The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley (20 page)

I don't answer that thought because I'm thinking about The Acrobrats. I'm thinking about Oscar and Caramella, and Inisiya and Nidal, and even Mohammed with his sad, serious face. Then I think, that's the dirt. It's real. It's like earth, it's not shining or wrapped up or stunning. It's different from flying in the air. It's about making something on the ground, slowly, undramatically, quietly, like a builder builds a house, like a beetle carrying one crumb back to his beetle house.

I close my eyes and try to clear both feelings from my head, because they're tugging at each other. There's one thing I know for sure and it's that I have to grab this opportunity to fly, because if I don't I'll forever and forever regret it. I don't think regret would suit me, not one bit. So I open my eyes, stare up at the leaves and ask the blue heavens to let me be as fine as everyone says I'll be.

Chapter 34

My audition is at five-thirty. I turn up an hour earlier, thinking I might just find some empty acromat to roll around on, or at least I might gather some encouragement from Kite or Ruben.

Kite is there. He's not training though, he's lying on an acromat on his tummy and Lola is standing on him. She's still in her floaty white outfit and she's giggling and treading up his back. He's making low moaning appreciative sounds, as if he's really liking it. He can't see me because his head is turned to the side. I immediately feel as if I should leave, as if I'm intruding, or as if that writhing jealous feeling might make itself so obvious that people will look at me and see a twisting red smoke flame out my nostrils. But as I turn around to begin my escape, Frankie yells out to me.

‘Hey, Cedar, I'm glad you're back. Do you want me to show you some trapeze?'

Kite flips his head towards me, grins and puts his hands to the floor as if to push up. Lola stops giggling and flicks her head to stare at me. We lock eyes only for a second before I look away and reply to Frankie, who's like an angel, swinging gently above us on her perch.

‘Okay. Thanks. I'd love to try some trapeze.'

‘She can't do that Frank, she's got her audition in a minute. She'll get too tired. You'll wreck her hands.' Kite's getting up off the floor and coming towards me. He nods at Lola and says, ‘Cedar, come and meet Lola.'

Lola by now is smiling and tilting her head to one side while stretching her arms behind her head, and she looks very elegant and almost as if someone has styled her for a photograph.

‘Hi,' she says.

‘Hi,' I say back. She keeps smiling, but releases her arms and begins slowly rolling her shoulders.

‘Lola was just giving me a back massage with her feet,' says Kite. ‘You should try it, Cedar, it's great.'

‘How did your rehearsal go?' I say. (As if I want Lola walking on my back!)

‘Great. How was your day?'

‘Fine.' I feel as if both Frankie, swinging above us, and Lola, who has elegantly sunk to the floor and is stretching out in a twist, are watching us. Frankie from above and Lola from below. It's suddenly as if Kite and I hardly know each other and the air between us has stiffened like some freshly starched sheet that everyone can see. Frankie laughs and begins swinging vigorously.

‘Come on, Kite, let her try a little trapeze, I know she'll love it.'

‘Yeah,' says Lola, perching herself up on her delicate elbows. ‘Let her try. She's only got to do a few cartwheels for the audition.'

Suddenly I feel as if the ground I was standing on just fell away and I'm paddling like a dog through a tide of opinions, and not sure where the snags are. Kite looks directly at me, anchors me with his soft brown eyes.

‘It's up to Cedar. What do you want to do, Cedar?'

I stare wildly back at him as if he might have the answer. It's as if I'm sensing something but I don't know what it is. I feel like an animal that might be about to walk into a trap or a dangerous situation, and my nose is twitching. It's not that I'm afraid of the trapeze, it's something else; it's just a sixth sense thing, a twilight zone moment in which I look suddenly at Lola.

‘Do you do trapeze?'

‘I do hoop.'

‘Lola doesn't like heights,' calls out Frankie as she unwinds herself and hops off.

‘Kite does, though.' Frankie is looking at Kite and laughing again. Lola picks up a hoop and starts flicking it. I suddenly pipe up.

‘You know what? I think I'll just warm up right now.' I have to trust my one clear feeling, which is that I don't want to be on show, I don't want to enter the game. I'm not sure what the game is and who's set up the rules, but one thing I do know: I don't like games with strategies – I only like Snap. Whatever the thing is that I sense with Lola, Frankie, Kite and the trapeze, I don't have to be in it. I can just quietly do what I know I'm here to do, and it isn't to show anybody whether I can or can't do trapeze; not Frankie, not Lola and not even Kite.

Frankie just nods, smiling, and Lola ignores me altogether. Although it seems to me that I've made some monumental decision, no one seems to be too affected by it, and no one pats me on the back and says,‘Well done,' not even Kite.

I look up at the gently swinging trapeze almost longingly. Have I just missed my one chance to show them all what a flyer I could be? The trapeze says nothing, but continues to swing tauntingly, though this is what I hear it saying, ‘Cedar, if you want to fly you will fly your own way, not someone else's way.'

I sigh because the trapeze is wise and it knows me well, and I think to myself, I must remember to tell Aunt Squeezy about this fine decision because it will give me a good score in my Buddhist training.

Sarah comes out of her office, claps her hands together and tells the others to go home and let me centre myself for five minutes. As they leave, Frankie yells out, ‘Good luck Cedar!' and Kite just winks and says, ‘I'll wait outside for you.' Lola has managed to slip out with a small flick of her pigtails. Seems like a long five minutes that I'm alone on the acromat, and I lie there on my back and try to feel the ground holding me up. I close my eyes and try to focus my thoughts on the ground, but I can hear the gentle creak of the trapeze and it seems to be squeaking at me, and I think how whenever I'm on the ground it's the air that draws me up, but once I'm in the air, it's the ground that I need to return to. Maybe life is not about one or the other but the way you move between them. I like this thought, but just as I'm about to develop it, Sarah steps out onto the mat and says,

‘Shall we start warming you up? You ready?'

Chapter 35

To tell you the truth, the audition was nothing to talk about. No lights, no beautiful breathtaking moments, just me doing what Sarah said. A dive roll, a dive roll to a handstand, a back roll, cartwheel, a round-off, a round-off to a back flip. I said I couldn't do this, but I could do a back walk-over. There were flexibility and strength tests and then a few questions and it was over. Sarah said she'd let me know, but she didn't give me a clue, not even with her expression, which remained sharp and friendly the whole way.

That night, Kite and Ruben and I go down to the Termo to see Barnaby and Ada playing. This is almost as good as the night I imagined with the Argentinean tango teacher, and luckily I don't need a lava lamp or a frock.

The Termo is a big old pub opposite the train station. Inside, where Barnaby is playing, it's dark and smoky and crowded. I'm not sure why, but I feel excited. Maybe it's the darkness; maybe it's being out with Kite in a grown-up place; maybe it's because I've done the audition and now I can relax; or maybe it's because I feel special since all the people are here to see my brother and I can shine with the borrowed light of his specialness.

But mostly I think it's because Kite holds my hand. No one can see we're holding hands because everyone is standing up and it's so crowded. I lean into Kite a little. I can do this because it's what people do when bodies are all messy and together and covered in darkness and anticipation. Ruben is standing at the back, but we've pushed through into the middle of the crowd. Barnaby and Ada aren't the main act: they're supporting The Vines, but still, standing up there together, with electric guitars, they look like a real thing, a real act, not just Barnaby and Ada but something else. It's like the music transforms them. Just like the trapeze transforms Frankie.

Ada looks out from her long black hair and holds the microphone in one hand. She says in a low, slow voice, ‘This one's for our friend, the stowaway.'

Barnaby is grinning and looking out in the crowd and I know he is looking to see me. At this moment I feel as if I could just be dancing tango in a gorgeous frock, but I hold the feeling inside me and all I do is lean a little more into Kite and grin, and right then I know I'm having a moment of perfect happiness. If only Lola could see me now, she'd know I wasn't afraid of heights, not one bit.

We have to leave before the end because it's late, but I don't mind since I'm just not in the mood for minding anything. When we get home, Ruben shuffles off inside and Kite plonks himself down on the verandah steps and pulls me down beside him, saying, ‘Sit down and look at the sky, it's different here. The stars are brighter and the night is blacker.'

I'm smiling at the stars and at the night and at the feeling inside me, which is brighter than the stars and bigger than the night. Before it happens, it's as if I know it will. But I turn to Kite and I'm nervous and he looks at me and very slowly our faces begin to touch and we kiss. Not just one kiss, but two,

then three,

then four.

All soft, long kisses, all getting longer and closer, and closer. And then our mouths are opening, and slowly we're kissing a real grown-up kiss.

On the steps, under the night.

Kite and me.

Chapter 36

Next day, I'm catching the train back to Melbourne. It's been arranged. Ruben drops Kite at school then takes me to the train station, but I'm not too sad to say goodbye this time because not only have I been well and truly kissed, I've a good feeling I'll be back to join the circus. Ruben says he'll be ringing me in the next couple of days to let me know.

It's only as I'm saying goodbye to Ruben that I suddenly remember Harold Barton's letter. I'd been so distracted by my own excitement that I'd forgotten all about it.

Ruben reads it right there on the platform. He raises his eyebrows as he reads and then looks at me, surprised.

‘Did you know what this was about?'

‘No.' I begin to feel worried.

‘He wants to join the circus.'

‘Harold Barton!' I couldn't believe it. ‘Harold Barton wants to join the circus? How? I mean, what does he do?'

‘Apparently he juggles. He says here he can do tennis and other tricks.'

‘He never told me that.'

‘No. Well, I think the lad holds his cards quite close.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean there's quite a lot you wouldn't know about Harold Barton because he hides it, but he's had a tough time.'

‘A hard time? I thought he had it easy. He looks like he does.'

‘Yeah. I know he gets lots of things. His parents spend money on him because they feel guilty they don't get on; in fact I think they're estranged. His dad is a difficult man. Very troubled. I don't think he's really able to father Harold at all. In fact the circus would probably be very good for Harold. Why don't you tell him to give me a call?'

‘Is his father mean to him?'

‘I don't know exactly what goes on. I just know it's a difficult home life for Harold. He's not as tough as he seems.'

All of a sudden there's a lot of things I want to ask Ruben because I have a feeling he knows stuff, I mean the underneath stuff, the great lurking realness. But my train has arrived and he's ushering me towards it. For one thing, I'm wondering how he knows all that about Harold. Has he spoken to Harold? I even remember once Harold asking me about my dad and I wasn't being very friendly because I always assume with Harold that I have to be ready for an attack. Maybe Harold really wanted to talk. Poor Harold, I think to myself, and it almost shocks me to have a sympathetic thought for Harold Barton.

But I'm happy to wriggle into my seat on the train because I can sense a bit of thinking coming on and there's nothing better than a train ride for getting the mind in a loose and rambling mood. Before I even start on Harold Barton, I want to go over the night before's spectacular kissing event.

I stare out the train window and immediately plunge down like a deep-sea diver into my memory of it and swim in a floating, winding way through the words and feelings and moments as if they are a strange shimmering wonderland. But somewhere in the wonderland there's an awkward and unexpected bend, something I can't just glide through or know how to negotiate. It comes after the kiss which, of course, eventually stopped, since everything does have to stop some time, or at least change and become something else, even though there are some moments you want to just keep going on and on. I don't know how it stopped, I just remember Kite looking at me and I think our eyes were still kissing, or if eyes had hands then our eyes were holding each other, and Kite said, ‘Hey, I really like you, Cedar.'

I didn't say anything, except I smiled and kissed him right on the soft spot near his eye. I don't know why I didn't say anything; maybe I didn't want to just copy or follow. Instead, I looked down at our hands, which were wound up together. And then Kite stood up, heaving me up with him. He led me inside, and that's when we came to the hard corner. He took me to his bedroom.

At the door he turned towards me.

I said, ‘Where are we going?'

It was obvious of course, but I'd begun to feel like everything was getting deep way too fast and I needed a moment to work out where I was.