The Winter Ground (11 page)

He certainly knew this bit of his business, I thought. The picture he painted was irresistible.

‘Moreover,’ he went on, ‘I am fairly sure that no such act has ever been seen before. Charlie? Bill? Am I right there?’

‘I never seen it, Tam,’ said Bill Wolf’s rumbling voice, quick to praise the boss man. Charlie Cooke nodded rather reluctantly. Indeed, his whole demeanour was that of a sceptic, come in hopes to see the venture fail. He crossed his arms and put his tongue in his cheek. Tiny had his eyes fastened on Ana, Andrew gazed up at Topsy and Ma sat forward with such an expression of rapt attention directed at her husband that I had to bite my cheeks not to giggle.

‘Now, to start with,’ said Pa, ‘I want just an arabesque from both of you. Start at a walk, Ana.’ He clicked his teeth and Ana’s pony moved forward. ‘There’s a good girl,’ said Pa. ‘Right, Topsy?’

Up on the beam Topsy had uncoiled the rope from its wasps’ nest shape and let its free end drop downwards. She now turned it twice around her body and then twice around her leg. Then, somehow, and it happened so quickly that I could not see how it was done, she seemed to make some kind of a slip knot which allowed her to drop gently down until she was suspended about ten feet below the beam, caught up in the coils of rope. I took a deep breath and told myself that I was going to watch this through without squeezing my eyes shut or wincing.

‘Hup,’ said Pa and, in unison, Ana on the pony lifted one foot behind her and both arms to the side and struck a pose on the broad, rolling back while Topsy above pointed one leg downwards and one behind and let one arm drift dreamily free. She craned her neck to look at Ana and then set the rope spinning, trying to match the pony’s gentle walking speed. There was an appreciative sigh from the ringside seats.

‘Lovely,’ said Ma Cooke. ‘Kushty kativa, Pa!’

It was beautiful, and one could imagine that with the phosphorus and black rope it would be more beautiful still, but I could not help feeling a little sorry for Ana, because Topsy, spinning in the roof, looked the more impressive of the pair – the distance and the perspective lending her some extra magic – but I was sure that it was Ana, balanced so perfectly on Harlequin’s back, who was pulling off the greater feat here.

‘Both arms, Topsy,’ said Pa, lost in concentration on the two girls.

‘Sure if I fly with both arms,’ said Topsy, and the catch in her voice came as a complete surprise to me; she looked so languid, floating around up there, one forgot that every muscle in her little body must be straining, ‘then I’m going to have to wrap me rope foot and flex it. Which one’s better?’

‘Better match with Ana’s base foot if you flex,’ came Charlie Cooke’s voice. I could see what he was saying. Ana was balanced on a flat foot on her pony’s back, while Topsy had both feet pointed as she revolved up there.

‘What do you think, Andrew?’ said Topsy. Andrew Merryman started a little but did not answer.

‘Try it,’ said Pa, but while Topsy bent to wrap a foot in the rope to support herself, Ana suddenly rose up and stood on her tiptoe.

‘That’s lovely, my maid,’ said Ma, ‘but Topsy can’t do that on a rope, now can she?’ Anastasia hooked an eyebrow up as she answered.

‘Can she not?’ she said. ‘I will keep myself to what she can manage then.’

‘Here!’ said Topsy. ‘It’s not like I’m just beginning. There’s what you can and what you can’t do up here, thank you very much, and you can’t have a straight rope leg, a pointed toe and no hands. It’s not possible. It’s the laws of the rope. It’s … Look, Pa, bent leg and I’ve got no problem.’

‘If it’s reflection you’re after, Tam,’ said Ma, cutting through her, ‘they should be mirror image, shun’t they? Someone needs to be upside down.’ At this, there was an unseemly scramble while each of the girls tried to get upside down first. Inevitably Ana, with no rope to rewind, was the winner but it had to be said that her handstand on the horse, while impressive, was nothing like as pretty as Topsy’s artful shape on the rope above. Tiny Truman giggled.

‘Women!’ he said.

‘If – ahem.’ I was startled to hear Andrew Merryman speak and it seemed I was not alone. All of us in the ringside seats turned to him, causing him momentarily to lose his nerve. He dipped his head and started again. ‘If we’re doing this by committee,’ he said, ‘can I s-s-stick my oar in too?’

‘Course you can, lad,’ said Pa. ‘I’m all for listening. The rum coll’s got to listen as well as shout.’ He spoke very pointedly and I wondered who it was aimed at. Andrew looked uncertain at so much protesting, but Pa Cooke gestured to him to continue.

‘Well, to make a reflection,’ he said, ‘shouldn’t Harlequin be turning on the spot under the rope?’ He pointed to where the bottom of Topsy’s rope was swinging gently a few feet above the middle of the ring and seemed about to say more but then stopped himself and frowned. He looked up the rope towards Topsy and frowned again.

‘That’s a fair poi—’ said Mrs Cooke, but Anastasia cut her off.

‘Harlequin is a rosy-back, not a high school horse. I would need a high school horse to spin on the sp—’

‘Just so, just so,’ said Pa Cooke hastily. ‘I thank you, Andrew lad, but we’re fine as we are.’

‘He is right though, Pa,’ said Topsy. ‘You’re right, Andrew.’

‘Aye, aye,’ said Pa Cooke, ‘but let’s get on, will we?’

The work went on; halting, interrupted, slowly feeling a way towards the smooth ease Pa Cooke could see already in his mind’s eye, and all we watchers fell into a kind of reverie; all, that is, except Andrew Merryman who continued to look troubled. Once or twice he half turned as though to speak to Tiny at his side, but each time he closed his mouth and turned to face the front again, still frowning. At last, with Topsy red in the face and panting and Harlequin drooping a little from boredom, Pa began to scratch his head and muse about the finale.

‘Shame we can’t fade on you and just get you off in darkness,’ he said. ‘Could do if we used spots instead of phosphorus but I’d not want to give up on that just yet awhile. Trouble is it’s got to be slow and it’s not easy to make a slow finale. Topsy, have you ever stood up on a pony?’

‘Only playing, Pa,’ said Topsy.

‘Voltige is not play,’ Ana spat.

‘I never meant it was,’ said Topsy, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘My stars, I just—’

‘Never mind that, never mind,’ said Pa. ‘Here’s what I’m thinking. Ana, you take Harlequin to the middle and stand straight like a little tin soldier. Topsy will come down and land on his back, then the two of you together make a line – something fancy, symmetrical, mirror-image like, and Harlequin walks off. Eh?’ Topsy was already twining herself into the rope in another of the complicated slip knots, ready for her descent.

‘No,’ said Ana. Pa Cooke’s mouth dropped open.

‘Harlequin can’t carry two people, Tam,’ said Charlie.

‘He’s carried the two of us,’ said Tiny. ‘And I know I’m not much of a one but Andrew makes up for me.’

‘It’s too dangerous,’ said Ana. There were jeers all around at that and I surmised that for a circus girl to dismiss an idea for that reason was a very poor show.

‘I don’t mind if you join me on the rope,’ said Topsy, purely as Nanny Palmer used to say ‘out of badness’.

‘I am not a monkey to be climbing ropes,’ Ana said, half under her breath. The spectators hesitated, unsure whether to affect deafness or admit that we had heard her. Topsy, unfortunately, seemed to have very sharp ears.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘that’s it. You’ve done it now, you stuck-up, two-faced …’ She was wriggling around furiously as she spoke, trying to free herself to climb down. ‘I’ve had it up to my new teeth with you,’ she said. ‘I’m doing you a favour, in case you didn’t know. I’ve
got
two spots. I don’t need to be working all winter to save your skin for you. So …’ She paused and glared down at Ana, who stretched out along Harlequin’s back, put her hands behind her head and crossed her legs at the ankle, looking like an odalisque on a couch. ‘… you’re going to get what’s coming and don’t tell me you didn’t ask for it plenty.’

Those watching had not interfered up until this moment, but now Pa Cooke stepped in.

‘Topsy!’ he barked. ‘You stay where you are. You,’ he turned to Ana, ‘you get that pony stalled and wiped and come to my wagon in half an hour.’

‘Never you mind, Pa,’ said Topsy. ‘I’ll sort this out right now.’ She gave up trying to get free and instead wound the rope furiously around her body. ‘It’s been a long time coming,’ she said and tugged on the knot which held her.

Andrew Merryman leapt up.

‘Topsy, no!’

‘Mind your business,’ shouted Topsy. She tugged again.

‘That’s not your rope!’ Merryman cried.

What happened then was both too fast to understand and so slow that it was agony to watch. I saw Tiny, Charlie and Ma look at Andrew and jump to their feet, saw all except Charlie leap, in what looked like single bounds, to the middle of the ring, even Tiny covering the ground like a panther. I saw Pa, caught by surprise, look up, make a feint as if to dash off backstage, turn on his heel, and join the others, head back and arms up as Topsy plummeted towards them. Most of all what I saw was Topsy’s face, her angry scowl turning to a wide-mouthed silent scream as she rushed through the air, the rope a blur around her. Ten feet from the ground, when even I had guessed what must be about to happen, right there before my eyes, Topsy turned like an eel, freed herself from the one remaining loop and, kicking out against nothing, bracing herself against empty air, leapt upwards, put out her hands like two cat’s claws and grabbed for dear life on to the rope. She slid a foot or so, shrieking as the rough cords burned her hands, and then stopped.

There was a moment of total silence as she hung there and then Andrew Merryman reached up and took hold of her calves in his long, strong hands.

‘Let go and sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ll catch you on my shoulders.’

She took a while, but eventually she let go and he cradled her into his arms and sank down on to the sawdust with her. Topsy turned her head against his chest and began to weep. Ma and Pa Cooke were staring at the end of the rope swinging above the sawdust. Charlie Cooke was back in his seat, his face as white and shining as ever it could be in make-up for the ring, tears pouring down it until he wiped them roughly away with shaking hands. He was staring at Ana, who slithered off her horse as though her bones had melted and stood cowering against his flank. Tiny stood with his chin sunk on to his chest and his hands hanging at his sides.

‘What went wrong?’ I said at last.

Topsy looked up and sniffed deeply.

‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘That’s not my rope.’ She pointed past me towards it and winced as her burned palm creased, then opened her hand wide again and blew on it. As she did so, she settled more comfortably into the crook of Andrew’s arm and seemed to regain a good deal of her pluck and even some of her cheer. ‘Looks like I’m going to be having a holiday, Pa,’ she said, showing us the red weals, ‘and I won’t be using it to stitch new costumes neither.’ Tiny, without a word, strode off towards the backstage.

‘But what’s
wrong
with the rope?’ I asked. I was not enjoying the sensation of being the only one who had no idea why this was happening.

‘It’s too long,’ said Pa. ‘Topsy’s rope stops just here.’ He held a hand above his head. ‘Just right for her to touch one toe down from full stretch. If she had kept going on this one …’ I pictured it briefly, remembering the speed she had picked up as the rope unwound from around her; she had been hurtling down like a bobbin. I could feel the peculiar prickling sensation which accompanies the departure of all blood from one’s face. I had seen the cut swing; I had been warned that Ana was behind the trouble. Yet I came here and sat down to watch them practise an act together – an act bitterly resented by the one, an act where the other was hanging from a rope with no net. I could not look at either of them and turned my face away just in time to see Tiny returning with a long coil of rope across his shoulder, looking grim. He cleared his throat.

‘That’s my rope, is that,’ he said, nodding to the one hanging from the beam. Walking over to it, he gave a little jump and caught hold of its swinging end. ‘Andrew and me sometimes do a kid-on of the corde lisse. This is my one. Haven’t used it for months. I’ll bet if we unroll this one there’ – he shrugged the coil off his shoulder – ‘it’ll be just a bit shorter. It’ll be Topsy’s.’

Topsy was staring at him as he swung gently back and forward by one of his short, strong arms.

‘Ted?’ she said, very softly. Andrew Merryman, too, was staring hard at his friend and he tightened his grip around Topsy’s shoulders.

‘How could they get mixed up?’ I asked.

‘They couldn’t,’ came Pa’s voice, low and terrible to hear. ‘You were right then, Ma. You said there was trouble coming. I thought you were just making stories for me.’

‘No, I warrn’t there,’ said Ma, just as quietly. ‘Couldn’t hardly have been more wrong.’

‘What’s this?’ said Charlie Cooke, who had joined the others at last, still pale but no longer shaking. Andrew and Tiny had begun to uncoil the new rope, spilling in loops on to the sawdust.

‘Ma knew this was going to happen,’ said Mr Cooke.

‘Never, never,’ his wife cried.

‘Knew something anyway,’ Pa went on. ‘Said she did and I wouldn’t listen. Didn’t trust her.’

‘You din’t have to, Tam,’ said his wife. ‘I went my own sweet way without you.’

Mr Cooke frowned at her then until she explained.

‘Mrs Gilver here,’ she said, ‘has come to help me out. Find out what the trouble is, see?’

It took Mr Cooke a long time, with much blinking and staring, to realise what his wife was saying, and when the penny finally dropped his face darkened until it was not red but a deep and terrifying purple. Andrew and Tiny continued to examine the rope, eyes averted from Pa, but I could not help glancing at the whip he held and stepping back a pace or two.

‘It wasn’t your place, Poll,’ he said.

‘Don’t you stand there and tell me about my place,’ his wife said, very quietly but as firm as could be.