The Road to Gundagai (17 page)

Fred grinned. He looked like he’d pulled the world’s greatest conjuring trick. ‘At the railway station.’

‘I came on the train,’ said Mah.

‘But how … why …?’ Blue stopped as Ephraim gave her a sharp ‘be quiet’ signal from over by the gramophone. He put the needle down on the record as Gertrude and Mrs Olsen slipped down the caravan steps and ran into the tent as the Boldini Brothers.

There was no time to talk now. As soon as the trapeze act was over, followed by Ephraim’s short magic act, she had to be in the Big Top for the Galah, dressed as the mermaid. Blue lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I have to change. Will you still be here when I get back?’

‘Of course. Fred’s got to change for the Galah too.’

Blue stared. ‘You’re speaking …’

Mah still hadn’t even smiled. ‘Proper English? People don’t like it if a Chinese girl speaks better English than they do.’

Who was this girl? Had she ever really known her? ‘Mum and Dad weren’t like that.’ Blue kept her voice soft.

‘That Mrs Huggins was, especially when your mum let me share some of your lessons. You get enough slaps on the ear, you learn not to sound uppity.’

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Blue inadequately. ‘Her arthritis was bad. That’s why she was snappy.’ And she didn’t like what she called foreigners either, she was forced to admit to herself.

The girl who had saved her life, who had emptied her chamber pot day after day, watched her with strangely familiar eyes. ‘I … I am glad you are safe, Blue. I missed you.’

It sounded odd to hear her real name again. ‘I really do have to change, Mah. You’ll still be here, after the show?’

‘Yes,’ said Mah.

Fred said, ‘She’ll always be here. She’s goin’ to be a member of the circus now.’

Ebenezer’s whip cracked. The audience burst into ferocious applause. The Boldini Brothers would be bowing inside, triumphant.

‘What! But how …? Does Madame know?’

‘Madame knows everything. Marjory’s me baby sister.’ Fred gave a final grin, and sprinted to the caravan to change.

Marjory? Fred’s sister? But there was no time for explanations now. She hugged Mah again, felt hesitation again, then a brief hug in return. She shuffled as fast as she could into Madame’s caravan.

Blonde wig, a touch of the greasepaint over her scars, a slightly browner face paint — mermaids must be suntanned — and a little glitter on her cheeks and forehead. The skin-tight silk top … She was just finishing fastening her tail when Fred knocked. ‘Ready?’

‘Yes. Come in.’

Ephraim followed Fred into the caravan. He was in his Boffo costume, red mop wig and all, big and loose and easily donned over his regular clothes. Fred was dressed as a pirate, in ragged canvas pants, bare chest with painted ‘tattoos’, a pirate hat, patch and a moulting stuffed parrot tied onto his shoulder.

The glass tank sat on its trolley on the sandy soil by the caravan steps. There was no sign of Mah. Blue wondered if she was in the Big Top, seeing the rest of the show, out of the way of the real work backstage.

The glass tank was about six feet long and a yard wide, filled with water. It had been Fred’s idea, though some of what had remained of Blue’s original ten pounds had paid for it when he found it for sale in a junk shop. A mermaid on a rock was all right for the Freak Show tent. But the Galah had to be truly splendiferous.

Blue shivered as they lowered her into the water. She rested her hands on the glass at the far end, to keep her head and wig out and dry for the entrance. Then Ephraim wound up the gramophone for the music.

Ginger and Gertrude — Tiny Titania and Glorious Gloria — already sat astride Sheba’s neck. Even now, Gertrude’s beauty in the spotlight still gave her a small shock each time she saw it. Gertrude was pretty even in a boy’s shorts and shirt. But somehow she seemed to absorb the glow from an audience. Madame and Mrs Olsen stood — a fortune-teller and a harem dancer — on either side of Sheba.

‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the last time tonight …’ Ebenezer’s voice rang through the camp, ‘the amazing, the one and only … the Magnifico Family Circus!’

One, two, three … Sheba knew the routine as well as any of them. On the first beat of music the elephant began to plod slowly and evenly into the Big Top, with Ginger and Gertrude still sitting on her neck. Madame and Mrs Olsen strode in on either side.

One, two, three, four … Gertrude stood, her legs apart and slightly flexed. Ginger stood too. One, two, three … The boy — or fairy — vaulted onto his sister’s shoulders. She held his feet as Ginger raised his arms next to his wings, almost as if he was flying.

Ephraim, as Boffo the clown, followed, walking the first few steps, then pretending to slip and cartwheeling over and over. Fred gave the gramophone another quick wind, then began to pull Blue’s trolley.

Blue took a deep breath. She let go of the rim of the tank and plunged her head under the water as they entered the ring, her hair in a cloud behind her, the necklaces sagging, the red and blue glass shining in the electric light.

Someone screamed. Someone always screamed. The mermaid in the Freak Show tent was a game of pretend — the customers pretended, even to themselves, that the mermaid, the grizzly bear and the two-headed calf might be real. But a mermaid actually swimming underwater! Kids clambered down to the ringside for a closer look.

Blue imagined Gertrude forcing herself to keep smiling, up on Sheba’s back. She had been the star of the show before the arrival of the mermaid, the only one who drew gasps from the audience. She was still the circus’s real performer. Blue’s act required timing and practice, not skill. The audience might not even have fallen for it, without Gertrude’s all-too-real daring on the trapeze earlier.

But in the Galah, at least, Blue was the star.

Her lungs were almost bursting. She carefully blew the air from her lungs, a series of bubbles above her, then pressed her lips to the hollow glass breathing tube, and took a deep quick lungful. It would have been easier to breathe through it the whole time. But that would have broken the illusion. You couldn’t suck air and smile. She moved back from the tube, smiling again, wondering who watched her: Mah, the young man Joseph, the pregnant woman with the hopeful eyes …

Ephraim tumbled outside, unnoticed, as the audience stared at the mermaid, to wind up the gramophone again, before tumbling back in …

‘Harrup!’ called Ebenezer. He cracked his whip.

Sheba’s trunk came down. Madame put her foot on it and held one hand up to Gertrude.

‘Har … rup!’ Madame stood astride Sheba’s back while Sheba lowered her trunk for Mrs Olsen.

Now all four stood on the elephant, Madame and Mrs Olsen leaning out hand in hand with Gertrude, steadied by the young woman’s strong hands. Ginger slowly bent down and put his hands on Gertrude’s shoulders. He rose again in a graceful handstand, waving his pink slippered feet in the air.

‘Harrup!’ Ebenezer’s whip cracked again. Boffo the clown gave a final somersault, then leaped up onto Sheba’s back, sitting facing her tail.

The audience giggled.

Another leap, and Fred the pirate sat on Sheba’s head, keeping his legs carefully away from her eyes.

The music scratched to a crescendo. Blue flung her head with its wet streaming wig out of the water and took a deep gasp of air, then pressed her hands down hard onto the base of the tank.

It had taken her months to do this, to gain not just the strength but the coordination. Damaged legs made it hard to balance too. But this only had to work for a few seconds.

Down … up! The mermaid’s tail rose straight out of the water, scattering droplets as she waved it in the air, her head still underwater.

Gasps, another scream. Unnoticed, Ephraim slid down off Sheba and ran out to turn off the lights and to wind the gramophone once again.

Darkness fell like a blanket. Blue lowered her legs down, holding onto the edge of the tank, her head in the air, gasping great lovely breaths of air, her wet wig sticking to her back.

The lights came up. The music was different now, a gay polka as they circled the ring, Gertrude, Ginger, Madame and Mrs Olsen astride Sheba, Fred pulling Blue’s tank, then Ephraim and finally Ebenezer, all of them smiling and waving, waving and smiling, then out into the night, leaving the applause thundering behind them.

It was the loudest applause Blue had ever heard.

On and on it rang, with stamping, cheering, hoots of joy. Blue felt the grin slide over her face as she sat up in her tank. All around her the others’ faces glowed too. Even Gertrude smiled. The susso-camp families in there may have paid least at the gate, but they had given a more magical experience than any other audience ever had.

‘That was incredible!’ Mah sat on a bale of hay, her hands in her lap.

Madame smiled regally at her. ‘In two nights’ time you will be part of it.’

‘Really?’ asked Blue.

‘Yep.’ Fred looked pleased with himself. ‘I been practising a magic act. That’ll mean Ephraim don’t have to rush back and forth doin’ the lights and music, as well as be the magician. Marj can be my assistant. And take my place in that ruddy dance.’

‘Language,’ said Madame reprovingly. ‘And I will check this magic act tomorrow.’

Gertrude gave a snort. ‘Another bit of fool the eye.’

‘What does it matter?’ asked Fred easily. ‘As long as the punters applaud.’

‘Of course it matters! How could someone like you understand?’ Gertrude looked at the circle of performers. ‘How can
any
of you understand what Mum and Ginger and I do? We work like Trojans. Practising from the time we can walk, hour after hour, day after day …’

‘Gertrude,’ said Mrs Olsen quietly.

‘It’s true!’

‘We know it’s true,’ said Ebenezer quietly. ‘We’re your greatest fans, lass. You make the circus — and we know it.’

‘Hear hear,’ added Ephraim.

Blue nodded. ‘You’re wonderful. I wish I could do what you can. You make us all seem beautiful. I think everyone who sees you dreams that one day they could fly like you.’

‘Yes. Well …’ Gertrude looked unsure of what to do with the direct praise. ‘I’ll go get changed. It’s cold.’ She headed up to the Olsens’ caravan, Ginger at her heels, already stripping off his fairy wings.

‘How about dinner?’ Fred looked at Mrs Olsen, a shawl wrapped around her harem dancer costume. ‘I could eat a horse.’

Madame’s blind eyes looked around the group, almost but not quite at their faces. ‘It is too windy to risk a fire tonight.’

‘No firewood to be had neither,’ said Ephraim. ‘Every bit o’ driftwood’s been picked clean right along the beach.’

‘Hope Town needs firewood more than us. But now my package is here we will have goulash again, soon. What was the taking tonight?’

‘Eleven quid and threepence,’ said Ephraim, ‘but most of that is the eight quid from the rich geezer Belle had the bet with. We also got a couple of loaves of damper, eight eggs, two boxes of tomatoes, a bucket of buttermilk — there’s a dairy farmer a mile away who gives it away to anyone from the camp — a jar of tomato jam, half a dozen grilled bunnies — reckon most of the boys around here have rabbit traps — about four pounds of cold grilled sausages and a jam sandwich with a note saying
For the elephant
. I have my doubts them sausages was legally obtained.’

‘Sheba shall have her sandwich,’ said Madame. ‘As for the sausages,’ she shrugged, ‘we cannot give them back to the butcher they came from, so their legality is not our concern. Tonight’s meal shall be cold sausages and rabbit and damper and tomato jam, and do not forget to drink the buttermilk. Mrs Olsen, if you would bring mine to my caravan? This wind is too cold for my old bones.’

‘Yes, Madame,’ said Mrs Olsen.

‘And tomorrow, Gertrude will ride Sheba with Belle through the shanties before Ebenezer takes her down to the sea for her swim.’

Gertrude’s face appeared out the caravan door. She gave them all a swift angry look. ‘I practise in the mornings.’

‘One practice cut short will do no harm. You will be Gloria and Belle will be a dancer.’ Madame shook her head. ‘The mermaid would please them more, but a mermaid on an elephant is not believable. Best they keep the image from tonight. But wear the jewels. They deserve another sight of jewels. The children will tell their children.’ Madame stared into the darkness. Her voice was soft. ‘When they talk about these years they will not say, “We shivered in the wind with sacking walls, we ate stale bread and drank buttermilk,” but, “One night I saw a fairy fly across a tent. I saw a mermaid swim, and wave her tail at me.”’

Madame turned neatly and accurately, and walked towards her caravan.

Blue looked at Mah, still unable to believe she was actually here. ‘I need to get out of my wet things and hang them up to dry.’

‘I’ll be waiting,’ said Mah. She sat on her bale of hay, her suitcase next to her, her hands still in her lap, seeming to feel as little emotion as the moon.

Chapter 16

Mah was still sitting there when Blue came out of Madame’s caravan, back in her shorts and shirt, bare feet, and an old woollen beanie to keep off the chill of the wind. Fred sat with her, a plate of sausage and chutney sandwiches next to him. Over in the Olsens’ caravan shadows moved in the lamplight through the window. Ephraim and Ebenezer were shadows too, checking the Big Top’s guy ropes, in case the wind grew stronger in the night.

Sheba stood by her pile of hay, steadily eating. There was no sign of any manure — Hope Town’s vegetable growers must have taken it after the show. Blue looked for the teddy bear, then saw it perched on the hay bale, between Mah and Fred.

So Sheba had accepted Mah, she thought. For a second she felt jealousy, then thrust it away.

The tents rustled in the darkness, the canvas creaking and flapping a little in the wind. Mah said nothing, just nibbled her sandwich, her eyes on Blue. Blue took a sandwich too.

‘I don’t understand. Not any of it.’ She looked at the blond-headed Fred and the dark-haired Mah. ‘How can you even be brother and sister? Mah is Chinese, and you’re …’ a bit exotic looking, she thought, but didn’t know how to say it politely.