Page 19 of The Show Woman

18

Night shade

‘I can’t believe this,’ says Violet, sucking vigorously on her tenth cigarette in an hour. ‘Who would want to poison little Tommy? What has he ever done to anyone except trot round the ring like a fancy wee chicken?’

They are sitting round the fire, just the two of them. Carmen has gone to bed. Rosie is still in the stables. The man from the town has given Tommy a draught of something, told Rosie to keep him warm. Lena and Violet have fetched blankets from the wagon, old ones her mammy used to wrap round her when she was a bairn, and warmed a plate of soup for Rosie. When they left, she still hadn’t touched it.

‘Poor Rosie Posy,’ says Violet.

Lena says nothing. She has noticed the way that Violet looks at Rosie, the tenderness in her voice, the softening of her face.

She knows that Violet is made differently, and that she has always been this way. She has never minded, never understood why others do. But she worries about little Rosie, so fragile and young, breakable, like ice-thin porcelain. Violet could cut Rosie with a dark look or a sharp word, could easily shatter her fierce little heart. And where would that leave the circus?

‘You like her, don’t you?’

Violet, who has been staring deep into the flames, looks up. ‘What, you mean like you like Harry?’

Lena’s face flares and her finger strays, once again, to the loose flap of skin on her thumb. ‘No, I just meant . . .’

‘I know what you meant. And aye, I do. What’s it to you?’

‘Nothing, it’s just—’

‘I’ll tell you what, Lena. You keep your nose out of my affairs, and I’ll keep my nose out of yours. I’d have thought you’d know better than to go chasing after Harry anyway.’

Lena lights a cigarette, her fingers fumbling with the match, and waits. If she keeps quiet, Violet will not be able to help herself.

Sure enough, Violet takes another puff, and continues. ‘I know you think he’s quite the gentleman, and don’t get me wrong, he’s a good lad, our Harry. But he’s got his secrets, just like the rest of us. Don’t you be getting worked up over him. Leave it be. That’s all I’ll say.’

Lena takes a long drag on her cigarette. ‘I very much doubt that. You always have more to say.’

Violet stands up. ‘I’m away to the stable to see Rosie. I probably won’t be back until the morning.’

At daybreak, she hasn’t returned. Lena wakes early, the dawn chorus springing to life in the trees around the wagon, but only she and Carmen are in their beds. She dresses quickly, hurries past caravans still veiled in sleep, to the stables at the far end of the ground.

When she pushes open the doors, she finds all three of them awake in Tommy’s stall, Violet’s thin frame wrapped protectively around Rosie’s.

Rosie looks up at her, eyes red-rimmed with tiredness, but shining and happy.

‘Just look at him,’ she says, and Lena can see that Tommy is much improved. He is holding his head up, while Rosie scoops water from the tray into her palm for him to drink. The sweat on his back has dried, and his eyes are wide open.

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ says Lena.

She collapses on a heap in the straw, leans in and gives Tommy a pat. The little pony looks round at her, benevolent, trusting, and it takes hold of her again, the cruelty of it. How could anyone hurt little Tommy? And why? Were they out to get Rosie? The circus? Her?

‘We’ve got to find out who did this,’ she says.

‘Oh, we will,’ says Violet. ‘No mistake. ‘We won’t let them away with it, Rosie Posy.’

Violet strokes Rosie’s hair and the girl lets her, her eyelids fluttering with drowsy pleasure as Violet’s deft fingers run through her long brown locks.

‘No,’ says Lena. ‘We won’t.’ And she leaves them to it.

She finds Harry loitering at the front gate to the showground, giving out handwritten flyers for the big dipper. Townies have started trickling in, farmhands and domestic servants from the surrounding villages, and already they are noising each other up, crackling with laughter, ready for a day out at the fair.

‘Have you got a minute?’ she asks, as he passes a flyer to a young woman with two long plaits roped down each side of her face, who flashes him a beaming smile.

‘Of course,’ he says. They wander out of the showground to a large bench, recently vacated by a swarm of young weavers from a local mill now heading back towards the fair. It faces a small stream and, as they sit, water trickles unhurriedly over the rocks, making slow, steady progress.

She tells Harry about Tommy Pony, and the deadly nightshade, that the pony nearly died, that both she and Violet believe someone has done this on purpose, that it could be connected to the men outside their wagon a few nights earlier.

Harry sucks the air in through his teeth.

‘I mean, it’s possible,’ he says. ‘You lassies, you stick out around here. A ladies’ circus is quite a thing in our world. Nobody’s ever seen anything quite like it.’

‘That was sort of the point.’

‘I know,’ says Harry. ‘I’m just saying that you girls are going to attract attention.’

‘Do you think it could have been those lads from the other night?’

Harry shakes his head. ‘Unlikely. If you’ll not mind me being indelicate for a moment, I’m not sure it was your pony they were after.’

Lena colours and looks across at the stream again, waters implacably moving forward, sunlight bouncing off the surface in shards of pale light.

‘You haven’t upset anyone, have you?’ asks Harry. ‘I mean, I know my sister. She can be a right tearaway at times. She says what she thinks, and doesn’t care who hears it.’

‘Actually Violet’s been behaving herself,’ says Lena. ‘For the most part.’

‘Aye, well. Keep an eye on her,’ he says. ‘Not that you’ll have much choice over what she does. Even her mammy couldn’t control her. Not since she was a bairn. But then I’m not sure how much she really tried.’

‘We’ve got another problem,’ Lena says, and once again her finger is working over that loose flap of skin by her thumb. It flares out now over the nail, and there is a satisfying pinprick of pain every time she touches the raw skin underneath, the tiny spot of red. ‘We can’t do the show without Rosie. I mean, we could, but it’d be a bit spare. We’ve worked her act in with Carmen’s and Violet’s; they all have their own parts to play but it’s all supposed to be one big show, and without her I’m worried the whole thing will collapse. I think Tommy’s going to live, but it’ll be a few days until he’s able to get into the ring.’

‘So you need a pony?’ asks Harry. He strokes his chin, shorn from a recent shave. There is a tiny cut under his left ear where the blood has dried.

‘I know it’s a big ask. There can’t be many around that can do the bareback stuff. But would you be able to ask around for us? I don’t know many of the people here. They’re not my daddy’s folk at all.’

‘I’ll try,’ says Harry. ‘I might know someone.’ He looks at her, a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Anything else I can help you with, madam?’

Lena digs the nail of her index finger into the flesh of her thumb.

‘No, thank you. Shouldn’t you be getting back to your flyering?’

Harry appears at the wagon later that afternoon. They have made the decision to cancel the circus for the day, and every so often Tam comes tearing up to them, his face flushed, to say that dozens of folk have been asking around for the lassies’ circus, are disappointed to hear it isn’t running.

‘One fellow said he’d be back every day until he saw you lassies and your circus,’ reports Tam, a little breathless.

‘It’s ladies , Tam,’ says Lena. ‘We’ve had this conversation before.’

Harry, his forehead sheened with sweat, does not bring good news.

‘There’s a dray that apparently used to work with bareback riders,’ he says. ‘Used for carting a boat ride around the shows now, but his owner says he’s competent. He’d be willing to rent him out to you a couple of times a day.’

Lena shakes her head. ‘He wouldn’t fit in the tent. In fact he’d probably rip right through it.’

‘Aye, you’re right,’ says Harry. ‘It was worth a shot, though, eh?’

Through the crowd, Lena spots Rosie and Violet heading towards them. They are holding hands, Rosie staggering under the weight of her tiredness. Violet looks as perky as ever.

‘How is he?’ asks Lena as they slump down by the front of the wagon, a damp tangled heap of matted hair, bits of straw and the raw tang of the horse stables.

‘Much better,’ says Rosie, yawning. ‘He’s had another draught, been on his feet, and even had a wobbly wee walk around the paddock. He’s going to be fine. Violet says we should get going in a few days, head up through Perthshire, on to Blairgowrie.’

‘Hello, Harry,’ says Violet, looking at Lena. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Just seeing if I can help,’ says Harry. ‘But it sounds like you don’t need me at all.’

The next day, Carmen gives them a self-defence lesson.

‘Rosie,’ she says, pinning stray tendrils of her long hair back with a hairpin. ‘You are a little shrub, so come and stand here.’

Rosie, shy and unsure of herself, walks hesitantly towards her.

They are on a squat patch of land near the stables. Horses’ hooves have worn away the grass and the ground is stubbly and flat. On the air they hear the rumble of the fair but here, with everyone out manning their rides and stalls, it is quiet.

‘Now, what is the one place you should always aim for, if a man is coming for you?’

Rosie looks blank.

‘Come on, Posy,’ says Violet. ‘Surely you know this one.’

A slow, dawning realisation comes over Rosie. She widens her eyes.

‘Down . . . down there?’

‘That is correct. Down there. I want you to use those strong legs of yours, and aim for that area.’

‘What, on you?’

‘Don’t worry. I am quick.’

Rosie hoists up her long skirt, aims her powerful right leg towards Carmen and kicks. Carmen jumps out of the way, but not before Rosie almost loses her balance.

‘Good! Well done, little shrub. Now you, Lena.’

For the next ten minutes they practise aiming kicks at each other’s nether regions, amid a great deal of giggling and snorts. Violet nearly catches Lena with her boot, and when Lena aims a toe at her backside in return, she promptly falls over.

‘What about that fancy thing you did to that fellow with your fists?’ asks Violet as Lena dusts herself down. ‘Can we try that?’

‘We can,’ says Carmen, and shows them how to turn their bodies to the side, lean in with a sharp elbow, and finally a fist.

Violet swipes at the air. ‘God, this is great,’ she says.

Carmen smiles, pleased. ‘We are all strong, s í? We have powers we did not even know about. But now we do. And they can keep us safe if a man tries to come too near.’

‘But what if there’s more than one?’ asks Lena, thinking of the swarms of men who sometimes fill up the tent, the keen look in their eyes, like hunters.

‘Then,’ says Carmen, ‘you scream.’