The Trapeze Artist Page 23

  All at once they are no longer choking, laughing or fighting, and it seems inevitable that they will kiss. He sees the clown’s face up close, takes in the lines around those cynical eyes, his dirt-speckled pores and the skin of his nose laced with red veins from alcoholism. The clown smirks at him, and a frisson of disbelief that he is actually going to do this runs down his spine. Then, at the last possible second, they both turn their heads, and he rocks backwards onto his haunches.

  The clown wipes his face with his sleeve, gives him a rueful look and then reaches for the beer. He watches Jethro knock back a gulp and catches sight of something behind the clown – a ripple of movement in the window of Big Pete’s trailer. The clown turns and follows his gaze.

  ‘He’s daft not to have folded, you know,’ Jethro says. ‘Stark fucking in-your-eyes bonkers.’

  He nods. It is what everyone is saying.

  ‘Are you leaving too?’ he says.

  The clown turns back to him, actually looking self-conscious for a split second, as if he has been caught out. Then he brushes a hand back over his sodden Mohican and smirks again.

  ‘Gotta jump ship or else get dragged down with it. That’s how it goes. Best start making some plans yourself.’

  ‘Big Pete’s not jumping ship,’ he replies quietly.

  ‘Yeah, well, he’s the fucking captain. He’s gotta go down with it.’

  He stares at the grass. He wants to tell the clown that he doesn’t have a choice either, but it will only sound soppy and Jethro will make fun of him, he is sure. When he looks up he finds that the clown is not smirking any more but watching him closely. He feels himself blush under the clown’s inspection, for it is as if Jethro is looking right through him and seeing whatever there is to see inside. He picks up the hose and stands, turning his attention back to the muddy canvas.

  ‘Time to face the real world,’ says the clown, not getting up. ‘Whatever it is you got waiting out there, this episode is over, my friend. Time to get on. That’s the way the bitch goes.’

  In those first days after the accident it was as if he had fallen into a trance. Everything was unfocused and fuzzy around the edges, and time drifted by inexactly, almost as if it no longer had any purpose, whether it went forwards or backwards or remained frozen still. He slept a lot, sinking into a daze in which he dreamed of nothing in particular, opening his eyes to find with surprise that he was still himself, lying on his bed in his room. Sometimes it would take a few seconds for him to remember what had happened, and he would sit up in bed and woozily think about calling Edward. Then his stomach would knot tightly as it all came back to him in a sickening rush, together with the knowledge that he would not be calling Edward ever again.

  When he was not sleeping he would stare at the ceiling or the wall, or else find an object on his shelf which he would study so intensely its dimensions would eventually blur and cease to make sense. He would tell himself that he was looking for a way through to a parallel universe – a door between this reality and the next, one in which Edward might still be alive and well with new ideas about how to overthrow the established order of things. He felt that if only he could concentrate hard enough, stare at a door or a book or a lampshade long enough, the way would be revealed and he could slip through into that other world where things were yet to be ruined.

  At other times he would go over and over what had happened, combing through the evening detail by detail, who had said what and in what order. He would scour his memory for missing pieces, desperately seeking the forgotten information that would make sense of it. But he soon discovered that nothing would make sense of it, because it was death, and death refused to make sense no matter which angle you examined it from.

  At mealtimes he would fork into his mouth the requisite amount to appease the worried eyes of his mum, then return to his room, from which he would not resurface until it was time for the next meal. One morning at breakfast his mum broke the silence to tell him Edward’s mother had invited him to go to Edward’s funeral, and that it was being held that afternoon. But the mere words made him choke on his mouthful, coughing his food back up over the plate. Then he slammed his hands over his ears as if he had heard a secret that could kill and fled from the table, and his mum did not ask him again.

  At dawn he is woken by the sound of an engine being revved, and wheels scraping over the uneven ground outside. He gets up and opens the door. In the weak morning light he sees that the clown’s caravan is gone. There are a couple of people out who have also been woken by the noise, smoking reflectively as they stand or squat on the steps of their trailers. He looks over to Big Pete’s trailer, but all is dark and quiet within.

  Once news spreads that the clown has left, the circus seems to dissolve all at once. One minute they are a company, the next everyone is saying goodbye to one another, hugging and high-fiving, packing up his or her things and preparing to move on out. He accepts embraces and handshakes and assurances of goodwill with a frozen smile, trying to hide the despair he feels. Franka is tearful and cannot stop sniffling, and she holds him tightly, making him promise to stay in touch. Griselda just looks cross and tight-lipped, and hugs people one by one in a perfunctory manner, as if she cannot wait to get out of there. Midge suggests a final drink to everyone, but most are too busy packing up to accept his offer. Throughout it all Big Pete remains hidden. Everyone seems to be expecting him to come out, to try one last time to rally people and get them to give the circus a final chance. But he does not even come to the window. The lights stay off and people take it as a sign that the ringmaster has given up too.

  ‘Bah,’ mutters Midge. ‘Let him rot. Come on.’

  ‘What about the big top?’ he says.

  It is still up, looking strangely unimpressive, even forlorn, in the wake of its abandonment. Midge launches a glob of spit in the direction of Big Pete’s trailer and swipes his hand across the air.

  ‘Not a fucking penny he’s paid us,’ Midge mutters. ‘Let him take it down himself.’

  ‘Listen,’ says Benny, coming up behind, ‘we’re heading to Leicester if you want a lift.’

  He shakes his head. Benny glances between him and the big top and Midge rolls his eyes and jerks his thumb towards their truck.

  ‘Come on, if he wants to stay with that old motherfucker then let him!’

  Benny shrugs. Midge has already started to walk away.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Benny says, sticking out his hand. ‘So long.’

  He shakes the roustabout’s hand and Benny turns and follows Midge to their pickup. They are the last ones to leave, tooting their horn at him as they turn off up the road.

  He wanders across the field into the empty big top and takes a seat on the bleachers at the edge of the ring. Outside the sun has broken through the grey cloud and it is shaping up to be a beautiful day. Yet there is something tragic about the glimpse of golden light through the transparent covering over the entrance.

  ‘What’re you still here for?’ bellows Big Pete from behind him, making him leap. ‘You waiting for pay? Cos there ain’t any! And even if there was, you’d be the last one to see it – I got a line of people what want money crawling right up my arse!’

  Big Pete pauses, draws a deep drag on the cigarette dangling out of his mouth.

  ‘I’m not waiting for pay,’ he says.

  The ringmaster emits a great whoosh of smoke.

  ‘Then what you still doing here, eh?’

  ‘I just . . .’

  ‘You just what?’

  He bites his lip and looks around. He thinks of the first time he set foot inside the big top and how the excitement seemed to course through him as if the circus had been injected straight into his veins. Now it looks like nothing – its contents, that which makes the circus what it is, have evacuated, leaving only this great blue shell behind. It is no longer even a big top really, just a giant canopy stretching over him obscuring the sky. He looks at Big Pete and takes in the challenge in his eyes, the refusal t
o show defeat. Without another word he turns and walks towards the exit. ‘Go on then – fuck off!’ he hears the ringmaster snarl to his back as he passes out and into the daylight. He wonders briefly what Big Pete will do, now that he has lost everything. But he does not pause or turn back. He walks past the caravan, which he wants nothing from, and carries on walking to the edge of the field.

  A couple of days after the funeral the school guidance counsellor made a house call, either on her own initiative or at his mum’s request, he did not know which. His mum sent her up and she stood in the doorway to his room while he lay on his bed with his back to her, asking questions which he did not have the answers to.

  ‘If there’s anything you want to talk about, anything at all, it’s OK,’ she told him. ‘I’m here simply in order to listen. Nothing else.’

  He ignored her. She paused, then tried a different tack.

  ‘I understand from talking to Paul that you had something of a relationship with Edward. That you were special friends. Perhaps you’d like to talk about that?’

  Still he did not turn.

  ‘It can be very good to talk about things, even if you don’t feel you want to. Letting it out is always better than keeping it bottled up. I know there’ve been times when I’ve just wanted to crawl under a rock and hide, but afterwards I always regretted it, because the more I crawled away the harder it was to crawl back. It’s important you understand that no matter what you tell me, I’m not going to judge. Only listen.’

  She continued in this vein for some time, now and then lapsing into silence before starting up again, until finally he did turn and told her in no uncertain terms that what he’d really like was for her to fuck off. But after she’d left his room he grew curious and crept out to the landing to listen to her conversation with his mum. He overheard her saying his behaviour was completely standard in light of what had happened, and that she wouldn’t be surprised if he felt guilty. He should come for regular sessions with her, she said, as soon as he went back to school, something he knew he had no intention of doing. In the meantime perhaps he should spend a few days with his father? His mum agreed. Eventually, promised the counsellor, he would return to being the boy he was before. He listened to his mum saying that she hoped as much, and almost laughed for the first time since it had happened, because he knew that really she did not want him back the way he had been before and if anything preferred him this way. He thought to himself that he didn’t want to be the same again either. His mum hadn’t liked Edward and had told him to keep away from him, perhaps knowing with some hidden psychic sense that it would end in disaster, and now he wished more than anything that he had obeyed her. At least if he had kept away Edward would still be alive.

  They will seem to him preposterous, an invading posse consisting of two men and a woman, all dressed in smart clothes and wearing rosy ingratiating smiles. No sooner will he have said a cautious hello than the woman will have begun to gabble at him. Her name is Sue, she will say, and the two men are called Daniel and Bob, they are all from the local council and are delighted to meet him.

  ‘OK . . .’ he will say cautiously.

  Sue will widen her smile to reveal lots of perfect white teeth that may or may not be dentures and will extend her arm towards him and regally offer him her hand. Not knowing what else to do, he will take it.

  ‘We want to commission a performance!’ Sue will say grandly.

  ‘Pardon?’ he will say.

  ‘A performance! For the town fête!’

  Sue will extract her hand and gesture into the air, like a magician conjuring up an illusionary spectacle.

  ‘You see, this year we’ve been desperately wanting to do something that everyone can enjoy, not just the old folks. We don’t want to finish with the town band doing their usual repertoire and sending everyone off to sleep. Boring!’ – she will perform an elaborate mime of someone yawning and falling asleep – ‘So we sat around and racked our brains at the meeting the other night, and then someone said, “Eureka! What about that fellow in the papers who does the trapeze?” Well, we all agreed it was a simply marvellous idea . . . But then it was a matter of trying to get in touch to see what you thought about it – nobody could get through on the phone! So I said to them last night – I said, “I’m going to go down there myself and put it to him in person!” Bobby and Dan decided to come along for muscle, so to speak –’

  ‘Look,’ he will interrupt, ‘the thing is –’

  ‘ – and I can’t tell you how exciting we all find it,’ she will interrupt back, trying to peer past him at what he has done to the house. He will automatically pull the door towards him to block out any sight. ‘. . . and there’s a gentleman from the TV station who’s interested in potentially filming the event! Maybe even making a sort of feature out of it! He’s asked if it would be all right for him to call around later this afternoon, to have a chat –’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s –’

  ‘Before you make your mind up, do you suppose we could come in and have a peek? Maybe you could even show us a couple of things that you do? We’ll be needing to get some idea for health and safety, since it’ll have to be done in the school field as usual – obviously we can’t hold it in your house!’

  She will let out a girlish laugh and make a move forward, as if expecting him to dematerialise. But he will stand firm as a sentry, forcing her to stop inches from his face, the ghost of a frown rippling across her forehead.

  ‘Look, it’s very kind of you,’ he will say. ‘But it’s not something I’d be interested in. Thank you very much for taking the time to come and see me.’

  Sue will look astonished for a second.

  ‘Oh, but think of how proud everyone will be of you! To have someone from their very own town putting on a proper circus show. People’ll go mad for it, I tell you. And it’d make you ever so popular! I do sometimes think’ – Sue’s frown will deepen and she will lower her voice to almost a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard – ‘I do sometimes think that there are people who don’t realise community is about giving as well as taking, and that if you have something worth sharing, something that you can share at no expense to yourself, you do have a certain duty. I mean, that’s the essence of what a community is.’

  ‘Really –’

  ‘And in case you were to consider it’ – she will hold up a hand – ‘in case you were, we’d take care of all the expenses. The council’s got a fund specifically put aside for this kind of thing. And Bobby’s already done some investigation into how we can get a rig set up. They can put it up above the stage, easy, if you could provide the trapeze – they just clip on and off, isn’t that right? With the little thingumajigs? And we’ll make sure to see it gets filmed and put on the town website. I mean, I really don’t see how you could possibly say no!’

  He will laugh, it will all be so ridiculous. But this will be a woman who does not give up. She will continue to plead and wheedle, delivering her arguments with the consistency of a battering ram, while Bob and Daniel stand silent and knowing behind her, smugly certain of his eventual submission.

  ‘After all,’ Sue will almost screech at him, her voice rising to a crescendo and her hand lifting to the heavens as if calling on the gods to bear witness, ‘what on earth is the point of it all if you’re not going to show off what you can do?’

  He walks through the town, following the signs to the station. At a cashpoint outside he stops and withdraws as much money as he can. He is overdrawn to the maximum now, and for the first time it occurs to him how mad it is to have been scrubbing toilets for the last four months for no pay and he smiles grimly to himself. At the station he buys a one-way ticket to London and waits on the platform for nearly an hour, until a slow train crawls to a halt before him. He gets on and takes a seat opposite two old women who try their best not to look troubled by his presence and only end up making a display out of the fact they obviously are. He is dirty and unkempt – on the road the dirt has a way
of getting into the skin and hair and refusing to come off. He watches the countryside and towns roll past his window and gradually a hypnotic calm settles over him. He starts to feel impossibly sleepy. The two old women eye him suspiciously but he does not care. He gives in to the need to close his eyes. When he wakes up they are rolling into Paddington and the women are gone.

  He gets out and is startled by the crush of people. It has been years since he was in the city and he has not prepared himself for the sheer quantity of human beings all pressed together in one place. He feels a rush of fear and alienation, compounded by the myriad bodies flailing against him, and by the sensation that he is the only person who does not know exactly what he wants or where he is going. He has an urge to drop to the ground and huddle himself up into a tiny ball. He pushes his way through the people towards the Underground station and buys a ticket. On the Tube journey he is pressed up against two businessmen who stink of cheap cologne, and after they get off a woman in full black hijab who smells powerfully of body odour and who stares intensely at his feet. It is so crowded that he misses the stop where he is supposed to change, unable to get off before the doors close, and has to ride back on himself to get to King’s Cross. By the time he reaches his station and climbs the stairwell up to the city, the sky is dark.

  When he reaches his destination it turns out to be a nondescript, faded red-stone building, stained by splatterings of pigeon shit, the façade weathered in parts to the point of crumbling away. He climbs the broken steps and presses the button for the top flat, creating an electric buzzing sound which is followed by eerie silence. He waits with trepidation, suddenly suspecting that it will all have been for nothing, until the tannoy abruptly crackles into life. A voice he recognises, despite the static distortion, says, ‘Yep – who is it?’