Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

‘A long time ago, when I was a child in Mexico. That is also where I learned to speak French.’

‘Have you ever been in love?’

‘I’m waiting for the right man.’

That brought a laugh, with which she went along.

‘None of them were rich enough,’ she said.

Another laugh. And she laughed when a toddler stretched out his arm to her, saying, ‘Dadda!’

‘Can I touch your hand?’

‘What a beautiful dress!’

‘Miss Pastrana, you’re a lovely singer.’

‘Do you mind being different?’

‘No. Not at all.’

She returned to the platform and sang one more song, this time with her guitar.

Good God, this is it, thought Theo, standing with folded arms at the back because he liked to see things from the audience’s perspective, blinking rapidly and smiling like an imbecile. Sweet little thing, a true artiste, the real thing. He could have cried. She was the most extraordinary being that had ever existed on the face of this ridiculous earth. The papers said so. Everyone said so. They wanted to see her, they wanted to meet her, everyone came, the great, the good, the scared, bewitched, bewildered, the willing and unwilling. And they paid.

Please God now, let this be my golden coach at last, whispered Theo, raising his eyes to heaven as smiling, clutching the flowers they gave her, she took her third bow.

Please, this time.

His career had been down snakes, up ladders, all those years on the road, the dwarfs, the strongman, the knife-thrower, the magicians and mind-readers, the man with the parakeet orchestra. A hazardous life, hanging around on the fringes of the business while the other side of the family made killings as far west as Iowa. God, wouldn’t he just love to pass them by now, those Westchester cousins, not bother to call, say sorry, too busy, far too many important people waiting. Tossing him their crumbs. Uncle Ben put in a word with Barnum, and the upshot was the trip to Europe, where he met the Gatti Twins, two brothers from Swansea who juggled with knives and did ridiculous feats of balancing. Up the ladder he’d gone, his big chance, four years, four European tours, till one morning in Leipzig when he woke up with a splitting hangover and there were no Gatti Twins and no money, and he realised with a start that he had no idea what day it was, only that he must have been drinking for a very long time. A period of dream and illness followed. He was imprisoned as a vagrant. He stuck it for a week then got a letter to his father in New York, and after another couple of weeks funds had been sent, and he went back to the States in shame on his uncle’s money, back to the old house in the Bowery.

This was where he’d been born, in the back room downstairs, where his mother had been alive, and every room had been full of the show people who came to board. It was in a dire state. Dogs still roamed the stairs and yard, but these were leaner and wilder than those old ones he remembered, and the whole place stank of them. He remembered when the house had always smelled of cooking and drying laundry, when the lobster girls and dog boys had come down for breakfast in the parlour. And he remembered it later when the lobster girls and dog boys had given way to card-sharps and fortune-tellers, and it was just him and the old man, and everything was going downhill.

Now the rooms were empty, and his father was sitting in his vest in the kitchen drinking alternately from a Knickerbocker Soda bottle and a bottle of whisky. He’d been addicted to both for years. A massive collection of empties gathered dust on a shelf above the dresser.

‘What the hell have you done to this place?’ Theo demanded, summoning all that he’d learned in the years away from home, the voice, the smile, the suave man he’d groomed himself into. ‘You’ve let the whole thing go.’

‘Look who’s talking,’ his father said. ‘Look at you.’

A failure.

Bailed out again. He looked with despair at the filthy walls and the spit in the corners of the old man’s mouth and vowed again: I will not go down. He’d vowed before. No more pillar-to-post up and down the west coast, he’d said, no more being small and slight and looking young and being overlooked and disrespected and always getting the shitty jobs, roustabout, lackey, ticket-man. He’d vowed it and look where he’d ended up. In jail. But not this time. He’d worked too hard for that. No more poor Theo. I’m as good as the lot of you. I’ll show them.

I showed them, he thought, applauding wildly in the wings. I did, I showed them.

Barnum was in town with Tom Thumb. Theo met him in the lobby of Arthur’s, where he’d been buttering up a contact about a possible German tour.

‘Theo!’ came the moneyed voice, though the money wasn’t flowing so well these days, or so he’d heard.

‘Hello, Taylor.’ Looking his age, thought Theo. Jowls resting on his collar.

Barnum lodged his thumbs behind his wide lapels. ‘Have I or have I not been hearing things about you?’

‘I’m damn sure you have,’ said Theo.

‘And the hairy maiden? She’s well, I hope?’

‘Very well.’

‘Have you met Van Hare, Lent?’

‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.’

Van Hare was a craggy circus man with long hair and a huge moustache. ‘Horses,’ he said lugubriously, as if it was his first name. ‘Are you the Lent who’s in the elephant line?’

‘That’s his namesake,’ Barnum said. ‘Damn inconvenient, two Lents in one business. You should change your name, Theo.’

Theo scowled. ‘Damned if I’m changing my name,’ he said.

‘It’s business,’ Barnum said, ‘not a test of family pride. You don’t need people confusing you with someone else.’

Theo smiled, slightly strained. ‘I’m not elephants,’ he told Van Hare. ‘That’s another branch of the family.’

‘The successful branch,’ added Barnum with a laugh and a hand placed on Theo’s shoulder to show it was all in fun. ‘Theo was a twig somewhere down the tree. Isn’t that so, Lent? But not any more.’

Theo blushed. ‘I manage Miss Julia Pastrana,’ he said.

Van Hare was impressed. You could see it in his eyes, that look they got when they had to meet her. But he merely nodded. Jealous. Ha! Theo’s smile widened. A feeling of madcap joy rose in his breast. They have nothing I want, he realised. But they want to see her . They’re desperate to. So he asked after General Tom Thumb, and scarcely waiting for an answer, graciously invited both Barnum and Van Hare to call upon Miss Julia the next afternoon at the hotel, and they happily accepted and all parted on good terms.

Mrs Dellow led them to the lounge. ‘Mr Lent will be along in a moment,’ she said, ‘if you would care to wait. Miss Pastrana will receive you. Oh sir, she’s such a nice lady! Very sweet-natured.’

Julia was by the window, a small woman in an elegant grey gown with lace at the throat and wrists, and a lace cap trimmed with pale blue ribbons. Her veil was blue as well, multi-layered and shaded and very pretty, covering her entire face so that no more than a hint of eyeshine could be discerned through it. She came forward and offered a small gloved hand.

‘Mr Barnum, I’m delighted,’ she said.

Barnum beamed, took her hand and held onto it. She has a big head, he thought. ‘The pleasure is all mine, my dear Miss Pastrana. May I introduce my good friend and colleague, Mr Van Hare.’

‘How do you do, Mr Van Hare.’

‘I am well, thank you, Miss. And you?’

‘I’m very well too. Thank you.’

Gently, she disengaged her hand from Barnum’s hold and gave it to Van Hare, who shook it solemnly. ‘Do sit down, gentlemen,’ she said. But then Theo came in all smiles, and there were more pleasantries and the brisk opening of a bottle of bourbon.