place. We turn from looking through the window and run out of the door, jumping down the steps in one and getting to the car as it’s still ticking hot.

  Rita’s face looks tired through the window, but she’s smiling.

  I open the door, but it’s Ash she’s looking at, and it makes everything feel uneven.

  “Are you OK?” he asks her, reaching in to hold her hand.

  “I’m fine,” she says. She has Dad’s jacket perched big on her shoulders, a white fabric bandage winding thick up her arm.

  “Let’s get you into Terini,” Ma says, leading us across the grass toward mine and Rita’s van, stopped next to theirs.

  “You could’ve at least broken it,” I say to Rita, prodding her better arm.

  “I wish I had,” she says. “Instead I’m going to have a scar like a wrinkled old prune.”

  “It’ll match your face nice, then,” Ash smiles, and he kisses her quick on the lips before she can protest. It’s the first time he’s kissed her like that where Ma and Dad can see, and it makes the dark air prickle awkward.

  “They’ll be turning in early tonight,” Dad tells Ash, as we get to the steps of Terini.

  “Oh, OK.” Ash doesn’t take his eyes from our Rita. “You sure you’re all right?” he asks her.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Good,” he says earnestly. “I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.”

  “I can’t feel a thing,” she laughs. “Not with all the painkillers.”

  “If you’re sure then,” Ash says. “I’ll say goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” Rita says, and Ma is already pushing her fast through the door.

  “Night, Ash.” I hug him tight and feel the last of his worry dissolve, before I climb the van’s steps and shut our door to the world.

  Inside, Ma is pulling back the duvet on Rita’s top bunk. “Lo, promise me you’ll come and get me from our van if Rita needs me,” she says.

  “I will. I promise.”

  “I’m not happy about leaving you for the night,” Ma says.

  “I’m fine, Ma,” Rita tells her. “I’m just going to sleep.”

  “You’re only next door, Ma,” I remind her.

  “Don’t keep her chatting all night, Lo. She needs to rest.” Even at her most stern, Ma’s face is still beautiful.

  “I’ll be quiet as a mouse,” I laugh.

  “OK,” she says, tucking Rita’s curl gently behind her ear. “You sure?”

  “Night, Ma,” Rita says, hugging her and pushing her out of the door, closing it so that it’s only us.

  “Ash was worried,” I tell Rita, as she pulls her bandaged arm through the sleeve of her top.

  “Was he?”

  “Of course he was. He’s good through and through, your Ash,” I say.

  “My Ash?”

  “You know he is, Rita.”

  And she replies with only a smile.

  Rita

  We moved on yesterday, so my arm has had a day to recover, but Ma still brought my breakfast to Terini this morning. I don’t go to Mada until lunchtime, and now they flit around me, making me sit at the table and not letting me help at all.

  “My arm’s not that bad,” I say. “I’d like to do something at least.” It doesn’t feel right to sit here watching Ma and Lo do all the work.

  “Make the most of it.” Ma smiles at me as she puts a plate of chicken cutlets in front of me.

  “It makes a nice change to see you sitting down,” Gramps says. He’s in his armchair as he likes, his tray of food balanced on his lap. It’s only been a year since Lo and I moved into our own van, to make space for Gramps in here, but now I can’t imagine him anywhere else.

  “It’s a strange town, this one,” I say.

  “Why?” Ma asks, as she pours gravy from the pan into the jug.

  “It’s just got a funny feel to it,” I say. Lo puts her plate next to Dad, and he moves to make room.

  “We’ve only been here a day,” Ma says. “You’ve hardly seen it.” She wipes at the edge of her mouth with the napkin. A bit of her lipstick sticks to the material.

  “It’s just strange,” I say. “And there’s not much of a view, either.” Sometimes we’re next to fields and hills, but now the window by the sink looks out on the wall at the edge of the park.

  “Not like the pitch near Haworth,” Dad says. “Do you remember those sunsets across the moors, Liz?”

  Ma screws up her face. “With those wild horses that stuck their noses through our windows?” She’s already done her hair, even though it’s early, some dark curls trapped in a knot, the rest falling by her neck.

  “We should’ve kept one,” I say.

  “They’re meant to be free,” Lo says. She balances a pea on the side of her plate and flicks it at me. But I’m too quick and catch it in my fingers.

  “Too slow, Bozo,” I laugh. She picks up two more, but Dad clamps his hand over hers.

  “Don’t waste food, Lo.”

  “It’s only two peas, Dad.” But she’s laughing as she throws them into her mouth, smiling widely so that I can see them held squashed between her teeth.

  “Nice,” I say.

  �
��Like your mangled arm,” she says.

  “Lo.” Ma’s not smiling any more.

  “It’s not mangled,” I say. “Look, it moves and everything.” I bend it crooked at the elbow, then stretch it out to wiggle my fingers.

  “I think that Rob is pushing you too far,” Gramps says, laying his knife and fork neatly on his plate.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” I say.

  “Does he?” Gramps asks. Although it was before Rob’s time, memories of Gran Margaret whisper around us, her accident never far from Gramps’s eyes.

  “Nothing bad will happen to us,” I tell him. “Rob cares about us too much to put us in real danger.” Lo told me how he paced up and down last night, his thoughts filled with me.

  “Are you definitely all right to perform?” Lo asks, serious now. Blame isn’t a word we use in our circus, but deep inside her, I can tell that guilt still flickers.

  “Course,” I say. “Besides, it’s only set-up today.”

  “You’re not to do any heavy lifting,” Dad tells me.

  “I’d better look after her then,” Lo tries, but Dad just clips her gently around the head.

  “You, Miss Lolita, will have to work twice as hard.”

  Lo

  With set-up finally finished, Rita and I go to find the barrel fire. Rob is already there in the darkness sitting on his stool, Spider on the carved log next to him. Sarah sits cross-legged on the grass, watching as Ash throws some wood in and pokes at the flames with a stick.

  “I’m just saying, he shouldn’t have done it,” Rob says.

  “Who’s done what?” I ask, unhooking Rita’s arm from mine. Rob moves up for us, and we sit next to him on the stretch of log by the warmth.

  “You don’t need to know,” Spider says.

  “I don’t need to, but I want to,” I say, yet his silence is the only answer I get.

  The dark edges of the park sit behind us, watching the back of my jacket sewn with a dragon’s head, its fire-breath winding up my sleeve.

  Tips of orange burn out of the barrel as Ash sits down.

  “When you going to be my bride, Rita?” he asks as he does every time.

  “Never,” she replies.

  I laugh. “You will, Rites.”

  Rob chuckles and spits at his feet.

  “Are you coming to see the town with us?” Spider asks him.

  “I’ll leave you younger ones to enjoy it alone tonight,” Rob says.

  “You’re not much older,” Rita tells him, tipping her head slightly as she looks at him. When Rob joined us, I couldn’t tell his age. He slipped between us and our parents, and I know he’s really somewhere in between.

  “Ready to go?” Ash asks, his eyes only for Rita.

  “Maybe,” she says, although she knows she will. We have to explore. If we didn’t, I tell her, our souls will shrivel up and die.

  “Should you go out with your arm still bad?” Rob asks her.

  “It’s loads better already,” she says, giving him a smile to wash away his guilt.

  “Can I come?” Sarah asks, wide-eyed in the flame light.

  “You shouldn’t even still be awake.” Ash ruffles his sister’s hair, and she ducks away from him, making it neat again.

  “It won’t be long before you join us,” I tell her.

  “And you’re not exactly missing much,” Rita adds.

  “Don’t be back late,” Rob says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The fire-shine catches on one cheek, the other in shadow. “It’ll be an early start.” He picks up a leaf and starts slowly shredding it, dropping each section to the ground when he’s done.

  “We won’t be,” Rita says.

  I stretch my legs out in front of me, my arms straight to the solid black sky. The warmth from the fire touches the line of my bare belly, between my top and my jeans.

  “It’s endless up there,” I say, as my bracelets clink down on each other. They sound like stars falling.

  “We should get going then,” Ash says. He stands up and puts his hands out toward Rita. She lets him pull her to her feet but won’t keep her fire-warmed palm in his.

  “Sure you don’t want to come?” Spider asks Rob.

  “I’m staying here,” he says, still staring into the flames.

  “Suit yourself,” I say, grabbing Spider’s hand to pull myself up. “See you later.”

  We walk across the darkening grass, Rita linking her arm through mine. Two boys cut close nearby on bikes, hats low on their heads. They stare at us for too long, and I wonder if our circus blood somehow sits on the outside of our skin. Spider starts to walk more quickly, so we stay with him and Ash until we’re by the road and we follow the direction the few cars are headed as they thread through the night.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Rita says.

  “It’s OK,” I say.

  “Nah. There’s something rotten in the air.”

  “You won’t think that when people pay to come and see you prancing around in your feathers,” Ash says.

  “Fair enough.”

  We cross the road at the traffic lights, and the stores on either side are ones we’ve seen a thousand times before. It’s too late for them to be open, but there’re still people around.

  “I bet they’re all ghosts,” I say.

  “I don’t care, as long as they’ve lots of cash to make us rich,” Spider says.

  “We’ll never be rich, Spides,” I say. Even with Rob’s new ideas, every year fewer people come to see us.

  “It’s definitely got grimy air,” Rita says.

  “We won’t be stopping long,” I remind her.

  “Lil said no good was coming. Maybe it’s here that it’s going to happen,” Rita says.

  “Lil spouts baloney,” Ash reminds her, and I know he’s right. Lil, with her ancient van and cards she can’t really read.

  “No more than you,” she says. Ash looks hurt. He must feel like a boat cut loose—one day Rita is kissing him, the next she doesn’t want to know.

  The line of stores moves outward, curving around a large fountain stuck in the concrete. It reaches high, its water tumbling in prickling lines.

  “There’s something nice,” I say, pointing toward it.

  “The water or the forbidden flattie boys?” Rita asks. Sitting on the edge are three of them. They watch us as we get closer. They were talking, but now they’re quiet.

  “Evening,” I say.

  “Evening,” the boy nearest us says, a hat tight down over his eyes while the other two just nod.

  “Lost your tongues?” I ask, but my words have no sharp edges to them.

  “Hi,” the boy next to him says, his face cracked through with acne scars. I bet Lil’s cream could sort him out. The boy at the end with the stud through his ear stays silent.

  I lean over the stone ledge and put the tips of my fingers into the bubbling water. Beneath the foam is a scatter of coins. If these boys weren’t here, I know what I would be doing now.

  Spider and Ash look like they want to keep walking, but I sit down and catch my hand in the falling tracks of spray.

  The nearest boy takes off his hat, and there’s an instant pull inside me. Dad always told me it’s best not to look at a flattie too long, but I’ve never seen one like this. He’s got cheekbones you could balance cups on. And Ma says curls on a boy mean he’s honest, so I figure his blood is true through and through.

  “You’re not from around here?” he asks. He has hair the same deep brown as Spider’s.

  “No,” I say. “We’re with the circus.”

  “Serious?” the middle boy asks. “The one in East Park?”

  “I don’t know if it’s east, but it’s a park,” I say.

  “You must’ve seen the posters,” the same boy says to the other two. “The one with the angel on it.”

  “It’s a changeling,” Rita tells him.

  “A what?”

  “A fairy left in place of a stolen child,” the nearest boy
says.

  “How d’you know that?” the boy on the end laughs.

  “But in our circus, it’s the changeling who wants to get back to her home,” Rita says.

  “It looks like an angel on the poster,” he says.

  “They’re the same thing,” I tell him. “Didn’t you know?”

  “It’s not like a normal circus then?” the nearest boy says. He’s looking right at me as he speaks.

  “It’s more frightening,” I say, willing him to look away first, but he doesn’t.

  “Do you do all the normal stuff, though?” the middle boy asks.

  “You’ll have to come and see,” I reply.

  “We should get going,” Ash says, stepping closer to Rita.

  “We’ve only just got here, Ash. You can go if you want,” I tell him. “Rita and I won’t be long.”

  “You can’t stay on your own,” Spider says. “Your mom would kill us.”

  “We’re not on our own,” I say. But Ash and Spider don’t move.

  “Is there a clown then?” the middle boy asks. I touch my finger to my eye as quick as I can, and I know the others do it too. “What are you doing?” he asks, uneasy.

  “Superstition.” I regret it as soon as I say it. I don’t want them walking into our world.

  “I’m Dean,” the boy nearest us says. He puts out his hand to shake mine, all formal. I have to take my fingers from the water and wipe the damp across my jeans.

  Dean. I take his name and wrap it and unwrap it in my head.

  “Lo,” I say.

  “Is that your real name?” he asks.

  “No. Laura is.” He doesn’t speak, but he nods his head and has a smile that says he likes it. “This is Rita,” I say, and he shakes her hand too, staring right into her eyes in a way that makes my stomach flip with jealousy.

  “I’m Will,” the boy next to him says, leaning across to shake Rita’s hand and then mine.

  “Paul,” the boy with the earring says, tipping his finger to his forehead in a mini salute.

  “What’s it like then, this town?” I ask, as Spider shuffles his feet and Ash steps even closer to Rita’s side.

  “It’s all right,” Will says. “What’s it like in the circus?”

  “It’s all right.” I mimic his words.