Page 39 of The Show Woman

38

Funeral

The day of the funeral is hard and bright, the sky sheened to brilliant white. Lena dresses quickly in the cold as the first flakes of snow pitter-patter across the caravan window. Violet would have liked that. The drama of it: winter’s chilly majesty.

She gathers up Rosie from her wagon, crumpled and tearstained in black, her butterfly brooch a brilliant blue at her throat, and together they walk arm in arm through the snow. There is a heaving turnout at the cemetery. Despite the nature of Violet’s death – about which nobody says a word, at least not to Lena – every show person in the ground without a wean or a winter city job has come to pay their respects. They have known Violet since she was a tiny bairn, fleeing around the ground, always up to some scheme or asking impertinent questions, and, as she grew older, begging a free go on a ride or a borrow of someone else’s trapeze. Violet was a daughter of Vinegarhill, of the shows, and the fairs. They will see her safely onwards, into the next life.

Mary Weaver, trussed up in a stiff mourning dress and veil, looks like an overfed crow as she perches on a stool by the graveside. Lena’s stomach churns as she recalls her casual cruelty. Had it not been for her, Violet might still be here. William’s face is lined and haggard. For the first time Lena realises he looks old, a showman past his prime, weeping for his dead sister.

And next to him is Harry. Cap in hand, his face etched with grim sadness. Lena feels a sudden, surprising surge of affection for him. He loved his sister, and she him.

As the minister drones about returning Violet to God, back into the arms of Jesus Christ our Saviour, Rosie grips Lena’s arm.

‘Look,’ she says. ‘Up there. In the tree. It’s a magpie.’

The bird buries its beak in its feathers.

‘She’s OK,’ Rosie says. ‘She’s telling me she’s OK. She’s free now. No longer in her cage.’

The minister has finished. Earth is tossed on the coffin and Rosie darts forward, flings a small rose she has made from carpet wool, its thick petals glistening in the cold clear air, down into the grave.

A wake then, held among the Weaver wagons, booze flowing as fast as the falling snow. Lena cannot face it but knows she must, finds herself a quiet corner where she sits with Belle, who is stricken and pale, her eyes drooping with tiredness. Somewhere a fiddle has struck up, a sad, melancholic tune.

‘I never told her I loved her, you know,’ says Belle. ‘But I did. She was always so glamorous, so much older, sophisticated. I even had a surprise for her, for when you came back after the summer. I’ve been learning on the trapeze, I’ve got quite good, and I wanted her to see it. But then she came back all broken and sad and I was scared to. And now she never will see me.’

She chokes back a small sob.

Lena pats her hand, but she is barely listening. Her eyes are fixed on Harry, on the other side of the wagon, which is stuffed to the gunwales with show folk. She can see only the top of his strawberry-blond head, the way it bobs and weaves as he talks, nods, listens. I’ve touched that hair, she thinks. Run my fingers through it. Oh, for the comfort of touching that bonny head of hair again. Because what Lena craves right now, more than anything else, is comfort. To lay her head on someone’s shoulder, to weep for all that she has lost: her mammy, her daddy, and now Violet. Here, in this crowded wagon, among a sea of familiar faces, she feels entirely alone.

She takes a nip of whisky, decides that now is as good a time as any.

‘I’m just away for a word with someone,’ she says to Belle, who is now staring morosely out at the snow. But as she stands up, a man accosts her.

‘You’re Lena, yes?’ He has a heavy accent, a long, twirling moustache, and a five o’clock shadow so blue it reminds her of the fronds of a thistle.

‘Aye, who’s asking?’

The strawberry-blond head turns, almost imperceptibly, in her direction.

‘I am Gianni. I was at Linden’s with Violet. I am sorry. She was a wonderful trapeze artist. Magnificent. The best. And she was a friend of mine. Can we sit?’

Lena sits back down again. Belle has disappeared, threading her way through the crowd and out the caravan door, letting a great gust of snow in. Away to bed, away to cry tears into her pillow, just like Rosie.

‘Are you still at Linden’s, then?’ asks Lena. Just thinking of that woman makes her heart harden, a kernel of fury burst open in her chest.

Gianni shakes his head, takes a drink of something concealed in a brown paper bag. ‘I have joined another troupe now. Linden’s, they had a great reputation but now they are trading on the past. The woman, Serena, she lives in the past too.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ says Lena. ‘It’s that woman who rigged Violet’s trapeze, I just know it.’

‘You think this was Serena’s doing?’ Gianni looks shocked. ‘As revenge for some...indiscretions?’

‘Who else could it be? Violet told me not to speak to her, told me to leave it, said she was dangerous, but I don’t care now. I need to speak to her. Hear the truth.’

‘She’s not far from here now, if you want to see her,’ he says. ‘Linden’s were in Edinburgh for Christmas but they’re down in Falkirk now for a winter run.’

Lena puts her hands in her lap. ‘Don’t you think she should pay? For what she’s done? It’s all her fault.’

Harry materialises out of the crowd. He is holding a tin mug and Lena can smell the fumes from it, the heady tang of a decent dram. ‘Want a sip?’ he says to Lena.

‘Aye,’ she says, and takes it from him. It is warm and bitter and burns her throat.

Gianni stretches out a hand. ‘I am so sorry about your sister. I am Gianni. I worked with her at Linden’s.’

‘I thought I recognised you,’ says Harry. ‘You’re an acrobat, is that right?’

‘ Si, si ,’ says Gianni. ‘But not with Linden’s any more. Too . . . spicy, you might say, even for my tastes.’

‘Gianni here was just saying that Linden’s is in Falkirk,’ says Lena. ‘And I was thinking that I might go to Falkirk, pay the great Miss Linden a visit.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t do that,’ says Harry.

Lena’s eyes flash.

‘I will leave you to your discussions,’ says Gianni. He looks awkward, as though he has overstepped the mark somehow. ‘It was nice to meet you both.’

Lena glances at Harry. The anger she felt kindling inside her has ignited.

‘Who are you to tell me what to do? Where to go? Do you not care about your sister?’

As soon as the words leave her mouth she knows it is a low blow. Harry bows his head, puts his hand on Lena’s wrist.

‘Of course I care about my sister. But I care about you too. And Linden’s is dangerous. Serena has thugs working for her, always did. And she’s got a reputation for revenge. Loves nothing more than to run another show out of town the rough way. And, well, look at you. A young show woman, your own circus, you’re exactly the type she’d set the dogs on.’

Lena stands up, pushes past him. She will hear no more of this. All summer she was trying to get to Galston, to find out what happened to her mother. Then Violet fell, and she has tried to do her best by her. But now she has gone, and she must set out, first for Falkirk to see the Linden woman, and then for Ayrshire. There is nothing left for her here in Vinegarhill. She doesn’t care about Serena’s thugs, or whether the old woman will wreak her revenge; she just wants the truth. Now. It is time to go.

She flings open the door of the wagon and runs down the steps, her long black mourning dress catching on the steps. The snow is heavy now, flitters into her eyes, and she can barely see in front of her.

An arm grabs her from behind. ‘Lena,’ says Harry. ‘Stop. Please.’

She turns round. Her face is wet, but whether it is from tears, or from the snow, she neither knows nor cares.

‘I want to find out who sent Violet to her death as much as you do,’ he says. ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you. I’ll come with you. I’ll come with you to Falkirk, meet Serena Linden. If you’ll have me.’

His eyes are bright, blue, sincere. A snowflake lands on his bottom lip, and Lena resists the urge to wipe it away.

‘Alright,’ she says finally. ‘If that’s what you want. We’ll go together.’