The Trapeze Artist Read online

  Edward stuck it in his lips, lit it and took a long toke. He and Paul watched as Edward let out a moan as if it were what he had been waiting for his whole life. Then Edward leaned in towards him. At first he did not know what he was planning and looked at him questioningly, but Edward had his eyes half closed like a lizard lounging in the sun. Their mouths met and suddenly he felt Edward’s lips part and a jet of hot cloud shoot up against his tongue. It had a heavy, almost sweet, cloying taste and when he breathed it in it tickled his throat like a feather. But he resisted the urge to cough or gag until his lungs were almost bursting. Finally when he could take it no more he let out his breath in a gust all at once.

  ‘Whoa!’ he heard himself say.

  His head seemed to spin and he felt as if he were floating up towards the ceiling. He laughed and Paul, who had been scrutinising the process closely and evidently getting worried, looked intensely relieved.

  ‘Something to take away the taste?’ Edward suggested, reaching under a nearby chair and producing a bottle of red wine. ‘Classic combination.’

  On the trapeze he will begin to incorporate all the shapes he has seen. They will have names based on what they call to mind – gazelle, star, mermaid, superman, arabesque, layout, stag, angel, plank, around-the-world, bird’s nest, swallow, eagle, foetus, hanged-man, cradle, coffin and crucifix. He will keep a log of all these moves and with each success he will tick them off – another accomplishment. Some he will get easily with his newly acquired strength and flexibility, but others will take hours and hours of practice. Occasionally he will lose his balance or misjudge the wrap and experience the weightlessness of falling before hitting the mattress below squarely with his back. When this happens he will shake himself off and immediately climb back up the rope and get onto the trapeze once more, for it is important to let the fear go immediately if he is not to be put off a move forever. The greatest challenge will be a fluid transition from shape to shape and he will experiment endlessly, trying to work out how one position might bleed seamlessly into another.

  As he improves he will feel more comfortable on the trapeze and will start to take greater risks. He will teach himself how to balance on the bar on nothing but the small of his back, how to grip it with both fists and whip his feet down, pushing the bar into his body as he rotates, again and again in circles. He will be able to twist the rope around his calf and hang from one foot, to rotate around the rope while upside down, and to drop back into nothing only to catch hold of the ropes with his ankles. He will tie slings to the bar and use them to support himself while he presses the roofs of his feet over the bar and gradually applies more and more of his weight, repeating this same movement using just his heels, until in both positions he is able for a few seconds to let go completely.

  The practising will be intense, difficult, exhausting work, which will make him pour with sweat and lacerate his body with welts and burns. But he will welcome each new challenge with relish. At times the pain will be excruciating and at times it will be invigorating, and at other times still there will seem to be scarcely any pain whatsoever.

  There will be one trick in particular that will terrify and fascinate him – the signature move from the aerialist’s repertoire. With this move the aerialist would stand on the trapeze holding the ropes and thrust his hips back and forth, creating a wave that would move the trapeze, eventually creating a swing. As the movement gained momentum, the aerialist would suddenly drop back and catch the bar on the height of the back swing, immediately beating his body up as the trapeze flew forward, to release as his legs flew over the bar and twist around, momentarily surrounded by nothing but air, only to drop and catch the ropes and trapeze with either side of his ankles.

  Cautiously he will begin to experiment with making the trapeze move back and forth, creating a protesting squeak from his unsophisticated makeshift rig. Day by day his courage will grow, and the movement of the trapeze will increase, until at last he is flying up to an almost horizontal position above the floor on each swing, his body level with the first storey of the house. At the height of the back swing he will release the ropes and drop, catching the bar, and he will feel the momentum propelling his body forward as he clings with fingers so tight it is as if they have been soldered on. But he will not have the courage to attempt the next movement. It will be a trick that requires a harness and a safety line to practise and perfect. Without those things, it will be suicide.

  The aerialist is sitting in the passenger seat of a brown truck, hidden behind the queue of trailers, gazing dreamily into space and drumming his fingers up and down on the dashboard. At the sight of him with Marie Vlad starts, looks furious for a split second, then resigns himself and climbs out of the vehicle.

  At first he does not know what to say to Vlad and stands there looking at him as if struck dumb. The aerialist seems to be similarly afflicted, and Marie looks from his face to Vlad’s and makes a humphing sound.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ she says meaningfully. ‘Vlad – we’re hauling out of ’ere any minute so you better make it fast.’

  She turns to him and nods, her mouth screwing up the side of her face in a wry smile. He thinks he sees a hint of sadness there, but then it is gone, along with Marie herself as she walks off towards the big blue trailer. Beside them is a giant red pickup which he knows must be where the big top is stored, with the image of a clown with his head thrown back laughing manically, and a busty flying-trapeze artist waving to the audience as she hangs off a bar with one leg. Several of the vehicles have started their engines, warming up for the journey ahead, and the atmosphere is suffused with the potential for movement.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he says falteringly, as if the answer were not evident. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m going –’ Vlad jerks his head around him. ‘Marie got me a good gig. Nice money. Cannot afford not to take it.’

  ‘And what about your existing gig?’

  It comes out like an accusation. The aerialist lifts his chin defiantly.

  ‘What about it? That old bastard hasn’t paid any of us for weeks. He tells us it is coming but everyone knows it’s a lie – he’s losing money! He can’t even pay for a fucking cleaner. Why do you think he let you stay on, huh? Because of me? Ha!’

  A thin man with long sandy hair and ginger stubble walks towards them, his shoulders hunched and his face dark, either from grouchiness or tiredness, it is hard to tell.

  ‘We’re off,’ he says gruffly to Vlad.

  ‘Coming!’ snaps the aerialist. ‘Give me a moment.’

  ‘Thirty seconds,’ replies the man, and walks over to the truck.

  He stares at Vlad, who studies the grass and kicks at it self-consciously, like a kid who has been caught doing something naughty and knows he is about to receive a lecture.

  ‘How could you just leave like that?’

  ‘I don’t need that old pile of junk,’ replies Vlad. ‘You can keep it.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about the caravan. I meant me.’

  He says it softly. Vlad does not look up.

  ‘You didn’t even leave a note!’

  ‘What difference would a note make?’

  The words seem to slice into him, severing some mystical cord that exists between hope and reality. Tears blur his vision and he feels them tracing hot pathways down his cheeks. He gulps, struggling to swallow down the urge to fall on his knees and weep.

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  He doesn’t care how it sounds, if it is pathetic and desperate.

  ‘Please.’

  The aerialist bites his lower lip and moves the pressure of his stance from one foot to the other. This is his answer.

  ‘Why not?’ he implores.

  What he really means is, How could you do this to me? He can’t say so but it is in his voice, in his eyes, in his tears. Slowly the aerialist lifts his head and meets his gaze. Vlad has a soft expression. It is the one the aerialist wears when he is to
uched by something he has done and thinks he is being cute. But even as he looks at him Vlad’s face seems to change, to melt under his stare into something harder, colder, wizened. It occurs to him that he is seeing a truth about the aerialist he has never acknowledged – that beneath Vlad’s childish antics, petulant outbursts and drunken declarations there lies a person who is hard and strong, someone who understands the importance of survival above all other things.

  Behind them the truck splutters into life. The man winds down the window and sticks his head out, turning it at an uncomfortable angle until they are in his line of vision.

  ‘Oi! Hasta la vista time!’

  He feels the blood pounding in his temples.

  ‘Look,’ says Vlad, ‘we’ll meet up again in the future, OK? Once the season is finished.’

  But the words fall on his ears like a joke, and the aerialist seems to know it because he lets out a tiny pitying laugh as if at the futility of what he has just said. Then Vlad darts forward and presses his lips hard against his mouth. He inhales the familiar salty sweaty smell of his lean body and shuts his eyes. The smell disappears and so does the pressure on his lips, and when he opens his eyes again the aerialist is climbing into the truck.

  He stays standing while the man backs up and then, presumably at Vlad’s instruction, sounds the horn – which has the effect of making the other trucks all toot their horns as well, as if taking up a rallying cry. Then, one by one, they turn off onto the road. The aerialist looks back once and waves, and then, just like that, he is gone.

  Paul held the joint between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a poisonous grub. They watched as ever so slowly he brought it towards his lips, which he pressed tightly together. He rested the joint against them for a fraction of a second, then inserted it and the end flared orange as he sucked in. Almost immediately he opened his mouth and let out a great cloud of smoke.

  ‘Wow,’ Paul spluttered, passing the joint back to him.

  ‘It doesn’t work if you don’t inhale,’ he said pointedly.

  Paul shot him an angry look and thrust out his chin.

  ‘I did inhale.’

  ‘No you didn’t.’

  ‘What’s your problem anyway?’

  Paul said this lightly but there was an edge to his voice. He was tempted to reply, to say how pathetic he found Paul, confident that Edward would back him up – or at least not disagree, which amounted to the same thing. But something, perhaps conscience, stopped him, and he contented himself with a knowing smirk.

  ‘You know what?’ Edward announced. ‘I’m bored. Let’s go out.’

  ‘Brilliant idea,’ he declared, grabbing the bottle of wine and leaping to his feet. ‘Let’s go to the park.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Paul. ‘It’s getting late.’

  But he followed them as they wriggled their way sluggishly through the mesh of furniture to the door, and trailed along behind as they trooped down the stairs and retrieved their coats. As they passed the door to Edward’s mother’s studio opera could be heard from within, as well as something that sounded like a cross between weeping and howling, as if the artist were baying at the moon. Edward rolled his eyes.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Edward sighed. ‘You see what I have to put up with.’

  Outside it was freezing and he felt instantly wide awake and stone-cold sober. It was only when Edward took his arm and pointed out with a giggle that he had his coat on inside out that he conceded the effects of the joint hadn’t quite worn off. Paul meanwhile insisted that he was completely stoned and loving every minute of it.

  ‘Ha!’ was all he said. Paul shot him a glare and Edward squeezed his arm.

  It took twenty minutes to walk to the park and they made the journey in relative silence, each lost in his own thoughts. When they reached it they heard voices and laughter, recognisable as other kids from school – rougher kids who lived on the shabby side of town, like Katy. Kids he and Paul knew they didn’t want to run into in the dark. He was briefly afraid that Edward would insist they continue and even go right up to them, simply out of principle. But after a moment of consideration Edward shrugged and suggested they wander somewhere else instead since he wasn’t in the mood to deal with delinquents. He and Paul readily agreed and they turned round and went in the opposite direction, towards the church.

  The smattering of caravans and trailers that makes up Big Pete’s circus looks pitiable when he returns. People are starting to emerge, and a few are splashing water on their faces from buckets heated on the hob. Most look hung-over, and conversations are stilted. Nobody knows what is going to happen and the excesses of last night have given way to uncertainty about the future. As he passes he overhears someone saying that Big Pete has slashed his wrists and another person claiming he has drunk himself into a coma – but no one has enough courage or concern to actually knock on his trailer, go in and find out. As he passes Franka and Griselda’s caravan, Franka, who is drinking a Coke on the step, calls out to him, but he does not answer. He reaches Vlad’s caravan and goes inside, shutting the world out.

  He lies on the bed for a long time, hugging a pillow and watching the light at the corners of the curtain grow bright and white as day advances. He feels numb. Nothing quite seems real, as if he had had a terrible accident and is now trapped in the aftermath cycle of shock. He can hear the company coming and going on the site. People are talking, shouting and laughing, groaning about hangovers and muttering about the cold. There is a whiff of smoke in the air, meaning that someone has built up the fire again, and the smell of weed. He squeezes shut his eyes, trying to block out all sensations.

  Sometime towards evening there is a knock and the door is pulled open. It is Franka, her pretty blonde hair tied back beneath a patterned shawl.

  ‘Hey, you,’ she says gently. ‘I heard about Vlad.’

  As if her words were the incitement he had been waiting for, the tears come pouring out. Franka hesitates then drops to the bed and hugs him, gently rocking him back and forth like a baby.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she says from time to time. ‘He isn’t worth it. He really isn’t. Anyone’ll tell you. We’re all amazed you put up with him for so long.’

  He doesn’t say to her that what he is crying for is more than this. The aerialist was his reason to be here, and without him he has nowhere. He simply cries on and on, drinking in the strange pleasure of letting go completely.

  Finally Franka pulls back.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, and through his tears he suspects she is wishing she had never come in to check on him. ‘Big Pete wants a meeting. It’s what I came to tell you.’

  He says he’ll be out in a minute, and Franka nods sagely and tells him she’ll see him out there. After she is gone he looks for the little mirror that usually hangs on the back of the door, sees that it is not there and realises Vlad has taken it. He thinks he is going to start crying all over again, but it seems that there are no tears left in him, and after a couple of chokes he gets a hold of himself, blows his nose and goes out.

  Many of the company are now sitting around the fire amid the glittering detritus from last night. He knows everyone is watching him as he makes his way over, and that like him they are wondering what he will do now, and if he will stay on with the circus. He sees Franka and Griselda and sits with them, and Franka passes him a mug of lukewarm tea. She tells him that the contortionist has left with the Red Circus as well, and that Griselda wants to ask Big Pete to terminate their contract.

  ‘He hasn’t paid us a penny yet!’ snaps Griselda, as if he had condemned this idea. But Franka is worried that if they do it he will not pay them at all.

  ‘How did we get involved with this lame show anyway?’ she sighs.

  Griselda has other ideas already, and talks enthusiastically about a theatre company in Manchester that’s looking for chorus girls who can perform tissu.

  ‘If we could get it, the gig lasts all summer,’ she says.

  He nods and says of course, but it s
eems to be happening too fast, this abandonment, and there is something bewildering about it. He wants to tell them not to give up so easily. But it is not his place. Instead he takes a sip of the tea, which is refreshing but disgustingly sweet, and looks around, trying to find the clown. But Jethro is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I mean, where do you get off running a show if you can’t even guarantee payment on –’ Griselda starts to say, but at this moment the door to Big Pete’s trailer bursts open and he emerges in full costume and make-up, his right arm held high and outstretched in welcome as if they were the audience for that night. The sight is such a surprise that there is a smattering of clapping from the gathered company, though most of it ironic.

  ‘My dearest companions!’ booms Big Pete in the deep ominous voice he puts on for the ring, the one in which he announces death-defying feats of aerial spectacular, twisting contortionism and side-splitting hilarity. ‘As many of you will already know, we have an enemy out there, and that enemy has bent us over and shafted us right up the arse!’

  He holds both hands out as if in appeal, and there are a couple of boos. But mostly the faces of people watching are unreadable. ‘What does he think we are?’ mutters Griselda. ‘Stupid or something?’

  ‘But what that enemy doesn’t know is that I for one am sick of bending over!’ Big Pete continues.

  Someone at the back applauds, and a few heads turn to see who. But they stop before anyone can catch sight of them.

  ‘So we’ve lost a couple of people. So we’ve fallen on hard times. So we’re in a tight one. Does that mean it’s time to give up?’

  Big Pete pauses for dramatic effect and drops his chin as if he’s been struck, only to lift it nobly up to the sky again.

  ‘This circus was built on blood and sweat and tears – I built it, and I’m not about to let it all fall apart. Not without a fight. So I want you to understand this – you’re all in my employ and you’re all under contract, and you will all be paid. I promise. So let’s stop pussying around and pull ourselves together, eh?’