Read The Road to Gundagai Online
Authors: Jackie French
‘I’m glad she’s not my sister. She makes Mum cry. Don’t care who my father is neither.’ He looked around the room. ‘Don’t need a father, do I? I got all of youse. An’ Sheba too.’
‘Yes. You’ve had us.’ Ebenezer’s voice had a tone Blue had never heard before.
‘You’ll be as great a trapeze artist as Gertrude is. Better,’ she said.
‘I’d rather be an engine driver,’ said Ginger.
Blue blinked at him. It had never occurred to her that someone with talent and skills might not want to use them.
‘You don’t have to practise every morning to be an engine driver. You just go “Toot toot” and the engine carries you away. I want to live in a house. Like this,’ added Ginger. ‘So does Mum. She wants a pink house. Every time we pass a pink house she says, “That’s what I’d like to live in.”’
Blue felt as if the air had been sucked from her lungs. She had lived with these people for over a year, but never really known them. Yet somehow the morning’s horrors had solved one problem. Gertrude could go to her hoped-for stardom. And if the Magnifico Family Circus ended here, it might not be a tragedy for Mrs Olsen — impossible to think of her by any other name — or Ginger.
But what about the rest of them? She looked over at Ebenezer and Ephraim, sitting so still in their armchairs. The sergeant did too.
‘You got any wild tales to tell?’ he asked them.
‘No,’ said Ebenezer.
‘Don’t know where we was born,’ said Ephraim solidly. ‘Never asked. Only ever known the circus. Joined up with Madame about seven years ago; she’d had the new Big Top a few years by then. Well, it were second-hand, but new for us. Fred here and Mrs Olsen were already with her.’
‘That’s right,’ said Fred.
‘And the skeleton?’
Ebenezer shrugged. ‘We were the ones that put it up each time. Knew it was real bone. Never thought about it, no more than I thought about Bruin.’
‘The bear,’ said Fred.
‘And your full names are?’
‘Ephraim and Ebenezer Jones,’ said Ebenezer.
‘Good common name, Jones,’ said the sergeant. ‘Nearly as common as Smith.’
Ebenezer shrugged. ‘Can’t help that.’
‘Where did you work before you joined Magnifico’s?’
‘The Jones Family Circus. Small outfit. You won’t have heard of it,’ said Ebenezer.
The sergeant stood up heavily. ‘Someone will have. If it exists. I need to do some checking.’ He looked around the room. ‘None of you are to leave the district. Is that understood? That Gertrude, whatever her real name is, can go if she wants to. But no one else.’
‘They can camp here as long as necessary,’ said Miss Matilda quietly.
‘We ain’t goin’ nowhere till Madame gets better,’ said Ebenezer. ‘And Sheba shouldn’t be travelling neither.’
If Madame does get well, thought Blue. She shut her eyes. Best that Madame sleeps through all of this. Let her wake up when it’s all sorted. We owe her that. It’s her turn to be protected now.
She opened her eyes. ‘Come on,’ she said to Mah. ‘Mrs Olsen needs us.’
They left Joseph and the sergeant with Miss Matilda. Blue half thought Joseph might walk down to the caravans with them. But when Fred put a protective arm around her shoulder and Mah’s he turned back to the others.
They walked in a huddle down to the river paddock. It felt strangely wrong to leave the solid certainties of the house, to go down towards the tents and caravans again. I am a house person, she thought. So’s Mah. We eat with knives and forks. Read books …
Suddenly she longed to curl on a sofa and read a book. To sing around the piano after dinner, or sit at the living-room table planning the family’s next adventure, to New Zealand or Tasmania. To choose a dress from a wardrobe, and not a musty trunk. She looked at her dusty toes, the soles of her feet so hard now that even the bindi-eyes in the lawn didn’t bother her; her heels cracked and ingrained with grime.
Fred held the gate to the river paddock open for them. Sheep stared at them across the barbed wire. Blue suspected that other eyes did too, from the sheds and cottages. The river ran smooth and endless between its sand and trees. The caravans and tents looked shabby next to it. Gertrude’s voice echoed up to them, yelling something indistinguishable.
‘I’m goin’ down to Sheba,’ said Ginger abruptly. He ran through the tussocks, ducking under the wire to the elephant’s paddock instead of opening the gate. Sheba plodded towards him; one eye looked slightly swollen, but she walked steadily, her trunk waving as Ginger approached her.
Blue moved out of the shelter of Fred’s arm. ‘Did you know any of that?’
He shrugged. Doesn’t want to lie outright, thought Blue. Or maybe he didn’t want to say what he knew in front of Ebenezer and Ephraim. He had known Madame the longest, after Mrs Olsen, after all.
She turned to the brothers. ‘What about you?’
‘People have a right to their secrets,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Madame knows what’s best.’
Blue looked at them helplessly. Madame might never wake up again. ‘Someone was killed. Murdered. His head cut off. Don’t you even want to know who did it?’ It had to be someone from the circus, she thought desperately. An outsider might kill someone, but they couldn’t put a body in the House of Horrors.
Or could they? Madame was blind. If someone had hidden a skeleton, she might never have even known it was there. Or even a body. She shuddered. How long did it take for a body to become a skeleton? That poor man … or had he been a bad man, like Lenny Frearson? But no one deserved a death like that.
Fred put his arm around her again. ‘Need to get you a jumper, princess. Wind’s cold off the river,’ he said.
Blue shook him off. She didn’t want to touch anyone. She had thought she had left murder behind. Instead it had travelled with her, all the way from Willow Creek. Was Miss Matilda right? Could Fred have planned to get her to fall for him, marry him? Mah might even have told him that Blue would get her inheritance when she married. Mah would never have knowingly hurt her, but …
She bit her lip. She couldn’t think. It was as though a huge knife hung invisible in the sky, waiting to slash at her life.
‘Wind’s getting up. Better check the guy ropes on the tents,’ said Ephraim heavily. Ebenezer followed him down to the tents by the river.
Fred gave Blue and Mah one of his best grins. ‘It’ll be right,’ he said. ‘Whoever that poor bloke is, you two are in the clear. Don’t you go worrying about the future neither. Things’ll turn up. Always do.’
Like robbing a bank? Blue tried to smile back. She followed Mah up the steps and into the Olsens’ caravan.
Mrs Olsen sat cross-legged on one of the beds, her eyes and nose red, twisting Ginger’s handkerchief between her fingers.
‘I’ll walk to the train station if I have to.’ Gertrude didn’t look up as she stuffed clothes into a shabby carpetbag. She was packing all three white dresses, Blue saw, as well as the costumes from her three acts. It still seemed a pitifully small bag, compared to the trunks and hatboxes Blue’s mother had travelled with.
I have even less, thought Blue. But at least I’m who I’ve always known I am. I’ve got more futures to choose from too. She looked at Gertrude. The girl was white-faced, her tears resolutely unshed. Mrs Olsen looked small and defeated beside her.
Mrs Olsen seemed to force herself to speak. ‘Gertrude, please. At least wait till I can come with you, make sure you are happy with Mammoth.’
‘I don’t need you with me! If I don’t like it, I’ll find somewhere else.’ She turned to face them all. ‘I’m good! Vaudeville, sideshows — anyone would be glad to have me. And you can’t come with me. The police won’t let you.’
‘It will all be sorted out soon …’ There was no conviction in Mrs Olsen’s voice.
‘It won’t be! Who knows what the old witch has been up to? And you too! Lying to me for years …’
‘I did my best,’ said Mrs Olsen helplessly.
‘You shouldn’t have lied!’ Gertrude hunted through the trunk for a moment, then looked up again. ‘I need some money. Where does Madame keep it?’
‘You can’t take Madame’s money,’ said Mrs Olsen.
‘It’s ours too! More ours than hers. We earned it! Never mind! I don’t need money anyhow! I’ll get to Sydney somehow. Jump the rattler or get a lift.’
Gertrude fastened the bag, then looked down at her bare feet, shorts and shirt, as though suddenly realising she wasn’t dressed for a dramatic exit into a new life. She gave a small shrug and shoved past Mrs Olsen, past Blue and Mah, then down the caravan stairs.
‘Gertrude, wait.’ Mah grabbed her arm.
‘Let go of me!’
‘We just want to say goodbye.’
‘And good luck,’ said Blue. To her surprise she meant it. Gertrude had been like a butterfly trapped in her cocoon too long. With her wings unfurled she might be different. Worse perhaps, thought Blue wryly, playing the queen or star. Or maybe not.
Gertrude hesitated. ‘Thanks,’ she said abruptly.
‘Your mother only did her best for you,’ added Mah quietly.
‘She isn’t my mother.’
‘She’s more a mother than I ever had. You’re lucky.’
‘More than I have now too,’ said Blue.
Gertrude stared at them. She glanced up at Mrs Olsen, standing forlornly at the top of the caravan steps. Gertrude flung down the carpetbag. Suddenly now the tears did come, as she scrambled up the steps and into Mrs Olsen’s arms. ‘I’m sorry. Mum, I’m sorry. I was just —’
‘Hush, lambkin. I know. I know,’ said Mrs Olsen.
‘I do want you to come. And Ginger too! Please? Just for a while.’ Gertrude stepped back, rubbing the tears with a fist. ‘We can save up for a house for you, just like you’ve always wanted. It won’t take us long, not at eight pounds a week! And I can stay with you there in between tours. But I’ve got to go. Don’t you see? I’ve got to!’
‘Yes, love. It’ll be all right, love.’
‘Do you think the sergeant will let Mrs Olsen go too?’ asked Mah quietly.
Blue nodded. ‘I think so. He’ll know where they are, if he needs them.’ But he won’t call them back, she thought. Mrs Olsen had managed one violent act in her whole life, striking the hand of the man who had tortured her and the children she loved. She might have had the strength to cut off a man’s hand, but she would never have killed a man.
Nor would Mrs Olsen ever feel the gruesome glee needed to wire her victim’s head to its skeleton and place it in a House of Horrors, or the callousness to leave it where others would touch it, even her children. Blue shivered. It wasn’t just the skeleton they had travelled with, she thought. It was the hatred that had hung it there.
Blue sat outside Madame’s room while Gertrude and Mrs Olsen and Ginger said goodbye to the still-unconscious old woman. Nurse Blamey wouldn’t let too many people into the sick room. Blue caught only a glimpse of Madame, lying on her back, neat in a white nightdress Miss Matilda must have provided, her face dark against the white pillow, her claw-like hands on the white sheet. She looked small without her shawls, defenceless without her black dress.
The hall was strangely similar to the one they’d had at home. No, she thought, it’s not strange. Because what else can you do with a hall, except put Persian runners on the polished boards, add a side table with a vase of roses and a bowl of potpourri, and hang paintings on the wall?
A door at the other end of the corridor opened. The man she had met earlier limped out, a walking stick held awkwardly in his hand. She stood up politely, again conscious of her grubby bare feet, her sagging shorts and tattered shirt. But if he found anything odd in having a ragamuffin in his hall, he didn’t mention it. Instead he looked at her with a kind of wonder.
‘Good morning, Mr Thompson,’ said Blue. She hadn’t heard the grandfather clock in the hall below strike noon yet, so she supposed it was still morning.
‘Good morning, Miss, er …’ He had clearly forgotten the introduction that morning.
‘Blue Laurence,’ said Blue. There seemed to be no point in continuing to use an alias when both this man’s wife and the sergeant knew her real name. Besides, there was a solidity about this house and the woman who owned it that gave her a feeling of security and trust again. The police might take her from the circus to put her back in her aunts’ care, but she doubted they’d do so from the home of the largest property owner in the district.
Mr Thompson politely ignored her bare feet and sagging shorts. ‘Miss Laurence, I know this may seem odd, but I thought I glimpsed an elephant down by the river.’
‘That’s the Queen of Sheba,’ said Blue.
‘So I wasn’t seeing things.’ He gave a sudden smile. It wasn’t much of a smile, with only half his mouth, but his eyes had the wrinkles of a man who had laughed a lot and happily. ‘I always wanted to ride an elephant to work when I was a lad.’
She smiled at him, sharing the delight in Sheba. She’s brought him back from whatever vague place he was this morning, thought Blue. Just like she did for me, back when I was vague with pain and sickness. ‘You can ride her, if you like.’
He shook his head, gesturing at his leg and cane.
‘No, really,’ Blue assured him. ‘I … I can’t walk properly either, but Sheba’s back is so broad it’s easy. Ephraim and Ebenezer will help you get up on her.’
‘And they are …?’
‘We’re the Magnifico Family Circus. Mrs Thompson was kind enough to let us camp here for a while. Things … things aren’t so good just now.’
‘And my wife has taken control?’ He gave his half grin again. ‘Matilda is good at that. So now we have a visiting elephant.’
‘You can feed her, if you like.’
He looked down at his walking stick. The smile sank back into his face. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Mr Thompson …’ she spoke impulsively. Men knew about money and wills. Men like Mr Thompson anyway. ‘I … I need help.’
‘Help?’ Once more it was as if he stepped back to her from his world of invalidism. ‘My dear girl, of course.’
‘I … I need to know if I have any money. I know that sounds silly. My parents died …’
‘My wife told me.’ His voice was gentle. She held his whole attention now. ‘Wait a minute. Laurence. Any relation to Laurence’s Shoes?’