The Trapeze Artist Read online

  He will spend several hours binding the spliced ropes to the thimbles by looping a spool of tough thread through the metal eye of each thimble and around the rope, pulling them tightly together. After this is done he will cut out strips of foam which he will use to cover the hard edges of the metal thimbles and the knots of rope above, securing them there with hockey tape, until the join between the rope and trapeze is completely obscured from view.

  Next he will cut out strips of velvet, wrap them around the padding and fix them with pins while he sews them into place. This endeavour will be long and frustrating, for the velvet will keep slipping and will need to be checked with every stitch. But bit by bit he will cover the padded thimbles and the spliced ends of the rope. When it is done he will wind the tape in diagonal stripes around the bar itself, folding the tape back over itself at each end.

  Once the fixings are complete and the bar covered, he will move onto the loose ends of the ropes, which he will splice into eyelets around the remaining thimbles, tightening the rope around them until the ducts are snug inside the rope.

  The trapeze will take him three days to make and he will work constantly, breaking only to eat, drink and urinate, and to rest his eyes and fingers from the effort of so much concentrated fine work. When he is finished he will lay the trapeze flat on the floor and inspect it carefully for flaws. But he will know that the only true test of it will be when it is hung, and he will look up at the ceiling to consider this next step.

  The following morning they wake to a violent pounding on the door of the caravan. ‘Open up, fuckhead!’ a deep voice is shouting. ‘I know you’ve got some cunt in there!’

  Vlad leaps up, but before he can reach the door the latch splits and it veritably explodes open, a huge fat red-faced man standing there with veins popping out on his neck and forehead and eyes blazing with fury. It is a few seconds before he recognises him as the ringmaster from a few nights ago.

  ‘And what the fuck is going on here?’ bellows the man, charging into the compartment like a crazed bull. ‘What do you think this is? A travelling brothel?’

  ‘Get out!’

  Vlad hurls himself at the ringmaster but merely seems to bounce off the man’s vast bulk and go slamming into the wall. Undeterred, Vlad picks himself right back up and throws himself at the man once again.

  ‘Get fucking out!’ he screams. ‘You can’t come into my private space! Get out! Fucking get out!’

  The aerialist rains down punches on the ringmaster’s back, but the man ignores Vlad as if he is no more than a gnat, and stares at him. His gaze is quite terrifying and he crams himself into the corner of the room, drawing up his knees protectively in front of his chest.

  ‘You!’

  The ringmaster appears so astonished at placing him that his anger momentarily seems to evaporate. ‘Get out!’ Vlad is still screaming – almost weeping now. ‘Just get out!’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ demands the ringmaster, sounding almost reasonable in his surprise.

  ‘I . . .’ he says, the words caught in his throat. ‘I followed . . .’

  Just then Vlad aims a punch at the ringmaster’s neck and finally targets a vulnerable area, for the man lets out a fresh bellow, turns to the aerialist and catches him neatly by the throat.

  ‘There’s no live-in guests allowed in my circus. You know the rules!’ he hisses. ‘Now I don’t give a shit about your one-night fucks, but this I won’t tolerate. Get rid of it.’

  ‘He’s not a guest – he’s my assistant!’

  ‘Get rid of it!’

  The aerialist responds by kicking the ringmaster in the shin hard, producing nothing more than a snarl. The ringmaster tightens his grip, draws back his arms and then sends Vlad hurtling backwards out the door of the caravan. There is a great cheer from outside. The ringmaster follows in the direction he threw Vlad, leaving him alone.

  He crawls from the bed and creeps over to the window. Outside he can see what looks like the entire company assembled. Among them are the two silks girls, one of them holding a basket of washing, and the clown with his mean smirk. They are watching the ringmaster and the aerialist, who he cannot see from the cramped little window but who he can hear because they are both shouting at each other at the top of their lungs. The ringmaster is bellowing that Vlad is under contract, that it is his circus and that he is cheapening it and costing him money. Vlad meanwhile has switched to Romanian and is unleashing a steady stream of what sound like gypsy curses.

  He suddenly has the distinct sense it is all for show, that both of them are deliberately putting on a performance – perhaps because it is all they know how to do. Nonetheless he is frightened, for he is at the centre of the argument, and all the people standing around are witnessing a fight over him. Most of all he is frightened of the outcome – that the ringmaster will insist on him leaving, and that Vlad will back down and agree to it.

  Just then he hears a woman’s voice, loud and authoritative, join in: ‘Oi, what’s this ruckus? You two pansies got something to fight about then do it elsewhere, eh?’

  At her command the fight grows more distant, and there is the sound of a door shutting and then quiet. The assembled company, apparently satisfied they have witnessed all the major pyrotechnics, begin to disperse. Only the clown remains, still smirking, casually toking on his cigarette. Suddenly the clown flicks his gaze towards him and for a second their eyes lock. He stumbles quickly away from the window and back to the bed.

  Vlad returns twenty minutes later, panting, his mouth twisted into a triumphant grin and his head held high, as if he were a hero just returning from war.

  ‘What happened?’ he asks tentatively.

  ‘You can stay,’ announces Vlad. ‘But you will have to work.’

  ‘I’ll do anything he wants!’

  ‘I tell that arsehole, I been putting up with your shit for too long. You say no to me and I quit! Then let’s see how you and your fucking crap circus get on then, eh?!’

  ‘My God –’ he says. ‘But what if he’d fired you?’

  ‘He can’t fire me, I’m the best act he’s got,’ says the aerialist smugly. ‘Without me this circus stinks and he knows it. He makes this big show for them out there but there’s not a fucking thing he can do – ha!’

  He is overwhelmed with gratitude, for he is sure no one has ever done something so kind and wonderful for him before. Vlad seems to notice his expression and proudly sits down beside him on the bed, patting his knee gently, as if he is an invalid who needs to be taken care of.

  ‘You stay as long as you like,’ says the aerialist. ‘Fuck all the rest of them.’

  He saw Edward’s mother frequently, as whenever he was over she would always poke her head out of her studio to say hello and give him one of her long disturbing looks as if doing her level best to penetrate the depths of his soul. Yet he only caught occasional glimpses of Edward’s father – usually in the kitchen when he wandered through unshaven and still in his pyjamas while they were drinking juice after school, pale as a ghost, his face set in a frown and his eyes tunnel-visioned as he made his way to the fridge. Whenever he appeared Edward would usher him quickly out of the room.

  ‘He’ll be like this for months,’ Edward confided in him once. ‘The womb calls them his benders, while he’s working on a new novel. Then he’ll finish whatever it is he’s writing and suddenly he’ll be everybody’s best friend. The prick!’

  But he knew by now from what his parents said that this prick was important, considered by magazines and critics to be a writer at the forefront of modern literature. Despite Edward’s disparaging remarks he was in awe of this phantom father who broke all the rules, and he had the sense Edward could not really think as little of his father as he claimed either. Even from his few sightings of the man he thought it was obvious he had a magnetic personality – that he was someone you couldn’t fail to notice, the sort of person who’d never blend into the background, who people either loved or hated, one or the ot
her and nothing in between.

  It wasn’t until three months after he started going round to Edward’s house that he met Edward’s father properly, while waiting on the porch before school for Edward to fetch his coat.

  ‘Ah,’ said a deep voice to his side, making him jump. He turned and Edward’s father seemed to materialise beside him. ‘You must be the friend who’s been making my son feel less alienated at his new school. I apologise if I haven’t introduced myself up until now.’

  He looked into a pair of brown eyes that were so dark they were almost black. Edward’s father looked nothing like Edward. Close up he was rather unspectacular, short and squat, and he looked as if he had dressed in the dark. His shirt was about four sizes too big and hung off him like a draped sheet and his socks were mismatched, his feet stuffed into sandals, something Edward had long ago explained to be a cardinal fashion sin. But his eyes contained that exact same penetrating quality as Edward’s mother’s, and, at times he had noticed, Edward’s too.

  ‘Well, put it there, partner!’

  Edward’s father thrust his hand at him. He took it gingerly.

  ‘Jeez, you’re a shy one, huh?’

  He smiled awkwardly and received a dazzling smile in return.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Hmm. What are they teaching you at school these days? Anyone interesting? Bakhtin? Any Derrida? Foucault?’

  He shook his head, not knowing what any of these things were.

  ‘But surely some Freud at least?!’

  ‘No . . .’ he said, recognising the name but not being able to place it and feeling like he was being made fun of.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned. What is the educational system in this country coming to if no one’s even teaching the upcoming generation some of the basic psychoanalytic concepts about death and sex? In that case, it’s my duty to impart some wisdom to you boys. After school, what do you say? A private seminar on the death instinct?’

  It did not sound like something he particularly wanted to do, but he nodded lest those fiercely intelligent eyes should take offence. He could suddenly tell this man was dangerous, and quite capable of switching, abruptly and without warning, into someone vicious and fearsome.

  ‘Excellent! The death instinct it is!’

  At this moment Edward appeared at the door behind his father, who turned and put his arm around him. Edward shook it off with a shrug of annoyance.

  ‘We’re going to do a little home schooling later on!’ Edward’s father said jovially. ‘Your young friend was just agreeing to it. He says they don’t teach you anything at all at school about death or sex.’

  ‘Dad,’ sighed Edward, ‘fuck off.’

  Edward’s father grinned back at him as if he’d been caught in the middle of a naughty caper.

  ‘Well, perhaps another afternoon then,’ he conceded. ‘But really they are the two most important subjects on the planet. It’s what everything comes down to in the end, you know. Run along then, children, before I get any more ideas and start trying to force-feed you Kristeva.’

  He gave them a mock salute.

  ‘Fight proud, youth of today. Remember, you’re the front line of your generation! And, Edward, please don’t be late home. I’ve a mild surprise in store.’

  With these words Edward’s father turned and bumbled off around the side of the house, whistling to himself. When he turned to look at Edward he was almost glowing with pleasure. Edward saw him looking and shook himself, as if trying to throw off the smile that was plastered over his face.

  ‘He seems cool, your dad,’ he said carefully.

  ‘He finished his new book and he’s full of himself,’ said Edward with a deliberately bored sigh. ‘He’ll be father of the year now, maybe for a month or so, and then something else’ll come along. Let’s go.’

  But all that day Edward was distracted and kept looking at his watch. And for once Edward wasn’t keen for him to come back home with him either. Edward claimed he was tired and had too much homework to do, but he knew that Edward was never tired and never did homework, and the real reason was obviously his father.

  He will fix four strops to the furthest bar at either end of the truss. These he will attach with karabiners to two loops of climbing sash, leading all the way up through the demolished first floor to poles of scaffolding on the side of the wall in what used to be his mother’s room. These poles will be fixed to the wall with seven eight-inch nails, drilled into the brickwork. The sash, a good twenty metres in length, will attach to the tops of the poles where they meet the ceiling and will lead all the way back down to two blocks of wood nailed into the floor, around which the cord will be looped.

  Taking the end of one of the sash cords and setting his foot against the block of wood, he will take a great mouthful of air, and pull as hard as he can. The loop around the truss will tighten until taut and then, quivering as if with effort, the truss will rise on one side a foot into the air. He will tie off the sash in a figure-of-eight knot and grip the other cord. Then he will pull hard again, using the friction of the loop around the block of wood to prevent the cord from slipping. Again the truss will rise, this time on the opposite side. He will continue to pull until he has achieved the height of two feet on this side from the floor. Then he will tie off the sash and return to the first side. In this way he will gradually winch the truss all the way up to the ceiling, so that it is suspended at equidistance between the two poles of scaffolding.

  He will climb the stairs to the next level and then carefully sidestep around the residual border of floor until he reaches the furthest scaff-pole. He will climb to the second rung of the pole and detach one of the karabiners, then clip it onto the hole at the top of the pole. He will repeat this with the other karabiners, allowing the cord to fall away to the kitchen floor below. The truss will now be held in position by the strops between the poles. As a security measure, he will take two more strops and attach them to the upper bars of the truss on either side. These he will then wind around the thin wooden beam that stretches from one side of the ceiling to the other. He will fix them in place with four steel shackles.

  He will return to the ground floor to examine his handiwork. The truss will be fixed – a mesh of intersecting metal bars attached to the ceiling six metres above. Everything will be ready.

  That night, after he has thrown together a meagre supper for them from the pitiful contents of Vlad’s little fridge and they have had a couple of beers, the aerialist suggests it is a good time for him to go and see Marie, Big Pete’s wife – for it is she who will give him work.

  ‘Aren’t you coming too?’ he asks, suddenly panicked.

  ‘Oh, silly,’ says Vlad, reaching across and pinching his cheek. ‘You must face her sooner or later, my little bird. Don’t let her scare you. The bark of that bitch is worse than her bite.’

  He has seen Big Pete’s temper and heard his wife shouting, and is not sure what evidence there is to support this statement. But he steels himself, takes another gulp of beer and sets off for Big Pete’s trailer. After all, he reasons, he must meet the woman eventually if he is to stay.

  ‘And don’t let her take the piss,’ calls Vlad after him as he closes the door.

  Big Pete and Marie’s trailer is the largest and the newest of the vehicles, painted cornflower blue with a bright red door, garlands of fairy lights bunched around each window. According to Vlad, Marie is very house-proud and hoses it down every time they settle at a new site. He approaches with his heart thumping and pauses at the door. Behind some orange blinds he can see the silhouettes of a man and a woman moving across the room, and he can hear Marie screeching at her husband for some undefined act of stupidity. He swallows, thinking he cannot do it alone after all and that he will return and get Vlad to come back with him, but just as he is about to leave the door opens and Marie stands there. She is small and squat, almost comically disproportionate to her husband; even standing a foot higher on the ledge of the trailer, she is still an inch sho
rter than him. But her red cheeks, wide chin and narrow eyes bespeak a personality that takes no shit from anyone.

  ‘Where’d you come from? Who are you? What d’you want?’ she demands in quick succession. She is holding a basin of dirty water and he has the impression that at any second she might choose to dump it over him.

  ‘Vlad sent me,’ he says in a rush. ‘To see what work you’ve got for me.’

  For a second she looks blank, then her eyes gleam.

  ‘Ah, you’re the one ’e’s shacked up with!’

  She inspects him, her gaze travelling slowly from his feet to his head. A small smirk not unlike the clown’s plays on her lips, quickly replaced by a grimace of distaste. She sniffs loudly, as if she has just smelt something putrid.

  ‘I mean, what can you do? Don’t look like you ever done a day’s labour in your life!’

  ‘I’ve worked all my life,’ he protests.

  ‘Oh yeah? Doing what?’

  ‘As . . .’ He suddenly does not want to say what he does and trails off, looking down at his feet. ‘At an office.’

  ‘Well, take a look around you,’ suggests Marie. She sets down the basin on the floor beside her and points over his shoulder, peering carefully herself as if to demonstrate what she wants him to do. He follows her eyes. ‘Now you tell me something. You see any offices round ’ere?’

  She grins as if she has just been extremely witty and folds her arms across her little body.