Becoming Billy Dare (11 page)

‘I'm an orphan, sir, so I'm not needing anyone's permission,' said Paddy.

‘All right then. You be here before dawn tomorrow to help load up and I'll take you on as a general hand. Two shillings a week and your fare.'

Paddy grinned. He walked away whistling. He slept under a bridge that night but as soon as the dawn rays crept over the city, he was back at the circus site, where the men were already at work loading up. There were eight wagons of gear and fourteen men and boys including Paddy, plus Ma Sears, her sister and a confusing array of small children.

They took the road north out of Melbourne towards Warburton, past blossoming orchards. Paddy took a deep breath of the sweet, crisp air. He was glad to turn his back on the sea and see the horizon broken by forest and farmland. Beyond the orchards, flat golden fields folded out on either side of the road. Everything in Australia seemed to sit at strange angles to the world - the wild and the tame, the ordinary and the extraordinary. One day he was shipwrecked on a white beach, the next he was lost on the streets of a city and now he was travelling an endless open road.

They stopped in the late afternoon, at the edge of a village called Box Hill. There were no box trees and no hill that Paddy could make out, only a small dusty township. The men set to work raising the big top in an open field on the edge of town. Everyone helped unload the wagons, the smallest children staggering under the weight of ropes and canvas.

Harry Sears came over and thrust a big bass drum at Paddy. ‘Here you are, time to drum up a crowd for this evening's show.'

‘But I've never played a drum before,' said Paddy, holding the instrument at arm's length, as if it might explode.

‘Ain't nothing to it, boy. Go and see Ma Sears and get her to give you an outfit, then strap this thing on and whack the billyo out of it. Everyone has to play in the band. It's the only way we're going to bring Box Hill to the show.'

Half an hour later, Paddy was marching through the village, banging on the drum with half a dozen of the other men squawking on battered brass trumpets, trombones and euphoniums. It didn't sound much like music, but the noise drew people out of their homes and into the street to watch. Paddy spun the padded drumsticks around and did a little dance step as he followed the other players. A small girl standing by her front gate waved at him and Paddy took off his hat and tossed it in the air, catching it on his head as he walked past. Paddy felt a satisfying glow at the sound of the girl's laughter.

That night, around sixty locals paid a shilling each to watch the show. After the crowds had left, the whole troupe gathered around a bonfire set well away from the flammable canvas. Ma Sears stirred a pot of mutton stew on the fire and ladled the dark meat onto tin plates.

‘You were right flashy in the parade today,' said Ma Sears, as she dished up a plate for Paddy. ‘You got a bit of showman's style, you have.'

She waved her ladle at Jack Ace. ‘Here, Jack, you oughta teach that Paddy a few tricks and get him in the ring.'

Paddy was excited by the idea. ‘That would be grand.'

Jack didn't answer. He was sitting off to one side of the fire on a fallen log, taking swigs from a small silver flask. Paddy sat down next to him to eat his dinner.

‘You reckon you'd like to be an acrobat?' asked Jack Ace.

‘I want to be a bareback rider, like you,' said Paddy, his eyes bright.

Jack Ace laughed and offered Paddy a swig from his whiskey flask but Paddy shook his head. The smell of it made him think of the wreck of the
Lapwing
, the drowned sailors, the dark and miserable past. Paddy couldn't bear to dwell on it, not even for a moment.

‘First,' he said, ‘I want to learn to do that trick where you do a handstand on the horse's back.'

‘So you're good with the horses, then?' asked Jack.

‘Maybe,' said Paddy.

Jack laughed. ‘There's no maybes. You can't be afraid of hurting yourself. You can't be afraid of dying neither. You have to have guts to do what I do.'

‘I'm not afraid.'

‘All right then, I dare you to come along to a training session. I'll go easy on you, you being a beginner like. But if you're gonna stick at it, remember, you gotta be willing to take the dare. Every time.'

The next morning, as soon as he'd finished his chores, Paddy joined the Sears children for their training session in the big top. Jack was dressed in a close-fitting cotton singlet and leggings and his shoulder muscles gleamed with sweat as he worked through a series of chin-ups at a makeshift bar.

The smaller children had their own mats that they rolled out and practised tumbling on. Paddy was impressed by their daring and agility, but Jack Ace was hard to please. He prodded them roughly with his riding crop, and pulled them to their feet and shook them whenever they made the smallest mistake.

‘Hopeless, the lot of you, look at those limbs sticking out. Elbows in!'

When he came to Paddy, he threw a mat towards him.

‘Here, let's see you do a forward roll.'

Obediently, Paddy tucked his elbows in close to his body, kept his head down and rolled. Jack Ace watched, frowning.

‘Not bad,' he said, reluctantly. ‘For a first-timer. Now show me a handstand.'

Paddy flung himself at the mat but when his legs were in the air they just kept going and he landed hard on his back. Jack Ace caught his feet the next time he tried.

‘Your arms are too wide. Keep your hands under your shoulders. And drop into it. Don't throw yourself at the ground,' he instructed.

Paddy tried again, and this time it worked perfectly. He kept himself upright until his head started to pound with blood, then slowly lowered his feet to the ground and stood up, grinning.

‘You're not bad,' said Jack. ‘Your back's a bit long, but you're not bad at all.'

Without warning, Jack spun around and lashed out at one of the smaller boys, knocking him to the ground. ‘Here, I didn't say you could stop working. All right, you lot. Get over here,' he said, shouting at the tribe of small children who were scrambling over the bleachers.

‘Time for my box of tricks,' he said, winking at Paddy. He set a jagged tin in the sawdust and then forced the smallest boy to do a handstand over the tin. Jack kept hold of the boy's ankles for a minute, keeping him clear of the sharp edges but as his grip loosened the boy began to whimper. ‘You hold that for a count of ten,' said Jack, his voice hard.

Coo-Chee shook his head, rolled up his mat and walked out of the tent.

Within a second of Jack letting go, the boy fell onto the jagged tin and yelped in pain. Paddy helped him to his feet and wiped away the trickle of blood from the small boy's forehead but the cut was deep and the wound kept bleeding.

Jack grunted. ‘Take him to Ma Sears. She'll clean him up,' he said dismissively.

Paddy stared at the man, suddenly revolted. ‘What?' said Jack. ‘Listen, boy, you have to have guts to be an acrobat. You have to take the dare, every time, risk your life. If you can't be daring, you'll be nothing.'

Paddy led the snivelling boy out of the big top and down to the creek where Ma Sears was drawing water.

‘How was your first go?' asked Ma Sears, not looking up from her work.

‘Bobby, he …' Paddy trailed off, not knowing how to explain what he had witnessed. Ma turned and took in everything instantly.

‘You playing silly buggers again, Bobby?' she said.

‘He wasn't doing anything,' said Paddy but Ma Sears held up her hand to silence him.

‘Listen, Paddy. Jack's a hard man when it comes to the ring, but he gets results.' She picked up Bobby and thrust a pair of kerosene tins at Paddy. ‘Here, bring us some fresh water and I'll get this one cleaned up.'

All morning Paddy went back and forth between the creek and the kitchen tent, filling the tins and brooding on the training session. Maybe Bobby did act up a lot. Ma Sears didn't seemed worried by it. Who was Paddy to judge? How was he to know if Jack was cruel or fair?

Paddy knew he could learn from Jack. And he was willing to work hard. He didn't want to be just an ordinary acrobat. He wanted to be something extraordinary. He wanted to ride into the big top and hear the audience gasp, to hear the sharp intake of their breath as he thrilled them with his skill and daring.

When he'd finished drawing water he crossed over to the paddock where the horses were grazing. He stood watching for a long time before a young dappled grey mare approached him. Paddy smiled. Keeping his gaze down, he cautiously stroked her neck and flank, imagining what it would be like to ride her. When she bent her head and nuzzled him, he whispered into her ear. ‘One day soon, Tattoo, you and me, we'll show that Jack Ace just what daring really means.'

15
The wild child

They travelled into the Dandenong Ranges, where the tracks grew winding and narrow and giant tree ferns spread their fronds across the roadway. The air smelt damp and sweet and the forests echoed with strange bird cries. Paddy looked around him in wonder. Every twist in the road revealed a new vision of lush, damp rainforest. The sun filtered through the leaves of tall gums and dappled everything with shifting light. Flocks of coloured parrots darted in and out of the shadowy forest, swooping low over the caravan of wagons. Paddy could almost imagine fairy folk living in the folds of the gullies and beneath the spreading tree-ferns.

The circus never stopped for more than a night or two in any of the small mountain towns and at every stop, shearers and shepherds, farmers and timber-cutters emerged out of the forests to enquire about tickets for the evening show. Paddy was woken hours before dawn to help load up the wagons by torchlight, and the circus would take to the road again as soon as the day began to unfold. After Healesville, they travelled over the Black Spur and the air grew sharp and icy.

At a small town called Marysville, the circus set up camp on a wide field beside a swift-flowing river. Paddy was carting water up to the kitchen tent on the second morning of their stay when he noticed a ragged man dragging a small child towards the big top. The child was resisting every step, digging its heels into the mud to slow their progress. The child had a mane of long, tangled, black hair and its clothes were so raggedy it was hard to tell if it was a boy or a girl.

Paddy saw Harry Sears and Jack Ace look up from their mugs of billy tea as the man and child approached. The conversation between Harry and the man quickly grew heated. When the man flicked open the saddlebag he carried and pointed at its contents, Harry put down his mug and called out for Ma Sears to join them. Paddy followed, curious as to what the saddlebag held. He peered over Ma Sears' shoulder. Inside, nestled in the folds of a worn old blanket, lay a tiny, naked, newborn baby.

Ma Sears shook her head and drew the blanket over the baby, then turned to look at the older child, pushing the black hair away from its face. It glared back furiously with the deepest blue eyes that Paddy had ever seen.

‘Underfed and filthy,' said Ma Sears, disapprovingly.

‘Born wiry, that one,' said the father. ‘Garn, Vi. Show the folk your monkey trick.'

He smacked the girl on the bottom and she scrambled up the nearest tree. Paddy couldn't figure out how she got a grip on the smooth, silvery bark, but in a minute she was at the first fork, twenty feet above them.

‘See, she's limber enough. Only six years old and already she's a little monkey. The babby will be like her one day and you can have the pair for six pounds,' said the man.

‘I'll give you four pound for the child but we can't take the baby,' said Harry Sears, after a hurried consultation with his wife.

The father looked stricken. ‘But I can't keep the babby,' he cried. ‘My wife, she died having this one. I can't keep either of them. I'm a timber-cutter away in the forest for days at a time. You can have ‘em both for two quid.'

‘Look, mate, I'll make it five pounds for the girl. You can give the money to someone and they might take the baby. We'll take the girl on as an apprentice. Train her well, give her a profession. But the baby's no good to us.'

The man flipped the saddlebag shut and sighed.

‘Violet,' he called, looking up the tree. ‘Get down here.'

At first the girl didn't move. She stayed in the fork of the tree, hugging the trunk.

‘Violet!!' her father barked.

Reluctantly, the little girl shinnied down the tree and stood beside her father.

'this bloke and his lady, they run this circus, see. You're gunna stop with them now, learn how to do some more tricks. You'll be a good girl and do like you're told. Orright?'

The girl said nothing. She glared at everyone, including Paddy. He stepped back, startled by the ferocity of her gaze.

‘Here, Paddy,' called Harry Sears. ‘You reckon you've got some book-learning. You can draw up the papers.'

Ma Sears dictated the terms of the apprenticeship and Paddy wrote it down in his best hand. Then the father put his mark at the bottom of the paper and took the five-pound note. He didn't even turn to wave goodbye to his daughter. The little girl sat huddled in a corner of the tent, her arms wrapped around her knees.

‘She's in a state,' said Ma Sears shaking her head. ‘Crawling with nits. Her scalp's got infected too. Heat some water up, Paddy.'

The girl didn't resist as Ma Sears sat her on a bench and cut all her hair off, but a trail of tears ran down her face, leaving white streaks on her dirty grey cheeks. Paddy watched her out of the corner of his eye as he went back and forward from the fire with buckets of warm water.

The girl let out a blood-curdling scream as Ma Sears wrestled her into the tin washtub. She thrashed about like a wild thing, writhing in the sudsy water. Suddenly, Ma Sears lost her grip, the tub was upturned and the small girl bolted into the forest.

‘Paddy, after her!' called Ma Sears.

Paddy ran after the naked child. He caught a fleeting glimpse of her burrowing into the dense undergrowth but when he reached the spot, she was nowhere to be found. He stopped, turned his head to one side and listened to the hushed bush.