The Road to Gundagai (40 page)

‘He deserved it,’ said Blue. She hoped Mah could hear the tinny voice on the other end.

‘That’s as may be. Anyhow, he died two years ago. Snake bite, nothing suspicious. His eldest daughter and her husband have the farm now. Sounds like the daughter’s preparing the biggest welcome the district has ever seen for the return of her mum and auntie.’

‘So Ebenezer and … I mean Euphrasia and Eulalie, are going back there?’

‘Just put them on the train. Their daughter wired the money for the tickets. First class too. Reckon that farm is doing all right. They said to say sorry for not seeing you before they left and they’ll get someone to write a letter as soon as they get home. But they were itching to get back,’ added the sergeant. ‘Turns out there’s eight grandchildren they haven’t seen. Plus Miss Eulalie said she’d like to dance on that blighter’s grave.’

‘I see,’ said Blue slowly.

‘You’re all right out there? Miss Matilda said she’s happy to have you girls stay there. A bit of company for them. And look, don’t you go worrying. I’ve told the blokes in Sydney that your friend is out of it. Miss Matilda says she’s a nice lass. So does Mrs Mutton. And Miss Matilda is a match for any aunts. You’re safe as houses at Drinkwater.’

But houses can burn, thought Blue. She nodded, then realised you couldn’t see a nod down a phone line. ‘Yes. They’re very kind.’

‘And no change to your Madame?’

‘No,’ said Blue. Nurse Blamey had said that she didn’t expect a change now. Except death, though she hadn’t used the word.

‘Perhaps it’s for the best,’ said the sergeant.

For a moment Blue didn’t know what he meant. And then she realised. ‘Madame isn’t a murderer!’

‘Don’t get on your high horse. That Madame of yours seems to have made a career of rescuing girls and women from bad men. In my experience people who take the law into their own hands one way will do it in another.’

Blue was silent. How could she explain Madame’s strength and integrity? She wasn’t even sure she fully understood it herself. But beheading an enemy? No. At last she said, ‘Thank you for telling me about Ebenezer, I mean Euphrasia and Eulalie, sergeant.’

‘My pleasure,’ he said, and she could tell he meant it. ‘The wife really liked them. Sweet old girls. You should have seen that Miss Eulalie combing her moustache this morning. Offered her my razor, but she’d have none of it. “You know you’re a great-aunt in our family when you’ve got a moustache,” she said. Glad to see them so happy. Good night, Miss Laurence.’

‘Good night,’ said Blue. She put the receiver back in its cradle. Old ducks and sweet old girls, she thought. Ebenezer and Ephraim with their wide shoulders and muscular hands too. She supposed you needed muscles on a banana farm.

She looked at Mah bleakly.

‘I heard,’ said Mah. ‘They’re happy. That’s the main thing.’ She hesitated. ‘We’re both better off out of the circus, Blue. But it was fun for a while.’

Blue nodded. The circus had been wonderfully, gloriously exciting. It had opened new horizons for her, inside and out. But it wasn’t her real life. Mah too had been with Magnifico’s only because Blue and her brother had been there and good jobs were impossible to find. Neither of them would ever have the skill for a good circus act, or the focus to develop one. All they’d had were youth and prettiness, to act as a mermaid, assist a magician and dance in a pretend harem.

Mah carefully avoided her eyes. ‘I’d better start looking for a job.’

‘Not if I really do have money. We’ll share it.’

‘I can’t do that! It’s yours.’

‘How about a job as companion then?’

‘No.’ Mah did meet her eyes now. ‘I’ve thought about you having money. Of course I have. I don’t want you to give me any of it. If you do, it’ll be like I was your servant, all over again.’

Blue felt strangely relieved. She had known Mah would say this. It was still good to have the words said out loud though. ‘What about sharing a cottage if I rent one? With Sheba too? I can’t look after her by myself.’

Mah allowed a small grin. ‘I’ll do that. Don’t want you spending your whole day elephant tending. But no money. Ever. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’ She held out her hand. It felt a bit odd, but if Miss Matilda could shake hands, so could they. Mah’s hand felt small and muscular in hers. ‘I always wanted a sister.’

‘Me too. Now Madame has given us each other.’ Mah’s grin widened. ‘A cottage of our own. By the river, with a proper oven. Do you think we could have a refrigerator too, like they have here? It runs on kero. You don’t even have to buy ice for it. Mrs Mutton is going to show me how to make chocolate ice cream tomorrow. Ice cream! Mrs Huggins wouldn’t show me anything. You know what’s even better?’

Blue shook her head.

‘Someone else does the washing-up!’ Mah took her hand. ‘Come on. We’ve made chocolate caramel mousse with celebration sponge for dessert.’

Blue followed her back into the dining room.

Chapter 35

Mrs Mutton served tea and coffee after dinner in the living room. Blue just pretended to sip from her cup. There was no need now to force her body to stay awake while the circus packed up for its next move, nor the buzz of leftover energy that had made it so hard to sleep after a performance. But she liked the ritual, the small china cups on the silver tray, the blue damask curtains with their gold tassels shut against the night. She looked at the biscuits on the tray. ‘Squished flies!’

Miss Matilda smiled. ‘We’ll see if they are as good as you say.’ She took one and balanced it on her plate, just as the door opened. Nurse Blamey stood there, her uniform impeccable, her expression impossible to read.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Thompson, Mr Thompson, the lady is awake.’

‘What?! Is she going to be all right?’

Nurse Blamey didn’t answer. Blue leaped to her feet, then nearly overbalanced as her scar ripped a little again. Mah steadied her, then helped her up the stairs, even though she’d obviously rather have run ahead to Madame’s room. The Thompsons followed them, tactfully keeping their distance.

Blue sat on the hard chair next to Madame’s bed. Mah pulled up another chair beside her. The old woman looked exactly as she had before dinner, her face gaunt, her teeth prominent, the eyes sunk into bruised shadows. But as Blue took her claw-like hand those deep-set eyes opened.

‘Belle?’ The word was a croak, only the right side of her lips moving.

‘It’s me, Madame. We have been so worried.’

‘I have been visiting with death.’ The words would have been impossible to understand had she not spent the last week deciphering Mr Thompson’s slurred syllables. Trust Madame, thought Blue, to have the perfect opening line for her recovery.

‘We are so glad you’re getting better, Madame.’ Mah took her other hand.

‘You are good girls.’ It was more breath than words. ‘Not circus but good girls. And Belle will have money. So useful, money.’ The voice faded.

‘Yes,’ said Blue gently. ‘I will have money.’

Madame murmured something too low to hear, and then, ‘… circus? Need money now …’

‘Everything is fine, Madame. Ebenezer and Ephraim have gone home — they didn’t kill that horrible man, but he’s dead now. Fred is working on a friend’s fishing boat up north,’ or somewhere, she thought, ‘and the Olsens are with the Mammoth. But the Big Top is here. We can hire new acts as soon as you are well again.’

Except I don’t want to, she thought, and nor does Mah either. But we’ll stay with Madame as long as necessary to get Magnifico’s going again. In these times there must be many performers looking for work. She glanced up at Miss Matilda, wondering if she expected her to ask about the dead man in the House of Horrors. But Miss Matilda seemed to know that this was not the time to worry a desperately ill woman.

‘Sheba?’ The voice was even fainter.

‘Getting fat in a paddock by the river.’

‘Too old for travelling,’ whispered Madame. Blue wondered if she meant herself or the elephant. ‘Tell her she has my love.’

Madame shifted her head slightly. Her faded eyes looked into Blue’s, so precisely that for a moment Blue wondered if some magic of the stroke had allowed her to see. But then the eyes wandered to the left and she knew that whatever Madame saw, it was within her memory and understanding. ‘Sheba is yours now. You understand? I was with her when she was born. So small. No one wanted her, you see. So many girls are not wanted. So many trapped and hurt …’ The voice faded, till it was part of the crackle of the starched sheets.

Blue scrubbed the tears from her eyes. ‘I’ll look after Sheba. But you’re going to be all right, Madame.’ She glanced up again at Miss Matilda and Mr Thompson in the doorway. They were quiet, not intruding further into the room.

One side of Madame’s mouth curved in the gentlest smile that Blue had ever seen her give. ‘Death sits next to me,’ she whispered. ‘But death’s hands are kind. Death is a gentleman. I knew that when I killed Monsieur.’

No! Horror trickled down Blue’s back. Even her face felt cold. Could she really have been so wrong about Madame? ‘Madame! You don’t know what you’re saying! Monsieur died in the fire. Remember?’

‘Remember? I have lived in my memory all these years. I do not forget. Never, ever forget. He died in the fire, yes, but it was my hands that struck the blow.’ The old voice grew stronger at the memory. ‘The flames ate the Big Top. So fast it was. The audience screamed. They ran. I was high on the trapeze, with Lillian and little Susan. Only six years old she was. The ladder was black, then ash. We huddled on the swing. But Monsieur, he ran and brought a rope. He threw it up to us. I grabbed it. I tied it to the swing. So strong he was …’

‘Madame, don’t cry.’

‘I cry for happiness. I cry for pride. We climbed down, Lillian, then Susan, then me. And then the framework fell, burning teeth into the night. I rolled clear. And when I could see again there was Lillian, screaming, crying, the burning wreckage on the ground, all black and red.’

Mr Thompson made a small sound of shock behind them.

‘I saw Monsieur. I thought at first he was wreckage too, for he was red and black. I thought that he was dead. But then he moved, and there was Susan, covered by his body, almost unhurt.’

The words faded. Mah lifted a cup of water to Madame’s lips. A hand like stained parchment waved it away. ‘He did not scream. My Monsieur had no mouth left to scream. But his eyes, they saw me. So I took the axe and took away his pain. I smiled as I did it. I smiled for love, so the last thing he saw would be my smile. They all saw me, Lillian and Susan and Boldo the Strongman who held Sheba back, and the others. But no one ever told the police, “A man died here today.” No one ever mentioned it at all. For they honoured Monsieur. They honoured what I had done.

‘We pay our debts,’ whispered Madame. ‘Thirty-eight years of happiness we had. So much joy and so much love. Monsieur paid his debt to save the girl. And I knew I must pay my debt too.’

Blue stroked the old woman’s hand. ‘So you saved other girls.’ You gave me life, she thought, like Monsieur did for that child.

‘What a woman,’ said Mr Thompson softly. His good arm rested around Miss Matilda’s shoulders.

She looked up at him. ‘What a man.’ She might have meant Monsieur or her husband.

The sagging shawls of Madame’s eyelids covered the faded blue. Her face almost looked like the clay it would become. Her breaths grew longer, harsher. At last then she spoke again. ‘Mah?’

Mah held Madame’s other hand. ‘I’m here, Madame.’

‘It is all yours. The caravans, the jewellery. The gold necklace, it is true gold, and the sapphire bracelet.’ The pale eyes opened. ‘Bury me with Monsieur. Both together in one grave.’

Blue bent closer. ‘Of course. Where is he buried, Madame?’ She knew, but had to ask, in case the old woman had any surprises left. ‘Is he at Gundagai?’

‘Always with me,’ whispered Madame. ‘Always, from the day we met. In the tent next to mine …’ Her eyes closed again. Her hands gripped theirs feebly, then went slack. Her breathing changed, became dog pants, slow and hard.

‘She won’t wake again now,’ said Nurse Blamey from the doorway. She might have been reporting the weather.

Blue looked at her in fury. ‘You don’t know that!’

Miss Matilda touched Nurse Blamey tactfully on the arm. ‘Go and have some cocoa downstairs. We’ll sit with her.’

‘My duty is with my patient —’

‘Go,’ said Miss Matilda. She pulled up the small armchair and helped her husband into it, then sat on a chair from the hall next to him.

The old woman’s breathing filled the room, heavy and harsh, a laboured inhale, an almost sigh as the breath went out. Each time the seconds seemed to stretch further between one breath and the next. But each time another breath followed the last.

How many girls and women have you rescued, old woman? thought Blue, studying the craggy face.

Suddenly she could see them, the tall woman, the short man at her side in his top hat, a little portly and as handsome as Madame had said, the Big Top splendid behind them. She hoped Madame had glimpsed enough of her own future to have made the most of every day with her husband. Somehow, she thought she had.

They waited, Blue and Mah holding Madame’s hands. At last Mah whispered, ‘So he is the skeleton?’

‘Yes,’ said Blue. Madame’s face still almost seemed to smile at them, despite the laboured breath. ‘The Gundagai authorities may not even have known that someone died in the fire. Who knows how many people are in a circus? Monsieur was a taxidermist too. Madame may have learned how to … to prepare a skeleton from him.’

‘Good grief,’ said Mr Thompson, his arm tight around his wife. ‘You mean the old biddy kept him until —’

‘Shh,’ said Miss Matilda. She smiled at him, the love so deep it almost hurt. Blue watched him smile back. ‘It doesn’t matter now. I’ll explain it to Sergeant Patterson. There is no need for more questions now.’

‘Madame said she would die on Monsieur’s birthday,’ whispered Blue. She tried to smile. ‘But she didn’t ever say how old she was. Or what day was Monsieur’s birthday.’

An owl hooted, far beyond the river. Another answered from a tree near the house. Suddenly a long deep cry ripped through the darkness outside. Blue struggled to the window and looked out, but the clouds hid the moon. ‘That was Sheba! Is she all right?’