The Road to Gundagai (14 page)

Sheba would drink the water later, warm but still welcome. It smelled like the creek, like Hope Town itself, thought Blue, as she arranged her tail in a graceful curve. Next to her the grizzly bear reared up, ancient and ferocious, immune to the odour of too many humans and no privies, of poverty and worry.

You could see the first of the humpies of the susso camp from the door of the tent. At least at Hope Town there were no bailiffs to turn a family out onto the street if they couldn’t pay the rent or mortgage, keeping the furniture, the clothes, even the baby’s toys to help pay the debts. And at least tonight the people of Hope Town would have glamour. The circus silks and spangles might be as darned as the susso-camp cottons, but the performers — and Ephraim’s hand on the lighting switches — made them magic.

‘You all right, my beautiful mermaid?’

‘Yes. Thanks, Fred. You’d better head off.’ He really was getting too muscular to play the bearded lady and the harem dancer, she thought. ‘I’ll yell for Ginger if there’s any trouble.’

‘There better not be.’ Fred glanced out the door, then stretched luxuriously. ‘Nice to have an afternoon off. It gets to be a real drag drawing on them tattoos, and the beard’s giving me the itch. Wish I could grow a real one. Give us a kiss before I go.’

Blue laughed. Fred had made the same request ever since she’d become a mermaid. She made the same answer she gave every punter who asked. ‘No funny business with the mermaid.’

‘An’ don’t you forget it.’ His grin grew wider. ‘I got a surprise comin’ on the train for you too.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll see. Be a good girl now.’

‘Mermaid,’ corrected Blue. Fred winked at her as he left the tent.

Blue curled her tail more comfortably. It was a good life. Most importantly, it
was
a life.

It still seemed impossible that someone had really tried to poison her. But there was no denying that from the first day at the circus she had felt better, the nausea fading, the cramps vanishing.

Even her hair had grown back, though Mrs Olsen still kept it cropped short, and coloured it black.

There had been no more pursuit, or none that had involved the circus anyway. Sometimes Blue felt a pang for any worry that Uncle Herbert might have felt. But at least Fred’s letter would have reassured Mah. As for the aunts … Well, that life was gone, vanished along with the scarred invalid who’d been hidden in that upstairs room. In its place was a member of the Magnifico Family Circus, harem dancer and mermaid …

Ginger poked his head in. He was dressed as the hunchback, with artful make-up giving him wrinkles where he had none and talcum powder adding grey to his hair. ‘Ready to go, Belle?’

‘Let her rip,’ said Blue.

‘Roll up! Roll up!’ yelled Ginger, voice carefully gruff. ‘See the mermaid, straight from the South Seas, bare as the day the sailors caught her. See the world’s biggest grizzly bear! See the bearded lady … oops! See the mermaid,’ he amended, realising the bearded lady was off to the railway station, minus her tattoos, beard and bosom. ‘See the only mermaid in captivity! The most gorgeous creature any man here has ever set eyes upon! Not a stitch on her, except her treasure! Fabulous treasure from the ocean depths.’

Blue straightened Madame’s costume jewellery, the long glass beads that helped disguise the fact that her supposedly bare skin was really covered in tight flesh-coloured silk. The glass beads on her bracelets gleamed even in the dimness of the tent.

‘See the two-headed calf!’

Blue grinned at the bear. ‘Just you and me and the cow today, Bruin.’

‘The mermaid, sir?’ said Ginger’s voice. ‘Sixpence a ticket. No, I tell a lie, today it’s a halfpenny for the whole family. No touching the mermaid, but you can pat the grizzly bear.’ Ginger lowered his voice. ‘If you dare.’

‘I ain’t scared of no grizzly bear.’ It was a small boy’s voice.

Blue made sure her hair covered what needed covering, then glanced under her lashes at the four entering the tent. A man and a little boy and a girl, both with the thin legs of hunger, and a very pregnant woman, with eyes like marbles in a shadowed face and a faded floral dress stretched over her belly.

They’d have been better off putting their penny towards a loaf of bread, Blue thought, then saw the happiness shine from their faces.

She blinked away the sudden tears. It always got to her, how much magic a tawdry show like this could give to those who had so little. The men with pocket watches and the women in furs and smart hats would laugh and clap sarcastically in their three-shilling ringside seats. But those who had to scrape to find sixpence — or the penny today — would remember this all their lives.

Outside, Ephraim began his sales patter. Madame had told him to accept whatever he was offered today — a penny, a cheese sandwich, a rabbit skin. Not charity — that did folks no good, said Madame — but to accept whatever they had to give.

‘Come one, come all! Whatever you can pay! Make it a penny, make it fifty pounds or a pound of tomatoes or a jar of jam! See the great Boldini Brothers! See the mermaid!’

Blue smiled to herself, then at the Hope Town family, staring at her. Even Gertrude had to admit that the lure of a ‘real live’ mermaid brought the punters in.

‘Excuse me, lady.’ The little girl’s voice was soft with awe. ‘Can you swim?’

‘O’ course she can swim. She’s a mermaid.’ The boy next to her had to be her brother.

‘I can swim too,’ offered the girl.

‘Good,’ said Blue. ‘It’s important to be able to swim. That way if a boat sinks —’ She stopped. This family had come for laughter, and only the safely tame terrors in the House of Horrors next door, with its dangling skeleton and cotton cobwebs, its elderly stuffed bats and the ghost made out of old mosquito netting that floated past when Mrs Olsen pulled the wire. ‘When you can swim,’ she said instead, ‘you can lure sailors to give you all their treasure …’

The girl giggled.

‘Have you got any other treasure?’ the boy demanded, absently scratching a bite on his leg. ‘Or just them rubies and diamonds?’

Blue thought of her narrow bed in the caravan, the bed Madame insisted she still use while she slept on the floor, the plentiful food from the big stewpot after the performance and fresh fried squished-fly biscuits, all of the circus folk laughing together, or listening to Madame’s stories. The Magnifico Family Circus …

She stroked the worthless glass beads. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I have treasure.’ She wanted to add, ‘I’ll wave to you during the show.’ But during the show she’d be a harem dancer, with long black hair, not blonde. She blew them a kiss instead. ‘There. It’s good luck to get a kiss from a mermaid.’

The man put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. ‘Thanks, miss. Could do with a bit of luck.’

The family went out, the pregnant woman walking almost as awkwardly as Blue. Others wandered in, an older man in a threadbare suit with a woman in a faded dress, handing Ginger a small jar of jam for their entry. A young man and his fiancée maybe, looking more at each other than at Blue. A woman with two small girls, and half a pumpkin as an entrance fee, teenage boys offering trapped rabbits wrapped in newspaper, four younger boys with a penny carefully untied from a grubby handkerchief …

Blue smiled at them all, and fluttered her lashes as alluringly as possible, keeping herself still so that her hair covered her bosom. She hoped there’d be a break soon, so she could stretch and Ginger could bring her in a mug of sweet tea and a squished-fly biscuit.

‘Sixpence each? You charged those boys a penny!’ The new voice was male, well bred, not the working-man’s tones she had heard today. Blue’s skin prickled. Had she heard that voice before? No, she was sure she hadn’t. The accent was familiar, that’s all, like Dad’s and Uncle Herbert’s.

‘Sorry, my mistake.’ Ginger sounded like a mouse laughing at a pussycat. ‘I shoulda said a shilling for each of you.’

‘A shilling each?’ The voice sounded more amused than angry.

‘To see a real live mermaid? Too right. You ask the lads there. You paid a shilling each, didn’t you?’

‘Too right we did.’ The cheeky voice sounded like one of the teenagers who’d been in earlier. ‘She’s worth it too.’

‘Joseph, stop teasing the yokels.’ The young woman’s voice sounded impatient. ‘Pay the man. It’s only two shillings, after all.’

Yokels, thought Blue. That’s us.

‘If that’s what you want. I don’t know why you want to see the sideshows anyway. The trapeze is supposed to be quite good, but I bet the rest is as fake as a three-guinea note.’

‘But interesting fakes, darling. Besides, why else did we drive all the way down here so early?’

‘For the view? My fascinating company?’

‘Susso shacks spoil the view. But my doctor told me I needed a run in the sea air.’ The voice was flirtatious. ‘I’m just following my doctor’s orders.’

‘I’m not your doctor. Just an overworked medical student.’ The young man’s voice had laughter in it now. Blue hoped Ginger had signalled Ephraim to pass on this bit of information to Madame. A medical student, a self-centred young woman with money who wanted the young man, an automobile, they lived in Sydney … all useful information for a fortune-teller.

‘Not mine at all then?’ The young woman pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the tent as she spoke. Tall, wearing a perfect hat, green straw and tilted, brown curls that had seen a maid’s curling tongs, a green linen dress that Blue instantly envied, a fox fur thrown over one shoulder, its very dead eyes staring forlornly, silk stockings, and green calfskin shoes with a small heel. Blue felt a flash of disappointment. She’d wanted the young woman to have chosen something she could feel superior about: white shoes with a dark dress perhaps, or diamond earrings during the day. But the small pearls in her ears were in perfect taste.

The young man with her was taller, his hair brown as he took his hat off, grey flannel trousers and a tweed jacket that bespoke ‘money’ and the knowledge of where best to spend it. A gold watch chain hung from his waistcoat. He cast Blue a dismissive look, as though he saw past the mermaid costume to her usual clothes of baggy shorts and a shirt run up by Mrs Olsen, made from the faded cotton of a dress big enough to have clothed a whale from a bag of old clothes they’d been given by the farming family who’d also let them use their paddock, back at that tiny town along the Murray.

The mermaid was beautiful. So was Belle the harem dancer. But Bluebell Laurence was still a scarred monster. She was nothing compared to this young lady’s elegant prettiness …

No, she thought, putting her chin down and preparing to smile as charmingly as she was able. Bluebell is gone. The loving daughter, the invalid niece. I am Belle, and I am beautiful.

But the young man hadn’t looked at her again. He ran his hand over the bear’s fur. ‘Look, see where it’s sewn together. Very well, admittedly. Even I couldn’t make a better job of it than this.’

‘Ugly brute.’ The young woman moved over to the cabinet with the two-headed calf.

Blue felt a moment’s anger. She’d grown fond of Bruin, even if they did have to keep gluing his fur back on.

‘Joseph, look at this! It really does have two heads!’

He laughed. ‘What? Another obvious fake. See the join in the neck?’

The young woman gave a tinkling laugh. ‘You are so clever, darling. Now, what about her?’ She shrugged an elegant shoulder towards Blue.

As though I have been stuffed like Bruin and the calf, Blue thought. She forced herself to keep smiling.

The young woman gazed at Blue’s tail. ‘Even I can see the fake here. Cheap sequins.’

‘A girl has to wear something, even over her tail.’ Blue used the husky voice Madame had trained her in, making the standard response to anyone challenging the sequins, or noticing her flesh-coloured silk.

The young man — Joseph — glanced at Blue, then looked back at his companion, a smile on his face. ‘I can prove the tail’s a fake.’

‘Really?’ The young woman gazed up at him.

Ha, thought Blue. I can do fake admiration better than you. And flutter my eyelashes better too.

She fluttered, at both of them. ‘I’m as real as you, miss.’

And that’s the truth, she thought. I bet you wouldn’t be giggling and smirking at him if he was broke and living in the susso camp. Those women bringing up their kids in shacks of hessian and kero cans are worth a hundred of you.

The young woman’s smile slipped. ‘Everyone knows mermaids aren’t real.’

‘Everyone except us mermaids, miss.’

‘Everything all right in here?’ Ginger peered in through the tent flap.

Joseph glanced back at Blue, then confidently at Ginger. ‘If I can prove she’s not a mermaid, will you refund our ticket prices?’

You bounder, thought Blue. I bet your car cost more than we earn in a year, and you want to grab back two shillings.

‘What about when you lose?’ Her voice was sharper than she intended. ‘If you can’t prove I’m not a mermaid, what then?’

‘Belle,’ said Ginger warningly.

Blue ignored him. How could anyone prove she wasn’t a mermaid, except by ripping off her tail? Even as she thought it Ginger said, ‘No pulling at the mermaid’s tail neither.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Joseph. ‘All I need is to give her one little tap.’

‘Just one?’ Ginger still sounded wary.

‘Just the one. Nothing more, I promise.’

‘Let him,’ said Blue. She met Joseph’s eyes. They were the kind of blue that was almost green. His eyes widened suddenly, as though seeing her as a person, not an exhibit, for the first time. ‘And if you lose, you have to pay …’

She thought quickly. How much would a young man like this carry in his wallet? She tried to remember Dad’s wallet, when he gave her ten shillings to spend at the Royal Easter Show. A fiver, at least four pound notes … ‘If you lose, you have to pay ten pounds.’

‘Ten pounds? Darling, these people are hucksters. Come on.’ The young woman’s gloved hand tugged Joseph’s arm, clearly annoyed that her young man was noticing another girl, even one in tatty sequins.

‘In a minute.’ He still stared at Blue. ‘Agreed. If I can prove she’s not a mermaid, I get my two shillings back. If I can’t, then I pay you ten pounds.’