Street Kid (21 page)

The time came for our move to Zoo Lake. Everyone was up bright and early, ready for the journey. There was a noticeable buzz of excitement in the air. Even the horses, who would soon find themselves being bumped and rattled along the dusty roads, didn’t look unhappy about it.

It was amazing how quickly everything was packed up and put away. It only took half a day. Each person in the circus had a job and Mr Wilkie employed about fifty hands to help. It must have looked like a huge colony of ants that
day, with everyone about their business, seemingly without ever needing to be told what to do. And while costumes and props were swiftly stowed in the caravans before being put on the back of trucks, inside the big top us kids were all hard at work too.

We’d been given the job of dismantling the ring. Our first task was to fold up the large piece of matting that covered it. I’d always thought the floor of the ring was covered in sawdust, but now I realized this wasn’t the case after all. After the mat was put away we had to stack up the big blocks that formed the ring itself. They had to be in the right order. Like a giant puzzle of tessellated shapes, we knew that if we stacked them wrong we’d find it much slower work when we got to Zoo Lake and had to build the ring again. It was the same with the seats, which we had to pile up in the right number sequence, ready for the hands to carry to the truck.

When we’d finished, the big top was ready to be pulled down. The canvas was suspended by guy ropes from two pillars, and once they were untied everyone waited for a single command to let go of their rope. Then the canvas came down in a rapid whoosh to lie flat while the hands folded it. It only took them minutes and was wonderful to watch.

By early afternoon we were on our way, and as I sat on a box in my little train compartment I was brimful with excitement. I longed to go and stand on the steps at the back of the train and watch the scenery roll away from me like a big, colourful ribbon; but I stayed put, happy enough to be safely stowed away, like one of the props.

I just wished we could keep going and leave the city altogether. Only then would I feel safe.

Chapter Eighteen

A
fter the big top was put up and all the animals fed and exercised, everyone was exhausted so I didn’t get a chance to explore Zoo Lake the first day. When I did, I saw that it was a beautiful spot. A favourite place for picnickers, on any weekend in the summer it would be packed with families swimming or sailing. There was a shady barbecue area under the trees and after lunch, in the heat of the day, people enjoyed walking in the woods around the lake. The place was teeming with birdlife and it made me laugh to see the gangly-legged secretary birds looking like fussy old spinsters with the quills on their heads sticking out at odd angles.

As I walked around the lake with Carl, taking in the sheer beauty of the place, I couldn’t help myself wondering if I’d be safe here. Every time the thought surfaced it felt like a cloud had suddenly moved across the sun, and I shivered. At one point I looked down at the little hairs on my arm and saw they were standing up.

Carl noticed my shiver.

‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You can’t be cold, surely.’

‘I’m just wondering if I’ll be safe here,’ I said. ‘This is
where half the girls from my school live. I just wish we’d gone to Durban or somewhere.’

I was sorry to have spoiled our walk, but I didn’t want to stay by the lake any longer. ‘Come on,’ I said to Carl. ‘Let’s get back to the circus.’

At first I was careful not to be seen before the show if I saw families milling about the circus ground; but as the week went by and I got used to my new surroundings, I started to relax. The feeling that there was something horrible lurking just out of sight, ready to pounce if I made a wrong move, started to recede and I just got on with the life of the circus as before. If only I had trusted my instincts and remained on my guard! I should have heeded that snake in the pit of my stomach, which always writhed uneasily when something bad was going to happen. But I didn’t.

A couple of weeks went by and I grew happier and healthier with every day that passed. By now, my hair was a tangled bush and the sun had tanned my skin a dark brown. All the circus artists knew me by now, and my confidence was growing in leaps and bounds. It was as if I was a sapling stretching out to the sunshine for the first time.

To my delight, earlier that week I’d been asked by Billy Dash if I could help mind the chimps before the show. I’d leapt at the chance, and Carl said he’d help too. Billy took us to his caravan and opened the door. The chimps were all sitting there, as if they were waiting for us. We dressed them in their little skirts and shorts, and when they put their long wiry arms around my neck it felt so good. I’d never been hugged like that before.

The chimps were never still. If I was trying to dress one of them, she would be pulling my hair while one of the
boys stuck his finger in my ear. They were always so playful and loved being out in the ring in the limelight. As soon as the music struck up for their act, they’d know it was their turn to perform and would start squealing and chattering madly. Then, when it was over, they’d clap along with the audience, curling up their top lip as if they were laughing with them. This made the children clap even harder.

They say that you don’t always appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone; but, in my case, I savoured every waking moment at Wilkies. Everything I’d done – everything I’d had done to me before – lay like a dark shadow in my past and the bright, shiny here-and-now was like a gift I unwrapped every single day.

One Saturday afternoon, I was on my way to see the horses when I stopped dead in my tracks. A few family groups were idling around the tents and caravans before the show and I sensed, a moment before I saw anything, that someone was watching me. I was right. A girl was standing stock still, staring in my direction. And I recognized her instantly.

Yvonne Fleming was typical of the sort of girl at Barnato Park school I detested. And here she was now, looking missish in her flouncy skirt, gazing right at me. I knew it couldn’t be much worse. Yvonne was a teacher’s pet who followed Miss Poole around like a yapping little Pekinese, and she always loved to tell tales. I knew what she’d be spreading around the school first thing on Monday.

Yvonne pulled at her mother’s arm to get her attention; she turned and bent her head to listen to what her daughter was saying. Then they both looked at me.
It’s started,
I thought and the snake writhed its warning inside me.

I walked quickly away to the animal tent and pressed my burning cheek to Lady’s neck while she reached round to nuzzle my hand. My heart was beating uncomfortably fast and I felt very sick.
Breathe
, I told myself.
It’ll probably be okay. He may not get to hear anything. And he might not bother to come even if he does.

On the Wednesday of the following week, I was in the animal tent grooming the horses when I saw a tall, familiar figure striding towards me. I felt as if the devil himself was coming for me, and it was as though all the blood had drained from my face and body in a second, leaving my legs feeling like pieces of foam rubber. I couldn’t have run if I’d tried.

Behind my dad, Mr Wilkie was hurrying to keep up and I could tell, even from a distance, that he was feeling very uncomfortable, moving rather stiffly, his face redder than usual. Dad must have given him an earful about harbouring an under-age runaway who should have been in school.

I barely flinched when my dad lunged for me, grabbing my arm viciously with one hand while clouting me across the ear with the other fist. Although there was a deafening, throbbing surge of pain, for a brief moment I felt emotionless, shocked into an icy nothingness – almost as if it was happening to someone else.
Here we go again.

Mr Wilkie ran forward, in an attempt to stop my dad hurting me.

‘Please, don’t do this. Please … stop!’

My father ignored him and grabbed me by the collar. ‘You’re coming with me. Now.’

He dragged me out of the tent and I stumbled to keep up with him. I glanced quickly behind me. Mr Wilkie was still standing in the same place with a stricken face.

‘Where are your things?’ my father asked me. I led him to the train to retrieve my case.

It was only then, as we were leaving the circus ground, that waves of fear and grief hit me – not so much the fear of what was going to happen to me when I got home so much as the heart-stabbing wrench of leaving what, in a short six weeks, had become so very precious to me. And, as with others who’d passed through my life and become dear to me – Miss Williams, Edna, and Gyp – I wasn’t given the chance to say goodbye to Carl and the others. And that hurt too.

Dad dragged me by the arm through Braamfontein and down Kotze Street, which ran through Hillbrow, cursing and spitting all the way. He was so angry that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke puffing from his nose.

‘The trouble you’ve got me into,’ he ranted. ‘I had to sell my suit to pay the fine.’

It hadn’t occurred to me that truancy officers might come round to check on me, or that my father would be hauled up in front of the school board.
Oh God,
I thought.
If the authorities have been poking into his business, I’m really going to get it now. He’ll kill me.

For a half hour, my dad ranted on at me as he strode and I stumbled through the streets of Johannesburg. I felt like I was being hammered, inch by inch, into the ground, like one of the tent pegs at the circus.
Maybe soon I’ll disappear altogether.

When we got back to our room at the Allendene, Freda was sitting on the bed, looking strained and red-eyed. My dad had obviously been on at her before he’d left, angry
that she hadn’t been around to report my running away. The board must have given him a real grilling.

Then the battering started, and I wasn’t aware of anything else.

I was thrown like a sack of beans from one side of the room to the other, unable to keep my footing and sprawling into furniture until I felt every bit of my body must have been bruised and grazed. Each time my father laid into me with a punch or a kick he yanked me from where I’d fallen and threw me back across the room. At one point, the side of my bed jabbed into my kidneys as I fell backwards against it; another time I went ricocheting, headfirst, into the wardrobe.

Freda got scared then. I think she realized that my dad had gone beyond the point of knowing what he was doing – that he’d been swept up in an animal rage he couldn’t control, and that he might kill me.

As soon as she got the chance to slip past my dad and put herself between him and me, she darted across the room and opened the door. ‘Get out! Get out and run!’ she said, grabbing me and pushing me as hard as she could out of the room.

I was barely able to walk, reeling from the blows to my head, but I didn’t need to be told twice. My eyes were a blur, but I managed to stagger down the stairs and out of the hotel into the car park. I made it to a big, black Buick, one of the resident’s cars, and climbed onto the back seat. Luckily for me, people rarely locked their cars in those days. I lay down on the padded leather and remained in the same position, motionless, the whole night, feeling the throbbing shock waves pass through my body and pound, like enormous breakers, at my eyes and temples.

I didn’t go to school the next day as I was feeling far too sore to venture out of the Allendene. Luckily my dad wasn’t around, so I was able to have a bath to ease the bruising and to lie on my bed for most of the day.

When I did go back to school I was faced with a whole barrage of bullying from the teachers. Mrs Langley, the headmistress, positively revelled in holding me up as an example to the school. She asked me to stand up in assembly and showed me off like a head on a spike for people to gawp at. Her message was perfectly plain:
This is not the kind of child we want at Barnato Park.

As she told the eight hundred pupils sitting in that vast hall what I’d done and where I’d been, everyone gave a smug little shudder. I felt like a character straight out of some Victorian cautionary tale.
Look girls,
Mrs Langley would have liked to say.
If you don’t mind your p’s and q’s, you might end up like this unfortunate piece of dirt.

Then, at breaktime, a strange thing happened. A girl called Denise came up to me.

‘You can sit with us if you like,’ she said, indicating where her gaggle of friends were sitting on the wall. ‘You know, I think you were really brave to run away to the circus. There are loads of girls here, I bet, who are really jealous. They’d never have the guts to do anything like that.’

I looked at her to see if she was for real – that this wasn’t some horrid joke where the next moment they’d all be ganging up on me. But her smile was natural and warm. It was then I realized that I wasn’t the only one who’d read
The Circus of Adventure
and dreamed of a life of freedom. In the strait-laced world of Barnato Park, some girls thought that what I’d done was impossibly romantic, and I’d gone up a peg in their estimation as a result.

That day, Denise de la Hunt helped me realize that not all the girls in the school were tarred with the same brush, and that felt good. I found her big, open smile and the direct way she had of looking at you very refreshing after all the snide little sideways glances the girls usually gave me. I don’t remember saying much to her that breaktime, but to be included in the group was enormously soothing on a day when I’d felt the full force of the enemy ranged against me. And then, as we walked to the lab for our science lesson, she asked me if I wanted to sit with her.

After that, things might have got better at Barnato Park; but, as it turned out, I wasn’t there long enough to find out.

The night my father beat me was a turning point for Freda. She’d had enough. Occasionally, I’d notice that she’d been in to collect some of her stuff, but she no longer stayed at the Allendene. My father stayed away too, finding life much easier, no doubt, with Cherie, his rich divorcee girlfriend. He was clearly sponging off her – I’d noticed some dapper new suits and cravats hanging in the wardrobe, and I reckoned that, as usual, he’d found a willing sucker, happy to be his partner in crime
and
pay for the privilege.