Page 37 of The Show Woman

36

Auld Lang Syne

Hogmanay. The highest of all the holidays, for auld lang syne. The carnival is rammed, drunken youths starting the two-day break with pints of ale, ha’penn’ths of sweeties and a fine time watching the girls go by in their best dresses and bonnets.

The queues outside the fortune-teller snake all the way round to the big dipper, as hordes of Glaswegians wait patiently to hear their fate for 1911. Will Lady Luck favour them? Smile their way? Perhaps Miss Sibyl will know the answer. There is also a medium, from one of the spiritualist churches, holding court in a smart white tent near the gates. She holds her head between her spindly fingers, casts her eyes around the room, asks if there is an Annie or a Dennis or a man with only four toes on his left foot, and did he have a father called Stuart? Belle crams in at the back, leaves Morag outside, petulant and tarry-feathered, and gets a shock when the woman, conservatively dressed, spectacles on the end of her nose, singles her out.

‘You have the second sight, my lass,’ she tells her. ‘You have the gift.’

Belle gazes back at her sullenly. This news is no surprise to her.

And here come three women now, one of them thin and whey-faced, her body crammed into a hard wooden chair. The other two take turns pushing her, trying to make sure the contraption does not bump over the cold, frosty ground, fussing with the old tartan blanket that cascades over her knees.

It was Rosie’s idea that they come down to the carnival, as if trying to recapture some of that old magic, remind them all of the day they saw the golden light of the fair through glistening new eyes, when life felt expectant and shining and new. But Lena can see that it is not working. Violet says nothing. Her face is so thin now it is like a sunken mask, and at times she seems half-asleep. It is as though she has given up, simply stopped caring altogether, and nothing that Rosie can do will change her. Lena suspects Mary has finally told her about the hospital. But she has said nothing, simply shut up like a clam.

‘Do you fancy a go on the Wurlitzer?’ asks Rosie, hopeful, pleading.

Violet shakes her head.

‘What about the big dipper? I’m sure we can carry you on – they won’t mind, will they, Lena?’

‘No, not at all. Are you sure, Violet? You don’t fancy it?’ They have stopped now and Rosie crouches down in front of Violet’s chair, takes her hand. ‘Isn’t there anything you’d like to do?’

Violet looks up at her and suddenly, her eyes are sparkling. ‘Yes. Yes, there is something. Something you could both do.’

She looks round at Lena, holds her other hand out to her.

‘You can help me fly again.’

Jamaica Bridge, down by the river, wide and grand as the Clyde itself. Electric street lamps glimmer in the frost, casting shadows that are long and thin. They have walked here, slipping and sliding on the rime, Violet more animated than she has been in weeks, since long before Christmas, laughing in delight as the chair goes skating along the street.

‘Look, Violet, you’re flying now,’ says Rosie as she pushes the chair ahead on the ice. Violet holds her arms out, birdlike and laughing. She clatters to a stop near the middle of the bridge.

‘Here.’ The sky is hard and black as coal, studded with distant stars. ‘Lift me up,’ she says. Her breath makes steamy clouds. ‘I want to sit on the bridge.’

‘Are you sure?’ says Rosie. She looks at Lena.

Lena understands why Violet wants to get up there, to perch on this grand bridge’s stone sides, feel the air between her ears, the rush of life in her broken body. She hears Mary Weaver’s words ringing in her head. She’ll need to go to an institution. We can no longer afford her. It’s for the best. You can still visit, hen. She shivers, wraps her scarf tighter round her throat.

‘Come on, then, madam,’ she says, and between them Rosie and Lena lift Violet, weightless as one of Morag’s feathers, on to the flat wide stone.

On the other side of the river revellers spill out from a nearby tavern, shouting and whooping. It is almost midnight, and they stand on the cusp of a brand new year. There is just enough time for fond farewells to the old one.

Rosie fusses at Violet, pulls the tartan blanket over her knees, but Violet strips it away.

‘Leave me be now,’ she says. ‘Just let me sit here awhile.’

She throws her head back and gazes upwards.

‘I saw the most beautiful star the other night,’ she says, patting the cold stone for Lena and Rosie to join her. They hoist themselves up. ‘It went streaking over me, so fast and beautiful, as though someone was painting the sky with fire. And then it shattered into thousands of little pieces and was gone. So bright, and then nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘I look for my daddy up there sometimes,’ says Lena. ‘I know it sounds silly, but I like to think of him in the skies, twinkling down on me.’

‘I love that idea,’ says Violet. ‘That we all become stars. Tiny bursts of light, sparkling into the dark.’

Rosie leans over, strokes Violet’s hair. ‘It’s a bird’s nest,’ says Violet, but she does not push her away.

Rosie shakes her head, runs the long red strands through her fingers. ‘You’re perfect,’ she says. ‘Just as you are.’

One minute to midnight. Across the river they hear voices counting down the seconds. Lena sneaks a look at Violet. She has stiffened, her body rigid. She pulls Rosie’s hands from her hair, moves a palm to Rosie’s soft, cold cheek.

‘You have always been perfect to me, too,’ she says. She stretches her other hand to Lena. ‘You listened to me, even when I wasn’t ready to talk. Thank you for being my sort of sister.’

Violet’s eyes are blazing now, wide and fierce. Light streams from her. She pulls her arms away, raises them up towards unblinking stars.

‘I love you both,’ she says.

Nine. Eight. Seven.

‘But I won’t let them do this to me. I can’t.’

Six. Five. Four.

‘Not to the greatest trapeze artist who ever lived.’

Three. Two. One.

Violet rocks backwards and the sky explodes. The stars burst open and the heavens flame gold and before they can do anything to stop her, before they can scream her name, grab helplessly at her graceful limbs, spread out now as if she were on the trapeze, her greatest performance, Violet takes her final flight.

Down, down she goes, her skirts fanned out like the wings of a swan, past breath and flesh and blood and bone, while all around the fireworks erupt and people are cheering and the new year awakes, trembling and wide-eyed. Violet hits the rushing, darkening river, and is gone.