Down the Road to Gundagai

by Jackie French

But Madame Zlosky couldn’t see. Whatever fraud was committed tonight, Blue was sure of that at least.

  And life and death for her? Her white face, the smudges under her eyes, would tell the dwarf or the ticket-seller that she was ill. She had evaded death on the ship and in the fire. When it arrived for her a third time she doubted she would turn it away.

  Or could she? She smiled into the darkness. Somehow just being told she had a choice made her feel better. I am not going to die! she thought. Or like Mah said, not till I am very old. She would go with Uncle Herbert next Tuesday. Or if Aunt Lilac had scared him, so he didn’t come as promised, she’d write to him, telling him she needed a doctor. Or maybe she could find a way to get to Melbourne, to see him there …

  Oh yes, she thought. I’ve had sixpence’s worth. Or I will if they really do put my bracelet under my seat tonight so I can find it.

  Figures were heading for the Big Top, each person as black as the night around them till he or she came near the light, then suddenly turning human — men, women, children holding their parents’ hands.

  Blue handed her ticket to the dwarf — the Freak Show tent must have closed — then moved to the nearest seat at the back. She peered at the grass under her seat — no bracelet — then sat and looked around. A sort of tiered grandstand had been erected at the other side of the tent, but the seats here were just planks on stumps of wood. She moved aside to let a fat woman and her three children in to the seat next to hers, then inspected the circus ring.

  It looked much like the circus rings she’d seen in illustrated magazines, though smaller. She hadn’t realised how much of the tent would be for seating. Wooden barricades stood between the audience and the ring itself. She had expected sawdust too — weren’t circuses described as all glitter and sawdust? But there was just the grass of the paddock, even a broken thistle.

  A passageway stretched between the seats on either side of the tent, the one on this side for the audience to enter, the other leading out into the shadowed area between the caravans and the truck. Shapes moved, impossible to distinguish.

  All at once the lights outside blinked off. She heard small screams, a few giggles and the sound of feet as those lingering outside hurried into the light. The crowd shifted and the newcomers sat. Children climbed onto laps or off them. A few boys clasped the barricade, peering over.

  The Big Top lights went out too. The darkness clung to the crowd, heavy and impenetrable. More screams now, with a note of fear.

  The lights blazed again.

  Magic, thought Blue, as the gasps changed to cheers. It’s magic.

  Or perfect timing and amazing lighting. For the circus ring was now no longer dry, dusty grass. Instead it was black, lit by a hundred tiny stars. In the middle, in a single spotlight, stood the man who had carried the placard that morning. He now wore a red coat, a tall black hat, a red waistcoat sprinkled with sequins and held a whip with a red handle, three times as long as himself. He cracked his whip once, twice, three times.

  The audience sat silent. Music blared from beyond the performers’ entrance. Pumptiddly, pump pump, pump pump pump …

  To Blue’s ears it sounded like a phonograph and not a very good one either, the record old and worn, and the needle needing replacing. But most of the audience would never have heard a phonograph, never seen the black record going round and round while the needle etched out music. Few would even have heard a wireless, magically bringing music from far away. This would be the first time they had heard more than a tinny piano or a fiddle or the harmonium at church.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ The ringmaster’s words were a roar. ‘Tonight, for one night only, the most amazing, the most incredible, Magnifico Family Circus! You will see sights never before witnessed! The Amazing Alonzo, magician extraordinaire! The Dance of the Seven Veils by the Sultan’s Harem, brought to you, and you alone, all the way from Persia! The Boldini Brothers on the high trapeze, the most daring and amazing act ever seen in Australia! But now! The one and only — the Queen of Sheba!’

  Drums rolled on the scratchy phonograph. The elephant plodded into the ring.

  She still looked tired. She looked old too. Her ears were cracked and dusty. She looked at her feet, not at the crowd, as she trod obediently around the ring.

  The audience gasped, but not at the elephant.

  A girl stood on the elephant’s back, one silk-clad leg raised high in the air. It was the girl Blue had seen at the caravan, who had ordered her away. But she wasn’t just a girl now. She was magic. Her short ballerina skirt glittered with sequins. Her face shone with intensity and beauty. She began to twirl, vivid and exquisite above the bulk of the elephant. Then suddenly she was tumbling over and over in endless cartwheels on the elephant’s back as it lumbered around the ring.

  The audience gasped again. And then they cheered, as much, thought Blue, at seeing a girl’s legs in flesh-coloured silk tights as at her cartwheels.

  The girl stopped, caught her breath for only a second, the spotlight sparkling on her face and dress, then flung herself down on her hands again. She lifted one hand and waved at the audience, balanced now on a single hand as the gold ballet slippers pointed at the tent roof. She began to switch hands, now balanced on her right, her left, and then her right again, each time her legs staying tall and straight in the air, the pointed feet making her legs look even longer.

  ‘The Glorious Gloria!’ yelled the ringmaster. He cracked his whip. Glorious Gloria — and the elephant — ignored the lash, though those closest in the audience gasped again.

  ‘And now, straight from the court of the King of Spain: the Tiny Titania!’

  A fairy with gold wings dived headfirst from the tent roof.

  Blue bit back a scream as the flying fairy miraculously stopped, inches above the hard ground, then twisted upright. Tiny Titania was nine years old perhaps, with golden curls and a pink ruffled skirt.

  Now Blue had recovered from the shock of the child’s dive she saw that the little girl held a rope. She twirled her body around it, then pulled herself up until she was halfway to the roof again. Blue searched the ceiling. Yes, there was a dark space up there, between the lights, where a child might have hidden, and her rope too.

  Tiny Titania looked down as the Queen of Sheba approached, Glorious Gloria standing astride her back. More lights dimmed. Only one spotlight lit the girls and the elephant, a small gold world in the darkness.

  The fairy let go of the rope. She seemed to fly, straight down onto Sheba’s back. Glorious Gloria reached out to steady her. For a moment both stood there, the tall girl and the small, then Titania leaped again, onto Gloria’s shoulders. She began to turn perfect somersaults, over and over, steadied by Gloria’s hands, her wings glittering in the light of the tiny stars.

  It was as though the audience shared a single stare. Even the starlights seemed to glow brighter.

  This is real, thought Blue. The grizzly bear, Madame Zlosky and the rest: they are a show for those who want to believe, like the woman coming out of Madame Zlosky’s tent wants to believe in loving grandchildren. But there is no trickery in this.

  Round and round the elephant paced, the spotlight following her. Gloria pirouetted, her arms held out like a ballerina, while the fairy balanced on her shoulders.

  Then suddenly it was over. The music creaked to a halt. The two girls jumped down, neat and graceful, onto the crushed dry grass. They curtseyed, then ran off through the passageway between the seats into the darkness. More lights flared in the ring. The Queen of Sheba lumbered a few steps into the middle.

  Suddenly Blue heard a rustle behind her. She held herself still till the rustle vanished, then bent down and looked under her seat. Her bracelet lay on the grass. She picked it up and held it to her cheek for a moment, then slipped it back over her hand, pushing it far up her arm so it wouldn’t fall off again.

  ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen!’ The ringmaster had seemed invisible while the girls danced. Now he cracked his whip again. ‘T
he Magnifico Family Circus brings you … the Queen of Sheba, the Acrobatic Elephant, in the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”.’

  Blue jerked forwards to protest, then stopped herself. The ringmaster couldn’t make Sheba dance! The elephant was too old! Too tired!

  The music creaked into the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’. Blue tried not to think of the last time she had heard that music, at the ballet with Mum and Dad for her fourteenth birthday. And now for her sixteenth she was going to watch an ancient elephant try the steps …

  The Queen of Sheba lifted one giant leg —

  ‘Aaaaaaaaayyyy …’ A man raced out of the darkness. His face was painted white, his nose red. His trousers were red and white too, with black pom-poms, and there was a long red-and-white-striped nightcap on his head. His shoes were big and flapped. He glanced back just as he reached the elephant, then thump! he stumbled over her lifted leg, somersaulted twice, then sat with legs apart, gazing around as though he had never seen a crowd before.

  The audience shrieked with laughter. The Queen of Sheba put down her leg. The ringmaster cracked his whip. ‘Boffo! What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘The wife! She’s after me!’

  Giggles from the audience.

  ‘Why is she after you?’

  ‘Me mother-in-law died last night.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Boffo. But she’s gone to a better place.’

  ‘That’s what I told me wife. I said, “Thank goodness she’s not at our place!”’

  The audience roared. The ringmaster cracked his whip again. ‘Heartless villain! All these fine people are here to see the Queen of Sheba dance. Off with you!’

  ‘But me wife! She’s got the rolling pin out!’

  More giggles from the audience.

  ‘Be gone!’ Another whip crack.

  ‘Arrrrrgggh!’ The clown scrambled to his feet. He ran behind the elephant. ‘Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!’

  ‘I’ll catch you, you oaf!’

  The elephant moved just enough to cut off the ringmaster’s charge. Boffo peered out at him from under Sheba’s trunk.

  In and out and round about. Blue found herself laughing with the rest. It wasn’t really all that funny. And yet it was, because she wanted to laugh. Everyone here needed an excuse to laugh, the farmers stung by drought and low prices, the blokes working for a pittance or their food, the women trying to make ends meet with rabbits trapped by their sons and potatoes from the garden. They’d spent more money than many of them would see in a month to come here tonight, for the glory of spangles and giggles at a clown.

  And it was worth it, thought Blue. Worth even Aunt Lilac’s gentle anger when she got back. Worth anything to sit here with laughter all around her.

  At last the clown jumped on the elephant’s conveniently bent and raised foreleg and from there onto her back, still making rude gestures at the ringmaster. The Queen of Sheba plodded from the tent.

  The ringmaster wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead. ‘Sorry, ladies and gentlemen. It looks like the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” won’t be happening tonight. But we still have the most amazing, the most stupendous sights ever seen in an Australian circus here for you after the intermission — Alonzo the magician and then, the one and only, the Boldini Brothers on the high trapeze!

  ‘But first, for all the gentlemen in the audience … yes, you sir, and you, and you …’ The ringmaster pointed out blushing men in the audience, then singled out a stout woman in a green straw hat. ‘I reckon you’d better chain up your husband, madam, because he’ll be trying to get into the ring for this one. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: the Sultan’s Harem, and the Dance of the Seven Veils!’

  All but one light blinked out again. Music wisped into the tent, slow and sensuous. ‘Crikey,’ whispered the man in front of Blue. His wife nudged him to be quiet.

  The last light blinked off. The tent was in darkness.

  Blue could hear the audience’s breath around her, a child squirming in the next row, a mother muttering to him to hush.

  A light shone at the far side of the ring, then another and another. These weren’t the high bright lights, or the glittering spotlight that was used for Gloria and Titania. These stars shone soft and gold. The ring was a land of shadows.

  Slowly, rhythmically, four women stepped into the ring, each face hidden by a gold veil hanging to their waist; their wide gold satin trousers were tight at the ankles. Their sequinned gold slippers twinkled.

  The women began to dance. But it wasn’t really a dance, at least not any dance Blue had ever been taught. They swayed to the music, their arms circling their bodies as their hips made slow circles too.

  The women were covered from head to toe, but Blue knew Aunt Lilac would most definitely say they were Not Decent. The audience agreed with her. The men stared, their hands clasping their knees. The women glanced at their men, and then the figures in the ring.

  The music beat faster. The dance quickened too. Suddenly, in unison, the women ripped the veils from their heads. Small cries erupted around the tent.

  They still wore more than any of the women in the audience. Scarves even covered their necks, and the curve of their waists. But the scarves suggest what lies under the clothes, thought Blue, even if they aren’t showing it.

  The music changed again and again and again, growing faster every time. At every music change another veil or scarf was cast onto the ground.

  At last the women wore only their wide satin pantaloons, and tight blouses revealing the shape of what those less refined than Aunt Lilac would call their bosoms. Their dance was still the same, the swaying hips, the waving arms, just faster and faster and faster, their feet still, only their hips, waists and arms moving to the beat.

  It was impossible to look away. Golden hips in shining satin, golden hair, arms that looked like they had been dusted with gold too …

  Blue stared more critically now. She had seen pictures of Persian ladies in The Illustrated News. Persians had dark hair. Wasn’t the shortest dancer Glorious Gloria? Though Glorious Gloria had black hair.

  Blue peered at the ring. The third woman looked faintly familiar. The bearded lady, without her beard? And there was something about the fourth’s wide blue sightless eyes.

  Madame Zlosky!

  But that was impossible. Madame Zlosky was blind and old …

  A blind woman could dance to the beat of the music, thought Blue. A blonde wig over the grey hair, lipstick and eye paint and rouge, the dim lights that shone only on the dancers’ feet and legs and hips, leaving the faces shadowed. But this woman’s body was straight, her waist and arms firm. Could an old woman be as fit as that? And … what was that word? Alluring?

  ‘Crikey,’ repeated the man in front of her.

  The music rose to a crescendo. The dancers touched their waists. The silk pantaloons fell in shimmering heaps on the ground. More gasps from the audience, at a second’s glimpse of shadowed legs and shimmering gold underpants, and then the dark.

  Blue counted to five. The lights flashed back on — the harsh bright lights at the top of the Not-Very-Big Top.

  ‘Peanuts or lollies!’ The moustached man who’d played the trombone lumbered around the ring, a laden tray suspended from his neck. ‘Fresh roasted peanuts!’

  It was intermission.

  Chapter 4

  The smell of freshly roasted peanuts mingled with elephant dung, dust, sweat and canvas.

  Most of the audience stood to stretch their legs. A small crowd clustered around the peanut and lolly man. Blue tried to force back her nausea at the smell of hot roasted peanuts, and considered what she’d seen.

  It was … interesting. She had forgotten what fun tasted like. But mostly she enjoyed working out how it had all been done.

  Half of sales is showmanship, Dad used to say. The factories her grandfather had founded made good shoes, from high heels for ladies to workboots for shearers. But Dad said most customers couldn’t tell
the difference between a flashy boot with a glued-on cardboard sole and one stitched properly out of well-dressed leather. You had to show them they were getting quality — arrange the ladies’ shoes on draped velvet in the window, with ostrich feathers and perhaps a string of what looked like pearls, and ask your saleswomen to dress in black silk blouses. The advertising banner for Laurence’s workboots showed a prosperous farmer, with a hundred sheep in the background and a glamorous woman with short fashionable hair and jodhpurs looking over his shoulder. ‘Look at what you’ll get when you buy our boots,’ the poster whispered.

  Dad’s boots were solid leather. The circus was lights and promises. How many illusions had she seen tonight? She’d worked out some of them, but which had she missed?

  ‘Peanuts or lollies, lady? Show starts again in a minute.’

  Blue looked up into the man’s face decorated with its shaggy grey moustache. ‘Good peanuts, lady. Nice and hot.’

  Her stomach lurched.

  ‘No, thank you,’ she whispered, hoping she wasn’t going to retch again. Take them away, she thought. Please take them away.

  ‘You sure? They’re still hot.’

  Maybe if she bought some he’d take the rest of the tray away. She could give them to a child or put them under the seat. She reached for one of the coins hidden in the folds of her dress.

  ‘Here …’ she began.

  ‘Bluebell!’ Aunt Lilac stood in the open tent flap, in her black dress, sensible black shoes and her evening black hat, Aunt Daisy like a fluffed-up grey hen behind her.

  She should have sat on the other side, where she might have hidden in the crowd. But Blue suspected even then they’d have found her. She struggled to stand up without bumping the seat in front of her. ‘Aunt Lilac, I’m sorry. I just wanted to see the circus.’

  The man with the peanuts moved away. Aunt Lilac’s gentle smile tightened. ‘We were worried. Your Aunt Daisy was about to call the police when that Chinese girl said you had left a note.’

  ‘Her name is Mah,’ said Blue. ‘I … I’m sorry I worried you. But Mum and Dad would have let me come to the circus.’