The second half of the tent was full of men. One group on the left was busy building some more stalls. Others were erecting a wooden platform at the far end. Santa, who had never visualized there being more than one lion, one horse, and perhaps an elephant in the circus, was most impressed at all these preparations.
‘There must be an awful lot of animals,’ she whispered to Peter.
An old man was leaning against a tent prop near them. He had a face like an apple that has been put away too long. It was brown and wrinkled by dozens of tiny lines. He was wearing a black coat, check breeches, and black gaiters and boots. A straw was sticking out of the corner of his mouth. His voice was slow and quiet. He spoke as if his life through he had been careful not to speak roughly or quickly for fear he should startle anything.
‘Well – what are you two up to? If you’ve come to see the menagerie you’re too soon.’
‘We haven’t, sir,’ Peter explained politely. ‘We’re just looking round, if you don’t mind.’
The old man laughed.
‘Me? I don’t mind. But don’t you let Mr Cob catch you. He’s a mild man but he’s fair roused when folk come round too soon on a build-up mornin’.’
Peter felt it was time they asserted themselves.
‘We’ve not come round.’
‘No,’ Santa added. ‘As a matter of fact we’re staying here.’
The old man looked surprised.
‘Are you now! Who do you belong to?’
Peter, in spite of what Gus had said, could not feel that just a Christian name, and only a bit of one at that, was enough for an uncle of his.
‘Mr Gus Possit. We’re his nephew and niece.’
The old man looked more surprised.
‘Gus! Nephey and niece. Didn’t know ’e ’ad any.’
Santa leant against the nearest tent pole.
‘He hadn’t seen us till today. What does he do in the circus? A man said he was an artist. But that means painting.’
The old man chuckled.
‘Can’t see Gus painting. Does a bit of everything like. Very useful artiste. Auguste ’e is really. Then ’e does a trapeze act.’
Santa tried not to show that she did not understand a word. She changed the subject.
‘Are you an artist?’
‘Me!’ A gust of laughing shook the old man. ‘No. I been with Mr Cob and ’is dad before him. Ben’s my name. Nearest I ever got to being an artiste was when I was a nipper and stood on the ring fence to blow a ’unting’ orn. Never much of a hand at it, I wasn’t, so I soon give it up.’
‘What do you do then?’ Peter asked.
Ben spat his straw out thoughtfully.
‘Everything. Groom. Bereiter, that’s what we call an assistant breaker. Coachman. Second head of the stables. Then two years back I come to head. “Ben,” Mr Cob says to me, “I’m makin’ you Master of the ’Oss.” That’s the high-falutin’ way they calls me on the programme. “And from now on all the hands’ll call you Mr Willis.” That’s me name, see?’
‘And do they?’
Ben stooped, chose another straw, and put it in his mouth.
‘Men and ’osses they’re all the same. Teach a ’oss something and that’s the way he’ll always do it. Can’t make him no different. Same with men. I been Ben since I was borned. And Ben I’ll die. Can’t expect people to take to a lot of Mr Willis-ing sudden like. ’Tain’t natural.’
‘Shall we call you Mr Willis?’ Santa suggested.
Ben shook his head.
‘No. Jus’ Ben. I don’t like new ways. The old ones have done me for seventy-five years. They’ll do me a bit longer yet.’ He straightened up and looked down the tent. ‘Time we was getting going.’
Peter looked round to see why.
‘Where to?’
‘Station. Fetch my ’osses.’ He gave the children a friendly nod and went off.
The big top had changed again. The seating was going up. Circular wooden platforms had been erected and the seats stood on these. Santa was puzzled why, but Peter grasped the system in a moment and explained it to her.
‘Don’t you see, the lions and things are going to show on that earth they’re digging up. They stay on the ground, but everybody else is raised up so they can see.’
Santa looked at the place where he pointed. A large circular piece of ground had been dug up. Several men were at work raking it.
‘I wonder if we dare go and look,’ she whispered.
A man above her who was putting up seating heard what she said. He smiled cheerfully.
‘They won’t eat you. The worst they’ll do is turn you out. You go and have a look-see.’
The man was in rather an awkward position to talk to. The children were standing on the ground at the entrance to the tent, and he was fixing some seats high up on their left. He looked down at them and only his head showed over some boarding. It meant talking with your chin right up in the air, which was not comfortable, but he had a friendly face, the sort which might answer questions without being annoyed. Santa smiled at it.
‘Do you mind telling me if that’ – she pointed to the ring of earth – ‘is where the lions and things will be?’
‘That’s right.’ The man’s head nodded. ‘That’s the ring. They’re making it now.’
‘Making it?’ Santa looked at him in surprise. ‘Our uncle, Mr Gus Possit, said “build” was the right word. Don’t you belong to the circus, either?’
‘Me!’ The man finished fixing a seat. ‘I’m a tent hand. That’s right though, what Gus said. We call it build-up for the big top. But you “make” the ring.’
‘How?’ Peter and Santa asked at once.
The man made a face at them
‘You’ll have the tent master after me. You go down and have a look for yourselves.’
‘Won’t anybody mind?’ Santa asked anxiously.
The man looked towards the ring. The ring-side seats were already up. Quite a lot of people were sitting in them. He looked at their heads.
‘See that little fellow with the red hair?’ There was one head of unmistakably flaming red, so they both nodded. ‘That’s Alexsis Petoff.’ The man looked down at Peter. ‘He’ll be about your age. You ask him what you want to know.’
‘Alexsis!’ Santa hopped because she was so pleased to hear somebody talked about that she knew. ‘The one that’s going into the act next winter?’
The man turned away to see to another row of seats.
‘Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But you sit alongside him. Born in the ring young Alexsis was. He’ll tell you all you want to know.’
Luckily there were two empty seats next to Alexsis. Peter and Santa sat in them. They sat rather nervously like people who are not sure they have come to the right party, because although they were very conscious of being Gus’s nephew and niece they were not a bit certain they would not be turned out. Santa dug her elbow into Peter.
‘Speak to him. Tell him we know Olga and Sasha.’
Peter cleared his throat like a person who is going to make a speech, but is not a bit sure what he is going to say. Luckily he did not have to bother. Alexsis turned and looked at them. Then beamed.
‘It will be Peter and Santa who was the nephew and niece of Gus.’
Santa was so interested in his English being so bad she could not even shape her own words properly.
‘It will be. But why do you talk so much worse English than Olga and Sasha?’
Alexsis had a face that easily looked worried. It looked worried now.
‘When we was in England,’ he explained carefully, ‘it is that every child must go to school. But when I was little we was not in England. I have German, French, Russian, and a little Italian, but I have not much English. My father say it is because I am lazy.’
Santa looked at him with interest, remembering this was exactly what Olga had said her father said about him.
‘Are you?’
‘No.’ A queer far-away look came into A
lexsis’s eyes. ‘It is that I may not do what I can do.’
‘Oh!’ Santa looked at Peter. They both felt embarrassed. Alexsis had such a desperate way of speaking. Santa changed the subject.
‘Why is it “building” the big top, and “making” the ring? Somebody told us it was. Is that right?’
Alexsis looked surprised at such ignorance.
‘But of course a ring must be made. A field is hard. Yes? How could the artistes work?’
Peter was a little vague as to what he meant. Work as he understood it meant bookwork, or housework, or something like that. He knew the animals would appear in the ring, but he could not see why it wanted ‘making’ so carefully.
‘But they’ve dug it up now. Why are all those men working on it?’
Alexsis suddenly grasped that they were completely ignorant.
His face looked more worried than ever, as he fumbled for the right words.
‘A ring he must always be the same size and soft to the foots.’
Santa shook her head.
‘Not foots. Feet.’
‘So!’ Alexsis nodded. ‘It is that I forget. First the men come and dig up the ground. But ground he is hard. He is rough. He have stones. Sometimes he slope. Then you put more good earth to make a ring.’
Peter was interested.
‘Where do you get the earth from?’
‘You buy him. Some town it is only seven ton. One town it is twenty.’
Peter nodded at the men who were working.
‘What are they doing now?’
‘They rake him smooth. They maybe water him. Presently the elephants come to tread him down. Then when all is done they put sawdust. Very pretty the sawdust. They pattern it.’
Santa sighed at what seemed to her a shocking waste of labour.
‘Well, of course, we’ve never seen a circus. But we’ve seen pictures of them. It all seems a lot of fuss to me.’
A party of men came down one of the gangways. They carried between them some portions of curved wood with plush tops. They put the bits all round the ring, screwing them together. At the side where the children had come in leading to the stables there was a hinged piece which made a door.
Peter got up and examined it. He looked over his shoulder at Alexis.
‘Is that an edge to keep the animals behind?’
Alexsis got up.
‘That is the ring fence. Inside that is the circus. You understand? No?’
‘Yes.’ Santa was sorry to see he was going. ‘Must you go?’
‘Yes. The horses will have come. My father wish me to work one of them.’ He ran off in the direction of the stables.
Santa looked after him.
‘Pity he couldn’t stay. Even though he does speak so funnily he told us a lot of things. Look, there’s Uncle Gus. Gus I mean.’
Gus had come into the big top from the opposite entrance. Both Peter and Santa got up supposing he had come to look for them. After all one does not meet nephews and nieces for the first time every day, it was only natural that he should want to come and talk to them. But not a bit of it. He came in with another man. The two of them unstrapped a large wooden box. Gus never even looked round to see if the children were there. After a minute or two the children sat down again, feeling as stupid as people do feel who have expected to be wanted and then found they were not. However, they had not very long to feel stupid in, for Gus and the other man began to do the most exciting things.
Out of the box came a steel bar, some rolls of wire, and a rope ladder. Gus had clogs over what looked like dancing pumps. He kicked the clogs off and put them on the ring fence, seized a bundle of wire, and like a monkey climbed up a ladder attached to one of the king-poles. While he was up there his friend was fixing the other ends of the wires to staples on the ground. They were both very busy and hardly spoke. Sometimes Gus said ‘Now’, or ‘Coming’, and the man on the ground caught an end of wire and replied ‘O.K.’ or ‘Easy does it’. When they had their bar fixed up in the roof, it looked like an ordinary garden swing.
All the while Gus was working, various tent hands who had finished their work for the moment stood round the ring smoking and watching. This disgusted Peter.
‘If I were Gus,’ he whispered to Santa, ‘I’d make those fellows put the things up for me.’
Santa nodded. She, too, was puzzled why her uncle had to do what appeared a menial job. If their uncle was an artist he must be important even if everybody did call him Gus.
‘So’d I,’ she whispered back. ‘But perhaps they don’t know how to.’
At this moment Gus seemed to have got everything finished to his satisfaction. He came sliding down a rope into the ring. He fetched his clogs and beckoned to his friend.
‘Ted. Come and meet my nephew and niece.’
Ted was younger than Uncle Gus, with black curly hair. He raised his eyebrows.
‘Nephew and niece. Never knew you had any.’
‘Kedgeree and rum – I’d nearly forgot it myself.’ Gus took his arm. ‘Peter and Santa. Meet Mister Ted Kenet.’
‘Pleased,’ said Ted. He felt in his pocket and produced a small paper bag. He held it out. ‘Have one. Sweets, with a little sulphur for the blood. Nothing like sulphur in the spring.’
Santa looked in the bag. The sweets were yellow, rather like pieces of Edinburgh rock. She took one and bit it gingerly, as she did not like the sound of sulphur. However, it did not taste bad. She made an encouraging face at Peter to tell him so, for he was much more fussy about eating things he did not like than she was. Peter took a small piece. He looked at Gus.
‘What’s that you’ve put up?’
Gus gave an apologetic glance at Ted.
‘Brought up by my poor sister Rebecca. Mustn’t speak ill of the dead, but the woman was a fool.’ He turned to Peter. ‘That’s a trapeze.’
‘Oh.’ Peter did not like to ask what a trapeze was; instead he turned to the question of why people like his uncle and Ted should work with all these workmen standing about. ‘Why do you have to put it up? Why not them?’ He nodded in the direction of the tent hands.
Gus’s face looked ashamed all over.
‘You hear that, Ted? He’d let somebody else put his stuff up for him. The boy’s a fool.’ He pointed dramatically at the roof. ‘When Ted and me go up there to do our act, there’s nothing between us and the ring. If something went wrong we’d break our necks most like.’
Ted nodded gloomily.
‘Or worse. That’s why I take sulphur sweets. That and a nice drink of sarsaparilla keeps the blood cool.’
Gus held Peter by his coat sleeve.
‘Every artiste in the circus puts up and takes down his own stuff. Pork and beans, where’d he be if he didn’t!’
‘Dead,’ said Ted. He looked at his watch. ‘Dinner-time. So long.’
‘So long,’ Gus replied. Then he jerked his head towards the tent exit. ‘Dinner-time for us, too. Come on.’
Gus’s caravan looked quite small from the outside but inside it had a surprising lot of room. It was divided in half by a partition which made two rooms. In the first half, which was the one the door opened into, there was a stove, various shelves and cupboards, a flap table which let down from the wall, and seats which did the same. It was in fact a dining-room kitchen. On the stove a pot was standing from which came a very good-smelling steam.
The other room was a bedroom. There were two bunks in it. One had bedclothes and was obviously Gus’s bed. Peter and Santa tried not to stare too obviously at the second bunk, but they could not help wondering where the one who did not have it would sleep.
Gus did not give them long to look around.
‘Table wants laying, Santa.’ He showed her where the table-cloth lived, and the knives and forks and things. Santa thought he must be a very neat man, for everything was clean and lived in a special place. Gus seemed to guess what she was thinking.
‘Must be shipshape in a caravan. No room for a mess. Besides, my o
ld mother, your grandmother, brought us up right.’ He passed a jug to Peter. ‘Fetch some water. Tap’s by the men’s mess-tent.’
While Peter was gone, and Santa laid the table, Gus stirred what was in the pot. He took a deep sniff.
‘Beautiful. Always have a stew of a Sunday, and a Thursday.’
Santa took some forks out of their drawer.
‘Why Sundays and Thursdays specially?’
Gus took three plates to warm on the rack of the stove.
‘On account of the build-up. Cut up my meat. Slice my veg. Fix my stew. Put it on a low heat to simmer. Fix my stuff in the big top. Come back and dinner’s ready.’
Santa found the salt cellar and the pepper and mustard pots in the cupboard.
‘Fancy you being able to cook. I never knew men could. But then of course I’ve only known one man and that was Mr Stibbings.’
Gus gave the stew a final stir.
‘The reverend may not have had the chances to learn I’ve had. You never knew your grandma. Proper termagant she was, bless her. “Them as can’t work can’t eat,” she always said.’
Santa looked at the table carefully to see if she’d forgotten anything.
‘What, even when you were little?’
‘Time I was four. Not cooking I wasn’t, not then. But doing my bit towards preparing the dinner. And she was right. Many’s the time I’ve blessed her since.’
Peter came back with the water. Gus held out the kettle.
‘Fill that ready for the washing-up, then stand the rest outside. We’ll set the kettle on now, then it’ll have boiled time we want it.’ He took a large spoon and put helpings of stew on each plate. ‘There you are, sit down and eat hearty. Oughtn’t to be a bit of carrot to scrape out of the pot in this lovely air.’
Peter filled the kettle and put it on the stove, stood the jug outside, and came and sat at the table. He turned to Santa.
‘When I was getting the water I met Olga and Sasha and a whole lot more children. D’you know, they’d been to school.’
Gus tasted a mouthful of stew; he nodded at his plate approvingly.
‘Beautiful!’
‘Fancy them going to school,’ said Santa. ‘They only got here this morning.’