They arrived in Perth late Sunday morning and set up on a wedge of ground between two highways. It was a flat, ugly site and every time a semi-trailer roared past, Kali trumpeted in distress. Doc said at least they’d get a good crowd because everyone could see them, but Gus thought it was depressing. He sat on a campstool in the bunkhouse and watched Stewie and Mac blow smoke rings while Pikkle brewed another round of coffee.
‘Circus Destructo’s in town,’ said Pikkle. He heaped a few spoonfuls of sugar into a cup of coffee along with a big splash of milk and offered it to Gus. Gus wrapped his hands around it and took small sips. Pikkle had been trying to convert him to coffee for weeks without much success.
‘I’m going to get tickets for tonight. You want to come, kiddo?’
‘But we’ve got two shows to do today. Matinee and this evening. We can’t go. We’re gonna do that juggling routine together, aren’t we?’
‘Not me. This crew’s not gonna get much of an audience here – a handful of snotty kids in their pyjamas along with their bad-tempered parents. They’ll cope without me. I deserve a night off.’
‘There better be a crowd tonight,’ said Mac, hanging over the side of his bunk. ‘The old man owes me two weeks wages and I’m bloody sick of waiting for them.’
Gus ignored Mac and turned to Pikkle. ‘Can’t we go tomorrow?’ he begged. ‘There’s no show tomorrow.’
‘No way. Destructo’s not doing a show Monday night and there’s no way I’m going to miss them – they do all this stuff with exploding chickens. They’re wild.’
The screen door opened and Effie put her head in.
‘Gus!’ she said crossly, giving him the slitty-eyed look. ‘Nance has been looking for you everywhere. You’re meant to phone your mum on Sundays, or have you forgotten!’
Gus stood up and tipped the coffee down the sink.
‘I’m coming,’ he said.
Effie waited for him outside.
‘You’ve been bumming around with that Pikkle a lot,’ she said accusingly.
Gus just shrugged.
‘Don’t you want to phone your mum? You used to hang out to talk to her.’
‘I want to talk to her. It’s just I hate the phone and also…well, she was going to come and get me in Perth, so I guess we’re going to have to talk about me leaving the circus.’
‘Isn’t that what you want? I thought you really missed Melbourne.’
‘Well, yeah. I miss things about it; my mum, Pete Spanner, some of my stuff but I reckon when I go back I’ll miss things about Zarconi’s too. Like, first I have to be homesick and then, when I go back I’ll have to be circus-sick.’
Effie stopped and looked at him.
‘Then you’ll have to make something up about having to stay. If you hang in a bit longer you’ll be flying – you’re nearly there.’
‘I can’t lie to my Mum.’
‘You are such a wimp, Gus. Maybe you should just piss off. I’d talk my way out of having to leave, if it was me.’
‘Yeah, well you’re not me. We all know what a good liar you are, but I’m not like that.’
Effie’s eyes looked blacker than ever. A truck roared past and her hair whipped across her face. Gus couldn’t hear her reply, but he could tell by the look on her face that he probably was better off not knowing what it was.
His mum’s voice sounded faint and tired as it echoed across the country. She was leaving hospital at the end of the week and moving into a hospice. He’d have to stay with the circus until Broome and she’d meet him there. Gus tried not to sound relieved. The end of their conversation was drowned out by rain, thundering down on the caravan roof.
Gus hung up and looked out at the big top sagging a little under the weight of the deluge. Doc, Vytas and a couple of tenthands were out digging trenches to stop the water flooding into the big top. Little rivulets were forming in the dry ground, turning the yellow clay to sticky mud.
It went on raining all afternoon and only a handful of people turned out to see the show that night. No one could get very excited about performing to such a small crowd. Pikkle had disappeared and so Gus juggled alone. Hardly anyone clapped.
None of the acts went smoothly. Vytas’s homing pigeons sat in their nesting box in the rigging, refusing to fly to him on cue and spoiling his magic act. Even Kali seemed despondent. Half-way through her act, she walked out into the rainy night, ignoring Cas.
Effie shook her head and groaned.
‘That’s a really bad omen,’ she said.
‘You’ve been reading too many Goosebumps,’ said Gus.
‘No, I told you. It’s the curse of Zarconi’s. You’re so wrapped up in yourself, you don’t see it. Things are going bad for this circus. We need a really good season here in Perth. We’ve got to make some money. I hear Nance complain about it every night when I help with the take. We need something really special to turn things around.’
After the show, Gus sat huddled on a corner of the couch and watched as wet and bedraggled circus crew trudged in and out of his grandparents’ caravan collecting their pays.
‘City folk,’ sighed Nance, ‘They’re too fussy. Spoilt – too much to look at and not enough to do. We just can’t draw them in.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Doc. ‘There are three other circuses in town, including Silver’s.’
‘Who’s Silver’s?’ asked Gus.
‘Silver’s Grand Magic Circus,’ said Doc. ‘Can’t beat ’em – people will drive across town to clap eyes on them. Same thing happened when we were in Adelaide – Ashton’s were in town and we had to really do some fancy footwork to keep out of their way. We can’t compete with those circuses. Ashton’s have thirty members of the one family under their big top. And the Glassers – they run Silver’s – they’re a real family business too.’
‘Well, we’re a family circus too,’ said Gus.
Both Nance and Doc looked at him and he blushed a little.
‘I know I’m a McGrath but I’m sort of an O’Brien too. And I’m a performer.’
‘So you are, sonny Jim,’ said Doc, smiling, ‘so you are.’
Doc’s eyes grew small and shiny and Gus couldn’t think when he’d last seen Doc smile like that. Suddenly, he felt the back of his neck grow warm. He rubbed one hand against the short orange stubble and looked away. When he turned to look again, Doc was standing in the doorway, staring out into the rain.
The next morning it was still raining. The trenches around the big top had overflowed and water flooded in under the canvas. Even the sawdust was soggy.
‘We’re going to have to move to higher ground,’ said Doc. ‘Go and boot those tenthands out of bed, boy.’
Gus knocked on the bunkhouse door and called out for Pikkle, but it was Stewie who came to the door, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
‘Doc wants you. We’ve gotta move,’ said Gus.
Stewie nodded, called out to Mac, and reached for his coat.
They jumped the puddles that lay scattered across the site and the rain drummed loudly on the hood of Gus’s sou’wester.
‘Where’s Pikkle?’ shouted Gus.
‘He didn’t come back last night. Took all his gear with him too. I reckon he’s shot through,’ said Stewie.
Gus stopped in his tracks. He ran back to the bunkhouse and climbed inside. Mac was gearing up for the weather.
‘Where’s Pikkle?’ he asked. Mac just shrugged and grumpily pushed past him. Gus looked around the caravan and saw that the coffee percolator was missing from beside the stove. He knew Pikkle was gone for good.
Tearing the big top down in the rain was a miserable job. Everything was waterlogged and twice its normal weight. The bales of hay piled up by the back door smelt sour, and the mud sucked at their feet as they moved around the site pulling up stakes.
When Gus told Doc Pikkle was gone, he just shrugged.
‘Thought as much. Probably reckons he’ll get a spot with that Destructo mob.’
‘He didn’t even say goodbye. How could he leave without saying goodbye to me?’
‘I’ve told you before, boy,’ growled Doc. ‘Tenthands are scum. They’re like flotsam and jetsam. They wash in with the tide and then they wash out. No use getting to know them.’
Doc got on the phone and found a spot for them near a housing development north of the city, and by late in the afternoon, they’d set up on the new site. There’d be no show that night but when they were finally set up, Stewie rigged the wire for Gus to practise on while Effie worked out on the web.
Gus sat on the edge of the ring and looked at the wire. He couldn’t get excited about it. He thought about Pikkle and the act they’d planned to do together. Pikkle had made the act look interesting even when the tricks weren’t very hard. Doc never seemed to like Pikkle’s stunts. ‘All front and no skill,’ he’d say with a sneer. But Zarconi’s needed something with front. Fresh new acts that would get the crowds in.
Gus got to his feet and stretched, loosening up the muscles in his back. He tried a few somersaults on the mat and watched while Hannah spotted for Effie. Hannah had told him backward somersaults were actually easier than forward ones, even though they looked tricky because you could keep your eyes on the wire. Gus climbed onto the wire and looked down at the thin cable. Pikkle or no Pikkle, he knew he could put an act together that would really impress the audience. He just needed a good stunt.
After twenty minutes of warm-ups, he decided he was ready to try. He steadied himself, concentrated and flung his body backwards into the air. For a split second, he thought he’d made it. A moment later his chest hit the wire and then his face. It was like being whipped by a huge cable. A strangled scream burst out of him and he crashed onto the mat, winded and bruised.
‘Gus, you crazy boy,’ scolded Hannah. ‘You should have told me you were going to do this!’ She helped him up and examined his face. ‘You must never try that without the mechanic on. Quickly, we must put some ice on your face. You will have a very nasty welt right across it.’
The rain had stopped and the leaden sky was lifting. A silver streak of sunlight cut through the clouds and shone on the surface of the puddles. Gus sat on an upturned bucket outside the tent with icepacks against his face and his chest. He winced as Doc strode over to him.
‘What’s this I hear about you showing off on the wire?’ Doc shouted.
‘I wasn’t showing off. I just slipped.’
‘Here, let me have a look at you,’ he said. He pulled Gus to his feet and started roughly pressing him in the ribs.
‘Hey, do you have to do that? It takes my breath away and it hurts,’ said Gus, flinching and pulling away.
‘I reckon you’ve cracked a rib there, you clumsy idiot. When I was a boy, I didn’t go flinging myself around as if I knew everything there is to know about circus. I listened to my elders. When I was a boy, my dad would have walloped me for mucking around like you have, even if I was hurt.’
Gus threw the ice packs on the ground and clenched his fists.
‘Then wallop me, but stop shouting. I’m sick of hearing about when you were a boy – you’re not a boy any more. You don’t remember what it’s like. You’re just a fat, bossy, mean old man and I hate you,’ shouted Gus.
Doc looked as if he’d been slapped. His eyes were wide and his face flushed dark red. Gus turned and ran. Doc started shouting ‘Boy! Boy! Don’t you run out on me when I’m talking to you! Boy!’
But Gus was already halfway across the lot heading towards the Cuelmos’ caravan. He wrenched the door open and slammed it shut behind him.
Lily lay coiled on the bed. Gus wasn’t afraid, but he didn’t exactly fancy snuggling down with her. He sat down at the kitchen table, his head against the laminex.
Effie found him like that. She was holding Buster. The dog leapt out of her arms and stood on the table, licking Gus behind the ears.
‘Get out of it, you mongrel. It makes my chest hurt to laugh.’ He pushed the dog out of the way and sat up.
‘Boy, do you look gross,’ said Effie. ‘It’s turning blue and purple already.’
Gus touched his face gingerly. He could tell his nose was bigger than before and his left eyelid was so swollen he could hardly open it.
Effie held out one hand and showed Gus a handful of two-dollar coins.
‘Dad cashed me up so I could take you down the milkbar for a treat,’ she said. ‘You should fall off the wire more often.’
They walked away from the circus lot, past the half-built houses of the new housing development. Most of the houses weren’t lived in and the late-afternoon sun shone into empty rooms. The corner milkbar looked lonely, waiting for customers that didn’t live there yet.
‘Home from school already?’ asked the lady behind the counter.
‘We don’t go to school,’ said Effie ‘We’re with the circus.’
‘You mean that ragbag lot down the road,’ said the woman, disapprovingly.
‘Zarconi’s Incredible Travelling Circus,’ said Gus.
The woman leant across the counter and looked at Gus, her eyes narrowing.
‘That’s a nasty bruise you’ve got there,’ she said.
Gus lifted a hand to shield his face from her inquiring stare.
‘It’s nothing,’ he mumbled, backing away. ‘C’mon, Effie,’ he said from the door.
‘What’s the matter with your brother?’ the woman said to Effie.
‘He doesn’t like nosy rude strangers,’ said Effie. The woman caught her breath and stepped out from behind the counter but Effie had already made a dash for the door.
‘That was pretty cheeky,’ said Gus as they walked back towards the lot.
‘Well, she was a real stickybeak. People like that just make trouble for us, and the last thing Zarconi’s needs right now is more trouble.’