Love, Let Me Not Hunger (38 page)

Peabody said only, “Well, bless my soul!” and asked no more questions, for it had come to him that it might be best not to do so. There was a mystery of some kind thereabouts which perhaps might better not be penetrated—this boy with the strange, hard, glowing eyes, the sound of the blow he had dealt his father, the way in which he held the shoulder of the girl, this talk of an old man and a rich woman. Suffice that his soul had indeed been blessed with a kind of a miracle: a menagerie of valuable animals apparently in first-class shape and equally valuable rolling stock. “Come on, Ma, we’ll go have a look at the beasts.”

Jacko came from the shed: “The prads are okay.”

Toby said, “Lot of help you were!”

Jacko said, “Well, it was your idea to stay.” It was evident there was a chip on his shoulder too.

Toby felt Rose shift just that tiniest bit closer to him, and the support filled him with delight and power. He asked, “What happened when you got to England?”

“Oh, we were all right. We joined up with the Royale-Renaldo Troupe. They were short two riders. One of them broke a leg at Taunton and another was sick. They had a contract with Chipperfields and we combined. Chipperfield let the girls do their wire act.”

Toby queried, “And what about me? Why didn’t you send me some money?”

Jacko replied, “Marvel was supposed to be looking after you. Anyway, Dad said you’d made your bed and could lie in it.” His mocking eyes roved over the figure of Rose and he sniggered. “And I guess you bloody well did, too—and living off the fat of the land.”

Toby warned, “Look out, Jacko!”

His brother stared at him. “Oh, tough, eh? Socked an old man, your own father.”

“Yes,” said Toby evenly, “tough.” He turned Rose around, said, “Come,” and made for the steps of the living wagon, but she halted him.

“Toby,” she said, “we can’t. Don’t you see? It ain’t ours any more.”

They bedded down that night in an empty wagon. Toby moved two mattresses onto the floor so that they could lie side by side and if he awoke he could reach out and touch Rose and make sure that she was there. The intensity of this need astonished him. It did not shame him, this sudden dependence upon a woman. On the contrary, he was fiercely proud that she was his, and that through her a change had taken place whereby he felt the earth beneath his feet and knew that he was walking like a man. By means of some magic she had worked, he appeared to have sloughed off so many of the trivialities that had limited him before, and it was as though for the first time he could see clearly that this was not a world of stark black and white but one of mingled hues.

It took almost a week to prepare the remnants of the circus for the road after, with permission of the authorities, Peabody had moved it away from the
finca
back to the more open spaces of the original tober, for the enclosure was far too cramped for the things that had to be done to put the lorries, the engines, and the equipment into shape again for the trip and restore the glass to broken windows and headlamps.

Along with Joe Cotter, whom he had taken over from Sam Marvel, Peabody had brought with him on a chance several lorry drivers, roustabouts, as well as two grooms. Marvel had been honest enough with Peabody. He had made out an inventory of exactly what he had left behind him in the shape of live and rolling stock and then offered it to Peabody for ten per cent of its value, not concealing the fact that he had abandoned men, animals, and equipment and had no idea what might have happened to them.

However different Joe Peabody was from Sam Marvel in the conduct of his business and his personal nature—the former would have beggared himself before he would have allowed one of his animals or employees to go hungry—he could nevertheless understand the trap into which Marvel had fallen, lured on week after week by hopes and promises of the insurance payments. He did not admire what Marvel had done, but considered him fair within his lights and even carried some funds that Marvel had given him to discharge salary debts to any who might have remained to look after the animals. Marvel, of course, had expected that those he had left behind—Deeter, Mr. Albert, Toby, and Janos—would long since have decamped. And now, due to an odd chain of events into which he did not intend to look too closely, Peabody had won all along the line. For not only had he acquired the wherewithal to expand his little circus into an attraction to compete with the big boys, but he had also taken over, by option contract, such great acts as the Walters family, Jackdaw Williams, and others of the scattered Marvel Circus. Oh, they were going to hear from Joe Peabody in the circus world before he pulled down his tent for the last time!

The day before their departure was due, Harry Walters had a talk with Toby down by the cages where he was looking after and fussing over Judy.

Walters, who since the incident in the living wagon had not spoken to his son, watched him for a moment and then said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting to show the pig again? Peabody said it would be okay, just like you worked her for Marvel.” And then added, “You know Peabody’s taking over our act.”

“Is he?”

Harry Walters swallowed hard, for it was his own pride he was trying to push down his throat. He continued, “Son, we oughta let bygones be bygones. I suppose maybe it all comes like something of a shock to me, you and the mussie dossing down in our living wagon.” Walters swallowed again. “But you’re only young once and we’re men, ain’t we? After all, Ma don’t have to know, does she?” And he tipped his son a wink.

Toby looked at his father in utter surprise and embarrassment. A wink from him was almost like—well, almost as if the Prime Minister were to walk down Piccadilly in pink tights.

“We oughtn’t let a little thing like a palonie come between us in our family. We’re a great act, ain’t we?” Walters went on. “The greatest! And you’re a great rider, boy. You’re going to be the greatest. It don’t make any sense to quarrel, do it?”

“No, it don’t,” Toby replied. But in his mind he was astonished to find himself thinking.
Where does he get that “going to he the greatest?” What’s he sucking up to me for?

“You know your Ma loves you. You’ve got two fine girls there in your sisters and your brothers think the world of you. Now you know that, don’t you?”

“Do they?” said Toby.

“That’s right,” Walters continued, “we’re a family. We’re somebody in our world and don’t you forget it. The act went grand with the Chipperfields but you belong with us, boy. You’re your mother’s youngest son and she misses you.”

Toby grunted, “Uh-huh,” and wondered what for—to boss, to nag, to tie him down, to hold him back from becoming a man, to be at him?

Walters puts his hands into his pockets and took the plunge. “So why not leave—” he had been about to say “this little tart,” but something in the attitude of Toby’s back as he stood wire-brushing the elephant made him pause and say instead, “—this girl and come back to us? You’ll forget her in a week. The world is full of ’em, son. Sure, a man’s got to have experiences-like. I guess I wasn’t a little tin saint either when I was young, but I wouldn’t want Ma to know.” And he winked again, even though Toby was not looking at him. “You come back to us, and before you know it you’ll find some—” and here he hesitated once more, for it seemed as though his narrow eyes were almost hypnotised by the clean, smooth muscles of his son’s back and the power they denoted, and he could not bring himself to say “decent girl,” “—some girl in show business. Now there’s that Daisy Renaldo in the Royale-Renaldo troupe who could fall for a good-looking kid like you.”

Toby turned around to face his father and flipped the brush he was holding several times in the air, catching it by the handle. “The girl stays,” he said.

Walters said, “What?”

“Rose stays.”

Walters said softly, gently, and impressively, “Son, you know the Walters ain’t had a josser in the family going back more than a hundred and fifty years.”

Toby repeated calmly, “I said, the girl stays. Rose and I are going to get married.”

And now the boy was surprised again at the equanimity with which his father took the blow. He had expected him to flare up, to rant and curse, and he had made up his mind if he said anything against Rose he would hit him as he had done before, except that he had formed a ridiculous picture in his mind that if he had to he would lay him across his knee and spank him with the back of the elephant brush. But on the contrary, his father was looking not angry, only contemplative, and somehow forgiving and soft-eyed, and Toby thought how strange and ill-becoming this expression was to him.

“Well, son,” Walters said, “if that’s your decision I suppose we’ll have to make the best of it for the sake of the family, and I’ll welcome her like she was my own daughter, and I know your mother will too. She’s got a heart as big as a house, your mother has, and she’ll learn to love the girl if she behaves herself—” And he added quickly, “like I’m sure she will. I’ve thought for some time the family’s too big and all you kids too old to be travelling in one wagon. I’ve been thinking maybe we ought to be having another—for the marrieds,” and here he winked horribly again, and stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets.

And Toby saw as clearly what was up as though it had been written in large letters and pasted upon a wall like a poster. They missed him from the act. They needed him. His leaving had left a hole. The routine had been built around the three boys and the two girls; if one of them was out for any reasons—injury or a temporary illness—they could substitute and revise, but it was not the same. They knew it and the Hatties knew it too. The applause from the audience was not nearly as spontaneous or sustained.

Furthermore he, Toby the Auguste, was the keystone of the act and had been ever since the day he had first reddened his nose, put on the tattered tails and battered top hat, and staggered into the ring.

It was all a lie. Things had been going badly with the family during their short season with Chipperfields, for they had obviously not been offered a contract for the following year, otherwise Walters would not be going to Peabody’s smaller outfit. His brother Ted was a good rider but not good enough. He could not do half the things that Toby could, and the laughs garnered by the Auguste depended not so much upon comic actions as the perfect balance, confidence, and skill that enabled him to perform, in the guise of a drunk, stunts that no sober man would risk.

There was a fierce and curious kind of exaltation in Toby’s breast because of this new and sudden clarity. Since that moment in which he had found Rose, the truth no longer seemed to be hidden from him anywhere. Her gift to him had been more than his manhood; she had given him maturity as well.

He could see now so far and clearly beyond his father’s guile and words to the misery that awaited them should he try to bring Rose into the family. He could peer, as with X-ray eyes, through the bosom of his mother and see there her heart, not as big as any house but instead a thing shrivelled like a walnut. For in truth, she loved her children only inasmuch as they were a reflection of herself, the beauty she had lost, and the position in the world they helped her to maintain. She was not a good woman, his mother; she was a bad woman; and she was making bad women out of his sisters. He saw their tight little mouths, their glances, and their attitudes, and how they would behave towards Rose—spiteful, condescending, rude, and vicious.

His father had lied and lied from the very first, since he had begun to speak. He would not forgive him for Rose, and even if he might pretend for the sake of keeping peace in the family, his mother never would or could, and he knew what life would be like—endless quarrels, bickerings, hurts, insults and slights, pettinesses and malice. His brothers would marry “good women” like his mother, and then there would be reinforcements to carry on the ceaseless vendetta against his love.

It was over! There would be no turning about. The umbilical cord had been severed once and for all.

“No,” said Toby, “we won’t be coming back, Rose and I. We’ll go it alone.”

It was almost with relief that Harry Walters could divest himself of the liar’s cloak and mask he had been wearing. “You dirty, ungrateful squirt! You bloody little birk! You’ll starve to death! Nobody wants a single rider.”

Toby was relieved, too, that his father was out in the open. “That’s all right,” he said, “we’ll make out.”

Harry Walters’ voice was becoming shrill. “You’ll wind up in the gutter! That slut will drag you down! All she’s good for is to spread her legs!”

Toby found that he did not want to hit his father any more. He just did not want to see him or hear his voice, that voice which for so long had frightened him, threatened him, and kept him down, and which now no longer could do so.

Judy let out a gentle “Whoosh!” reached around with her trunk and nudged Toby’s shoulder. She wanted more attention.

Walters was at the screaming stage. “You’ll never get a job! A bloody little brat and his whore! I’ll have you blacklisted! The word of Harry Walters means something. I wouldn’t take you back now if you begged me on bended knees. You think I’d let you bring that gutter bitch home to women like your mother or your sisters?” And he spat into the dust at Toby’s feet. “Go on, roll in your filth, I’m through with you!” He jerked away and went off.

Toby returned to examining Judy’s hide. He was pleased to see that the wounds he had inflicted were healing nicely. He had shut out his father’s voice, but not some of the truths that Harry Walters had been speaking, verities that he might have denied as a boy but could not as a man. It would be rough going for Rose and himself. His father was right: as an Auguste and a rider he would have no standing or opportunities as a single. He knew to the last member all the riding families in the circus world. The difficulties of breaking into or attaching himself to one of them, good as he was, would be almost insuperable. He might be able to teach Rose to ride, but it would take years, if it were not almost too late, for the real circus ballerina starts as a small child, and besides, for this he would need horses. He had not so much as a penny in his pocket. There would be hard, lean, and hungry days ahead, and yet he knew now that hunger could be survived, and somehow they would make out, he and Rose, as long as in the night he could reach to touch her form and know that she was there. And as he thought of this, his courage swelled within him, for he knew that from this “thereness” stemmed all of his new-found strength, spirit, and clarity.