All stories

It blew in with the storm that night, on the howl of the wind and the silver rattle of rain and thunder. The flicker and flap of loose, wet canvas and the strains of the men, the navvies hired away from the railroad for this impossible task. They wordlessly carried it, soaking, drenched and exhausted to the centre of the camp, next to the big top and ready for the freakshow

Huddling to stay dry, the others warmed their hands round bins that burned with whatever came to hand - hunks of wood, moth eaten rugs. Even a heavy, leather-bound bible warmed their cold, damp fingers. They peered out from behind the curtains of rain, watching the navvies heave the immense cage, their shirt sleeves rolled back, tattooed biceps straining at the weight of it, rain streaming down faces illuminated by streaks of lightning.

And in the morning it was there, beside the bear pit, surrounded by the debris of the storm and circled by the six navvies. Implacable. Unreadable. Unmovable. Their tattoos dancing and writhing in the watery dawn light. A sheet of impenetrable canvas hiding the contents of the cage from view.

The acrobats gawped and gossiped with the clowns from a distance. Adonissimo postured and flexed, demanding to see, demanding to know, fronting up to the navvies who stared impassively until he was forced to back down, humiliated. A sketchy mermaid on the bicep of one navvy swam around to watch him retreat with a smirk and a flick of inky black hair.

It wasn’t until dusk began to creep around the edges of things that the bear trainer could slip, under the cover of the oncoming darkness past the Navvies, drooping-eyed with exhaustion by now. The mermaid dozed on the rock of her Navvy’s elbow and the bear trainer slid past undetected to lift up the sheet of heavy canvas and peer inside.

She fell back in horror, her mouth filled with unshed screams, her eyes filled with a blur of teeth and feathers and fur and claws - a shapeless, monstrous horror that rocked in silent misery in the confines of its cage.

She had known that misery for a long time, from her bears; their unhappiness was palpable. Daily they stared balefully at her as she forced them to dance, to perform, their toothless mouths rendered useless, their ferociousness, their only strength stolen from them. But what else was there for them now? It was this life or no life at all.

Perhaps it was this that made her do it.

As the navvies slept, slumped to the ground surrounding the cage she slipped inside their circle to peer once again beneath the canvas. Without giving herself time to think, to consider, she slipped a length of wire into the padlock and silently opened the door of the cage. The creature flew out and up immediately and, with a triumphant bestial howl it vanished to freedom.

When the navvies seized her and searched for the key she had stolen her hands were empty, the length of wire conjured away. She had sneaked a look, yes, but the cage had been unlocked when she got there. One of them must have forgotten to lock it.

When the others asked her what she had seen she lied. Sometimes she said it was a wolf, others a bear. The truth became fluid and took on a life of its own and soon the creature became the stuff of legends, then fantasy. Then myth.

People began to wonder if there had ever been anything in there at all.

Olive spread herself across the bed and propped herself up on a pillow. Her peach coloured nylon slip clung to her breasts, which rested against her arms. She tracked the movements of Terry around the caravan. He filled the kettle and lit the stove to make tea. There was a fleeting smell of bottled gas as he lit the flame. It was hot in the van, the middle of summer and she was drowsy, all loved up

This tattooed navvy was so handsome, so strong, or so he looked to her in her sleepy state. Other people would have seen the stains on his vest, the fabric taut across his paunch, his gappy brown teeth and faded tattoos.

Terry and the circus came to town every year and set themselves up on the common. Olive had first spent the night in Terry's van 17 years ago. She had gone to the circus with her sister and had slipped out for a fag when the clowns came on. He walked past and winked at her. Something about his walk made her want to call out to him, so she did and they started talking. Olive went back the next night and stayed this time. She stayed every night until the circus left and there was never any question of her going with him or of him staying.

Over the years Olive got married, had a child, lost a child, divorced and weathered all kinds of turbulence and change.

The only constant was Terry, for 5 nights every year. Once about 10 years ago he had given her a gift, the only one. He had made her close her eyes and hold out her empty hands, then he had gently placed in them a small golden charm. It was a tiny gilt bible with a sugar paste ruby on its spine.

Olive kept it hidden for years and never loved a possession so much as that one. Then one day she came home to find her husband holding the charm over the gas flame on the cooker. He had grabbed her by her hair and held the hot metal against her cheek, until she screamed. She was left with a little burnt bible scar and an empty house, but she didn't mind.

This had been her last night with Terry, the circus was off again this morning. She drank the tea and wondered what it would be like to go with him. She dressed and said goodbye. Terry kissed her bible shaped scar and there was a moment when she thought he may ask. But outside the lions were grumbling and the tent was coming down, there was work to do and another town to get to. Olive took a deep breath, opened the caravan door and said goodbye to the circus.

The audience grew still, eyes wide for the fan of crisp one-pound notes raised above the head of The Great Magento. The sounds of the circus outside the tent seemed to fade, the music of the whirly machines and the calls of the hawkers giving way to the gentle wood creak of the low stage beneath the magician’s bright black leather boots.

He lowered his hands to his chest then turned side on to the audience as he faced the helper he had plucked from the crowd, this any old Irish navvy in a sea of grubby faces and rumpled tweed come to sleep off pay day in the quiet of the magic tent. This specimen hugged the lectern to his chest to stop himself falling and The Great Magento was forced to stoop to bring the money close to the taper held in one of the man’s quavering hands.

The flame was dancing, seeming with a mind not to bite the paper, until The Great Magento began to anticipate the navvy’s quivering hands and brought each note to the flame in turn. Now when he held his arms aloft they were crowned by a fan of flame, the crowd hushing as the flames ate lower, seeking out his flesh.

One last flourish, one last burst of light and with a cry The Great Magento spread the fan of unburnt notes above his head.

The crowd cheered, but fell into silence at the thump, thump of a book against the lectern top. The navvy had found the battered bible kept in the top shelf and now he was pounding it against the top.

‘If you’re so good magic man, resurrect this.’

The crowd cheered their approval.

The Great Magento flourished then showed his empty hands to the audience. The audience murmured disdain for this old hat, a muttering cry beginning to grow, burn it, burn it.

The Great Magento shrugged, and reached for the bible. Cradled in his left hand, he used his right to take the taper and carefully light the corner of several pages. The hushed crowd watched as the flames took, and they cheered as the burning bible was held aloft in triumph.

The navvy protested. ‘Faker!’

He made a wild leap and seized the bible. He began to wave it at the crowd.

‘See! It’s not real! It’s-‘

He screamed in agony as the fire bit through his booze fuelled haze. The book slipped from his grasp and he puddled to a ball of weeping agony.

The Great Magento raised the book once more. It became a ball of flame that took his hand and then flourish, the flames gone, the bible unburnt. The Great Magento laid down the bible on the lectern top. He accepted their applause and then strode from the stage to exit at the rear

Safe in his caravan he peeled back the protective coatings from his hands then poured water from a jug into two bowls which he set on tables either side of his armchair. He was sitting here, hands in the cooling water when Morgan climbed into their caravan a little while later.

Morgan said, ‘Not a bad night.’

The Great Magento scowled. ‘You almost blew it again. What have I told you, shirt buttoned all the way. You want someone to see that tattoo and figure it out?’

Paul had been dreading this day ever since his sister had had her bright idea and bought their 93 year old wheelchair bound father, The Reverend JG Grayling, a ticket to the circus.

Recently he had talked a lot about how much he’d loved tigers and female acrobats in tights when he was a boy and how when Chipperfield’s parked up on the local Heath he’d been desperate to run away and join it.

Then Paul’s sister had had to pull out for some mysterious reason and it had been left to Paul to take the old man on his own. The trouble was that the circus in question was “Cirque Mechant!” A French collective, dressed in leathers and mohicans which had bald men in gimp costumes instead of animals.

The blurb for their show “L’Octogone Vert” advertised it as an immersive spectacular exposing “the hypocrisy of religion and frailties of Western Values on a dying planet.”

“Subversive and Revolutionary” said the Guardian

“Don’t take your Grandad” said the Telegraph.

Paul’s heart sank further when he read that it would be a promenade performance and he would have to push the old man’s wheelchair round in the mud to see anything.

On the night it seemed that wherever he stood was the precise place where the spotlight fell for the next piece of action. The show started when the ringmaster, a terrifying man who looked like Keith Flint from the Prodigy, leapt from the shadows less than a yard from them and burned a bible right in front of him.

“Oh dear” said the Reverend. Paul wheeled him away into a nearby patch of mudded sawdust.

As soon as he did, two female acrobats swung above him on some ropes which exposed the limitations of patriarchal capitalism. A third jumped in front of them wearing a length of fireman’s hose pipe fixed over her nose and writhed upon the floor. In her mind it was obvious that she was a dying elephant. She expired accompanied by a Balkan brass band in what the Guardian had said was the “Moving centrepiece of the show”. Following this there were two minutes silence to mark the species already lost.

This tender moment was punctuated by The Reverend Grayling who shouted “More like a tattooed navvy than a female acrobat!”

The spotlight settled on Paul’s father and the ringmaster approached. Paul, in a moment of panic, deserted his post and fled. Outside he smoked his first cigarette over twenty years given to him by a sympathetic dwarf.

When he returned to the tent he was surprised by the sight that greeted him.

His father’s wheelchair had been raised onto a riser and the old man was smiling beatifically and waving a windscreen wiper that doubled as a sceptre while the Ringmaster chanted “Empty Hands, Full hearts!” to rapturous applause. The grin did not leave Dad’s face all night.

The Rev. Grayling never quite returned to the physical world after this and spent the rest of his life smiling blankly but happily from his armchair. While this brought it’s own problems and Paul had no real idea where the old man’s mind was drifting, it reassured him to believe that a little boy had finally run away to join the circus.