Street Kid (20 page)

It was wonderful having him say that. Carl had told me that the kids usually watched rehearsals, but it was good to know that I’d been given special permission by Mr Wilkie himself.

And I want to learn,
I thought to myself.
I’ll watch how they do it today and practise and practise until I get it right.

I sat with Carl and a couple of the other kids in the big top. In the ring, the ringmaster called the artists in, group by group to rehearse. It was all very orderly as the performers knew only too well that one slip might mean injury.

The first on were the clowns. One of them was a dwarf. His companion was as tall and thin as a beanpole. They looked very funny together.

Carl whispered in my ear. ‘The little one’s Dickie,’ he said. ‘I expect you’ve heard of him. He’s really famous.’

‘What’s the other one called?’ I asked.

‘Pickie,’ he answered. ‘There are two other clowns as well, Charlie – who does the Charlie Chaplin act – and Alan, the miserable Pierrot.’

I’d seen the clown with tears painted on his face. ‘He’s not really miserable, is he?’

‘Not for real. He’s a laugh.’

We stopped whispering to watch Dickie and Pickie. The little clown was sitting in the red Noddy car I’d seen backstage on my first day and was driving it around the ring. He looked so funny, waving and smiling at the empty rows of seats and I wondered what was going to happen next. Pickie stepped out in his big shoes at that moment and must have pulled a lever or something because the next thing, Dickie’s seat had flipped him right up in the air. The little clown was extraordinarily agile and managed to hit the ground, roll into a somersault, and get back on his feet in an instant. I laughed and laughed.

The two clowns practised their next knock-about act over and over again. Dickie, I could see, was an exacting sort of task-master and wouldn’t give up until their timing was absolutely perfect. I saw what strenuous work it was, although in the show it must have looked effortless. Dickie’s acrobatic talent really was extraordinary. He tripped and somersaulted and could flip, as if on springs, several feet in the air. Pickie was wearing an enormous pair of shoes that extended way past his toes. They were so long that Dickie kept tripping over them. I was in stitches.
No wonder you’re such a famous clown,
I thought.

All through the morning the acts came on one by one. Sometimes, one of the kids would be called over to join in and practise a stunt with their dad.

‘They’re allowed a little slot of their own in the actual show,’ Carl told me. ‘It’s good practice for them and the audience loves to see the little ones try something out.’

I was impressed by how the families treated the kids. Each was learning something and every time they did it right, they’d be heaped with praise. I watched one girl doing ballet on a horse’s back and a boy juggling.
Even the tiniest child would have a go at learning how to somersault.

As I watched Susie Wilkie, who couldn’t have been more than three or four, doing a handstand on one of the acrobat’s hands, I felt almost wistful for a moment.
They’re given so much encouragement. Look at them being clapped and patted on the back. No one ever says, ‘You didn’t do that right, you stupid kid.’

At noon, everyone stopped for lunch. The other kids all went back to the train with their families, but Carl took me along to where the hands were being given hotdogs and chips. The lady who was frying our sausages was the same stallholder who sold food to the audience in the interval. The previous day, she’d also given us breakfast, but as this was rehearsal day we’d gone without that morning. Now Carl and I were so hungry we didn’t say a word to each other as we wolfed the food down.

Afterwards, we sat on the grass in the sun. I was full of questions, and Carl didn’t seem to mind my firing them at him almost continuously.

The first thing I wanted to know was when we were moving on. The question had been nudging at the back of my mind. I knew I wouldn’t feel safe until we’d left Johannesburg.

‘We’ve got another couple of weeks here,’ Carl said. ‘And then we’re going to the grounds near Zoo Lake.’

My heart sank.
Only as far as Zoo Lake?
It couldn’t have been much worse. Zoo Lake was in the northern suburbs.
And the northern suburbs is where most of the girls in my class live,
I thought to myself, with a distinct feeling of unease.

I filed the thought away in the back of my mind for the moment, but over the next weeks it would frequently surface; and when it did, my stomach always gave a sickening
lurch. I reckoned that my dad probably hadn’t found out yet that I’d gone but at some point soon he’d know I was missing.

Maybe he won’t care,
I told myself hopefully.
Perhaps he’ll just be glad to get shot of me. When we get to Zoo Lake, he probably won’t be bothered to come all that way to fetch me, even if he did find out I was there.

The rest of the afternoon was just as good as the morning. The chimps were on next and came into the ring chattering with excitement. Billy carried in their little table and chairs, and four of the chimps sat down to tea while one of them pretended to fill their cups from a teapot. Many years later, chimps that Marion and Billy had trained were used for the famous PG Tips advertisements.

I turned to Carl. ‘Do you think Marion would ever let me help get them ready for the show?’ I asked.

‘I don’t see why not,’ he replied. ‘You’re really good with the animals. I heard Harry Carry talking to my dad about it.’

I flushed with pride and resolved to ask Marion soon.

A moment later, Carl got up. ‘I’d better be off,’ he said. ‘To do the nastiest job of the day. You’re jolly lucky you don’t have to be on poo duty.’

I knew what Carl was referring to, and I agreed with him – it
was
the nastiest job of all. Even nastier than having a llama spit in your eye. I’d seen Carl do it before and I didn’t envy him one bit.

Before the horses came into the ring, he would have to stick his bare hand up their bottoms and scoop out the poo. Otherwise, he explained to me, ‘they make their messes all over the ring and it’s a bit of a disaster’.

‘What about the other animals?’ I asked him.

‘Well, my dad does the elephants,’ he said, with a grin. ‘And the llamas and camels get away without having it done. They just do little beads, so it’s not so bad.’

I couldn’t help grimacing, thinking of what it must feel like to have your bare hand in all that smelly poo. Still, I supposed you got used to it.

In a break before the next act, I thought about Carl and how friendly he’d been to me. I reckoned he probably didn’t have anyone his own age to hang out with. All the other circus kids were quite a bit younger than him and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters. He didn’t have a mum either – it was just him and his dad.

When I’d asked him about school he’d told me that he was going to boarding school the following year.

‘All the circus kids go when they’re old enough,’ he said. ‘Then leave when they’re fifteen.’

‘Aren’t you scared of going?’ I asked him.

‘It’ll be okay, I expect,’ he said. ‘I’ll get to come back in the holidays and train with my dad.’

I’d seen the younger kids sitting at a table in the field with a woman I’d guessed was their teacher. Mr Wilkie must have had to hire her so the little ones could keep up with their reading and sums.

I reckon I could put up with school if it was like that,
I thought.
Sitting in the field in the sun in my shorts.
A very different kettle of fish from snooty old Barnato Park.

On another occasion I’d asked Carl what he did when the circus packed up for the winter.

‘We go to the farm, our winter quarters,’ he told me. ‘It’s only a few weeks before the tour starts again and there’s masses to do. They’ve got to invent all the new acts.’

I hadn’t wondered before how the artists had time to
come up with their acts. I’d simply imagined they had the odd new idea and tacked it on as they went.

‘I suppose the audience would get bored if they see the same act next year when they come to Wilkies,’ I said.

‘They sure would,’ agreed Carl. ‘And anyway, the artists really need a change by the end of the season. You should see them at the start of the new one; they get really nervous and make quite a lot of mistakes in the first few shows.’

Mistakes, I realized, weren’t viewed here as something dreadful that had to be punished. This came as a revelation to me. Mistakes, in fact, were a necessary part of getting things right, Harry Carry had explained.

‘You just get back on the horse. And even if you do something wrong in front of the audience, you make them wait while you try it again. And again, if needs be. Otherwise, you’ll get spooked, and nerves can be ruinous for a circus performer.’

The rest of the afternoon went by in a whirl. The last of the acts to come on were the trapeze artists. Five Italians – all one family – took it in turns to climb the rope ladder to a little platform forty feet above the ring. I noticed, before trying a stunt, that they each checked their own gear, and each other’s, very carefully.

‘You don’t want to find yourself spinning in the air by a wrist strap that’s not been properly checked,’ said Carl with a shudder.

Before they took hold of the bar, I saw the performers rubbing some sort of powder on their hands and forearms.

‘It’s rosin, to stop the sweat making them slip,’ Carl explained. ‘And they have to wear bandages on their wrists to help the other person hang on as well.’

I’d always imagined that trapeze artists grabbed each
other by the hands, but when I watched them now I saw that they always went for each other’s wrists.

The flying trapeze was a magical act to watch. As I sat there, entranced, I wondered how they’d ever got the timing right. Once one artist had left his swing to perform a triple somersault, how on earth did the other one work out exactly where he had to be to catch hold of the first one’s ankles? It simply boggled my mind.
You’re falling through the air and you can’t even see the other person!

‘They do get it wrong loads of times in rehearsal,’ said Carl. ‘That’s how they get it right in the end.’

And indeed, moments later, one of the performers missed his timing and tumbled through the air into the net below. He looked really irritated as it meant he had to go through the palaver of climbing all the way up again.

One of the family was a girl of about my age who walked across a tightrope in a tutu. I’d seen her practising her ballet positions with the ballet mistress earlier on and had watched her very carefully, knowing I’d want to try the same moves later that evening in my railway carriage.

Now the girl was standing on one leg, wobbling slightly, twenty feet above the ring. I watched her with awe, and not a little envy.

‘She’s in a harness today, as it’s rehearsal,’ said Carl. ‘But in the show she has to do it without.’

Her dad was walking below her, mirroring her steps, and at the ready in case she fell. ‘Is he allowed to follow her like that in the real thing?’ I asked Carl.

‘Yes. They always have to have someone there to catch them,’ he replied. ‘It’s a rule at Wilkies.’ Then he got up and tapped my arm. ‘Come on, lazy, we’d better go and feed the animals.’

The rehearsal had awakened a whole new enthusiasm in me for the circus. From that day on, I spent every spare minute practising my backflips. Something I found particularly difficult was trying to come out of a crab into an elegant handstand, legs neatly together. However much I tried, I couldn’t quite manage it.

One afternoon, a couple of days later, Dickie came up to me while I was trying to balance a broomstick handle on my chin. When I saw him, I let it drop.

‘You did well there,’ he said, smiling kindly. ‘You’ll be one of us yet.’

I couldn’t help beaming. How was it that sometimes people at the circus said just the thing you’d been longing all your life to hear?

‘Would you like to help Pickie and me with our act? We’ve got to sort a few things out.’

We found Pickie in the backstage area, and whilst Dickie was checking a few things with him, I walked over to the unicycle. I wanted to try and get on it but didn’t want to do so without permission.

Pickie saw me looking at it. ‘Do you want to have a go?’ he said, with a twinkle. I replied that I did, very much.

‘Well, watch how I do it first,’ he said. ‘The trick is to pedal as soon as you’ve climbed on it or you’ll fall off. You’ve got to get momentum up right away.’

Pickie sprang on to the unicycle and immediately started cycling. ‘Now, if you want to break, then you’ve got to backpedal. So you go forwards, back a bit, forwards, like this. That way it keeps stable.’

He hopped off and gave the unicycle to Dickie to hold upright. ‘Here, I’ll need to lift you onto it,’ he said. ‘First you need to backpedal just a little, then give the biggest push you can to take you forward.’

Soon I was making a wobbly sort of progress around the dusty ground outside the big top. I fell off once or twice but the two clowns made no fuss of me when I did. Falling off was a fact of life and a necessity if you’re going to learn, Dickie said. ‘You wouldn’t be a member of the circus if you didn’t have a few scabs and bruises,’ he chuckled. ‘Wear ‘em with pride.’

After that, Dickie and Pickie both looked out for me and took a fatherly interest in my learning. They taught me how to tumble and do a headstand flip. I thought I’d learned some of the basic moves pretty well in the school gym, but the two clowns added a whole new dimension. Loads of new tricks.

‘The thing is, Judy,’ Dickie said. ‘You’ve got to learn how to breathe and get your energy up. Like this.’ He showed me what to do, then I tried again. My flip immediately improved.

‘You’re a fast little learner,’ the clown said. ‘And I like the way you’re not one to give up easily. Come back when you’re older and you can be in my act.’

When Dickie said that to me I felt my cup was full. He probably didn’t mean it, but it was still a lovely thing to say.