Blood and Circuses (13 page)

‘That’s all right. I gotta be careful. She’ll eat herself sick on fairy lollies, and what that does to her digestion don’t bear thinking about. An elephant with a belly-ache ain’t no laughing matter. You watch her from now on. Elephants don’t forget. Well, they don’t forget someone who has peppermints in their pockets.’ He ducked back under the canvas shade, pulling Rajah with him. Phryne could hear him hammering in the picket, to the accompaniment of a lot of cursing.

Dulcie returned and Phryne called excitedly, ‘Dulcie, an elephant just picked my pocket!’

‘Oh, yair, that Rajah. Nice old cow, otherwise. But she dearly loves lollies and Billy won’t give her more than a few. So she steals ’em. Come along. There’s the jugglers’ caravans. I live there with my partner Tom. Next to us is the Cat’lans. I wish they were further away.’

Phryne caught the eye of a slim, dark man. He was sitting in the sun mending a pair of much-worn sequined trunks. He did not smile but scanned her with black eyes. She did not know what language he spoke, so she ventured on French.

‘
Bonjour, M’sieur
.’

Dulcie dragged at her sleeve. ‘I told you not to have nothing to do with them foreigners!’

Phryne pulled away. She had been pushed around more than she was accustomed to lately.

‘
Jour
,’ said the man, smiling a brilliant smile. ‘
Mademoiselle
Àgata!
’ he called into the tent. ‘
Quelqu’un qui parle français!
Someone who speaks French!’

Àgata emerged, a thin woman holding a suckling baby. She beamed.

‘
Aaró? Si? I tant!
’ She addressed Phryne directly. ‘
Vous
parlez français? Et voila—ca me fait plaisir.
Do you speak French? What a pleasant surprise!’

‘
Vous faiters partie du cirque?
Are you with the circus?’ asked the man.

‘
Oui, je suis écuyère
. . .
Et vous?
Yes, I am a rider,’ said Phryne. ‘What do you do?’

‘
Nous sommes des équilibristes. Nous avons perfectionné le
castell—la pyramide humaine.
We are balancers. We have perfected the human pyramid,’ Àgata broke in eagerly. ‘
Vous devez
venir
v
ous voir. Nous sommes en troisième lieu à là liste, Mare de
Déu.
You must come and see us. We have third billing.’ Phryne found the woman hard to follow. She seemed to be thinking in another language. The accent was harsh and definite and she had never heard it before.

‘
Bien sûr. Mais d’ òu venez-vous?
But where do you come from?’ One thing she was sure of. ‘
Vous n’ êtes pas français.
You aren’t French.’

Àgata laid the baby over her shoulder and patted its back. It was small and dark and it burped resoundingly.

‘
Non, senyoreta, nous sommes Catalans. Nousautres aimons
mieux parler le français que le castillian.
We are Catalans. We would rather speak French than Spanish.’

Her husband interposed, seeing Phryne’s difficulty. ‘
Je
doute fort que vous parliez le catalan.
I doubt that you can speak Catalan.’ He lowered his voice. ‘
Les autres nous appellent
les étrangers.
The others call us foreign.
Il n’y a que le nain,
M Burton, qui parle français.
No one else can speak French, except for Mr Burton the dwarf.’

Àgata laughed. ‘
Un homenet bien enseigné.
An educated little man.’

Aaró agreed. ‘
Un petit bonhomme bien savant
,’ he said. Phryne wondered if he was being ironic.
Savant
also described a performing flea. Then again, there was certainly something of the performing flea about the amazing Mr Burton. ‘
Voudriez-–vous
nous faire le plaisir de souper avec nous?
Perhaps you will like to dine some time?’

‘
Je veu bien. Je vous en remercie.
Thank you, I would be delighted,’ said Phryne. ‘
Bon, je dois partir. Mon cavalier
s’ énerve.
I’d better go. My escort is becoming nervous.
Je suis
bien contente d’avoir fait votre connaissance. A bientôt.
How delightful to meet you.’

‘
Adéu
,’ said Àgata. ‘
Petite cavaliere?

’ ‘
A bientôt
,’ echoed Aaró.

‘
You
ain’t foreign, are you, Fern?’ asked Dulcie suspiciously.

Phryne laughed. ‘No. I learned—’ Oops. She had to think fast. ‘I lived in Collingwood when I was a kid. Went to school there. I picked up a bit of the lingo. Enough to get along. Come on. What’s over there?’ She pointed to a row of steel cages under a canvas awning.

‘Lions. We gotta be careful. Mr Burton said the lions was upset and an upset lion ain’t nothing to fool about with. But all the newies want to see the lions. I’ll go first.’

Phryne followed Dulcie into a narrow alley. There was a stench of raw meat and something more worrying, a reek of predator. The hair on the back of Phryne’s neck bristled. An inheritance, she thought, from the days when lions hunted humans. Some small primitive Phryne had streaked across the grassland and up a tree just out of ripping distance of those terrible claws, those long sharp white teeth, that hot red gullet. That cave-dwelling Phryne was gibbering frantically in the back of 1928 Phryne’s head.

Three men were discussing the racing news, seated on folding canvas chairs. The central figure was big and running to fat, with a crop of longish hair as white as wax. The other two were undistinguished, rather oily, in overalls. One had each finger and most of both palms strapped up in sticking plaster.

‘Well, I’m putting my money on Strephon,’ declared the man with the plaster. ‘I like the name. And I reckon the weather’ll suit him. Hello! What have we here?’

‘Dulcie and a new girl,’ said the big man languidly. ‘Hello, Dulcie. Who is this?’

‘Fern. I’m showing her around.’ Dulcie sounded cautious.

‘And of course you could not stay away from Amazing Hans and his equally amazing lions!’

Amazing Hans stood up. He had just a trace of German accent and was magnificent, his mane of white hair resembling that of the lions. He gestured to them to come under the awning. Iron bars made the occupants of the cages hard to see but Phryne did not want to see them any clearer.

‘Sarah,’ he said. Something snarled in the half-dark and Phryne made out teeth and eyes. ‘Sam, Boy, King, Albert and Prince. Presently of Farrell’s Circus, soon to be . . . well.’

‘You, too?’ Dulcie eyed him disapprovingly. ‘Ain’t Farrell’s a good show? And ain’t Farrell been good to you? Bought you that new lion and all?’

‘He has been good to me,’ said Hans precisely. ‘But he is no longer in charge. And too many things have been going wrong, Dulcie. These beasts need a lot of care, you know. There’s the food and the vet’s bills. It’s costly.’

‘Aren’t they hard to handle? I thought that female lions were more fierce,’ said Phryne. Amazing Hans scowled at her.

‘What would you know? Amazing Hans does not need advice from a slip of a new girl. They recognise me as their master. Female and male.’

‘They’re just big cats,’ sneered the man with the plastered hands. He ran a finger along the steel bars and whistled to the lion inside. It stood up and shook itself.

‘You think so?’ Hans laughed unpleasantly. ‘Just cats, eh? I’d advise you not to take them for granted, Jack.’

Hans approached and Jack stepped back from him. Dulcie took Phryne’s cardigan sleeve and drew her towards the sunlight. ‘Not to be taken lightly,’ advised Hans in a gentle voice. Jack took another pace away and snarled, ‘What’re you doing?’ a split second before the air was wounded by a thunderous roar. A clawed paw shot out between the bars. Jack squealed. The claws had raked his skin, leaving thin parallel scratches as clean cut as a razor-blade. The stout cloth of the overall had been slit.

Amazing Hans laughed merrily. ‘You’d better go and get Mrs Thompson to put some lard on that,’ he said. ‘Don’t come near my lions again. They’ve got a good memory,’ he added, as Jack scuttled past him into the alley. ‘And Prince has got your scent now.’

Phryne and Dulcie walked away. Phryne found that she was shaking.

‘I don’t like ’em either,’ confessed Dulcie. ‘Nothing that big ought to have teeth like daggers. Still, they’re a draw.’

They had come to a small patch of grass outside a neat green caravan, where a shirtless, tanned man was plaiting leather bootlaces into what looked like a leash.

‘Give me a hand with this,’ he grunted. Phryne sat down and took the four ends from his hand and watched as the deft fingers moved like shuttles. After a few minutes, he tied off the end and looked up.

‘Thanks. Who’s this, Dulcie? I thought she was Andy. Want a cuppa?’

A kettle was singing on a small fire. Phryne was thirsty. So was Dulcie.

‘Thanks, Bernie. Her name’s Fern, she’s a new rider. I’d kill for a cuppa, Bernie, thanks.’ Dulcie flopped down onto the grass. I never realise how big Farrell’s is until I take a newie around.’

Mr Wallace made mugs of strong tea with milk and sugar and opened a tin of ginger biscuits. He accepted one of Phryne’s cigarettes, without thanks, as though it were his due. Phryne had been bolstering her courage. Now it was leaking away like sand out of a sandbag. She sat down on the grass, ignored, and feeling utterly forlorn.

‘This is the life,’ said Bernard Wallace, smoking contentedly and blowing on his tea. ‘Nice day, sun shining, no show tonight and Dulcie the juggler to talk to.’

A dog inserted its head under Phryne’s elbow soliciting attention and biscuits. She managed not to spill her tea and stroked the smooth head absent-mindedly.

‘Just Bruno, he’s all right,’ observed Mr Wallace. ‘What’s new, then, Dulcie?’

‘Nothing much. You heard about Mr Christopher?’ Bernard nodded. ‘Lots of ’em are thinking of leaving. Even Mr Burton. How about you?’

‘Nah. Farrell’s I started and Farrell’s I’ll end. Got a couple more years’ work and then I’m off to the country with Bruno. I reckon Farrell’s will last that long.’

‘I hope so,’ said Dulcie. ‘Who would a couple of greasy fellers be, one with his hands all bandaged up?’

‘A couple of fellers, I s’pose. There’s a lot of newies this time round. And a couple of the worst roustabouts I ever saw trying to put up a pup-tent this morning. Talk about cack-handed! Give him a bit of your biscuit,’ he advised, speaking directly to Phryne for the first time. ‘He loves ginger biscuits.’

It was at this point that Phryne finished her tea and looked down. Instead of the dog she had expected, she found that she had been caressing the round furry head of a bear. He had black, twinkling eyes, almost buried in deep cinnamon fur. His ears looked to be insecurely gummed on and his nose was cold and wet at the end of a long snout.

Her hand fell from the domed forehead and the bear nudged her. She kept stroking and he rumbled blissfully and leaned on her. Phryne leaned back as hard as she could till they established an equilibrium.

‘That’s Bruno. He likes you,’ commented Mr Wallace with some surprise, as though the creature should have had better taste. ‘Bears always take likes and dislikes at first sight. Some people they hate, some people they love. Some they just ignore.’

‘He ignores me,’ said Dulcie. ‘Thankfully.’

‘He likes me,’ said Phryne, honoured but rather hot and squashed. ‘Get off now, Bruno.’

She shoved hard and managed to scramble to her feet, still holding the ginger biscuit. As she came up off the ground, so did Bruno. He stood considerably taller than she and opened his mouth, begging. Phryne found that he had a remarkable array of what looked like very sharp teeth. His paws, resting on her shoulders, weighed her down. Phryne noticed that he was curling up the ends of his paws so as to keep his claws away from her skin. She was not afraid. She dropped the biscuit into the gaping mouth.

‘There, good Bruno.’

The biscuit vanished instantly and Bruno sniffed at her for any others concealed about her person. When she opened both hands and he snuffled up a few crumbs, he dropped to all fours again and looked around hopefully for more.

‘All right, you beggar, here’s another biscuit,’ said Mr Wallace, getting up. ‘But you gotta dance for it. Hup!’ Before Phryne’s enchanted gaze, Bruno lifted up onto his hind legs and solemnly circled three times. Then he sat down and waited for his reward.

‘There you are, good bear. He’s as good as a wife,’ said Mr Wallace, scratching Bruno behind the ear. ‘Cruel to make him sleep in a cage next to the lions. But shire councils will be shire councils and they just don’t understand about bears. Old Bruno fetches and carries and is as good as gold and he don’t talk. What more could a man want? Have another cup, Dulcie?’

‘No thanks,’ said Dulcie. ‘We’d better get on. Fern’s got another lesson and I have to get back to the mending.’

‘Come back and see Bruno again,’ said Mr Wallace to Phryne. ‘He don’t like many people. He’d like to see you again.’

Phryne walked back onto the path between the tents with an idiotic smile on her face. What have I come to? she chastised herself. I’m so dependent on approval, and this circus cares so little for me, that I am terribly grateful if a bear likes me. Still, he does like me.

Dulcie was saying something and Phryne wrenched her attention back to her companion. It seemed that Phryne had impressed Dulcie with her aplomb.

‘Whew!’ said Dulcie. ‘I wonder you wasn’t scared to death! He’s supposed to keep that infernal animal chained up!’

‘Bruno’s all right,’ said Phryne. ‘Bruno is fine. But those lions are not. I do not like lions. What about those two men, then?’

‘Oh, just that they didn’t seem used to the lions. Everyone gets told not to go near ’em. They ain’t safe. Even Hans knows that. Every wild animal trainer gets mauled sooner or later. And don’t you go taking liberties with any of ’em, even if they look harmless, like Rajah or the bear. Rajah can pull up the big top on his own and Bruno nearly bit a kid’s arm off down at Colac. Kid thought that he’d tease him with a toffee apple, pulling it out of reach. Bruno took the apple and bit the kid to teach him not to tease bears.’