Olivia's Enchanted Summer (6 page)

For a moment, it seemed certain they would fall, but Jack took control and held her firmly by the ankles. Olivia regained her balance just in time. But she was shaken. She didn't normally wobble.

“Concentrate,” she told herself sternly as she held her position. But she couldn't get the boy out of her head. She stole another glance at him; the spotlights meant that she could no longer see his face clearly. She descended to the wire and as she did so she heard another boo amid the clapping. She could see that Jack had heard it, too, but unlike her he had taken it good-naturedly.

“I think we both deserved that,” he whispered wryly. Olivia knew that her dad was just being kind. She was the one who had lost concentration. They moved to opposite ends of the wire. A balancing rod in hand, Olivia began a sequence in which she walked along the wire towards Jack, swaying out far to one side so she was perched on one leg and then to the other. It looked really perilous but Olivia found it as easy as walking along a wall. It was just a question of
being aware of your centre of gravity. She caught sight of Jack watching her closely and for a split second it was as if she was seeing the boy again. Could he be Jack's son?

No, it was impossible. The boy was clearly younger than her and yet he was older than Eel. Snippets from the conversation she had overheard played in her mind:
I saw Alfie's birth announced in a newspaper…I feel terrible that I've never even seen him. He must be about ten now…”
She continued walking towards the end of the wire, lost in her thoughts. Suddenly, she blundered into something. She heard Jack cry out, the audience gasp and then she was all alone on the wire and there was just a space where Jack should be. White-faced and shaking, Olivia looked down. From somewhere in the crowd she heard a loud boo. Then she gave a huge sob and began climbing down the tower as fast as she could.

Chapter Eight

“What on earth were you thinking about, Liv?” asked Jack gently. The two of them were sitting alone on the grass outside the big top. Everybody else was inside, going through with Pablo how they would run the first circus-skills workshop, which would be starting in just over half an hour. But Jack had wanted to talk to Olivia and this was the first chance he'd had since the fall last night.

Olivia could hardly bear to remember the moment when she had watched Jack falling. It seemed to happen in slow motion. She felt a rush of shame. She had allowed herself to be distracted and had almost killed her own father. If he hadn't landed on one of the mattresses below he might have died or been seriously
injured, and it would have been all her fault. One mistake, one tiny lapse in concentration, and she would have had to live with the consequences for the rest of her life. She shivered.

As soon as it was apparent that Jack had landed like a cat and was totally fine, Kasha and the band struck up again and the show had continued. The audience was galvanised, as if the tumble from the wire had made it realise that what it was watching was real and genuinely risky, not just a showy pretence. Jack had even insisted that he and Olivia did the final
Tempest
sequence. He had been extraordinary in that scene, quite electrifying, as if the fall had pushed him on to even greater daring.

But Olivia had seen her father looking at her in a way she had never seen before. He looked wary, as if he didn't quite trust her any more. Remembering this now, she felt so ashamed, and began to cry hot tears.

Jack held her hand. “Liv, chick, we need to talk about this. Analyse what happened, so we can make sure it never happens again.”

Olivia nodded miserably. She wished he would be angrier with her. His gentle understanding just made things worse.

“Do you know why you lost focus?” persisted Jack.

Olivia stared at her dad. She couldn't possibly tell him that she had been wondering whether he had been unfaithful to her mother and if she and Eel had a secret half-brother. She felt drained and miserable. If only she had never heard that conversation when she had been in the portaloo, her life would have just gone on as before. But then maybe that life would have been based on a lie?

She remembered how, when she and Eel had first moved in with Alicia, she had accused her grandmother of entirely abandoning them after Toni's death. Alicia had said nothing to defend herself. But then one day when Olivia was looking for some sticky tape she had opened a dusty old drawer in the bureau in the living room and discovered that it was stuffed full of old letters. They'd been written by Alicia to Jack, desperately trying to find out where he and the children were, but they had been returned to her undelivered because the circus was always on the move across Europe.

It had made Olivia realise that what she'd thought was true and what was actually true
were two entirely different things.

Jack was waiting patiently for her answer. “I don't know, Dad,” she said. “I can't explain it. It just happened. I know that's no excuse. I'm really, really sorry.”

“Well, fortunately there was no harm done,” said Jack, “but it mustn't happen again, Liv. We've got to be able to trust each other completely out there on the wire. We've got to look after each other, and last night you weren't looking after yourself or me, you were completely lost in your own thoughts. I never want to see you up there again in that state, because if it's going to happen again we can't continue to be partners. I can't risk it, for either your sake or mine. Or the audience's. I know what it's like not to trust your partner, and I don't want to go there again.”

Olivia felt a stab of pain in her heart. “What happened?” she asked hesitantly.

Jack sighed. “I was very young. It was the year after your mum and I met. Getting away had seemed the best thing to do, so we were in Spain. I met a tightrope walker there; Nicu was a Romanian married to a Scottish girl called Cora, who was a former gymnast turned
contortionist. She was lovely, but she'd had such a sad life. Orphaned at a young age, and then brought up by her aunt, I think. Anyway, Nicu was a good few years older than me. He was the best high-wire walker I've ever seen, and completely fearless. It was like he belonged in the air.

“He already had a little girl about four and Cora was expecting again. Toni was just pregnant with you at the time. So it was natural that the four of us became friends, and after a while, Nicu suggested that he and I did a double act together. We both needed the work, but I knew I should never have said yes.”

“But if he was so good, why didn't you want to be his partner?” asked Olivia.

“Because he had a reckless streak. He always pushed everything too far and took unnecessary risks. Performers like that always work solo, because however talented they are nobody wants to work with them. They are a danger to themselves and other people. You only want to be on the wire with someone you trust, someone who will always be ready to catch you if you fall.”

“Did something terrible happen?”

Jack nodded. “We were in Seville. It was the third performance of the day and we were all tired. But Nicu was fired up. He wanted to try something new at the next performance. But I thought it was a bad idea. We hadn't rehearsed it enough; I didn't feel at all confident. Nicu agreed that we'd stick to the usual routine. But as soon as I got out there on the wire I sensed that he was excited. His eyes were glittering. Then suddenly, he launched into the new act. I didn't have any choice but to go with him – you can't stop to have an argument with someone when you're both suspended in mid-air on the wire. He was inspired, extraordinary. I fumbled through the routine as best I could, drenched in sweat, just desperate to get to the end in one piece. And we were nearly there, so close to safety. Nicu flipped on to his hands on the wire. It was amazing, and it was supposed to be the end of the show.

“But the crowd was going wild, and it just seemed to egg him on. He stood back up on the wire, took a bow, quietened the audience down with his hands and then he just launched into a series of flips along the wire. I'd never seen anything like it, before or since. He was going so
fast he was just a blur.”

“What happened?” whispered Olivia.

Jack's face looked pained, remembering the awful scene. “He flipped perfectly, exquisitely along the wire. But he didn't stop. It was as if he was possessed. He just ran out of wire and cartwheeled on into thin air. He hit the ground with a hideous thud, his body flung out in a star shape, arms and legs flailing slightly as if they still thought he was cartwheeling.”

“Did he die?” breathed Olivia.

“No,” said Jack grimly, “but he never walked again. Cora went into premature labour and gave birth to another little girl.”

“What happened to him and his family?”

Jack shook his head. “I don't know. We lost touch. I'd already met Pablo and we started to cook up some stunts, like the one at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Toni and I left Spain soon after. From time to time I'd hear something about Nicu. He was scraping a living together by teaching, but he wasn't a well man and it was tough. I think eventually the family may have gone back to Romania, or maybe they came to Scotland. I don't know. I feel guilty that I didn't try and stay in touch. I often wonder what
happened to Cora and those two little girls and how they survived.”

Olivia swallowed. “I won't lose my concentration again,” she whispered.

“I don't think you will, either.” Jack smiled. “I trust you.”

“And I trust you, Dad,” said Olivia, but as she said the words she wondered if it was really true. The doubt that had crept into their relationship felt like a tiny drop of poison polluting a clear blue lake. She knew she had to ask him straight.

“Dad,” she said slowly, “you don't have any other children, do you, besides Eel and me?”

For a second, Jack just stared at her, a mixture of astonishment and puzzlement in his eyes, and then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“What on earth made you ask that?” he said. “No, Liv, as far as I'm aware I have no other children. You and Eel are quite enough.”

Jack stopped laughing when he saw something was still troubling his daughter, but at that moment Georgia ran up and said that the circus-skills workshop was about to start and they were needed immediately.

Jack stood up and put out his hand to Olivia. “Come on, partner, let's go teach some tightrope walking.”

Chapter Nine

“This is such fun!” said Georgia, chasing after yet another ball that Becky, the café owner's daughter, had dropped. Pablo and Will were teaching her group to juggle, and Georgia had dropped almost as many balls as Becky. But everyone was enjoying themselves.

Pablo had planned the session really well, aiming to make sure that all the children left the workshop feeling that they had achieved something. The Swans had started the session with an impressive skipping demonstration, showing off their fabulous footwork from years of dance training. Kylie and Eel could skip and tap dance at the same time, which had attracted admiring “Oohs” and “Aahs” from the watching children. Although some of the local
boys had initially complained that skipping was for girls, they had soon joined in when Kasha and his mate, Jazz, showed how fast and hard they could skip.

It was a clever move on Pablo's part. Everybody can skip a bit so the children quickly made progress and by the end everyone had a new trick they could show off in the playground. Later, he planned to show them how to build the first couple of layers of a
castell
, the human towers that hailed from the Catalan region of Spain.

Now, under the watchful eye of Alicia, Eel was teaching a small group of girls how to do a perfect cartwheel and Pablo was teaching simple juggling. At one side of the ring, Jack and Olivia were setting up a wire just centimetres off the ground so those who wanted to could get a taste of tightrope walking. As she was securing the wire at one end, Olivia heard a little bark. She turned around to find the collie dog, wagging its tail and panting happily.

“Hello, boy,” she said, ruffling the fur on his head. “Do you want to learn circus skills?” He raised a paw to her and she shook it, laughing. The dog licked her hand. Olivia glanced up, and
saw the two sisters sitting on the side of the ring. She was still feeling wary of the younger girl but she knew it was important to make everyone feel welcome. It was part of the Swans' training. Besides, she was curious about the sisters. So she gave both girls a little smile and wave. The elder girl waved back, but the younger one scowled and just went back to the intense conversation she was having with her sister. Olivia gritted her teeth and ran over to them anyway.

As she did so, she caught a snatch of what the girl was saying. “It's perfect, Tati. It's so lucky you got one of those leaflets. He'd never think of looking for us here. Not with a bunch of amateur circus kids…” There was a scorn in her voice that made Olivia prickle with annoyance. What did she know about the circus, anyway?

The older sister looked anxious. “But what if he finds out? It could bring down trouble on them all…” She broke off when she realised that Olivia was hovering nearby.

Olivia took a deep breath and tried to be nice. “Hi, I'm Olivia,” she said, and she added shyly: “I remember you from the Mound. The magic show….”

“I remember you, too,” said the younger
girl, with a shrug that suggested she hadn't forgotten their argument.

“I'm Tatiana. But every one calls me Tati,” said the elder girl quickly, “and this is my little sister, Evie.”

“I'm not little,” said Evie, glaring at her sister. “I'm thirteen.”

“Do you want to join in?” asked Olivia. “You could try some juggling, if you like.” She pointed to the other end of the tent. The younger girl just stared at her stonily and shook her head. Her elder sister smiled apologetically, seeming embarrassed by her sister's rudeness.

“Oh, whatever,” said Olivia, running out of patience. She went back to helping Jack with the wire. Why would anyone bother to come to a circus-skills workshop if they didn't want to join in?

“Hey, it's those girls again,” said Aeysha, coming over to see whether Olivia and Jack were ready to start the tightrope walking session.

“I know,” replied Olivia. “I spoke to them. At least the older one tries to be pleasant but the younger one is just plain rude.”

At that moment, Becky dropped two of her balls again and a third shot off in an arc. The
collie chased after it, caught it on his nose and started bouncing it up and down with a skill that would have made a World Cup-winning footballer jealous. Everyone clapped.

“That dog's amazing!” said Georgia. “That dog's so clever.” Evie gave a whistle and the collie raced around the ring, leapt over the barrier and landed in her lap, where he started to lick her face vigorously. The children cheered and ran over. Even Olivia couldn't resist following, the dog was so loveable.

“What's his name?” Aeysha asked Evie.

“Harry,” replied Evie, her eyes sparkling. Pride and pleasure in her dog had transformed her face from its usual watchful state. It was as if she had let down her guard against the world. “After Houdini. Cos he's a real escape artist.”

“Just like you,” said Tati. Both sisters had Scottish accents but with a trace of something else that Olivia couldn't quite place. The sisters glanced at each other as if sharing a memory.

“Did you train him yourself?” asked Georgia.

Evie grinned and nodded. “My auntie Zsa Zsa taught me how to do it. She's a professional animal trainer. She's the best.”

“Maybe she could train my dog? He's a Jack Russell and he's very naughty,” said Georgia.

Tati shook her head sadly. “We don't know where she lives any more. We haven't seen or heard from her for a couple of years. She might even be dead.”

The Swans gasped.

“No she isn't; I know she isn't!” said Evie desperately. “She can't be, not Auntie Zsa Zsa. She's too full of life.”

Olivia saw the same mix of vulnerability and defiance in the girl's face that she'd noticed on the Mound steps. She remembered what she'd glimpsed through the garage window and wanted to ask them why they were living there, but she could hardly just blurt out a question like that.

“Do you and your family live in Edinburgh or are you just here for the Festival?” she asked, as casually as she could.

Tati looked sad. “Our mum and dad are—Ow!” she cried, as Evie kicked her and told her to shut up.

Just then, Jack called out: “So who wants to try tightrope walking?” The Swans and some of the other children whooped and ran
towards the low wire, while others drifted over to Pablo, who was going to show them how to build
castells
. Olivia walked a little way behind the girls, trying to text Tom quickly before the tightrope session began. She stopped still when she heard Evie hiss angrily at her sister.

“Stop talking so much, Tati. You'll be broadcasting our business to everyone next, not just that nosy circus girl. We shouldn't trust anyone. Look what happened with Mitch.”

“I was just trying to be nice, Evie,” replied Tati. “If we're going to get them to trust us, you're going to have to be a lot less rude.” She sighed. “You used to be such a sweet little thing, Evie.”

“I'm trying to be tough, Tati,” snapped her sister. “If there's one thing I've learned over the last few months it's that only the tough survive. We can't rely on anybody except each other.”

Olivia couldn't stop a sneeze escaping, and Evie and Tati fell abruptly silent.

“Liv!” Jack signalled that he needed her to help him, and as she ran back down into the ring she remembered where she had heard that name before: the man who had swindled Jack out of his money was also called Mitch! If Evie,
Tati and Houdini were living in the garages at Jekyll Street and knew someone called Mitch, then maybe they had some connection to the scam? Maybe they could tell Jack where to find Mitch?

She couldn't wait to tell Jack what she had discovered, but it'd have to wait until after the workshop. She felt a tingle of anticipation in her tummy. She leapt on to the wire and gave a graceful demonstration of wire-walking that brought admiring glances.

“Who wants to have a go?” asked Jack and every single child in the group put up a hand. They formed an excited, unruly queue, and one by one he and Olivia helped them up on to the wire. Most of the children wobbled and would have fallen if they hadn't grabbed wildly at Olivia and Jack's outstretched hands. But one boy, who'd done horseriding, had excellent balance and successfully managed a few steps before he became over-confident and fell off. Everyone clapped.

“Come on, Liv, give us another demonstration,” said Jack, smiling proudly at his daughter. Olivia leapt on to the wire and danced along it with such grace it was as if her
feet barely touched it. She jumped off, and saw Evie staring at her, a small smile playing around her lips. The girl had moved to the back of the group gathered around the wire as if she was unable to keep away from it.

Everyone else applauded, but Evie just carried on staring at Olivia, an unimpressed gleam in her eye. Olivia bristled. She'd like to see her do better! She may make it look easy, but it took years and years of dedication to walk the wire well.

“Would you like to try?” she asked, and there was a challenge in her eyes. She knew she was being a little bit mean, but she was rather looking forward to seeing the rude girl take a tumble.

Evie looked Olivia up and down, and shrugged. She glanced at the wire and the curly haired boy who was teetering along it, supported by Jack and Aeysha. “That's for babies,” she sneered.

“I bet you won't say that when you get on it,” said Olivia. “Bet you won't be able to walk from one end to the other without falling off.”

Evie scrutinised her coolly with an infuriatingly confident smile. “Bet I can.”

Olivia rather admired the girl's bravura. “Go on, then,” she said, and she knew her words were like a dare. The girl held her gaze boldly for just a moment, and then she turned and ran very fast towards the tower at the side of the ring and started climbing it with speed and agility.

“Evie,” called Tati, looking worried.

Olivia gritted her teeth. No one was allowed to go near the high-wire that she and Jack used for the circus performances. Why did that girl have to be so annoying? “Evie, come back,” she shouted, certain that as soon as the girl realised how high off the ground the wire was, she'd come straight back down.

But Evie just continued to climb up towards the wire. Olivia suddenly felt alarmed, and ran towards the tower. If anything happened to the girl, she would be partly to blame.

“Come back down!” she shouted. “Don't be such an idiot!”

Olivia's shout made Jack and Pablo look round. As soon as they realised what was happening, they raced towards the tower. Pablo overtook Olivia and was up after Evie like a monkey. But she had a good head start and she
had almost reached the top.

“Come down!” yelled Jack desperately. “What on earth does she think she's playing at?” he said to Olivia, whose heart had begun to thump so hard it seemed to be trying to burst right out of her chest. Olivia shook her head hopelessly.

Evie had reached the top of the ladder and was now standing where the wire began, stretched taut across to the other tower. Olivia waited for Evie to take in the dizzying drop to the ground, and come back down. But instead she did something that made Olivia feel as if somebody had removed all the bones in her legs. She stuck her tongue out at Olivia, and then she stepped out on to the wire.

Jack put his head in his hands, and Pablo shouted, “Noooooooooo!” Evie completely ignored them. She took another step, as if testing the wire, and then sashayed along it as if she hadn't a care in the world. When she got to the other end she turned back, flipped on to her hands and walked along the wire upside down. Down below, the children all clapped and cheered. Then Evie stopped mid-wire, and balanced on both her hands. The children below
whooped with delight.

Olivia couldn't believe her eyes. Jack's expression was part fury and part astonishment. Then Evie was back up on her feet, pirouetting along the wire. She reached the tower, rubbed her hands together in a gesture that suggested a job well done, and took a bow. Then she started to climb down.

When she reached the bottom, she was mobbed by everybody. Olivia hung back and watched. She had never seen anything like the display. She felt a mixture of admiration and fury. If Evie had fallen, it would have been the end of her and the Swan Circus.

Olivia followed Jack as he pushed his way through the crowd. Even his back radiated anger. He stopped in front of the girl, who stared at him with a look of both satisfaction and defiance on her face.

“How dare you!” Jack yelled, his voice shaking with a mixture of shock and anger. “You could have been killed! How could you be so reckless? The high-wire isn't something you can just muck about on when you feel like it. Right, tell me where you live. I'm going to take you home, because someone needs to have a word
with your parents about your—”

“You're the great Marvello, aren't you,” interrupted Evie, in a tone that made it clear that it was a statement, not a question.