The Trapeze Artist Read online

  ‘Oh – what the fuck? Don’t listen to me, all right? I’m just some miserable alky. That rusty old unicycle is probably planning to fucking marry you for all I know.’

  He leans towards the clown, who flinches, clearly thinking he is going to strike. But he is only reaching for the flask, which he snatches out of the clown’s hand. A coughing spasm overcomes him as he takes a gulp. But when it subsides he feels warm and pleased. He smiles down at the clown, who waves his hands for the flask, which he tosses back to him with another giggle.

  The centre of town will seem surreal and ominous as he drives through, suffused with the spectacle of normality at every turn – people going about their business, running errands, pushing buggies, drinking coffee and talking into mobiles. No matter which direction he looks ordinariness will stare ferociously back at him, threatening to subsume him once more into its acceptable systematic process. Each breath will feel stertorous, as if all that prevents him from falling back into the old rituals and habits that once made up his existence is a thin strand of willpower, stretched to breaking point by the knowledge that he and he alone is crazy enough to have attacked his own home, to have reviled all human contact and installed a circus rig above the kitchen.

  At the supermarket he will wait in the car until he has steeled himself for the task ahead. The prospect of entering the store and encountering the faces of people he might know will be almost enough to make him start the engine again and drive straight on home. But he needs too many things to turn back, and so he will force himself to get out of the car and head inside, keeping his gaze trained on the ground like a dog following a trail of scent.

  The supermarket will be mostly empty, only a pensioner suspiciously examining tinned salmon and a cluster of teenage goths glumly inspecting the small selection of DVDs. The bored-looking girl behind the counter will ignore him as he hastily grabs a trolley and hurries down the aisle, filling it with everything he can think of as fast as he can. He will be silently congratulating himself on the success of his mission when he will turn the corner and run straight into Katy.

  He will have seen her only a few times since they were at school together. Like him she will have remained in town, a local fixture, someone everybody knows and accepts. He will not have spoken to her in all that time though, and they will have only exchanged detached nods over the years, the fact that she was once a bully gradually giving way to the fact that she has become an adult who knows better. She will have filled out a lot over that time, and her wide-set eyes will seem even wider under a ragged fringe. Two small children will run back and forth around her as she considers a shelf containing packets of soup. She will see him before he has time to turn his trolley round and will exclaim his name loudly, causing the girl at the counter to look over with interest. He will try to pretend not to have heard, but it will be too late.

  ‘But it’s you!’ she will call out, ignoring the children at her feet and wheeling her trolley over. ‘I read about you in the paper!’

  He will smile reluctantly.

  ‘How’ve you been?’ he will say.

  Katy will shrug and jerk her head in the direction of her two kids as if this is all there is to say.

  ‘I heard about your mother too,’ she will say. ‘That’s awful. Is she . . . ?’

  There will be an uncomfortable pause which will be punctured by her little girl screaming as the boy hits her in the chest. Ignoring them, Katy will lower her voice.

  ‘I heard about . . . what you did too. Before, I mean. Going off with that circus show. Everybody was talking about it – caused quite the sensation around here, as I ’spect you can imagine.’

  He will look at the floor, not caring how obvious he is making it that he does not want to talk to her. But Katy will not take the hint. Instead she will lower her voice even more.

  ‘You know, after what happened with that boy you used to go around with everywhere . . .’

  He will swallow hard.

  ‘Edward.’

  ‘Edward – that’s it. Well, I just wanted to say that when I read that story in the local I thought to myself that you’ve not had an easy time of it. And that made me feel sort of bad, cos I know kids were pretty cruel to you way back when.’

  He will raise his eyes and stare at her.

  ‘What I mean is . . . I know I was pretty cruel to you. And I wanted to say that I’m sorry for it. For what it’s worth.’

  He will be lost for words. He will notice small warm lines around her eyes, tiny crow’s feet, and will have a sudden flash of how her children see her – not as Katy the plain girl who made fart jokes and took the piss out of other kids to get attention, but simply as their mother, the person who loves them most in the world.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he will say, keeping his voice as cool and level as he can make it. ‘I never took you seriously.’

  To this her attitude will change, almost imperceptibly, as if registering a slight. But then she will recover and nod as if to acknowledge this is exactly what she deserves to be told.

  ‘In that case good. Well. Better be getting on then.’

  With a small smile of goodbye she will continue past him down the aisle and her children will follow, whining in loud voices about some treat she has promised and failed to deliver. He will remain standing for a couple of minutes, pretending to be looking at the packets on the shelf and blinking back the tears that are pushing furiously against his eyes.

  The sky is alive with streaks of fiery red when he stumbles out of the clown’s caravan, his eyes heavy-lidded from tiredness and drink. The world is dark, but out of the gloom he can make out the edges of trailers and the mobile box-office unit, the patch of burnt-up ash where the fire was last night, and a minefield of tin cans and glass bottles twinkling in the half-light. His insides are swimming and strangely warm, despite the cold wind that bites into his exposed face and hands. In his drunken haze he is aware someone is shouting and swearing, and vaguely he realises the someone is Big Pete. To go over would be akin to running into the path of an angry beast, but the whisky has made him bold and reckless, and he jogs towards the sound, his feet crunching over the discarded trash.

  ‘The fucking bitch!’ Big Pete is howling and snarling as he staggers backwards and forwards outside his trailer, practically pawing the ground. It is obvious that he is not the only one who has been drinking all night. ‘The fucking whore!’

  As he approaches Big Pete bends down and plucks up one of the empty beer cans, which he hurls with considerable force towards the side of his own trailer, where it connects with a loud ‘ding’.

  ‘What happened?’ he asks in a reasonable voice.

  Big Pete does not seem to hear him. Instead he raises his fist to the sky and gives God the finger, before bending down to pluck up another piece of trash.

  ‘I’ll fucking kill her! Fucking kill her, I will!’

  Big Pete hurls the object – a bottle this time – with all his might. There is the sound of smashing glass as it goes through one of the windows. The realisation that Big Pete is attacking his own property sobers him a little.

  ‘What is it?’ he says with more urgency. ‘What happened?’

  Big Pete turns, both fists clenched. He is easily within striking distance and although he cannot clearly make out Big Pete’s face in the dark, he knows he is on the cusp of using those fists to hammer him into a pulp. Woozily he raises his own arms, which flop ineffectually into position before him like twigs. If Big Pete does decide to attack he stands no chance, so unsteadily he readies himself to run.

  ‘Marie’s gone!’ snarls Big Pete. ‘Left me for those commie fuckers! That two-faced know-it-all bastard and his dog-faced whore of a wife. Back to the inbred bunch of cunts she comes from!’

  He struggles to decode what the ringmaster is saying.

  ‘You mean . . . she’s left for the other circus?’

  Big Pete emits a great roar, stoops for another bottle and sends it speeding towards the trailer. It explod
es against the front door. The ringmaster turns back to him, his eyes blazing red as a demon’s as they reflect the fiery morning sky. For a second he is petrified, but then he realises Big Pete is looking through him, taking in the surrounding caravans and trailers, which are now showing signs of life as people open doors and windows to find out what their employer is raging about this time.

  ‘You bunch of lazy-arsed motherfuckers!’ Big Pete screams at them. He is met with derisive laughter and at least one person shouts back ‘Fuck off!’ and slams his door again. ‘You stupid worthless talentless shits!’

  Big Pete continues to scream, but suddenly he sounds small and pathetic, a drunkard, not worth taking any notice of – as if overnight his authority has dried up and gone. He decides to leave the ringmaster to his rage and turns and hurries across the ground to Vlad’s caravan. He thinks how he will curl up beside the aerialist, who will be affectionate with sleep and will automatically put his arms around him, the difficulties of the night forgotten.

  ‘Vlad?’

  The door of the caravan is open. He pulls it and it swings out eerily from the dark compartment. Instantly he knows that something is up, even before he has stepped inside and fumbled for the light switch, revealing the room to be half empty and missing all of Vlad’s most treasured belongings.

  He turns and rushes back into the cold.

  He listened carefully every time the phone went, creeping out from his room to the landing and squeezing his head between the banisters. He knew exactly when the head called to speak to his mum because of the way her voice dropped in shock when she realised who she was speaking to. ‘Oh – hello,’ she almost whispered, and he could feel the dread building up inside her as if preparing to gush forth like an avalanche as she waited to hear what was the matter. He heard her begin to apologise, and then stop as if she had been cut short, and then heard the words ‘I see’, and ‘Of course’, and finally ‘Certainly’. Then she put the phone down and there was a silence. He went back to his room and waited for her to come up the stairs to talk to him, but the minutes dragged on and on and eventually he realised she was staying put.

  When he could bear it no more he crept downstairs and peeped into the living room. His imagination was running wild with adrenalin and he almost expected to see his mum weeping with her head in her hands, imploring the gods for mercy and demanding to know what she had done to deserve such a son. But instead she was reading a magazine. She did not look up at first, but gradually, as if his stare was prickling her, she raised her head and met his eyes. And he saw then that she was not going to say or do anything, because she had no idea what to say or do, and because in any case she had given up on him.

  The red circus is nearly packed up when he reaches it. The big top is gone and most of the vehicles are lined up at the corner of the field, ready for the signal to move. One or two of the stalls are still waiting for their owners to close up the flaps and put away the bull’s-eye targets and cut-outs of gorillas and dinosaurs with holes where the faces should be for people to poke their heads through while the vendor snaps them and then charges something extortionate for a CD of the image. Roustabouts and members of the company hurry back and forth across the space, all of them ignoring him. No one is in costume or still painted, and the only sign that last night there was a big top here is a small white canopy supported by four poles, which might be the performers’ dressing area, yet to be taken down and standing despondently beside the space where the towering swirly ice-cream cone of the tent was previously erected. They have been striking since the show finished last night, and are apparently in a hurry to leave.

  He wanders through the activity, his eyes darting hopefully from face to face. Now and then he stops someone, asking if they have seen the aerialist, but they look at him blankly. One fat man in overalls gives him a withering look and says, ‘Aerialist? We got so many frigging aerialists you’d think that’s all there bloody was in the circus!’ and walks briskly past him. He turns, over and over again, trying to guess which trailer Vlad might be secreted away in, but the whirr around him holds no clues. Hopelessness starts to set in.

  ‘You!’ says a female voice suddenly from behind.

  Marie is supporting an old woman with skin so lined it is like a crumpled-up piece of tissue paper. The woman’s eyes are dark concaves in her skull-like face, and her mouth nothing but a cluster of wrinkles badly coloured in with lipstick. She looks as if the merest gust of breath would blow her away.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here. You need to leave.’

  ‘Marie!’ he cries. ‘Where’s Vlad? I have to find him!’

  ‘Who is it?’ mutters the older woman, peering at him myopically and scratching some hairs on her chin. ‘What does he want, eh?’

  ‘ ’S all right, Mum,’ says Marie in a soothing voice. ‘ ’E’s just a roustabout from Pete’s circus come to check us out. ’E’s just leaving.’

  ‘Tell him to get away!’ screeches the old woman, morphing without warning into a harpy. He half expects her to challenge him, fingers turning to talons and ready to scratch his eyes out, this being the way of the circus, but instead she raises an arthritic finger and points it ominously.

  ‘Go back to that scumbag and his two-bit flea show and leave us well alone, you fucker,’ she rasps.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ says Marie, drawing her mother away. ‘ ’E’s going.’ She gives him a meaningful look. ‘Ain’t ’e?’

  ‘I’m here to see Vlad,’ he insists.

  The old woman continues to glare in his vague direction, but Marie tugs her away and eventually she submits to her daughter, allowing herself to be steered over towards a large blue trailer. Marie glances back and raises a hand, warning him not to follow, and he watches, sick with heartache, as she assists her mother to climb inside, then shuts the door on her. She walks slowly back, her face unreadable.

  ‘Is it true?’ he demands. ‘This circus is run by your family? You’re leaving us for them?’

  Marie takes out a stick of chewing gum from her pocket and pops it in her mouth. She chews and looks at him, as if reflecting. He has the feeling she is not taking him seriously.

  ‘Big Pete’s gone crazy!’

  ‘If ’e sent you, you can just fuck off,’ she says calmly.

  ‘He didn’t send me! Please, Marie!’ He flushes, hearing the desperation in his own voice. ‘I need to find Vlad!’

  Marie inspects him for a few seconds, making no attempt to disguise her mistrust. Then she points her head towards the ground and spits out the gum. It lands in a clump of grass, a ball of unnatural plasticky pink. Then she sighs. She jerks her head and turns, indicating he should follow.

  Because his mum no longer said a word, no matter how late he got in, he was able to meet Edward at any time he liked. Paul joined them at weekends, but Paul could never stay too late because his parents wanted him to be home by nine on weekdays and eleven at weekends, and despite some gentle teasing from Edward, Paul still obeyed their every instruction.

  At school Edward continued to come up with new ideas about how to subvert the ‘culture of mindlessness’ which he said the rest of the world was intent on subscribing to. They started an anonymous newsletter in which they wrote essays that consisted of stringing together the longest words they could find, and also ones that comprised of no more than single three-word sentences. The content of the newsletter was deliberate gibberish, and they photocopied it and distributed it in the classrooms around school, though no one ever read it, and mostly pupils and teachers seemed baffled by the appearance of these nonsensical texts. Edward announced plans to start an orchestra purely for whistlers, and they almost got into trouble again when he upset the catering staff after launching a petition against the school lunches, claiming the mashed potato and rice pudding were not nearly lumpy enough.

  One evening in the Easter holidays they met at Edward’s house to discuss plans Edward had for a weekend away. Edward told them to go upstairs to the den while he fetched a
surprise from his room, and he waited with Paul until Edward crawled into the space grinning secretively and holding something in his fist.

  ‘You look like a maniac,’ he said. ‘What have you got there?’

  Edward’s grin widened epically and with a great flourish he opened his fingers. There was a small transparent bag containing what looked like a lump of mould.

  ‘Ta da!’

  Paul let out a horrified gasp.

  ‘Drugs!’

  Paul’s prim reaction struck them as so funny they both burst out laughing. He rocked backwards and forwards on his ankles, lost his balance and almost knocked the precious substance flying out of Edward’s hand. Paul smiled grudgingly, looking embarrassed.

  ‘Relax,’ said Edward drily. ‘It’s just pot. My dad used to smoke it all the time. The womb has a joint now and then too, when she thinks I’m asleep. Been pilfering minuscule amounts from her over the last few months, building up my own stash.’

  ‘Have you smoked it before?’ Paul wanted to know.

  ‘Of course. It’s not a big deal.’

  Edward shot him a despairing look and he grinned back at him, though the truth was that he was nervous too. Though he had sermonised with Edward about the hypocrisy of legalising certain drugs like alcohol and tobacco and not others, a warning bell instilled from years of being told it was wrong was sounding, sending a tickle of fear and anticipation racing down his spine.

  They watched as Edward carefully rolled the joint on the floor. He took an artist’s pride in the process, sprinkling the weed up and down the paper as if it were a dish he was flavouring with some rare herb. Finally he judged there to be a sufficient amount and sprinkled tobacco on top. Then he picked the paper up, licked it along one side and rolled it between both thumbs and forefingers.

  ‘There,’ said Edward, proudly holding up a crudely misshapen joint. They all laughed, even Paul, and Edward shrugged and said, ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, it works just the same.’