Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

‘Wise men?’

‘Doctors. Fellows with fancy education and tripe for brains.’

‘I lost count.’

‘I’m a showman, Miss Pastrana.’ Mr Lent leaned forward again but this time more casually, swinging one arm over his knee in a movement of practised ease that managed to be all wrong. ‘Let’s not beat about the bush,’ he said. ‘Have you considered Europe?’

She drew back, surprised. ‘Europe?’

‘London. Paris. Rome.’ He tossed the words like winning cards. ‘Did you know Tom Thumb played for the Queen of England? The Emperor Napoleon turned out for Maximo and Bartola. They’ve dined with every duke and duchess from Saint Petersburg to Madrid.’ He stared fanatically into her eyes. ‘Why not you, Miss Pastrana?’

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ she said.

‘Then do, Miss Pastrana. Do.’

She looked into the fire. He talked as if he was acting. ‘Europe,’ she said softly. Far away, grand, sophisticated, old. Where Cato was going. Where they all came from, the Poles, the Italians, the Irish, the Germans, all the different accents and faces of the cities she dipped in and out of.

‘Five times now I’ve watched you perform,’ he said. ‘Five times I’ve been amazed. You have great talent. Great talent.’

‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I do have some talent, it’s true, but I wouldn’t call it great.’

‘I would.’

She glanced at him. ‘You’re very kind, Mr Lent.’

‘No,’ he said, leaning towards her again, ‘I’m not a particularly kind man. But I do know my business. Miss Pastrana—’

The future had seemed as far away as the past till now, but somewhere deep in her mind it began to take shape.

‘Don’t you know how rare you are?’ He laughed, a sudden boyish undisciplined giggle. ‘How wonderful?’

Julia turned away and smiled. She wasn’t usually the one who looked away first, but now she’d done it twice. His zeal was embarrassing.

‘I was born into this business,’ he said. ‘I cut my teeth on it. I promise you, I will make you rich and famous. I promise you.’

She looked back at him seriously. ‘Have you spoken to Mr Beach?’ she asked.

‘I have.’ He had the tone of a man for whom everything is simple, worked out like a tricky equation. ‘I’ll pay him whatever he wants.’

She looked away.

‘I have money, Julia,’ he said quietly. She was a little taken aback by his easy use of her first name. She’d been saving a bit. She hadn’t thought about making more. ‘Money is no object,’ he said. ‘Whatever you’re getting now, I’ll double it in a year. I’ll triple it. The future’s not here, it’s over there. And I have contacts.’

Yes, she thought. This is it. The future. It’s over there.

‘Julia,’ he said. ‘You’ll dine with kings.’

In a flash, it came back again: home, Solana, her room, the stone seat, the steps. Glow-worms hovering in the dark outside the gate, the fig tree dropping fruit on the cobbles. But this time she knew beyond doubt that she’d never go back. Oh Saint Jude, is this your doing? I promise to forever remember your great favour, forever increase devotion to you…

‘Kings,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if they’re nice?’

Mr Lent laughed.

It was Theo and Julia, not Mr Lent and Miss Pastrana. From the very first, he insisted. She was his sole client. She was all he needed, he said.

They toured the east coast while he made arrangements. First London, he said. Then Paris, Berlin.

He talked. Oh, how he talked. On a train rattling through the night, everything out there peculiar and dreamlike, the dark land. He’d been in the business since he was in the crib. His father and mother had run a house for those of the human curiosity class, the wondrous, the strange, the nondescript in every sense of the word. That’s what she was, he said. The singularity, the truly one and only. Cursed? Come on! You’re a bloody marvel! Blessed, more like. It had all gone, he said, everything he’d had. Father, mother, the house. Let me tell you this, Julia, what I haven’t seen doesn’t exist, believe me, been broke as it’s possible to be, down in a pit but got back up again, up now, nice and steady. Got a good nose, see. Read the market. Up and up and up, and now I am a wealthy man. I have ideas. I’ve been all over Europe. You’d love it, Julia. There’s so much, there’s just so much.

‘You’ll be a rich woman,’ he said, ‘because I’ll be a rich man.’

She began to wonder, as the cities and the miles and the time flew by, if this was what it was like to be married. Of course not. They never touched, apart from her hand on his arm, his cupping her elbow, touching her fingers as he helped her down from a coach. But there was coupledom in all those travelling hours, the daily life of the circuit jogging on, she and he the only constants. She could talk to him, tell him about it all, home, New Orleans, everything. At first it felt odd to travel alone with a man, but that soon passed. More and more he took on the role of lady’s maid, bringing hot water first thing, combing her hair out after a show, the touch of his hand on the back of her neck sharp and startling. His quick triple rap on her door was familiar. The more he did, the more he kept the others away. She missed those old days of company, Myrtle and Delia, Cato, the dancing in the yard, the breakfasts. When she was not onstage or practising, she read books and played her guitar. Rooms. Rooms that looked out on streets and streets and yet other streets, sometimes an alleyway or wall, or rooftops reflecting morning sun that crept through thin curtains onto her eyelids, waking her early. But it wouldn’t be for long. In Europe, the circuses were bigger and grander, he said. There the great circus performers were fêted, adored. The ball in Baltimore, he said, was nothing compared to the glittering evenings that awaited. And anyway, wasn’t life good? He had money. She had new clothes, new boots — she hadn’t worn her red ones since they’d got her into trouble — new kid gloves, new white petticoats, a collection of veils in different colours to match her several outfits, and when he came back from wherever he went when he was gone, he liked to talk, on and on, rambling along in the most intimate way, almost as if he was talking to himself, so that even though she hardly saw a soul apart from him it didn’t seem to matter so much.

‘You put the same things in the booklet,’ she said, ‘I took a look, and some of those things are still there, all that about the Diggers eating out of a trough.’

‘Ah yes,’ he said, raising his thin black eyebrows, ‘but the whole thrust is different. It’s a matter of emphasis. Look, I make it quite clear how vastly superior you are to the Digger Indians. And of course I deliberately leave a question mark over your origins.’

‘But that whole story…’ she said.

‘See here.’ He pulled a crumpled copy of the booklet out of his pocket. ‘Listen to how I phrase it. I deliberately say— Where is it? Oh, here— Yes— “It is generally credited”. Take note of that. “Generally credited.” That says nothing about truth.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘What is truth, after all? We make our own.’

‘Do we?’

‘And see here.’ He flicked over a page. ‘I’ve been extremely careful with the language. Here. “The statement that is generally credited concerning her is as follows.” That’s the way I put it.’

‘And the baboons,’ she said, ‘and the bears.’

‘Julia,’ he said, dropping the booklet, leaning forward and taking her hands in both of his, a gesture that both moved and scared her, for no one had ever done it before. ‘This is a throw-away. This is not the truth. Nobody wants the truth. What they want is a story. A good one. You could be anything. Your “loop garou”. Your demon baby. That is a piece of paper. Pah! This is you! This!’ He turned her hands over in his, staring fiercely down into her palms as if in wonder. ‘God!’ he whispered, then let go of her hands and drew back. ‘Never forget,’ he said, ‘that words on a piece of paper are nothing more than paper. They have nothing to do with your own self.’