Circus Shoes

  Fifi shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘He wrote in the paper: “Monsieur, Madame, I was in the world to make laughter. I have seen war, so I have no laughter to give. I retire!”’

  ‘Goodness!’ said Santa. ‘What a grand way to write.’

  Olga, Fifi, Fritzi, and Sasha looked at her with varying expressions of pity.

  Fritzi explained her to the others.

  ‘She is English.’

  Santa saw that in some way she had said the wrong thing about Mink. She got the subject back to his work.

  ‘And now he just teaches?’

  ‘Yes.’ Olga, still lying on her back, held her toes. ‘He is the greatest teacher. He only takes those who have talent.’

  ‘Oh!’ Santa gave an admiring glance at Fifi. No wonder she always looked so self-assured. She would look self-assured if someone like Mink, who only took people of talent, had said he would teach her.

  ‘Are you going to do a routine while you play the violin, Fifi?’

  Fifi giggled. ‘If I could play a beautiful hymn like you, I would.’ Then she patted Santa’s hand to show she was only teasing. ‘No, I will work two years to be an acrobat. Already I have worked with him a little. He doesn’t work like everybody here. See.’ She got up. ‘Here is how Paula does when she is working with the Arizonas.’ Very neatly she went through the routine that Ted Kenet had shown Peter and Santa.

  Sasha and Olga got up and did it too, though not so well. Fritzi made disparaging noises through her teeth when they started.

  ‘It is well as Fifi does it,’ she said to Santa loudly. ‘You see how it is. She backwards turn and the same way as a clock go.’

  Fifi finished neatly. She held out her two hands palms uppermost just as if an audience were there. She came back to Fritzi and Santa. ‘With Mink he turns the other way. As an Arab. He goes forward and not the way of a clock.’

  Olga stood on her head.

  ‘Is that all the difference?’

  ‘If it is,’ said Sasha, once more trying to walk on his hands, ‘us could do that without going to Mink.’

  Fritzi and Fifi exchanged another glance.

  ‘It’s not all,’ Fifi said with dignity. ‘The impulse is different. With Mink there is no flip-flap. There is a forespring.’ She got up again, threw herself over, and came back neatly the right way up. ‘Do you see, Santa?’

  Santa saw that one way Fifi went forwards and the other backwards, but it was all one to her. Either was impossible to do.

  ‘I suppose so. But I can’t do any of it anyway.’

  Fifi caught her hand.

  ‘Come on, I’ll teach you.’

  Santa had on the same green frock she had travelled in. It was getting very shabby. She wished it would get hotter so that she could wear one of her cotton frocks. Fritzi, Olga, and Fifi had on practice clothes. Rather like bathing-dresses, with a jersey to match to put on when they finished working. Santa would have liked to learn how to tumble, but she felt self-conscious. To be the only one with skirts made her feel embarrassed.

  ‘I can’t. I haven’t the right clothes.’

  Fifi dismissed the need for special clothes with one gesture of her hands. But Fritzi was more understanding.

  ‘Come! I another practice clothes have. I will lend them. Then mine mother can clean your frock. Each day she say: “The frocks of the little Santa dirty are. I would wish to have them to clean.”’

  Fifi nodded. ‘That is the same with maman. But I said: “Impossible! Santa has no more clothes. What she wears is all there is.”’

  Santa was very glad to think she might borrow a practice dress. Of course she had never worn anything like that, and she felt she would look really circus in it. All the same, she did wish Fifi and Fritzi would not make her sound so poor. She knew she could not do the things they did, or have the clothes they had, but she did not need to have them saying so.

  Peter got on well with Hans. Hans was serious, and liked to talk of serious things. To him the most serious thing in the world was training wild animals. To Peter, horses and riding. They sat side by side shaping the branches which Hans had chosen for catapults.

  ‘Shall you have sea-lions when you are big enough to work?’ Peter asked.

  Hans chipped a small piece of wood from the fork of his branch.

  ‘Maybe some. But mine father wish I should go to mine uncle. He has the animals that were mine grandfather’s.’

  ‘What sort of animals?’

  Hans stopped cutting and considered.

  ‘Now there was five lion. One go dead just two month ago. Three panther, four bear, and two tiger.’

  ‘Will you have to go in the cage with them?’

  ‘But yes. It is a fine show. They work together.’

  ‘But aren’t you afraid?’

  Hans thought.

  ‘Maybe a little sometimes.’

  Peter peeled the last bit of his forked twig.

  ‘I’d be all the time. I mean, they could kill you.’

  Hans nodded.

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Ben says he doesn’t like wild-animal acts. He says he doesn’t like any act behind bars.’

  ‘That was right. I too wish they was not have to perform. I could not take an animal from a forest. I could not shut him up all the time; I know how unhappy he is.’

  ‘Well, what about your uncle’s beasts? They’re shut up. Aren’t they unhappy?’

  ‘No. They was come as cubs. I see them train. They was like babies. They know nothing.’ Hans took hold of Peter’s arm to make him attend. ‘First they must know each other. It is not natural that lions, tigers, panthers, and polar bears friends could be.’

  ‘I should think it wasn’t. How do you make them like each other?’

  ‘First they was all in cages that was touching. So they all speak to each other. Then each mine uncle visit. Each one he bring a small present. So it is they to each other say: “See, our friend who bring the little things in his pocket is come!” Then one day after many weeks they are all together put to play.’

  ‘My goodness!’ said Peter; ‘I wouldn’t like to be there that day.’

  ‘No,’ Hans agreed. ‘It is a time of great anxiety. The cubs was very valuable. It was bad if they should fight. You see, they was like little children who goes to a kindergarten. One boy maybe will another boy kick. He does not mean to be bad, it is he feels strange. So is it with mine uncle’s animals. They play the great games, they get hot, and they are excited. Then maybe a little bad one pull a lion’s mane. The lion think that not much fun. He hit whoever near is. Then mine uncle come. He is like the teacher in the school. He keeps order.’

  ‘Sooner him than me.’

  ‘If you was like us you would not be afraid. Always we have the wild animal. Always we have love them. It is with them as with the horses. Never mind they their own way have. Always must each know who the master is. So it is we the tricks teach. Some trainers make a great show with the whip. That is bad. It is leather pocket in which the little pieces of meat are that should make each little one wish to please.’

  Peter put down his penknife.

  ‘But Ben said lions and things like that don’t like working in the ring.’

  Hans frowned.

  ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I think “This is not kind. The animals was not happy.” Then I think: “These was born in captivity. Each one, if he was not in the ring, he must to a zoo go. That is bad. Animals was like us. Each one he like to have something to do. If he is free that is best. But if he cannot be free then it is kinder he should work. Just to sit in a cage with all day nothing to do, that is terrible.”’

  Peter looked across in the direction of the stables.

  ‘Well, I’d much rather have something to do with the horses.’

  ‘So,’ Hans agreed placidly. ‘For me it must be the wild animal. I was afraid if I was not there another trainer not so kind would be.’

  ‘Mr Cob wouldn’t have a trainer who wasn’t.?
??

  ‘No; but there was others.’ Hans looked suddenly angry. ‘If I the peoples was who paid the circus to see and there was some beasts who do not happy look, of which you could say: “That is not kind”, I would get up, and I would walk out, and as I go would cry to everyone: “You must not stay. You must not the money pay to see an animal perform who was not love his trainer!”’

  Peter thought rather regretfully of Satan and his lions. There was no question that they did not love him. He had seen him sit with one who had toothache, ad he knew that the lion had let him pull the bad tooth out. It was a pity, in a way; it would have been exciting to see Hans making a row in the big top.

  Santa came along. She was wearing an emerald green practice suit. She had green wool on the ends of her plaits. She looked nice like that. Peter felt proud of her. Santa was very conscious of her clothes. She stood on one leg.

  ‘I borrowed it from Fritzi.’

  Hans looked up.

  ‘You was practising?’

  Santa sat down beside him.

  ‘I’d meant to. Fifi said she would show me how to tumble, but while I was changing she and Olga went off somewhere.’ She looked anxiously at Peter. ‘Do I look all right?’

  ‘Um. Not bad.’

  Ted Kenet came by. He had been working and had a coat over his practice things. He was, as usual, eating a sweet. He nodded to the three children.

  ‘Hallo, kid. How’s things?’

  ‘I was going to practise tumbling with Fifi,’ said Santa, ‘but she’s gone.’

  ‘Oh! Well, if you’ll come along past my caravan first, I’ll show you how to work.’

  ‘Will you?’ Santa jumped up. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

  Ted walked off. Santa had to run to catch up with him.

  ‘If I minded I wouldn’t have offered. You ever drink sarsaparilla?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you should. That’s what I’m going to get now. Nothing like it in the spring for keeping the blood cool. I’ll give you a glass.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Santa tried to sound pleased, but she felt nervous it would be nasty. ‘Of course you need cool blood on a trapeze.’

  ‘You’ve said it.’ Ted stooped and picked a dandelion and put it in his button-hole. ‘Though it’s all right up there. Get a fine view.’

  Santa thought of the way he and Gus spun round.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time to see much.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Why, only last night at the second house I saw a lady faint. I’d a lovely view of her.’

  They reached the caravan. Santa leaned against it. Ted went inside to mix the sarsaparilla. He cam out with two glasses. He handed one to Santa.

  ‘Drink up. May you never break any bones!’ Seeing this was obviously a sort of toast, Santa took a sip. She did not care for the taste at all. But Ted swallowed his in three gulps, so she made a valiant effort and got hers down. Ted took her glass. He smacked his lips. ‘A glass of that three times a day and you’ll live to be a hundred.’

  Santa did not say so, but she thought she would rather not be as old if it meant drinking all that sarsaparilla.

  Ted was a first-class teacher of tumbling. He took Santa into the ring.

  ‘It’s all being supple and balancing right.’ He took hold of one of her legs and tried to lift it over her head. It was something all the other children did quite easily, but Santa’s legs would not do it.

  ‘I think I’m made wrong,’ she gasped.

  ‘No.’ Ted dropped her leg. ‘Stiff. That’s your trouble. You want exercises. Nothing like it. They’ll make you so you can jump over the moon. Come on.’

  The next half hour was the most hard-working that Santa had ever spent. Ted did not believe in amateurs. He told Santa that he was teaching her just for fun, but he worked her as if she had to earn her living doing acrobatics. Some of it was fun. He played leap-frog with her. Not just leap-frog as anybody might do it, but with a special way of taking-off and landing. A lot of the time was spent on just dull exercises like those she did at school. He made her stoop and touch her toes after everything she did. At the end, he picked up first one leg and then the other and again tried to hold them over her head. He still could not make her do it, but he said they were a good inch higher than they were before the lesson started.

  ‘You work at those exercises two or three days.’ He felt in his pocket and found his bag of sulphur sweets. ‘I’ll give you another lesson at Preston.’

  Preston, which they moved to for the last three days of the week, was not very popular with Peter and Santa. It rained a great deal, and Gus said that it being too wet to be out much was a good opportunity for writing letters. They could each write to Mr Stibbings, Mrs Ford, Madame Tranchot, and Miss Fane. Rain and four letters to write was very depressing. If it had not been that they were both trying to please Gus, they would probably have grumbled. As it was, they only grumbled to each other.

  ‘It’s sickening, with the holidays nearly over,’ said Peter.

  Santa sucked her pen.

  ‘And I can’t find anything to say. I don’t believe any of them ever saw a circus. And they’re not travelled like us.’

  There was one nice thing at Preston. They rode in the street parade.

  It was Mr Cob’s idea. He saw Peter and Santa hanging about outside the big top.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘What are you two up to?’

  They explained they were waiting to see the parade start.

  Mr Cob looked at the sky. ‘I’m not betting on there being one. Looks more like rain.’

  ‘Goodness, I hope not,’ said Santa. ‘Of course it’s always nice with a circus, but it’s not as nice when it’s raining.’

  Mr Cob laughed.

  ‘Glad you always find it nice. Some of these wet days I wish the whole contraption under the sea.’ Then he looked at the children. ‘How would you two like to ride on the coach?’

  Peter and Santa got quite red with excitement.

  ‘Might we?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded at Santa. ‘You go along to the girls’ dressing-tent. Tell the leader one of them can stay at home, and to fix you up with clothes.’ He scratched his head and stared at Peter. ‘What are we going to do with you? I have it. You find the coach boy. He’ll have a spare coat and topper. If you’re sitting, your breeks won’t show.’

  Half an hour later Santa and Peter climbed on to the coach. Santa had on a crinoline and bonnet, Peter a green coat and a top-hat. They were given the seat in the front beside Ben. Ben was looking very smart in a coat with a lot of collars, a top-hat, and yellow gloves. He nodded at them.

  ‘Proper circus folk you’re gettin’.’

  ‘Which of the horses are you driving, Ben?’ Santa asked.

  Ben jerked his head towards Peter.

  ‘You ask him. He’s gettin’ to know my’ osses most as well as I do myself.’

  Peter looked at the four. They were fairly well-matched bays.

  ‘That’s’ – Peter pointed to the leader – ‘Wisher; the one with him is Pie-crust; the one behind Wisher is Rainbow, and the other one is Whisky.’

  Ben’s lips tightened in a sort of smile. He looked pleased. Santa was startled at Peter being so clever. She knew Mustard by sight because she went with Peter to feed him every morning, but she was not positive she could have picked him out. As for these bays, she just knew they existed, that was all.

  ‘My goodness! how did you know?’ she whispered.

  Peter kicked her ankle. Not hard, but just enough to make her shut up. He did not want Ben or the girls behind to hear Santa asking how he knew the horses’ names. In the circus people did know things, and nobody thought it clever of them.

  The girl Peter had opened the basket for at the pull-down was sitting behind them. She tapped Peter on the shoulder.

  ‘Good morning, Little Lord Fauntleroy. Nice of you to honour the coach.’

  Peter turned scarlet, but to Santa’s surprise
he did not lose his temper.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. Then, after a pause, he added: ‘I didn’t know it was your coach, or I’d have thanked you for letting me ride on it.’

  The other girls sitting round laughed, and so did Ben. Ben said:

  ‘He’s learnin’, Rosa.’

  Rosa seemed to like Peter for having had an answer ready. She was only about sixteen, and though as a dancer and acrobat she pretended to be grown-up, she was quite glad to talk to people near her own age. She had a bag of chocolates. She offered them to Peter and Santa.

  ‘Have one. How are you liking living with us?’

  Peter and Santa told her they were liking it very much. They went on to discuss the different towns they had been in, but Santa’s mind was not on the conversation. Peter was changing. Only that short time ago when they ran away, people like the tomato man and Bill had found him odd. He had looked rather as if he did not want to know people. He still looked rather out of place in a circus, but much less than he had. Of course, knowing things made you feel much less queer. Fancy Peter knowing all the horses by sight. The people here would not think anything of that, but she knew, and so, she was sure, did Ben, that it was clever of a boy who a little less than a month before had never known a horse to speak to. She had a feeling like she always used to have before they came to live with Gus, that Peter was clever. She was proud of him. Lately she had not felt like that. She had begun to look upon herself as his equal. After all, neither of them knew anything, and on the whole, people found her less stupid than him. But now she did not feel his equal a bit. She did not know the names of the horses, and she would never have had an answer for Rosa, and she knew it.

  Ben had been sitting with the ribbons loosely in his hands, but now he gathered them up. The float with the band on it was turning out into the road, playing a gay tune. Behind them, looking lovely and glossy, came Mustard, Tapioca, Coffee, Cocoa, Pepper, and Clove, with Mr Petoff, the Kenets, and Paula riding them, wearing smartly cut coats and breeches and bowler hats. Behind them came Gus in an awful old crock of a car. He wore a green coat with enormous white spots, a huge scarlet bow-tie, and a bowler hat with no top to it, through which his wig was sticking. He had a funny make-up, with a white face, scarlet nose, an immense mouth, and very long, curling eyelashes. Behind him came all the other clowns and augustes. Some were on stilts, one clown was riding an old penny-farthing bicycle, another was driving Peekaboo, who was cavorting about as if he were a new lamb. The rest were riding on a float, where they shot at each other with water pistols, and knocked each other down and were very funny. Behind them the ponies came spanking along drawing their little coach. Alexsis in a scarlet livery with a white-top-hat was leading them. Behind them trunk to tail came the elephants, with Kundra, in a gold suit, covered with what looked like precious stones, riding on the leader.