by Will Davis
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks finally.
Vlad says nothing and hunches his shoulders as if annoyed by the question.
‘Did something happen tonight?’
Still no answer.
‘They loved you,’ he says nervously. ‘I loved you too. What you do – it’s extraordinary! I mean, it’s so dangerous and yet you also make it look so effortless and easy!’
‘Well, it’s not easy!’ snarls Vlad. ‘It’s not so fucking easy as it looks and if you think it is then why don’t you give it a try?’
‘But I don’t think it! I mean . . . that’s not what I meant –’
‘Oh, really? Then why say I make it look easy?’
He realises that Vlad is working himself up into a fury. He has seen him do this a number of times now – bursts of temper catalysed by the smallest of things, such as a stubbed toe or a broken mug, once even a missing article of clothing.
‘I’m sorry. It was meant as a compliment.’
‘Some compliment!’
‘There’s no need to get cross.’
‘I’m not getting cross! Now you’re telling me what is going on inside my head as well? Who the fuck are you?!’
It is like trying to escape a wild horse that is determined to trample him down. He hangs his head and takes a forkful of ravioli. There is more uncomfortable silence except for the sound of them both chewing.
‘You know what you are?’ hisses the aerialist then. ‘You’re nothing but a loser. You can’t do anything! Just some cock from some nowhere-place with nobody who gives a rat’s arse about him. I let you stay because I pity you. That’s the only reason! So you better not tell me how to do my own fucking job!’
Vlad stands, lifts his plate and send it crashing down onto the table, where it collides with his own meal, erupting in a volcanic explosion of tomato juice that splatters across the already stained T-shirt he has been borrowing from the aerialist. Vlad turns on his heel, wrenches the door open and storms out of the caravan.
An hour later, after he has cleaned up and is waiting in bed swaddled in blankets because he does not want to switch on the electric blanket without Vlad and be berated for wasting precious electricity, the aerialist returns, gliding in and plonking himself down beside him. He turns away from Vlad towards the wall and curls his body up into a shell-like position. He is still hurt by what Vlad said and he wants the aerialist to know it.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Vlad. ‘I was a jerk.’
He waits. Vlad’s fingers probe the blankets and start to peel them away, layer by later.
‘Last night I almost missed a catch with my feet,’ Vlad says. ‘It is very upsetting as it has never happened to me before. I felt the rope slide and I thought it might be a miss and I was going to end up dead meat on the ground. Now I need to practise and work out why this happened.’
He is somewhat chilled by Vlad’s expression ‘dead meat on the ground’. The aerialist is down to the last blanket, which he tugs out from under his arms and pulls away from his body. Vlad slides his arms around his torso, digging his hands in under the red-spotted T-shirt so he can rest his thumbs lightly against his nipples.
‘Are you still furious with me?’
He feels the aerialist’s lips against his ear and his tongue tracing its outline. He thinks for some reason of his mother, wondering how she is doing. She will never have been by herself in that house for so long before, and he wishes there was some way he could make sure she was OK. But he knows she will never understand this, what he is doing, and will only demand he return home. To her his leaving is nothing but a betrayal, because she has never allowed herself to see the silent hatred he has always had for that little town, and for that clean and lethally tidy house. He wonders if she doesn’t have this hatred too, only buried deep down where she doesn’t know about it, and he shivers, feeling a chill that has nothing to do with the cold. The aerialist tightens his arms, countering that chill with his own warmth.
‘I’m not furious,’ he says.
‘You do realise we’re not virgins any more,’ Edward said. It was a week after his father had left for France and they were lying on their backs in the den, smoking cigarettes and listening to the dim sound of Blondie, which Edward’s mother was playing at full volume in her studio, something she had been doing, Edward claimed, ever since his father’s departure.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘We didn’t . . . you know.’
‘It’s still sex if you come,’ said Edward knowledgeably. ‘We popped each other’s cherry. Look at you – you’re blushing.’
‘Shut up. I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. You’re positively crimson.’
There was something new between them now. It was not what they had done so much as the fact that they had a shared secret. When he looked at Edward and Edward looked back at him it felt as if there were an invisible thread between them, linking them in a way they were not linked to the rest of the world. They had not repeated what had happened on the common, but had discussed it at length, what it meant and how it had changed them, and the possibility of its happening again lay undefined yet potential in every look they exchanged.
‘Well,’ he said, and left it that.
Just then a shaft of sunlight fell across the minefield of junk like a column of translucent gold, and he stretched out so he could insert his hand into the light and compare the warmth of it to the cool dark of the unlit attic. He couldn’t remember having ever been so happy before, and lazily considered whether it was bad to feel this way, since he was dimly aware that his happiness had come about through Edward’s misfortune with his father. He wondered if it wasn’t slightly false, his euphoria, and if Edward wouldn’t still rather be in Antibes settling into a new life with his parents still together. But selfishly he realised he didn’t much care – happiness was happiness, he thought, however it came about. But in spite of his complacency he was aware that it was a dangerous feeling, that happiness was rare and fragile and easily lost.
He watches as Vlad holds onto the trapeze bar and beats his body back and forward beneath it, over and over as if he is a human pendulum, his legs rising high in the air above him only to plummet and then rotate suddenly backwards and up into the air again behind. Every five beats his legs will carry on up over the bar followed by the rest of him and he will land with the trapeze in his midsection, a position he will hold for half a second while his legs continue to revolve before dropping backwards and resuming the beats. This is one of various exercises the aerialist calls ‘conditioning’.
‘OK,’ pants Vlad when he returns to the ground patting his arms, which are red and swollen into cartoonish conglomerates almost the size of tree trunks, with a latticework of veins popping out across them. ‘Your turn.’
‘You must be joking!’
‘It’s easy,’ says the aerialist. ‘Go on. Up!’
Vlad leans in and kisses him hard. The aerialist’s breath is bad in the morning, but he does not pull away or say anything. He smells the sweat on the body before him and is aroused and wants to go back to bed, but Vlad draws back and points at the trapeze. They have got up early in order to train with no one else around, and Vlad has dressed him in an old tracksuit that makes him feel like a thug.
‘OK,’ he says uneasily, taking hold of the rope and wrapping it around one foot. He starts to climb in the way Vlad has showed him, stepping on the foot that is wrapped and straightening his legs, then holding himself with the elbows bent and unwrapping and rewrapping so he can repeat the motion. After three such manoeuvres he is exhausted, there is a painful throbbing in his forearms, and his hands are begging to be unclenched and relaxed. He looks down to see he is only a couple of metres off the ground.
‘Jesus,’ he breathes.
‘Carry on,’ instructs the aerialist, folding his arms.
Clenching his teeth he manages the remaining distance to the bar and then reaches out and clutches it for dear life. He struggles to take the bar with his
other hand and clumsily pulls himself up to a sitting position, looking down at Vlad who seems terrifyingly small and far below. They have dragged a moth-eaten king-size mattress to sit underneath the trapeze, but it is of scant comfort.
‘Vlad,’ he says timorously, ‘I think I want to come down.’
‘Don’t be a silly fool,’ says the aerialist. ‘You want to be part of the circus, don’t you? So do some beats. It’s fun.’
Not wishing to argue, he takes a sizeable gulp of air and lowers himself backwards so that he is dangling from his knees. This position is much more comfortable and he rests for a few seconds until Vlad barks at him to continue. He reaches up and takes hold of the bar with both hands, releasing his knees and falling to an upright position underneath. Vlad has coated his palms in a layer of sticky rosin, and they feel almost as if they have been welded to the bar.
‘Now beat!’
He tries to copy Vlad’s motions, thrusting his legs up into the air. He feels gravity resist the movement and then overcome him, propelling him backwards. Down below the aerialist is watching his futile efforts with a grin. His legs go hurtling up behind him and then something screams in his back. As it does the force of his body rips his fingers loose of the trapeze and suddenly he is falling. ‘Shit!’ yells the aerialist from somewhere in the whirling periphery. He just has time to realise he is surrounded by nothing but air before there is an almighty slamming sound as he connects face first with the mattress. He lies there immobile for a few seconds, not daring to move in case he has broken his neck. Then, very slowly, he raises his head.
‘What happened?’ demands Vlad, sounding cross.
Ever so gently, lest he be haemorrhaging internally, he starts to pull himself up. Amazingly, despite falling at least a storey, he seems to be wholly intact. It is only when he tries to stand that his left knee buckles, causing him to shriek.
‘Fuck,’ he shouts, falling and clutching wildly at his knee.
‘Let me see,’ orders the aerialist, pushing his flailing arms away so he can inspect the leg. He lies back on the mattress while Vlad pokes and prods.
‘Fuck!’ he shouts again.
‘Fuck,’ agrees Vlad. ‘However did you manage this?’
‘You made me! It was your fault!’
But Vlad only shrugs.
‘Well, that’s what you get,’ the aerialist says philosophically, as if he was some sort of overenthusiastic child who had insisted on going up when he should have remained on the ground where it was safe. ‘No more trapeze for you!’
He will grip the bar firmly, ignoring the soreness that spreads through his hands as the skin on his palms is compressed into pleats and folds. He will raise his legs in front of him and then thrust them backwards hard. As he swings out his shoulders will lift and his back lengthen. He will keep his legs straight and his entire body taut, though the instinct is to relax and go floppy, to allow the forces of nature to have their way. But this is how to injure yourself. He will remember the golden rule of the circus and will repeat it to himself like a mantra – that the more difficult it feels, the more correct it must be.
At the top of the swing he will feel a second of weightlessness. Every time, even with the strain in his arms and shoulders, this feeling is a delight – almost as if he is floating in mid-air. As the momentum fades he will beat his body forward, his legs whipping straight towards the other side of the trapeze. Then he will lift himself, feel the pull in his biceps as he uses strength to resist gravity and propel himself up over the bar. He will fold to land on top, his hips against the bar, and will curl his torso upwards, rotating his shoulders back and pushing his legs out. Here his movement will slow for a second, as his toes continue to push into the space beneath. It will be the most unnatural part of the routine, but before he loses his form or has second thoughts he will thrust himself away, pushing out in a dish shape as he drops backwards. As the momentum in his legs recedes he will catch himself and swing, returning to the original beating movement.
He will repeat this exercise until his shoulders are hot and throbbing and pleading for respite. Then he will lift himself to the bar one last time and pause with it bisecting his body, torso from legs. He will take his hands off the bar and balance there precariously for as long as he is able, his arms outstretched as if embracing the air. All of a sudden he will flop forward only to immediately raise himself up, straining the muscles in his stomach as he forces the trunk of his body back to the balance once more.
When he has done as many of these raises as he can he will grasp hold of the ropes on either side of the trapeze and rotate his body to a sitting position. He will point his legs until they are at right angles from his upper body, then re-grip the ropes above his head. Pushing outwards with his arms he will lift his entire body up as high as he can and hold it for half a second, before lowering it back down. After eight such lifts his arms are quivering from the effort, and he will let himself gently backwards, bending his legs around the bar and hanging from it by his knees. Pushing his left toe down towards the ground and tightening his thigh over the trapeze with all his might, he will take his right leg off the bar for as long as he can and then replace it and do the same with his left. The backs of his knees will shriek at the weight of him, the skin bunching up agonisingly against the bar. But he will grit his teeth and straighten each leg out, then rotate it to behind his body and then back up again, refusing to obey the pain that insists he hurry, that he give up, that he cut the exercise short and be happy with what he has achieved so far.
After he has completed this exercise he will reach up and take the bar with both hands once more. Hanging underneath it he will ignore the urge to drop and instead will raise his legs up towards the ceiling, keeping them as straight as he can with the feet arched and pointing, trying to bring them all the way to his face, making his stomach contract with spasms. He will only be able to manage three of these movements before his body is unable to cope any more. As the sweat streams down his face and clams up his hands so that he can hardly keep his grip he will reach out for the rope with his foot. Hooking it and pulling it towards himself, he will summon up his last reserve of strength to climb on and slide down to the floor.
Marie takes in the sight of him limping to her trailer without comment, merely compresses her lips and trails her eyes down to his leg, where over his jeans Vlad has wound a strip of stretchy support elastic. But there is a glint in her eye that suggests she finds the sight of it funny.
‘Here,’ she says, handing him the key to the box-office trailer, where the cleaning supplies are kept. ‘Don’t strain yourself.’
He reaches for the key. He wants to say thank you, for standing up to Big Pete the previous night, telling him that he was helping her so he could stay in the big top. But whatever split second of solidarity existed between them is gone. It is almost impossible to reconcile that sly wink with the hard, closed features of the angry little face before him.
‘Oi!’ says Big Pete, suddenly looming behind Marie. ‘He’s helping me today. Got to pick up the scaffs, remember?’
Marie turns.
‘And why can’t you get one of those lazy-arsed cronies to help you? Or do they need their beauty sleep this morning?’
‘Midge’s testing the motor and Benny’s patching the tent. Like me to do it alone, would ya?’
Marie looks like she’s about to agree that yes, she would. But then she shrugs and retracts the hand with the key.
‘All right, you heard that stupid pig,’ she says to him and goes back inside, leaving him facing Big Pete, who gives him a long hard glare before striding past him.
‘Come on then,’ the ringmaster snaps over his shoulder.
In the truck Big Pete is silent, toking now and then on a cigarette and blowing the smoke sideways out of his mouth in jets that seem to be aimed deliberately at his eyes. He coughs, turns away and studies the road. Each house they pass reminds him of his home town. In two front gardens stand a pair of old ladies chatt
ing over the fence. He pictures his mother, seeing her surrounded by excited and righteously outraged neighbours as she repeatedly tells the story of how her son abandoned her until it becomes local folklore. He wonders if he will ever return, and receives an unexpected nightmarish flash of reality about what he has become – an unwanted hanger-on at a travelling circus show, voluntary slave to obnoxious scary carnival folk, living in a shoebox with a crazy acrobat. But in his heart he knows it doesn’t matter, for the prospect of returning is inconceivable.
He comes out of his thoughts to find they are no longer passing through residential streets, but are turning into the grounds of a dilapidated factory with a windowless grey tower block that juts up into the sky like an obelisk. The place is obviously abandoned, and he has a sudden spooky premonition that Big Pete has brought him here to do something awful. He scrutinises the ringmaster, who rolls down his window and spits his cigarette out, sharply turning the wheel so that they career past the side of a building, almost shaving it with the wing mirror, before coming to a dramatic halt round the corner, in front of a run-down trailer.
‘Where are we?’ he says.
Big Pete ignores him and sounds the horn. After waiting a few seconds he does it again and from the trailer emerges an old man with a greatly wrinkled face and a mane of steel-coloured hair that rests on his shoulders like wire wool. Big Pete chuckles and sounds the horn again and the man gives him the finger and staggers up to the window.
‘All right there, Matt?’
‘Damned bastard. Whatcha have to wake me for?’
‘Wouldn’t be decent not to say hello, would it?’
The old man grins, showing a maw of toothless pink gum.
‘So how’s the show going?’
‘Oh, y’know. Hand to mouth.’
‘And the wife?’
‘Still a nagging bitch.’
‘You give her my love. Spare an old codge a fag?’
