They camped on a clifftop at the edge of Port Hedland, overlooking the Indian Ocean. As soon as the big top was set up, Gus made tracks for the water. The beach was rocky and the water murky but he didn’t care. Feeling the embrace of the sea around him was like heaven after weeks in the desert. He floated on his back and drifted away from the beach until he could see the whole of the port sprawled along the coast.
Port Hedland was the biggest town they’d played since Perth. Doc was hopeful of a couple of days of audiences before they headed up to Broome, but the tent looked lonely and easy to bypass on the clifftop. Gus prayed they’d get a good audience. Hannah had told him tonight was the night. They’d try to time it so that Nance was backstage. Cas would concoct a problem with Rosa to distract Doc while Gus made his way up to the trapeze tower. Gus laughed to himself and did a somersault in the water.
Hopefully by the time they made it to Broome, Doc and Nance would have accepted that Gus was a competent trapeze artist and when his mum arrived, he’d dazzle her with his new skills. Gus couldn’t think beyond that moment. The idea of returning to his old life in Melbourne made him feel muddled and unsure of himself. He’d shed the skin of that life, like a grub breaking out of its cocoon, and he couldn’t imagine how he could squash his beautiful new wings back into the chrysalis.
He dived underwater and came up for air to find Effie frantically waving him in from the shore, Buster yapping wildly beside her.
‘Quick, Gus,’ she called, ‘quick!’ And she turned to run up the winding beach path, back to the circus lot.
Gus grabbed his towel. ‘What is it?’ he called out after her, but the afternoon breeze blew the scent of smoke into his face, and instantly he knew the answer.
Gus ran, fear giving speed to his feet despite the rocky ground. When he reached the top of the path he saw a thick column of black smoke stretching into the sky. The big top was on fire, the weathered canvas sending up long tongues of flame. People were running everywhere and shouting, dogs were barking. Rosa reared up on her hind legs, neighing in terror while Cas tried to grab her harness. Miette and Anouk had already broken away from where they had been tethered and were bolting down the highway as the howl of the fire engine drew closer.
Gus ran in closer, but the heat drove him back. Doc was in the thick of the smoke, trying to tear sections of the canvas away from the body of the tent to stop the spread of the fire, but it was no good. Within minutes, every panel of canvas had burst into flame. Gus joined the tenthands and Vytas in the work of moving everything that could be saved as far away from the fire as possible. Flaming cinders drifted across the lot, threatening to set something else alight. Hannah and Nance emptied the water tanks dousing down the caravans to save them from catching alight.
By the time the fire brigade arrived, it was too late. They doused the smouldering canvas and soaked the charred and smoking king poles. Gus walked around the sodden black circle where the big top had stood only an hour before. The bleachers and most of the aerial rigging hadn’t been set up inside, so at least something could be saved, but Gus couldn’t see how they could put a show on. A sea breeze blew flecks of soot through the air.
Doc’s face was grimy with smoke and ash. He sat on a campstool beside his caravan while Nance wrapped a bandage around his forearm. Gus stood behind them, aching to offer some consolation.
‘That’s it Nance, we’re all washed up,’ said Doc. ‘If we can’t do a show tonight, we can’t pay wages. We’ll have to lay off the tenthands and see what Cas and the rest of them want to do.’
‘You don’t reckon there’s enough rigging to do a show without the canvas?’ said Nance.
Doc groaned and got to his feet.
‘Let’s just take the kid to Broome, hand him over to Annie and head south again. Maybe he’s been the Jonah with us all along. Get rid of him and we can cut our losses and start again.’
Doc’s words took Gus’s breath away. He turned to go, but Doc and Nance heard him and turned around, startled.
‘Didn’t know you were there, boy,’ said Doc defensively. ‘You shouldn’t hang around eavesdropping on people like that.’
Gus felt his face burning. He turned on his heels and ran. Buster racing after him, yapping at his heels. He jumped over scattered pieces of rigging and torn canvas past the restless ponies and the defeated-looking circus crew. The sea breeze whipped his hair back off his face and he took in big gulps of air as he ran down the cliff path.
He lay in the sand and stared up at the sky, feeling as burnt as the big top canvas. There was no hope of a show now. The curse of Zarconi’s was complete. No one would ever see him fly.
He lay there for a long time before Doc came down on the beach to look for him. When Gus looked up at Doc standing above him, he felt a sick lurching feeling in his stomach.
‘I’m sorry, kid. It’s not really you. You’re a real trooper and I’ll miss you when you’re gone. These are tough times for circus and what with losing Kali, and now this…’
‘Vytas said we could have saved Zarconi’s. We just needed a new act.’
‘Yeah, well Vytas doesn’t know everything,’
‘He knows enough to call me by my real name.’
‘What are you on about?’
Gus got to his feet and dusted the sand from his palms.
‘I know you reckon I’m just a Jonah. Maybe you should have called me that from the start.’
‘Look, I said I was sorry for that. What more do you want?
‘I want you to call me by my real name. Why can’t you say it, Doc?’
‘Leave off, boy,’ said Doc wearily.
‘No, you have to say it. You owe me that much. Say my name properly. I’m not just any boy, or ‘the kid’ or sonny Jim or Zippo Zarconi or your mate, or your cobber. I’m me, Gus – Gus McGrath – not all those other names. Just Gus – You gotta say it, Doc. Before I leave this circus, you have to call me Gus.’
‘Look, son…’ ‘No!’ shouted Gus. ‘You look! You look at me.’
He stepped close to his grandfather and reached up to hold the old man’s face in his hands, staring straight into his watery blue eyes.
‘I know about that other Gus. I know about your son called Gus. I know he died and all that and it must have been real bad for you. But I’m not him, and I want to be called by my real name. That other Gus, he’s gone, but I’m here now. Call me by my name and not all that other stuff ’cause when you do, it makes me feel like you don’t see me, like I’m invisible or something – like you don’t want to know me. I don’t want to feel like that any more. I don’t want to carry that feeling away with me.’
Doc took hold of Gus’s wrists with his hands.
‘Gus, eh? You cheeky bugger. She may have called you McGrath, but you’re an O’Brien through and through.’
He laughed and shook Gus gently by his arms.
‘Thanks, Doc,’ said Gus.
‘Don’t know what you’re thanking me for. More like a curse than a blessing, being an O’Brien. Lucky you’ve got that other blood in ya too. Keep you safe from the bad luck we’ve had to put up with.’
They walked back up to the circus lot together and Doc slipped one arm around Gus, leaning on him just a little as they climbed the last few metres of the path.