Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

She was good with the audiences by now, knew which eyes to meet and which to let go. She didn’t blame them for looking. How could they not? Might as well ask the moon not to rise. Occasionally, to one particular pair of eyes in a sea of them, her returning stare had said think about it, just consider, and they had blushed like maidens. When she came down and walked among them, the bold ones stepped forward to shake her hand and stroke her wonderingly, as if she was an exotic animal. The questions were always the same. Are you happy? Have you ever had a beau? Would you like to get married? Sometimes a young buck flirted with her. On their part, it felt like a perversion, she saw that well enough. No one ever made a real pass but there was intimacy in all that staring, and when Beach put out the news that desperate suitors, all refused, vied for her hand, she smiled and went along with it. She was saving. When I’m rich, she thought, I’ll go back home and show them my new clothes. I’ll arrive in a carriage. Walk in, equal, independent. How could it be? What was there in that house but the scrubbing of steps and the hauling of water? Where would she be, where would she live, when she was rich and independent? Surely it would be revealed to her. A house where she was not a servant. Something, someone, a friend. Fresh flowers.

They played Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal. In some small town in Quebec, she met a bearded lady travelling with her husband, a lean frog-mouthed man who hovered watchfully and silently about her at all times. She’s got a husband. The great Clofullia has a husband. Dr John Montanee’s love potion was in her pocket. Every now and then she took it out, pulled out the bung and sniffed it. It smelled of cinnamon and lemon. Now and again she rubbed a little on her arms, saying: oh Saint Jude, I’m still waiting.

All the way down to Boston they played sideshows. After a show in Burlington one night, the contortionist, a worried girl called Zelda, started crying and wouldn’t stop. They were in a field outside town, sitting in the fat lady’s wagon. Maud Sparrow was like seven or eight people rolled into one. No one chair could accommodate her, so she always sat on a large and splendidly bedecked sofa, a kind of throne. ‘What’s the matter, noodle?’ she asked brightly. She was working her way through a dish of marshmallows. Eating was part of the job.

‘Just feeling sick for my home,’ said Zelda.

‘Have a good cry,’ said Maud. ‘Best thing. Get it out of you then it’s done.’ Her face was supported by an overlapping progression of four or five rolls of chin. Her features in the middle were pretty, but diminished by the sheer quantity of surrounding flesh.

‘I want to eat my aunt’s soup,’ said Zelda. Her eyes were huge, blue and bulgy.

‘I know what you mean!’ Julia said. ‘I really miss the food at home.’

Zelda glanced at her and looked quickly away, smiling faintly. She didn’t know how to act with Julia. She was trying, you could see, but her eyes couldn’t get a hold and slid off whenever she tried to look her in the eye. ‘She put everything in,’ Zelda said, ‘beans and peas. Bread.’

‘It tastes of nothing, the food here,’ said Julia.

‘Too hot for me,’ said Maud. ‘Your kinda food.’

Zelda blew her nose. ‘I don’t really want to go home, I suppose,’ she said, sighing. She had a face that neither knew nor cared what it looked like, though it was beautiful. Her eyes were soulful and her dark hair, prematurely greying, curled in tendrils on her wide white forehead. ‘It’s not very nice there. I just miss my aunt’s soup.’

‘It’ll still be there when you get back,’ said Maud, tearing a lump of marshmallow in two with smooth pink fingers.

‘I know.’ But tears kept on leaking out of Zelda’s eyes.

Maud sighed, looked at Julia and made a face as if to say, well — we all have our troubles. Nowhere near as much fun as Myrtle and Delia, these two. ‘You’re so clever,’ Julia told Zelda. ‘I wish I could do what you do.’

‘Thanks.’ Zelda smiled sadly, not meeting her eyes.

‘Cheer up, noodle.’ Maud stuck her legs out from under a thick yellow dressing gown. She was famous for her legs. Her ankles came down in descending layers like thick whipped cream, almost entirely obscuring the tiny feet that carried her about. Permanent lines had been etched into her flesh where her shoes cut. ‘You’ll be through with this little show before you know it,’ she said.

Beach stuck his head round the door. ‘Hello, girls,’ he said, ‘everything all right?’ His head had a swollen pink look like cured ham.

‘Yes, Mr Beach,’ said Julia.

‘Good show tonight,’ he said, looking as he always did, worried and friendly at the same time. ‘Maud, I’ve got your pictures.’ He came in, nudging the door shut behind him with his foot.

‘Any good?’ Maud reached out a hand.

‘Fine.’

She took the envelope. ‘Beach,’ she said, ‘this girl’s full of misery.’

Beach turned a long-suffering face on the contortionist. ‘What is it, Zelda?’ he said. ‘What is there to cry about?’

‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘Didn’t you hear them tonight? You’re doing great.’

‘I know I am.’

‘Get her some bean porridge, Beach,’ said Maud, licking the ends of her fingers. ‘Get her some good thick soup.’

‘She hungry?’ Beach’s pale blue eyes drooped down at the corners, giving him a look of permanent bewilderment. ‘Didn’t you eat tonight?’

‘Of course I did,’ said Zelda impatiently, strangely twisting her hands together. ‘I’m not hungry, not at all.’

‘What’s wrong with the food?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with the food, I’m just… oh, never mind.’

‘She’s just homesick is all,’ said Maud.

‘Girls,’ said Beach, raising his eyes to the roof of the wagon as if to the hills for deliverance, ‘girls girls girls, you’ll be the death of me. If you’re not happy, what’s keeping you?’

‘The money, honey,’ said Maud.

Beach stared at each of them in turn as if they’d wounded his feelings. ‘Get a hold of yourself, Zelda,’ he said. Drops of sweat glistened on his red, contorted forehead. ‘You make up your mind. Are you doing this or aren’t you? If you are, you got to pull yourself together.’

‘I know.’ One of her eyes began to blink nervously. She sniffed and dried her eyes. She was leaving them soon, joining up with a circus and travelling west. Julia didn’t think she’d miss her.

‘Hm,’ said Maud, spilling pictures out on the table. Variations on a theme: Maud smiling, skipping, left leg bent, right knee raised, dainty toe pointing. Holding out the huge skirt of her short white dress to show off her pins. She picked one up. ‘Not bad,’ she said without enthusiasm.

‘Christ,’ he said, ‘you girls are hard to please.’

‘Too much dark round the edges,’ Maud said, passing the picture to Julia. ‘It’s a shame to have to write on that nice white lace.’

‘There’s a space at the top,’ said Julia, ‘by the curtain. You could sign there.’

‘I guess.’

Beach hulked around for a while looking disgruntled, told them not to stay up late and left without closing the door. A faint grassy smell crept in with the cold night air.

‘Here, you two.’ Maud stood up, parting her legs and letting her stomach fall down between them to hang momentarily visible under the yellow dressing gown, before putting her arms down and with a practised flounce manually hauling it along with her as she shuffled sideways to take a cake box out of a corner cupboard. ‘Take a few with you,’ she said, sidling back into place and opening the box on her lap. ‘Spice and lime. Go on, help yourselves.’