Someone yelled, “Good riddance, scum! And don't come back!”
A stone clanked across the hood of an ancient Austin.
Someone howled, “Only Maloney, lalalala!”
Someone screamed, “Stupid Gyppo fairy tart!”
But they took no notice, didn't even turn.
Charley Caruso called, “Tomasso! Tomasso! Tomasso! Tomasso!” far off and frail and filled with yearning.
“What shall we do?” said Corinna.
“D-do?”
“With our lives. What shall we do? Where shall we go?”
Joe laughed.
“We can d-do anything! We can g-go anywhere! Look!”
He knelt and picked something from the grass. A broken skylark shell, speckled white. Joe felt the curved inside. It was dry, but sticky on his fingertip. He dreamed of the thing that had been in there, white and yolk that had turned to bone and flesh and feather, the thing that had bitten its way out, that had dared to fling itself into the air. He looked into Corinna's face, speckled white. He looked through to the forests and crags and caves and skies behind her eyes. And their faces turned together to the air, where a storm of larks danced high on the wind and sang.
“Miracle,” said Joe.
“Miracle,” said Corinna.
They moved on. She lifted the flap of the tent and they stepped through into the silent somber shade and found Hackenschmidt and Nanty Solo there, sitting together on the low wall at the ring's edge.
Nanty raised her milky eyes. She smiled.
“So our little loved ones flutter home again,” she said. “Welcome home, little loved ones.”
Hackenschmidt came to them and hugged them both to his great chest.
“It went well,” he said.
Corinna nodded.
“And the tiger's gone.”
“The tiger's gone.”
He cradled Joe's head in his great fist.
“You have done a great thing, Joe Maloney. You have done a thing that is filled with courage and that is beyond our understanding.” He stared deeper. “How did we find a boy like you in a place like Helmouth?”
“Was destined,” said Corinna.
“Yes,” answered Hackenschmidt. “It was destined, from the time the tent first stood upon the earth.”
“We followed you,” said Nanty Solo. “Far as the forest.” She tapped her skull. “In here,” she said.
“And did you see the glade and the…?” said Corinna, but Nanty pressed her crooked finger to Corinna's lips.
“Don't,” she said. “You must keep your secret places for yourselves.”
And she drew Corinna to her and kissed her and the tent around them trembled.
“We been talking and dreaming 'bout the old days,” said Nanty. “'Bout the old days when the canvas was so new that it blocked out all the light. Now you see it thin and frayed and it carries a million million points of light upon it. Soon the rips and lesions will start, and the wind will play at these till they open further and great shafts of light will fall into this place. And the wind will keep on playing and rampaging till the rips race everywhere and the tent will give its final shivers and collapse. Then there will be nothing but emptiness above this place, just as there was all that time back, the time there was no tent at all.”
She laughed softly.
“And we been talking 'bout what happens to the ancient crazy blind one and the ancient wrestler in these new days, and Nanty looks and looks inside her skull and can see nothing there for them at all.”
She raised her head.
“Come on down, tent. Fall down and cover us and let us be still beneath. Come on down!”
She shrugged, smiled.
“Ah, well. It'll come, in its own time.”
Corinna laughed.
“Come on up,” she said to Joe, and she took his hand.
She went first up the dangling ladder. She clambered through the net. She stood on the platform. Joe followed, climbing away from the two old ones below. He stood on the platform beside his friend.
“Imagine,” she said. “Imagine that once upon a time you flew out there, swinging back and forward, waiting for me to leap. Can you imagine that?”
“Yes.”
“Really imagine it?”
“Yes.”
“Imagine it so strong it's nearly like a memory and not just like a dream?”
“Yes.”
“And imagine I jumped and you caught me and we swung out there together and the crowd gasped at how wonderful we were?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“And so strong it's more like a memory than a dream?”
“Yes.”
She laughed.
“We were together, Joe, you and me. Sometime long ago, in another world or in another life. We flew together. Do you believe that?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Jump!” called Hackenschmidt.
“Jump!” whispered Corinna, and hand in hand they leaped into the empty air, through memories and dreams, through other worlds and other lives, and the net sighed as it caught them in this world, in this life, and kept them safe.
Four
A potbellied pig named Fatty. Little dogs in silver dresses teetering on hind legs. Good Wilfred in his goatee beard and Charley Caruso with his mind lost in the past. They all came into the tent as Joe and Corinna dropped down to the floor again. They gathered in the ring, so pleased to see the children back.
Then another, her face at the doorway peering in.
“Joe!” she called. “Joseph!”
“Mum!”
“There you are!”
She came quickly across the floor and hugged him. She grinned.
“Hello, Corinna, pet. He's behaved himself?”
“Yes,” said Corinna.
“Good lad.”
“This is Hackenschmidt,” said Corinna. “He's the owner of the circus. This is Nanty Solo. This is Wilfred. This is Charley Caruso. This is Joe's mum.”
She beamed at them all and hugged Joe again.
“It is a delight to meet you, madam,” said Wilfred. “You are indeed blessed to have such a son.”
“There's many that'd doubt that, Wilfred, but aye, it's the truth. Look at the skill of that dog! You had breakfast, Joseph?”
Joe's stomach growled. He shook his head.
“I'm f—”
“Famished, eh? Come on, then. Let's get something on the table.”
“I want to bring my fr-friends.”
“That's great. If you'd like to, that is…It's a little house, Mr. Hackenschmidt. We might have to spill out into the garden.”
Hackenschmidt grinned.
“It will be a pleasure, Mrs. Maloney.”
She looked around herself before she led them out.
“Oh, isn't it so beautiful in here?” she said.
And she stood lost in that beauty and the silence of it for a moment, before she led the way out.
This motley crew came from the blue tent onto the rough wasteland of Helmouth. They moved slowly, contentedly, beneath the high slow sun. The pig snuffled in the undergrowth. The dogs danced. Nanty Solo held the arm of Hackenschmidt and told tales of long ago. Good Wilfred walked daintily with his head high, whistling and calling to his dogs, and whispering gentle guidance into Charley Caruso's ear. Joe and Corinna in their satins strolled on either side of Joe's mum.
“Come on, then. What did you get up to?” she said.
“Went on the tr-trapeze.”
“The trapeze! And no broken bones!”
“And played in the tent,” said Corinna. “And played with the dogs and…”
“And the tigers didn't eat you up?”
Joe smiled.
“There's n-no tigers,” he said.
“No tigers! So what was them things jumping and growling in my head all night? Like a blinking zoo, my bedroom was.”
“Just dreams,” he said.
“Mebbe,” she said.
“Aye. Mebb
e.”
He looked at her and smiled. She hugged him. He leaned into her, toward the great spaces where her larks flew and her wild beasts prowled.
“It's lovely to have you back. You know, Corinna, that's the first full night we've ever spent apart.”
He grinned as she kissed him.
“You're growing up, Joseph Maloney. You know that, don't you?”
“Yes.”
“Seems no time since you were crawling round me feet, and look at you now. And you, Corinna. You must've been a lovely lively bairn, eh? Dancing and jumping and swinging everywhere, I'll bet.”
“That's right, Mrs. Maloney.”
“Oh, just look at these louts!”
Kids clustered around the entrance to the Cut, cigarettes cupped in their fists, grins on their faces, hell in their eyes.
“Come on,” Joe's mum said. “Clear the way, will you?”
“Yes, Missus Maloney. Of course, Missus Maloney. Only Maloney, lalalalaaaaaaa!”
“Here comes the beast!”
“Watch out! Wild dogs!”
“Run! It's the Pig of Death!”
“Keep out, scum!”
“Keep out, scum! Keep out, scum!”
They beckoned to Hackenschmidt, they spat at Corinna, they snarled at Nanty, they sneered at Charley and Wilfred.
“Look at them. Turn the place into a bloody loony bin.”
“A freak show!”
“Tarts and witches and poofs and pigs.”
“Fat and blind and doo-lally!”
But they kept their distance. Wonder and fear were in their eyes as well as scorn. They parted slowly as the group passed through.
“Poor souls,” whispered Nanty into Joe's ear. “Poor troubled souls.”
“Get lost, scum!”
“Keep out, scum!”
“Get back to where you come from!”
“Only Maloney, lalalalaaaaaa!”
Beyond them, younger children waited on the sidewalk. They caught at each other's hands as they saw the group approach. Their eyes were wide, fascinated. They whispered Joe Maloney's name. They gasped at the bulk of famous Hackenschmidt. They giggled at the dancing dogs. They cooed at the sweet slow pig. They trembled as they reached out to touch these folk. And there were faces at the windows, suspicious faces, faces filled with hate, but also faces shining with delight.
Joe's mum led them on.
“It's that house,” she said, and pondered. “It's nothing, look. Little, just ordinary. But there's the garden, too, to sit in. And there's tea and coffee and bread to fill us all, and marmalade. And jam. Oh, and some lovely sausages, and an egg or two. A bunch of bananas. That pint of raspberries. A feast! And there's surely scraps for the dogs, and what does the pig eat, Mr. Hackenschmidt? Come on. Come on in.”
In they went through the low garden gate, past the little wilderness of weeds and wildflowers where Joe once played. She led them to the back of the house, to the little back garden, fumbled in her pocket for her keys.
“Anybody need the loo?” she said softly. “Top of the stairs, straight left.” She chewed her lips, her eyes shone: such strange animals, such strange sweet people here in her garden. “Ee, Joseph, it's just like those tales you used to jabber come to life. Now, who's for coffee, who's for tea? Joe, get those thirsting dogs a dish of water, son.”
Five
They sat at ease in the garden, on the rugs and blankets that Joe's mum brought out of the house. They ate pieces of sausage, fruit and toast. They praised the deliciousness of the food, the beauty of the garden, the kindness of Mrs. Maloney. They murmured softly to each other, they hummed songs, they sighed, they smiled. Helmouth's children peered from the front gate. Neighbors leaned out from the windows. The sun poured down through the skylarks' endless song.
Corinna left the ground and skipped in a circle, then turned cartwheels, and everybody clapped. She stared upward, as if searching for a trapeze and a net. She closed her eyes and allowed the heat and brightness to bathe her; then she spun again and dropped to the earth again.
And they rested, as afternoon came on, all of them exhausted by their sleepless night. They drifted and dozed. Joe rested his head in his mum's lap. She ran her fingers through his hair. Joe dipped his hands into long grass and smiled at the spiders and beetles that ran on his skin, and he closed his eyes.
A couple of children, a boy and a girl, dared to come closer. They sidled down the path at the side of the house. They sat on their haunches and whispered and watched. The girl held out her hand, rubbed her fingers together to catch the attention of the dogs. And one skipped to her and licked her and she laughed.
Mrs. Maloney opened her eyes.
“Come in, pets,” she said. “Come on. Look, there's some bits of toast here.”
And they came shyly into the garden and Nanty Solo smiled behind her milky eyes and Corinna stood up and spun again around the circle of grass that was clear at the center of the garden.
“That was lovely,” said the girl.
More children came, to play with the dogs and the pig, to watch Corinna.
“I brought this,” said a green-eyed girl with eagles on her T-shirt. She held out a long linked string of elastic bands. “Show us what to do again.”
They stretched the elastic right across the garden from fence to fence. Corinna showed them how to leap with ease and grace. She raised the elastic higher. She showed them how to leap as if they believed they might leap as high as the sun.
“Jump!” said Hackenschmidt. “Jump. Don't just jump with your bodies. Jump with your minds.”
“Jump through the sunlight,” said Nanty Solo. “Close your eyes and jump into the dark.”
“J-jump,” said Joe Maloney. “D-dare to fling yourself into the empty air.”
His mum smiled.
“Joe Maloney,” she whispered, “look at you now. Listen to you now.”
And the children in the garden jumped and fell and tried again and jumped again and Corinna jumped with them, time and again.
Nanty whispered, “On the last day, on the last of all days…”
She turned her head as if she looked around her. She smiled to herself.
“The last of all days is mebbe when we find the first of all days. Jump, children, jump!”
Cats came, looking out from beneath the hedges. Birds gathered on rooftops and gutters. Bees droned from flower head to flower head. A tiny mouse peeped out from a clump of buttercups.
Joe's mum held him tight.
Soon Stanny Mole came down the path beside the house. He shuffled into the garden. He squatted near to Joe and trembled.
“He's not come out yet,” he whispered.
Joe closed his eyes and saw through the tiger's eyes and saw Joff stumbling through trees, all lost and tormented.
“They'll k-kill him,” said Stanny. “Those… things we saw.”
“No. He'll c-come back,” said Joe. He touched his friend's arm. He wondered what changes would be wrought in Joff by his struggle in the forest.
Nanty Solo stretched to Stanny, her hand held out, a black fragment in her fingers.
“Eat this, boy-thing,” she said.
Stanny recoiled.
“Eat,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Eat.”
Stanny looked in horror at her milky eyes, her scar.
“Eat,” said Joe. “Just eat.”
Stanny opened his mouth, allowed her to rest the thing on his tongue.
“Eat, Stanny Mole,” said Nanty. “Just eat.”
He swallowed. Nanty put her fingers to her lips.
“Be quiet,” she said. “Be still. And feel the tooth of the unicorn at work inside yourself. For all of us can be transformed.”
And Stanny was quiet and all that was heard was the snuffling of the pig, the hum of the bees, the distant din of the city, the drone of the motorway.
Then Wilfred took his turn and his little dogs danced for him as he whistled and called. The
n Hackenschmidt asked two boys to come to him and he showed them how to be still and show no fear as he lifted them, one in each hand, high above his head. And he laughed and roared and shouted,
“Listen! I am Hackenschmidt. I am the greatest wrestler the world has ever seen. All I say is true! Who dares to challenge me and win a thousand pounds?”
He beat his chest and snarled and laughed as boys ran at him and circled him.
All quietened again and the children looked at each other in fear and wonder and the afternoon wore on. The sun arched downward, filling the garden with light and heat, stunning all who were inside it. The air trembled. Beyond the rooftops, the beautiful blue slope of the tent slanted into the sky.
And the afternoon wore on, and the afternoon wore on, and shadows lengthened.
Mothers started calling, their voices echoing through Helmouth, over the rooftops, through the gardens.
“Dani-eeeeeel!”
“Em-i-leeeeeee!”
“Ma-aaax!”
And children stirred themselves, and rubbed their eyes and stretched themselves and made their way back out of Joe Maloney's garden.
Corinna leaped and spun again for the few children who were left. Wilfred danced his dogs again. Hackenschmidt murmured,
“I am Hackenschmidt, Lion of Russia, greatest wrestler the world has ever seen.”
He turned to his tent, saw that it had blended with the sky, had almost disappeared in the coming night.
“Hackenschmidt. Come and sit by me,” said Nanty Solo, and he sat by her. “Come and wait for the first day to come again.”
Inside the shadows, there were creatures in the wild long grass. They were shadows, shifting shapes, mice and beetles, and other half-seen things, half-known things. Joe stared and his mum stared and they thought of Joe's pictures in the house, those pictures from so long ago. And Stanny Mole stared too, and crawled across the grass to Joe and sat by his friend.
“And you?” said Nanty Solo, reaching out to Joe. “What will you do, Joe Maloney, here in the garden?”
Joe blushed, looked away, chewed his lips. The children who were left giggled. For they knew Joe. They knew Only Maloney.