‘Don’t jump!’ Robert would yell irritably from the centre of the ring while his pipe puffed little signals up at the cold blue sky. ‘Let the horse’s speed take you up. All you do is get your feet off the ground. Her canter will do the rest!’
I had mastered standing up on the horse with Jack to hold me, but with Robert keeping the horse at a steady pace I was learning to stand alone. First, hanging on like grim death to the strap, but gradually – as we trained every day, snow or shine – learning to let the strap drop and balance with my arms outstretched holding nothing, standing head up, my feet shifting and stepping on the horse’s bouncing haunches.
In the later afternoon Jack would come out of the barn to work with us. Dandy and Katie would train without him, sometimes flying tricks to David who would catch them, sometimes practising by flying a trick to the right position but dropping into the net, but most of the time practising the new trick David had taught them – a cross-over – where Dandy swung out on the trapeze and was caught by Jack as Katie took off on the returning trapeze. Dandy would somersault from Jack’s hands into the net as Katie was caught by him, then Katie could either try to swing back up to the pedestal board, or drop down to the net too. David, Jack and Robert all said it looked wonderful. It was to be the final trick of the show. Katie and Dandy preened themselves and looked smug once they had the timing right. I had no opinion on it at all. I simply could not watch it.
By the end of December David had all but finished his task, on time, and earned the promised bonus. He had given Robert a trained trapeze troupe: one boy catcher and two girl flyers; and that without too many mishaps. They had a routine of tricks: Dandy could swing from her bar to Jack into a legcatch, she could do a bird’s nest across when she got her feet tucked behind the trapeze bar while still holding on with her hands and then, at the last moment, stretched out her hands to be caught. She could do a pass they called the angel pass with one leg pointing to the roof and the other pointing down, when he handed her back to her own trapeze holding a hand and a foot, and she and Katie could reliably do a cross-over. Katie’s best trick was the angel pass. It looked showy but actually it was one of the easiest. David had taught them all how to do somersaults and twisters, into the net. They would have to practise them on their own.
He spent the last few days working with me on the practice trapeze. As long as I did not have to climb the ladder up to the pedestal I did not feel that icy shaking fear. I could do a number of tricks, get the trapeze swinging, drop underneath it so that I was upside down, get into the bird’s nest position, hang from my feet alone. Robert had it in mind to sling the trapeze under Dandy’s A-frame, and to use me as a warm-up act after the interval to get the crowd ready for the real trapeze work which would go on high above my head. I had no objection except I stipulated I should wear my breeches and a shirt.
‘For God’s sake, Meridon!’ Robert said irritably. ‘You can’t do a trapeze act dressed like a stable lad. You’ll wear a short skirt and a stomacher top and air your bubbies like the other girls.’
‘Nowt to show!’ Katie whispered.
I narrowed my eyes and said nothing.
David intervened. ‘It takes something of the excitement away from the aerial act,’ he said judiciously. ‘It detracts from the girls up high if Merry is only half-way up but dressed the same. Why don’t we dress her like Jack? She can wear tight white breeches like him and a billowy shirt top. She’d look grand, and that leaves the two girl flyers half-naked as they like to be!’
Katie and Dandy simpered. Jack nodded. ‘It suits us all better, Da,’ he said. ‘And you’ll have the Justices down on you for sure if you have a lass half-naked that near ground level.’
‘All right,’ Robert said. ‘The girls can wear blue costumes, and Jack and Meridon can have blue silk shirts. Meridon can use one of your short blue skirts when she’s doing her rosinback act.’
‘She should have her own, in a different colour,’ said Dandy. Katie nodded. Neither of them wanted to share.
‘She’d look nice in green,’ Katie volunteered.
David and Robert shook their heads in unison. ‘Green’s unlucky in the ring,’ David said.
‘Share your damned skirts you lazy wenches,’ Robert said. ‘Or make up another one in red.’
‘Down to my knees,’ I said.
Robert nodded. ‘That’s settled then,’ he said briskly. Then he turned to David. ‘You’ve done a grand job, I’m proud of you. We’ll have a dinner tonight to celebrate. Mrs Greaves is roasting a haunch of venison now.’
David did his little showman’s bow, his hand on his heart. ‘I’m obliged, sir,’ he said formally.
Robert nodded at us. ‘Finish your practice and turn out the horses and then come in, the rest of you,’ he said. ‘You can all take a glass of wine tonight to say farewell to your trainer. He’s done you proud.’
He turned and went out of the door. I dropped from the practice trapeze and watched Jack catching as Katie came towards him, her little face grimacing with concentration.
David called them down and all three of them threw somersaults into the net, a showy confident end to a good act. I watched the wood shavings underneath my boots.
‘Listen to me, you three,’ David said, his voice lilting. ‘I’ve done with you now and these are my final words to be taken seriously.’ He turned to Jack. ‘Watch the rigging,’ he said. ‘These are good frames and I’ve used such things myself. But the net is a new idea. I don’t know when it will get old. I don’t know whether it will stretch. Test it every time you get it out with a couple of hay bales into the middle, and watch it. Your lives depend on it. Don’t forget.’
Jack nodded, his face grave.
‘You keep the beat,’ David said to him as if he were passing on a mantle of office. ‘You call the trick, and if they’re not ready or out of time, you keep yourself out of their way and let them swing back, away from you again. It’s not your job to grab at them. Only catch the good tricks.’
Jack’s dark eyes were wide. He nodded.
David turned to Dandy and Katie. ‘Don’t do the catcher’s work for him,’ he said. ‘He’s paid to catch. You swing to where you’re supposed to be and let him earn his money. He catches you, you just stretch out to where he ought to be. If he’s not there, you swing back again, or do the trick to the net and you get on your back and you fall soft.’
Katie and Dandy nodded, as earnest as apprentices.
‘Trust him,’ David said. His voice sent a great shudder down my spine.
‘Trust him,’ David said again. ‘He’s your catcher. You’ve got to fly to him as if you loved him entirely and are certain that he will be there. Trust him and give yourself over to him.’
Robert had left the door ajar and it swung open. A gust of icy wind blew in, and with it, a great white tumbling bird. A barn owl, eyes glaring and dazzled by our lanterns. It flew in, a massive wide-winged bird, entirely silently, not a whisper of its passing, its open crazed face turning right and left, seeking its way out. It flew directly over Dandy and Jack, and then wheeled around, so close to her that its passing stirred her hair. It flew between her and the lantern hung on the ceiling. Its shadow fell black over her and Dandy gave a little affected shriek and clung to Jack’s arm, then the door swung open again, the bird turned and was gone. I fell back against the wall and felt the flints and mortar sharp against my fingers. I was shaken.
‘My God,’ Katie exclaimed. ‘That was like a ghost!’
I saw David rub his hands hard against his cheeks. I saw him square his shoulders, I saw him wipe his hand across his mouth as if he were painting on his bright professional smile.
‘Just a barn owl trying to get out of the cold, poor thing,’ he said lightly. I think only I heard the strain in his voice. ‘Snow is coming, we’d best run up to the house and get ready for dinner. It’s the last decent meal I’ll have for days. I’m cooking for myself tomorrow.’
He looked across at me and his brigh
t smile faltered for a moment while we met each other’s darkened gaze.
‘You hungry, Merry?’ he asked determinedly, willing me to pretend that I had not seen that second of his superstitious fear. I pushed myself away from the wall to stand on my own two feet.
‘Starving,’ I said. My voice was thin, but the others noticed nothing. David’s speech had been planned to send them out with their new act full of confidence. He wanted them to trust each other entirely, he wanted them to work without him, as well as they had done for the past two months. He had wanted to send them out with his blessing. He did not want them thrown and frightened with the easy superstition of travelling people.
We clattered around, banking in the stove, blowing out the lanterns except one to light our way back to the house across the fields. I looked for the barn owl when we were outside, but it had gone.
We all got tipsy at dinner. Robert became maudlin and blinked at the shiny surface of the table, and then insisted on singing loud and mournful ballads. David declared that all Welshmen could sing from birth without training and blasted out some convincing evidence in an incomprehensible language to prove it. Dandy danced very prettily with her skirts held high, and Katie sang a bawdy ale-house ditty. Jack and I became morosely quiet with the drink, though neither of us had more than a couple of glasses.
Robert called a halt at eleven o’clock.
‘Work tomorrow, same as usual,’ he said.
‘I’ll be gone as you’re rising,’ David said to the three of us. ‘I’ll say my farewells to you now.’
He spread his arms wide and hugged all three of us: Katie, Dandy and me. Katie he bussed and put to one side and whispered something in her ear which made her giggle and blush. Dandy he held very close for a moment and then set her on her feet.
‘Keep your wits about you and push out on the beat,’ he said. ‘If you know a trick isn’t going to work then drop into the net. And don’t get lazy! And practise every day!’
He turned to me and put his arms around me. ‘I wish I could have got you up high, Merry,’ he said. ‘But I am sorrier than I can tell you about your fall.’
I shrugged. ‘I’ll have others,’ I said, thinking of Sea waiting to be broken to the saddle.
He did not hug Jack. He took him by the shoulders and he looked into Jack’s guileless open face. ‘They’re your responsibility now,’ he said. ‘It is your job to keep the flyers safe. Do you swear to me on your life that you will do that?’
Jack blinked, surprised at David’s tone. ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘I’ll do the best I can.’
I felt my hands clench into fists, like they do when I’m afraid. David scanned Jack’s face once and then smiled.
‘Well, good luck to the three of you then,’ he said. He nodded to Robert over our heads. ‘You’ll always have my direction,’ he said. ‘If you need me for new tricks or re-training I’d be glad to work with the four of them again.’
Robert rose from the table, and clasped his hand with a smile. ‘I’m obliged to you,’ he said. ‘It’s better than I’d dreamed.’
David saw us to the kitchen door. The room was cosy, the stove banked-in for the night. A dog in its basket. A cat curled in the hearth. We opened the back door and a gust of icy air blew in, a swirl of snowflakes with it. Dandy and Katie pulled their shawls over their ducked heads and dashed out down the path towards the stables. I hesitated on the doorway, careless of the blowing snow. David looked down at me, waiting.
‘Does it mean anything,’ I asked, ‘in shows? Does it mean anything when an owl flies across the ring? When a bird flies in?’
David’s smile was easy. ‘Nothing at all, my fey little gypsy,’ he said tenderly. ‘Now run to your bed before you get cold. And try to stop tumbling off those horses of yours. If you’re worried about Dandy there’s little need. I’ve done the best I can and she knows her job.’
I nodded, longing to be convinced.
‘It’s all right then?’ I said.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, and he bent and gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead. I held my ground and did not pull away from his touch.
I stepped out of the back door and the wind hit me in the face and the snowflakes dazzled me. I dipped my head and ran in the direction of the stables. David had said it was all right. David had said that the bird meant nothing, its shadow falling on Dandy meant nothing. If there had been danger David would have warned me.
I tumbled up the stairs to our bedroom, shucked off my clothes in the cold room and fell into by bed. I did not want to think about anything.
12
We all missed David, but the routine of our days went on as if he had been there. Jack called the beat instead of the sweet low Welsh voice, and the three of them quarrelled and argued and settled on the way they would train and practise. Jack came out often to Robert and me in the paddock and we would practise our new acts with the horses.
Robert’s seed of an idea of an act with challenging people to ride Sea had developed into a comical routine. Firstly I was to ride Bluebell around the ring, vaulting on and off and then dancing on her back. I had yet to learn to jump through the hoop but I managed a couple of flat-footed jumps and a couple of skips.
‘Straighten up!’ Robert yelled at me time after time as I went bow-legged with my bottom stuck out backwards trying to keep my balance.
Straightening my legs on horseback was an act of pure will, I found. It was no easier in the ungainly crouch which came natural to me. I was probably making it harder for myself. But I found it such a relief to be within grabbing distance of the skewbald mane. Then:
‘Straighten up!’ Robert would yell again, and I would force myself to stand tall and even to look straight ahead with my chin up instead of gazing longingly at Bluebell’s broad back.
The act we planned would have me skipping and then jumping through an open hoop on Bluebell’s back. Then Jack, dressed in fustian breeches and gaiters, would come out from the back of the crowd like a drunken young farmer and demand a turn. At first I was supposed to refuse and turn my head away from him, at which Jack was to take a run from the far side of the ring and vault on to my place, pushing me off the other side.
Often we cracked heads, occasionally we would bounce off each other and fall back, off our own sides. Bluebell was excellent and stood as steady as a rock, even when Jack went up and I failed to drop off and we clung to each other and howled with exhausted laughter.
Then I was supposed to try to carry on with my act while Jack vaulted on to the horse. As long as I stayed well towards the tail and out of the way we were in little danger of collision. Jack vaulted on and ended up facing the tail, then he spun himself around so that he was facing the head, but both his legs were the same side. Then he lay flat on his back, his legs and arms on either side of the cantering horse. Then he spun around like a sack of meal. In the finale he crawled all around under Bluebell’s belly and then under her neck.
We practised it so often that we grew skilled and quick at it but it did not seem funny to us. We only realized how good it would be in the show when Dandy and Katie finished their practice early one day and came over to watch us, and actually collapsed on to the grass they were laughing so loud.
Robert, who had stood in the centre of the field for day after frozen day, had looked very thoughtful at that and had wandered off chewing on the stem of his pipe muttering to himself: ‘Lady and the Jester, the Girl and the Tramp, the Clowns on Horseback.’
Next day he had a sign-writer up and spent a long time with him in the stable yard while I worked the team of ponies in the paddock and Jack and Dandy and Katie practised in the barn.
The horse acts had grown almost beyond recognition now that I could ride in the ring and we had two rosinbacks. I did not yet know what order Robert planned to run the show but we had the dancing pony team, Snow doing his tricks with counting numbers and flags, Jack and me doing a two-horse bareback riding act, my dancing on the back of Bluebell, and then the se
cond part of the act when Jack came in dressed as the farmer. The little ponies could still do the Battle of Blenheim of course; and it was rather more impressive now that the flower of British cavalry outnumbered the French by four to three, and for the end of the show Robert planned some kind of historical tableau.
‘Summat like Saladin, but with the three lasses,’ he said to himself, chomping on his pipe as he did when he was struggling with an idea. He walked around the stable yard in a small half-circle. The pipe puffed a little cloud of triumph. ‘Rape of the Sabine Women,’ he said to himself.
We would be an impressive sight on the road, too. There was Snow, Robert’s grey stallion; Sea, my grey stallion; Bluebell and Morris, the two rosinbacks; Lofty, the new wagon horse; and seven little ponies. Lofty was a heavy draught horse bought with Robert’s profits from the Salisbury gamble to pull the new wagon which would carry the heavy flying rigging and the new screens he ordered. Bluebell and Morris would pull the two sleeping wagons. This summer William would come on the road too, for the first time. Robert might be parsimonious but even he could see that Jack and he could not set the rigging alone. We would need help with the horses at the end of two shows as well.
Then we worked. Worked and waited. It snowed hard in January and when I fell off the back of Bluebell I fell soft into drifts on either side of my track. I fell wet and cold too and Robert took pity on me and ordered me two new pairs of breeches and smocks so that I could change into dry clothes at each break. Mrs Greaves kept them warming for me on the front of her stove and I would dash into the kitchen, my teeth chattering with the cold and strip off my icy cold breeches and smock and drop them on the floor.
William came in one time, as I stripped from my snow-encrusted smock, and dropped the pallet of wood he was carrying and had a tongue-lashing from Mrs Greaves and was banned from the kitchen. But then she turned to me.