The Pilo Family Circus (7 page)

Goshy stared at her, blinking; he seemed to be waiting for something. Then, suddenly displeased for reasons all his own,
he let fly with a slap. Her head rocked sideways with a rustle of blonde hair. Some in the audience laughed, perhaps assuming she was an actor planted for the gag.

Goshy stared around wildly as a murmur broke out in the crowd, his hands up over his ears, his mouth flapping without sound. He staggered backwards up the steps onto the stage. Gonko watched all this unfold with a look of exasperation; this was not how the script was meant to run, but by the way he threw his arms up in exasperation, he’d been half expecting this.

The show degenerated further. Goshy fell onto his back like a man shot and rolled from side to side, gesturing frantically at Gonko with his elbows for help, his hands still stuck over his ears. Then came the kettle sound Jamie knew all too well, loud as a siren: ‘
HMMMMMM! HMMMMM!
’

From backstage another clown rushed into the spotlight. It was Doopy. He ran to his brother and tried to coax him from the stage. Goshy wouldn’t go. He stopped making the kettle noise and pointed at the woman in the front row, who was rubbing her face with a look of astonishment. Goshy’s mouth flapped again. ‘I know,’ Doopy cried, ‘she did
bad
, Goshy, she did
reeeeal bad
. But come
on
! It’s a
show
! You’re gonna be in so much
trouble …
’

Gonko sat cross-legged on the stage and massaged his temples. His voice carried over the confused babble of the audience, who didn’t know now whether to laugh or not. ‘I fucking knew it,’ he said. ‘Blown the whole gig, and it took less than a minute. Let’s get this farce over with. RUFSHOD! Get out here. Bring the apprentice.’ Gonko gave this order with violent false cheer. A thin crazed-looking clown ran onto the stage, dragging another clown with him.

The apprentice stood sourly under the spotlight, shoulders
slumped. Gonko glared up at him. ‘Say, Goshy,’ Gonko cried. ‘Take a look at the apprentice. What’s that he’s got in his pocket?’

Goshy had been propped back onto his feet. He turned slowly and waddled over to the apprentice. Rufshod, meanwhile, reached into the apprentice’s pockets and pulled out what looked like a fern leaf. For some reason the leaf had a profound effect on Goshy. He stared at it with wide-eyed horror, the most human emotion yet to appear on his face, and once again came the kettle noise: ‘
HMMMMM! HMMMMM!
’

A look of fear dawned on the apprentice’s face. Goshy squealed at him from close range and then with a stiff arm slapped the apprentice hard, as he had the woman in the front row. Doopy made one half-hearted attempt to calm his brother, crying, ‘Goshy, stop!’, but to no avail. Goshy slapped him again. The apprentice tried to dodge it, then glanced around at Rufshod, who stood blocking his escape. Goshy wound up for another slap. The apprentice gave him a shove. Doopy sprang into action. ‘Hey hey hey
HEY HEYYYY!
’he screamed, building momentum like an avalanche. He flew at the apprentice, evidently with some notion of defending his brother. Though he looked the most harmless of the clowns, Doopy’s charge had the force of a small bull. The apprentice was flattened, and rolled around at the feet of the other three trying to ward off the kicks, punches, head-butts, elbows and knees. Goshy backed out of the fray with his hands around his ears again. The audience was silent.

Gonko sat back and watched this unfold with a stony face, though the tilt of his lips suggested cold satisfaction with the beating. He turned to the crowd and muttered, ‘Show’s over. Get the fuck out.’ There was a scatter of confused applause
as the crowd stood and headed for the exits. Onstage the beating was slowing down and the apprentice, out cold, was dragged away by his feet. A thick trail of blood and face paint followed him.

When the audience had cleared out, Jamie waited in the back row, not sure where to go or what to do. Memories of the last few days rushed at him from all sides — the audition, the stalking, the destruction of his house. Things made less sense than ever.

From the stage Gonko looked directly at him. ‘JJ,’ he called out. ‘Get over here.’

Jamie pointed at himself:
Who, me?

‘Yes you,’ Gonko snarled. He stood at the edge of the stage, beckoning with one finger. Jamie stood and walked towards him slowly.
This is it
, he thought.
I’m about to die.

He was mistaken. ‘Welcome to your new home,’ said Gonko as Jamie passed the front row of seats. The spotlight sent shadows sliding down the clown leader’s face like bloody cuts. He said, ‘Looks like they turned the funny gas off you later than I asked ’em to. I wanted you watching us from backstage — but never mind. Plenty more shows to come, my pretty, and no mistake. As you can see, the act’s a bit rusty.’ Gonko spat.

Jamie stared back at him. ‘Would you please,’ he said, ‘tell me what the hell is going on? Please?’

Gonko squinted at him and answered slowly. ‘That’s a reasonable request. I don’t see why not. What’s going on is you’re a clown now. Ever heard news that good? Nothin’ but chuckles from here on out, with the odd giggle for good measure. Does it get any better? The fuck it does. Come with me, young JJ.’

GONKO led Jamie behind the stage to an area filled with boxes of props, uniforms and spotlight bulbs. There the apprentice lay, his face a pulpy mess, a sheen of blood and face paint still trickling off him. His eyes were closed. Goshy was staring down at him in a startled way without blinking, and Doopy was patting his shoulder, presumably to rouse him. When Gonko and Jamie appeared, Doopy stood, his wet lips working, hands twisting about each other nervously. Doopy no longer looked capable of the violence he’d inflicted onstage; he was once more a diminutive bumblebee of a man, pawing at his own shirt, his whole appearance a profuse apology.

‘Nice job, Doops,’ said Gonko, eyeing the bloody ruin at his feet.

‘Gee, I’m sorry, Gonko, but he punched on Goshy!’ Doopy cried. ‘He punched on Goshy, right in the face, and I
gotta
look after Goshy. I just
gotta
!’

Gonko leaned over the prostrate figure and his mouth tilted sideways. ‘I said nice job. You don’t need to make excuses when the boss pats you on the back, Doops. Save
that for your whoopsies.’ Gonko poked the apprentice with the toe of his boot, then turned to Jamie. ‘JJ, meet the crew. This is Goshy.’

Goshy had his back turned and was making low, quiet whistles. He was holding the fern leaf to his face and appeared to be kissing it.

‘He knows what he likes,’ Gonko muttered. ‘And this is Doopy, who I believe you have seen before, destroying the shit out of your bedroom with yours truly.’ Doopy stammered through a ‘how do you do’, while continuing to plead his case to Gonko. Gonko ignored him. ‘This is Rufshod,’ he said. The thin crazed-looking clown gave Jamie a wave that was like an electrocuted twitch. Rufshod looked to be the youngest of the clowns, perhaps Jamie’s age. ‘And this sad critter is the apprentice,’ said Gonko. ‘Now he’s basically meat with eyeballs, and not for long, mark my words. And guess what sport? You got his job, in case you were wondering where that piece of the jigsaw puzzle goes.’

Jamie stared down and tried not to envisage his own face beaten as badly out of shape as the one oozing at his feet. He had no idea how to respond to any of this. He supposed the best plan was to keep his mouth shut and wait for the whole situation to make some kind of sense. Any minute now, surely, someone would tell him he was on
Candid Camera
, the victim of a high-budget radio stunt, a subject in a sociological experiment,
anything
.

Gonko led the clowns out of the tent, leaving the apprentice bleeding in the dirt. ‘You lot,’ said Gonko to the other clowns, ‘that was just disgraceful. Doopy, get it through your brother’s melon, do
not
slap the audience. Got it? They are
not
part of the fucking act. Do not slap the audience, poke the audience, throw at the audience, kick the audience.
They are not props. They just watch the goddam show. You dig? It ain’t brain science.
They just watch the fucking show
.’

‘Geez, I’m sorry, Gonko,’ Doopy stammered, ‘but Goshy gets confused sometimes, and —’

‘He knew damn well what he was doing tonight,’ said Gonko. ‘Look at the standard we set for the new guy. Show lasted less than two minutes. Why’d he slap that bint?’

‘She took his flower, Gonko, she —’

‘He gave her the flower, idiot. It was part of the script.’

‘But she shouldn’ta oughtn’ta taken it, Gonko! She shouldn’ta, oughtn’ta, and he can’t help it, he — he —’

‘See what I have to put up with JJ?’ said Gonko with a rueful smile. Jamie shrugged and nodded and tried not to be noticed.

Out in the showgrounds all the patrons had gone. The only sound was the odd clang and thump of stalls being packed up. A few dwarfs hung around in the shadows, muttering amongst themselves and glaring as the clowns passed. The clowns ignored them. They passed the magician’s tent, the fortune-teller’s hut, and came to a tent Jamie recognised as the place he’d woken in that morning. It was far larger than any surrounding dwellings.

Goshy made a quiet beeping sound and stood still. The others turned to him. Doopy seemed to interpret the sound — he held a finger to his lips and said, ‘Shhh.’

There were murmuring voices nearby, too muffled to make out any words. Jamie glanced at each of the clowns, wondering what was next on the nasty surprise agenda. Something violent, he soon saw, for Gonko reached into his pocket and pulled out a long silver blade. Jamie goggled at it, wondering how it had fit in the clown leader’s pocket.

Gonko gathered the clowns together in a huddle. Jamie
tried to step away but the crazed-looking clown, Rufshod, grabbed him in a headlock and herded him into their midst. The sweaty reek of Goshy at close range was almost too much to bear. ‘Acrobats,’ Gonko whispered. ‘I’ll do the talking. And the stabbing. But if it’s on, everyone in. That means you, Goshy. Don’t stand around staring like last time when that bastard Randolph clocked me. You too, JJ. You look like yer made of elbows and gristle, but you swing them chicken-arms like you’re trying to break ’em.’

The huddle broke apart and Gonko prowled ahead, twirling the blade expertly on his palm. The others followed. Three men were waiting for them at the tent’s entrance, all dressed in white tights. They fell silent and bristled as the clowns approached.

As first impressions went Jamie found looking at the acrobats almost hypnotic. Their bodies were lithe, their features elfish and finely carved, and Jamie couldn’t help but admire the workmanship of whoever had made them. The clowns clearly did not feel the same way. Both parties locked eyes for a moment, the acrobats regarding Jamie suspiciously, before one of them said, ‘Mmm, mmm! Heard you boys had quite a show. Five whole minutes, I heard.’

‘More like two,’ said another.

‘Two minutes!’ said the first in mock sympathy. ‘Shocking, la! Sven, what will Mr Pilo have to say about this?’

‘I’m not sure. Maybe he’ll suggest the poor dears need some time off doing other jobs, like scrubbing the gypsy shitters, to help them focus on their act. But, of course, we can only ask him.’

‘But he won’t be impressed, Sven, will he?’

‘I don’t think so, Randolph, not the teeniest bit impressed.’

Gonko had looked almost eager for confrontation
moments before, but it seemed the trashing of the night’s show was stinging him. ‘Fuck off,’ he growled, the arm holding the knife shaking with rage.

‘Oh,
touché
!’ cried the nearest acrobat. ‘Fuck off indeed! This is why I turn to
you
for a battle of wits, Gonko. Your sophistication, la! They don’t make ’em like you anymore.’

Quick as a snake Gonko lunged at the acrobat who’d spoken, but the acrobat pirouetted out of the way with ease. Jamie winced, sure the brawl was on. But no — Gonko stepped back, twirling the blade on his palm again, and the acrobats seemed to decide the encounter was over. They smiled contemptuously as they walked away, heaping on more insults for good measure.

‘Faggots,’ Gonko yelled after them.

The acrobats stopped and turned back. ‘What did he call us?’

‘He called us faggots!’

‘
Touché
again. You know what they say; a male who humps a male is a double male.’

‘That’s just what I was about to tell him.’

‘At least we know who’s on top.’

They laughed as they strode out of sight. Doopy turned to Gonko and said, ‘I don’t
like
those guys, Gonko. I don’t
like
them!’

‘Well maybe you could convince your brother not to ruin our show,’ said Gonko. ‘That way, Doops, we got a tent full of giggly tricks and they got nothing on us. You see? It ain’t brain science.’ Gonko slid the blade back into his pocket. ‘And,’ he said, ‘for the record, if I’d wanted to knife that bastard, I would have. But the way you lazy shits performed tonight, I wouldn’t trust you in a scrap if it came to that.’

He led them inside the tent. Goshy marched directly
through a canvas door at the back of the room leading to some hidden quarters; the other clowns collapsed on couches pushed up against the walls. Jamie gazed around the chaotic lantern-lit mess, which looked like a nursery for oversized children. Props, clown pants and boxes of trinkets lay strewn everywhere. He recognised the suit of armour with its crayon graffiti. On the opposite wall were wooden statues of what looked like Amazonian gods, propped against each other as though rutting. In the mouth of one of these someone had stuffed a rubber chicken.

His eyes settled on the body bag he’d woken in that morning. ‘How’d you like that one, JJ?’ said Gonko, slapping him on the back. ‘Comfy in there? Ha ha! Rise and shine, my lovely! Anyway, JJ, this is our private space. No one comes in here without our say-so. Anyone does, we can do what we want to ’em, even if it means the circus is looking for new staff come morning. Dig? Best remember that applies to everyone else, too, so tread careful. Gypsies bring chow at nine, one and six. Wet hot dogs or noodles that taste like salty plastic, mainly. Get bored of that, it’s candied apples and juice pops.’ Gonko spat and muttered, ‘Yeah, chow ain’t the best part of the circus …’ before continuing, ‘We each got a bunker out back. Show days vary, sometimes two days in a row, sometimes none for weeks. Depends on what shows are happening outside. A competition thing, you dig? Here’s where we rehearse.’ He pointed at the one space of clear grassy floor.

‘Right,’ Jamie said. ‘Um, I don’t quite know how to put this …’

‘You’re among friends, young JJ,’ said Gonko. ‘Speak from the heart.’

Jamie took a deep breath. ‘Who are you people?
What
are
you people? What am I doing here? What the hell is going on?’

Gonko peered at him through narrowed eyes. ‘You
still
want to know all that?’ Jamie didn’t quite know how to reply. ‘Fine,’ said Gonko. ‘Come with me. We’ll pop over to the fortune-teller and clear up all them little posers. Off we go, li’l JJ and Papa Gonko.’

Gonko led him through the dark showgrounds. The dwarfs were out in swarms now, squatting in alleys playing dice games, or crouching up on rooftops with bottles in their hands, spewing profanities at one another. A pair of them tussled in a doorway over what looked like a ham bone. One combatant stumbled in front of Gonko, who booted him away like a football without breaking stride. The dwarf flew six feet in the air and crashed into a gypsy’s door, which opened, a hand reaching out to grab the dwarf by the hair, dragging it inside. Whatever happened in there resulted in much screaming and banging. The other dwarfs fell silent as they watched this unfold, staring after Gonko with quiet malice. He didn’t appear to notice.

They came to Shalice’s hut, though Jamie barely recognised it from his dim memories of the day. Only the rattling beads seemed familiar. Incense still laced the air, though it was faint. A large white caravan, presumably the fortune-teller’s home, was parked a little way behind the hut. There was light shining from both buildings. Gonko marched to the hut and gave the wall a solitary thump with his boot. A hand parted the beads and there was the darkly beautiful woman with playful eyes — though for the moment she scowled. ‘Look who it is,’ she said. ‘Nice one, Gonko. Why didn’t you tell me this one was a recruit?’

Gonko raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s your problem?’ He
brushed past her and took a seat on the wooden crate, squinting up at Shalice, who watched him icily.

‘I did him a reading,’ she said. ‘As if he were a regular trick.
You know
. And he resisted me. It could have ended very badly. You could have lost your man. There are reasons I need to know these things.’

‘Ah, get off my case,’ said Gonko, though now he looked faintly amused. ‘What were the odds of him stumbling in here?’

Shalice bared her teeth. ‘Pretty good, as it turns out.’

Gonko shrugged. ‘Well, shucks, guess I figured you would have foreseen it, being the one with the spooky powers and such.’

‘I foresee it will not happen again,’ Shalice replied, ‘for I had a word to Kurt about it.’

Gonko sprang to his feet and looked like he was about to strike her. ‘You fucking scag!’

She smiled and stepped towards him, her dark eyes flashing. ‘Uh-uh, settle down, precious.
You
know better than that. Behave yourself.’

Gonko ran a hand down his face; his fingers twitched. ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he said. ‘For now, JJ here needs some answers.’

Shalice glanced at Jamie. ‘The usual?’

‘Yeah, the usual,’ said Gonko. ‘Who are you why am I here what’s going on mama I’m frightened blah blah blah.’ Gonko lashed at the wooden crate with his boot, breaking one of its boards. ‘No, really, thanks for squealing on me, you fucking — that’s two piles of stink I have to clean up now.’

He stormed out of the hut, swiping at the beads as he went. Shalice watched him go, muttered something under her breath, then turned to Jamie. She looked him up and
down. ‘So. You want to know why you are here and why you should stay. You want to know who we are and what we do. Is that right?’

Jamie nodded. ‘That would be a start, I suppose. Then maybe you can tell me where I can call a cab to take me home. I promise not to sue anybody. I’ll sign an affidavit. Whatever you want.’

‘I think you will see that is not one of our concerns,’ she said. She sat down behind the crystal ball and plucked off its cloth veil, then watched him in silence for a moment. ‘I will put it to you like this,’ she said. ‘You are not strictly
in
the world anymore, Jamie. Though of course it is not far away. You are here because you have been given a second chance. You see, you were meant to die young, and before you died you were to live miserably.’

Jamie rubbed the corners of his eyes. ‘And how exactly do you know that?’

‘Because you are
here
,’ she said. ‘No one comes here unless they were headed for such an end. Everyone here was saved from death. That is why they stay. They owe something to the show — you, I, everyone else here. Whether we are better off, I could not tell you … I have never died. But I can show you what your life would be if we had not found you.’ She gave him an appraising look. ‘There is magic in the world, Jamie. You have seen enough today to know that. There is magic — it is rare, but most of it is right here in these showgrounds. The very air you breathe is thick with it. Yes, you see? You felt it today, did you not? The circus breathing its will into your lungs?’