by Will Davis
‘You terrified me!’ he gasps. ‘I thought you were still sleeping!’
‘Sorry,’ he says.
Vlad starts to laugh. He joins in and sits up. He is tangled in various sleeves and trouser legs, and reaches down to unwind them. Vlad stands up and turns to the coffee pot, pouring the contents into two mugs. He turns back and hands one of them to him.
‘A chilly day,’ Vlad comments.
‘It is?’
He takes the mug and sips even though he doesn’t drink coffee. It is bitter and black and he thinks it is the best thing he has ever tasted. He looks at the aerialist, who has turned back to the stove again, recalling the feel of his tawny skin, of the defined muscle beneath it and of his hot wet mouth. He reaches across the space and touches Vlad’s behind. Vlad does not respond so he hooks his finger into his waistband and tugs gently. Vlad looks back, irritated, but then his face softens and he grins. There is another crash from outside.
‘What’s going on out there?’ he asks. ‘It sounds like an earthquake.’
‘Moving,’ says Vlad. ‘Got to get on.’
‘Moving?’ he says dumbly, unable to work out what Vlad means.
‘Off to next site. No audience in your little town. And that means no –’
Vlad rubs his fingers together to indicate money, then takes a mouthful of coffee, throws his head back and gargles. He has never seen anyone gargle coffee before – it seems irreverent somehow. He would like to tell Vlad this and then maybe try it himself, but he is too stunned by the fact that the circus is packing up.
‘But you’ve only been here a day!’
Vlad finishes gargling and gulps. He lets out a small silent belch and shrugs as if he is weary of arguing a point.
‘I tell this to Big Pete. I say to him we only just set up and we have contract that says we stay minimum of three days every place. It’s the schedule. A lot of effort and lot of fucking time. But does he listen? Oh no. You just want to mess around with that local village tart, he says – we all saw you!’
Panic fills him, a sense of impending dread. Too fast is everything returning to the way it was. Too fast is he losing his grip on the dream of last night. Vlad steps over to him. At first he thinks his disappointment must have shown on his face, and that Vlad is going to kiss him, but instead Vlad reaches past, pulling out a small black duffle bag that was embedded between his body and the wall. He slips it over his shoulder and goes to the door.
‘Does it have to be over?’ he hears himself say.
Vlad pauses and turns back with one eyebrow pointed towards the ceiling.
‘I mean, we like each other, don’t we?’ he quavers, hating how desperate he sounds.
Vlad’s expression changes to one of tenderness.
‘Of course,’ he replies gently. ‘I like you a lot. But duty and work . . . this is what I do. You get dressed and I’ll see you outside.’
He wants to say no, that this is not good enough, that he will die if it is over. But he knows it is not true, that in all probability the memory of last night will sustain him for many years to come. Yet this knowledge, that he could be so pathetic as to let the fantasy of a past event keep him going long into the future, makes him almost sick with self-disgust. He searches around for his clothes, which he finally locates in a crumpled pile under the bed, and throws them on miserably.
Outside he has to shield his eyes from the morning sun which is white and brilliant and set in an empty grey sky. The field is in disarray. The big top from last night has been deflated to a pile of murky material, as though a great celestial hand had reached down with a giant pin and punctured it. All around lie long metal poles and flaps of perforated canvas. Vlad is talking to two men. One of them is stocky with lots of stubble and holds a metal bracket, the other has his arms folded and a cigarette between his lips. This man looks over at him and scowls. Although he has none of his make-up on he recognises him by his Mohican as the clown from last night. Vlad sees him and hurries over.
‘Well,’ says Vlad.
The aerialist holds himself stiffly and his smile is big and glassy, the smile of someone who wants to get something over with. Suddenly it is intensely awkward between them. He is aware of the eyes of the other men who stand next to the demolition of the big top, watching. He wonders now if the awkwardness was there before, back in the trailer when he woke up, and if he just failed to notice it.
‘It was lovely,’ says Vlad, reaching out and taking his hand.
He imagines that Vlad is glad to be getting rid of him. That he is glad that the circus is moving on and that last night, while they lay together after making love with their limbs entwined and their hearts side by side, all along Vlad was really wishing he would just leave so that this awkward morning did not have to happen.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’
And with this he walks quickly across the field, towards the little car park hidden behind a clump of trees on the edge. He doesn’t dare to look back, not until he reaches the trees, for he suspects that the company will be laughing openly at him. But when he does finally turn, the stocky man and the clown are loading a pole into the back of a van, and Vlad has disappeared.
He will drag the table from across the parlour to the kitchen. It will be the same table he has eaten at all his life, which has never in this entire time had a foot placed upon its surface. Boldly he will clamber up on top, feeling some dread taboo falling away as he plants each foot squarely at the centre and stands inspecting the ceiling. Then he will take the hammer he is carrying and send it as hard as he can into the plaster above. The ceiling will explode in hundreds and thousands of tiny flecks of white, which dance on the air like snowflakes before drifting down to rest on the lino. The hammer will be withdrawn and then slammed into the ceiling again, and then again, and more flakes will dance, until it will seem that the room is filled by a snowstorm. Again and again he will attack, until a large hole has opened up directly above him. Behind it will be a wooden panel, the floor of what used to be his mother’s bedroom. With an animal cry he will send the hammer hurtling into this panel, and there will be a screaming sound from the wood as it splinters and gapes open, revealing the space beyond.
He will work all day, hurling himself into the ceiling, dislodging chunk after chunk of plaster and wood, creating cloud after cloud of paint flecks, bit by bit wrenching his way through the floor above. At midday he will stop to catch his breath, his calf muscles sore and aching, and he will see that he has created a crater-like opening directly in the centre of the room. A wonderful sense of exuberance will fill him, of a change finally being wrought after years of the stagnant same. Tears will be sliding down his cheeks, baptising his face with the spirit of revolution and he will open his mouth and let out a harsh croak – a sort of war cry.
As he will stand there, letting the tears drip down his face, touching the crumbs of paint that encrust his T-shirt and pulping them into dust with his fists, he will become aware of another presence. He will look up to see a familiar face staring in through the window, her features slack from shock. He will recognise it as Mrs Goodly from next door. His mother’s friend. He will cross the kitchen and open the door and stand there smiling as she looks past him with disbelieving eyes at the mounds of plaster and chunks of wood.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ she will breathe.
‘Taking down the ceiling,’ he will calmly reply.
‘But . . .’ For a moment it will seem Mrs Goodly is lost for words, a rare thing, but then the full force of her outrage will hit her and she will exclaim, ‘But what would your ma say?!’
He will not lose his smile when he answers, ‘Nothing. She can’t say a word.’
And Mrs Goodly, who knows this full well and is angered because it wasn’t what she meant at all, will open her mouth and find herself talking only to glass, because in the time it has taken her to process his words he will have shut the door on her. From behind it he will give a friendly wave and return to the t
able. As she watches, horrified, he will climb up on it, take the hammer and resume attacking the ceiling.
He will not look back at the window for a long time. When he does Mrs Goodly will have found her way out of the garden.
‘Would you like to come over to mine tomorrow?’ Edward asked him. Despite sitting together for the week, they hadn’t spoken much, though Edward had once made a joke to him about the squeaking of the chalk on the blackboard, saying it probably resembled the sound of the combined brainpower of the class working on overdrive. He’d been surprised by the venom in the joke and had had to repeat it back to himself to make sure he’d got it right, so that by the time he smiled and nodded it was too late and Edward’s attention was elsewhere. Although each morning he looked forward to sitting beside Edward, he was terrified that sooner or later Edward would realise how dull he was and move away. Worse still he couldn’t concentrate on the lessons, and teachers seemed to pick on him more frequently with Edward by his side. He would stare dumbly at them, repeating their questions back to them and waiting until they gave up and told him the answer. Edward seemed to find this funny, perhaps thinking he was doing it on purpose, and always grinned at him afterwards.
‘OK,’ he said, careful not to sound too keen. Although he was excited by the invitation, which just over a week ago would have seemed beyond his wildest dreams, he was wary too, in case anyone else in the class had heard. A couple of other boys had cornered him outside the bus stop the day before; one had pushed him against the timetable while the other proclaimed that he and Edward were bum buddies. He had been saved by the bus arriving.
‘Cool,’ said Edward.
When he told his mum he would be going over to another boy’s house the following morning she looked worried, since he never went to other boys’ houses any more, and asked who it was.
‘It’s a new boy,’ he said proudly. ‘His name is Edward.’
At this his mother looked even more worried and asked for his surname. He told her and watched her face grow pale. It turned out Edward’s parents were indeed famous – not only that, but they had moved to the town after a big scandal that had been in the papers, though his mum refused to tell him what it was.
‘I’m not sure,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps another time.’
‘What?’ he said, shocked. ‘Why?!’
‘And in any case, it’s a Saturday.’
Saturdays he helped out at the old people’s home where she worked. He hated it; that sleepy world of faded furniture and beige blankets, with its stale sour smell and snoring occupants who awoke only to gaze at you myopically and call you by a name that wasn’t your own. Most of all what he hated were the sing-song voices all the carers spoke in, his mother included, as if this could somehow protect against the reality that, silent and inescapable, death stalked the building, picking off its residents one by one.
‘I can hang out with whoever I want when I want,’ he heard himself cry. ‘You can’t stop me!’
As soon as the words were out of his mouth he wished he could take them back, for he saw his mother’s face tighten. He had never shouted at her before. Her eyes turned into big circles and began to glisten and shine and her mouth seemed to wobble, as if she was having trouble keeping it closed.
‘I’m sorry!’ he said quickly, throwing his arms around her. This was another thing he had never done before, and he felt her body tense up against him. They stood awkwardly for a while, and he began to wish he had not hugged her even more than he wished he had not shouted, for he felt stupid and unwanted, tightly pressed against this rigidness. But it seemed that a hug could not be done in half measures and so he clung on until finally she pushed him away with a watery smile.
‘I’ll give you a lift on my way to the home,’ she said in a clipped voice.
He sits in his car staring out through the windscreen at the various trucks and trailers. Some of them are moving now, getting into formation for the road. On the seat beside him his mobile winks with missed calls, and he thinks of his mother, waiting at home. Probably she has called everyone she knows by now. Probably she has been having quite a good time of it, he thinks. And probably someone or other who was at the circus last night has told her exactly where he’s been and has voiced their suspicions as to what he has been doing. But he knows that when he gets in, though she will be angry and upset, she will not press him to tell her what he has been up to. She would much rather he keep it to himself.
He sighs and thinks of the future. How he will apologise to the head of administration and save his job, bow his head and listen contritely to his mother telling him how selfish he is, and how tomorrow morning he will wake up to the same room as always and once more his life will stretch out before him, uneventful as a long concrete road, each year bleeding into the next and nothing to distinguish between them. Suddenly he knows that he was wrong, that the memory of Vlad and last night is not and cannot be enough. He is desperate, it occurs to him, and this realisation makes him laugh, as if a bubble of hysteria had risen up his throat and popped. After he has laughed it is as if the tension inside has evaporated. In its place is a curious euphoria and the knowledge that he has nothing left to lose. With this thought he twists the key and starts the engine.
He follows the last caravan to the junction at the edge of the park. Instead of turning right, onto the lane that leads back to town, he turns left, the same direction as the circus, onto the road that leads through the woods and down to the motorway.
At twelve o’clock, one after the other, the caravans and trucks all indicate left and pull into a large service station. Overhead the sun has developed into a blinding disc of yellow and the interior of the car is dusty and hot. He follows the circus, parking two rows back from them where he cannot be seen. He sits and watches people getting out of their vehicles, yawning and stretching limbs, heading for the cafeteria. Most of them are dressed in slack, loose-fitting jumpers and trousers with holes in them. Vlad is not among them. There are more people in the circus than he had realised, and he wonders for a second how many of them grew up on the road and what that must be like, to have no fixed place to call home.
A short while later the people from the circus return with baguettes and hamburgers. He is not hungry himself, and in any case he doesn’t dare get out the car in case he should be recognised, but he knows he should probably eat. Instead, while the circus people have their lunches he switches on his phone and calls his mother. She answers after one ring.
‘Hello?’
She sounds frightened and old and instantly he feels a surge of protectiveness towards her. He wants to assure her that everything is OK and that soon he will be home and there is no need to worry, so she does not have to sound that way. But he catches himself, because none of these things is true.
‘I’m fine,’ he says. His own voice comes out sounding flat and devoid of emotion. ‘I just wanted you to know.’
‘Oh God! Where are you? What’s happened?’
He doesn’t answer. She begins to tell him about the consequences of his absence – how she has been frantic and scared, how she has called everybody and reported his disappearance to the police, how he is selfish and cruel not to have called, how he has to come home because the heating has gone on inexplicably and she doesn’t know how to turn it off and because she thinks she can smell gas and because there have been strange sounds coming from the roof which she doesn’t dare investigate.
He waits. At first it seems as though she will continue forever, but surprisingly quickly her words cease to flow. Intermittent hesitations creep in, as she notices how he is not saying anything, not grunting in agreement or shame, until finally the fear overtakes, fear that something terrible is happening, or, even worse, that he is not listening at all.
‘I’m going to be away for a while,’ he says in the stretch of silence that opens up. He can almost see the panic in her eyes. The disbelief.
‘If this is about yesterday . . .’
‘It’s not.
’
‘Then you’re out of your right mind! Where can you go? You can’t afford to take a holiday – you haven’t even packed! And what about your job?’
‘I’ve quit.’
She is shocked into silence once more, but this time it lasts only for a few seconds. When she speaks again, however, she has checked herself. There is a new note of caution to her voice, as though she is wary of being forced into saying something she will later regret.
‘Look, I’m sorry about yesterday . . . I didn’t mean it if I said anything hurtful. I was angry and perhaps I should have listened. Come home and we’ll talk. Where else is there for you to go?’
‘I’ll know when I get there.’
‘Are you trying to hurt me? Is that what this is about?’
He says nothing. He knows that this is terribly cold of him, and it takes all of his willpower. But if he speaks, tries to explain and make her see, he is certain it will only be the beginning. His mother will wear him down with her questions and reproaches, using her frailty and his idiocy as weapons, until he can take it no longer and succumbs.
‘Please . . .’
Still he doesn’t reply. Still he holds the mobile against his ear, listening to the wavering uncertainty in his mother’s voice, the timbre of barely stifled terror at the realisation her son is not quite the person she believed him to be.
‘I can’t manage without you!’
This is her last card, her ace, and she lays it down desperately. A pang strikes his heart, not because he knows it is true, but because he knows it is not. The years have turned him into a fixture, like a sophisticated sort of domestic appliance, one that she has come to rely on to allay her little fears. His whole life he has only been useful, not essential, and it is this understanding that finally induces him to flip shut the mobile and switch it off. He has never ended an exchange this way, not with his mother. It seems to him he has effectively deleted her, and although he is racked with deadly guilt he also feels giddy and light-headed. His hands tremble as he places the mobile in the glove compartment and closes it, locking his mother away in a hidden dark pocket where he can forget that she even exists.
