Page 24 of The Show Woman

23

Tusks

From a distance, the big top glitters like a smattering of faded stars. Up close, though, and Rosie can see that it is lit by dozens of tiny gas lamps strung around its perimeter, each one encased in its own glass lantern, paraffin flickering and casting shadows over every creature who passes under the glare.

The circus has just let out for the night and a great hollering multitude is streaming away from its circle of light, back into the darkness, across the fields where silent, suddenly staid homes await them. Rosie and Violet work against the swell, hands gripped tightly, careful not to let the rough jostlers break them apart.

‘We’ll head up to the animal wagons,’ Violet says to Rosie. ‘Go and see what we can see.’

She has told Rosie that Serena will already be ensconced in her caravan, tucked up for the night and swigging from the bottle. Rosie feels a surge of dislike for this woman who treated Violet so cruelly, who must surely drink as much as her own pa, with his whetted tongue and mean fists.

The brandy lies heavy and warm in her belly, soothes the nerves that scratch at the inside of her head. Rosie has done many brave things since the day she left the farm, but this feels different somehow. An adventure, yes, but one that is laced with danger.

A sour, earthy smell hits her nostrils. They have left the hordes behind now, are in a quieter, darker part of the ground.

‘Look,’ says Violet, and points up ahead of them.

There, so large and hulking that it near obscures the dark sky, stands an elephant. His skin is a ruckled grey, his hooves the size of dinner plates. His ears, like oversized beech leaves, flap placidly back and forth, and he is wearing a jaunty headdress over his long trunk in colours of red and gold.

‘Alright, Bosco,’ says Violet, and to Rosie’s horror she walks straight up to the beast, rubs her hand along his snaking trunk. The elephant obliges by lifting the tip of his trunk to her ear and snuffling at it, and she laughs. ‘Stop it, Bosco,’ she says. ‘That tickles. Come and say hello, Rosie.’

Rosie sidles up and Bosco swings a huge, benevolent eye towards her.

‘You see this,’ says Violet, and she points at a dark, hardened crust, an old and painful wound, up beside the top third of the animal’s trunk. ‘Poor old Bosco had his tusks sawn off. Ivory, see. Very valuable. But also so he doesn’t gore anyone to death. Still, it had to hurt. Poor old Bosco.’

She gives the elephant another pat and his mouth opens a fraction, as though he is expecting a treat.

‘What do they use ivory for?’ asks Rosie. She has never heard of it before, is distressed that this magnificent beast might be mutilated, even for something beautiful.

‘All sorts of things,’ says Violet. ‘Piano keys, chess pieces, jewellery. There’s money to be made in ivory, and if there’s one thing Serena Linden knows how to do, it’s make money.’

Leaving Bosco behind in his sparkling headdress, they move on, past a cage with a small lion in it. The beast is so scrawny that Rosie can see ribs poking through its yellow fur.

‘Leo’s gone,’ says Violet. ‘I wonder if that means Lucy has too.’

‘Who’s Lucy?’ asks Rosie.

‘She was a lion-tamer. Never liked Linden’s. Her daddy had a circus down south. I wonder if she’s gone back down and taken Leo with her.’

They round a corner and a forest of wagons opens up. Performers, still in their glittering, sequinned costumes, sprawl on the grass, the soft beat of a drum somewhere, a juggler in stripes flinging a riot of colourful rings into the air, neatly catching them with one hand.

‘Gianni,’ says Violet.

The juggler stops so abruptly that his rings, doing another turn in the air, crash on to the ground. ‘Violetta?’ he says. He comes running towards them, flings his arms around Violet. ‘My dear Violetta, where did you go? You gave Miss Linden a terrible bad eye, you know. Which gave her an even more terrible temper.’

‘Has she mentioned me?’ Violet asks, while Rosie hovers in the background, uncertain.

‘Come with me,’ says Gianni. He leads them to a small wagon, painted in blue and white, the same colours as his costume. Once inside, he motions for them to sit on the little day bed. There is a variety of outfits hung around the small space, one a rich red with embroidered gold thread, another in pale lavender with flecks of silver running through it.

Gianni sits on an upturned bucket and produces a small metal box. From inside he brings out cigarette papers, tobacco, and something else. It is green, like moss, and gives off a sharp smell, somewhere between that rich scent you get standing on a pine floor in a forest, and cat piss.

‘Now, Miss Violetta, I want to hear everything,’ he says, and begins rolling his cigarette.

Violet tells him about their circus, about touring with the fairs, and being back on the trapeze. He listens, interested, his eyes occasionally flicking over to Rosie, travelling up and down her body. She shrinks back in the day bed and Violet, sensing her fear, puts a gentle, protective hand on her knee.

‘And this girl, she is with you?’

Violet nods. ‘This is Rosie. She’s an exceptionally talented bareback rider. You should see the tricks she can do.’

Gianni raises an eyebrow as he picks up the green moss and, to Rosie’s amazement, lays it in his cigarette alongside the tobacco.

‘What is that?’ she asks. Her voice appears to have got stuck halfway down her throat and she coughs, hating herself for her shyness, wishing she could appear more grown up and worldly in front of Violet.

‘Just a little extra something,’ says Gianni. His voice is heavily accented, and she wonders where he has come from, this curious and strange man; how he has ended up here, in this small Scottish town, putting herbs into a cigarette in a blue and white costume.

‘So how has she been, then, the auld witch?’ asks Violet. ‘Do you think she has it in for me?’

‘Who can say?’ says Gianni. He is now rolling his odd cigarette, licking at the paper to seal it. ‘She is a vengeance bitch.’

Violet laughs. ‘You mean vengeful, but, to be honest, vengeance works.’

Gianni lights the cigarette and the wagon fills with the same sharp smell, much stronger now, and muskier. He inhales deeply and passes the cigarette to Violet, who does the same thing, then offers it to Rosie.

‘Go on, Posy,’ she says. ‘Something to calm your nerves.’

Rosie takes a cautious, shallow puff. Immediately she coughs, the thick, acrid smoke filling her lungs. ‘Oh, God,’ she says between splutters, handing it back to Violet. Violet bangs her on the back until she stops, hands it back to Gianni.

‘It’s just that I know what those McCracken lads are like, and Rosie here had her pony poisoned a week ago. Deadly nightshade put in his feed. I wouldn’t put it past her to try and track me down. Just for the sheer devilry of it.’

‘Oh, you’re not wrong, missy,’ says Gianni. He takes another long deep puff of his cigarette. ‘Did you hear about Benjamin?’

Violet shakes her head.

‘He’s off. Away to Stafford with Lucy the lion-tamer. They got married. Serena says she never wants to hear his name spoken again, had all his belongings chucked in the river before he could pack them up. She did the same thing with her sister, I heard, years ago. Didn’t fancy sharing the circus with her, wanted to run it on her own. So she chucked her off a wagon one night in the middle of nowhere one winter and left her there. Most folk think she probably didn’t even survive the night.’

Rosie is trying to follow the conversation but her head is swimming. With thoughts of Violet and the way she strokes the soft tendrils of her hair, of Gianni and his costumes, how funny they seem now, how quaint and silly, so much so that, peering at the lavender and silver one on the wall, she has to stifle a giggle. A man! In purple! Suddenly it is too funny, too ridiculous, and she is laughing and laughing, and then Violet is laughing too, because the costume isn’t purple, it’s violet, and Violet is violet, and she slumps back on the day bed in hysterics, her stomach aching, and Violet is holding her hand.

When they leave the wagon an hour later Rosie is still giggling. A star-studded sky gazes down on them as they stumble past the circus wagons and the big top. Violet keeps a careful arm round her waist, and Rosie is suddenly overwhelmed at the gesture, Violet’s protectiveness.

She stops and turns to her.

‘I like you very much,’ she says, looking into Violet’s clear green eyes.

Violet smiles. ‘I like you too.’

And then Violet’s lips are on hers, soft and pillowy and warm, and she tastes of brandy and burnt sugar, and no one in the history of the world has ever experienced something so magical and special, Rosie is one of the lucky ones, the luckiest of all, right here in the showground on a warm Perthshire night under the twinkling lights of the big top, far, far from home.

Perhaps that is why neither of them notices that in the nearby trees, deep in the gloaming, someone is watching them.