The Road to Gundagai (16 page)

‘I don’t know how much medical care someone in a circus can get …’ He was obviously trying to find a polite way to put it. ‘I thought perhaps a second doctor’s opinion might help.’

Blue sat awkwardly on the hay again. How much should she tell him? Nothing, she thought. She should send him back into the crowd, where he belonged.

‘I was in a fire.’ The words flowed even before she knew she was speaking. ‘I’ve got the scars on my neck, the ones you saw. Another big one on my right shoulder — it’s no trouble. But my legs sort of got stuck together, above my knees.’ She stopped. He might be a medical student. He might even be kind, not the arrogant youth she’d thought this afternoon. But he was still a stranger.

And he knew about her scars. She suddenly realised that those scars could identify her. How many other missing girls would have scars like hers?

But this was Sydney, not Melbourne. Did the police in Victoria even talk to those in New South Wales? And why should a doctor talk about her scars to a policeman?

Joseph looked at her, frowning. ‘Scars shouldn’t bind together like that, not if each leg was bandaged and treated separately.’

But they weren’t, Blue thought. When the aunts had taken her from the hospital Aunt Lilac had unwrapped the bandages on her legs, and made a face at the sight of the blood and damaged skin. Let them dry out, she’d said. Blue had lain in the hot room, pressing her legs together because one big pain was somehow better than two slightly smaller ones …

‘They should have cared for you better!’ Joseph’s gaze took in the caravans, the Big Top.

She wanted to defend them, to tell him it wasn’t the circus people’s lack of care, but her respectable aunts’. But she had given too much away already.

‘How long is intermission?’

‘About half an hour.’ The actual length of time depended on how well the peanuts and lollies were selling, and whether the circus was staying in a paddock next to a pub. A pub owner would pay a circus that attracted a good drinking crowd. She didn’t suppose it would be a long intermission tonight. ‘The ringmaster will crack his whip when it’s time to go back.’

Joseph pulled out his watch. It was round, and gold like its chain. ‘Another ten minutes then.’ He put the watch back in his pocket. ‘Look, would you like me to fix you up an appointment with Dr Gregson?’

‘What good would that do?’

‘If the scar tissue is as you’ve told me, I’m pretty sure he could do something. If you were able to move your legs after the fire, the fusing may be relatively superficial. I couldn’t guarantee an operation would give you full mobility — it would depend on the depth of the scarring — but certainly enough to let your legs move independently, at least.’

‘Really?’

He nodded.

It was as though the wind no longer blew the scent of rags and sewage towards them. To be able to walk! Or even run, and dance properly. A whole possible future would open up if she could move her legs. She could marry and have children. She could learn to soar like Gertrude on the trapeze …

Where had that thought come from? It took years to learn to do that, practice from babyhood maybe. But she could do
something
, many things …

And it was impossible. She knew enough about doctors to know they were expensive. Even if she didn’t have to worry about being identified, she couldn’t afford a surgeon’s fees. ‘No. Thank you anyway, but —’

‘No need to worry about the money,’ he put in abruptly. ‘Dr Gregson’s a good egg, a friend of the family. He’d do it as a favour.’

She stared at him and then up at the stars. They winked down at her, as though to say, ‘Life can be so much more than your small world down there.’ It was so tempting … But an operation like that, in a hospital by a well-known surgeon, might be noticed. Until she was twenty-one the aunts could claim her again.

‘I’m sorry.’ He’d never know how sorry she really was. ‘Thank you, but I can’t do it.’

‘Why not? I know it would mean pain, but it must hurt now too.’

‘It’s not the pain. I can’t, that’s all.’

‘Just let Dr Gregson have a look —’

‘No.’

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Give yourself time to think about it.’

She shook her head. There had been little chance Uncle Herbert or the police would accept she was being poisoned last year. Now she was well they’d be even more inclined to think she’d run off to the circus out of waywardness, not fear.

She suddenly realised that perhaps she
would
have run off even without the threat of poison. Could she really have endured the small life of Aunt Lilac and Aunt Daisy, embroidering or sewing petticoat seams, dressed in the clothes as well as the morals of the days of Queen Victoria, filling the time between meals, their only outing to church on Sundays? Day after day, till she was twenty-one and independent?

Twenty-one, she thought. When I’m twenty-one they’ll have no hold over me.

Joseph still watched her. She met his gaze. ‘Would you still take me to this doctor friend of yours in four years’ time?’

‘Four years? Why wait that long? I don’t understand.’

‘Please. Just promise you won’t speak of this to anyone.’ They had given up any pretence that she wasn’t the mermaid.

He looked at her steadily. ‘I promise,’ he said at last. ‘How long is the circus staying here?’

‘We move on tomorrow.’ She could tell he’d hoped to see her again.

‘Where to?’

‘We’re on the road to Gundagai.’ It was the answer they always gave. It was even true in a way. All roads eventually led to Gundagai or any other place on earth, though of course Madame had ordained that the Magnifico Family Circus would never actually go to Gundagai again.

‘I haven’t been there. They say the river’s lovely. Look, my name is Joseph McAlpine. I’ll write it down for you and my address — my home address, as well as Dr Gregson’s in Sydney, in case I’m not living there when you write to me.’

When you marry that flash tart of yours, she thought. Joseph scribbled on a page of a notebook, then held it out to her. ‘You can read?’

‘Of course I can read!’ She fought down the indignation. His assumption that she was illiterate was reasonable. Fred could read and write well, but the Olsens could hardly scribble more than their names. She didn’t know about Ephraim and Ebenezer.

‘I’m sorry.’ He smiled at her. ‘Sorry for this afternoon, sorry for thinking you might not read. Sorry I can’t help you now. But don’t forget. Please.’

‘I won’t forget. How did you recognise me anyway?’

‘The way you move. No, I don’t mean from the scars on your legs,’ he added hastily. ‘You disguise that well. I’m amazed you can dance as well as you can, from what you’ve told me. No, just the way you turn your head. Your smile.’ His eyes met hers. ‘I’ll never forget your smile.’

He broke the gaze and turned at a huffing sound behind him. The elephant stood, watching them both consideringly, as though to say, ‘You’ve given her enough attention. Look at me, now.’

Joseph stared at her in wonder. ‘She’s so tame. Can I pat her?’

Blue nodded.

Joseph reached over and stroked Sheba’s leathery hide. Sheba accepted it, her trunk curling in case carrots or squashed flies might be involved. ‘She feels warm!’

‘You expected her to be cold and stuffed, like the grizzly bear?’

‘Bears,’ he corrected, smiling.

She didn’t contradict him. ‘On hot nights we give her another bath, after the show. She loves it.’

‘You have a bathtub big enough for an elephant?’

Laughter gurgled before she could stop it. ‘Of course not. Ginger throws buckets of water over her while I rub her with a soft broom. She washes herself too, sucks up water in her trunk and squirts it all over. Over us too sometimes.’

‘I’d like to see that.’ His voice held laughter as well.

Sheba stepped over to her water trough, as though she had understood him, and dipped in her trunk.

‘Sheba! No!’ Sheba had never bathed herself while she wore her red cloth blanket in all the time Blue had known her. A dripping elephant blanket would look ridiculous in the finale!

Sheba gave her a glance. Blue almost thought that she was grinning.

Bluuurt!
The water squirted to one side of the young man, almost, but not quite, wetting his jacket.

Joseph ducked automatically, then stared. ‘Did she know what we were talking about?’

Sheba gave a snort that might almost have been a laugh. She picked up a trunkful of hay. Blue hesitated. ‘Maybe. She understands words like “walk” and “bath” and “carrot”. She’s memorised her act too. And she plays jokes. She hid Ebenezer’s — the ringmaster’s — top hat once. We found it under her hay.’

‘Someone else might have put it there.’

She shook her head. ‘We all swore we hadn’t. And we don’t lie. Well, not to each other.’

He looked at her shrewdly. ‘But to others?’

‘Not really lying. Showmanship. Stories. People want to believe. So we let them.’

‘With flying fairies and blonde mermaids?’

She couldn’t let him know that the lies were sometimes much more than that. A whip cracked in the Big Top. The music crackled to life again. ‘You need to go if you want to see the next act. The Boldini Brothers truly are incredible.’

‘No, er, showmanship?’

‘There’s showmanship. But they really do exactly what you think they’re doing.’ Except they’re not a man and a boy, but the woman and the girl you last saw as harem dancers. ‘Then there’s the magician.’ She gave him a wry grin. ‘Now that is all just showmanship — a magic wand that turns into a bunch of roses and a rabbit pulled out of the ringmaster’s top hat.’

‘Stuffed, I presume,’ said Joseph.

‘A real one wouldn’t hold still long enough. Then after that there’s the Galah.’

‘A bird? What does it do?’

‘Sorry. It’s a sort of family joke. It should be gala. The gala closing act, but we call it the Galah. All of us performing at once.’

‘Sheba too?’

‘Especially Sheba.’ Blue patted Sheba’s side. The elephant flapped her ears towards the shadow.

‘You call them your family,’ said Joseph slowly. ‘But they’re not really your family, are they?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You don’t speak like them, to begin with. You did when we first began to talk. But not now.’

She flushed. He saw too much. Normally she tried to flatten her vowels, to lose her upper-class accent. It was easy when she spoke to someone who had a cockie accent too. But she’d forgotten as she spoke to Joseph tonight.

‘Belle! This bloke botherin’ you?’ Blue hadn’t seen Fred arrive. He strode around the side of the Big Top and shoved Joseph roughly on the shoulder. ‘This ain’t no place for members of the public.’

‘Fred!’ She couldn’t understand his sudden belligerence. ‘He wasn’t doing anything!’

‘Take your hands off me.’ Joseph’s voice was cold. The two young men eyed each other.

‘Don’t you go bothering our women, soft city boy,’ said Fred quietly. He raised his fists.

‘He wasn’t —’ began Blue.

Joseph raised his own fists. ‘I’m not soft and I’m not from the city and I’ve eaten better men than you for breakfast.’

‘Stop it!’ cried Blue.

Suddenly a long grey trunk tugged Joseph’s arm so abruptly he fell back into the straw.

Fred laughed. ‘Lord Muck, eh? We protect our own! Now get …
gluurrp
…’ A hard jet of water knocked him into the hay, soaking him from head to toe.

Blue giggled.

‘It’s not funny,’ spluttered Fred from the hay, heaving himself and his wet clothes up.

‘It is! You look ridiculous. And so do you,’ she added to Joseph. ‘This isn’t a boxing tent.’

Sheba rumbled approval.

All at once both young men grinned, though each carefully didn’t look at the other.

‘I’d better go,’ said Joseph. ‘If she decides I need a bath too, I might leave a water stain on the leather of Andy’s precious car.’

‘It isn’t your automobile?’

He shook his head. ‘My brother’s. He lent it to me to impress Hilda. I don’t think today gave her exactly the impression I’d intended,’ he added wryly.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not. Good evening, Miss … I don’t even know your name.’

‘Her name is Belle Magnifico.’ Fred hovered damply and protectively again.

Joseph lifted his hat to Blue. ‘Goodbye, Miss, er, Magnifico. Don’t forget.’

‘I won’t.’

Fred waited till Joseph had vanished around the side of the Big Top, then turned to Blue. ‘What was that blighter doing here?’

‘He wanted to pat Sheba.’ Blue wasn’t sure why she lied. No, not a lie, she thought, just only part of the truth.

‘He was flirting with you! We don’t flirt with outsiders. Remember what Madame says.’

‘The circus must be respectable.’ Blue parodied Madame’s accent.

‘What was it you was supposed to not forget anyway?’

She grinned at him. ‘I’ve already forgotten.’

And his grin matched hers, all anger forgotten too. ‘Like that, is it, princess? Good-oh. I’ve got the surprise for you.’

A violin, she thought, so I can play with Ephraim. ‘Where is it?’

‘Here,’ said Mah, as she walked out of the shadow of the caravans.

Chapter 15

The world shifted, a breeze from the past, cold among the scent of greasepaint and sewage.

‘Mah!’ Blue looked at Fred, then back at Mah. She wore a dress that was strangely familiar, blue linen, creased from the journey. It’s an old one of mine, she realised. Discarded by Mum over two years ago as too small when my new summer dresses arrived. That suitcase is one Mum used to have too.

‘Mah! What are you doing here? I thought I’d never see you again! Are you all right?’ The words tumbled over themselves. Blue stopped and hugged Mah fiercely. Mah’s bones felt small but tough.

Suddenly Blue realised she’d never hugged Mah before. One doesn’t hug servants, even ones you love, except one’s nanny.

Mah allowed the hug. ‘It’s so good to see you, Miss Blue.’

Blue stepped back and stared at her. Miss Blue? That girl had gone. ‘I’m Belle. Or Blue. Not the Miss bit anyway. Mah, how did you get here?’ She looked at Fred. ‘Where did you find her?’