Page 27 of The Show Woman

26

Names

Try as she might, Serena cannot get out of bed. Her chest feels heavy and sore, and each time she breathes in, it is as though a great clump of feathers and hay is squatting on her lungs, forcing the air back out.

Her legs are weak as a kitten’s, and she has manoeuvred herself into a lumpen, awkward position, feet dangling pathetically over the covers, her bulk squashed painfully into the corner wall. She coughs, a hammering chorus that produces phlegm, blood, and something that looks curiously like tar, and feels her breath crackle.

This is how Rory McCracken finds her when he knocks on the door of her wagon and, upon receiving no answer, barrels straight in.

‘Get out,’ she says, seeing an infuriating combination of pity and amusement flit across his long, sly face.

‘Sorry, Miss Linden,’ he says. He looks down at his feet but does not move. ‘Can I give yer a hand? You don’t look too comfortable there.’

‘I’m fine,’ she says. With a heroic effort she twists her torso round to face him properly and, seeing that he is not leaving, relents. ‘Well?’ she says. ‘Why are you here?’

‘It’s those lassies,’ he says. ‘Talk of the shows in Aberdeen, we hear. They’re away over to Ayr now. Wondered if you wanted us to go and have a bit of fun, seeing as we’re not far.’

Serena gazes out of the wagon window. It is smeared with grime, has not been cleaned for months. Outside, her equestrian riders are rehearsing their latest acts, which involve a complicated new jump with hoops. They are in Largs, a jaunty seaside town down the Clyde coast, and it is full of Glasgow day-trippers decked out in their Sunday best, fresh off the paddle steamer. They do good business here this time of year, always have.

Violet Weaver. The name still incites a rage in her, a fury that rumbles deep in her belly. Her eye has long since healed, the bruise fading into her puckered, milky skin, but the anger remains.

She wonders now about the other lassies alongside her. She has been so intent on getting to Violet, ruining her new show, bringing that jumped-up madam to heel, she has forgotten to enquire about the company she keeps.

‘How many lassies are there in this show?’ she asks.

‘Four, I think. There’s an acrobat, and a bareback rider. And then the lass who runs it all. Does a turn in the ring with a top hat.’

‘And what does she go by?’

‘It’s Loveridge,’ he says. ‘Lena Loveridge.’

‘Loveridge,’ says Serena. She turns the word over in her mouth, forming the syllables, tasting the old name. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No. It can’t be.’ She coughs again, gasping for air. ‘God in heaven,’ she says between gulps. ‘Not a Loveridge.’