All Fall Down

by Ellie Marney

  Eugenia sits on the other armchair and watches me pick at my food. ‘They’re holding up. Mitch handles the mech crew, of course, and he’s extended his reach to include ring and backstage crew–he always did most of that anyway, although Bennett is their point person for performances. The other workers are just trying their best to keep going as normal.’

  ‘Fake it ‘til you make it, huh?’ It’s what I feel like I’m doing.

  ‘Sure. I’ve been thinking of scheduling a special meeting for mess and ring and mech crew, just to make them feel that we have their interests in mind. Maybe give them a little speech.’

  ‘We do, and you should.’

  ‘Who said anything about me?’ Eugenia raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s you they want to see.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ I make a face. ‘They don’t want to see me. They want to see Dad, or you, or some mature adult who gives them a sense of confidence–’

  ‘Fleur, you can give them that confidence. Just stand up, say a few words, and–’

  ‘You want me to stand up in front of a meeting of show workers and speak?’ My voice gets squeaky. ‘Eugenia, I’m crap at public speaking.’

  ‘We both know that’s a lie.’ Eugenia twists her goatee with a smile.

  ‘Okay, I can speak,’ I admit. ‘I mean, I don’t generally embarrass myself, or catch on fire or anything. But…really? Why do they want to see me?’

  She leans towards me. ‘You’re a visible symbol of the circus’s leadership. You’re part of central management–they want to feel comforted that central management takes them seriously enough to be there.’ She puts her hand on my arm. ‘And you’re your father’s daughter, Fleur. You’re the next best thing to Terry we’ve got.’

  ‘So you’re gonna parade me around a little, let people know everything’s still A-okay?’ I put my dukey box aside. Part of me is a bit sickened by her idea. Another part of me knows it’s great showmanship.

  ‘Yes.’ Eugenia has always been blunt. ‘And I’d think you would want people to know that.’

  I let out a breath. Do I want this circus to keep going or not? ‘Okay. Okay, sure. Just let me know when you want me to–’

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ she says. ‘I’ve set up the meeting for eleven.’

  ‘Eugenia!’

  She shrugs, unapologetic. ‘And I’ve also talked to Jones.’

  ‘Talked to her about...?’ Andi Jones is our advance marketing and PR person. Just the mention of her name makes me break out in a light sweat.

  ‘She’s set up a radio interview for you at five this afternoon, plus a phone interview with a city events blogger at nine tomorrow, then a face-to-face interview with a newspaper journalist at five, as the parade kicks off.’

  ‘What?’ My stomach churns, and my skin feels hot and cold at the same time.

  ‘You’ll be in costume for the face-to-face. We should get some pictures, maybe get a few shots of Gabriella and the horses…’ Eugenia contemplates the air. ‘We want something bright and glamorous, but we want it to be respectful. The show is soldiering on. We don’t want the outside community to feel sorry for us, but we want them to know what’s happened, and we want to demonstrate we’ve got guts.’

  ‘Eugenia, I can’t do an interview this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’ She gazes into the air again. ‘Plucky troupe leader’s daughter takes the baton after her father’s accident–’

  I don’t want to be having this conversation here, in my father’s hospital room, where I can see him sleeping. ‘Eugenia, I can’t.’

  She snags me with her eyes. ‘Yes, you can. And you will, if this is what you really want. You want to see the show rise from the ashes? Then this is how it’s done.’

  Is it? I look from Eugenia’s face to my father’s prone form, and I search inside myself and realise…she’s right. This is totally something Dad would do. He would do it in a hot second, if he knew it would guarantee the sustainability of the show.

  My nerves, my anxieties…they don’t matter. Nothing matters except keeping this show going, this show that Dad has poured his heart and soul into. If I let it all collapse around me in his absence, he’ll never forgive me if he wakes up.

  When he wakes up. When.

  I wipe my palms on my jeans. ‘It…has to be tasteful.’

  ‘Goodness, yes,’ Eugenia exclaims.

  I feel my mouth go tight. My voice sounds severe. ‘I don’t want any fake headlines about dying fathers, or any details about the accident beyond the bare facts.’

  ‘We’ll make sure the journalists are aware. Tell them you don’t want to talk about it.’

  Well, she’s right about that. ‘And no mention of the show struggling. Nothing turns off audiences more than desperation.’

  ‘Fine–it’ll be the circus community rallying around, the show must go on, etcetera etcetera…’

  ‘Sounds about right.’ I sink forward and put my head in my hands. I have a headache. And god, I need a shower. It’s lucky the interview Jones scheduled for this afternoon is only for radio. I’m unfit for human company.

  ‘You need to get out of this room,’ Eugenia says gently. She puts a hand on my back. ‘Fleur, take a break. Have a shower, then go for a walk–go outside the hospital, even. A bit of fresh air would be good for you.’

  ‘I was already going to have a shower,’ I protest. The hospital is located beside a major city thoroughfare, but I’m not going to call her on the ‘fresh air’ thing.

  ‘All right. Then go for a walk.’

  I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. Eugenia can see my reluctance.

  She rubs my back. ‘Sweetheart, he’s not waking up today. You heard the doctor. And even if he did, he would be sad to see you looking so wrecked.’

  ‘I don’t want to just walk out and leave him here,’ I whisper.

  ‘You’re not abandoning him.’

  My eyes tear up. ‘It feels wrong.’

  ‘I’ll be here while you’re gone,’ she reassures. ‘First of all–shower.’

  The shower makes me feel so much better, I almost don’t mind how dictatorial Eugenia’s being. She bosses me away from Dad’s room, but I end up just walking around in the tiny park next door to the hospital, amongst the kiddie swings.

  I should be doing something, goddammit–I should be limbering up, or at least doing some stretches. I’m performing tomorrow night and I’m stiff as a board. But I can’t make myself do anything except sit on one of the swings and rock slowly back and forth.

  All my personal resources are going into two things right now: Daddy, and the show.

  I just don’t seem to have energy left for anything else.

  I get through the phone interview, and another night in the hospital. The blogger interview is comparatively easy. For the workers meeting, I smile and wave, give a short rousing speech that’s mostly made up on the spot and receive a round of applause. Then I go back to the van and throw up.

  I’ve just had a shower, after working out some of the tension in my muscles with Rueben in the practice shed. Now I’m sitting in front of my dressing table in the van. ‘Tell me again who’s with him?’

  ‘Judy will be there until five, then Zep will take over.’

  ‘And they know to call me if he wakes up, or if there’s any–’

  ‘They know, sweet. They’ll call.’ Eugenia looks through paperwork on the van’s couch. ‘Just relax, Fleur. You can’t perform properly if you don’t relax.’

  ‘I’m relaxed. I’m fine.’ I shake out my hands. ‘Allan said ticket sales have been slow.’

  ‘That’ll do for now. If we can have a stress-free performance, we should see better receipts next week.’

  The idea of a stress-free performance almost makes me laugh out loud. I run through all the status reports to make myself feel better. ‘Lee an
d Ren and the others are good to go. I’ve checked in with Luke and the trapeze team, Bill and the freak acts, Bonnie and Carey and the clowns, and the rest of the acrobats. Winston’s coordinating the musicians like normal. Colm said he and the other strength artists are all ready, and Gabriella is meeting me with the horses at the parade. So that’s the bulk of the performers.’

  ‘What about crew?’

  I tick items off on my fingers. ‘Bennett is acting point person for ring crew and backstage, he knows to call me if there’s a problem. Mitch is dealing with all the rigging and rousting. He’s still pissed about the cost of getting replacement poles, though.’

  ‘He likes to grump about things, you know how he is. And it was tight. The last seats went up as we were starting the sweep.’

  ‘It’s always tight. The main thing is we got them up, and we’re performing.’

  I’m having trouble remembering how to put on makeup. So far, I’ve applied too much foundation then wiped half of it off again, dropped my eyeliner pencil, smeared my lipstick and forgotten to use powder before my mascara. The face-to-face interview is in ten minutes, and I still have to put up my hair.

  I should practice not-frowning. I try it in the mirror: neutral face, smile pleasant, eyebrows un-furrowed. That was the hardest part about the worker’s meeting: keeping myself light, sounding upbeat, took all my concentration. But I’m the face of the circus while Dad’s not here. It’s critical that I look like I’m doing okay.

  ‘These accounts seem to be in order, but you might want to check my figures,’ Eugenia says.

  ‘Just box them up and I’ll go through them at the hospital after the show.’

  ‘You’re spending another night?’

  ‘Of course.’ I fix my mascara with a tissue, glance at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Organising everything by phone from the hospital worked fine for tonight.’ Eugenia regards me, frowning. ‘But sweetie, we’re not just dealing with tonight. We’ve still got tomorrow matinee, and Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, and…’

  I dig my lipstick out of my bag of slap. ‘Yes, there’s more shows. What’s your point?’

  ‘You can’t make the hospital your base of operations, Fleur. You need to be here on the lot.’ She purses her lips. ‘And you can’t keep going if you’re not getting enough sleep.’

  ‘I need to be with Daddy.’ My hand shakes a little as I try to re-apply my lipstick; I wipe off the mess and do it again. ‘I’ll manage for a couple of days, and then he’ll be awake, and I’ll just go back and forth.’

  Eugenia has the paperwork back in its box. She sets the box beside my backpack, which I’ve already stuffed with a sleeping bag and a change of clothes for tonight’s hospital stay. ‘Fleur, how would you feel about getting some outside help?’

  ‘Outside help? How does that work?’

  ‘Like an admin assistant. Someone who knows how a show is run.’

  ‘We don’t need an assistant.’ I finish dragging a brush through my hair, throw the brush on the dressing table and hunt for a hair tie. ‘We’re fine. I’m doing an okay job, right?’

  ‘You’re doing okay,’ Eugenia concedes. ‘Better than okay.’

  ‘And Daddy and you and Mitch manage, just the three of you.’

  ‘We manage with just three of us because Terry has been in the business for more than thirty years. He knows the circus inside out, and he calls in a lot of favours.’ Eugenia bites her lip as she gazes out the van window. ‘I’ve contacted…’ Then she trails off.

  I yank the tie around my ponytail, which is as glamorous as I can be bothered with today. ‘If you’re talking about Steve Garber, from Cavendish’s troupe, don’t bother. I’m not bringing our main competitor’s PA onto the lot. Daddy would kill me.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Actually, don’t worry about it. It probably won’t happen.’

  I would wonder about this mystery, but I honestly don’t have time. ‘There. Do I look camera-ready?’

  ‘You look great, darling.’ She walks over and hands me my black flyer’s robe, gives my arm a squeeze.

  It would be easier if I only had to present my face to outsiders, like this reporter. But that’s not how it works. There’ve been plenty of times I’ve seen Dad throw off a crappy mood as he exits the van so he can wear a smile in front of the cast and crew. I’ve got it covered, his face would say. It didn’t matter that he was tired, or unwell, or hungover, or even just having a bad day. Outside the van, the world needed to see him happy.

  I force a smile at myself in the mirror. Be happy.

  Everything goes like clockwork.

  The reporter, Renee, is kind of pushy and annoying, but the parade is a flurry of distraction. Gabriella’s a great buffer, the horses are gorgeous, and the swirling glamour of it all–ribbons and gold and diamantes, performers walking around and musicians tuning up in the background–is enough to draw attention away from my lack of zing.

  Since I walked out of the van, I’m putting on as much zing as humanly possible. So sure, there’s zing. There’s just no ‘ZING!’ They’re two different zings.

  The interview ends as I enter the tunnel, and Eugenia stays behind with the reporter to check the shots as I prepare to run on for the teaser routine, the showcase snapshot from each act that marks the start of every performance. I’ve done about a million of them, but tonight it feels strange to be back in the ring.

  Dee meets me at the base of the ladder while spotlights dazzle around us. Audience applause rebounds through the tent from the gallery. A pre-recorded soundtrack of my father’s ringmaster introduction booms around the Spiegeltent–it startles me, makes my chest ache.

  Dee smiles and talks out of the side of her mouth. ‘How’re you holding up?’

  ‘Fine.’ I wave to the crowd, cling onto the metal rungs as the automatic ladder climbs us both to the roof of the tent.

  ‘Your dad’s going to be okay?’

  ‘We’ll see when he wakes up.’

  ‘He’s not awake yet?’ She eyes me as we step together onto the trapeze platform. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘My job.’ I grit my teeth in another smile, unhook the fly bar. ‘Okay, let’s go. Sooner I’m down, sooner I can check my phone messages.’

  Normally, I find trapeze work fun, but tonight, not so much. The spotlight’s flare, my sweaty grip on the bar… It’s all a little too much like my nightmare of falling for me to find comfort in the routine. Muscle memory gets me to about ninety percent performance capacity. It doesn’t matter for the pre-show teaser, but I’ll need to lift in the trapeze finale or people will notice.

  The moment we come off, I make a beeline for my backpack, which holds my phone.

  Bennett, our stage manager, jogs closer. ‘We’re having trouble with the rollers on the base of the props for the new acrobatic routine.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go talk to Lee–we’d better move it, they’re going on in twenty minutes.’ I pull my longing gaze away from my backpack, yank on my flyer’s robe and walk over with Bennett.

  The props issue takes about five minutes to negotiate, once Bennett finds a spare part. Crisis averted, I head for my phone again.

  Jones materialises on my left, clipboard in hand. ‘Fleur, I need you to sign off on these photos for the interview article.’

  ‘Uh, sure. Didn’t Eugenia check them through?’

  ‘Yes, but the reporter needs permission from the individual. Sign here…’ I sign and Jones flips to another page. ‘…and here.’

  I make my mark. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yeah. The reporter’s still waiting outside, I told her that was the end of the interview, but–’

  ‘That was the end of the interview. Our policy is no comp tickets.’

  Jones grimaces. ‘Tonight, given the circumstances, it might not be a bad thing to relax that policy.’
>
  I sigh. ‘Oh, fine, give her a pass and let her in.’

  I start towards my backpack again, but then Luke is there, wanting reassurance that I’m okay. Reassurance is provided, then Mitch Gibson hulks over, to talk about the bleacher repairs. We’re five minutes into the conversation, and I’m starting to wish I could levitate my phone into my hand, when I notice something going on in the wing.

  It’s the reporter who interviewed me: her red blouse makes her easy to spot backstage, where all the crew are wearing black. She’s pushing her phone, which she used to record my interview, in Colm Mackay’s direction. He’s standing by the curtain in his costume, hands raised in the universal sign for ‘Get the hell away from me’.

  Goddammit.

  ‘Mitch, would you excuse me?’ I do a rapid two-step over to my backpack, snatch my own phone out of the front pocket and head towards my nosy journalist friend. I arrive wearing a tight smile. ‘Hi, Colm, what’s happening?’

  ‘Fleur.’ His expression relaxes when he sees me. It’s funny that I’m rescuing him–he’s six-and-a-half feet of rough muscle.

  ‘Oh, hi again!’ Renee the journalist is really giving it her all. ‘Yeah, your PR lady, Andi, gave me a ticket and let me through–’

  ‘Renee, it’s nice to see you again, but this is the backstage area.’ I make my expression super-pleasant. ‘I’m afraid only performers and crew are allowed to–’

  My phone buzzes in my hand and I jerk.

  Colm looks at me. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’ I look down at the message. You missed a call from: Zep Deal.

  Renee notices everything. ‘Is that the hospital, Fleur?’

  ‘I… Sorry?’ There are two other messages. My hands have gone suddenly sweaty.

  Renee has a gleaming, carnivorous smile. ‘Have you had any news about your dad?’

  Colm stares at her. ‘I think you should leave.’

  ‘Hey, I’ve got a ticket,’ Renee insists.

  ‘I have to… I have to go.’ I cast around for support. Where’s backstage security? Renee shouldn’t be here, and the last thing I need is an argument in the wings between a reporter and a performer while I’m busy worrying about Dad. ‘Colm–’