was back in her boots again, heaving like the best of the men. She had a denim jacket over her sequins.
‘Time for you to change, Allie, love,’ a very large lady yelled. ‘Fizz’s selling popcorn instead of Bella. We’re cool. Allie, dressing room, now.’
‘Someone give Mathew the words for the next half,’ Allie yelled and shoved the last iron bar into place and disappeared.
He watched her go and he felt the slight change in atmosphere among the women and men behind the scenes.
She was the boss, he thought.
Henry was the boss.
Henry was seventy-six years old.
Matt had thought he was coming to deal with an elderly ringmaster, to tell him it was time to close down. It seemed, however, that now he’d be dealing with Allie, and something told him dealing with Allie would be a very different proposition altogether.
He pretty much had things down pat by the second half.
He introduced acts. He was also there as general pick-up guy—and also … set-up guy for the clowns?
‘The gag’s on page three of the cheat sheet,’ Fizz had growled at him at half-time. ‘Henry sets it up for us so you’ll need to do it. It’ll be weird you reading it but it’s the best we can do.’
Right now the Exotic Yan Yan—Jenny Higgs, wife of Bernardo, or Bernie Higgs, according to the staff sheet he’d read ‘… fresh from the wilds of the remotest parts of Tukanizstan’— was there such a place?—was doing impossible things with her body. She was bending over backwards—like really backwards. Her head was touching her heels! Matt was appalled and fascinated—and for some weird reason he was thinking he was glad it wasn’t Allie doing the contorting.
He glanced ahead at the feed lines for the gag and thought … he could do this better if he stopped looking at the Exotic Yan Yan.
And he could do this better if he stopped thinking about Allie?
Do it. He read it twice, three times and he had it.
Yan Yan unknotted and disappeared to thunderous applause. Out came the clowns. It was time to take centre stage himself.
Deep breath. Remember the first line.
‘Fluffy, I have a present for you,’ he called in a Here Kitty, nice Kitty voice, and set the clipboard down, preparing—against all odds—to play the ham. ‘It’s your birthday, Fluffy, and I’ve bought you a lovely big cannon.’
‘A cannon?’ Fluffy squeaked, somersaulting with astonishment.
The clowns responded with practised gusto and foolishness as the great fake cannon was wheeled in. The joke went seamlessly, water went everywhere and the audience roared their appreciation.
Exit stage left, two dripping clowns with cannon.
Matt headed back to the sidelines for his clipboard as the ropes and pulleys and shackles were heading out at a run.
Allie, dressed now in brilliant hot pink, with her trademark tiger stripes making her look spectacular, was in the wings and she was staring at him with incredulity.
‘You memorised it?’
‘I had time.’
‘You had two minutes.’
‘Plenty of time,’ he said and felt a little smug. Banker Makes Good. He motioned to the bars, ropes, pulleys and shackles, set up in well drilled order. ‘Let’s get this show moving.’ He picked up his clipboard and strode out again.
And then Allie was flying in from the outer, twisting and clinging to a rope that looked like the sort of rope you’d hang over a river. She swung to the middle, seized another rope, changed direction—and swung herself up to a bar far up in the high reaches of the big top.
There was a guy up there waiting, steadying her.
It was his turn again.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your hats. From the wilds of outer Mongolia, from the great, wild warrior hunting grounds of the Eastern nations, ladies and gentlemen, the great Valentino, to be catcher for our very own Mischka. Watch with bated breath while Mischka places life and limb in his hands and see if he lets her down.’
He didn’t let her down.
Mathew had watched this act when he was six years old and he’d been convinced the spangly lady would fall at any moment. In fact he’d remembered hiding under his seat, peeping through his hands, afraid to come out until the gorgeous creature flying through the air was safely on the ground.
He didn’t watch with quite the same sense of dread now. For a start, he’d seen how big, quiet and competent ‘Valentino’—alias Greg—was. He was six feet eight at least, and pure muscle. He hung upside down and swung back and forth, steady and unfaltering, as Allie somersaulted and dived.
Terrifying or not, it was an awesome act.
And Allie … Mischka … was stunning. She was gorgeous.
He wasn’t the only one who thought so. Matt had fallen in love with the circus when he was six years old. Now he was watching other children, other six-year-olds, falling in love in exactly the same way.
He was foreclosing. He was declaring these people bankrupt. He was putting Mischka out of a job and he was making this circus disappear.
It’s business, he told himself harshly. What has to be done, has to be done.
Right after the show.
Now.
For the circus was over. Clowns, acrobats, all the circus crew, were tumbling out to form a circle in the ring, holding hands, bowing.
Allie took his hand and dragged him into line with the rest of them. She was bowing and forcing him to do the same. She was smiling and smiling as the kids went wild and Mathew smiled with her—and for a weird, complex moment he felt as if he’d run away with the circus and he was part of it.
Part of them.
But then the performers backed out of the ring with practised ease. The curtain fell into place and Allie turned to face him, and all the pretence of the circus was stripped away. She looked raw, frightened—and very, very angry.
The other performers were clapping him on the back, saying ‘Well done’, grinning at him as if he was a lifesaver.
He wasn’t.
The team dispersed and he was left with Allie.
‘I suppose I should say thank you,’ she said in a tone that said thank you was the furthest thing from her mind.
‘You don’t need to.’
‘I don’t, do I?’ She was no longer Mischka. She’d reverted to someone else entirely. Even the brilliant make-up couldn’t
