The Winter Ground (18 page)

The chatter of the crowd subsided until only one or two giggles were breaking out intermittently from the front row and then Donald and Teddy, to my astonishment, swept the ring door flaps aside and strode confidently inside holding them open. Through the opening Pa Cooke appeared, swaggering in gleaming boots and britches and a tailcoat, his hair glittering with brilliantine and his moustache waxed to needle points. Donald and Teddy sprang forward and lifted out a section of the ring fence to allow him to pass through on to the sawdust, into the lights. Behind him came one, two, three and then too many to count snorting black horses, their coats shimmering like pools of ink. They lifted their hooves high, knocking foot against hock, foot against hock, as though they were dancing and all the time their beautiful necks arched to one side and then the other nodding their heads in time to the music. They fanned out on either side of Pa Cooke and at a crack of his whip they began to canter. The show had begun.

It opened with The Spectacular, in which everyone crams into the ring at once and performs edited highlights of their acts, not the highest of the highlights, for those are saved for the act finales with drum rolls and spotlights, but some of the tricks which are impressive enough to whet the appetites for more. So, Pa’s horses stepped in time, rearing up and bowing down; beyond their reach, Anastasia circled the ring on Harlequin’s broad back, jumping down to one side and the other and leaping back up again to stand with her arms spread behind her, her face a picture of joy; Topsy, her hands strapped up in what looked like strips of leather, wheeled and spun on her corde lisse, matching each flourish to a bang on the drum; Charlie Cooke juggled and danced; Andrew and Tiny, when they were not holding up streamers and balloons for Ana, tumbled and turned cartwheels, perfectly in time with one another, perfectly in tune, the little man ducking in and out of Andrew’s flailing limbs like a pilot fish.

Presently the black horses stopped wheeling and began to weave chains instead. Into the open space they had made, the Prebrezhenskys bounded as though on springs and, once Kolya had thrown himself down, the girls leapt up on to his waiting feet and began spinning. Zoya walked around, beaming, showing off her girls with a flourish of her arms, inviting us to marvel. At least that was what we were supposed to think, I realised. In fact, she was watching them closely, moving in whenever they attempted a high somersault, and stepping back, her face filled with relief, when they had landed again.

Down by the king pole, Sallie was cranking the gramophone handle as though her little life depended upon it; the clowns’ somersaults grew faster until they were flashing past one another like a kaleidoscope and then with a final spring and bound they were gone. The horses reared steeper and paddled their hooves, Alya and Inya, with their mother standing rigid, one hand up towards each, flew up in the air, higher, higher, twisting like bobbins. Topsy held on to the rope with one foot and her teeth, or so it looked to me, and spun so fast she was almost a blur, Ana flashed by on Harlequin, now on her hands, now on her feet, tumbling over and over, faster and faster. She passed behind the line of weaving horses towards the back of the ring and …

Nothing stopped, but everything, somehow, slowed and there were no more flourishes, nothing to make one gasp, as though everyone was marking time, waiting. Ana had left the ring. Pa Cooke kept his whip cracking, kept his horses dancing, but glanced over his shoulder. Zoya signalled to her husband with a downward pressing movement of her hand and the swift shuffling movements of his feet grew calmer, the girls making easy little spins. It was Topsy who took matters into her own hands and she had no choice: she could not keep spinning for ever for once the coiled power in the rope was spent, it was spent and besides she was panting hard, her ribs under their spangles heaving and her arms beginning to show the strain, juddering and twitching as she held her line.

In the end, she had to do what she did, which was let herself down hand over hand to the floor with her legs kicking out like the sails of a windmill around her. She bowed as soon as she touched her feet to the sawdust and she was off. Then the Prebrezhensky girls jumped clear and landed with their arms spread wide, Kolya leapt up and all four of them bowed low and bounded from the ring. Pa Cooke shouted some swift command to his horses and they formed a ring again. I could see Donald and Teddy lifting the piece of fence and as soon as the first horse reached the ring door it led the procession out.

‘Ladies and Ah-gentlemen,’ bellowed Mr Cooke, for the applause was clamorous, ‘thank you thank you thank you. I thank you.’ At last the audience stilled but his voice remained as loud as ever. The gramophone record had wound down; he was shouting not to be heard above it, but to drown out the sound of commotion from backstage. ‘And first, for your delectation and delight, may I present The Troupe Prebrezhensky.’ He swept away backwards, his movements as sure and as firm as ever, only a slight frown twitching at his face showing that the raised voices from behind the ring doors were angering him. He bowed deeply and left the ring empty. We waited. Donald and Teddy shifted their feet a little, shooting panicked looks around them. The silence lengthened and the guests in the front row began to glance about themselves too and whisper. I looked behind me and saw Albert Wilson, sitting up very straight, frowning. I could just see Robin out of the corner of my eye but of Ina there was no sign.

‘What do you think—’ Alec began, but he did not get a chance to finish it. From behind the ring doors, slightly muffled by the canvas but piercing enough at that, there came a thin, high scream.

I leapt the ring fence, in step with Alec, and raced across towards the door, turning halfway to shout behind me: ‘Keep to your seats, ladies and gentlemen. Keep to your seats.’ The last thing we needed was the bright young things surging through into the warren of the backstage when heaven knew what was going on. The two rows of guests stared owlishly back at me. Albert Wilson was wringing his hands. Robin Laurie was on the edge of his seat, his head cocked up in alertness. Ina, I noticed, was still nowhere to be seen.

As we burst through the doorway, I could hear the sound of someone weeping but whoever it was was a long way along the winding passageways; we were almost at the back flaps before we saw them all. Both Prebrezhensky girls were wailing and in one voice I thought I could hear the shrill note which had produced that scream. Topsy and Tiny stood, arms around one another, their chests still heaving from their exertions in the ring, but their faces stricken behind the paint. Mrs Wolf was standing staring at the ground, little Tommy’s face buried in her skirts. Charlie Cooke was sitting on a barrel with his head in his hands, still wearing his wig, the red woolly tendrils sticking out between his fingers.

‘Get out the back and find Harlequin,’ said Pa Cooke’s voice, sounding ragged. As Kolya stepped away to obey him and Zoya followed, shepherding the little girls, I saw what they had been hiding. Ma Cooke was sitting on the ground halfway out into the open, plumped down with her Madame Polina skirts spread around, her shoulders shaking and her head bowed low. In front of her lay Anastasia. She was on her side with her legs bent beneath her, her hands flung wide, her hair covering her face. I stepped off the board on to the worn grass in the doorway and crouched down beside Ma, putting out a hand to feel Ana’s wrist. It was limp and still. I gathered up a handful of her hair and swept it back from her face. Her eyes were half-open, staring. From the side of her head where it lay on the ground a dark stain was spreading. I let her hair fall again and sat back on my heels. Mrs Cooke gathered one of Ana’s hands under her chin with both of her own and began rocking, mumbling a quiet prayer.

‘I found Harlequin,’ said Andrew Merryman’s voice. He was panting and when I looked up I saw his thin chest heaving hard. ‘He’s fine. Rattled but fine.’

‘Get a board,’ said Mr Cooke to Bill Wolf, who was standing in the shadows with tears rolling down his cheeks and into his beard. ‘Ma, go and see that her bed’s made up nice and let’s get her shifted.’

‘Wait!’ I said. ‘You can’t move her.’

‘What?’ said Mr Cooke. ‘Of course we’re moving her. We’re not shy of life here, missus. We don’t leave the work for some undertaker. It’s not our way.’

‘The men carry her home to her bed and the women sit with her is the circus way, my love,’ said Mrs Cooke.

‘But the police …’ said Alec. ‘They’ll need to see her where she lies. Where she fell.’

Mr Cooke set his jaw so firmly that a small muscle danced in his cheek.

‘A doctor,’ he said. ‘A doctor, I’ll give you. But there’s no need for anything else. The poor lass fell off her horse – there’s no need for any of that.’

A long silence met his words.

‘F-fell off her horse?’ said Andrew Merryman at last. He was still holding Harlequin by the bridle, just outside the entranceway, and both his and the horse’s breath were pluming in the cold.

‘And hit her head on the ground,’ said Pa Cooke. ‘It’s like iron, cold snap we’ve had. Even this close in to the tent, it’s frozen solid, see?’ He grasped the handle of his whip like a staff and banged down hard with it, the knock of stiff leather against the stony ground almost ringing out, thrumming into us through the soles of our shoes.

‘Even if Ana …’ said Tiny. Pa Cooke swung around to look at him and he faltered. ‘Even if she fell, she’d never let her head hit the ground. She fell out of a handstand last month and just rolled and got up again.’

Ma Cooke spoke up then. Her voice was low, deadened, painful to listen to, but everyone turned to hear her.

‘They’re a pair of jossers, Tam, and the fright’s driven the circus-sense clean out of them there, but Mrs Gilver is right. If nobody saw it happen we need the police. Just to give the maid her due we need to do that much.’

Slowly, the fire in Pa Cooke’s eye faded and his shoulders drooped.

‘Aye, right,’ he said. ‘I know it. I know, I know. But this’ll be the end of Cooke’s Circus. You just see if it’s not.’ Without warning, he rounded on Ma and brandished his whip at her. ‘You and your feelings,’ he said. I took a step back and I was not the only one. Harlequin shied away and Andrew had to grapple with him to bring him to a standstill again. ‘Strangers here, seeing it all. We could have …’ He threw me a disgusted look and pushed his way out into the darkness, shoving Harlequin viciously aside with an elbow.

‘Don’t you mind Tam there,’ said Ma Cooke. ‘He’s just upset. Takes it all on himself, does Tam.’ She smiled, rather a sad smile, looked down at Anastasia again and then put her hand to her mouth, her eyes filling.

‘Mrs Cooke,’ I said, ‘you mustn’t wait here until the police arrive. It’s bitterly cold already. Everyone, please. Do go back to your wagons and make yourselves comfortable. You’ve all had the most dreadful shock.’

I expected a fight, at least from some of them, but they nodded glumly one by one and filed out. Charlie was the last to go, heaving himself to his feet and standing staring at Ma and at Anastasia on the ground for a long time before he moved away.

‘I’ll wait here with poor Ana,’ said Alec. ‘Until the police come.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Leave that to me, Alec. Perhaps you could go with Mr Cooke. He looks as though he needs some brandy.’

‘But I’ll stay too, though,’ said Ma in a tone that brooked no argument. Groaning a little, she sat back down on the ground and took one of Ana’s hands again.

Out in the tent, the audience had passed beyond being restive and had begun to break up into little groups as though at a party, standing around smoking and sipping from flasks. Ina was back in her seat again, breathing hard, looking feverish, flushed, as though she had guessed there was trouble. I felt a faint fizz as I watched her but then my attention twitched away again as my eye landed on the two forlorn figures huddled in their borrowed coats on the ring fence.

‘What’s happened, Mummy?’ said Teddy, reverting to the comfort of childhood. ‘Mr Cooke won’t tell us a thing.’

I started to sit down, thinking to put my arms around them. That ‘Mummy’ had worked its spell on me. Then I stopped.

‘Mr Cooke?’ I said. ‘Has he been round to speak to you?’

They nodded.

‘And what could you tell him?’ I asked them. Clever old Pa; they were the only ones who could have seen what happened here at the back of the ring, behind the horses.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Donald. ‘What’s wrong? Who screamed?’

‘Miss … Anastasia has fallen off her pony,’ I said.

‘Is she hurt?’

‘Yes,’ I said, bluntly.

‘Is she going to be all right?’

‘No,’ I told them. There was no way to keep the news from them for long and perhaps it was best not to fudge it, for I have had occasion to note that the imagination supplies grisly details usually far in excess of reality if allowed to. ‘What did you see? Why did she suddenly rush out of the ring?’

They looked at one another, under their lashes. Was it a sly look or were they simply bewildered to have their mother fire such questions at them? I knew, in either case, that now was not the moment for a grilling.

‘Wait here,’ I told them, and walked over to address the company on the far side of the ring. ‘I’m afraid there has been an accident,’ I said. ‘There is not going to be a show after all.’ Albert Wilson was bustling forward, his face puckered with concern at the wreckage of his party. ‘Ina, my dear,’ I said, before he could reach me, ‘I think it would be best to lead everyone back to the castle.’ It worked; Albert Wilson swung around like a tram at the end of its route and forged back towards his wife. The very thought of her being swept up in a crowd of careless strangers wiped every other consideration clean away from him.

‘And perhaps you could telephone to the police station at Blairgowrie?’ I called to his back. He gave me one fearful glance over his shoulder and nodded, but kept going.

The police, as might be expected given the lateness of the hour, the treacherous icy cold of the night and the miles of twisting road between Blairgowrie town and Benachally, took an age to arrive. By the time the rather creaky old Belsize came rumbling into the clearing, Ma Cooke and I were frozen to our marrow by that slow, creeping chill which only comes from standing about in cheerless surroundings for purposes drear. I have most often felt it when following guns, tramping over wintry moors and standing statue-still pretending to watch Hugh blast away at grouse for hours on end, but the longest, darkest, dullest day of shooting in my memory or imagining could not produce even a fraction of the hopeless cold which engulfed me, engulfed both of us, in the dim corner by the doorway of the tent that dreadful night.