Page 13 of The Show Woman

12

Presence

They are ready. Lena fizzes with anticipation, her body taut with nerves, as she stands in the centre of the little tent. Tam and Rosie have pasted posters up around the fairground, introducing the ladies’ circus. There have been raised eyebrows, catty remarks, wolf-whistles and sneers. Talk of moving the fair on early, up to Stirling and then on to Perthshire, in an attempt to deny them an audience. For who would visit a showground with just one lone, tiny tent? It is a notion that has, she understands, caused much mirth.

‘They’re running scared,’ is Violet’s only remark on the subject, shouted down from the bar, where she now spends much of her time. She reminds Lena of a bird in a nest up there, utterly at home and content, luxuriating in her natural habitat. She wishes she herself felt half as comfortable down here on the ground.

Carmen, meanwhile, spends every spare moment practising her flute. She has widened her repertoire and, while most of the songs mean little to Lena, she can appreciate her talent, the craft she has honed.

‘Where did you learn to play?’ she asks her one afternoon, finding her practising round the back of the wagons, away from the main drag of the fair.

‘At home,’ she says. ‘Back in Spain my father was a fisherman. He did well on the boats and we lived a nice life. He wanted all his children to have a skill, particularly the girls. He said we should not just laze around waiting for our husbands to arrive.’

She stifles a laugh at the memory.

‘For my big sister Consuelo it was the piano. My younger sister played the violin – the fiddle, as you say. And for me, the flute. I had a teacher, who lived in a house by the olive grove. He worked me hard, but I enjoyed it. But then my father died; he went out to the sea and he did not come back. And there was no more money for flute lessons.’

Lena is taken aback. It is the longest speech she has heard from Carmen, who is often quiet and meek, keeps her own private counsel.

‘I am so sorry about your father,’ she says.

Carmen bows her head. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Yours too. It is something we have in common, is it not? Our sorrow, I mean.’

‘It is,’ says Lena. ‘You can always talk to me if you are feeling sad. We can be sad together.’

Despite their threats, the fair has not moved on, the various cynical showmen who pepper the ground opting instead for quiet disapproval. A group of wee lassies is no threat to them. Let them have their fun and they’ll be away with their mammies in a week. Tam, earnest and trying to be helpful, relates this news, and Lena is surprised at how much it stings. If only they knew. That she has no mammy to return to, that she is instead searching for her, trying desperately to find some trace of her. The casual cruelty cuts her deeply.

She wonders if her mammy came to Linlithgow. Probably. The route the fairs follow each summer is as old as the hills they traverse to get to them. It has been walked by thousands of show women before, will likely be walked by thousands more. Their footsteps have worn grooves into the earth. Now, it is her time. A stop on the road that will eventually take her to Galston. And possibly, the truth.

Lena walks to the back of the tent as she hears Tam pull open the canvas. A trickle of fairgoers walk in, young women in their best dresses, the colour high on their cheeks. There are still no chairs, simply a circle drawn around the ring in the sawdust, and they walk shyly up to it, gazing around them. They are followed by a gang of young men, showmen who have come to gawp. Then a swarm of children, barefoot and noisy, a few older ladies from the town, their faces showing a hint of disapproval.

Hidden in the shadows, Lena watches them, her heart fluttering in her chest. Beside her, Carmen clutches her hand, ribbons fluttering gently in the breeze.

‘It is going to be good,’ Carmen says to her, squeezing her wrist. ‘Just you wait.’

Tam comes through the canvas and signals that there appear to be no more. This is it, then. Showtime, again. At last.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Lena booms, striding into the middle of the ring. Her voice is louder than she expected, steadier too, and the small, shuffling crowd gapes at her. ‘Welcome to the ladies’ circus. What you will see today will thrill and amaze you. You will see women fly. Tumble. Throw themselves from animals and emerge intact. What you will see is no less than a miracle.’

She is striding around the ring, the only sound her own voice. The crowd stares back at her, curious, expectant.

‘Are you ready to see miracles? Are you ready to see a woman fly?’

‘I saw one fly last week down at the Black Dog,’ says one young man. ‘In fact she flew straight into a puddle. Landed on her face.’

His friends crow with laughter.

Lena rounds on him. ‘And you didn’t catch her, sir? Why, I would have thought a young, strong man like you . . .’ She lets the comment hang in the air as his friends’ laughter turns on him.

‘Ooh, feisty, that one,’ a man shouts. Lena ignores him.

‘Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen – those among us tonight who are gentlemen, that is – I present, the ladies’ circus!’

From a dark corner of the tent, music rises. It is Carmen, playing her flute. She trills furiously while Lena, with a theatrical flourish, lifts her hat and stretches her arm towards the top of the tent. The crowd’s eyes follow, as Violet swings down on the bar.

She is holding on with both hands, swinging almost lazily, as though she were just an inch off the ground. Then, unseen, Tam throws the second bar on the other side to her and she leaps to catch it.

The crowd gasps with surprise, but before they can process what she is doing, Violet leaps again, back on to the first bar. Carmen trills her flute, an almost melancholy tune. It is strange and beautiful. And then Rosie emerges, standing on one leg, as Tommy Pony races round the ring while, above, Violet continues to swing.

Lena, back in the shadows, breathes a sigh of relief. It has worked. They have a show.

They do three performances that first day. Each time the crowd is bigger, and Lena’s voice, her very presence, seems to swell too. She feeds off their energy and excitement, even their scepticism. She bats away the catty remarks, mocks the doubters, showers praise on those who throw themselves into the swing of things. At the end of the final show she brings several small, eager children into the ring to pet Tommy Pony. He obliges by snuffling at them, and Rosie even lifts one small child on to his back and trots around the ring with him.

Lena, standing back to watch Rosie, a natural with children, cannot quite believe that they have been a success. The shouts and applause ring in her ears. She wonders how much money they have made. Enough to take them on to the next fair at least.

‘Well done,’ says a deep voice behind her. Harry emerges from the crowd, his face a mixture of confusion and possibly, pride.

‘What did you think?’ she asks. After the elation of their performance she feels suddenly shy, unsure of herself.

Harry puts his hands in his pockets.

‘You’ve got a good show here. Violet was fabulous but you were . . .’ He pauses, searching for the right words. ‘You’ve got a knack for the stage. A real presence.’

She looks up at his open face. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. I had an inkling you might be able to address the crowd the other night but I didn’t expect all this. You’re talented. I had no idea.’

‘I honestly had no idea myself. My daddy always said I could be a show woman but I thought he meant operating a ride, a stall. The idea that I could come out into the ring like that . . . I didn’t know I had it in me.’

Harry looks at her. ‘You do. Trust me.’

He lights a cigarette. The crowd is dissipating now, back out into the warm evening.

‘We’re away tomorrow. Falkirk route, then on up to Stirling. Are you going?’

Lena nods. ‘A couple more days here, I think. Scare up a few more pennies so we can make the journey. But yes. I think we might have a proper show here. Something that will keep us going all summer.’

‘So do I,’ says Harry. He takes a cigarette out of his box and tucks it behind Lena’s ear. ‘See you in Stirling.’

Violet is on a high after the show. She flips her body backwards and forwards, cartwheeling her way past the wagons, shouting about flying ladies and rainbow girls and the finest circus in the land.

‘Shut up, Vi,’ says Lena, ‘some folk are sleeping.’

It is a mark of Violet’s jubilation that she does not admonish Lena for calling her Vi – a name she loathes, partly because at the grim Glasgow school they were forced to attend in winter, the city kids would chorus, ‘Hi, Vi,’ and then collapse into giggles.

‘Let her be,’ says Carmen, who is still wearing her ribbon costume, its long tendrils trailing lazily in the grass. ‘Look at her, she is happy.’

Violet turns another cartwheel, and Lena softens. It is what her own heart is doing, after all, deep inside her chest.