SUSAN GEASON
W HITE HO RSE S
© SUSAN GEASON 2007
CHAPTER 1
The old Dalmatian couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. When the
strange convoy rattled though town at the crack of dawn, he
barked so furiously that he almost popped his spots. There were
cars and station wagons towing caravans and lorries with Deans’
Travelling Carnival painted on the sides
loaded with machinery.
The parade was led by a fire engine red Customline with
gleaming chrome fins and the top down. It was
driven by a red-
faced man with a mane of white hair and... a ten-gallon hat!
The dog was so astonished he forgot his road sense and was
almost skittled by a clanking truck carrying an old man, a girl
and a teenage boy. They were singing at the top of their voices.
When the Dalmatian tried to sing along, they pointed at him and
laughed.
Alfie whined. It was dull in this town; he wanted to go with
them and be young and foolish again. But when the blue cattle
dog on the back of the truck leapt up against the tailgate and
barked insults at him, Alfie quickly changed his mind and
scrambled back onto the footpath .
Once the danger was past, the Dalmatian ran into the
middle of the road and watched them disappear, his tail wagging
furiously. The faint echo of an old Beatles song floated back to
him long after any human ear could have picked up the sound. He
stood there straining forward, his nose quivering, until the
paper girl turned up on her bike and yelled at him to get out of
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the way. After a half-hearted snap at her sneaker, the dog
picked up his mistress’s newspaper like a good dog and trotted
indoors.
But it’s unsettling to watch adventure come thundering down
the road and pass by on its way to Peppertree, leaving you
trembling with longing and out of sorts with your life. Mrs
Garibaldi never did figure out why Alfie was so difficult that
day, but then, he was getting old.
It was in Peppertree that Kirra Kincaid discovered the book that
gave her the dream, the dream that refused to go away, the dream
that changed her life.
It was odd, because Peppertree was no different from all the
other country towns Deans’ Travelling Carnival passed through on
its endless, restless journey. It had wide streets and the usual
avenue of remembrance, with each tree named for a soldier who’d
died in the Great War. There were shops and a post office, two
pubs, a service station, a few blocks of weatherboard and brick
houses with lovingly tended gardens. And there was a town hall
with a clock, an old primary school with some ugly modern bits
tacked on, and of course, a School of Arts. Sometimes these
towns had a Freemason’s Hall — a mysterious building with no
windows — or a Mechanics’ Institute, though Kirra had never seen
a mechanic come out of one.
While Ruby Tuesday and Jack Flash haggled with the garage
owner about fixing their ageing truck, Kirra mooched around the
main street. She bought a gum ball from a machine, tried out
some forbidden make-up in the chemist shop until a suspicious
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young woman in a white uniform made her feel uncomfortable, and
then decided to investigate the School of Arts. She’d often
wondered about these buildings: did people learn drawing in
there? Did naked models pose for artists with moustaches and
smocks like they did in old movies?
Peppercorn’s School of Arts was particularly fine, built in
stone with its name carved above the door. Kirra was hesitating
at the entrance, a little intimidated by the gloom, when a voice
called, “Come in child! Don’t hang about.”
It was a kind voice, a woman’s voice, so Kirra sidled in.
There were no artists in smocks, no smell of turps and oil
paints, just books. It was a library. Kirra was a bit
disappointed, but the librarian, who’d looked up from sorting
cards at the front desk seemed to expect her to stay, so she
did.
Broomstick thin with an iron-coloured perm, the woman had
sympathetic eyes behind her old-fashioned glasses. “The
children’s section is over there,” she said, pointing, and Kirra
did as she was bid. She didn’t think of herself as a child, but
knew she’d have trouble with the grown-up books with their
tight, black print like battalions of ants.
Skimming the shelves, Kirra soon realised that the Peppercorn
School of Arts Library hadn’t bought any children’s books in a
very long time. Since the Great War, maybe. Kirra had read the
inscriptions on hundreds of statues of soldiers in small towns
and was quite fond of the Great War, though she had no idea what
it had been about.
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As if she’d read the girl’s mind, the librarian said: “They’re
a bit old and moth-eaten, pet, but you might find the picture
books amusing.”
The librarian returned to her cataloguing. What mysterious
wind had blown this odd little leaf into her library, she
wondered. With her spiky hair, faded heavy metal tee shirt ,
tattered cut-offs and bare feet, the girl looked like nobody
owned her. Mind you, if you washed off the purple lipstick and
black eye muck and combed the pale hair, she would be quite
sweet.
Kirra quickly fell under the spell of the Peppercorn School
of Arts Library with its scuffed wood floors and polished
bookshelves. A shaft of golden light slanted down from the high
windows, gilding the dust motes and spotlighting the occasional
bumbling fly. It was a time capsule, a refuge. She breathed in
its aroma, a perfectly blended bouquet of old books, dust,
beeswax, and the faintest hint of violet talcum powder from the
librarian’s bosom.
It was so quiet she was sure she could hear the silverfish
gnawing away on the yellowed pages of books.
Kirra didn’t read very well. The carnival never stayed
anywhere very long, and she’d been to so many schools she’d
forgotten their names. After riffling through some novels with
too many words too close together,
she found an ancient story
book with sad, pale pictures. They were watercolours, although
Kirra had never heard that word.
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Squatting cross-legged on a strip of threadbare, greyish
carpet, she was soon engrossed in the saga of Hilary’s Summer
Holiday. Set in the dim past in England, the story was pretty
boring really. The White girls were awful sooks, and the scenery
was impossibly neat and green compared to the landscape Kirra
knew, but she couldn’t tear herself away. The White family
entranced her.
So why, when she came to the picture of their picnic at the
seaside, did something catch in the region of her heart? Like a
pain, but not quite a pain. She didn’t know how to describe it:
she’d never felt it before. It was probably just the dust.
In the picture a bewhiskered Papa White, wearing a Panama hat,
a white shirt with the sleeves turned back and rolled-up
trousers, smoked a cigar and gazed out to sea. Mama White, with
her soft, flowered dress pulled up to reveal plump knees, kept a
close eye on her daughters, Hilary and Daisy, from under a
parasol. After sounding out the unfamiliar word Kirra decided it
was just an umbrella. The girls paddled at the water’s edge,
Hilary holding chubby little Daisy, in a playsuit and floppy
bonnet, by the hand.
Riveted to this perfect family on their perfect day at the
beach, Kirra didn’t hear the librarian approach. When the woman
touched her on the arm, she jumped, alarmed, wondering where she
was.
“I’m closing up now, pet. The library only opens three
mornings a week now. If you’d like to join...”
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“No, I mean, no thanks. We won’t be here for long,” said
Kirra.
The girl seems upset, thought the librarian. Surely it isn’t
that soppy Hilary book. It’s too boring to upset anyone except a
few silly school teachers.
Kirra handed back the book reluctantly, feeling as if she was
parting with her own family. But that was mad: Jack and Ruby
were down at the garage... She looked up at the clock and let
out a squeak of alarm. She’d been here an hour! If Ruby and Jack
were cooling their heels waiting for her, all hell would break
loose.
But she was lucky. When she emerged, blinking, from the School
of Arts, there they were, contentedly eating pies and drinking
beer under a huge fig tree in the park across the road. It was
going to take a couple of hours to fix the truck, apparently.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” her mother said. She
pulled Kirra down, peered into her face, then pulled out a
Kleenex and wiped the war paint off the squirming girl. “What’ve
you been up to?”
“Reading a book,” Kirra said. She escaped and grabbed a pie
from a paper bag on the grass.
Jack laughed. “Books won’t do you no good. Never read one
meself.”
Kirra busied herself with the tomato sauce. It was supposed
to be a dark secret, but she’d guessed long ago that Jack
couldn’t read or write.
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Lolling contentedly in the park with her parents, Kirra fed
the pigeons with bits of gristle and rough-housed with a stray
dog, while the life of Peppertree bustled around them. She began
to wonder if she’d imagined the violet-scented librarian, the
dusty library, the musty books. Out here in the squinting
sunlight under the brash blue skies, the White family and their
seaside holiday seemed impossibly far away. Like a dream.
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CHAPTER 2
In the uproar of getting the carnival set up in a paddock on the
outskirts of town, Kirra forgot all about her strange experience
in the library. There was too much confusion. Tempers flared,
tent pegs flew, men grumbled and cursed as they wrestled with
nuts and bolts to set up the rides. Carny kids were everywhere,
squabbling and shrieking like seagulls, looking for trouble and
occasionally finding it in angry shouts and slaps.
While Jack and some mates were erecting the Ferris wheel,
Kirra helped Ruby arrange her shooting gallery. All carny kids
were expected to work. When Kirra wasn’t unpacking purple, pink
or orange fluffy animals to put on the prize shelves, she could
often be found selling tickets for the Ferris wheel.
Even after a lifetime in the carnival, Kirra still got a
thrill when Deans’ opened in a new town. Although there were no
true Deans any more, they’d once been a famous circus family
criss-crossing the country. In its glory days, Deans’ Circus had
boasted a big top with the head of the family as ringmaster in
top hat and tails, muscular trapeze artists in sequins, a clown,
dancing horses, a couple of camels and a lion. They’d even had
an elephant, which travelled on its own float.
But television had changed all that. Only the big, expensive
circuses could make money now. But they were in strife now,
under attack from animal rights people for keeping wild animals
locked up and making them do tricks. It was cruel, some people
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said. Kirra thought they might be right, though she kept her
opinion to herself.
Occasionally old Merv regaled them with tales of the good old
days. Merv had joined the circus as a boy and become a strong
man and married a tumbler. All the glamour of the Big Top came
alive for Kirra when Merv reminisced, but Ruby scoffed. It was
all nonsense, she said. The camels had been flea-bitten, the
clown a nasty piece of work, and the ringmaster.... well, the
less said about him the better.
Kirra didn’t care what the clown did when he took off his
make-up: the show was the thing, even if the some of the glitter
had gone. Deans’ Travelling Carnival was her whole world. She
wouldn’t willingly swap it for any other life, despite the
sneers from some of the town kids, despite the misery when the
rains went on too long and everything got mouldy and everybody
got irritable. And even despite the rough patches when the whole
troupe seemed to live on baked beans and tea and Ruby sneaked
away to the Salvation Army or the Smith Family to get money for
food.
As soon as Ruby turned her back to make a cup of tea, Kirra
flew off to Roxy Lee’s caravan. Roxy told fortunes, drew
astrology charts and read the tarot cards. When she’d first
joined Deans’, Kirra had heard one of the women calling Roxy a
Gypsy, and talking about the Gypsies’ strange customs.
When Kirra had asked Ruby what customs were, Ruby had said:
“Oh, I don’t know, the way you do things, probably. Like getting
married, turning twenty-one, that sort of thing. You’ve been
listening to the talk about Roxy, have you?”
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Kirra nodded.
“Well, don’t spend too much time hanging around her caravan,”
said Ruby.
Sometimes Kirra got exasperated at the way Jack and Ruby
babied her, hardly ever letting her out of their sight. To
escape from her mother’s eagle eye, she’d had to learn how to be
sneaky. She had no intention of staying away from Roxy.
Later, when Ruby calmed down, Kirra asked: “What sorts of
customs do Gypsies have, Mum?”
“They don’t mix with regular folk, and they have their own
language, for a start. My Gran used to tell us about Gypsies
coming through town in their wooden caravans pulled by horses. ”
“Tinkers, they were,” interrupted Jack. “And thieves.”
“What’s a tinker?”
“People who used to fix pots and pans.”
This was a new one on Kirra. She’d never heard of anyone
fixing pots and pans: nowadays they just threw them out when
they got too dented or rusty.
“Pegs, too,” added Ruby.
“Tent pegs?”
“No, clothes pegs.”
“What did they do with them?”
“They used to carve wooden clothes pegs and sell them door to
door,” Ruby explained. “That was in the days before plastic
pegs.”
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Kirra had never seen a wooden peg: she tried to imagine one.
“Are they really thieves?” she asked. Roxy was one of the
kindest people she’d ever met: it was hard to think of her
harming anyone.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” said Ruby.
Jack had a one-track mind: “Nags,” he said mysteriously.
When his wife and daughter stopped eating and stared at him,
he said: “Gypsies are s’posed to be good with horses,” he
explained.
Horses! Kirra had a sudden vision of Roxy, long black hair
flying in the wind, glittery robes glinting in the sunlight,
galloping across the plains on a white horse. She’d would
definitely ask Roxy about horses, maybe even about wooden
clothes pegs. But she didn’t think she’d mention the thieving.
the next time Kirra was hanging out in Roxy’s caravan reading
magazines full of gossip about film stars and the Royal family,
she asked Roxy if she was really a Gypsy.
Her friend wasn’t amused. “Who’s been gossiping about me now?”
“It was... I mean... I just asked Mum and Dad about your
customs...”
“And they said it was all that Gyppo nonsense, I’ll bet. And
then they would have told you we’re all thieves.”
Kirra blushed: “I didn’t believe it.”
Roxy relented. “Well, some of us are. It’s pretty hard to make
a living when you’ve got no education and you’re different and
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people keep telling you you’re no good. You’ll find that out for
yourself soon enough.”
Kirra didn’t like the sound of this. “Because we’re carnies,
you mean?”
“Yes. I know you kids get a hard time at school because you’re
carnies. That’s why you have to stick together. The same thing
happened to me when I was a kid, but I was a Gypsy as well. The
big boys used to bash us up if they caught us by ourselves.”
After that, when Roxy was in a good mood, Kirra would quiz her
about her people. Roxy said that the experts thought that
Gypsies had come from India, because their language was a bit
like an ancient Indian language. Some still spoke Rom, but there
were other dialects, too. Gypsies were all over the world now,
Roxy told her, about ten million altogether. In England they
called themselves Travellers.
It sounded so romantic. From then on, Kirra thought of herself
as a Traveller.
Roxy said Gypsies had always been outsiders, that they’d
always been persecuted. During the War, Hitler had put them in
concentration camps in Germany, and they were still hounded by
the police in some places. Kirra knew all about that: the
carnies were always complaining that the police picked on them.
“There were Gypsies on the First Fleet,” said Roxy.
“Now
there’s about twenty thousand of us here.”
Kirra was impressed: she’d watched the re-enactment of the
arrival of the First Fleet on television, during the
Bicentennial celebrations. It had been very exciting.
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“Where do they all live?” she asked, vaguely hoping she might
get a look at a Gypsy camp.
“Around Melbourne, mostly, but there’s a bunch of us in
Wollongong,” said Roxy. She sighed: “I don’t know if we’ll be
around much longer, though. The old ways are dying out: soon you
won’t be able to tell the difference between us and everybody
else. A lot of Gypsies have stopped travelling and have started
sending their kids to school. They’re marrying out of the tribe,
too. Plenty of our blokes work in the steel mills in
Wollongong.”
That surprised Kirra, who’d been imagining men in colourful
bandannas and gold earrings sitting around a camp fire whittling
pegs and banging away at old pots and pans.
“You can’t blame them people for settling down,” said Roxy.
“There’s no future on the road.” She tapped Kirra on the arm.
“Did you hear that, Miss?”
Kirra blushed guiltily. Her lessons arrived regularly by mail
from the correspondence school in Sydney, but there was so much
else to do, and Ruby grumbled when she asked for help.
Roxy had joined Deans’ about four years ago, when Kirra was
eight. Kirra had asked her then if she’d had a little girl of
her own, and Roxy had said, “Not any more.” Something about the
way she’d said it made Kirra’s heart flip over, so she’d adopted
Roxy as her aunt.
Kirra didn’t have any real aunts -— or uncles or grandparents
or anything. Ruby and Jack never mentioned relatives: it was as
if the three of them were marooned on a space station. Kirra had
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asked endless questions about who she was, where she came from,
but Ruby had become so angry she’d given it up. It hadn’t
stopped her wondering, though.
Kirra kept her love for Roxy close to her chest, to her heart,
in fact. She knew somehow that Ruby didn’t want to share her
with anyone. That made life difficult, because Kirra was the
world’s worst busybody. She loved asking questions, revelled in
other people’s life stories. It was better than television,
especially in the carnival, where everybody seemed to have a
colourful past. Kirra avoided trouble by visiting her friends
while Ruby was watching her favourite soaps on TV or when her
parents went into town to the pub.
How could she give up Roxy? Roxy’s caravan was a cave of
wonders. Threadbare velvet curtains, faded from regal crimson to
pink, hung from the ceilings, making it mysterious and gloomy,
like the tent of a sultan down on his luck. And every flat
surface was covered with knick-knacks collected from Roxy’s
travels. Kirra’s favourites were the dozens of plastic domes
which filled with snow when you shook them. When she was little,
she’d believed it snowed everywhere, even in Broken Hill.
Roxy had a dome from Sydney with a the Opera House and a
ferry, one from Coffs Harbour advertising the Big Banana, one
from Nambour with the Big Pineapple, one from Goulburn
displaying the Big Merino, one from Ballina with the Big Prawn,
one from Taree enclosing the Big Oyster. There was even a domes
from London with Big Ben, one from Rome boasting Saint Peter’s
Cathedral and one from San Francisco featuring the Golden Gate
Bridge.
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Roxy also collected lamps that looked like African princesses
wearing pleated plastic shades as hats, and owned Balinese
wooden puppets, Tibetan wind chimes, vast numbers of dusty china
figurines, a metal statue of Buddha with a pointed headdress, an
intricately carved boomerang, a tarnished bronze Indian gong, a
Maori carving of an angry-faced warrior with paua shell eyes,
three small threadbare Persian rugs on the floor and lots of
pictures on the walls. But unlike the other carnies, and like
Ruby and Jack, Roxy had no photographs of relatives, dead or
alive, on display.
Though the smell of burning incense, dust and the endless
cigarettes always made Kirra sneeze and sometimes gave her a
headache, Roxy’s caravan was her favourite place in the whole
universe. It was like stepping inside a fairytale.
Today Roxy was playing patience in a familiar fug of
cigarettes and the strange perfume that made Kirra catch her
breath — patchouli, it was called.
“What are you up to?” asked Roxy. “Why aren’t you helping
your mother?”
“She’s having a cuppa.”
Roxy shot her a hard look: “What about your school work? Have
you done your lessons?” When the girl didn’t answer, Roxy said:
“You’ll end up pig ignorant, Kirra. Surely you don’t want to
spend the rest of your life selling tickets in a carnival and
living in a caravan?”
“But you do it, Rox.”
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“Believe me, it wears thin after about twenty years,” Roxy
said grimly.
“Come on, Rox, read my cards,” Kirra wheedled, changing the
subject. “Please.”
Roxy groaned. “I’m sick of reading cards. Go away and play.”
Sometimes Roxy got edgy, but Kirra could usually jolly her
friend out of her bad moods. Knowing she’d come around
eventually, Kirra threw herself onto the lumpy divan bed and
began reading her stars in a magazine.
“It says here I’m going to embark on a voyage of discovery.”
Kirra’s birthday was on the twenty-third of August, on the LeoVirgo cusp. Some astrologers put that in Leo and some in Virgo,
which delighted Kirra. It meant she could read both and pick the
most interesting. “What does embark mean?”
“Set off. I’ve told you not to take any notice of that
rubbish. It’s all done on a computer.”
Kirra had seen computers on television, but she’d never
actually touched one. To her they were as distant and magical as
the stars themselves. “It’s better than nothing,” she said.
Roxy relented: “All right, all right, I’ll read your cards.
Anything for a bit of peace.”
Gravely Kirra sat opposite Roxy in the breakfast nook while
the fortune teller dealt the cards from a Marseille tarot deck
in the shape of a Celtic Cross. Kirra knew this because, after
four years of watching Roxy read the cards, she was becoming
expert herself. But the cards had scarcely hit the table when
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Roxy scooped up the cards and shuffled the deck, saying: “I’m
not in the mood, darls. Run off and play now.”
Roxy was fast, but Kirra’s eyes were excellent. She didn’t
manage to take in the entire hand, but she had glimpsed four
very troubling combinations: the Empress crossed by the Moon, 5
Coins crossed by 10 Swords, and the Emperor crossed by 3 Swords.
Her heart pounding and her mouth dry, Kirra did as she was
told. Safe on the steps of her own caravan, she thought about
what she’d seen. The Empress crossed by the Moon referred to the
past, and hinted at some mystery about her mother, about Ruby.
The 5 of Coins crossed by 10 Swords predicted financial
disaster: that could only mean trouble for the carnival. But
worst of all, The Emperor crossed by 3 Swords warned that a
father figure was in danger. Jack! Was something terrible about
to happen to Jack?
Kirra felt weak with foreboding. If the cards were right, it
looked as if her world was about to fall apart.
That night Kirra had a nightmare. The Emperor and the Empress
off the cards came to life and, resplendent in red and gold
robes, capered around her, jeering and poking her with sharp
swords. Overhead a sinister moon beamed down. Kirra cried out to
Ruby for help, but none came. Then, as suddenly as they had
come, the figures
disappeared, turning to smoke and whirling
away upwards into the moonlight. Kirra found herself alone,
staring down at the Celtic Cross laid out in front of her. She
could see all the cards clearly now. It was worse than she’d
thought, and the shock jolted her upright, wide awake.
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But no matter how hard she tried to remember Roxy’s tarot
hand, some of the cards eluded her: they had disappeared with
the dream. The one she could remember — the Tower crossed by
Knight Swords — chilled her blood. It foretold great suffering
ahead for Kirra. Her world was about to turn upside down.
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CHAPTER 3
It was several days later, when the excitement of the Peppertree
carnival had faded, that Kirra first had the dream.
Weary, but with full pockets for a change, Deans’ Travelling
Carnival decided to have a lay-off at the seaside. A few late
holiday makers and a sprinkling of residents gawked and gossiped
when their gaudy vans pulled into the Casuarina Beach caravan
park. Deans’ ignored them, quickly taking over the place and
shattering the quiet with loud music, shouts and the racket of
engines being revved, tyres being changed and trucks being
washed.
Taking advantage of the confusion Kirra slipped away across
the sand dunes where she found some wooden steps leading down to
the water. A sign put there by the Casuarina Council informed
her that the dunes were being stabilised, whatever that meant,
by the planting of grasses, and that visitors must use the steps
or face a $200 fine. The sign made her feel as if she was being
watched, but the beach was empty. In fact there wasn’t even any
water in sight. The tide was out.
Running, skipping, splashing through the channels forgotten by
the tide, Kirra set off to find the sea. Although she didn’t
know it, she was running towards Easter Island and Chile.
Seagulls swooped and squawked around her, the dying sun warmed
the top of her head, and the smell of the salt was intoxicating.
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Reaching the water’s edge at last, she turned and looked back.
The campsite seemed very far away, and the caravans and cars
looked like toys. It was blissfully quiet out here. The carnival
folk lived in each other’s pockets, and Ruby Tuesday kept a
tight rein on Kirra, so she was almost never alone like this.
She decided she liked it. She waded about, picking up shells and
examining their mysterious whorls, daydreaming.
Suddenly the sun dipped, and Kirra realised she was a long way
from home. Breathless, she pelted back across the damp, hardpacked sand, splashing in the runnels, squishing seaweed under
her feet, trampling small shells and crabs, then galloped up the
steps.
She was lucky; Ruby and Jack were so busy bickering they
hadn’t missed her, and didn’t notice her flushed face and big,
bright eyes.
That evening at the Casuarina Beach campsite was one Kirra would
remember long after Deans’ had disbanded, long after all her own
huge family had disappeared into the nooks and crannies of the
real world, long after Deans’ had become a treasured memory to
be unwrapped in quiet moments, savoured, then hidden away again.
A barbecue was planned, and the men had scavenged some wood
for a
bonfire. They soon had sausages, chops and steaks
spitting on the grill, all the time chiacking and drinking beer.
Occasionally they broke off to shout at a kid who was sneaking a
mouthful of beer or to boot a hungry dog out of the way.
Meantime, the women made salads and buttered bread. Too old and
dignified for horseplay now, Kirra helped Roxy and Ruby with the
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food, keeping one ear cocked for gossip she wasn’t supposed to
hear.
When they’d eaten their fill, the men banked up the fire with
extra wood. It was soon roaring and crackling. Potatoes were
thrown in to char, and the leaping flames lit up red cheeks and
sparkling eyes. Merv carefully removed his ancient violin from
its battered case, Thommo from the dodgem cars broke out his
piano accordion and Roxy picked up her flute.
Attracted by the music, folk from the holiday caravans and the
nearby camping ground drew near. Kirra had noticed that the same
folk who were quick to call the carnies shiftless and dirty were
always ready to join in their fun.
Then the dancing began. Soon most of the grown ups were
capering about. The kids hung back embarrassed at the oldies’
shenanigans, but one by one they joined in. Old rockers from way
back, Ruby and Jack were too busy jiving to notice Billy
Carruthers ask Kirra to dance.
Without Ruby to hide behind, Kirra blushed and couldn’t find
her tongue. Billy Carruthers was at least 15! Her feet seemed
nailed to the floor. Looking around wildly for help, she caught
Roxy’s eye. Still playing, Roxy nodded fiercely, her gold
earrings flashing in the firelight. Kirra found herself being
led into the circle of dancers in a daze.
It was a jig, and Billy Carruthers was a fine dancer. In fact
he was fine altogether, thought Kirra, when she could think at
all. He was tall and slender, with golden-skin and brown hair
that bleached blond in summer. He had big, dark brown eyes —
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like a possum, Kirra decided. And he was as agile as one, too.
She had often watched, heart in mouth, as he climbed up the
scaffolding of the Ferris wheel to fix some mechanical fault.
Billy was a mystery, and he liked it that way. He was as selfcontained as an egg: you never really knew what he was thinking.
He’d stowed away with Deans’ a year ago when they’d left one of
the small towns in north-western New South Wales. They’d found
him, shouted a lot, and dumped him on the side of the road to
hitch home. But they’d underestimated the boy. Determined as a
starving puppy, he’d followed the carnival until they’d given up
and taken him in. Now he was a rouseabout, doing odd jobs.
The jig finished and Jack Flash let out a whoop. His pleasure
was short-lived. Turning around, flushed and triumphant, he
caught sight of Billy and Kirra. The whoop turned into a roar.
Before Kirra realised what was happening, he’d grabbed her by
the arm and hauled her off the dance floor.
When the shock wore
off, the girl shrieked for her mother.
Ruby reacted like a lioness whose cub has been threatened by
hunters. Despite her bulk, she was on Jack like lightning,
shoving him in the chest with one hand and grabbing Kirra with
the other. “Get your hands off my daughter!” she screamed. “They
were just having a dance!”
“She’s only 12!” yelled Jack. Billy melted into the darkness.
Hurling abuse at her husband, Ruby led Kirra, sobbing with
humiliation and rage, off to their caravan. After a moment’s
silence, the band struck up and everyone forgot the drama.
Except Kirra, who sobbed, then snivelled, then hiccoughed.
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22
“That’s enough,” said her mother finally. “You’re all right
now. Stop dramatising. I’ll make you a nice hot cup of Milo.”
“Why did he do it?” moaned Kirra.
He must be mad!”
“No, pet. He’s just realised you’re growing up and he doesn’t
like it. They all go through it. I saw it happen with my dad.
He’ll get over it.”
The milk calmed Kirra down, and she was suddenly very tired.
Kissing her mother, she put herself to bed and fell into a half
sleep. At first she could hear the sound of music and people
talking and laughing, then it got fainter and fainter, like a
signal from a satellite and she drifted off to sleep.
That night Kirra dreamed that she was on holidays with her
family at the seaside. It wasn’t an Australian beach with
rolling breakers and blinding blue skies and white sand, though.
It was an English beach, with rippling waves and pale skies. She
wasn’t with Ruby Tuesday and Jack Flash, either; she was with
two grown ups who looked suspiciously like Mr and Mrs White,
from the storybook in the Peppertree School of Arts library.
But where was Kirra in this dream? She puzzled over this
later, but couldn’t make up her mind whether she’d been Hilary
White, little Daisy, or herself. Or all three.
One thing was certain. It wasn’t the innocent, carefree family
holiday she’d read about in Hilary’s Summer Holiday.
In her
dream, the air was filled with menace, as if something terrible
was about to happen to Mr and Mrs White and their two little
girls.
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Next morning, catching sight of her daughter’s peaky little
face and the dark circles under her eyes, Ruby gave Jack a
vicious jab in the kidneys and spat: “Next time mind your own
business, you drunken fool!”
Kirra could have spoken up and said it wasn’t Jack’s fault,
but she didn’t know how to explain. How could you admit you’d
been scared by a dream, a dream in which nothing at all had
happened? There was no tidal wave, no monster from the deep, no
terrible storm. How could you explain being frightened by a
dream about a dopey story in a moth-eaten book in a dusty old
library in Peppertree? Jack would think she was mad, and Ruby
would think she was running a fever.
No, the dream would have to remain Kirra’s secret.
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24
CHAPTER 4
Kirra quickly forgot her problems next day when George Reece
screeched into the parking lot in his red Ford Customline
convertible, raising a cloud of dust and scattering the
bystanders. Wild Bill, as he was called, liked to make an
entrance. Once the owner of a big circus, he was ran Deans’
Travelling Carnival. A big, fat old man with a puce face, a mane
of long white hair, and a ten-gallon hat, he fancied himself as
a cowboy from the American west, maybe Wild Bill Hickock.
The carny kids gave Mr Reece a wide berth. He’d had a troupe
of performing horses when he was young, and still carried a
riding crop, which he liked to slap impatiently against his
boot. He occasionally gave cheeky boys a lick with it.
From listening in on Ruby and Jack and snooping on Roxy and
Merv, Kirra had begun to suspect that Deans’ was in trouble.
Times were tough, especially in the country, and people didn’t
go out much any more. She was pretty sure Mr Reece had been in
Sydney trying to raise a loan.
The scowl on his face boded ill. When the men gathered around
his car, he brushed them off and strode inside without a word.
They stood around muttering among themselves for a while, then
drifted away.
Looking very black, Jack passed Kirra and went into the van.
She lay low, remembering the battle of the barbecue. But as soon
as he emerged, she dodged inside to quiz her mother.
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25
“What’s happening, Mum? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing that you should be concerned about,” said Ruby, but
she was chain-smoking and drumming her fingers on the grubby
table in the breakfast nook.
“I’m old enough to know,” insisted Kirra.
“In that case you’re old enough to mind your own business!”
Kirra was stung. First her father had dragged her off the
dance floor in front of the whole world, now her mother was
keeping secrets. Hurt and miserable, she dashed blindly out of
the caravan, through the camp and down onto the beach.
Kirra ran till she thought her lungs would burst. If the
carnival breaks up, we’ll have to live in a house, she thought.
In a suburb. I’ll never see the carny kids again — or Roxy, or
Merv — and I’ll have to go to school. With all those boring
sucks who’ll make fun of me because I can’t read those rotten
books or do those awful sums...
There was such a noise in her head she didn’t hear the music
until she was almost upon Billy Carruthers, who was sitting
cross-legged in the shade of some rocks playing a mouth organ.
She skidded to a halt, but before she had time to bolt, he
called out: “I’m not that bad, am I?”
“No, of course not,” mumbled Kirra, head hung, hands behind
back. She felt suspended, unable to go, too shy to stay. Billy
made the decision for her.
“You’d better get out of the sun,” he said, patting the sand
beside him.
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26
Like a hypnotised hen, Kirra dawdled over and dropped to the
sand. Billy ignored her and began to play some country and
western tunes, and Kirra amazed herself by singing along. She’d
given up singing in public years ago after Jack told her she was
tone deaf. But then, there was something about Billy that let
you be yourself; she couldn’t quite explain it. Roxy would
probably say he had a good aura.
Finally Billy put down the mouth organ. “What was all the
ruckus back there?”
“Mr Reece is back,” said Kirra, who still found it hard to
look into Billy’s face.
“Ah, Wild Bill Reece with the whip and the flash car,” said
Billy.
Billy was laughing at Mr Reece! Kirra was shocked, then
gleeful. Only for a minute, though. She had more important
things on her mind.
“Billy...” Her voice squeaked: it was the first time she’d
said his name aloud. She cleared her throat and tried again:
“Billy, do you think they’re going to close us down?”
“Hard to say.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
Billy shrugged. He had learned there are some things you can’t
change.
“What will you do?”
“Same as I’ve always done,” Billy said. “Look after myself.”
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27
Kirra wondered about that. Who was Billy, and why had he run
away? But that mystery would have to wait till another time.
“But it’s not fair,” she protested. “I love Deans’ and Roxy
and Merv and Zac. I don’t want to do anything else. Ever.”
Billy didn’t agree. “Deans’ is just a sleazy little road show,
Kirra. That’s the real world out there.” He pointed vaguely out
to sea. “If you want some of it, you just have to go out and get
it.”
Kirra wasn’t so sure. Carny folk weren’t like other people,
even she knew that. They didn’t want to live in suburbs and pay
taxes and vote in the elections. Most of them wouldn’t know how.
“You’ll be all right, anyway,” said Billy. “You’ve got parents
to look after you.”
Kirra loved her parents, even if Jack Flash drank too much and
Ruby Tuesday was a slack housekeeper. She
couldn’t imagine life
without them. But something told her that if Deans’ went bust,
her parents wouldn’t be much help. In fact, she’d probably end
up looking after them.
It seemed wrong, suddenly, to be fighting with Ruby and Jack
when they were all in this together. She jumped up, brushing
sand off her legs. “I’ve got to go.”
Billy picked up the mouth organ and ripped off a few toots.
“You always know where to find me,” he said, then burst into Me
and Bobby Magee.
It was one of Kirra’s favourites. She knew hundreds of old
songs. Ruby and Jack often sang to while away the long hauls
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28
between towns when the static drowned out the local radio
stations. The tune followed her as she fled along the beach.
When she burst into the caravan, breathless, Ruby stared at
her curiously, but only said: “I’ve been looking for you. Jack’s
going into town to get a part for the truck. Do you want to go?”
Kirra knew this was Jack’s way of saying he was sorry, and her
spirits lifted. Maybe she was worrying too much.
What Kirra liked best about carnival life was the surprises,
never knowing what would happen next — but sometimes it got out
of hand. Like today, when the Highway Police pulled them up on
the way into town. Kirra watched from the truck cabin as her
father climbed down and took out his driver’s licence. She could
see his hands moving as he explained something to the police,
who watched him with hard, suspicious faces.
For the first time, Kirra saw her father through other
people’s eyes. Compared to the cops in their starched uniforms
and short back and sides, Jack did look pretty disreputable.
Once thick and black, his hair was greying now and he wore it in
a ponytail. His jeans were greasy, and lurid tattoos peeped out
from the sleeves of a faded black Hells Angels tee shirt. He had
nicotine-stained fingers and mechanics’ black-rimmed
fingernails. Kirra felt a sudden surge of love for her father,
for old Jack Flash. He wasn’t much chop really, and he certainly
wasn’t very flash, but he did his best. Unlike some of the
drifters who joined the carnival from time to time, he hadn’t
run off on his wife and kids, and he’d never lifted a hand to
his girls, as he called them.
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29
“What was all that about?” she asked when he clambered back
up, scowling.
“The usual,” he grunted. “Giving the carnies a hard time.
Nothin’ better to do out here in the boonies.” Unexpectedly, he
laughed. “Too busy posin’ to see what’s in front of their noses,
the boofheads. If they’d checked the tyres we’d be hitchin’ back
to the beach by now, mate.”
In town it was the usual boring stuff, scouring wreckers’
yards looking for parts. Kirra spent hours sitting in the cabin
reading comics, daydreaming about Billy Carruthers, eating
chips, drinking Cokes and poking around in dirty offices while
her father haggled and swapped tall tales with mechanics.
Jack finally found the last part at a lot on the outskirts of
town. As they’d driven up, Kirra thought they’d discovered a
council parking lot in the middle of nowhere, but it was just
rows and rows of rusty bombs lined up like soldiers waiting for
an order to charge in some forgotten battle. It was decidedly
strange, but so was the owner, an enormously fat man with a
patch of bare belly poking out from under his soiled tee shirt
and baggy, saggy jeans.
Jack seemed to like him, though, and while they were drinking
a celebratory tinny, Kirra wandered off into the paddock beyond
the yard.
The land was so flat out here the sky seemed to come
right down to her boots.
Kirra loved the long summer twilights. This evening the huge
sky was pearly grey, streaked with pink and strewn with tufts of
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30
rippled, fleecy cloud. The clouds reminded Kirra of that
gossamer-soft wool next to a sheep’s skin.
“Superfine Merino,” she said to nobody in particular, liking
the sound of the words. It was the sort of statement that drove
her mother mad.
She’d seen that sort of wool in a shearing shed belonging to
some friends of Merv’s near Wagga. The old shed, which was made
of galvanised iron and wood, had smelt of sheep and men’s sweat
and wool grease, and the aroma of roasting lamb beckoned from
the farmhouse.
Out here the air was slightly damp and fragrant with grass and
eucalyptus and the rich red loam. Kirra breathed deeply, taking
in the sunset, the sky and the land. The space.
This is all
mine, she thought, then frowned. But for how long?
Then Jack was yelling from the truck. Time to go. Now he was
in a good mood again, Kirra grabbed the chance to cross-examine
him.
“How the hell would I know what’s going on with the carnival!”
he exploded. “Old Reece would choke before he told me anything.
He went to Sydney to raise money, but I don’t know how he got
on. He’s called a meeting for tonight.”
“But what’ll we do if...”
He didn’t let her finish. “Ease up, mate. It might never
happen.”
It’s all right for you, thought Kirra. You’ve always let Mum
do the worrying, and now I’m starting. She stared out the window
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31
unseeing. Maybe this was what growing up was all about. If it
was, she didn’t think she was going to like it much.
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32
CHAPTER 5
The Deans’ crisis meeting must have gone on until very late,
because Ruby and Jack were still asleep when Kirra awoke,
feeling uneasy. Knowing better than to wake her parents after a
late night, she tiptoed around and made herself a bowl of cereal
and a cup of tea. But she wasn’t fast enough. The shriek of the
kettle woke Ruby, who rolled out of bed, threw on a faded pink
chenille dressing gown and sat down with her daughter in the
breakfast nook. She looking a hundred years old.
Though she was dying to ask a million questions, Kirra held
her tongue. She’d learned the hard way that Ruby liked to ease
into the day, that she was like a bear with a sore head in the
mornings. Kirra herself leapt headlong into the day. Everything
seemed new and clean and hopeful then.
So anxious she was almost jigging in her seat, Kirra she
chewed away in silence, her eyes fixed on Ruby’s face like
headlights.
“We’re OK,” said Ruby finally, revived by a dose of tea strong
enough to melt a spoon.
Kirra was almost faint with relief: “We’re not going to
close?”
“Not this minute, anyhow. Mr Reece has got has hands on some
cash — don’t ask me how — but if things don’t look up soon,
we’re sunk. If you ask me, the whole country’s going to hell in
a hand basket...”
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33
But Kirra had stopped listening. The carnival was safe! She
washed up her bowl and mug, and before her mother could protest,
had sped across the campsite to Merv’s caravan.
Merv, who was as old as Methuselah’s billygoat (according to
Ruby) was sitting on his steps wearing his usual grungy yellowed
singlet and baggy britches held up by a pair of ancient braces.
He was wiggling his callused toes in the sun and drinking tea
out of a tin mug.
“How’s me little moonbeam?” asked Merv. He reckoned Kirra was
so fair she looked like moonlight.
Kirra found a patch of shade so she wouldn’t burn. As she was
sitting down, Zac, Merv’s big old blue cattle dog, butted her
affectionately, almost knocking her over. Zac adored Kirra.
Addicted to fetching sticks, he’d worn out the patience of
everybody else in Deans’. Zac’s bad habit didn’t bother Kirra,
who was happy to throw his stick endlessly while she daydreamed.
And she didn’t mind the odd bit of dog slobber.
She wasn’t in the mood for Zac today, though, and heaved him
off her. Merv shouted an order, and Zac slunk away, the picture
of dejection.
“I thought we were goners, Merv,” said Kirra.
“Not this time, love.”
“But Mum says the whole country’s going to the dogs...”
Merv snorted. “Ruby’s talkin’ through her hat. She don’t
remember the Depression.” He shook his head mournfully at the
memory.
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34
“What was it like, Merv?”
“Terrible, mate. Families were chucked out of their homes into
the streets. No work. I seen blokes livin’ in cardboard boxes
under bridges, and lots of ‘em just took to the roads.”
“Tramps, you mean?”
“Yeah. They’d roll up everything they owned in a blanket and
walk from town to town, farm to farm, askin’ if they could chop
some wood or fix somethin’, just for a feed. Sleepin’ rough.
Humpin’ ya bluey it was called.”
A vision of lines of sad, hungry men tramping the dusty roads
begging for food flashed into Kirra’s head. Trailing along
miserably at the back of the line were Ruby and Jack. And
herself.
“That can’t happen to us, can it, Merv?”
“No, mate. These days you can get the dole. There wasn’t any
welfare back then. Just charity.” He laughed. “Some of them
holly rollers used to make you sing hymns before they coughed up
the tucker.”
Catching sight of the little girl’s anxious face, Merv
realised he’d gone too far: the poor little beggar had too much
imagination for her own good.
He racked his brains for a story
to distract her.
“I ever tell you about Alice?” he asked.
Kirra loved Merv’s stories. No matter how black things looked,
Merv could always see the funny side. You’d think your world was
ending, then Merv would tell you one of his mad stories and
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35
you’d end up laughing. Though she did wonder sometimes if he
made up the funniest bits.
“Alice who?”
“Just Alice. Elephants don’t usually have surnames. Nobody
could have pronounced it, anyway, because she was Indian.”
“Which circus was Alice with?” inquired Kirra, who was
becoming an expert on the great circus families.
“Wirths’.”
Kirra had heard all about Wirths Circus. Merv was a walking
encyclopaedia on circus lore, and had regaled Kirra with tales
about all the great circus families — the Sole Brothers, the
Ashtons, the Bullens and the Perrys.
Knowing he had her hooked, Merv launched into the tale of
Alice and her long circus career.
“She was 50 when they got her. Now I know that might sound old
to you to be startin’ a new job, but them elephants live
forever, you know. And boy, was she strong; they put her to work
loadin’ and unloadin’ the circus train.”
Kirra had heard all about the circus trains. How exciting it
must have been for country kids when the circus rolled into
town. They would all go down to the siding to watch the
elephants hauling their massive loads, moving lions and tigers
and horses, the big top tents and all the equipment. Everyone
seemed to travel by road now: it was a bit sad.
But she was missing the story of Alice.
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36
“That Alice, she could move a five tonne lorry full of tents
from a rail wagon to the platform by herself,” said Merv. “But
she wasn’t just a pretty face, she was smart, too.”
“How do you know?”
“One day the Wirths is unloadin’ their gear from the train,
see, and Alice looks up and sees this dray, bogged on the
railway line...”
“What’s a dray?”
“One of those carts horses pull. Don’t interrupt. Anyway, it’s
loaded with bales of wool. So Alice decides to help out. She
lumbers up, sticks her head against the dray and shoves it off
the line...”
Merv paused theatrically.
“And then?” prompted Kirra.
“And then the express train roars through. Misses ‘em by
inches.” Leaving Kirra back at the railway line watching the
drama, Merv moved on. “Then there was the time she was leadin’
the herd around the ring in Sydney and this kid runs out in
front of them.”
“Squashed, right?”
“Wrong. Cool as a cucumber, Alice picks him up with her trunk
and hands him back to his parents.”
“Is this true?” asked Kirra.
“Mate, would I lie to you?” asked Merv, hurt.
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37
Kirra snorted. Of course he would. “But what about these rogue
elephants they’re always talking about?”
“I’m not saying all elephants are saints,” said Merv. “There’s
some pretty rotten characters among ‘em. Just like people.
Wirths had this brute called Toby that crushed one of her
attendants, and Sole Brothers was always gettin’ into strife
because of what their Betty got up to. She even killed a bloke,
a journalist.”
“Why?”
“Thought he wasn’t giving her enough good publicity,” said
Merv, deadpan.
Kirra laughed. “But really, why?”
“No reason. Sometimes they just don’t like the cut of
someone’s jib, or they get jealous, or they just go off the deep
end and have to be put down.”
“Maybe they miss their family back in India,” suggested Kirra.
“You might be right, mate.
Alice was a good elephant, but she
was always trying to make a break for it.”
“What happened to her, Merv?”
“She lived to a hundred and ten.” Kirra eyes widened. “They
tried to pension her off when she hit a hundred, but she started
to pine away, so they had to put her back on the payroll. She
didn’t do any shows after that, though.”
“That’s a long time to wait for your pension,” said Kirra.
Merv laughed. “Old Alice finally bit the dust in 1957.”
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38
Kirra was silent, imagining what a dead elephant would look
like.
She’d only ever seen a dead horse. “Do you think it’s
cruel, Merv?”
“What, mate?”
“You know, taking elephants away from their families and
making them do tricks.”
“I dunno, mate. Haven’t thought about it.” It seemed perfectly
natural to Merv, who’d suffered the same fate as the elephants,
but Kirra didn’t know that. One day he’d tell her his own story:
then her eyes would really pop.
“It’s all over bar the shoutin’ anyway,” he said. “Elephants
are gettin’ so scarce you can’t get them for circus work any
more. When this lot retire, there won’t be any more circus
elephants.”
Kirra’s face clouded for a moment, but then she said: “But
we’ll remember them, won’t we?” Then she rose and skipped away.
Merv gazed after the little girl. She had a tender heart, all
right. He hoped life wouldn’t be too hard on her.
At odd times during the day, as the camp came to life and the
carny folk began preparing to hit the road, Kirra thought about
Alice, Alice and her long memory and her good nature and her
refusal to give in. She wondered if there was a memorial to
Alice somewhere, like the ones she saw for soldiers killed in
action in foreign lands. If there wasn’t, there should be.
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39
CHAPTER 6
Deans’ next port of call was Nowra, the largest town on the far
south coast of New South Wales. There was going to be an
election, soon, and the Mayor, who was an old crony of Mr
Reece’s, wanted to make himself popular. He’d booked Deans’ for
the long weekend.
The guardian angel of carnivals must have been hovering over
Deans’ that night, because the weather was perfect. It was
balmy, and a tiny breeze brought hints of trees and paddocks
into the town to blend with the smell of flowers. The long
twilight gave way to a huge, orange full moon that burst through
the horizon, where it bobbed gently before rising like a balloon
into the night sky.
The big moon and the warm air had made Kirra dreamy, but when
the tourists and townies began to trickle, then stream into the
carnival, she soon woke up and got to work. She was helping Ruby
on the shooting gallery, when one of the boys dashed in with a
message that Jack needed her to sell tickets for the Ferris
wheel.
Kirra was ecstatic. She was sick of teenage boys showing off
in front of their moonstruck girlfriends. Besides, the fluffy
toys made her sneeze and reddened her eyes, making her look like
a white rabbit. At least that’s what she told Ruby, but her
mother accused her of exaggerating as usual.
“Go on. I can manage here,” Ruby said, shooing her away.
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Kirra ducked between the tents, jumping guide ropes and
dodging people and made her way to the Ferris wheel.
“Thank God you’re here,” said Jack, climbing down from the
ticket box. “The engine needs fixin’, and I couldn’t get away.”
He pointed to the long queue. He was grinning, though: good
crowds meant good cash flow, and that meant they might be able
to keep the carnival afloat.
Kirra hitched herself up onto the stool and began selling
tickets, fingers flashing, eyes everywhere. She loved being up
high in the ticket box, deafened by the rock music, watching the
people, but cut off somehow.
There were dads with toddlers on their shoulders, kids
stuffing themselves with fairy floss and Dagwood dogs and icecream; teenagers with arms entwined; gangs of girls giggling and
whispering; gangs of boys watching the girls; a few kids whose
mothers didn’t know where they were and big family groups
containing everyone from grandma to the new baby in a pram.
The air was heavy with the scent of frying onion, the sticky
smell of fairy floss, fumes from diesel engines, dust and
crowded humanity. The familiar smell of the carnival.
This is the life, thought Kirra. Or would have if she could
have heard herself think over the din.
Ruby sent over Rocky, one of the carny kids, with a hot dog at
eight o’clock and at nine-thirty Billy turned up with a can of
Coke, waited for a lull in the storm and leaned on the counter
to have a chat. Kirra was parched from the hot lights and
guzzled down the ice-cold drink so fast Billy’s eyes popped.
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“Good crowd,” he said, when she surfaced.
“Yeah, dad’s in seventh heaven.” Kirra pointed to Jack, who
was fiddling with the merry-go-round engine. He was black with
grease and his tee shirt was drenched with sweat, but he looked
reasonably contented.
Billy was starting to tell Kirra some of the gossip he’d
picked up from the grown-ups about last night’s crisis meeting
when he was rudely interrupted by a trio of grubby ragamuffins —
Rocky, Dave and Johnno. “Kirra’s in love with Billy. Kirra’s in
love with Billy,” they chanted.
Billy shot the blushing Kirra a long-suffering look then
lunged at the boys, who scattered like chooks, screaming and
laughing. But the spell had been broken, and he ambled off selfconsciously to the dodgem cars, where he had to take the next
shift.
Watching him go, Kirra noticed her father talking to a man,
all the time wiping his filthy hands on a rag. Kirra had never
seen the man before, but he and Jack seemed like old friends.
It was all over finally. The last stragglers were bullied off
the Ferris wheel and the music shut down with a groaning whine.
The tents were laced up, the rides secured and locked and the
kids were rounded up and dragged home to bed. A couple of loud
drunks were escorted firmly off the grounds by the local police,
who’d turned up in a patrol car and slouched about, looking
tough. From bitter experience they knew what an explosive
combination a full moon and alcohol could be, but apart from
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some shouting and one shoving match between two youths, it had
been a remarkably peaceful night.
You can’t be too careful, though, so Jack turned up to escort
Kirra and the Ferris wheel takings to Mr Reece’s caravan.
“Who was the bloke I saw you talking to?” Kirra asked him on
the way home.
“Rick Slattery. Used to be good mates years ago. Haven’t seen
him for donkeys’ years, though.”
“Does he live here?”
“Nah. Him and Chris, that’s his wife, moved to Melbourne a
long time ago, but he lost his job and they came north lookin’
for work. They’re stayin’ with Chris’s mum in town. Savin’
money, I suppose.”
“What does he do?”
“Anythin’, nothin’. Who knows? Always had money, though. You
can ask him yourself, if you’re that interested. He’s waitin’
for us at the caravan.”
And so he was. Ruby, who was scuttling about opening beer
bottles and setting out chips, stopped long enough to introduce
Kirra to a middle-sized, olive-skinned man in a black tee shirt
and jeans and motor cycle boots. Tense as a
coiled spring, Rick
seemed about to jump out of his skin, and spoke rapidly with a
slight stutter. He had high cheekbones and slitty eyes so pale
blue they looked like ice.
Something about him frightened Kirra, some sort of pent up
violence. Rick seemed to be having an odd effect on her parents,
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too. Jack went quiet and Ruby talked too much, trying to fill in
the silences. Kirra watched Rick closely, trying to memorise him
for Roxy. Roxy would be able to explain what it was about Rick
that made everyone uncomfortable: she knew everything there was
to know about people.
Suddenly Rick turned and looked directly into Kirra’s eyes, as
if he’d known she was watching him. But then people always do
know when they’re being watched, don’t they? Their eyes locked,
and a shudder ran down Kirra’s spine. It was like staring into
the eyes of a shark -— all menace, no feeling. Alarmed, Kirra
sought her parents’ eyes, but they hadn’t noticed anything.
Pleading exhaustion, she escaped to bed.
Safe from his icy glance behind the curtain, Kirra listened to
the rise and fall of voices. Eventually Rick left, but her
parents stayed up, talking softly for a very long time. The
sound lulled Kirra, and she fell into a restless sleep.
Ruby and Jack were slow to rise next morning, and seemed
sluggish and bad tempered. Maybe it was the beer or the late
night.
After breakfast, Ruby disappeared for a while, then called
Kirra in. “Merv’s going to Wollongong to do some business for Mr
Reece. I thought you might like to go.”
Kirra was stunned. “Just me?” She couldn’t remember going
anywhere in her whole life without either Ruby or Jack. Maybe
they’d finally realised she was growing up.
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“I think he’s taking Billy, too.” said Ruby. “Merv says he’s
got family there.”
“What will you be doing, Mum?”
Ruby pounced on her: “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to
go?”
She should have known better. “Yes, of course I want to go.”
Her mother relented. “Nothing much. Rick’s coming out for
lunch and bringing Chris.”
Kirra kicked at the caravan step. “Mum...
“What!”
“I didn’t like Rick.”
Being frank with Ruby could go either way: she might tell
Kirra to keep her opinions to herself, or take her seriously.
This time she was listening. “You’ve got good instincts, pet,”
she said. “Now, go and wash your hands and face and put on a
clean tee shirt. Merv’s waiting.”
As Kirra hot-footed it over to Merv’s caravan, her imagination
was working overtime. What would Billy’s mysterious family be
like?
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CHAPTER 7
Kirra would remember her trip to Wollongong with Merv and Billy
as one of the best days of her life. Billy had brought his mouth
organ and Kirra and Merv sang along. First Billy played some
Dire Straits songs that Merv didn’t know and Kirra bellowed the
words — off key, of course. Then Merv taught Billy some
wonderful old songs with hundreds of verses. One of them was
called On Top of Old Smoky.
On top of Old Smoky, sang Merv, All covered in snow
I lost my true lover
For courtin’ too slow
For courtin’s a pleasure
And partin’ is grief
But a false hearted lover is worse than a thief
‘Cause a thief will just rob you
And take what you have
But a false hearted lover will lead you to the grave
And the grave will decay you
And turn you to dust
There ‘ain’t one man in a hundred, a poor gal can trust...”
Kirra interrupted: “Is that true?”
“What do you reckon, Billy?” asked Merv slyly.
Billy flushed a little, blew a few toots on his harp and
stared out the window.
Merv took pity on him. “Aren’t you glad we didn’t bring Zac?”
he asked. “He’d drown us all out.”
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Merv had tricked Zac into staying behind by sending him for a
walk with Jack. Kirra had objected, but Merv had held firm. He
knew they’d be parked in the city and he didn’t want to drag Zac
around on a leash — the dog was as strong as an ox and just as
obstinate — or leave him in the truck, barking his head off and
attracting attention. Merv didn’t want the police nosing around
the truck and finding faults.
Kirra hadn’t been convinced, but it wasn’t worth squabbling
about. “What’s your favourite song, Merv?” she asked.
“My Grandfather’s Clock. A friend of mine used to play it on
the violin donkeys’ years ago. ‘And the clock stopped, never to
go again, when the old man died,’” warbled Merv mournfully.
That reminded Kirra of a funny old song called Sweet Violets.
Ruby had told her it was a favourite of her father’s, Kirra’s
grandfather, who’d died years before she was born. Kirra was a
bit sad sometimes that she didn’t have any grandparents of her
own, but there was always Merv.
Merv remembered the song well; he even knew all the words. The
youngsters were entranced. It was very complicated, but Kirra
managed to learn the chorus and chimed in raucously with:
Sweet violets
Sweeter than the roses
Covered all over from head to toe
Covered all over with sweet vi-i-o-lets.”
Squashed in the cabin of the truck between two of her
favourite people, Kirra was perfectly happy, and even forgot to
worry about the future of the carnival for a few hours. She
wondered if prisoners felt like this when they escaped, then had
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a twinge of guilt. She knew Ruby and Jack had her best interests
at heart, but sometimes she felt a bit stifled.
The good companions passed through the little town of Berry,
green and serene as an emerald, and the village of Foxground
with its row of cypresses flanking the roadway and its little
white farmhouses slumbering behind windbreaks.
Cresting the hill and whizzing past Gerringong with its long
white beach, they began to descend into Kiama. Kirra begged to
be allowed to look at the famous blowhole, but Merv refused,
saying time was wasting. And then, wonder of wonders, a huge
oriental looking building loomed at the roadside, complete with
a strange tower.
“What was that?” asked Kirra, staring back, astonished.
“A Buddhist temple,” said Billy.
“What are Buddhists?”
“An eastern religion,” said Billy. “The monks wear yellow gear
and beg. They believe in life after death. Reincarnation, they
call it.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Kirra.
“It was on TV a couple of weeks ago.”
Merv shook his head. “Don’t know what this country’s comin’
to. Buddhist temples! What next?”
Kirra wondered what it would be like inside. Though she’d
never been to a religious service herself, she’d explored many
churches in small towns. She especially liked stained glass
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windows. Sometimes she sat in a shallow pool of ruby or sapphire
light and dreamed in the deep silence.
Soon they were on that stretch of perfect new freeway running
into Steel City, Wollongong. The rolling green hills dotted with
farmhouses and placid jersey cows gave way to dreary suburbs,
traffic and smog.
In the centre of the city, Merv found a parking spot, ordered
the kids to meet him in half an hour, and set off to do business
with an insurance company. Kirra and Billy strolled around the
main shopping area, stared at the locals and got stared at, took
a quick look at cut-price tapes in a music shop, lingered in a
jeans shop and ended up in a milk bar slurping chocolate thick
shakes.
Rushing back, they found Merv leaning on the truck having a
yarn with another old bloke who was bent and gnarled from
arthritis, but seemed cheerful enough.
“That your grand-daughter?” he asked.
“No, more’s the pity,” said Merv, ruffling Kirra’s blond mop.
“Who was that?” she asked, when the man had departed.
“Old mate from me circus days. Joe. Finished up a clown.
Before that he used to look after animals with O’Connell’s...”
Merv paused dramatically...”Until the accident.” Knowing he had
them hooked, Merv whistled and stared ahead at the traffic.
Billy and Kirra exchanged a long-suffering look. “What
accident, Merv?” they chorused.
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“Funny you should ask,” said Merv and they groaned. “As it
happens, one of his colleagues was killed and eaten by four
lions in front of his very eyes.”
“How?” asked Billy.
“He opened the door of their cage at feedin’ time. You’d think
he’d know better. Anyway, the cops was called in and shot the
lions, but that didn’t do the trainer no good. Wasn’t much of
him left by that time.” Merv paused, wondering how far he could
push this: “I hear they buried him in a biscuit tin.”
“Eeeuuugh!” shouted Kirra.
Merv and Billy laughed. “Tell you what, though, little girl,
Joe told me Enid Craig’s livin’ right here in The Gong, so when
we drop Billy off at his folks’, that’s where you and me is
headin’.”
“Who’s Enid Craig?” asked Kirra, excited. Merv had some
amazing friends.
“Top little performer on the trapeze in her time,” said Merv.
“Good looker, too. Headlined with Ashtons for years with her old
man and her brother, but they’ve both passed on to the great
circus tent in the sky.”
Kirra groaned and asked where they were going.
Billy answered. “Port Kembla. That’s where my auntie Opal
lives. She’s my great-auntie, actually.”
Port Kembla was where the steel was made. The air over the
steelworks smelt of sulphur, had a yellow tinge and irritated
the eyes and nose. Kirra sneezed. Privately, she found this
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flat, hot, mean-looking area depressing, but kept her opinions
to herself for a change.
Eventually they pulled up outside a small bungalow in a row of
fibro and brick houses on a flat, treeless street. Its bright,
carefully tended garden made Kirra sad, somehow. The street
seemed empty of life except for a chained dog, which began to
bark angrily.
The dog’s warning brought an old woman to the front door,
where she stood peering out into the sunshine. Billy sprang out
of the cab, strode through the tiny yard, put his arm around the
old lady and drew her outside.
“My auntie Opal,” he said proudly.
She was small and plump with white hair, and wore a pretty
blue dress with a pattern of white daisies. And she was black.
Kirra could feel herself blinking. Billy’s auntie is an
Aborigine, she though. That means Billy is, too. But he doesn’t
look Aboriginal...
Stunned, she jumped down from the cab and let Billy present
her to Auntie Opal. The old lady had sad, kind eyes and a soft
voice. “You’re a pretty little thing,” she said. “You must be
Kirra.”
Kirra turned scarlet. Billy must have told his auntie about
her! Her throat clamped shut. Finally she squeezed out the word
“Yes”, and managed a smile. She remembered a teacher in some
school somewhere telling her she had “no social graces
whatsoever”. Every time she thought of it she tingled with
shame.
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Auntie Opal gave Kirra a mind-reading look, and she thought
she would die of embarrassment.
“OK, let’s go!” ordered Merv, rescuing her. “We’ll be back at
three-thirty, mate.”
They roared off in a cloud of black smoke.
“What’s up?” asked Merv after ten minutes of silence.
“I feel stupid, that’s all. I didn’t know Billy was
Aboriginal. I got such a shock when I saw his auntie, I couldn’t
speak. She probably thinks I’m a racist.”
“She didn’t look like the sort that’d jump to conclusions,
mate.” Merv gave her a narrow-eyed sidelong look: “I reckon
she’s got a pretty good idea what you’re like from her nephew.”
Kirra was struck dumb again.
“Don’t worry, pet. We’ll stop and get her some flowers on the
way back. That’ll soften her up.”
“Merv, she’s got a garden full of flowers!”
“Well, what the heck, we’ll pick up a nice cream cake. It’s
been my experience that you can soften up most old girls with a
dollop of whipped cream.”
“You’re dreadful,” said Kirra, but she was already forgetting
her shame, wondering what Enid Craig would be like. She’d never
met a trapeze artist before, though she seen a very glamorous
one on a television show about the Gasser’s Circus. Muscly legs
and spangles and a blinding white smile. Not to mention a
costume so tight it looked sprayed on. Personally, Kirra thought
anyone who went that high without a parachute was mad.
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At some lights, Kirra spotted a cake shop. “Shouldn’t we take
a cake to Enid’s, Merv? Mum says it’s bad manners to turn up
empty-handed.”
Merv complained a bit, but pulled over and handed Kirra a few
dollars and told her not to go mad. Dazzled by the choice, she
settled for two sponges, one with pink icing and hundreds and
thousands, the other with passionfruit icing.
“Ugh,” said Merv when she showed him. “Let’s take the pink one
in to Enid’s. I can’t stand passionfruit.”
“Greedy guts,” scolded Kirra.
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CHAPTER 8
After Port Kembla, Figtree was a paradise, with tree-lined
streets, manicured lawns and fussy gardens. Enid Craig’s house
let the side down, though. It was dilapidated, with peeling
paint and a neglected air. The garden was turning into a jungle
wild enough to hide tigers.
“It’s gettin’ too much for the old girl,” remarked Merv. “But
then she must be nearly ninety.”
Kirra did her sums and figured Enid must have been born around
the turn of the century. It seemed incredible. Kirra couldn’t
imagine living that long. Enid Craig must have seen so much! she
thought.
Merv rang the bell, and after what felt like a long time, the
door opened a crack and a nose appeared, followed by a tiny,
wrinkled face. “Who is it?” asked a querulous voice.
“It’s me, Enid. Merv. Merv from Ashton’s and Bullen’s. You
remember me, doncha?”
The little face stared suspiciously for a moment, then a smile
dissolved it into a thousand wrinkles. “Of course I do, love.
Don’t mind me; I’m getting a bit slow these days. Memory isn’t
what it used to be. And who’s this?”
“This is Kirra. She’s mad on circuses, Enid. I told her you
had lots of good stories.”
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Enid Craig opened the door and they followed her along a dim
hallway into a living room. The bushes had grown so close to the
windows, the room had taken on a dim, underwater glow. Kirra was
entranced. Everything was so old.
“You should have warned me, Merv,” scolded the old lady. “I
must look a fright. I don’t get many visitors these days.”
Stopping at a mirror, she primped her hair.
Merv rolled his eyes to heaven. The old lady might not have
been expecting company, but she was dressed to kill, in black
leotard pants with gold embroidery on the sides, a baggy Indian
top with little mirrors sewn into it and little flat,
embroidered velvet slippers. She was in full make-up and her
impossibly gold hair had been recently set. Diamond and sapphire
rings flashed on her gnarled fingers. Kirra wondered what she’d
look like if she did herself up. No doubt about it, circus folk
were different.
“You look wonderful as usual, darlin’,” soothed Merv, and Enid
laughed.
“At least you haven’t changed,” she said. “Still full of
blarney.”
Telling them to make themselves at home, she cooed over the
cake then tottered into the kitchen to make tea. Kirra knew she
should help, but couldn’t drag herself away from the photos and
posters that covered almost every centimetre of wall space.
Photos of laughing girls and boys in leotards and spangles
lined up for the camera, lion tamers with their whips poised
over cringing lions, elephants with trunks curled around their
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keepers, girls dangling from trapezes smiling for dear life, a
man high up on the wire, clowns in baggy checked britches with
wigs and red noses, women in feathers perched on elephants
balanced on their hind legs, family groups dressed in flashy
outfits from the twenties and thirties. All the photos were
dedicated to Enid, with love.
One wall was taken up with circus posters. They advertised
Wirths Circus, Sole’s, St Leon’s, Perry’s, Silver’s and Ashtons
Circus and Zoo. One featured the dashing Con Colleano, the most
famous wire walker in the world, and there was even a Wirth’s
poster advertising THE MAN WHO HANGS HIMSELF. “Positively seen
at every performance,” it promised.
“Look at this, Merv. It says he’s the man with the iron neck.
It looks like bungy jumping.”
“That was Aloys Peters,” said Merv, “And it was a lot more
dangerous than bungy jumpin’, mate. He made a mistake one day
and ended up hangin’ ‘imself in front of six thousand people.”
Goose pimples popped up on Kirra’s arms. Noticing that she
looked a little green around the gills, Merv quickly pointed to
a Ringling Brothers poster. It sang the praises of May Wirth,
“World famous equestrienne. The greatest bare-back rider that
ever lived.”
The illustration of May With showed a chunky, muscular
teenager in a spangled get-up, tights and ballet slippers. “Who
was she?” asked Kirra. She was
frightened of horses and
impressed by anyone who’d go near them, let alone do tricks on
them.
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“Ask Enid,” said Merv. “She reckons May was the greatest
horse-rider ever. Not bad for a little girl from the bush.”
Enid called out and Merv went to the kitchen and carried in a
tea tray commemorating the Queen’s Coronation in 1952. There was
tea for the grown-ups and sticky orange cordial for Kirra. Sunk
in the depths of a huge olive green velvet couch with broad
arms, she worked her way through two pieces of cream cake while
Merv and Enid talked about who had died since they last saw each
other. Bored, Kirra went back to the photograph gallery.
A picture of a short, pretty girl, not much older than Kirra,
with glossy dark hair with ribbons, big brown eyes and very
strong legs caught her eye. Sure enough, it was signed May
Wirth. As soon as Merv drew breath, Kirra leapt into the
silence. “Mrs Craig, tell me about May Wirth. Please...”
“May was the greatest bare-backed rider who ever lived,”
announced the old lady. “We’ll never see another like her.”
“Merv said she came from the bush...”
“Yes, she was born in Queensland before the turn of the
century. I’m pretty sure her father was an acrobat, but I never
did know much about her mother. She died, I think. Or maybe she
ran away... Anyway, Marizles Martin...”
“She was one of the Wirths, you know, from Wirth Brothers
Circus,” said Merv.
“Stop interrupting,” scolded Enid. “Where was I? Oh, yes.
Marizles Worth adopted the little girl, so she became May
Wirth.”
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“And they put her in the circus?” asked Kirra?
“Yes, Marizles trained her. She always said she knew May was
going to be a star. Well, she was right. May started knocking
them dead with her riding tricks when she was a kid.”
Enid seemed to forget where she was for a moment, and sipped
distractedly at her tea. Realising the old lady was tiring, Merv
took up the story.
“Marizles carted her off to America, with her own daughter and
Frank White and Phil St Leon, when she was a teenager. She was
only there two years before Ringling’s Circus and Barnum and
Bailey hired her to tour the States with their travellin’
shows.”
“What was Barnum and Bailey, Merv?”
“Just the greatest circus in history, that’s all.”
“What did she do?”
Revived by the strong tea and a slice of cake, Enid Craig took
up the story. “She could jump from the floor onto the horse and
land on her feet or on the horse’s back. Never had a saddle.”
Kirra flinched. That would hurt.
“And she could face the back of the horse and turn a backward
somersault and land on the horse’s neck facin’ forward,”
interrupted Merv.
Kirra squinted her eyes, trying to imagine that.
“Don’t forget the flic-flac,” reminded Enid.
“Flic-flac?”
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“Seven somersaults off a horse in one circle of the ring.”
Merv was saying something, but Kirra was a world away, under
the Big Top, watching from the audience as a little girl turned
somersaults over a fleet of galloping white horses in the ring.
The crowd screamed. The clowns ran back and forth. Lions roared
in the background. The band played. She could almost smell it —
people, animals, hay, excitement.
Merv’s voice brought her back to earth: “She’s miles away as
usual.”
“Sorry.”
“Enid was saying May was just a little thing like you.”
“Really?”
“Four foot eleven,” said Enid.
Kirra was stumped. “What’s that in centimetres?”
“How the hell would we know,” snorted Merv. “You’re the
genius, work it out.”
Kirra subsided: she couldn’t remember how to do the sum. She
promised herself she’d find out if it killed her.
Merv and Enid went on to gossip about mutual friends, but
Kirra wasn’t listening. She was thinking about May Wirth. How
could anybody be that brave? What made her do it?
“We’d better be going,” said Merv suddenly. “We promised to
pick up Kirra’s boyfriend at 3.30. It’s almost that now.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” protested Kirra, but Merv and Enid
just laughed.
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Then there was lots of “Lovely to see you after all this
time”, and “You must drop around some time”, talk but Kirra
wondered if they would ever see the old lady again.
What will happen to all these wonderful photos when Enid dies?
she wondered, staring longingly at the rogues’ gallery.
“Would you like a souvenir?” asked Enid.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. I mean, they’re yours...” Kirra didn’t
protest very hard, though: she would have killed for a picture
of May Wirth.
The old lady was no fool. “Please, make an old lady happy.
Choose one.”
Kirra glanced at Merv, who nodded his head. “That one,” she
said. It was a photograph of little May Wirth high above two
galloping white horses in a backwards somersault, with the Big
Top in the background. The old lady took the framed photograph
down from the wall and wrapped it in some pink tissue paper she
found in a drawer, and handed it to the girl.
For Kirra, it was love at first sight. “Oh, Mrs Craig. Thank
you. I’ll look after it, I promise.”
That’s an understatement, thought Merv. She’ll prob’ly sleep
with it under her pillow.
“You know what May told me once, Kirra,” said Enid. “That she
wanted to be as good as the boys. Well, she was better. None of
them came close.”
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Kirra knew what Enid was telling her. May was adopted, she
didn’t have a mother of her own, she was small and she was a
girl. And none of it stopped her.
They picked up Billy at 3.40, dropping off the passionfruit
sponge to Opal, who said “You shouldn’t have”, but looked
pleased. She was wearing a brave face, but Kirra could tell she
didn’t want to let Billy go. Billy was trying to keep it light,
but Kirra noticed that he waved till they turned the corner, and
was very quiet for most of the trip.
Kirra made up for it. She couldn’t get enough information
about May Wirth.
“Why was she adopted, Merv?”
“I reckon her mother died. There was no way her father could
have looked after a baby in a circus.”
“What happened to him?”
“No idea, mate. Probably got married again.”
“Did May get married?”
“Yeah, married Frank White, the bloke who went to America with
her.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Turn it up, mate. She’d be 97. She died about 12 years ago, I
think.
Enid would know.”
The year I was born, thought Kirra. She mulled that over.
“Merv....”
“What now?”
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“What’s Enid’s story?”
“Enid was tops on the trapeze, worked in a team with her hubby
and his brother. But Laurie, her old man, started drinkin’ —
lost his nerve probably. Fell and broke his pelvis. That was the
end of high flyin’ for Laurie. Enid and Fred got another partner
and went on with the act, and Laurie worked around the circus
till he drank himself to death.”
“Did they have any kids?”
“Hardly. Enid needed to work to keep them all. No maternity
leave back then, and you can’t swing on a trapeze with a bun in
the oven.”
“She must be lonely.”
“The world’s full of lonely old ladies, mate, but at least
Enid’s got a wall full of happy memories.”
“If she was black like Opal, she wouldn’t even have that,”
said Billy bitterly. They’d thought he’d fallen asleep, but he
must have been stewing. “I’ll bet there was never a black
trapeze artist.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, son. Winnie Colleano was, and she
ended up in America performing at Barnum & Baileys when May
Wirth was there. Her brother, Con, was the world’s highest paid
tight wire walker. Made a fortune. The other brothers were
acrobats.”
“With a name like that? They sounds Italian.”
“Well, mate, they started out as the ordinary old Sullivans
from Narrabri. Their mother was an Aborigine and their father
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ran a boxing show. They changed their name so people would think
they were Spanish. Con used to wear a bull-fighter’s get-up on
stage. They called him the Toreador of the Tight Wire.”
Though Merv didn’t spell it out, Kirra realised the Sullivans
had had to pass themselves off as Spaniards because of prejudice
against blacks.
“Are you pulling my leg about them being Kooris?” asked
Billy.
“Everybody in the circus game knew,” said Merv. “It didn’t
matter, Con was a superstar.”
“Fair dinkum?”
“Fair dinkum,” replied Merv. “He could do a forward somersault
on the wire. Know what that means?”
They shook their heads, eyes wide.
“It means you can’t see the wire when you come out of the
tumble because your feet are in the way. If you miss, the wire
could cut your head off.” Merv made a throat-cutting gesture
with his hand.
“What happened to him?” asked Kirra, shuddering, picturing a
bloody man’s head rolling through the sawdust on the ground
under the Big Top.
“Got his own circus, made lots of money, ended up in the
Circus Hall of Fame.”
There was a silence while they all imagined Con and Winnie
Colleano’s lives, then Billy took out his mouth organ and began
to blow and soon they were all singing along.
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CHAPTER 9
That night Kirra had nightmares about being eaten by lions and
woke up in a sweat. As there was no chance of getting back to
sleep, she lay in bed replaying yesterday’s events in her head
like a video. As soon as it got light, she pulled out the
photograph of May Wirth and examined it. Merv had been right;
she’d slept with it under her pillow.
What an exciting life May had led. It boggled Kirra’s mind.
Where did May get the courage to jump onto those galloping
horses and turn somersaults in the air? Surely she must have
fallen off sometimes?
Kirra’s musings were interrupted by the sound of a car engine.
Curious, she pulled on jeans, and a sloppy Joe — it was a bit
chilly this early in the morning — and crept out of the caravan.
In the half light she saw an old black Fairlane suddenly douse
its headlights. Two men got out and lit cigarettes and stood
talking, looking around the camp. Who were they?
Catching sight of Kirra, one of the men called her over. Kirra
knew Ruby would kill her if she caught her talking to strangers,
but she was dying of curiosity. She drew closer, poised for
flight. They were very alike, brothers by the look of them; both
big and fat, but not soft looking, dark-complexioned with black
moustaches. They wore jeans and work shirts and elastic sided
boots, and heavy gold watches.
“We’re looking for Roxy Lee,” said the older one.
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“What for?” asked Kirra. Years in the carnival had taught her
that not all visitors were welcome. These two didn’t look like
police or tax inspectors or social workers or lawyers serving
summonses on fathers who hadn’t paid their child support, but
that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. They could be faces
from a past Roxy wanted to forget.
“We’re her cousins,” said the other man, sensing her distrust.
“I didn’t know she had any relatives,” said Kirra, taken by
surprise.
The men exchanged glances. “It’s important,” said the older
man. “Roxy’s grandmother’s died. We have to tell her.”
That convinced Kirra. “She’s in that caravan”, she said,
pointing. The men knocked on Roxy’s door, the lights went on,
the door opened, words were exchanged, then they disappeared
inside. Kirra waited as long as she could, but the camp was
stirring and Ruby would be looking for her soon. Reluctantly,
she returned home.
Ruby and Jack were up eating toast. “Where have you been?”
demanded Ruby.
“Out. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Nightmares.”
“Not again! What about this time?”
“Man-eating lions.” It sounded pretty silly in the daylight.
“Honestly,” said Ruby. “If I get my hands on that Merv...”
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To divert her mother’s attention, Kirra announced: “Roxy’s
grandmother’s died.”
“How do you know that?” asked Ruby.
“I was talking to her cousins.” Kirra expected an explosion,
but her parents were too intrigued to scold.
“I didn’t know she had any family,” said Jack.
“Well, you know what she’s like,” said Ruby. “Keeps herself to
herself. Always has. I’ve never seen her have a visitor in four
years. What were these cousins like?”
“Big, dark, tough-looking dudes.”
“Haven’t I told you not to talk to strange men?” said her
mother, remembering her job.
“Leave off, Rube,” said Jack. “It’s too early in the mornin’.”
“Do you reckon she’ll go to the funeral?” asked Kirra, pleased
to be off the hook.
“I’d be surprised if she didn’t,” said Ruby. “It’s one thing
to ignore your grandmother while she’s alive, but blood’s
thicker than water. And you can’t fight with the dead.”
“Oh, I dunno,” said Jack. “What about your mother?”
“Shut up, Jack!” snapped Ruby, and that was the end of the
conversation.
Kirra bolted her breakfast, hoping to see more of the
mysterious cousins, but she was too late. Roxy was gone, and her
caravan was locked up tight with curtains drawn. She’d have to
join up with Deans’ at their next stop. Kirra could hardly wait.
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Now she’d seen the cousins, she was determined to winkle some
information out of Roxy about her family.
That afternoon, as Deans’ got ready to pull up stakes and
leave, Kirra wandered off into the park nearby and sat on the
swings, singing On Top of Old Smoky
tunelessly and daydreaming.
So much had been happening lately, she needed some time alone to
think about it. Mostly, though, she thought about Billy and his
Auntie Opal. What was Billy’s story? Where were his parents? Why
had he run away? She was dying to know, but she’d never dare
come out and ask. Although Billy seemed open and friendly,
something told you not to mess with him or ask too many
questions. It was as if Billy had drawn a circle of silence
around himself. The carny folk respected that: they had secrets,
too.
Kirra was so far away in her own world that she didn’t hear
the battered old yellow station wagon stop on the road near the
swings. So when a car horn shattered the silence and someone
called her name, she jumped and almost toppled off the swing.
Looking up, she saw that it was Rick Slattery with a woman
beside him in the front seat.
She didn’t like Rick, didn’t trust him for some reason, but it
would be rude to ignore him, after all, he was a friend of the
family. And he wasn’t likely harm her with this woman watching.
Reluctantly, she approached.
“This is my wife, Chris,” said Rick. “Chris, this is Kirra,
Jack and Ruby’s kid.”
Kirra mumbled hello.
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“Do you remember me?” asked Chris. “I used to play with you
when you were a little girl. You loved the swings even then.
Used to throw a fit when I tried to get you off them.”
Kirra took a quick look at Chris, who was a stringy blonde
with dyed hair and a bad skin. She shook her head. “No. I mean,
no, I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t,” said Chris. “You were just a little
thing. Only three. You’ve certainly grown since then. And
changed a lot, too. I wouldn’t have recognised you in a million
years. You’d hardly think you were the same person.”
Why did grown ups always tell you you’d grown? thought Kirra
irritably. What did they expect you to do, shrink? Not knowing
how to answer, she stared at the ground and scuffed at the grass
with her sandal.
“Well, tell your mum and dad we’ll catch up with them, will
you sweetheart?” said Chris. “Bye now.”
Sweetheart, yuk! thought Kirra, watching with relief as they
drove off in the direction of the campsite. Those two gave her
the creeps. The more she thought about the conversation, the
less she liked it. There was something sinister about Chris. She
decided to ask Ruby about her.
Kirra arrived home to find her mother packing up the tent.
Ruby was in a very strange mood, upset and angry, but holding it
in. Eventually Kirra couldn’t stand the tension any longer:
“What’s wrong, Mum?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Why should anything be wrong?”
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Defeated, Kirra changed the subject. “Where’s Dad?”
“Gone into town.”
“What for?”
“Business.”
“What sort of business.”
“None of your business, miss. That’s what sort of business.”
Kirra wondered what the big mystery was. “Did he go with that
Rick?”
Her mother stopped packing stuffed toys and looked hard at
Kirra. “Have you been talking to the Slatterys? To Chris?”
Something about her mother’s manner frightened Kirra. “No, I
mean, Rick saw me on the swings and called me over.”
“So you talked to Chris?”
“She talked to me.”
“What did she say?”
“That I’d grown.”
“That’s all?”
Kirra racked her brains: “And that I’d changed. That she
wouldn’t have known me.”
When Ruby didn’t respond, Kirra asked: “Did she really play
with me when I was little? I don’t remember a thing about it.”
“You were too little.”
“Three. That’s not all that small.”
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“What do you remember from then?” asked Ruby.
She said it
casually, but Kirra somehow understood that her answer was
important.
She thought hard. “Nothing. I don’t remember anything at all
before I was about four. I remember that birthday party you gave
me. It was lovely, Mum.”
It had been a wonderful party, somewhere at the seaside. There
had been rides on a Shetland pony for the kids, a clown,
balloons and a big cake. But something snagged at her memory. It
had ended badly. For some reason she’d been upset, had cried and
had to be taken home. Remembering it now, she felt anxious and a
little sick. What had happened? Whatever it was, she didn’t dare
ask Ruby in her present mood.
Not realising the memories she’d triggered, Ruby went on
working. She seemed a little calmer now. But some alarm bell had
begun to ring in Kirra’s mind. The whole day had been a
disaster. First that scary encounter with the Slatterys, then
Ruby’s strange questions, and now the sense of an important
memory just out of reach, like a word on the tip of her tongue.
The evening was as unsettling as the day. When Jack arrived
home, Ruby rushed out to the truck to talk to him, leaving Kirra
to watch from the doorway. For the first time in her life, Kirra
felt shut out by her parents. It was a bad feeling. There was
definitely something amiss.
Dinner was subdued, with the only sound the scraping of
plates, until Kirra set Ruby off again. All she did was ask Ruby
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where her mother’s gold bangle was; she’d noticed it was missing
when Ruby cleared the table.
“I’ve put it away,” said Ruby.
That was strange. Ruby never took that bangle off; she said it
was the only family heirloom she owned. “Will it be safe?” asked
Kirra.
Ruby flew off the handle. “For God’s sake, stop nagging!”
Kirra fought back. “But if you leave it in the caravan someone
might pinch it, Mum.”
“It isn’t in the caravan, OK!” interrupted Jack. “Just leave
it alone, Kirra.”
To Kirra, it seemed as if everybody in the world had turned
against her. Blinded by tears, she jumped up, dashed out of the
caravan and into the night, and ran for dear life. She had no
idea where she was going, just knew she had to get away from
Ruby and Jack, who were acting like strangers. Like enemies.
Kirra had left the campsite far behind by the time she ran out
of steam. She had no idea where she was. Looking around, she
discovered she was on a dirt road. It wound up a little hill,
where overhanging trees forming a sort of tunnel. At the end of
the tunnel hung a huge moon. Except for the sound of a creek
somewhere nearby, it was quiet. Too quiet. Bunyips popped into
Kirra’s head: she remembered a poem she’d read about a tramp who
foolishly camped beside a billabong and was taken by a bunyip.
It ended with his kettle screaming. Goose pimples sprang up on
her arms.
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Suddenly an owl hooted and Kirra turned tail and ran. She was
beginning to feel really frightened now. It was dangerous for a
girl to be out on the road alone at night: what if a car full of
drunks happened along?
It was then that she heard the sound of a motorbike
approaching, moving fast. Before she could run for cover, it was
upon her, then past. It stopped, and the rider waited. Kirra’s
worst nightmare had come true. Then a voice said: “Want a ride?”
It was Billy, riding one of the rouseabout’s trail bikes. He
pretended not to notice the tears running down her dirty face.
Knees weak with relief, Kirra climbed on the back of the bike
and buried her wet face in his warm back and they rode home in
silence. As she was climbing down from the pillion seat, her
legs gave way. Billy reached out and held her up by the arm. And
didn’t ask a single question.
Trembling, Kirra tried to creep into the caravan, but stumbled
in the darkness. She knew Ruby and Jack must have heard her, but
they didn’t asked her where she had been or yell at her for
being irresponsible. That frightened her more than everything
else.
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CHAPTER 10
Though Kirra thought she would fall asleep the minute her head
hit the pillow, sleep was slow in coming. When she finally
drifted into a restless slumber, the troubling dream about the
seaside returned. In the dream she kept trying to warn the
little family that something terrible was about to happen, but
she had no voice. It was exhausting, like struggling through
quicksand.
Next morning found her groggy and crabby and her parents
grim-faced and silent. They seemed relieved when she asked if
she could ride with Merv to Kiama, where Deans’ was booked for
the annual jazz festival.
Merv was pleased. With Kirra on board he could refuse to
carry one of the gang of three — Rocky, Dave and Johnno —
who
smoked and talked non-stop and threw soft drink cans onto the
road. “Did you hear about Roxy’s grandmother?” he asked as the
Deans’ convoy pulled out into the highway.
“Yes, I was the one that met the cousins.”
Merv wanted to know all about these cousins. Kirra described
them. “Sound like Gypsies to me,” remarked Merv. “Always had me
suspicions about that Roxy, but Gypsies don’t usually leave
their people. She must have been fightin’ with her family. Where
do you reckon she’s gone?”
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“I don’t know for sure, but she told me once there was a gang
of them living in Wollongong. Maybe she went there. If she did,
she could catch up with us on our way north.”
Merv thought it highly unlikely that Roxy would ever come
back, but noticing how quiet and pale his little mate was today,
he kept his suspicions under his hat. He wondered what was
wrong, but knew she would spit it out eventually...
Perched on a cushion high up in the truck with Zac beside her
with his nose out the window sniffing the breeze, Kirra didn’t
notice the scenery sliding past. She was thinking too hard.
After a long silence, she suddenly said: “Merv, do you remember
anything from when you were really small?”
“Some things,” said Merv. “Too much prob’ly.”
“What do you mean?”
“Me mother run off and Dad handed me over to me grandmother.
I remember the night he dumped me at Nanna’s. About three, I
was, and scared outa me wits. I knew somethin’ was up.”
Kirra was horrified. “Why did he do that?”
“He was a drunk and couldn’t keep a job or get another woman,
so he got rid of me and took off. Never seen him again. Never
wanted to, neither.”
“What was your grandmother like?”
“Too old and tired. Kept me till I was seven then sold me
into the circus.”
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“Sold you! Is that true?” asked Kirra, horrified. This was
like something out of those terrible fairytales where girls’
feet were cut off and boys got splinters of ice in their hearts.
“True as me heart, darlin’.”
“Which circus?”
“St Leon’s.”
“Was it awful? Were you scared?”
“Yeah, I was scared outa me wits at the start, but it didn’t
turn out too bad in the long run. Some people was kind, some
wasn’t. But nobody thrashed me or starved me or anythin’ like
that... I reckon the worst thing about it was that I never got a
chance to be a kid. I had to pull me weight. ”
“What did you do?”
“Got apprenticed to an acrobat for a while. Then I did some
vaudeville — I was about twelve, then, if me memory serves me —
and later on I tried me hand at lion tamin’.”
“And that’s where you saw the lion eat the man?”
Merv laughed. “That’s right. Buried him in a biscuit tin they
did... or did I tell you that already?”
Kirra ignored this. “And that’s where you met Iris, wasn’t
it?”
“Yeah, little Iris. Iris the contortionist. Tied me up in
knots. About sixteen, she was, turned up with one dress in a
cardboard suitcase with a bit of string tied around it.”
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Merv had married Iris, who had died about ten years ago.
Their kids were long gone, the son living in Sydney, the
daughter married into an American circus family. Ordinarily
Kirra would have squeezed more circus stories out of Merv, but
today she had other things on her mind.
“Do you remember your mother at all, Merv?”
“It’s all pretty vague, but I think I remember her brushin’
her hair. She had this long dark hair... But maybe me gran just
told me about it. It’s all a long time ago, mate. Then she
wasn’t there any more. I do remember bein’ hungry and cold and
dirty and me dad thrashin’ me. Couldn’t stand me cryin’. I was
glad to see the back of him...”
Feeling as if she were blurting out some terrible secret,
Kirra said: “Merv, I can’t remember anything at all before I was
four. That’s not normal, is it?”
“How would I know what’s normal, mate?”
“Who’d know?”
“Normal people prob’ly exist, but your chance of findin’ one
around Deans’ is pretty slim.”
Kirra digested this: it was true that circuses and carnivals
attracted some strange people. Which reminded her: “Did you see
those friends of Jack and Ruby’s around the camp, Merv?”
“Yeah, the creep with the tats with the ferret-faced blonde.”
“They frightened me.”
They didn’t frighten Merv. He’d known thousands of their
kind. “Why’s that, mate?”
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“I don’t know exactly. Just a feeling. They were acting like
they had some big secret.” She paused, worried about
broadcasting family business: “And I think Jack pawned Ruby’s
gold bangle and gave them the money.”
Merv turned to look at her. “Are you sure you didn’t dream
all this up?”
“That’s the trouble, maybe I did. Ruby says my imagination
works overtime. I had a terrible day, yesterday, and I’ve been
having nightmares.
First it was lions eating me then I had that
one about the family again.”
Feeling a bit guilty for not noticing his little friend had
been in the wars, Merv asked: “Which family would that be,
darlin’?”
“I dream I’m at the seaside with this family, or maybe I’m
one of their kids, and I know something awful is going to happen
to them.”
“Like what?”
“That’s the problem, I don’t know. I always wake up before it
happens.”
“Are they people you know?”
“I saw them in a storybook, back in Peppercorn. They’re all
blonde and sort of perfect.”
“Like you.”
“What do you mean, like me?”
“Maybe they’re the family you think you should have, mate.”
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“Instead of Ruby and Jack? Why would I think that?”
“Most kids think they’ve landed in the wrong family at some
time or other. Specially when they’re not gettin’ along with
their folks. It’s prob’ly just a stage.”
Kirra mulled that over. “I used to think I was adopted,” she
admitted.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I don’t look anything like Jack and Ruby, and
because they don’t seem to know what I’m talking about half the
time.”
“That doesn’t mean much,” Merv said. “You prob’ly look like
some long lost ancestor.”
“Maybe that’s it,” said Kirra, reassured. “If we had some
family photos, I could check up, but Ruby says they were all
lost in a fire. And I’ve never even seen any of Jack or Ruby’s
family in person.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. They get all funny if I ask.”
The road into Kiama wound between picturesque farms on one
side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Lulled by the sparkling
day and the motion of the truck, Kirra began to feel better. By
this time Zac was fast asleep, his head on Kirra’s knees,
jerking in some doggie dream and uttering little whimpers every
now and then. Merv was quiet, remembering the good old days when
he and Iris were young and in love and game for anything. But
life could be a lot worse: he could be stuck in some old
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people’s home boring the other oldies to death with his
scrapbook and whingeing about the food.
It wasn’t a real circus, and it wasn’t glamorous, but he’d
stick with Deans’ as long as they wanted him. He worried about
the little girl, though. If anything happened to Ruby and Jack,
she’d be all alone.
Kiama was a pretty little seaside town full of retired folk with
plenty of money. It came to life in the holiday season and
during the jazz festival, when musos and their fans flocked in,
determined to have a good time. Before they branched off to the
campsite, Kirra managed to nag Merv into detouring to the
blowhole. While Merv held onto a leaping, protesting Zac (no
dogs allowed on the beach), Kirra climbed up the rock and gazed
down into the dangerous, swirling waters. It would be easy to
slip, to be sucked under, to drown. Feeling dizzy, suddenly, she
picked her way back down.
To keep out of Ruby and Jack’s way, Kirra had dinner with
Merv — fish and chips in front of his old black and white
television. Bored, they munched their way through the usual bad
news and the latest gossip about the royal family, but when a
local news item flashed on, they sat up and listened.
The Queen of the Gypsies had died, the announcer said, and
Gypsies from all over the country were pouring in for the
funeral. Television camera crews had tried to get in to the
caravan where the old woman was laid out, but a gang of Gypsy
men held them off at the gates to the caravan park in Warilla,
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in Wollongong. In the scuffle one of the cameramen was punched,
and the reporter became very indignant.
“Serves ‘em right,” said Merv. “Bargin’ in on people’s
private affairs. Vultures, they are.”
In the middle of this mayhem, a black Fairlane pulled in and
nosed its way through the crowd. One of the cameras got a closeup.
“That’s Roxy!” Kirra squawked, dropping a piece of battered
cod, which was immediately snapped up by Zac. And it was Roxy,
crouched in the back seat of the car, trying to hide her face.
Kirra jumped up and peered at the screen to get a better
look: “What’s she doing there?”
The reporter soon told them. Roxy Lee was the Gypsy Queen’s
grand-daughter and heir.
“Gawd, she’s the new Queen of the Gypsies!” said Merv.
Kirra was stunned into silence, her appetite gone. Half-way
through the financial news she said: “We won’t see her again,
will we, Merv? She won’t come back to Deans’ now.”
“Don’t reckon so, mate. She’s got a new job now.”
It was all too much. Kirra broke down and wept. “I’m going to
miss her, Merv. She was my friend.”
She’d never be able to loll on Roxy’s couch again reading her
magazines, fiddling with the snow domes and gossiping. She’d
never hear Roxy’s flute again, and there would be no-one to read
her fortune in the cards... A chill ran down Kirra’s spine.
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That’s why Roxy had refused to tell her what the cards had said:
she’d seen all this coming.
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CHAPTER 11
Kiama was jumping, full of musicians and fans from all over the
country. A huge banner across the railway bridge advertised the
main attractions, and there were posters in all the shops. Fun
was in the air.
Ruby and Jack refused to have anything to do with jazz. They
reckoned it was for dorks who drove Volvos. Billy said that was
because they were old rockers who’d got stuck back in the days
of the Rolling Stones. Kirra wanted desperately to join in the
fun, but was afraid to ask. Billy solved the problem by
approached Jack man-to-man, with Kirra looking on
apprehensively. It worked! Jack said they could go, as long as
she stuck close by Billy and got back in time to work the
carnival.
Kirra had got over most of her shyness around Billy. He was so
easy to be with. What other boy would have rescued her and let
her snivel all over his shirt without thinking she was a
complete drip?
They couldn’t afford any of the shows held inside the clubs
and restaurants, but there were plenty of freebies in the open
air. The biggest surprise of the day was a skiffle band. Kirra
had seen a ukulele, but she’d had never seen anyone playing an
old wash board before, or that strange sort of box thing with
strings being plucked by a grinning man with buck teeth and an
old felt hat.
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At a lunch-time concert they downed hot dogs, ice creams and
fizzy drinks while Kerrie Bidell belted out some tunes with
Graeme Bell and his Allstars. And when Kirra could drag Billy
away from the blues singers, with their soulful songs about love
gone wrong, they jigged about to a trad jazz band with a mean
trumpet.
Finally, half-dead with heat exhaustion, they threw themselves
into the sea and dried off in the breeze in the shade of a palm
tree. This was the chance Kirra had been waiting for.
“Billy, um, about your Auntie Opal. I know I was staring, but
I just didn’t know...”
“That I’m a Koori?”
Kirra nodded, holding her breath. Billy might talk or he might
clam up. Relieved finally to have someone to talk to, someone he
knew would keep his secrets, boy opened up. “She’s the only one
who ever gave a damn about me. My mother had me when she was
fifteen and couldn’t cope. Gave me to Opal to look after. That
was in Moree, where we used to live. Then she got married to a
gubba..”
Kirra looked blank and Billy explained. “A white bloke. My mum
was a Koori. I reckon my father was white, too — she never told
me, and I never met him. They’d get on the piss and the gubba
would bash me up or lock me out of the house. The usual.”
“So you ran away?”
“Not until they were killed in a head-on.”
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Kirra gasped. She’d always known Billy was sad, but she hadn’t
imagined anything this bad.
Billy went on with his story. “At the funeral I told Opal I
couldn’t hack that place any more, and she said she was leaving
too. Too many bad memories out there.”
“Will you ever go back?”
“What for? There’s nothing there any more. My cousins couldn’t
stand my step-father, so I never did see much of them. All I’ve
got is Auntie Opal.”
If this was a movie, Billy would have ended up in jail,
thought Kirra. But he was just an ordinary teenager. No, that
wasn’t true; that was just what he wanted people to think. There
was a lot going on inside Billy that he kept to himself.
Hot, tired and queasy, they dragged back in the evenings to
work at Deans’. The crowds were good and the takings high, and
that made the grown-ups happy. Afterwards, exhausted by the long
day, Kirra dropped like a stone into a dreamless sleep.
It was on their second morning in Kiama that she noticed that
Roxy’s caravan was gone. She hot-footed it home and told her
mother.
“A couple of men came and drove it away this morning,” said
Ruby.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You were dead to the world,” said Ruby.
“And there was no
point: Roxy wasn’t with them. Anyway, she’s got too much on her
plate these days to be worrying about the likes of you, Kirra.”
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Ruby walked away: the subject was closed. Sometimes Kirra
suspected Ruby was a little jealous of her interest in Roxy.
Dejected, she left the caravan to find Billy. Lost in thought,
she didn’t hear Merv yelling at her until Zac, barking bossily,
rounded her up like a sheep. She went over, Zac trotting behind
her proudly, job done.
“Good boy,” praised Merv, and Zac dropped to the ground
grinning, tongue lolling.
“You’ve got a face like a wet day in Melbourne,” the old man
commented.
“Mum didn’t wake me when they took Roxy’s caravan away. I
wanted to ask those Gypsy blokes how she was getting on.”
“Maybe this’ll help,” said Merv handing her an envelope.
It was a letter from Roxy. Excited and a little nervous (you
don’t get a letter from a Queen every day), Kirra fumbled the
letter out of its envelope, sat down on the step beside Merv and
began to read, stumbling over some of the words.
Dear Kirra,
By now you will have heard that my grandmother has
died and I’ve been made Queen of the Gypsies. I’m
sorry I couldn’t tell you this in person, but it
all happened too fast. You probably think it’s
strange that I never talked about my family, but
it’s complicated, believe me. There’s been a big
family feud...
“What’s a feud, Merv?”
“Fight,” said Merv, intrigued.
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...there’s been a big family feud going on for years. I
got so sick of the arguments and the back-biting that I
took off. I thought they didn’t know where I was, but
it looks like I was wrong. It didn’t take them long to
track me down when they wanted to.
I’m pretty nervous about all this. My grandmother was a
famous clairvoyant...
“Clairvoyant?” asked Kirra.
“People who can see into the future,” Merv supplied.
...a famous clairvoyant, and that will be a hard act to
follow. I think people expect me to be wise and solve
problems for them. That’s pretty funny. I’ve never been
able to solve my own. Anyway, enough about me.
We probably won’t meet again, Kirra — the Lees don’t
like their people mixing with outsiders. I just wanted
to let you know I’ll never forget the fun we had
together.
Give my love to Ruby and Jack and Merv and Zac (that
rhymes!).
All my love,
Roxanne.
PS:
Remember that tarot hand I wouldn’t explain? It
told me I was leaving, which you’ve probably guessed. I
didn’t want to tell you then, because I thought I’d be
around for a while to keep an eye on you. But now I
want to warn you that there are some bad times coming.
You’ll have to be strong, and you must be especially
kind to your mother. You won’t be alone, though.
There’s a young man in your cards who won’t forget you,
and a fair woman who’s always been there, waiting to
protect you.
And I’ll always be thinking of you. R.
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Kirra felt as if she’d fallen over and winded herself. “What
do you think?” she asked.
“Depends whether you believe in all that stuff — fortune
telling, cards... clairvoyants. Do you really think anyone can
see into the future, sport?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m scared, Merv.”
“No point in bein’ scared, mate. Livin’ in the future just
mucks up the present. Take every day as it comes, that’s my
motto.”
While Kirra was digesting this piece of wisdom, Billy turned
up. “Coming to hear some music?” he asked.
Kirra stowed the letter carefully in her pocket and jumped up,
glad of the distraction.
“I wouldn’t show that letter to your mother,” advised Merv, as
they moved off (as if Kirra would!).
Zac tried to follow them, but Merv restrained him, knowing
he’d try to sing along with the bands and drive everyone mad.
The dog howled in disappointment. “See what I mean?” Merv said
to the dog.
“What letter is that?” asked Billy, when they could hear
themselves speak.
“From Roxy.”
“That’s pretty big time, getting personal letters from the
Queen of the Gypsies,” teased Billy, and wondered why Kirra
didn’t laugh.
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Kirra didn’t offer to show him the letter, and Billy didn’t
ask, but he noticed that she seemed subdued all day. Sure, she
clapped in time to the skiffle band, danced to the trad jazz
combo, and sang along with the rest of the crowd, but her heart
just wasn’t in it.
“Are you worried about something?” he asked as they raced
home.
“Not really,” Kirra said, but she wasn’t telling the truth.
The letter from Roxy had started her thinking about that
frightening tarot hand. She’d seen too many of Roxy’s
predictions come true over the years to scoff at her powers.
Something terrible was going to happen, she was sure of that.
Was the carnival going to go bust or was it something worse?
Why had Roxy asked Kirra to be specially kind to Ruby? Was some
harm going to befall her mother? Or was Jack the one in danger?
She couldn’t get that Emperor crossed by 3 Swords out of her
mind. The death card.
There was only one consolation: the young man in the cards who
wouldn’t forget her. Jogging along beside Billy, Kirra sneaked a
look at Billy, and wondered if Roxy meant him. But who was the
kind, fair woman who was watching over her?
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CHAPTER 12
Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, Kirra was
particularly nice to Ruby after receiving Roxy’s letter. Ruby
was glad to have her daughter back, and mother and daughter
stole a couple of hours off and to look in the shops in Kiama
and have afternoon tea in a cafe. The cafe was done up like an
old English restaurant, only it had all chock-a-block full of
funny Australian vases and knick-knacks. Entranced, Kirra
examined a china branch holding red parrots, wall vases with
wildflowers on them, metal ashtrays shaped like Australia and a
couple of boomerangs.
As they were polishing off a plate of assorted sandwiches,
cupcakes and a strawberry milkshake for Kirra, Ruby said: “Back
to the books next week.”
Kirra groaned. The only subjects she liked were English and
geography. The best part of English was the stories, though some
of the poems gave her a good feeling, and geography was very
practical for someone who spent her life traversing the
countryside.
As they left the cafe, Kirra said: “Mum, are we really poor,
now?”
Ruby stopped and gave her a strange look. “What makes you
think that?”
“Well... It’s just that you usually buy me something when we
go shopping.” It was true; Ruby liked to give her daughter
little presents, a cheap ring with a red stone, silver ear studs
in the shape of leaves, a hair clip.
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“For goodness sake!” snapped Ruby. “Don’t you ever stop?”
Upset, Kirra subsided. As they climbed into the ute they used
tow the caravan, Ruby said: “Everybody is hard up, you know
that. It’s the economy.”
“Is everybody pawning their jewellery?” asked Kirra.
Ruby turned on her angrily. “How did you know that?”
“I guessed.”
Ruby started the engine, released the brake, put on the
indicators, stared into the rear vision mirror and said
casually: “What else have you guessed, Miss Nosy Parker?”
“You’re my mother and if you have to sell your bangle, it’s my
business, too,” Kirra protested. “I’m not a baby any more.”
There was a grim silence until they pulled into the campsite.
“I think you gave the money to that creep, Rick,” said Kirra.
“And that rat-faced tart, Chris.”
“That’s enough, Kirra!” warned Ruby, but she was past
listening. All the anxieties and tensions of the last few days
exploded.
“You’re not going to tell me they’re friends of yours, are you
Mum. You couldn’t stand them. A half-wit could see that. What is
it? Do they know something about Dad from years ago? What did he
do?”
About to fly off the handle, Ruby had second thoughts. Putting
her arms around her daughter, she said: “Look, they did threaten
your father, and we did give them some money, but it’s all over
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now. They’re using the money to go to Queensland to live. Things
will get back to normal now.”
Then there were tears all round and mother and daughter
walked back to the caravan arm in arm. Jack, who was sitting
outside tinkering with the engine of the truck, looked up and
smiled.
“How’s the truck?” asked Ruby.
“She’ll be right, Rube,” said Jack, and Ruby shot her daughter
a look that said: “Men!”
“It worries me, Jack,” she said. One of these days you’ll be
driving along the road and it’ll just fall apart and we’ll find
you sitting on the road.”
Jack laughed, but it wasn’t really funny. There was no way
they could afford a new truck, and without it, they wouldn’t be
able to stay with the carnival.
Kirra was so pleased to on good terms with her parents again
that it was several hours before she realised Ruby hadn’t told
her what it was that Rick and Chris Slattery had on her father.
She’d probably never find out now.
That night she lay awake in bed worrying. How could Ruby be
sure the blackmailers had really gone? If the Slatterys didn’t
go to Queensland and things got rough, they could go on soaking
the Kincaids forever. Where on earth would they get the money to
pay?
Finally she slept. As she lay, dreaming of circus elephants
and galloping horses and Billy’s Auntie Opal and Chris, who had
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turned into a witch, it began to rain. It pelted down; it rushed
across the camping ground in sheets as if thrown from a bucket;
it formed puddles then rivulets then raging torrents. Drains
overflowed, the ground turned to mud. Thunder crashed and
lightning lit up the camping grounds.
It was snug inside the caravans, but the people camped out in
tents were frantic. Rain pooled on top of the tents and
threatened to bring them down. Damp and dejected, the campers
sat on their bunks in the glow of kerosene lamps, the muddy
water swirling around their feet.
Fearing a complete wash-out, the manager came and asked the
carnies to help. Everybody fit enough to wield a shovel turned
out — the men in swimsuits — to dig trenches to divert the
rushing water away from the camping ground. Kirra helped until
Jack told her she was just getting in the way.
A little hurt, she retired to the caravan and helped Ruby make
tea, coffee and sandwiches for the labourers. The camping ground
was saved, but when the holiday makers awoke next morning to
find it still raining, most of them called it quits. Kirra
watched as they dismantled tents and folded them up wet, stowed
gear on roof racks and tried to secure it with tarps and rope
against the strong winds, and set off home. Still it rained.
According to the radio, severe storms had hit the entire south
coast. Houses had lost their roofs and trees were down
everywhere. Rivers were flooding their banks.
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“Do you think we should go?” Ruby asked Jack. Deans’ next stop
was Campbelltown, where they were to have a lay-off while they
waited for work in and around Sydney.
“Can’t stay here, mate, it’s too miserable. And too dear.
Reece has conned us a special rate at this caravan park that’s
going broke.”
Ruby sniffed. “Probably next door to an abattoir or a tannery,
knowing Bob Reece. It’s the truck I’m worried about. What’ll
happen if it gets water in the engine? I don’t want you to be
stuck beside the road in this waiting for help.”
“She’ll be right, Rube,” Jack reassured her. “Stick close
behind me in the ute.”
“Can I go with Merv?” asked Kirra.
“What about your mother?”
“I’ll get Renie Simmons to ride with me,” said Ruby. “She’ll
be pleased to get away from that daughter-in-law of hers.”
Jack wasn’t convinced.
“Jack, don’t let’s fight about something as dopey as this.
Just humour me, will you?” said Ruby.
A look passed between them, and Jack put his arms around his
wife and they hugged. “Just this time. Don’t go getting any big
ideas, that’s all.”
“What, me? C’mon, pet.”
Kirra kissed her father and mother and went off to Merv’s
truck. Merv was happy to see her. In weather like this he was
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glad to have someone to wipe the condensation off the inside of
the windscreen, and to stick her head out the window and help
him navigate. Ruby told Merv to follow Jack’s truck, that she’d
move up behind them: she wouldn’t be able to relax if she
couldn’t see Kirra.
They set off in convoy. Kirra looked around anxiously to see
what Billy was doing, and he pulled a face and waved from a
station wagon carrying the dreaded Rocky, Dave and Johnno.
Merv made jokes as they crawled along the highway, but Kirra
couldn’t stop worrying. The roads were dangerously slippery,
especially for vehicles with bald tyres, and Jack’s truck
probably wasn’t roadworthy, despite what he’d said. But it
wasn’t Jack’s truck that stalled, it was Merv’s. The old man
swore and got out in his raincoat and bush hat to peer under the
bonnet.
“Merv, Dad’s getting too far ahead,” warned Kirra. She jumped
down from the cabin and stood on the side of the road, watching
the truck disappear into the storm. “I don’t think he’s realised
we’ve stopped.”
“Prob’ly can’t see out the back,” said Merv. By the time he’d
restarted the engine, Jack was out of sight.
“Can we go a bit faster, Merv?” urged Kirra.
“Too dangerous, love. Visibility’s nil.”
So it happened that they caught up with Jack just in time to
see him attempting to cross a small lake where the river had
broken its banks. He didn’t make it. The force of the rushing
water washed the truck into the river.
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Kirra screamed and Merv stood on the brakes. Then they jumped
out and ran to the edge of the lake. Nobody was game to go in
the water, which swirled and raced with terrifying force. Zac
bounded around at the water’s edge barking shrilly. Ruby pulled
up behind them, raced up and screamed “Jack! Jack!” and sobbed
as the truck disappeared from view. It seemed to take forever,
as if it was happening in slow motion.
“He’ll get out, Mum,” said Kirra, grabbing her mother’s hand.
She couldn’t believe this was really happening. Hardly
breathing, they watched for Jack’s head to appear above the
brown water. After five minutes the suspense turned to fear;
after ten anguish; and after fifteen, despair. Even if the truck
windows had been closed, all Jack’s air would be used up by now.
Kirra was vaguely aware of Merv leading her back to the truck,
of family friends comforting them, of someone giving her brandy
out of a flask — which made her cough —
and then some coffee.
Then the police and an ambulance arrived, sirens wailing.
“What do we need an ambulance for?” asked Ruby. “He’s gone.”
Accustomed to grief and shock, the ambulance men were
unflappable and kind. They gave Ruby a pill to calm her down and
helped her into Merv’s truck. One of the carnies offered to take
charge of the ute. Kirra overheard the police woman say to her
partner: “The little one’s too quiet. It’ll catch up with her
later.” After a whispered conference with Merv, the officer
handed over some pills to the old man. Just in case.
From somewhere at the back of the convoy Billy turned up and
put his arm around Kirra, who hardly recognised him. The police
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questioned Ruby, who’d stopped weeping and had become horribly
quiet, and, after they’d interviewed all the witnesses, told
everybody they’d have to turn back. This information was
signalled to the folks who’d made it across the river and were
now clumped on the other side anxious for news. With nothing
more to be done, they reluctantly continued on their journey.
Billy started back towards his vehicle, but Kirra said “No!”
and clung to him fiercely. To make more room in the truck, Merv
hoisted the complaining Zac onto the back under a corner of the
tarp and they set off in silence for Kiama. It was a tight fit,
but nobody complained.
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CHAPTER 13
The drive back to Kiama through the storm was an ordeal for
Merv. It seemed to go on forever. Wrapped in misery, Kirra and
Ruby scarcely noticed. They were surprised when the convoy
pulled into the campsite.
The sky was the colour of a bruise, and there was no let-up in
the storm. The camping ground was cold and muddy, one huge bog.
When the carnies made camp again, the women cut sandwiches and
brewed cups of tea on gas burners while the men, in raincoats
and bare feet, busily dug trenches around the tents. Forlorn
children huddled on bunks trying to keep their feet out of the
swirling water
Afterwards, Kirra could recall only bits and pieces of that
day. Time moved very slowly, and people seemed to be holding
their breaths, waiting. Waiting for someone to find the truck,
to find poor, drowned Jack. Safe and dry at last in their
caravan, Ruby and Kirra huddled in the kitchen, praying that it
would all turn out to be a mistake, that Jack would suddenly
walk in the door. Ruby chain smoked and drank endless cups of
tea, silent tears pouring down her face. Occasionally she would
say, “Remember when Jack...” and they’d laugh, then cry about
his antics.
Friends dropped by from time to time to see if they were all
right, bringing enough food for an army. Even Mr Reece came in
to offer his condolences and assure them that they wouldn’t
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starve, that he’d managed to keep up the carnival’s insurance
policies. Eventually Renie Simmons persuaded Ruby to abandon her
lonely vigil and try to get some rest. Only when she heard her
mother snoring softly, did Kirra agree to lie down herself and
close her swollen eyes.
Sleep wouldn’t come, though, and she slipped out to Merv’s
caravan. Billy was there, playing the blues softly on his
harmonica. He stopped when Kirra entered: she had enough blues
of her own. They didn’t say much, Merv and Billy, but they were
there, and that was enough. Even Zac, sensing that something bad
had happened, was unusually quiet.
Somehow they got through the day. Once Merv launched into some
of his circus stories to cheer Kirra up, but she couldn’t seem
to take it in. She tried to be brave, but then she’d remember in
a dark flash that Jack, poor foolish Jack with his tattoos, his
pony tail, his silly jokes, was gone, really gone, and the hot
tears would spurt.
Finally Kirra dropped off to sleep in Merv’s caravan, and the
old man carried her back to her own bed. As soon as she woke up
next morning, the realisation that Jack had drowned hit her like
a hammer blow. While Ruby slept on, exhausted, Kirra crept
outside and discovered a new world: clean, sparkling, dry. The
rain had stopped — too late.
The sun was rising in the sky, but the carnies slumbered on,
worn out from trying to save the campsite from the flood and the
drama of Jack’s disappearance. Head in hands, Kirra slumped on
the caravan steps, wondering what would happen to the Kincaid
family now. There was no way they could stay on at Deans’
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without Jack. Ruby would have to get a job somewhere, in a town
most likely, and their life on the road would end. No more
carnival; no more adventures; no more new sights and sounds. And
she’d have to go to school...
Her gloomy thoughts were interrupted by something cold and wet
pressing against her knee. It was Zac, gazing into her face
hopefully, a stick in his mouth, wanting to play. It was the
last straw. Kirra put her arms around the old dog’s neck and
cried into his smelly fur while Zac howled in sympathy. Sunk in
their misery, neither of them heard the car pull up nearby.
Then a pair of big, hard hands grasped her arms and lifted her
off the ground into a suffocating bear hug. It was Jack. Kirra’s
scream woke Ruby, who flew out of the caravan to protect her
chick and found Jack and Kirra locked together, crying, while
Zac circled them, barking hysterically. Soon there were three of
them doing a mad dance of joy.
Over her father’s shoulder, Kirra saw a middle-aged man
watching them, a big grin on his face. He must have brought Jack
back, she realised. She waved, and the man tipped his hat,
climbed back into his utility and drove off. Ruby would be
upset: she’d want to ask him a thousand questions, thank him and
give him a cup of tea, but Kirra understood. He thought he’d be
in the way.
She soon forgot the man when all their friends, rousted from
their beds by the hullabaloo, poured from their tents and
caravans and surrounded them, laughing crying, firing questions
at Jack.
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“No,” said Jack, laughing. “I’m not a ghost.”
Then he explained. When his truck had sunk, the force of the
water had clamped the door shut, so he’d had to kick his way out
through the window. (It had been touch and go, but he didn’t
tell them this.) The current had swept him downstream, half
drowning, and deposited him on the side of the river.
Like Moses in the bulrushes, thought Kirra, who’d once taken a
book of bible stories out of the library.
Covered in mud, frozen and bedraggled, Jack had hiked across a
field in the rain, climbed up to the road and set off in what he
hoped was the direction of home. Because the road was deserted,
he’d had to walk for an hour before finding a farmhouse. The
furious barking of the farm dogs had roused the farmer and his
wife, who’d taken him in and given him a bath, a hot dinner, a
change of clothes and a bed. Jack was desperate to let his
family know he was alive, but the phone lines were down. As soon
as the rain had eased and the river dropped, the farmer had
driven him home.
Realising he’d forgotten all about his rescuer, Jack looked
around guiltily for the farmer, but the man had gone.
Gradually, the carnies dispersed, still marvelling at the
miracle of Jack’s resurrection, to begin packing up to leave.
Watching Jack like a hawk, Ruby bustled around and cooked them
all a huge breakfast. She kept expecting to wake up any minute
and discover she’d dreamed him.
While Jack ploughed his way through bacon and eggs, sausages,
grilled tomatoes, toast and three cups of tea, Kirra sat
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opposite, head propped in hands. She was convinced it was a
miracle. And although it had given them all a dreadful fright,
some good had come out of it. They weren’t bickering and getting
on each other’s nerves any more: they were a proper family
again. Maybe the accident had been sent to warn them that if
they didn’t pull together, they’d go under.
She looked up to see her mother watching them and grinned.
“Stop mooning Kirra and let your father eat his breakfast in
peace,” said Ruby, but Kirra saw her mother’s face crumple as
she turned back to the stove. This time they were tears of
relief.
Kirra sighed happily. Life was back to normal. Maybe
everything was going to be all right.
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CHAPTER 14
The weeks flew by after Jack came back from the dead. While the
survivors were resting up at the camping ground in Campbelltown,
they learned later that the storm had been one of the fiercest
in fifty years. Jack spent his days scouring the used car yards
and eventually found another truck with a spark of life left in
it, and bought it with a loan cadged from Mr Reece.
It was one of the happiest times of Kirra’s life. As the
school holidays had started, she didn’t have to feel guilty
about dodging her lessons for once, and Christmas was coming.
When they could wheedle or bribe Johnno into lending them his
trail bike, she and Billy went off on expeditions, and soon knew
every nook and cranny of the area. Best of all, there was no
sign of Jack and Ruby’s sinister friends, Rick and Chris
Slattery.
One extraordinary day Ruby even let Billy take Kirra venture
into the city on the train. Feeling like a couple of hayseeds,
they wandered about Sydney gawking at the skyscrapers and
getting trampled by impatient city slickers during the lunch
hour. After a couple of false starts, they finally found the way
to Darling Harbour, and visited the Aquarium, where Kirra
exclaimed over the sharks and seahorses. Then they bought giant
ice-creams and took in the sights.
Kirra had wanted to go to Manly on the ferry, but they left it
too late. She was determined to get home on time because she
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knew Ruby would be anxiously watching the clock on her little
girl’s first whole day away from her parents. The train ride to
Campbelltown seemed to take forever, and that night, exhausted
from hours pounding the pavements, Kirra almost fell asleep in
her mashed potatoes.
All things come to and end, though, the good and the bad, and
on Christmas Eve, the carnival had to pull up stakes and set off
for Newcastle, where they were doing a Christmas to New Year
show. Newcastle was two and a half hours north, through heavy
holiday traffic, but the time flew for Kirra, who was travelling
with Ruby in the ute. The Hawkesbury River took her breath away
with its sparkling waters, tiny inlets, wooded hills, oyster
beds and marinas full of small boats bobbing on the tide. But
the most thrilling part was navigating the stretch of freeway
cut out of the limestone hills north of the river: it was like
flying across the top of the world.
As they passed through the densely settled suburbs of the
Central Coast with their shopping centres, schools and housing
estates, Ruby said: “This has really changed since I was here
last. It used to be little towns with lots of bush in between.
In the old days people came her for their holidays, but it looks
pretty permanent now. I liked it better the old way.”
An hour later they were in the city of Newcastle. “Centre of
the Hunter Valley coal mining district and famous for its steel
mills,” said Kirra, who remembered this from a correspondence
school lesson. Proving her right, the mills belched steam into
the heavens above the town.
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Kirra immediately regretted showing off. “Speaking of which,
we need to talk about your lessons, Miss,” said Ruby.
Kirra groaned. “Mum, please. It’s Christmas.”
Ruby frowned and let it drop, but Kirra knew she hadn’t heard
the last of it.
Soon they found themselves in Broadmeadow, at the showground
where Deans’ would be playing for a week. Kirra, who had been
imagining real broad, green meadows, was disappointed to find
herself in another dreary suburb.
As there would be no time for sight-seeing once the carnival
began, Jack took Ruby and Kirra on a quick tour of the city,
exclaiming about all the changes since he and Ruby had been
there ten years ago.
“It was all done up for the Bicentenary,” said Kirra, who’d
read about it in one of Roxy’s magazines.
Roxy! She wouldn’t be seeing Roxy this Christmas! The thought
made Kirra’s stomach feel hollow, and she fell silent, not
really seeing the graceful old sandstone buildings or the new
complex on the harbour front. Although she wasn’t a Christian,
Roxy loved Christmas, and Kirra always helped her decorate the
balding plastic pine tree she kept in a trunk on top of a
cupboard in her van.
“You’re very quiet all of a sudden,” said Ruby.
“I was thinking of Roxy.”
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Her mother gave her leg a squeeze. “Don’t worry pet, we’ll see
if we can find a real tree for you. We’ve got a lot to celebrate
this year, I reckon.”
“Hallelujah!” said Jack, making them laugh.
On the way home, Jack stopped at a garden centre and Kirra
selected a pine tree, and that night the three of them covered
it with tinsel and crepe paper and a few old bells Ruby rustled
up, though Jack mostly sat drinking beer and giving directions
which everyone ignored.
In bed that night Kirra wondered what she’d find under the
tree. Jack and Ruby had been desperately short of money all
year, and now they had to try to pay back Mr Reece for the new
truck. Even the tree had been an extravagance. Then it was
Christmas morning and Jack was telling her to rise and shine.
Kirra had been hoarding her pocket money for weeks, and had
bought Ruby a thin silver bracelet from an ancient lady in a
funny old shop in Kiama. The woman had called it an heirloom,
and Kirra had rolled the word around in her mouth. It sounded
like she thought the glass beads in the antique shop window
would taste. Of course it would never replace her grandmother’s
old gold bangle, which was a real heirloom, but Ruby got all
misty-eyed and gave Kirra a hug that knocked the breath out of
her.
Jack seemed just as pleased with his small box of smelly
cigars, and promised to smoke them outside.
For Kirra there was just one small box. “Good things come in
small parcels,” said Ruby. “Like you.”
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Inside was a tiny gold ring with a speck of red stone on it.
“But this was your mother’s, Mum,” protested Kirra, who had
furtively tried it on several times when Ruby was out. “It’s all
you’ve got left.”
Nobody mentioned what had happened to the rest.
“Well, I’m not likely to get it on my fat fingers ever again,”
said Ruby. “And you’re old enough to look after it properly,
now. And stop bawling, you big booby.”
But Kirra noticed her mother was a bit teary, too.
When the Kincaids’ presents had all been opened, Kirra set off
for Merv’s caravan with her presents, including an engraved name
tag for Zac that she and Billy had bought on their day out in
Sydney. She was admiring the little ring, twisting it so the
ruby caught the sunlight, when Billy caught up with her. The
messy looking packet he thrust into her hand turned out to
contain a headband aglow with red sequins. She immediately put
it on, and gave him his gift, a paperback about the history of
blues music she’d found in a second-hand store in Campbelltown.
Zac wasn’t too sure about his new tag, and tried to scrape it
off on the side of the caravan until Merv roared: “Cease and
desist, Sir!” The dog slunk away and lay down, head on paws,
regarding them reproachfully until they laughed at him. Then he
jumped up and joined the party.
Billy and Kirra had held long discussions about what to buy
Merv for Christmas, but couldn’t agree, until Kirra spotted a
picture book all about the grand days of the circus in a sale
bin outside a bookstore in Sydney. Soon Merv was pointing out
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old friends and enemies. Enid Craig was in there, splendid in
spangles and a toothy smile, along with the man who’d been eaten
by the lion.
“Buried in a biscuit tin,” chorused Kirra and Billy before
Merv could open his mouth.
“Cheeky brats.”
“There’s another picture of May Wirth!” said Kirra. The little
equestrienne was all grown up now, looking glamorous in furs and
holding the reins of one of her famous white horses. The year
was 1918, and May now had her own troupe, according to the
caption. Kirra did her sums: that was seventy-one year ago!
“That’s Stella Wirth and May’s husband, Frank White,” said
Merv, and sure enough, when Kirra read the caption, he was
right.
“Thanks for the prezzie, darlin’,” the old man said, giving
Kirra a whiskery Christmas kiss.
“Aren’t you going to give me one, too?” asked Billy, and Kirra
blushed violently and didn’t know what to do with her eyes.
Merv took a look at Kirra’s face and laughed: “Maybe next
year, son.”
It was a Christmas to remember. Somehow Ruby had rustled up a
roast turkey with all the trimmings on her tiny stove, and the
caravan looked festive. At Christmas dinner, to which Billy and
Merv were invited, there was pink ham, paper napkins with holly
on them, Christmas crackers and a tinned pudding and ice-cream.
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It was early to bed for all the folk at Deans’ that night. The
carnival began the next morning, and would run through till New
Year’s Day. The fun was over: now the work would begin.
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CHAPTER 15
The Newcastle crowds were good, despite the high unemployment in
the city. Jack and Ruby were exuberant: maybe the take would be
high enough to buy them some time. If the recession would only
end, the carnival might survive.
On the morning of their fourth day in Newcastle, Jack dropped
by Ruby’s stand and said Mr Reece wanted him to go into town to
pick up a new strong box. The old one had been stolen from the
back of Wild Bill’s red Customline convertible the night before
when he was in the pub. Fortunately the cash box was empty —
apparently Mr Reece had already put the day’s profits into a
night deposit box at a bank in the city.
“Silly old fool should know better,” said Ruby. “Who’s going
to look after the Ferris wheel?”
“Reg Simmons,” said Jack.
Ruby snorted. “He wouldn’t know a flange from a wing nut.”
Jack laughed. “Neither would you, Rube.”
“Can I come?” wheedled Kirra, who’d been listening in.
Always an old softie, Jack said: “Don’t see why not,” but Ruby
was adamant. “We’re too busy. I want you here.”
Kirra protested, then begged, but her mother wouldn’t budge.
“Sorry, mate,” said Jack. “Rube’s the boss.”
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Kirra glowered at him: why did he always do what Ruby wanted?
But when he pointed to his cheek, an old game they’d played
since she was a baby, she relented and kissed him on that spot.
For the rest of her life Kirra would be glad that she’d kissed
her father on the cheek that day.
“Wait a minute, Jack. I want a prescription filled,” said
Ruby, before Jack could race away. “Kirra, hold the fort while I
get it out of the caravan.”
When Ruby returned with the envelope, Jack winked at Kirra,
gave Ruby a kiss, promised he wouldn’t be long, climbed into the
new old truck and roared off in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes.
“I hope the cops don’t pick him up on the way,” said Ruby.
If only they had.
In the rush, they soon forgot all about Jack. Then, at 10.28
am., when the carnival was in full swing, a sudden deafening
blast rocked the showground. It sounded like a jet plane
crashing into the ground.
At the shooting gallery Ruby and Kirra were thrown against the
counter and buried in stuffed toys. It was all over in ten
seconds, but when they fought their way out, chaos faced them.
Most of the tents had collapsed, and people were struggling out
from under the canvas. Others fled from the showground’s toilet
block, which had developed a dangerous lean. The force of the
blast had hurled dodgems cars off their stand, throwing several
boys into the air. Most of them got to their feet stunned but
unhurt, but one boy lay on the ground, groaning, his left leg
buckled under him.
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The Ferris wheel swayed dangerously, but somehow stayed
upright. Kids trapped in the carriages screamed in terror.
Fortunately, Reg Simmons had enough presence of mind to throw
down the lever and turn the engine off. The music groaned to a
halt.
Pandemonium reigned.
“Mum, what happened!?” asked Kirra, shocked and frightened.
Ruby looked shaken. “Must have been an explosion at the steel
mill,” she said, picking pink fluff out of her hair. “Are you
OK?”
Kirra checked out her arms and legs and discovered she was
unhurt, if dirty and a bit tearful. “I think so.”
Mr Reece took control then, striding about barking orders. He
told Reg Simmons to restart the Ferris wheel and bring the
customers back down to solid ground, and organised a group of
men and boys to re-erect the tents and fix the damaged rides.
Then someone turned on a radio. Immediately a cry rose up in
the dusty air: “There’s been an earthquake!” The showground
quickly emptied as people rushed home to see if their families
and friends were safe and to find out if their houses were still
standing. Renie Simmons came by to check on the Kincaids and
told them she’d heard that the city centre and Hamilton, a
suburb not far from the Broadmeadow showground, were the worst
hit areas.
“Oh, my God, Jack!” screamed Ruby. “He’d be in town by now!”
Ruby’s friends rallied around, then, escorting her back to the
caravan, brewing cups of tea and trying to calm her down. Kirra
sat watching, big-eyed, silent. There was nothing anyone could
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do but wait. And pray. God wouldn’t take Jack from them now, not
after he’d survived the flood, thought Kirra. But she didn’t
know God well enough to be sure.
According to the radio bulletins, the quake had demolished
some parts of the city, but left other areas untouched. A whole
street, Beaumont Street in the Hamilton shopping centre, had
fallen down. In the city, the Newcastle Workers’ Club had
collapsed like a house of cards. Three floors of the building
had fallen into the underground car park, taking club members
with them and trapping the victims under tonnes of rubble and
poker machines. Most were old people, at the club for a special
bingo day.
“What if Jack went there for a beer,” wailed Ruby. “He might
be in that basement.”
A tremor of fear ran through Kirra as she imagined Jack, hurt
and terrified, trapped in the dark. Feeling as if she might
burst, she leapt up and ran outside. Billy, who’d been helping
clean up, came over and asked what was going on.
“It’s Jack. He went into the city this morning.”
“I’m here if you need me,” was all Billy said, but Kirra
couldn’t even take that in. Her mind was full of Jack. Feeling
guilty, she went back inside, to join the vigil around the
radio.
Shouting above the din, a reporter told them the noise was
from the sirens of ambulances, fire engines and police cars
speeding to the Workers’ Club to help the injured. She said bus
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drivers who’d been at a strike meeting had gone back to work to
ferry the unhurt club members home.
From the quake scene in Hamilton, another journalist said
dazed people were wandering around the streets in shock. He was
almost certain two bodies had been taken out of a chemist’s
shop, and the awning of the Kent Hotel had collapsed on a man.
Kirra’s stomach lurched: what if Jack had decided to have a beer
before he came home?
Outside, a steady stream of people were making their way past
the showground. Johnno went to investigate and came back to
report that an emergency relief centre had been set up in the
grounds of the high school nearby. Terrified that the shocks
weren’t over yet, and afraid to stay inside quake-damaged
buildings, people were flocking into parks, where they huddled
like refugees, swapping war stories. In the hardest-hit areas,
according to the radio, damaged buildings were crumbling, church
towers teetered, and hundreds of houses were declared unsafe.
It was a little after one pm. when a police car turned into
the showground and the driver stopped beside Dave to ask
directions. From the caravan steps where she’d gone to get away
from the barrage of bad news, Kirra saw them arrive, and jumped
to her feet, suddenly breathless. When Dave pointed at the
Kincaid caravan, her heart began to thud painfully. She should
call Ruby, but her feet wouldn’t move, and when she tried to
speak, only a squeak came out.
The slam of the police car door brought her to her senses, and
as the two police officers moved towards her, she ran inside to
be near her mother. She would never forget the look on Ruby’s
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face when the police appeared in the doorway. “Jack?!” Ruby
wailed. Their expressions had confirmed her worst fears.
The police told them Jack had been about to enter a chemist’s
shop on Beaumont Street in Hamilton when the quake struck. The
shop awning had broken away and crashed down on him. When they
found him, he was still clutching Ruby’s prescription. He died a
few minutes later, calling her name.
Ruby burst into tears. “It’s all my fault! If I hadn’t made
him get that prescription, he’d still be alive.” Ruby’s screams
of anguish brought Renie Simmons running, and the police woman
hurried to the patrol car and radioed for a doctor.
Devastated, Kirra could only cling to her mother and weep. She
and Roxy had seen Jack’s death in the cards, but when he’d
survived the flood, Kirra had hoped he’d cheated his fate. But
it had happened exactly as the cards predicted: the earthquake
had turned the world upside down, and toppled the sinister Tower
which had crushed the life out of Jack. Roxy would be horrified
when she heard.
Afterwards, when the dust and alarm had settled, the people of
Newcastle counted the cost of Thursday, 28 December 1989. The
quake, which had measured 5.5 on the Richter scale, had killed
thirteen people and injured more than a hundred and twenty.
Pubs, clubs, churches and at least two thousand homes were
damaged, and the insurance bill ran into millions.
And nobody in New South Wales — especially Ruby and Kirra
Kincaid — would ever again regard earthquakes as something that
only happened in other places, to other people.
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CHAPTER 16
Kirra, head resting in hands, elbows propped on windowsill,
gazed down on the busy city street below, wondering where all
those people were going in such a mad rush. After Jack’s death,
Ruby had sold the caravan, the truck, the ute and whatever
fluffy animals hadn’t been ruined in the Newcastle earthquake,
and they’d fled to Sydney. Now they were living in a cramped
room in a boarding house in Darlinghurst, close to the city.
Sure, the caravan had been small inside, but outside the great
world beckoned. Outside their boarding house were only more
buildings, roaring traffic, and people. Not to mention the
homeless kids and the derros who hung out at the mission down
the road. But they’d had no choice, really. Ruby didn’t want to
be stuck out in the far-flung suburbs without a car.
It had broken their hearts to leave Deans’ Travelling
Carnival, but they simply couldn’t manage without Jack, and
besides, everything there reminded Ruby of him. They needed a
new start, she decided.
Tears still stung Kirra’s eyes when she remembered the day
they’d left Merv, Billy and Zac behind — not to mention Mr
Reece, the Simmonses, and even the dreaded Rocky, Dave and
Johnno. She knew Ruby still pined for the old days, and kept in
touch with Renie Simmons.
Depression would catch up with Kirra occasionally when she
realised she would never hear any of Merv’s circus stories
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again, or sing along with Zac when Billy played Me and Bobby
Magee
on the mouth organ. One day she caught herself humming
the tune, and stopped, too sad to go on. It was unlikely she
would ever hear from her friends again. Merv couldn’t write, and
Billy would soon forget her. Kirra missed Billy terribly. He’d
been her best friend. And yes, more than that: she had
definitely been sweet on Billy. After Jack, he’d been her first
love.
After the freedom of the open road, Ruby and Kirra found it
hard to adjust to life in the big city. They always felt grimy,
the car fumes offended their noses, and the concrete footpaths
were hard on the feet.
Darlinghurst, let’s face it, wasn’t the best address in
Sydney. It was too close to Kings Cross with its nightclubs,
dirty bookshops and drug addicts. But it was an easy walk to the
Domain and the Boy Charlton swimming pool, the Botanic Gardens,
the Opera House with its free concerts on Sunday afternoon, and
the little harbourside parks. If Kirra wanted to go to Bondi
Beach, it was only a five-minute walk to the Kings Cross railway
station, then three stops on the train and a bus ride down the
hill.
Ruby spent weeks looking for a job, but with no success. “I’m
too old,” she moaned, staring into the dressing-table mirror.
Eventually she gave in and get her hair cut and tinted to hide
the grey. She’d lost weight after Jack’s death, and when she
came home with the new hairdo, Kirra scarcely recognised her.
She looked years younger. The owner of the pub down the road
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must have thought so, too, because gave her a job behind the bar
a week later.
Somehow they rubbed along. Ruby still got the blues from time
to time and went all quiet, but gradually the shock receded and
they began to heal. At first Ruby couldn’t bear to hear Jack’s
name, but lately she’d begun to bring him into the conversation.
“Jack would love that,” she said one day when an old car with
fins and lots of chrome passed them in the street.
The long hours and the shift work at the pub were hard on
Ruby, and she worried about leaving Kirra at home. At first
Kirra had been frightened to stay in their little room alone,
pretending to read a book and jumping at every noise, but she
soon grew used to the city. As she became more confident, she
began to make friends.
There were all sorts of people in the boarding house: a
couple of old ladies — Mrs O’Reilly and Mrs Campbell, or as
Kirra later discovered, Selena and Isobel — a bald salesman who
practised the trumpet every night between six and seven, a quiet
young woman who attended a bible college, and a blonde, pretty
teenager from Mullumbimby who wanted to be a dancer.
Rather more surprising was the tall, dark man who sometimes
appeared in high heels, a frock and a long red wig. The first
time Kirra saw this apparition on the stairs, she gaped and
fled, but was soon spending hours in Brian’s room sewing on
sequins, learning to make a soufflé, and listening spellbound to
stories about his childhood in Darwin. Sometimes she’d join the
old ladies in the lounge, with its faded plastic flowers and
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dusty old red velvet curtains, and listen to their stories about
grandchildren or look through their photograph albums.
But for Kirra, the most difficult part of moving to Sydney
was going to a normal school. She was old enough for high
school, but as she was way behind in mathematics and science, it
was decreed that she would to into Year 7. Ashamed and outraged,
she complained until Ruby made it clear no amount of whingeing
would change her mind. Kirra was going to get a decent
education, if it killed both of them.
In the beginning, school was an ordeal. Kirra couldn’t seem
to sit still for a whole lesson and was always in trouble for
fidgeting. In desperation, Ruby went to the school and had a
heart-to-heart with the principal. After she’d told the woman
about the carnival and Jack’s death in the earthquake, life
improved for Kirra. Ms Katsoulis stopped yelling and even let
her take a run around the playground when the sitting got too
much for her.
When Mrs O’Reilly found out what was going on, she offered to
tutor Kirra at night. It seemed the old woman had been a
schoolteacher in Sydney for fifteen years before she’d married
and moved to a farm outside Armidale. With Mrs O drilling her in
the basics, Kirra soon caught up.
But though Kirra had lots of company, she badly needed a
friend her own age. The kids at school were OK, but they’d known
each other since kindy and had their cliques. Kirra always felt
extra. Not that she was desperate to join them: they seemed
babyish sometimes. They hadn’t roamed the length and breadth of
the land, visited cities as well as tiny, far-off towns, or
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entertained farmers and fisher folk, soldiers and steel workers
as Kirra had.
Friendship arrived in the form of Sophia Maria (pronounced
Sophyah Maryah) Mahana, a chubby thirteen-year-old with black
curls, huge, round brown eyes and a sprinkling of freckles on
her cheeks and turned-up nose. At first glance Sophia Maria
looked cute, but in fact she was brazen, bossy and loud. And
there was a decidedly mean glint in those eyes.
The class soon realised why the new girl was languishing in
Year 7 — she had no book learning whatsoever, and read like a
six year old. The boys couldn’t resist making fun of her.
“Sophia Maria, your pants are on fire, and you’re fat as a
tyre,” they chanted. Their ring-leader was a nasty ferret-faced,
red-headed boy called Ian. Sophia Maria pretended not to mind,
but that Friday afternoon the biggest, meanest looking customer
they’d ever seen was waiting at the school gate when class let
out.
“Dad!” shouted Sophia Maria. The boys stopped dead and hung
back, trying to act nonchalant. Raymond Mahana said: “Which of
you is Ian?” There was no answer, and Ian paled under his
freckles. Then father and daughter smiled at each other and
turned away.
Watching Sophia Maria and her father head off up the hill,
Kirra decided she wanted this tough, cunning girl as her friend
(nobody in their right mind would want her as an enemy). She
kept her distance, though, until Sophia Maria summoned her one
afternoon and suggested they share a hamburger at McDonald’s.
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Though Sophia Maria lived with Raymond in a small, dingy flat
a couple of blocks away from the boarding house, she was running
her own life. Her mother had bolted when she was ten, she told
Kirra, and she’d been doing the cooking and cleaning, not very
much cleaning, actually, ever since.
When he was home, that was. Raymond Mahana, who was as solid
as a two-tonne truck, worked as a bouncer in nightclubs and had
itchy feet. So far they’d lived in Auckland, Melbourne, Brisbane
and Perth. Sophia Maria’s mother, Marcelle, had grown up in
Sydney, and ran off with an old flame as soon as they hit her
home town.
Raymond didn’t seem too heartbroken, however, and an endless
supply of girlfriends paraded through the flat. Some of them
tried to cosy up to Sophia Maria, but she gave them short
shrift. Not other female was going to move in on her territory
without a battle.
Sophia Maria had almost as many stories as Kirra, and the
girls spent hours reminiscing. Having never been out of
Australia, Kirra hung on Sophia Maria’s yarns about New Zealand
and her Maori relatives, and Sophia couldn’t get enough of
Merv’s circus stories, especially the May Wirth saga.
Kirra still treasured the photograph of May Wirth that Enid
Craig had given her. In the darkest days of her life, when
they’d been packing their few belongings before leaving the
carnival, she’d taken it out of its pink tissue paper and
propped it up on the table in the breakfast nook, where it was
visible from every corner of the caravan. If May Wirth could
turn somersaults over galloping horses, Kirra had told herself,
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she could survive this. It was mostly a question of courage,
after all.
Ruby was impervious to the charms of Sophia Maria. “That
kid’s been let run wild,” she warned. “She’ll get into trouble,
mark my words. Don’t let her talk you into anything foolish,
Miss.”
Kirra protested, but knew there was a grain of truth in what
her mother said. Although Sophia complained that her father was
stingy, but she always had plenty of little luxuries like cakes
of scented soap or dangly earrings. Kirra suspected her friend
shoplifted them, but wouldn’t have dreamt of asking: Sophia
Maria had a temper like a Tasmanian Devil.
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CHAPTER 17
Four months had passed since Ruby and Kirra had come to Sydney,
since they’d left the carnival for good. Or bad. Kirra was just
starting to adjust to Sydney when something happened that threw
her world into turmoil.
It all started on a balmy April night. Kirra and Sophia Maria
were alone in the TV room, watching a game show. The boarding
house was unusually quiet; even the old ladies had gone out for
dinner at the services club in Kings Cross. On senior citizens’
night, you could get a steak, potatoes, peas and gravy plus
apple pie and ice-cream and a cup of tea, all for five dollars.
The TV program had been Sophia Maria’s choice. Kirra was
bored. She liked nature shows best. Her very favourite was a
show about a family of kangaroos: she’d howled with grief when
the joey was attacked by a dingo and died with his mother
watching over him, helpless. But when Kirra complained, her
friend snapped: “Shut up, Kirra! Go upstairs and read a book or
something.”
There was no point arguing with Sophe when she was like this,
so Kirra went off to her room, rummaged around for a book she
hadn’t read, and sat down at the table. Unaware of the time, far
away in an imaginary life, she got a fright when she heard
Sophia Maria shouting.
As she clattered down the stairs, the bald trumpeter stuck
his head out of his room and said: “A bit of decorum, please,
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child.” Kirra, who’d never heard him speak, was shocked, and
giggled. For such a big man, he had a tiny voice, like Mickey
Mouse’s. When she burst into the TV room, still smiling, she
found Sophia Maria squatting close to the television, almost
glued to the screen. “Look!” she commanded.
Under a sign saying Missing Persons’ Week, Anne Sanders was
interviewing a woman and a teenage girl. They seemed to be
talking about the disappearance of a family member, a little
girl. The child’s mother, Sarah Halliday, said that her daughter
Jane, whom they called Janey, had gone missing one hot day nine
years ago while the family were having a picnic at an isolated
beach on the south coast. Janey Halliday had been three, still a
baby really.
At first they’d thought she’d drowned, but then Janey’s older
sister, Caroline, had found tiny footprints leading into the
sand dunes. Behind the beach was a thicket of scrubby trees,
with a pathway through to the road. It looked as if she’d
wandered out to the road and been picked up.
By the time the Hallidays had given up the search, driven to
a phone and called the police, a late afternoon storm had blown
up and washed away all traces of Janey Halliday. There were no
clues left for the police, when they finally reached the scene.
“If the person who stole my baby is out there, listening,
please just let me know if she’s alive or dead. If she’s alive,
I’m not even asking you to bring her back. I just want to know.”
Sympathetic tears sprang to Kirra’s eyes as she imagined how
Ruby would feel in Sarah Halliday’s shoes.
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Questioned by Ann Sanders, Janey’s sister, Caroline, spoke.
“I was only eight when... when we lost Janey, but I can still
remember her. And I miss her every day.” She looked directly at
the camera, into Kirra’s eyes: “It’s not knowing that’s breaking
our hearts. If you have my sister...” She paused “...Or if you
know what happened to her, please, I beg you, come forward.”
A picture of a tiny, smiling, blue-eyed blonde toddler filled
the screen, and a voice gave viewers the number to call if they
had information about Janey Halliday. Then the credits rolled.
Regaining her composure, Kirra said: “What’s this all about?
Why did you want me to see this?”
“Just look at those Hallidays!” shrieked Sophia Maria.
Kirra looked, but remained puzzled. All she could see was a
pretty, middle-aged woman and a beautiful girl. “What am I
supposed to see?”
“Are you blind as well as dumb?” demanded her friend. “You’ve
got a double! That Caroline Halliday looks exactly like you.”
She peered into Kirra’s face. “Better looking, though. And that
Mrs Halliday could be your mother.”
Kirra laughed. “You’re mad, Sophe! I’ve already got a
mother.”
Sophia Maria
lost interest when Police Rescue
came on, but
the incident stuck in Kirra’s mind. It irritated her like a
bindi in a boot. And that night, for the first time in months,
she had her old dream about the White family at the beach: Mr
and Mrs White and Hilary and Daisy. She woke up feeling uneasy,
as usual, but this time she knew where it had come from: she was
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dreaming about the Hallidays and their last day as a happy
family.
For the next few days Kirra was absent-minded and moony,
until Ruby became worried. “Are you coming down with something?
she asked. “Here, let me feel your forehead.”
Kirra wasn’t running a temperature; she was brooding,
obsessed with the mysterious disappearance of Janey Halliday.
Every time she passed a mirror, she stared at her face. Did she
really look like Caroline Halliday’s little sister? Or was
Sophia Maria pulling her leg?
Then one morning, while she was brushing her teeth, she
remembered what Chris Slattery had said that afternoon when she
and her husband had found Kirra alone in the park. She’d said
Kirra had changed so much she would never have recognised her.
That was weird enough, but it was the triumphant look the pair
had exchanged that had really spooked Kirra.
Maybe she was just dramatising, and it was simply a chance
remark. But what if Chris Slattery was had been hinting that
Kirra was not the child she’d seen with Ruby all those years
ago? If the child wasn’t Kirra, who was she, and where was she
now? And how did Kirra fit in?
Her head spun. Feeling faint suddenly, she sat down hard on
the side of the bath, still holding her frothing toothbrush.
This train of thought was too scary. The pounding of a fist on
the bathroom door, and Brian’s voice saying, “Some people have
to work, you know!” brought her back to reality. She scuttled
out, found her backpack, pecked Ruby on the cheek and left for
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school in a daze. That day she was in constant strife for
failing to pay attention.
If Sophia Maria, who had taken to calling her Janey, had been
at school, she would have jollied Kirra out of her mood. But she
was away, playing truant most likely. Eventually Ms Katsoulis
sent Kirra to Mr Jackson, the school’s first aid officer. He
checked Kirra out, pronounced her well, but sent her home early.
She looked peaky, he said, and told her to take it easy, try to
get some rest.
The boarding house was blissfully peaceful that afternoon,
and with Ruby away at work, Kirra didn’t have to explain. She
lay down on her bed and thought. She may even have dozed off for
a few minutes. Then she jumped up, went to the landing and
grabbed the A-K volume of the phone book.
A column of Hallidays marched down the page. That was
tantalising, but useless. Without an address, or even Mr
Halliday’s initials, Kirra had no way of knowing which phone
number belonged to Janey Halliday’s family. She gave a little
sob. She’d never be able to phone them all, and if she did, what
would she say? “Excuse me, you don’t know me, but I think I
might be your long lost daughter?”
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CHAPTER 18
Next day Kirra decided she’d been foolish, had let her
imagination run away with her. Deep in her heart, she knew that
if the earthquake hadn’t smashed the Kincaid family and torn
them from the carnival, it wouldn’t have entered her mind to
fantasise about being Janey Halliday.
Quite soon an unexpected event took her mind off who she was
and where she belonged. Sophia Maria was behind it, of course,
just as Ruby had predicted.
It was after school, on a Friday. Kirra and Sophia Maria were
in Lamb’s Pharmacy in Kings Cross, waiting for Mr Lamb to fill
Ruby’s prescription. Kirra was testing dark red and brown Poppy
lipsticks on her hand, while Sophia Maria mooched around the
shop, picking up things and putting them down again. A sudden
shout made Kirra drop a lipstick. She rose and watched in horror
as Mr Lamb stormed out from behind the counter and pounced on
Sophia Maria.
“Let me go!” screamed Sophia Maria, but Mr Lamb held on like
a bull terrier.
“Put it back!” he ordered.
“Put what back? You’re hurting me!”
“That bottle of Tabu. I saw you take it.”
Sophia Maria knew better than to admit guilt. “Get your hands
off me, you child molester!” she yelled. “Kirra, help me!”
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Kirra dithered. She wanted to help Sophia Maria, but was
afraid that Mr Lamb was right. Pinching a bottle of scent was
exactly the sort of thing Sophe would do. Mr Lamb clinched the
argument by telling his assistant, Rosemary, who was watching
the scene in horror, to call the police. Rosemary, a kind girl
with pimples, picked up the phone reluctantly, and dialled.
“No, please!” shrieked Sophia Maria.
“Give it back, then,” said Mr Lamb.
Outsmarted, Sophia Maria took the bottle of perfume out of her
pocket and shoved it at the chemist, who passed it to Rosemary.
She dropped the phone and took the perfume, looking at it as if
it were a cockroach.
It doesn’t even smell nice, thought Kirra, who wasn’t thinking
straight. Sophe’s got terrible taste.
“Do you know what happens to thieves?” Mr Lamb asked Sophia
Maria.
Realising she wasn’t going to end up in children’s court (not
today, anyway), Sophia Maria sullenly refused to answer.
“No? They end up in jail. And there’s no perfume allowed in
jail, believe me.”
It occurred to Kirra that Mr Lamb was a nice man (a lamb,
really), who didn’t like making trouble for young girls, even
when they were guilty. He’d just got fed up with people
strolling in and nicking his stock. Sophia Maria shot Kirra a
defiant look. Kirra stared at her shoes: she was sorry about
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Sophia Maria’s embarrassment, but that didn’t mean she condoned
theft.
“I know what we’ll do with you,” said Mr Lamb. “Come with me.”
He grabbed Sophia Maria’s arm and began steering her out of
the shop. “You, too,” he said, beckoning Kirra. “Rosemary, I’ll
be back in ten.”
The grim little procession wound its way down Macleay Street
and around the corner into Hughes Street, to a strange,
higgledy-piggledy brick building with tables and chairs in its
tiny front yard. A sign on the front of the building said, The
Wayside Chapel, Family of Humanity Centre. Another sign welcomed
volunteers and visitors.
Sophia Maria, whose spirits had improved since they’d passed
the police station, gave Kirra a look that said, weird! “What
sort of place is this?” she demanded.
“It’s a sort of church,” said Mr Lamb. “They look after lost
souls, here.”
Lost souls! thought Kirra. Is that what he thinks we are? Ruby
would go ballistic if she heard about this escapade.
Mr Lamb towed them inside to the reception desk and asked to
see Grace. While he waited, he chatted with the receptionist, an
bald, gnome-like man with a heavy accent who answered to the
name Vladimir. The chemist was obviously well known here. Kirra
stared around her. On the left was a coffee shop, empty at the
moment, with a blackboard advertising incredibly cheap meals. To
the right was a closed door with a sign saying CHAPEL.
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While they waited for the mysterious Grace, a woman dashed in,
greeted the desk man and Mr Lamb like old friends, handed over a
box of clothes for the op shop, and flew out again. “Parked
illegally,” she called over her shoulder. Other purposeful
looking citizens came and went, and a couple of beat-up looking
derros wandered off the street into the coffee shop and sat
down.
What kind of place is this? thought Kirra. It didn’t look like
any of the churches
she’d explored in country towns.
Then Grace appeared. Much older than Sophia Maria and Kirra,
maybe even in her twenties, Grace was tall and thin, and wore
her hair like a Chinese doll, except it was fair, and had the
biggest green eyes Kirra had ever seen. Like Kiwi fruit. They
were interesting eyes. You got the feeling they didn’t miss a
thing, but didn’t judge. She was dressed in a long, soft, swirly
skirt, shoes with little, oddly shaped heels, a silk blouse and
a cropped jacket with a big diamante brooch on the lapel. It
made Kirra feel a bit tacky in her faded jeans and old holey
jumper.
“What have we got here, Terry?” Grace asked. She sounded
matter of fact and natural, not smarmy or bossy like a lot of
grown-ups.
“A shoplifter,” said Mr Lamb, shoving Sophia Maria forward.
“And her friend.” He gestured in Kirra’s direction. “I didn’t
catch this one stealing anything. This time.”
Kirra’s face burned at the injustice. She’d never stolen
anything in her life! She was about to protest when she noticed
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Grace’s gaze on her. That look said, It’s all right: I’m
perfectly capable of making up my own mind.
“Let’s find a place where we can talk, shall we,” said the
woman. The girls followed her along the hallway, Mr Lamb
guarding the rear, to Grace’s office. She told the girls to go
in and shut the door behind them. As the grown-ups talked
quietly outside, Kirra and Sophia Maria checked out Grace’s
cubby hole. The office was small and cluttered, with papers
spilling from the desk, files bulging out of open filing
cabinets, a couple of dirty coffee cups on the floor and yellow
post-its all over the computer reminding Grace to call someone
or other. A mess, in fact.
“What a mess,” said Sophia Maria.
“A bit like your place,” replied Kirra, who didn’t know why
she was defending a woman she’d only known for five minutes.
Sophia Maria was about to retaliate, when the door opened.
Grace swept in, threw newspapers off two chairs onto the floor,
motioned to them to sit down, perched on the corner of her desk
and said: “Anyone want to tell me what this is all about?”
No-one spoke. Sophia Maria wasn’t about to admit anything to
anybody, and Kirra was totally tongue-tied. For once in her
life, Ruby would have said.
“No? Well, girls, this is your lucky day. Last night Terry
Lamb’s wife gave birth to their first baby girl, Alice, and I
think it’s turned him soft. He usually calls the cops when he
catches a thief, but this time we’ve agreed that a hundred hours
of community service will suffice. Each.” The girls exchanged a
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horrified look. “So you can thank little Alice Lamb for your
freedom,”
Kirra’s eyes widened; Sophia Maria’s narrowed — what sort of
community service?
Grace continued: “I think we can safely assume you’re
guilty...” She turned to Sophia Maria: “What’s your name?”
Sophia Maria mumbled an answer.
“That’s a pretty name. And you?”
“Kirra.” It came out sounding a bit strange, and Kirra
coloured.
“Where did that come from?”
“It’s a beach. In Queensland, I think.”
“Now that we’ve got that sorted out, I have to come up with a
punishment to fit the crime. Let’s see, who needs help?” Grace
flicked through some white cards in a box and said: “Matthew
Talbot Hostel: no. Meals on Wheels: don’t think so. When do you
lot have to be home?”
Kirra answered for both of them: “We’re looking after
ourselves. Our parents work nights.” She didn’t want to admit
that Raymond often left Sophe on her own.
Concern clouded Grace’s face. “So nobody’s expecting you?”
They shook their heads.
“What do you do about meals?”
When Sophia Maria remained mum, Kirra said: “We get our own.”
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“We’ll have to see what we can do about that,” said Grace.
“But first things first.”
Sometimes Grace felt she’d seen too many of these kids. She
felt sorry for them, but she knew from experience that you
couldn’t save all of them. Sophia Maria was the biggest worry,
ignorant, sly, and a thief already. With no mother and a parttime father, the girl’s prospects weren’t good. It wouldn’t be
long before she was in real strife. But there was something
different about Kirra, a quality that appealed to Grace. Sure,
she was a bit scruffy, and had chosen a bad lot as a friend, but
she was bright and curious and had kept out of trouble so far.
Though she’d obviously come up the hard way (Grace didn’t know
half of it yet), it hadn’t made her tough and prickly: there was
a gentle, dreamy side to her still.
We can still save this one, she thought.
So while the social worker racked her brains for some work
experience that would keep these two off the streets and teach
them some skills, it was Kirra she was really thinking about. A
card in K section of the box gave her the answer: the Kings
Cross Library always needed volunteers. Picking up the phone,
she dialled and was soon talking to someone called Stephen.
“Stephen’s agreed to take you,” she said, finally. “The
library needs people to cover books. I guess you’re it.
There was a silence, then Sophia Maria, shocked out of her
sulk, blurted: “But Kirra didn’t do anything! She shouldn’t be
punished.”
“Is that right?” asked Grace.
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Kirra nodded. “But I don’t mind helping. I like libraries.”
Grace gave her a shrewd look. “And maybe you’d like to keep
your friend company?”
Kirra blushed and nodded. It was a bit scary having someone
read your mind. There was something very soothing about Grace.
Kirra wanted to curl up in her arms and sleep. Suddenly Roxy’s
prediction popped into her mind: was this the fair women who was
supposed to protect her? She hoped so.
“I hope you realise what a good friend you’ve got here,
Madame,” Grace said to Sophia Maria.
“I realise,” said Sophia Maria, grinning for the first time
since the whole sorry saga began.
Grace gave her a hard look. “Good. It’s starting to look as if
we might all get out of this alive.”
Stephen, the librarian, was immensely tall, with dark hair and
soft brown eyes and a soft voice. He smiled a lot. Gentle,
thought Kirra, who took to him immediately. He reminded her a
bit of Billy, though Billy was not as friendly. But then,
Billy’s life had probably been harder. The thought of Billy made
Kirra sad. Where was he now, and what was he doing? And did he
ever think about her?
While Stephen and Grace conferred, Sophia Maria sat down and
kicked the leg of a chair until a man with a grey ponytail
snarled at her, and Kirra started exploring the bookshelves.
She’d noticed the Kings Cross library as soon as they’d moved
into the area, but had been too timid to go in. It was much
bigger than the School of Arts libraries she was used to, and it
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certainly had a lot more books. New books, too. What a good idea
it had been to volunteer. It could be fun, and she might even be
allowed to get her own library card and borrow books.
“You’re to report here each week day after school for two
hours until you’ve worked off your fine,” said Grace, returning.
“Understood?”
“But we won’t be able to go swimming!” protested Sophia Maria.
“There are no swimming pools in juvenile detention centres,
either,” said Grace.
“Understood,” the girls chorused.
“And if you fail to turn up without a very good reason — and
that means you, too, Sophia Maria — I’ll notify your parents.”
“Parent,” corrected Sophia Maria. “I don’t have a mother any
more.”
Grace nodded as if she’d half expected this. “What about you,
Kirra?”
“I don’t have a father,” said Kirra, and choked up. She was
terrified she’d start to bawl, but when she felt Grace’s fingers
gently squeezing her arm, recovered quickly. Grace wasn’t to
know that Kirra dreamed about earthquakes, woke up thinking
about Jack every morning, and missed him and their old life like
a lost limb.
Then Grace handed them over to Stephen, who passed them on to
Bob, a young library technician with a shaved head and a nose
ring. He showed them how to cover books with a special sort of
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clear plastic. Some of the books were brand new, but others were
old and battered and reeked of cigarette smoke.
They were all thumbs at first, but soon became efficient, and
quickly finished the pile Bob had left. With nothing to do,
Kirra sorted through the books till she found one about a young
girl who goes to a terrible school where she’s starved and her
best friends dies of consumption (what was that?), and becomes a
governess when she grows up. Then she falls in love with a rich
man who keeps his mad wife in the attic. It sounded great.
So Kirra started reading Jane Eyre
aloud to Sophia Maria, and
the time passed very pleasantly. Very pleasantly, indeed. As
punishments go, it wasn’t all that bad.
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CHAPTER 19
In no time at all Kirra was completely hooked on working at the
library. Every day when school let out, she rushed straight
there dragging the complaining Sophia Maria. Sophe would much
rather have been hanging out at McDonald’s or KFC than wasting
time in a boring old library, but was afraid that Grace would
report her to Raymond, who would dream up a much harsher
punishment.
After a couple of weeks Steve made up name tags for them, and
soon the regulars were greeting them by name. Sophia Maria
called them boring old farts, but Kirra was fond of the odd
people who whiled away their days there, reading magazines or
sleeping. She didn’t even mind the old man who read aloud all
day and drove everyone else nuts.
Sophia Maria stayed out the back covering books, bored to
death, listening to her little transistor radio, but when Kirra
had finished reading Jane Eyre, she found the courage to ask if
there were any other jobs she could do. The overworked staff —
Steve, Sue, Bob and Bronwyn — were only too pleased to put her
to work shelving books. It became one of Kirra’s favourite jobs.
She’d never known so many books existed. Mind you, she
occasionally had to recite the alphabet before she could figure
out exactly where a book should go. Often when she was supposed
to be putting the books away, she forgot and started reading it
instead, but nobody seemed to mind.
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Kirra hadn’t told Ruby about the library because she was
afraid Ruby would drag the shoplifting episode out of her. But
it couldn’t last forever. Eventually Ruby’s shift at the pub
changed and she realised Kirra wasn’t coming straight home from
school and wanted to know why.
Kirra admitted she was doing volunteer work in the library,
but to her relief, Ruby accepted it without too many questions.
After all, libraries are much safer than street corners, pinball
parlours or fast food restaurants. Wanting to show off her new
skills and new friends, Kirra even managed to talk her mother
into a visit the library. When Ruby met the staff and saw the
fuss the old dears made of her girl, she was converted.
“Maybe you can get a job in a library when you leave school,”
she suggested. “There won’t be any carnivals left by then, and I
don’t want you stuck in a pub like me.”
Unbeknown to Ruby, Grace was keeping a close eye on Kirra and
Sophia Maria.
Kirra, always a snoop, knew because she’d
overheard Steve talking to Grace on the phone. Then one day,
Grace dropped in — to look for a book, she said — and bumped
into Kirra in the stacks.
“Very chic name tag,” Grace remarked. “How’s the job going?”
“It’s great. Did you know there are 456 different writers in
the M section?”
Grace laughed. “We’ll make a librarian of you yet. Steve says
you’re a good little worker. Would you like to help me out at
the Wayside Chapel?”
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Kirra flushed with surprise and pleasure. She was fascinated
by everything about Grace — her thinness, her long stride, her
clothes, her low voice. But most of all, she admired the way
Grace seemed to know exactly what she was doing. She wasn’t just
being swept along by life: she was doing the sweeping.
A few days after Grace’s invitation, Kirra crept in the front
door of the Wayside Chapel and presented herself to Vladimir,
the receptionist. Soon she was ensconced in Grace’s office
learning how to file papers. Not a moment too soon either, for
Grace’s paperwork threatened to take over the world like green
slime from outer space.
While she worked at a table in the corner, Kirra began to
listen in on Grace’s phone conversations. And to learn. She also
picked Vladimir’s brains and learned Grace was a social worker.
Eventually she got the courage to ask Grace was a social worker
was.
“We help people fight the system,” explained Grace. “When they
find themselves on the wrong side of the law, or the
government.” She paused: “Or life, for that matter.”
In her mind’s eye, Kirra saw all these people trapped in
caves, and Grace going in like a rescue worker with ropes and a
torch mounted on her hard hat and bringing them out. But Grace
did most of it without leaving her office — on the phone.
Gradually, Kirra came to know all Grace’s “contacts”. That was
Grace’s name for the voices on the other end of the phone whom
she bullied and charmed and begged for favours. Ron represented
people in court when they’d broken the law. Antoinette fixed up
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problems about pensions. Dimitri supplied translators for people
who couldn’t speak English. Paddy let Grace know when her
clients were getting out of jail. Birgitta helped sort out
battles over custody of kids in divorce cases. And that was only
some of them.
When Grace thought her assistant was ready, she asked Kirra to
take phone messages when she went out. That way Kirra got to
know Grace’s contacts, too. Most of them were polite; Antoinette
was friendly; but Dimitri was a bit gruff sometimes.
It was a whole new world. Kirra was rapt. Of course, the
Wayside Chapel wasn’t all sweetness and light. Drunks would
stagger in and cause a ruckus, or a schizophrenic would forget
to take his drugs and start ranting about the end of the world.
In the beginning it had frightened Kirra, but the staff were
used to outbursts, and knew how to quell a kerfuffle quietly.
Sometimes Grace would call a break and they’d sit in the
coffee shop and chat. As they talked, Kirra grew to trust Grace
completely. Eventually she told her about life with Deans’
Travelling circus, about Merv and Zac and Billy. And of course
that led to the earthquake and Jack’s accident. It was a relief
to find a sympathetic ear. Sophia Maria was her friend, but she
didn’t want to hear anyone else’s problems; she had enough of
her own.
Although she wasn’t quite sure why, Kirra didn’t mention Grace
at home. She knew she had enough love in her heart for both Ruby
and Grace, but she wasn’t sure Ruby would understand. Her mother
had been fragile since Jack’s death. There was no point in
upsetting her.
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One day, when Kirra rolled in from the library, she found Ruby
lying down, sleeping. When she caught sight of her mother from
the door, Kirra’s heart thudded and her stomach turned over.
Ruby was so pale, so still, she could almost have been dead.
Tiptoeing across the room, Kirra put her ear close to her
mother’s chest to see if Ruby’s heart was beating. She almost
flew through the ceiling when Ruby asked her what on earth she
was doing.
“I thought... Are you all right, Mum?”
“It’s just my stomach playing up. The same old thing. But I’d
love a cup of tea.”
Sleep eluded Kirra that night. She felt guilty. With school
and Sophia Maria and her jobs in the library and the chapel,
she’d been neglecting her mother lately. Now that she thought
about it, Ruby had lost a lot of weight, and tired easily. She
definitely wasn’t her old self. Next morning, when she tried to
talk to Ruby about it, she was told not to worry, that her
mother was fine, and to run along to school.
Kirra worried all day, then decided to confide in Grace. “I
think my mother’s sick, but she won’t admit it.”
Kirra’s tone alarmed Grace. “How sick?”
“Real sick. I caught her lying down yesterday. She never
sleeps during the day.”
“Would you like me to talk to her?” asked Grace, gently.
Kirra could only nod: sympathy always did her in. She didn’t
believe it would do any good — Ruby could be as stubborn as an
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ox — but they had to try. And besides, it would bring Grace and
Ruby together.
To Kirra’s surprise, when she told Ruby about Grace, and to do
that she had to confess Sophia Maria’s shoplifting, her mother
didn’t throw a fit. Instead, she nodded and said: “The woman’s
got some sense. That’s a nice change. Most social workers make
more trouble than they solve.”
Kirra was mystified. When had Ruby had anything to do with
social workers? Then she twigged. It must have been in the
carnival days when they’d been down to baked beans and day-old
bread, and Ruby would quietly disappear in the ute and return
with a box of food.
Ruby went to a great deal of trouble for Grace’s visit. She
dispatched Kirra to the French bakery for an expensive apple
pie, and even got her mother’s embroidered tablecloth out of a
suitcase and ironed it. The afternoon tea went off swimmingly.
Ruby regaled Grace with tales from the carnival, and Grace told
them funny stories about the characters who hung around the
chapel.
As Grace got up to leave, Ruby rose too, and winced with pain.
“Are you ill, Ruby?” asked Grace.
“I’m all right. It’s just my stomach playing up. I’ve had it
for years, haven’t I, Kirra?”
Grace wouldn’t be fobbed off. “Have you seen a doctor lately?
Ruby looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”
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“Mum!” protested Kirra. “You haven’t been to the doctor in
months.”
Grace put her hand on Ruby’s arm. “I think you should see a
doctor. Pat Glover is very good, and she’s just down the road in
Kings Cross. You’ll like her.”
“It’s nothing,” said Ruby, digging in her heels.
There was a tense silence. Kirra wanted to shout at her mother
not to be so pig- headed, but didn’t dare. She should have
trusted Grace, who dealt with women like Ruby every day, and
understood their fear. “Ruby, you realise, don’t you, that if
anything happens to you, Kirra will be alone in the world?”
Ruby looked at Grace, then at Kirra, then back at Grace.
“What’s Doctor Glover’s address?”
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CHAPTER 20
When the school holidays began, Grace let the girls off their
volunteer work, but warned them not to get any ideas.
Kirra and Sophia Maria ranged far and wide across the city.
They went to Bondi Beach, though they found the surf a bit
scary, and walked down to George Street to the movies when they
could raise the money. Kirra, who’d been longing for the open
spaces, spent blissful time alone in the Botanic Gardens
reading, while Sophia Maria got up to who knows what sort of
mischief.
On Wednesday, while Kirra was in the library, gossiping with
Sue and changing her book, a woman came to the counter and asked
if they kept old newspapers.
“How old?” asked Sue.
“About twenty years. I’m researching the green bans the unions
put on Woolloomooloo in the seventies to stop the developers
wrecking the neighbourhood.”
Sue explained that the library only kept a couple of weeks
worth of papers because they didn’t have room to store them.
“But the State Library keeps them,” she said. “The ones you want
would be on microfilm.”
The woman groaned, said, “Thanks, anyway,” and left.
“What’s research?” asked Kirra.
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“Finding information,” explained Sue. “Anything from the date
the Titanic went down to the primary products of Patagonia.
Though I’m not sure that Patagonia has any primary products
except sheep, now I come to think of it.”
“Where do you find it?”
“Oh, reference books, computer data bases, old newspapers,
magazines...” She pointed to a shelf on the other side of the
room: “Those are reference books. You can look them up inside
the library, but nobody’s allowed to take them out.”
“Can you really read old newspapers in the State Library?”
asked Kirra.
Sue nodded.
“Can anybody use it?”
“Sure, it belongs to the people.”
“Where is it, Sue?”
“In Macquarie Street. If you walk down through the Domain from
here, you come out right beside it. Or you can get the train to
Martin Place and walk up.” Sue gave Kirra a speculative look.
“What’s all this about?”
“Oh, nothing really,” said Kirra, blushing. “I was just
curious.”
“It’s OK,” said Sue. “We all have our guilty secrets.”
When Kirra started to protest, the librarian laughed: “I’m
just kidding!”
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While Kirra was pretending to read So Much to Tell You
in the
Botanic Gardens in the shade of a gigantic Moreton Bay Fig, she
was really wondering if she could research (what an impressive
word that was) the Janey Halliday disappearance. But she
wouldn’t dare go near a place like the State Library... Or would
she?
Dropping in at the library on her way home, she tracked Steve
down to the back room, where he was drinking tea and reading the
newspaper. “Steve, I want to look something up in some old
newspapers in the State Library, but...” She scuffed her feet on
the balding carpet.
“Too scared to go in, eh?”
Kirra nodded.
“What if I rang one of our colleagues down there and asked her
to look after you?”
Our colleagues, thought Kirra, thrilled. “You don’t mind, do
you, Steve?”
“No problem.”
The next day, when Kirra refused an invitation to hang out at
McDonald’s because she wanted to check out the State Library,
Sophia Maria’s was annoyed. “They’re turning you into a giant
suck!” she said.
“I’m doing research.”
Flouncing off, Sophia Maria yelled: “You’ve flipped your lid,
Kirra!”
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Even with a note from Steve clutched in her sweaty paw, Kirra
was overawed by the State Library. Once through the strange,
circular door, she found herself in a big, airy, blue room with
couches and a bookshop off to the side. A totally beautiful girl
dressed in Dracula black at the information desk pointed her
towards some stairs.
Downstairs was bedlam, with students stashing bags and books
in lockers and gossiping, and people barging through to the
coffee shop. Kirra sidled in through the turnstiles, where a
grim looking guard gave her a suspicious look, to something
called the reference desk.
This must be it, she thought, remembering Sue’s lecture about
reference books.
A kind librarian sent her downstairs, past people using
computers, past students curled up in armchairs reading, past
people poring over books on desks or sitting on the floor
between the book stacks, to the newspaper section. When she
presented her crumpled note, a young man with a red ponytail
went away and returned with Steve’s friend, Savinda, splendid in
a magenta and gold sari.
Savinda took Kirra’s note, inquired after Steve’s health, then
asked just what it was Kirra wished to research.
“The disappearance of a little girl, Janey Halliday,” said
Kirra. “Back in 1981.”
Kirra watched the curiosity flare in Savinda’s eyes: “Ah, yes,
I remember that. I went through university with Janey’s aunt,
Vanessa Coleman. It was a dreadful thing: the family have never
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really recovered.” She sighed. “But this isn’t getting the job
done. It shouldn’t be too difficult, because it was all over the
Sydney Morning Herald
for weeks, and if my memory serves me, it
was in the school holidays.”
Savinda left and collected some small boxes, then took Kirra
over to a desk containing a strange, squat machine with a
screen, and turned it on. Taking some reels of film from the
boxes, she wound them through the spools and up came a picture
of the newspaper pages. Kirra was shown how to move the film
back and forwards, how to change the focus to make the picture
clearer, and how to feed in new microfilm.
After Savinda wafted away in a cloud of sweet, musky scent,
Kirra sat for a few minutes, stunned, amazed at her own daring.
Ruby would have a fit, if she knew... Taking a deep breath, she
began to read.
It took longer than Kirra had expected. The microfilm was hard
on the eyes, and she kept getting sidetracked by interesting
stories. Just when she thought it had been a wild goose chase,
she found the first mention of Janey Halliday’s disappearance,
just a couple of paragraphs with the bare facts. But later, when
the Hallidays returned to Sydney, Janey’s father — James, his
name was — gave an interview. In it he explained that Janey’s
mother, Sarah, was too upset to talk to reporters.
Fascinated, horrified, excited, Kirra read every word she
could find about the case, and stared at the photographs of
little, blonde Janey Halliday until they turned into dots.
Finally, exhausted and with eyes hanging out, she returned the
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boxes of microfilm to Savinda, thanked her, and ambled through
the Domain towards home.
It was a glorious day, with the late afternoon light casting
an eerie green glow on the grass and trees, but Kirra was blind
to the wonders of nature. She was thinking about Janey
Halliday’s disappearance. Nobody knew exactly what had happened
on the beach that day, but Kirra had learned several new facts.
For a start, she had discovered Jamie Halliday was a lawyer,
like Grace’s friend, Ron. And she knew that, in 1981, the
Hallidays lived at Roseville.
Roseville. The word conjured up country towns and rows of
cottages with lush, sweet-smelling, bee-laden gardens and arches
of roses over their front gates. Unable to wait another minute,
she stopped in at the post office on the way home and looked up
the A-K volume of the phone book to see if a J. Halliday of
Roseville was listed. Nothing. Defeated, she sat down on the
post office steps, forcing all the German backpackers to go
round her.
What now?
That night she was too quiet for Ruby’s liking. “What on
earth’s wrong with you? You look as if you’ve swallowed a
cockroach.”
Kirra laughed, then realised how long it had been since Ruby
cracked a joke. “Have you been to the doctor yet, Mum?”
“Not yet, love. You know how busy we’ve been at the pub. And I
haven’t been feeling too bad lately.”
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When Kirra’s mouth turned down, Ruby said: “I promise
faithfully I’ll go next week. Now where did I put that address?”
And pigs will fly, thought Kirra.
Next morning, as soon as Bob came downstairs to unlock the
library door, Kirra flew up the steps and grabbed Sue. “Sue, can
you...”
“Good morning, Sue,” said the librarian. “Good morning, Kirra.
What can I do for you?”
Kirra laughed shamefacedly. “Sorry.”
“Well?”
“If you’ve got a name and a suburb, how can you find out where
a person lives?”
“More research, eh?” Sue, who didn’t know about Jack, had
decided Kirra was looking for a runaway father. “Easy, in the
electoral roll.”
“What’s that?”
“When you turn 18, you have to put your name down on a list to
vote. They call the list is the electoral roll. That stops
people from voting twice.”
“Why would they want to vote twice?”
“Beats me. I never want to vote once.”
“Where can I find one?”
“Steve!” yelled Sue. “The nearest electoral rolls would be at
the State Library, wouldn’t they?”
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Steve agreed. “Oh, no,” groaned Kirra. “Here we go again.”
Her second trip to the library was less daunting. Now that she
knew her way around, she went on a little tour. In the the
reading room, she gazed at the students and wondered what they
were studying. She imagined herself as a sophisticated
university student with black clothes and Doc Marten shoes and a
bored expression. It was just a dream, though.
Then she made her way to the genealogy section and was shown
how to find the right microfiche and look up names and addresses
on the reading machines. Now she had the answer in her grasp,
she felt breathless, afraid. If she found out where the
Hallidays lived, she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist going
to Roseville to look at their house. Maybe she should stop this
mad scheme now.
Do I really think I’m Janey Halliday? she asked herself.
Sophia Maria thought she was the dead spit of Caroline
Halliday, but there must be thousands of blue-eyed, blonde
twelve-year-olds in Australia who looked like a grown-up Janey
Halliday. In her heart of hearts, she knew this was just a
fantasy, a way of distracting herself from her worries about
Ruby, who still hadn’t gone to see Dr Glover.
But what if it wasn’t a fantasy? What if she really was Janey
Halliday? That would mean the Hallidays were her real family. If
Ruby died, she would need them. If Ruby got better, there was no
harm done. Was there?
All this flashed through Kirra’s mind as she sat staring at
the microfiche machine. Then, mind made up, she began to scroll
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through the Hs with trembling fingers. After a slow, agonising
search, she found what she was longing for and dreading: the
address of James and Sarah Halliday — 34 The Close, Roseville.
She wrote it down. There was no going back now.
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CHAPTER 21
Creeping along The Close at Roseville at seven o’clock the
following night, Kirra felt like an intruder, maybe because
there wasn’t another soul in the street. A few expensive cars
had purred past her into driveways, but everyone else was safe
indoors.
The first time she ventured along the street, she hardly dared
look into number 34. It was silly, but she thought the Hallidays
would know she was there to spy on them. The second time, she
took more in. Compared to some of the huge houses on the way
from the station, the Halliday place was quite modest, but it
looked solid and comfortable. Someone in the family must have
green fingers, for the garden was a riot of flowers and shrubs.
In the driveway stood one of those heavy cars the city folk at
the jazz festival had driven — Volvos, Billy had called them.
Invisible under a tree across the road, Kirra gazed into the
Hallidays’ front window. Through the half-pulled curtains, she
could see a middle-aged man sitting in an armchair reading the
paper, while a fair-haired woman did something at a sideboard,
her back to the window. Soon the woman turned and handed the man
a drink. Kirra couldn’t see a television, but caught the faint
sound of music. Lamp light illuminated a piano and cast a mellow
glow on the paintings on the walls.
To Kirra it looked like an old-fashioned picture of the
perfect family. The serenity was shattered by the sound of a
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small, noisy car pulling into the driveway. A teenage girl leapt
out of the car. It was Caroline, the girl from the TV program.
When her mother opened the door to let her in, a lolloping
golden cocker spaniel burst out and launched itself at the girl.
“Get down, you awful pest!” she said, laughing, pushing the
dog away. Inside, the Hallidays greeted their daughter joyfully.
Kirra’s heart turned over. She whispered the name to herself:
Caroline. Caroline was perfect, everything Kirra would like to
be. What would Caroline’s room be like? Probably like one of
those bedrooms on American television shows, with a ruffled
bedspread, white furniture and stuffed toys on the bed. The
thought of stuffed animals brought Ruby’s shooting gallery and
the carnival to mind, and hot tears stung Kirra’s eyes.
Fascinated, forgetting herself, she edged closer to the house.
But when a dog in nearby yard began to bark suddenly, she shrank
back. Alerted by the noise, Caroline Halliday came to the window
and looked out, the light creating a halo around her fair head.
Seeing nothing, she turned back to the room.
The dog was becoming hysterical. Any minute now, its owner
would come out to investigate. Afraid of being discovered, Kirra
set off for the station, her thoughts in a jumble. What on earth
am I doing here, peeping in people’s window? she wondered.
The railway station was deserted and creepy. Every noise made
Kirra jump. By the time she got to Kings Cross and fought her
way through the usual throng of tourists and revellers to the
boarding house in Darlinghurst, it was dangerously late, and
she’d given herself quite a fright. She made it safely to the
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second landing, but as she was unlocking their room, Mrs O’s
head appeared around her door . Oh, no. “Does your mother know
how late you’re getting in, young lady?”
“Please don’t tell Ruby,” begged Kirra. “She’s not well.”
“You should have thought of that before you decided to stayed
out till all hours,” scolded Mrs O. Then her face softened. “Go
to bed. You look as if you’ve been chased by your own ghost.”
Kirra was still awake, her mind full of pictures of the
Halliday family, when Ruby came in, but she pretended to be
asleep in case her mother asked any embarrassing questions. Ruby
groaned as she kicked off her work shoes, and when she lowered
her tired body to the bed, the springs groaned in turn. Then,
without even taking off her pub clothes or showering off the
smell of smoke, she fell asleep. Kirra was alarmed; the Ruby she
knew never went to bed unwashed.
“Mum,” she said softly. Normally Ruby would turn over and tell
Kirra to stop nagging, that it was just overwork, but her mother
did not stir.
“Please don’t leave me, Mum,” Kirra whispered. “I promise I’ll
stay away from the Hallidays if you’ll only get better.”
The days flew by. One afternoon in the library, Kirra came
across a book about the grand old days of the circus. Forgetting
her duties, she slid to the floor and was soon far away,
immersed in the saga of the wild animal trainer who’d been
trapped in a cage with three lionesses when the lights failed.
He’d survived, but said he wouldn’t want to go through it again.
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The yarn reminded Kirra of Merv, and she was quiet for hours
afterwards, missing her old friend. Where was Merv now? And
Billy?
The school holidays were drawing to a close, giving Kirra that
half-sad, half-glad feeling. Sophia Maria’s feelings were much
simpler: she hated school. On their last Saturday of freedom,
Sophia Maria came by to pick up Kirra for a day at Darling
Harbour, where the Aboriginal band, Yothu Yindi was giving a
free concert. Kirra didn’t want to leave her mother alone, but
Ruby insisted she go. “I’m desperate for some peace and quiet,”
she said. “I’ll probably sleep most of the day.”
By the time the girls dragged in from a day of crowds, rock
bands, buskers, mimes, junk food and too much sun and wind, Ruby
had gone off to work.
“Your mother looked awful this morning,” remarked Sophia
Maria. “Like this teacher I had in Brisbane.” She crammed a huge
piece of bread smothered in peanut butter into her mouth: “She
died of cancer.”
Kirra leapt to her feet, outraged, her eyes wild. “How dare
you say such a thing! I hate you! Go home!” Sophia Maria, who’d
never seen Kirra in a temper before, jumped up, knocking over
her chair, and took off down the stairs. She was so shocked she
forgot the other half of the sandwich.
When Kirra’s rage blew over, she started trembling and then
had a good cry. She felt as if her life had turned into a
runaway horse, that she was only just hanging on to its mane.
Eventually, exhausted by the day out and the drama, she fell
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asleep downstairs, in one of the lumpy, greasy old armchairs
with the television still roaring. She was having a nightmare
about runaway horses, when the shrilling of the phone woke her.
None of the other lodgers appeared, so she got to her feet
groggily and answered it.
“I’m looking for Kirra,” said a strange voice with an accent.
“That’s me,” she answered, her heart knocking. She was wide
awake now. “Who’s this?”
“Michael Aboud. I own the Star Hotel, you know, the pub where
your mum works...”
“Has something happened to Ruby?” asked Kirra, her voice
rising.
“I’m sorry, love, but Ruby collapsed half an hour ago, and we
had to call an ambulance. They took her to emergency at St
Vincent’s.”
Kirra’s wail brought everybody running.
“What is it, pet?” asked Mrs O, still carrying her knitting, a
trail of wool following her down the stairs.
“Kirra, what’s wrong?” said Mrs Campbell, already wrapped in
her red chenille dressing gown with a hairnet covering her
curlers like a cobweb.
“It’s Ruby,” sobbed Kirra. “She’s been taken to St Vincent’s.”
“Well, we’d better get you down there, hadn’t we, duck,” said
Mrs O. Mrs Campbell wanted to come too, but the shock had made
her wheeze. “You stay here, Isobel,” said her friend. “I’ll look
after the child.”
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After sympathetic good wishes all round, Mrs O whisked Kirra
off to St Vincent’s. It was only a few blocks away, but Mrs
O’Reilly’s legs weren’t getting any younger, so they took a cab.
Besides, were too many unsavoury characters on the streets at
this time of night.
The hospital was humming with activity. Ambulances wailed
their way into Casualty and Emergency; doctors, nurses and
orderlies strode about; and worried people huddled in clumps,
waiting for news. After checking her computer, the receptionist
confirmed that Ruby was in the hospital, but told them they’d
have to sit tight till a doctor could talk to them.
An hour later a woman with a smooth, pale face and ink black
shoulder-length hair approached them. Her name tag said Dr Chen.
“You’re Kirra?” she asked.
Kirra nodded, desperate for news; afraid to hear it.
“I thought so. Your mother’s been asking for you.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s lost a lot of blood, and we’ve had to give her a
transfusion. Do you know what that means, Kirra?”
“Other people’s blood?”
“That’s right. She’s stable now, but we have to do more
tests.”
“Can I see her?” asked Kirra.
Taking in the girl’s frightened eyes in the chalk-white face,
the doctor decided it didn’t hurt to bend the rules
occasionally. “You can have a quick look in through the door,
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that’s all. There’s no use talking to her, though. She won’t be
able to hear you.”
“I’ll wait here, pet,” said Mrs O. “You go and see your
mother.”
Kirra had never seen Ruby looking so small and helpless. There
was a tube snaking out of her nose and others attached to her
arms, and she was hooked up to a glowing green monitor which
blipped away in the gloom.
She’s going to die, thought Kirra. Oh, Ruby, why didn’t you go
to the doctor like you promised...
The doctor tapped her on the shoulder, and they left. As they
were waiting for the lift back down to the ground floor, Kirra
turned to her: “Is she going to die, Dr Chen?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Kirra: it’s touch and go. The next
twenty-four hours will tell. But I think she’ll make it. She’s
got a strong will.” She smiled for the first time: “And she’s
got you.”
Kirra nodded dumbly, not knowing whether to believe Dr Chen or
not. Grown-ups didn’t always tell children the truth; she knew
that much.
When they arrived, Mrs O asked Kirra how her mother looked.
“Bad,” said Kirra. Then she broke down and wept on Mrs O’s
ample bosom.
“Take her home, Mrs O’Reilly,” said Dr Chen. “This is no place
for a child. We’ll let you know if there’s any change.”
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CHAPTER 22
Back at the boarding house, Kirra couldn’t settle to the
television, a book, or even her own thoughts, which galloped off
in all directions. Instead, she paced the TV room, pacing out
the days of her life with Ruby. She probably wasn’t thinking
straight, but she couldn’t shake off the suspicion that Ruby had
decided to leave her. That she had chosen to be with Jack.
I’ll be all alone, she thought. They’ll make me a ward of the
state. I’ll end up on the streets like Mandy.
The prospect made her heart thud in her chest like a
frightened bird. Sophia Maria’s friend, Mandy, had been made a
ward of the state, and liked to tell horror stories about all
the foster parents she’d had. Mandy was living on the streets in
Kings Cross now, and each time Kirra caught sight of her, she
looked more beaten and lost.
Later Mrs O’Reilly brought her a cup of Milo. “You should be
in bed, pet.”
“I can’t sleep, Mrs O.”
Noting Kirra’s frightened eyes and flushed cheeks, the old
lady took a little envelope out of her dressing gown pocket.
“Take this pill, pet. Dr Chen said you could have it if you got
upset. It won’t do Ruby any good if you worry yourself sick.”
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Kirra drank her Milo, but as soon as Mrs O’s back was turned,
pocketed the pill. She knew now what she must do, and she had to
be wide awake to carry out her plan.
To set Mrs O’s mind at rest, Kirra went upstairs and pretended
to get ready for bed. But as soon as her friend’s light went
off, she washed her face, ran a comb through her hair, threw on
a jumper and searched the room for some change.
In a last look around the room before she left, Kirra’s eye
fell on the picture of May Wirth, frozen forever in the air
above her white horses. She stared at it for a moment, then
undid the frame, removed the photograph and tucked it in the
pocket of her shirt. It warmed her heart, somehow. Then she
stole down the stairs, unlocked the front door and ran to the
station.
She must have been a bit mad that night, because later she
wouldn’t be able to remember catching the train at Kings Cross,
changing at Town Hall, or walking through the dark from
Roseville station to number 34, The Close.
What she would remember was the relief she felt at the sight
of the Halliday house, its lights blazing away like an ocean
liner. Mr Halliday was nowhere to be seen, but upstairs,
Caroline was clearly visible, reading at her desk. It wasn’t
until her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, that Kirra spied
Sarah Halliday. She was sitting in an armchair, in the dim glow
of a lamp, gazing out into the garden. A book lay unread on her
lap, and the golden spaniel dozed at her feet.
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Like smoke borne on the wind, the woman’s unhappiness reached
Kirra, watching from the deepest shadow. Almost against her
will, it drew her out of hiding, into the pool of light cast by
the street light.
At first Sarah Halliday didn’t register the
little figure across the road, staring into her house. Then she
rose from her chair, walked slowly to the window and threw it
open. “Janey?” she said softly. Then louder, “Janey!”
The cry brought Kirra to her senses. She turned on her heels
and ran, Sarah Halliday’s cries pursuing her through the night,
not daring to slow down till they’d faded away. Safe at last at
the train station, she sat shivering, amazed by what she’d done,
frightened by her own foolishness.
The train came finally. Staring out the window at the black
night, Kirra didn’t see her own reflection. First she saw Sarah
Halliday’s face with that heartbreaking look of hope; then that
vision faded, and Ruby appeared, white and defenceless in her
hospital bed. Guilt was what Kirra felt then, guilt at having
abandoned Ruby.
At Town Hall, Kirra got off the train in a daze, but when she
got to the escalator down to Platform 5, she saw a sign saying
that all trains to Bondi Junction had been cancelled because of
a problem on the line. Buses to the Eastern Suburbs were leaving
from Park Street. It didn’t make much difference to Kirra, who
scarcely knew where she was anyway. Which way was Park Street?
She decided to follow the other passengers, who seemed to know
where they were going.
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As the crowd carried Kirra through the concourse, the sound of
music broke through her trance. A busker was playing Me and
Bobby Magee on a mouth organ. The way Billy used to.
Maybe if Billy was here all this would all be easier to bear,
she thought, with a pang of terrible longing and grief. But he’d
gone from her life with the carnival. Billy was just a fond
memory now, and the carnival probably didn’t exist any more.
A commotion break out below while Kirra was walking up the
stairs to the street, but she was not able to see what the fuss
was about. You got used to this sort of thing in the city. Then
she thought she heard a man’s voice shouting something, a name,
perhaps, but it was drowned out by the traffic from the street.
Outside, Kirra quickly spotted the Eastern Suburbs bus and
climbed aboard. Her limbs felt like lead, and she was afraid she
might fall asleep and miss her stop. All around her, passengers
swapped rumours. When a man said a girl had fallen in front of
the train at Martin Place, Kirra tried to close her ears.
Just as the bus began to move, someone ran up and began
pounding on the door. The driver pushed a lever, and the door
swung open again with a loud hiss. “Get a move on if you’re
getting on,” he snarled at the latecomer. Then they were away.
Oblivious, Kirra stared out the window. She couldn’t remember
ever feeling more drained, even during the long night of the
flood or during the endless hours they’d waited for news of Jack
after the earthquake. Far away, she got a fright when the late
arrival plonked down on the seat beside her, and cringed away,
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trying to make herself invisible. She prayed he wouldn’t want to
talk.
“What’s the matter?” asked a familiar voice. “Not pleased to
see an old mate?”
It was Billy.
At first Kirra’s thought she’d fallen asleep on the bus and
dreamt Billy, but when he took out his mouth organ and played a
joyful little riff, she knew he was real. To Billy’s dismay, she
immediately burst into tears. When she found her voice, Kirra
told Billy what had happened to Ruby. But she didn’t tell him
what she’d been doing that night: he might think a girl who
spied on strangers’ houses had lost her marbles. Maybe she had.
Billy’s news was bad, too. Deans’ Travelling Carnival had gone
bust a month ago, he said. There had been a wild farewell party,
then the good companions had gone their separate ways,
scattering to the four winds. The scuttlebutt was that Mr Reece
had an offer from a circus in Western Australia, but if it was
true, he was keeping it under his ten-gallon hat. He wouldn’t
want them turning up begging for work.
“What about Merv?” asked Kirra. Merv was too old to get a job
anywhere else.
Billy told her Merv and Zac had moved into a home for retired
circus folk in Hornsby. “I’ve visited him there,” he said. “He’s
having a whale of a time swapping tall stories with all the
other old hams.”
Even though she knew it was selfish and silly, Kirra was
jealous for a moment, wanting Merv’s circus stories all to
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herself. Then she felt a surge of pure happiness, the first in a
long time. She was pretty sure there was a train to Hornsby. She
and Billy would visit Merv and Zac. It would be like old times
again.
“But Billy, what are you going to do?” she asked.
“I tried Wollongong, but there was no work. So I stayed with
Auntie Opal for a couple of weeks, then came here. I’ve been
busking.”
Kirra and Sophia Maria got most of their live entertainment
from buskers around the city. Sometimes Kirra envied them — all
they needed was a musical instrument and a hat to catch coins.
“Can you live on that?” she asked.
“Only if you don’t have to pay rent. The rents in Sydney are
incredible! I don’t know how anybody can afford to live here.”
“So where are you living?”
“I’m staying with friends of Auntie Opal’s in Redfern, but I
can’t bludge on them forever. I’ll have to get a real job.”
“Quick, here’s our stop,” said Kirra, and they leapt off the
bus and set off for the boarding house. After seeing her in,
Billy turned to leave, but Kirra was afraid to let him out of
her sight again. Anyway, she needed him.
“You can stay with us... I mean me tonight, Billy,” she said,
praying the old ladies wouldn’t see him and kick up a fuss. They
didn’t like strangers around the place .
“Won’t you get into strife?”
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“Not if you’re quiet. You can sleep in Ruby’s bed... ” At the
thought of her mother’s empty bed, she stopped, choked up.
“Ruby’s going to be all right, Kirra, you’ll see,” said Billy,
taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “She’s as tough as an
old boot.” And Kirra was comforted, especially when Billy kept
hold of her hand.
The Cross was still full of noisy people having fun, but they
made no impression on Kirra that night. Her mind was fixed on
Ruby. She had this mad idea that if she concentrated hard
enough, she could keep her mother alive.
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CHAPTER 23
Kirra was allowed in to see Ruby for a few minutes before her
operation the next morning. She found her mother propped up
against a pile of pillows, as white as the hospital sheets.
“Are you all right, pet?” Ruby asked. Even her voice sounded
pale. Kirra kissed her cheek, sat down beside the bed and took
her mother’s hand, rough from years of hard work.
“I’m OK, Mum, really. Mrs O’Reilly’s been looking after me.
She’s downstairs.” Kirra decided not to tell Ruby about Billy.
It might remind her of the old days, and she had enough on her
plate already.
“You look like something the cat dragged in,” said Ruby.
“Oh, Mum!” said Kirra, and the tears began to leak down her
cheeks. When she wiped her face with her hand, Ruby told her to
use a tissue from the night table. Kirra pulled a wad out of the
box and blew her nose noisily.
“Are you OK now, love? I want to tell you something...
something very important. In case...”
“Please, Mum, you’re going to be all right,” wailed Kirra.
“In case anything happens to me,” Ruby went on, her voice
growing stronger. “We have to be practical.”
Kirra thought Ruby was about to tell her their PIN number so
she could withdraw money from the automatic teller, but she was
wrong.
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Ruby paused, gathering her strength. “Do you remember the
Slatterys?”
Kirra was unlikely to forget the couple who’d caused the
Kincaids so much unhappiness in Nowra. “Chris and Rick?”
“That’s them. Did Chris tell you she knew you when you were
little?”
Kirra nodded.
Ruby’s eyes searched Kirra’s face, then she seemed to make up
her mind. “Well, she didn’t know you, Kirra, she knew my other
little girl.”
Kirra went cold with shock. “What other little girl?”
“The one who died. Her name was Kirra, too.”
“My older sister?”
“No, love. She was my daughter, but she wasn’t your sister.”
Kirra knew what was coming. “I’m adopted, aren’t I?” she
said.
Ruby looked astonished, then gave a bitter laugh. “I wish it
was that simple. No, you’re not adopted. Your mother didn’t give
you away. Jack stole you from the Hallidays. You’re Janey
Halliday.”
Kirra was afraid she’d faint. She’d never really believed she
was the lost girl, not when she was watching the Halliday family
from the shadows, not even when she’d stepped into the light to
reveal herself to Sarah Halliday. It had been a game, something
to daydream about, to take her mind off all the terrible things
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that had happened since they lost Jack. Now Ruby was telling her
it was true.
“Jack stole me! But why?”
“For me. I’d lost my own little girl, and I didn’t want to go
on living. Jack was afraid he’d lose me too.”
“What happened to your own daughter... Ruby?”
Kirra had been about to call Ruby “Mum” but the word stuck in
her throat. Ruby wasn’t her real mother, and never had been:
Sarah Halliday was. At least she didn’t have to feel guilty
about last night any more.
Ruby didn’t seem aware of Kirra’s confusion. She was far away
in the past, reliving an old tragedy. “One day she started
feeling sick, grizzling, running a temperature. I thought it was
just a cold, but she got worse as the day wore on.” Helpless
tears ran down Ruby’s face. “By the time we got her to the
hospital, it was too late. She’d stopped breathing.”
Ruby’s always loved her more than me, thought Kirra, then
felt stupid for being jealous of a dead child.
“They never found out what killed her, never,” Ruby
continued. “That was the worst part, not knowing. I kept
thinking if we’d taken her to a doctor sooner, we might have
saved her. I couldn’t forgive myself. That’s what did me in.”
“Where did you, I mean, where is she?” asked Kirra.
“We buried her in Queensland, where she was born. By the
sea.”
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Kirra knew where Ruby meant, Kirra Beach. She’d always loved
being named after a place by the sea; it had made her feel
special. Now even that had been taken away from her. Her name
was Janey Halliday now.
A nurse bustled in, took Ruby’s pulse and frowned. “You’ll
really have to leave now, dear,” she said to Kirra.
No! thought Kirra. She wanted to know everything about her
past. In case...
“No, not yet!” protested Ruby. “Just five minutes more,
please.”
“As long as you promise not to get too upset,” said the
nurse. “Just five minutes.” Then she left them alone.
Kirra’s mind raced. She had the feeling all this was
happening to someone else. “How did Jack find me?” she asked.
“We were camped around the headland from where the Hallidays
were having their picnic. While I was having my afternoon nap,
Jack went for a drive to look for a fishing spot. You wandered
out on the road in front of him...”
In her mind’s eye, Kirra pictured Jack driving along,
whistling tunelessly as he always did, and suddenly noticing a
baby girl about to wander onto the road. He would have stood on
the brakes, got out of the car to help, then realised what he’d
found. Someone to take Kirra’s place; something to make Ruby
smile again. Did he look around to see if anyone was watching,
or did he just grab the child and run? And did Janey Halliday
resist, or put out her arms to be picked up?
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“Why didn’t you make him take me back?” asked Kirra fiercely.
Ruby’s voice was infinitely sad. “I couldn’t. He’d already
been in trouble, and if he’d admitted stealing a baby, they’d
have sent him to jail. He was all I had, love. After what had
happened to my baby, I couldn’t have borne it. You have to
forgive Jack, Kirra. He did it for me.”
Kirra noticed Ruby didn’t ask for forgiveness for herself.
Perhaps she didn’t feel she deserved it.
Now Kirra understood why Ruby feared the police and social
workers, and why the hung onto her so tightly. “What about my
birth certificate?” she asked.
“It belonged to the real Kirra.”
The real Kirra! Her hands flew up to stop the words. If
someone else was really Kirra, who was she? “Did Chris and Rick
find out what you’d done? Is that why you had to sell the
bangle?”
Ruby nodded. “We all knew each other in Queensland. Chris
remembered my little girl had dark hair and brown eyes. When she
saw you, she knew it wasn’t the same child. They got it wrong,
though. They thought we’d bought you from some pregnant girl
because we weren’t allowed to adopt.”
It had never entered Kirra’s head that people would buy and
sell babies. My real mother would never have sold me! she
thought.
Ruby was tiring, and the nurse hovered at the door, looking
anxious.
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“What are we going to do... Ruby?” asked Kirra.
“I wasn’t ever going to tell you this, love. I know how you
must feel...” No you don’t, thought Kirra. You couldn’t. “...but
I mightn’t come through this operation, and I don’t want you to
be alone in the world. You’ve got another family. You should go
back to them.”
“But they won’t know me! “They’ll think it’s a trick.”
“No, they won’t, love. Their address is in my wallet, and if
you need proof, I kept the tartan ribbon and the gold baby
bracelet you were wearing that day. They’re in an envelope in my
underwear drawer. The bracelet has Janey written on it.”
Kirra couldn’t believe her ears: Ruby had kept tabs on her
real family all these years...
Ruby wasn’t finished. “Listen to me, Kirra. You’ve been my
daughter for nine years. I couldn’t love you more if you’d been
my own flesh and blood. When you feel like hating me, remember
that.”
Kirra wanted to say, “I don’t hate you,” but she wasn’t sure
that was true. Was it possible to love and hate someone at the
same time?
“I love you, Kirra, but now I’m letting you go. Come and
kiss me goodbye.”
That was too much for Kirra, who burst into tears. “Don’t
die, Mum. I don’t care what you did. Don’t leave me.”
Then the nurse came in and said time was up. Kirra kissed
Ruby, and backed out of the room.
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CHAPTER 24
Somehow Kirra made her way back to the waiting room. In her
absence, Grace and Sophia Maria had arrived and teamed up with
Billy and Mrs O. Grace gave Kirra a hug that took her breath
away. Hugging Grace was like embracing an ironing board, but
Kirra didn’t mind. The familiar smell of Grace’s spicy perfume
had a strangely calming effect.
“I’m sorry, Kirra,” said Sophia Maria, when she saw Kirra’s
face. “I shouldn’t have said that about your mother.” Then two
friends fell into each others arms and had a good howl.
All they could do then was wait. Dr Chen had warned that the
operation could take a couple of hours. Grace had brought a
thermos of strong tea, chicken sandwiches, and boundless
sympathy. Kirra was tempted to pour out her heart, to tell Grace
that she wasn’t Kirra, wasn’t Ruby’s daughter, but some sort of
freak, someone who belonged to two families and to nobody at
all, but she felt she had to wait to see what happened to Ruby.
If Ruby pulled through, Kirra would have to face the most
difficult decision of her life — to stay with Ruby or reveal her
identity to the Hallidays. If Ruby died, she’d have no choice:
it would be the Hallidays or the dreaded foster homes.
As well, shame kept Kirra’s tongue quiet. She was ashamed of
Jack and Ruby for what they’d done to the innocent Hallidays.
And she was ashamed that she’d never suspected a thing. She
should have heeded her dreams.
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Or the cards. She suddenly remembered the cards Roxy had
dealt her all that time ago. Death was in those cards, and the
tarot had been right. Jack had died, and so had the Carnival.
But that hadn’t been all. Roxy had tried to hide some of the
cards from her, but she hadn’t been quite fast enough. Kirra had
only glimpsed them, but maybe she could remember if she tried
hard enough. She tried to empty out her mind and imagined
herself back into Roxy’s caravan. She could see the table and...
yes, some of the cards! The first that swam into view were the
Empress crossed by the Moon. If only she’d remembered it
earlier, then she might have known what to expect. It had warned
here there was deception and mystery about her mother.
She wondered about Roxy? Had she covered up the hand because
it confirmed what she already suspected? Her sharp eyes would
surely have noticed how different Kirra looked from Jack and
Ruby.
But Roxy had also swept up Kirra’s future cards.
Concentrating hard, she finally brought them into view — the
Fool crossed by 10 Cups. The Fool meant a choice, perhaps a
risky choice, but the 10 Cups promised that stability and
security lay ahead. The thought cheered her a little. The cards
had known everything else about her; maybe they’d be right about
the future as well.
While the others tried to make small talk, the grown-ups
drank cups of tea and Sophia Maria eyed her friend’s new
boyfriend, Kirra tried to sort out the muddle in her head. Maybe
she should just go back to the Hallidays — if they would take
her — and forget her past. It was all a big lie anyway.
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But her love for Ruby and Jack and her carnie friends — for
Billy, Merv and Zac, Roxy, Mr and Mrs Simmons, even for Rocky,
Johnno and Dave and Mr Reece with his funny hat and whip and his
lairy red car — wasn’t a lie. It was true. And so was her
happiness during those nine years on the road with Deans’.
She missed that life every day, but the carefree girl who’d
sat on the floor of the Peppertree School of Arts library
reading about the White Family’s day at the beach seemed like
another person. And the pie feast with Ruby and Jack in
Peppertree Park seemed a lifetime ago.
Two hours later, Dr Chen came down to tell them that Ruby was
out of the woods. She’d be in intensive care for a few days, but
her chances of a complete recovery were good. Sophia Maria and
Billy cheered, Grace squeezed Kirra’s arm, and Mrs O hugged
everybody and said she was done in; she was going home to get
some rest.
But Kirra stood there frozen. Now she would have to choose
between two mothers. She remembered story about King Solomon
threatening to cut a baby so that the two women who claimed it
could have half each. That’s how she felt: cut in half.
I’m only thirteen, she thought. I can’t do this on my own.
But she wasn’t alone. She had Grace, the fair woman Roxy had
promised would look after her. Grace, who missed very little,
took her by the arm, said, “We’ll be back in a minute,” and led
Kirra outside and sat her down on a bench under a tree.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
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Yes, I do, thought Kirra. The relief was overwhelming.
“Grace, Ruby’s not my mother. She told me because she thought
she was going to die.”
“You’re adopted?”
“No, I was stolen. Jack took me.”
“Kirra, sweetheart, I know you’re upset...”
“Please, Grace, listen to me. Ruby told me I’m Janey
Halliday, that kid who went missing from a beach on the south
coast nine years ago. The one Sophe and I saw on TV on that
missing persons show. Ruby’s got proof.”
Grace’s eyes had gone huge with astonishment. “She told you
all this?”
“Yes. She was giving me back.”
“Do the Hallidays know anything about this?”
Kirra shook her head. One day she’d tell Grace about her
visits to Roseville, but right now she didn’t know how to
explain all that. Even to herself.
“What do you want to do about this, Kirra?”
Sarah Halliday’s pale, sad face flashed into Kirra’s mind.
“We have to tell them, don’t we, Grace?”
“Yes, love, we do. No matter how much you love Ruby, the fact
is, you don’t belong to her. She has no right to you. You can’t
let the Hallidays go on grieving for someone who’s still alive.”
But what will Ruby do without me? Kirra thought. With a flash
of panic, she realised that Ruby could be in terrible trouble.
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“What will happen to Ruby, Grace?”
Grace shrugged. “Kidnapping is a very serious crime, Kirra.
Even if the Hallidays decide to forgive Ruby, I don’t think the
law will. She’ll have to pay.”
Grace looked at the scruffy teenager beside her on the bench
and marvelled at her strength. The last year would have been
almost too much for any child to bear, and now this. Grace was
almost certain that Ruby would have to serve a prison sentence,
and that Kirra would feel guilty about that, though none of it
was her fault. That was going to be very hard on both of them.
But a reunion with Kirra’s real family might be just as
difficult. Blood was supposed to be thicker than water, but the
Hallidays were well-off, middle-class folk, and this little waif
had been brought up in a seedy carnival. Could Kirra adjust to
life in the suburbs? Would the Hallidays be able adjust to
Kirra?
Most importantly, how would Kirra to juggle the claims of two
mothers?
Grace put her arm around Kirra’s shoulders and held her
close: “Kirra, I think we should take this very slowly. Let’s
sleep on it and talk about it some more. What do you think?”
Kirra nodded. “You’ll help me, won’t you, Grace?”
“Of course, you’re my friend.”
They went inside, collected Billy and Sophia Maria, and set
off down Victoria Street for home. The others chatted,
exhilarated now that the worst was over, blissfully ignorant of
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Kirra’s dilemma. Kirra was on another planet, her mind in a
whirl. Everything was different now. She wasn’t Kirra Kincaid
any more; she was Janey Halliday. But who was Janey Halliday?
Superstitiously, she touched the picture of May Wirth in her
shirt pocket. May would know how it felt. When the Wirth’s
adopted her, she’d had to learn a whole new way of life in the
circus. She hadn’t just survived, she’d become a star. Somehow
she’d learned how to be May Wirth, and how to turn backward
somersaults on a galloping white horse in front of thousands of
people in the big top.
If May Wirth could do that, Kirra could do this.
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Epilogue
It was a sparkling clear, cold day — perfect in fact. The city
shone. But Kirra and Grace, who were walking across from the
Wayside Chapel through Woolloomooloo, seemed indifferent to the
weather. Singing tunelessly under her breath, Kirra held Grace’s
hand in a tight grip.
The kids at school wouldn’t have recognised Kirra today. Grace
had taken her to David Jones and bought her a new dress, a real
dress, in dark blue wool, to go with her eyes, a cropped jacket
like the ones she wore, and grey suede ankle boots. Kirra’s pale
hair, which she’d been growing for months, was squeaky clean,
and looped up off her face with tortoiseshell clips.
“Do I look all right, Grace?” she asked anxiously, tugging at
her jacket.
“Scrumptious,” said Grace.
When they’d climbed the steps near the Art Gallery and reached
the entrance to the Gardens, Kirra hung back. “I feel sick.”
“It’s just nerves. Do you want to sit down for a minute?”
Kirra hesitated, then made up her mind: “No, I don’t want to
be late.”
They made their way down past the fountain, across a little
bridge into a sighing, bird-filled palm forests and around the
kiosk; skirted the pond with its honking ducks and greedy
ibises, and stopped under a tall, elegant Mexican palm.
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“I think that’s her over there,” said Grace, pointing to a
woman sitting on a green wooden bench under an enormous Moreton
Bay Fig tree.
Kirra’s heart pounded and she was short of breath. Her legs,
which felt boneless, wouldn’t seem to carry her. “I can’t do it,
Grace,” she whispered. “I’m too scared.”
Grace dropped down beside Kirra and looked into the girl’s
eyes. “Kirra, remember this: she’s just as scared as you are.
Would you like me to come with you?”
Kirra considered the offer. Billy had been a great comfort
after Ruby’s operation, but Kirra firmly believed Grace had
saved her life. Grace had talked her through the pain, doubt,
fear and guilt Ruby’s confession had brought. Grace had listened
for hours, sympathised, advised, and finally, organised this
meeting. But this was one thing she couldn’t do.
“No. I mean, no thanks, Grace. We probably have to do this by
ourselves. Don’t you think?”
Grace grinned. “Go for it, tiger.”
The last fifty metres felt like fifty kilometres to Kirra as
she approached the bench where the fair woman was sitting
reading a book. The woman was Sarah Halliday. Suddenly sensing
Kirra’s presence, she looked up.
Eyes like sapphires, thought Kirra. Then realised they were
the same colour as her own.
“Janey?” Sarah Halliday said softly, and rose to her feet. The
book fell to the ground, unnoticed.
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Janey, thought Kirra. Am I Janey Halliday? And if I am, what’s
going to happen to Kirra Kincaid?
“It was you, that night, wasn’t it?” said the woman.
Kirra nodded, noticing that Sarah Halliday had the sort of
fair hair that would have started out white blonde. This is the
fair woman Roxy meant, she realised. Grace is my friend, but
this is my mother. My mother.
From a distance, Grace watched, praying, hoping, as they gazed
at each other in wonder. Then the woman held out her arms to the
girl and Kirra ran into them and they embraced. It was a start.
1995/2007
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