Love, Let Me Not Hunger (2 page)

The two fleshless lines of Marvel’s lips twisted themselves into the grimace which with him passed for a grin, and he said, “It don’t say nothing about not touring there either, if you read it. But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m giving you, anybody that wants to, is a chance to git out.”

There was again a confused rustling and exchange of glances. Nobody knew what to do or say. It was the state of mind in which Marvel wanted them.

Marvel again thumped the tub with the stock of the ring whip. “Okay,” he repeated, “I’ll give you your say when I’m finished. Now you listen. All of you were with us last season. How did you like playing to Mr. Wood?”

There was a kind of a nervous titter at the reminder. “Playing to Mr. Wood” was circus slang they all knew for poor attendance, and referred to the patchwork of empty benches which showed through a thin crowd.

“Yeah,” said Marvel with heavy sarcasm, “you seen it last year, but I seen it the year before that, and it started back in 1958. And I seen it on my books too. The receipts have been falling off. And I’ll bet it’s the same with Chipperfields, Billy Smarts, and all the rest of them big-wig outfits. Only they got more fat to eat up off of. I ain’t.” Then he flung a question, “You know what’s at the bottom of it all?”

They were like schoolchildren being quizzed about something naughty they had done. They knew they had run a good and formerly successful show and performed loyally with the enthusiasm all of them had for their professions, and yet in some manner they were being made to feel it was their fault.

Fred Deeter, the American ex-cowboy said, “We had a lot of lousy weather, didn’t we?”

Sam Marvel snorted. “It’s always the weather! But it ain’t the weather any more, and if you had eyes in your head and the brains to know what you were looking at you’d see the same thing I see.”

He paused. No one said anything. “Tellyvision aerials!” he cried in a loud voice, suddenly excited. “Hundreds of ’em, thousands of ’em! Look on the roofs of the houses of any town. It’s like a forest of ’em. Every house has got one. That’s where they all are. Sitting in their kitchens and parlours looking at the bloody telly!”

Now that the dry, hard little man facing them so belligerently, standing head and shoulders above them on the elephant’s prop, had made a picture and a connection for them, they all saw it who had not seen it before. They recalled the worrisome nights in localities supposed to be “good” when the tent was sometimes no more than two-thirds or even half full, while all about them the television aerials sprouted from every roof.

They stirred and murmured and looked at one another again, nodding their heads. The man standing on the tub had impressed their simple and limited intelligence and once more asserted the validity of his bossism. And they were all content to have it so. With his superior brain and ability to think things out, he lifted responsibility from their shoulders.

“I’ll let you out of your contracts if you want, so you can get jobs with other circuses, but I’m telling you they’ll all go bust if this keeps up—just like the cinemas. But you know where they ain’t got the telly yet? Spain! And you know how I know? Because I been there!!”

He stopped to let the magnitude of this revelation sink in. While they had been loafing the winter away, he, Sam Marvel, had been on the job and had gone ferreting out the situation.

“That’s right,” he continued, “Spain. There’s telly in some of the big cities, but there’s none out in the country. Why, there are some places there that ain’t even got telephones! There ain’t been a British circus on the Continent in the last forty-three years. Well, we’re gonna show ’em. We’re going where there ain’t any bloody television!”

They were with him now, acquiescing, no longer feeling cheated. Besides which, they were all nomads and the thought of travelling and trekking their wagons through a new country added spice and interest. Also, they carried their dwellings about with them wherever they went and, like the turtle in his carapace, were at home no matter where.

Marvel saw that he had his audience with him and that there were not going to be any difficulties. He stood looking down at them, savouring his power for a moment, before he said, “We’re gonna cut right down. Streamline. I’ve picked you people because you’re bona and I know what you can do. But all of you are gonna have to double and triple and lend a hand setting up and pulling down as well. You clowns, for instance, are gonna get off your fat arses and stop running around, yelling and kidding, and do some work.”

From where the clowns were grouped came the rude, anonymous note of the full-blown raspberry, which brought only a savage grin to the mouth of the circus boss, for a moment showing worn-down and tobacco-stained teeth. He had, for an old showman, a curious contempt for clowns and their work and considered them more of a nuisance than an asset, but this was probably because he was completely devoid of any sense of humour and never during a run-around or even an entree could understand what the flatties were laughing at.

“That’s all then,” concluded Marvel, “and we can get to work.”

But later he saw the artistes by troupes or individually in his office, and from the vantage point of his old-fashioned roll-top desk made it clear how the operation had been planned to turn in a profit at the end of the season, and just what each of them was expected to contribute.

No other labouring class or profession in the world would have consented to have its work doubled, tripled, and in instances even quadrupled, without rebellion, but Sam Marvel knew his people and the vanity within their powerful and beautiful bodies. As long as it meant yet another opportunity to exhibit themselves and their skills there would never be any protest.

During the winter, Marvel had made a flying trip to Spain. In a brief motor exploration of the countryside within a two-hundred-mile radius of the capital, he had ascertained that there was town after town nestling in the folds of the hills or rising from parched plains, all within an easy night’s march from one another, where not only was the ubiquitous television aerial not to be seen, but often not even wired communication. There was evidence of much poverty and badly paid drudgery, but the Spaniards were by no means gloomy and defeated by their circumstances. On the contrary, they were a hard-working, gay, independent people who looked after their children, liked to laugh, loved nothing better than a fiesta, and who, he felt certain, would not be able to resist the wonders of the Marvel Circus. His inquiries had led to the conclusion that small Spanish touring circuses did well. His own would have the added attraction of being British, and hence foreign.

To solve the logistic problems, he had found that a cattle boat could transport the entire company and their equipment from Liverpool to Santander at minimum expense, after which, as in England, they would progress southwards by road. Three large lorries would be capable of carrying tent poles, canvas, and seating, as well as the necessary props. Sam Marvel owned several motorised living wagons in which he rented out space to performers who had none of their own. But most of the circus people in that modern day and age owned one, from the huge caravan of the Walters equestrian family which housed and travelled seven, to the smaller ones of the clowns and singles like Jackdaw Williams, who boasted of converted vans or simply lived like gypsies in doctored-up shooting brakes.

The cages and the beast wagons could be hitched in train behind the lorries since the pace of the circus would necessarily be slow. Judy, the single elephant scheduled to accompany the show, and the horses would walk between towns and villages; and where the distances were too great for an overnight march, they would allow several days for the trip and camp
en route.

But what made the trip possible and potentially profitable, besides the streamlining of jobs and transportation, was Marvel’s solution of the setting-up problem, stemming from his study of the situation at first hand. Labour in Spain was so cheap that there would be enough manpower available at practically no cost at all compared with wages in Britain. And to ensure swift and smooth operation Marvel was taking along a ground staff consisting of his tent boss, Joe Cotter, his mechanic, Pete Sprague, and three experienced British tentmen who were also roustabouts and general circus hands. These would be sufficient, when bolstered by unlimited local hire, to put up the show in each community and pull it down. This ground staff would sleep in the lorries. All of the living wagons were equipped either with small kitchens or Primus stove units and the various troupes fed and looked after themselves.

In his head Sam Marvel retained a catalogue of every act he had ever booked, or for that matter seen, including the specialties and capabilities of every member. The small company he had now gathered together was competent to present a programme of some twenty diverse and individual numbers, which collectively would add up to a performance of three hours’ duration. Among the things the showman had ascertained on his exploratory visit was that the Spaniards expected their money’s worth from the circus.

C H A P T E R
2

I
n the stuffy confines of his office, Marvel had the Walters family lined up in front of his desk—Harry and Ma; Jacko, Ted and Toby, the three boys, of whom Toby was the youngest; and the two girls, Angela and Lilian—and was explaining what he expected of them.

He said, “We’ll keep the family act for the second half. You three,” and he nodded towards the boys, “open the first half with
voltige.
Call yourselves the Jacko Trio.” Sam Marvel had that oldtime showman’s reverence for the half- or even quarter-truth. With a change of costume and a partial change of name, the bemused flatties in the audience never caught on to the fact that the same performers were returning time and time again in different guises.

“Your girls ought to be about ready on the wire,” he said to Harry Walters. “They’ve been practising long enough.”

Walters merely grunted. “They’ll be all right.”

“Okay,” said Marvel, “we’ll bill them as the Liliane Sisters.”

Lilian Walters, who was the younger of the two, turned pink and smirked with pleasure, and then threw a look at her older sister who coloured likewise, but not with pleasure.

“You got costumes ready for ’em?” Marvel asked of Ma Walters.

The fat woman said, “We ain’t had time yet,” and also flushed, for she was always nervous in the presence of Sam Marvel. “We
—”

“Well, make ’em up then!” said Marvel. “Something flashy. Put the little kid in red and the big one in blue.”

Pa Walters said, somewhat sarcastically, “Anything else?”

“Yes,” said Marvel, ummoved by the sarcasm and glancing down at the paper he was holding. “You, Toby, you’re always mucking about with that bloody elephant. How would you like to present the pig?”

“Bona,” said the boy, and reddened with pleasure and excitement. And then added, “Do you mean it, sir?”

“Yup!” Marvel said curtly, and looked down at his paper again. “Twelve minutes. Rajah Poona. Find yourself an Indian getup with a turban. Something classy that’ll show off your figure. O.K., that’s all.” The family got up to go. Marvel from behind his desk waved a finger at the youngest Walters. “You, Toby, I want to see you a minute.”

The showman tilted in his swing chair; his brown bowler hat, which he wore indoors as well as out, slid to the back of his head. He lighted up a short Schimmelpenninck, a kind of juvenile-sized cigar of which he appeared to keep an unlimited supply on hand and which inevitably he either chewed or burned between his teeth, and sat there, his thumbs hooked into the arm holes of his waistcoat, looking the boy up and down. With his lipless mouth and beady eyes, his face appeared lizard-like, and as cold. “About that elephant now,” he said, “she don’t like women.”

Toby was only half listening, for his mind was engaged with the excitement of his new association and job and he already saw himself booted, costumed, turbaned, alone in the ring, displaying his power over so huge an animal. It gave him a delicious feeling that Sam Marvel had singled him out to present the elephant act, for his family kept him down and whereas his brothers and sisters could shine in spangled costumes or tights, their faces free of any makeup, Toby was always hidden beneath the grotesque mask of the Auguste. The town girls did not even recognise him when they came rubber-necking around the wagons after the show. He was the best rider in the family and, although his father and brothers would never admit it, his clowning and comedy performance was the mainstay of the act. But of course the superior skill and timing called for to portray a drunken man trying to stay on the back of a horse were usually lost upon the audience. Now dressed as a glamorous Indian potentate he was to have the spotlight all to himself.

“About that elephant now,” Marvel repeated. “I’m giving you a little tip. I got it from the feller that looked after her when she was with McPhee’s Circus. They say she killed a woman once in Bombay. I dunno if it’s true. It was a long time ago and they kinda forgot about it. But this feller give me the tip and I’m passing it on to you.”

Toby was listening now. He hadn’t known this about Judy.

“Albert’ll keep on looking after her, but she’s your responsibility. Get it? I don’t want anybody hurt in this circus and specially not any flattie or gajo hanging around the lot. Keep ’em away. A lot of them damned women go ootsie-tootsie about animals and you never know. She’s all right in the ring but she don’t like ’em coming around her. Maybe she got something there.”

Toby nodded and wondered about the story of Judy having killed a woman and whether it could be true. The elephant was so gentle.

“That’s all,” Marvel said. “When you’ve worked up the act lemme know and I’ll cue the music with you.” He took the Schimmelpenninck from between his teeth. “I’m the ringmaster now.” He grinned his savage grin. “And the band. We’ll be using a panatrope.”

Unit by unit, Marvel saw the artistes and detailed what they were down for on the programme. The Birdsalos, whose bar-and-trampoline act was a feature of the first half, were to bring the show to a close as fliers on the high trapezes strung up from the roof of the tent. Two of the Albanos, a group of six hand balancers and ground acrobats, could do a fair humpsti-bumpsti or knockabout comedy. Another pair were trick cycle riders, and three could combine in a passable perch act. In the same manner the Yoshiwara-Fu Tong troupe of mixed Chinese and Japanese could present their Risley foot juggling routine, a good slack-wire duo, dish spinners, contortionism, and tumbling.