Kerry Greenwood - Blood and Circuses

‘The Catalans,’ muttered Jo Jo. ‘Third billing, and they 188 are worth it.’

Phryne applied her eye to the peephole again. In ran nine men and a boy, turning somersaults. They rolled and tumbled, encouraging each other with shouts in what was presumably Catalan. One man stood on another’s shoulders, who took another on his own. The pile walked calmly across the ring, fell apart and the three rolled safely in the sawdust.

Two boys brought in balancing poles. The Catalans play-fought with them, their voices harsh and mocking. Then four of them lined up, arms linked, and three more leapt to their shoulders and balanced there. The structure wobbled a little, then was still. Two men climbed up, shoulder to foot to shoulder and linked their arms, poles held out. The structure firmed again. Phryne reflected on the weight which the men at the bottom must be carrying. She wondered what else would happen.

With a cry, the boy ran at the pile of men. No hands reached for him. He swarmed up three stories of humans and planted his feet on the two top men’s shoulders. Slowly, he stood up.

For a moment he was perfectly still, arms outstretched. He looked like a bronze image of some heroic child from a Greek legend. The electric lights made a halo around his sleek black head. Applause rocked the tent. Then the pyramid fell quietly apart, the boy was lowered from the top, and all ten of the Catalan Human Pyramid were on solid sawdust again.

‘High wire,’ said Jo Jo the clown. ‘Hold this mirror for me, Fern.’ Phryne held the mirror over her shoulder, her eyes glued to the peephole. ‘One moment,’ said the clown. He kissed her on the ear. ‘Last chance before I paint my mouth,’ he added hopefully. Phryne did not move.

A line had been rigged twelve feet off the ground. A man was walking out along it, sliding his feet, until he was in the middle. He yawned, stretched and sat down. Then he lay down and closed his eyes. Unable to get comfortable, he rolled over onto his stomach, twisted around and then rolled onto his back again. Giving this up, he sat on the rope. A roustabout with a long pole fetched him a chair. He took it, set it on the rope and sat down, fumbling for a cigar, which he lit. Then he leaned back, blowing smoke rings. The chair tipped. The audience held their breath. The chair tipped further and fell.

Just as it seemed that a broken back was inevitable, the high-wire artist twisted, regained his feet and stood on the rope, the chair in one hand and the cigar still in his mouth. The audience sighed with relief. There was something odd about them, Phryne thought. Their eyes were bright, their mouths wet. They licked their lips.

‘They want him to fall,’ said Jo Jo’s voice next to her ear. ‘They always do, the crowds. That’s why he does that pratfall. Keeps them on the edge of their seats. Now, Toby, are we ready?’

He gave his brother a brisk brush down and produced the violin and bow. Toby took them.

‘Ready?’ asked Matthias. ‘We’re on, brother. Time to give them a chance to bring in the lions.’

Tobias’s eyes seemed to fill with personality, as though it was being poured into him from a jug. He gulped and said, ‘Yes, Matt.’

‘Break a leg,’ said Phryne, and the brothers Shakespeare entered the ring on the receding wave of the tightrope walker’s applause. Dulcie wandered in and looked over Phryne’s shoulder.

‘Jo Jo and Toby!’ announced the ringmaster and cracked his whip. Jo Jo looked hurt. Toby took exception to the ringmaster. He walked up to him and gestured at the whip. The ringmaster cracked it again. Toby bared one thin arm and shook his fist at him. Farrell menaced him with the whip and he went back into the middle of the ring. He produced his violin and put it to his shoulder.

Jo Jo was interested. He tried to take the violin away from Toby and Toby knocked him down. He got up and Toby knocked him down again. He sat in the sawdust and cried. Then he was visited by an idea. He rummaged in the battered bag and found a violin of his own. Toby drew the bow across his instrument and a sweet long note sounded. Jo Jo copied the movement, without a bow. He rummaged in the bag again. In succession, he attempted to play the violin with a cricket bat, a stretched out stocking, a pencil, a sponge and a saw. Toby began to play a Bach air so sweetly that Phryne wondered why he was a clown, not a concert performer. A sawing noise ruined the sound. Jo Jo was finding out that you couldn’t play a violin which was cut in half.

He sat down and howled, holding one half of a violin in each hand in a pose that seemed to contain tragedy. The audience screamed with mirth. His brother ignored him and continued to play. Ravishing music poured from the violin. After a while, Jo Jo put the two halves of his instrument together again and plucked the strings with his fingers. The music was sweet beyond belief.

Jo Jo was led sobbing out of the ring, overcome by the music. The crowd laughed and clapped.

While the clowns were performing, the cages of lions had been brought in. Now the iron walls had been built and Amazing Hans summoned his beasts to appear.

As he called them by name, they sat up and snarled. ‘Sarah, Sam, Boy, King, Queenie, Prince!’

Phryne had seen lion tamers before. And she really did not like the lions. The clowns paused in the antechamber.

‘You’re marvellous,’ said Phryne. ‘Really terrific.’

‘Did you hear that, Toby?’ asked Jo Jo. He touched his brother’s cheek and waved a hand in front of his eyes. ‘Oh, dear, he’s gone again. Now, Fern, what about you? Can’t go on with a naked face, it’s indecent. Let me just stand Toby over here and I’ll paint you. We might as well match, eh? Tip up your chin. Now stay still.’

Matthias could not have been more professional. He smoothed greasepaint numbers five and nine into Phryne’s skin, carefully blending it in the palm of his hand. Then he drew in her eyes, provided red for her cheeks and lips and tucked a stray wisp of black hair under the feathers.

‘Pretty bird,’ he said. ‘Look at yourself.’

Phryne surveyed the face in the mirror and did not know it. The paint abolished features with which she was tolerably familiar and transformed her into a circus rider, born in a trunk and exactly the same as all the others. She smiled, then frowned. She was looking at a stranger.

A whip cracked in the big top. The lions were removed and it was interval. The crowd came streaming out, in search of fairy lollies and saveloys and ice-cream in tubs.

‘I’d better put poor old Toby back in his box,’ said Matthias. ‘Back later, Fern. Don’t miss the flyers. They are very good.’

Phryne learned that she was required to stay within the purlieus of the tent. She obtained a cup of tea and sat down on the grass to consider her situation.

There was too much that she did not know. She could pin down most of the accidents at Farrell’s Circus to the abominable Jones and his three henchmen. The tall one, the dark one, and the man with the sticking plaster on his hands. That was clear. What was not clear was why. If Jones wanted his half-share, he now had it, at the cost of three hundred pounds. What if Jones was the appointee of Sweet Dreams Pty Ltd? Phryne presumed that he was. He wielded too much power over Farrell not to have some financial or other very strong stake in the show. Mr Burton, a very shrewd person, thought it was money. So Jones, or Sweet Dreams Pty Ltd, had their half. Why should they keep on? And why should they kill Mr Christopher? If they had?

Phryne felt wrath glow in her insides about Mr Christopher. Christopher/Christine, he had been billed. Criss/Cross, the man–woman, perfect complement to poor Miss Younger. She would never find another man like him. Phryne was desperately sorry for Molly Younger.