Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

The tall streak of Sparrowgrass, the one who had driven the horse float, had made himself into a Human Wheel. He spun round and round in a circle crying, ‘I love you,’ while the actress followed him with a little hoop-stick, striking him on the backside and singing in a foreign language.

Wally stopped, and put his leg up on the little wooden ring curbs, balanced the wicker crates on his knee.

Roxanna folded her arms across her breasts.

‘Is it different from what you thought?’ Wally asked her.

She did not answer him.

‘It’s different,’ he insisted.

The woman and the man were trying to make a double wheel — the woman in the centre and the tall streak of Sparrowgrass wrapped around her like a floppy retread. It was like one of those seedy little circuses that make a living out of hokey towns, raising money for the volunteer fire brigade.

The man and woman stopped and fell apart and the other characters gathered around them and abused them.

‘Is this an old play or a new play?’ Roxanna whispered.

‘It’s an old play.’

‘It doesn’t sound like one. All those f’s and c’s.’

‘They’re not the words in the play itself.’

‘Why don’t they learn the real words?’

‘You want to go to the Comédie , you can see that kind of acting. This is what they call the avant garde.’

‘The words of this play,’ she asked, ‘they’re no good?’

‘You’re kidding. It’s Chekhov.’

‘So,’ Roxanna said. ‘Dot dot dot.’

‘What?’

‘So dot dot dot — what’s wrong with the frigging words?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with the words.’ Wally smiled.

She slit her eyes and looked at him.

He stopped smirking — which made him smarter than Reade.

‘I’ve got a pretty face,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t make me stupid, mo-frere.’

‘My apologies,’ he said. He looked so serious, so respectful, she suddenly wanted to laugh. He had a boner in his pants, no way he didn’t.

‘This is a very artistic theatre company.’ He looked her straight in the eye. His eyes were grey and velvety, the softest thing about him. ‘They don’t like to use the original words.’

‘Let me get this straight.’ She cocked her head and squinted, because now she had the picture of the boner, she had to stop herself from laughing at his solemn expression. ‘The words are fine?’

‘The words are fine. I didn’t mean to say they weren’t.’

‘Then they should learn them and use them.’ And she put her hand out and touched his shoulder. First time she actually touched him. He was hard as a brick.

‘They’re deconstructing it,’ he said, looking down. ‘That’s what they call it. It’s tray artistic.’

Roxanna had studied many aspects of art — tin soldiers, art-nouveau crystal. The theatre was not outside her range of possible interest. It met many of the right criteria, and she really did try, for a moment at least, to be respectful of what she saw here in this little circus ring.

‘The minute I saw the maman,’ she said at last, ‘I knew she wouldn’t like me and I wouldn’t like her.’

‘You’ll like the theatre, in the end.’

But it smelt like poor people, musty, old. ‘Allow me to know, mo-frere.’

‘It’s like drinking green wine.’

‘You like to drink, mo-frere. Let’s drink.’ He had pale, pale lips, scars along his arms. ‘Let’s get these birds dry and quiet and then you can go to the bank and get your money, and then we can dot our i’s and cross our t’s.’

She could feel her smile lying easy on her face. She looked him in the eye, asking him to show his own, and when he was shy and combed his hair back from his forehead she was pleased.

A week ago she had a new washing machine, a new gas drier. Now she was walking side by side with this frere, bumping shoulders. She knew exactly what she planned to do eight days from now, but she had no idea what she would do in the next minute. They walked down into some little dungeon then up some steps and into a little sweet-smelling courtyard where an old Efican oak was dropping its sappy petals on the damp green bricks. She felt fantastic, for a moment, free, young.

Then he stopped again, and looked at her. When he opened his mouth she thought, I don’t know what he is going to say. It hit her with a jolt. She saw the pale lips parting and was scared.

‘You ever hear of Ducrow?’ he asked.

‘Look.’ She hardly heard him. ‘I didn’t say I was going to be your friend, OK?’

‘All I asked was — did you ever hear of Ducrow’s Circus?’

‘Ducrow’s Circus, of course.’

‘You ever hear of Ducrow’s lion? Ducrow’s lion/sadly sighing/ate his nose and foot …’

‘He died and his own lion ate him,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘This is where it happened, on this spot, under this very tree. This was Ducrow’s Circus School where he had the romance with the prime minister’s wife,’ Wally said.

‘Solveig Mappin was her name.’

‘Solveig Mappin, yes.’

‘So,’ she said, ‘dot dot dot.’

‘I worked with Ducrow. I never knew him here. He was here when he was an old man.’

‘Everyone knows about Ducrow.’

‘I knew him when he was trying to have a real Sirkus. Not just the horses and bears and the birds. He bought a laser projector. Our pay cheques always bounced.’

‘He had a bird rode a bicycle,’ Roxanna said. ‘I saw that.’

‘He had an eastern parrot ride a bicycle, and the toucan jumped through hoops. I trained those birds myself.’

‘I saw those birds.’

‘Get out with you. You’re too young.’

‘It was in 372. In Chemin Rouge, at Gaynor’s Paddock at Goat Marshes.’

‘They were my birds in ‘seventy-two,’ Wally said. ‘I caught that parrot myself in a wicker trap not two miles from here. Its name was Linda.’

‘Get on with you.’

‘The show Ducrow did that year. Remember? He had the Royal Hussars. He had the Moroccans.’

‘Of course I remember.’ She had just run away from the convent. She was fourteen years old and her picture was in every Gardiacivil office in the southern islands. She sat alone, her hair dyed red, jealous of the families around her.

‘He had the idol in the middle. Like a god. This is Ducrow, this is how he tells them what to do.’ Wally started placing wicker baskets around the courtyard and began to talk to them. He got a wild sort of energy, his hair rising and falling, his eyes flashing, his arms thrashing. She started laughing, watching him. ‘He says, now look here, you chaps, you see that lump of smoking tow, that’s the idol, and you, Mohammed, stand here with the knife between your teeth. Now when Hussars come in here you chop chop chop, and that is how he spoke to them, the Great Ducrow. He was better with horses.’

‘You taught that bird to ride a bicycle?’

He shrugged, and began to stack the wicker baskets. ‘You could have done it.’

‘I really liked that bird,’ she said. ‘I don’t like birds, if you want to know. I don’t like pigeons. I’m very pleased to have them out of my life.’

‘You can make money with pigeons.’

Roxanna chose to say nothing.

‘You can,’ he insisted.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘if you got them for the boy, that’s really sweet, that’s very nice of you. And even if he’s not too excited now, he’ll come around.’

‘He’ll come around.’

‘He’ll come around. He doesn’t look too interested right now.’

‘You got any kids?’

‘Do I look like I have a kid?’

‘You have a good figure.’

‘You’re full of shit, you know that. You don’t really think …’