by Will Davis
Big Pete hands his pouch of Drum to the old man, who takes from it a paper and a pinch of tobacco and transforms it instantaneously into a cigarette with remarkably nimble fingers. Raising it to his lips as Big Pete hands him his lighter, the old man squints past the ringmaster as if he had only just noticed him sitting there. ‘This your daughter?’
Big Pete emits a chuckle which sounds more like a growl.
‘Where is it then?’ the ringmaster says, suddenly sharp.
The old man breathes in with a groan of pleasure, as if all his life has been leading up to this one short blessed smoke. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder.
‘Mind you don’t take more ’n we agreed,’ mutters the old man, and without another word he staggers back towards the trailer.
‘He actually lives there?’ he says in amazement.
‘Matt’s old school,’ replies Big Pete, guiding the truck over to the corner of the pile of junk and killing the engine. The ringmaster gets out and he follows curiously. Rolling a new cigarette, Big Pete inspects the junk suspiciously, then glances at him.
‘Right. I want them scaffs in the back of the truck. Get to it.’
It is his turn to survey the mountain. Now they are up close he can see that it is composed of thick metal poles, all about ten feet in length and layered up on top of each other to almost the exact same height as Big Pete. He suppresses a giggle at the sheer ridiculousness of the order.
‘You can’t be serious!’
Big Pete’s eyes narrow. Tendrils of smoke snake their way out of the ringmaster’s nostrils and he smiles, his cigarette dangling precariously on the edge of his lip. It is a dangerous smile.
‘Yep,’ he says flatly.
Gingerly he approaches the pile and looks for a pole to try to lift first. They are all buried under one another and the only loose ones are at the top of the stack, unreachable. He glances back at Big Pete who is watching impassively. Gritting his teeth, suddenly angry with both the ringmaster and himself, he takes hold of the nearest pole and gives it a mighty wrench. There is a sound like a peal of thunder and he jumps back just in time to avoid being buried alive under the scaff-poles as they come rolling and clattering down in a great avalanche. He lands painfully on his bad leg and gasps.
‘Ain’t got all day, you know,’ says Big Pete.
He begins to heft the scaff-poles one by one into the back of the truck. They are heavy and must be lifted from the centre, then slotted into the truck and pushed until they are up against the seating compartment. It is a lengthy process and hard work. To make matters worse the scaff-poles are slippery and several times he drops them, narrowly missing his feet. The whole while Big Pete watches, not lifting a finger. He can almost feel the ringmaster’s eyes boring into the back of his head while he works, and he knows he is still wearing that dangerous smile. As with Marie, he is being tested to see how far he can be pushed before he cracks.
When he is done, he sits gasping on the ground while Big Pete saunters over to the back of the truck. He wants to hurt the ringmaster, to run at him and push his face into one of the pole ends jutting out from the back, to hear the satisfying sound of his skull clanging against the metal and to see red gore gush out from his nose. He waits while Big Pete counts the poles he has stacked and inspects them again for signs of rust.
‘All right,’ says Big Pete, flicking his cigarette away and shutting up the doors. ‘Let’s go.’
He pulls himself up and clambers into the passenger seat. Big Pete toots the horn and the old man re-emerges from his trailer and gives Big Pete a wave which the ringmaster returns. They turn off out of the factory grounds and onto the road, where they pull up at a red light. Here the ringmaster turns to him. For a second he thinks he is going to congratulate him on a job well done.
‘I don’t like your sort,’ Big Pete says quietly. ‘And I’m not talking about being queer either. That I couldn’t give a shit about. I’m talking about being soft. Seen ’em like you a hundred times. Come in, watch the show, clap and shout and don’t think nothing of the work. Reckon it’s easy, like just anybody can do it.’
The ringmaster’s eyes burn into his. For once he stares right back. The work of lifting and stacking the poles has given him a new-found sense of power and defiance.
‘I’m trying my best!’ he snaps. ‘What more do you want from me?’
Big Pete’s face briefly registers surprise, either at what he has said or at the mere fact that he has dared to answer back. Then the light turns to green and the ringmaster transfers his attention back to the road.
‘You’re only here cos of that fuckwit you’ve shacked up with,’ he says as they take off once more. ‘Soon as he gets tired of you, you’re out. Don’t you forget it.’
Three or four times a week he went to the old people’s home. His mother had got him a summer job there, a role she called ‘general assistant’ and said would be character-building. He was expected to move chairs, lamps, mattresses and sometimes even people, to clear up spilt tea and any other sort of mess, to mop corridors and to be at the beck and call of all the carers should they require anyone to carry things or hold old men upright when the nurse came round to administer her various demeaning health checks.
‘General assistant, my arse,’ he complained to Edward. ‘Unpaid slave labour is more like it.’
‘My poor little lamb,’ replied Edward in a sugary voice, but then to his surprise offered to come and help too.
When he half-heartedly suggested this to his mum she told him the home could not handle too many helpers and he was lucky to be getting the work experience. He knew it was really because she was nervous of Edward, but truthfully he didn’t mind because he didn’t want Edward to come to the home either. He didn’t ever want to have to associate Edward with that place, to have Edward tainted by the smell of old people, of rose toilet soap and musk, which pervaded every room of the home and could not be got rid of no matter how many windows were opened or how much air-freshener was pumped into the atmosphere.
The town seemed different to him that summer, as if he were seeing it anew, because he was with Edward and it was Edward’s first summer there. They followed the canal all the way through the marshland that sat behind the rougher estates and right down into the woods that were privately owned, which Edward said was ridiculous because nature didn’t belong to anyone. They vaulted the fence and wandered through the calm pristine undisturbed carpets of green and yellow and the whole time he was worried they would be caught and shouted at. But no one else came or bothered them, not even once, and soon the pretty woods became a favourite place for them to go in the day when it was too hot to remain inside.
They almost never went to the arcade, a shopping mall that had opened a couple of years ago in the town centre, only to go to the cinema that had been built into its lower floor. There they saw the older boys and girls from school out together, and sometimes encountered boys and girls from their own year chastely parodying these dates. Sometimes they saw Fred and the rougher kids, and when they were seen by these kids they were shouted at and had popcorn and chocolate wrappers thrown at them. They saw Katy once or twice, but she no longer seemed a threat outside of school. She was ignored by the boys she hung out with, and it almost made him sad to see her trying to impress them with her loud talk and insults to other girls who were prettier and more attractive than she was. He thought that all along Edward had been right in his assessment of her. The boys would wolf-whistle and suggest rude possibilities in the back row of the auditorium to girls in their year, and the girls would duly hold their heads high and tell them to fuck off. But there was often something flirtatious in their responses, and sometimes they entered into playful banter with the boys and even laughed at their jokes.
‘Behold the mating rituals of our generation,’ Edward proclaimed, an eyebrow raised, when they came out of the cinema one day and almost ran head-first into a boy and girl from their set kissing beside a propped-up cardboard cut-out of the Ter
minator.
It seemed like a whole other universe and he was intensely glad of the private space he and Edward inhabited, insulated from the crassness he saw around him. What they had was special, he thought – not without smugness – and he allowed himself to believe that the rest of the world looked at them and was jealous, and that this was the real cause of its scorn.
On the ground he will feel an almost overpowering urge to collapse and lie still for a very long time. But again he will refuse to listen to his body’s pleas. Instead he will take several long cool breaths then start to stretch. He will begin with his shoulders, pressing them back against the walls and pushing his chest out, raising them over his head so he can push down on his elbows, flattening them against the floor and sitting back on his haunches, trying to reach the ground with his armpits. When he is done with his arms he will move onto his back, lying on his front and arching up towards the ceiling, holding the position for as long as he can, focusing on a point in the broken tiles and concentrating on it with all his might. He will straighten his legs and push up, creating an L-shape, trying to curl his back towards the floor as he pushes his heels backwards one after the other, then both at the same time. Last of all he will move to his legs. He will lunge on each side for a good minute, then lie back on the ground and lift each leg in turn, straightening it towards the ceiling and gripping it by the ankle, trying to draw it towards his head while at the same time keeping his hips against the floor.
When he has finished his muscles will feel alive and elastic, and he will be breathless and shot through with pounding energy. What he will feel will be like a mania, but a glorious one. Only now will he allow himself to lie down and close his eyes, meditating on the delicious feeling of blood galloping up and down his body.
The new ground is on the edge of a small town on the seafront, and the second he sets foot outside the caravan he is hit by an icy blast that causes his teeth to start chattering.
‘Too cold,’ groans Vlad from the bed, where he has holed himself up under a mountain of blankets and jackets. ‘You people and your ridiculous country with its stupid weather!’
He shuts the door and continues towards the toilets, and almost runs face first into Big Pete. The ringmaster’s cheeks are bright red but his sleeves are rolled up in flagrant refusal to acknowledge the freezing wind.
‘Come on, arseholes!’ he is shouting at the dark windows of a trailer, where Benny and Midge, the roustabouts, reside. ‘Let’s get this tent set up before the fucking Second Coming, OK?’
There is no response from the trailer, and Big Pete raises his fist and slams it down on the door, making the whole structure shake as he screams that he is not paying them to sleep. Leaving Big Pete, he heads over to the toilets, which are situated at the very edge of the grounds. They are always the first thing to be set up – according to Franka it is written in her contract that toilets be provided, though he could not tell if she was being serious or not. The toilets have no heating or lights, and they are almost as cold inside as out. He pulls down his trousers and sits to shit as quickly as possible, the sound of his stools hitting water deafening in the silence of the cubicle. He is hurrying back to Vlad’s trailer when a voice calls out.
‘Oi, you!’
He turns and is alarmed to find himself face to face with three men in hooded tops. Two of the men are huge and seem to tower above him in twin walls of muscle and flesh. The other is short and wiry with a rat-like face, twisted up as if from a lifetime of bitterness at being the smallest of the three. All of them have shaved heads and narrowed eyes. The two furthest away have their arms folded: they are all staring at him, exuding menace. He glances back at the caravans and trailers, which are a good thirty yards away, and wonders if he could make it to them were he to bolt.
‘We don’t want no fucking circus around here,’ says one of the bigger men, a diamond stud winking in his left ear. ‘You and your carnie freaks can fuck off where you came from.’
‘I’m not in charge,’ he says quickly. ‘I just work here.’
‘Carnie cunt!’ growls the other big man, spitting with such force it makes an audible splattering noise as it hits the ground.
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ says the one with the diamond stud. ‘Said, we don’t want you here. Said fuck off where you came from. Got that?’
He nods because it seems like the only smart thing to do.
‘I’ll tell the boss,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ says the man. ‘You do that.’
‘We don’t like your sort,’ adds the smallest man, somewhat unnecessarily.
He turns and walks quickly towards the camp, his heart hammering, wondering if at any second he is going to feel a fist in the back of his head. But nothing comes.
Big Pete is still yelling at the roustabouts, who are now hefting the two large poles that form the base of the truss. He debates briefly whether or not to tell him about the local men, but one look at Big Pete’s large angry face decides him against it. Big Pete will not listen, he knows, and anyway if the men are really going to cause problems, they will make the fact known soon enough.
When he next opens the door there will be a young woman in jeans and a black polo neck standing there holding a Dictaphone. Behind her, fiddling with a large camera, will be a man in his forties with several days’ worth of stubble and eyes ringed with tiredness, clad in a leather jacket.
‘Hi there,’ the woman will say brightly. ‘My name’s Susan – I’m from the local rag. How’s it going?’
He will nod to her warily.
‘So listen . . .’ she will say, launching straight in, ‘I caught wind that you’re building a trapeze rig in your house, which I thought is something that’d make an absolutely fantastic article.’
She will beam at him expectantly.
‘I hope you don’t mind me just showing up like this. I did try to call only there wasn’t any answer . . . you’re a tough person to get in touch with!’
‘Listen,’ he will say. ‘Thank you. It’s very kind. But no thank you.’
Susan will take a deep breath.
‘If we could just ask a few questions and have a look around, it won’t take up much of your time, and as I say, it would make a great story. Perhaps we could even get a few pictures of you on your trapeze? I bet the readers would love that!’
She will peer past him and he will pull the door against his body to restrict the view as much as possible.
‘It’s such a far-out idea. What made you decide to do it?’
‘Actually, I’m very busy,’ he will say, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. ‘I’d really prefer it if there was no article.’
He will smile back at her and close the door. He will wait a few minutes and then creep upstairs, sidestepping his way around the remaining ledge of floor and then peeping out of the front window. The woman and the photographer will still be there by the gate, and she will be saying something to him and making big gestures with her hands. Then the photographer will take a few steps backwards and carefully inspect the house. Then he will retreat a little further. Fitting a very long lens over the eye of his camera, the man will raise it up and start to take pictures.
It is the hour before the show is due to start and he is waiting for Vlad. He has just finished wiping down the windows of the insect-splattered box-office trailer, and he feels tired, cold and hungry. He enters the backstage area of the tent and looks around for the aerialist. Just as he is about to ask someone if they have seen Vlad, and if not hurry down to the caravan and bang on the door to rouse him because in that case he is probably still asleep from his afternoon nap, Griselda bursts in panting.
‘Some yobbos are beating up on Vlad!’
He does not wait to hear more. He tears from the tent into the freezing cold outside. Instantly the night envelops him like a blanket, and for a second he can see nothing but blackness. He totters, uncertain if the grass is even there under his feet, for an instant suspended in space, as i
f he has been transported right back to the beginning of time when all was quiet and still and nothing but potential. Then in the distance he makes out some pinpricks of light, the houses of the local town, and above him even fainter pinpricks of the stars. He stumbles forward, not knowing which way to go. Then the lights of the big top are suddenly switched on, strings of coloured bulbs flooding the ground with streaks of yellow, blue and pink. At the same second he becomes aware of screaming and yelling off to his right and he hurls himself in that direction.
It takes him twenty seconds to reach them and in this time he realises how foolish it is what he is doing, rushing alone head first into danger as if he himself possessed a strength to repel an attack that the aerialist might not. But there is a fire in him such as he has never felt before, bloodthirst and fury. There is something joyous about it too, almost religious, and he hears a cry issuing forth from his own mouth, loud and primal, determined to protect the person who belongs to him whatever the cost to himself.
The three men are now four. Two of them are holding Vlad while the others take it in turns to deliver punches to his face. The aerialist’s body has already gone limp and he is letting out faint begging whimpers. The two men beating him turn as he arrives, one of them throwing up his fists and advancing immediately towards him. He does not stop running, but throws himself at this man, sending his weight hurtling at him like a missile. The man’s fist lashes out and catches him on the side of the face, but it is no match for the full force of his body as it flies through the air. He takes the man with him onto the grass where they land with a hard thud that makes the man groan in pain and sends a shock wave through his own skull.
‘Faggot!’ growls the man, grappling and trying to get a grip on his neck. But he thrashes, refusing to be caught, punching and kicking and even biting.
‘Jesus fucking –!’ the man curses.
His mouth clamps onto something soft and he clenches his teeth into it and hears a scream. He barely has time to register his delight at the sound when something hits him on the side of the head hard, dazing him and knocking him off the man completely.
