Page 43 of The Show Woman

42

Secrets

Lena is trembling as she steps through the high arch of the big top. Harry is behind her, tall, reassuring, but still. She cannot quite believe the moment is finally here.

The space is huge, cavernous. She is amazed that they have been able to walk straight in; they left the wagon at the side of the road, crept silently into a showground as still and silent as the falling snow, and towards the gleaming tent.

Above them, a troupe of acrobats are swinging effortlessly from a complex set of ropes and hoops suspended on the ceiling. They weave and soar, interlocking legs and arms, and despite her nerves Lena lifts her head, spellbound at the sight.

‘Again!’ shouts a loud voice from below. ‘Terrible. No rhythm. You’re a disgrace to this circus.’

Even from this distance, Lena can see that Serena is a formidable presence. Swathed in silk scarves, an imposing cane in her hand, she is an immovable point at the very heart of the tent. The acrobats strike up their formation again, swirling overhead like a flock of graceful birds, and this time Lena keeps her eyes on Serena, sees how she watches them with a critical eye, the practised air of a true show woman, a pro.

‘You’re the Loveridge lass,’ a deep voice says in her ear. Lena jumps and turns. A dark-haired man is leering at her, his sharp teeth bared. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

Harry steps forward, but Lena rests a hand on his arm.

‘I’m here to see Miss Linden,’ she says with more confidence than she feels.

The man laughs nastily. ‘And what makes you think she’ll talk to a wee trollop like you?’

On the far side of the tent Lena senses the old woman’s head turning.

‘Dougie? Who is that? What’s going on?’

The man’s neck stiffens, and Lena sees an unease pass over his face. ‘Don’t you move a muscle,’ he says to her. She tries not to flinch.

‘He’s one of the chaps who was sniffing round your wagon that night back in Stirling,’ Harry says as the man walks towards Serena.

Fear trickles through Lena’s veins. So that was Serena Linden’s doing as well. She thinks of poor Tommy Pony, the deadly nightshade, the hole cut in the tent. Had Serena been behind all these cruel acts?

And yet something like envy pricks at her, too. This great tent, Serena’s magisterial presence – is this not what she has dreamt of? That one day her ladies’ circus might also command such showmanship, and talent?

On the far side of the big top Serena is conferring with Dougie. He shakes his head but she raps her cane violently on the ground, forces him into silence. And then slowly, unhurriedly, as if she possessed all the time in this dark, snow-covered world, she makes her way towards them.

‘Miss Linden,’ Lena says, and is astonished to find herself bobbing slightly, as if curtseying.

‘I see you’ve got some manners, at least,’ says Serena. ‘Come away back to my quarters.’

The wagon, when they reach it, is dim. An acrid smell hits Lena’s nostrils. Despite an array of pretty furniture – a day bed in burgundy velvet, swathes of silk strung across the ceiling, carvings in ivory adorning the windowsill, a jewel box studded with gems – the caravan has an air of decay about it. As though something in it has been left to rot.

Serena sits on the bed, hunched over. There are smears of blood on the blanket, and more round her mouth. Now Lena is up close to her, Harry at her heels, she notices that the face is grey, the eyes sunken. She sees immediately that Serena has a sickness, and feels an unfamiliar pang of sympathy. Then she thinks of Violet, of the look on her face as she lay there on the floor of the tent, eyes gazing upwards, unmoving, and she clears her throat.

‘I’m Lena Loveridge,’ she says. ‘I’d like to ask you some questions.’

The figure on the bed flinches, coughs nastily into a handkerchief.

‘Ach, I know who you are,’ she says. ‘Do you think I’d have let a stranger come marching in here if I didn’t?’

Her answer unnerves Lena. ‘Well, I am a stranger, aren’t I? Or have we met before?’

Serena laughs. It is more of a cackle. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ she says. ‘Who’s your man?’

‘This is Harry. He’s Violet Weaver’s brother. He wants answers as much as I do.’

‘Out, lad,’ says Serena. ‘This is between us two show women, no more. We don’t need you earwigging on our business.’

Lena turns, looks at Harry. He shrugs. ‘I’ll be right outside the door,’ he says softly. ‘The first sign of trouble and you just shout my name. I’ll be in here as quick as Jack Flash.’

‘Sit, sit,’ says Serena, once he has gone, waving the cane she clutches in one hand.

Lena perches on the day bed. It is hard, overstuffed, and she wonders how the old woman can possibly find it comfortable.

‘As you can see, I’m not well. Some damned winter cold has got into me. Can’t seem to shake it.’ Serena hawks a globule of spit into her handkerchief, raps her cane on the floor. ‘So, what questions have you for me?’

Lena looks at her. Her breathing is steady now, her nerves calmed. She feels completely in control.

‘Did you know Violet Weaver is dead?’

‘Aye,’ says Serena. ‘Shame, that. She was awfully talented on the trapeze. Threw herself off a bridge, I hear?’

‘But it was you!’ Lena exclaims. ‘You greased her bar! You made her fall! She broke her back, she was never going to walk again, so she killed herself. This is all your fault.’

Serena is shaking her head.

‘No, no. I never greased the bar. I didn’t even know the bar had been greased. Thought she’d just taken a tumble. It’s always a risk. You should know that, being a circus proprietor like myself.’

Lena is stunned. ‘It wasn’t you?’

She looks at the woman, her pallid skin, the rheumy eyes, the yellowing whites. But Serena is gazing at her steadily, her expression unflinching. This is the truth, Lena thinks. She is telling me the truth.

‘Listen, hen, I won’t deny I had a bit of fun with you and Violet. I was sore that she hit me. She gave me a right old shiner. I hoped she might disappear. But no, there she was bold as brass, joined up with a new show, a ladies’ circus of all things, and pulling in the flatties. So I got my boys to mess with your horse, cut a hole in your tent. Violet needed to learn a lesson. And you, lassie, need to learn that running a show is hard. You don’t get to be me overnight with...’ she waves her cane around at her various glittering trinkets ‘...all this. But as soon as I found out it was you that was running the lassies’ circus, I decided we’d had enough fun.’

Lena swallows hard. ‘Why me?’ she asks.

Serena says nothing.

‘You poisoned Tommy Pony, then. And the tent was you as well. But who could have done that to Violet?’

Serena emits another cackle. ‘Have you tried asking her own mother? She was always a wrong ’un, Mary. I tried telling Violet before she left but she wouldn’t have it. Didn’t want to hear a word. The sainted Mary Weaver. That’s a lie if ever there was one.’

Lena’s head is spinning. An image of Mary, matter-of-fact, discussing Violet being locked away in the hospital, floats into her mind.

‘What did Mary do?’ she asks.

‘You’ll have to find that one out on your own, lassie. And you will. I can see you’re a bright thing. Smart as your mother, in fact.’

Lena’s voice is almost a whisper. ‘You knew my mother?’

Serena has produced a pipe, an old, battered-looking thing with a dark, cherry wood bowl. She puts tobacco into it, lights a match and takes a slow puff.

‘Aye, I knew your mother, and better than most. She loved me, your mother. Wee Maggie was always following me around. She had a kind nature. She was spoiled, but sweet. But you know how people talk about two peas in a pod?’

Lena thinks of Violet, nods.

‘Well, your mammy and I were the opposite. Two different pods altogether. That was the problem.’

‘But how did you know her? Did you grow up together?’

‘I’m getting to that, hen. When my mammy died, my pa was lonely. I wasn’t enough for him, even though I was the star of the show. But he needed a woman’s touch. Most men do, as I’m sure you’re discovering. And so he took in this woman, a bidey-in, not even his wife. A waif she was, turned up at the circus one day havering about horses and wanting a go as a bareback rider, not that she was a patch on me.’

Serena pauses, makes sure Lena is still following her.

‘But my pa took a shine to her, and the next thing I knew she’s got a great round belly and they’re having their own bairn together.’

‘But what has this got to do with my mammy?’ asks Lena. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No,’ says Serena, ‘you won’t. Your mammy made sure of that. Never spoke about it to anyone once I told them they had to get out. She forgot all about us. And I forgot about her, too. Mostly. Until that day she turned up at Linden’s with you in tow. You were a wee slip of a thing then, a tiny wee bairn, and your mammy thought I didn’t spot you in the crowd but I did. I wasn’t sore about it either. I was pleased she’d had a family of her own. Thought maybe she’d got away from her mother, too.’

‘You’re speaking in riddles,’ says Lena. She is frustrated now, desolate because this ancient, bitter woman does not, after all this, know what happened to Violet, and seems to be full of secrets that Lena did not know she needed to hear.

Serena clears her throat, a great rasp that fills the dimly lit wagon.

‘Here’s what I’m trying to tell you, lassie,’ she says. ‘Your mammy was my half-sister. And you’re my niece.’