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He glanced into the wings and saw a lady in pink sequins relax imperceptibly. She gave him a faint smile and a thumbs-up, but he could tell the smile was forced.
She was doing what was needed to get through this show, he thought, but that faint smile signalled more confrontation to come.
Did she really not know her grandparents’ financial position? Was she living in a dream world?
Bernardo the Breathtaking was finished, tossing his juggling sticks down to one of the clowns who Matt realised were the fill-in acts, the links between one act and another. Fluffy and Fizz. They were good, he thought, but not great. A bit long in the tooth? They fell and tumbled and did mock acrobatics, but at a guess they were in their sixties or even older and it showed.
Even Bernardo the Breathtaking was looking a little bit faded.
But then …
‘Ladies and gentlemen …’ He couldn’t believe he was doing this, intoning the words with all the theatrical flourish the child Mathew had obviously noted and memorised. ‘Here she is, all the way from deepest, darkest Venezuela, the woman who now will amaze us with her uncanny, incredible, awesome …’ how many adjectives did this script run to? ‘… the one, the only, the fabulous Miss Mischka Veronuschka …’
And she was in the ring. Allie.
Her act included three ponies, two camels and two dogs. The animals were putty in her hands. The dogs were identical Jack Russell terriers, nondescript, ordinary, but with tricks that turned them into the extraordinary. She flitted among her animals—her pets, he thought, for there was no hint of coercion here. She was a pink and gold butterfly, whispering into ears, touching noses, smiling and praising, and, he thought, they’d do anything for her.
He understood why. The audience was mesmerised, and so was he.
She had the camels lying down, the ponies jumping over the camels, the dogs jumping over the ponies, and then the dogs were riding the ponies as the ponies jumped the camels. The dogs’ tails were wagging like rotor blades and their excitement was infectious.
Allie rode one of the camels while the ponies weaved in and out of the camels’ legs, and the little dogs weaved through and through the ponies’ legs. The dogs practically beamed as they followed her every whispered command.
Matt thought of stories of old, of animal cruelty in circuses, and he looked at these bouncing dogs, the camels benignly following instructions as if they were doing Allie a personal favour, at the ponies prancing around the dogs—and he looked at the girl who knew them from the inside out and he thought … he thought …
He thought suddenly that he’d better think nothing.
This was a lady in pink spangles. She was the granddaughter of a client. Where were his thoughts taking him? Wherever, they’d better get back where they belonged right now.
He didn’t get involved. Not personally. The appalling sudden deaths of his parents and his sister had smashed something inside him so deep, so huge, that he’d spent the rest of his life forming armour against ever feeling that sort of hurt again.
He’d looked at Allie’s face as she’d seen her grandfather collapse and he’d seen a glimpse of that hurt. It should be reinforcing that armour, yet here he was, looking at a girl in pink spangles …
And then, thankfully, she was gone. The clowns swooped in again, making a game of the pan and shovel they needed—the camels were clearly not house trained—and the show was ready to move on.
He needed to focus on his next introduction.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen …’ he said, and the circus proceeded.
Interval.
Since when did standing in a circus ring make you sweat? He felt wiped. He headed out through the pink and gold curtains—and was struck by the sheer incongruity of the difference between front and behind the curtains.
The ring was all gold and glitter—a fantasy. Back here was industry. Men and women were half in and out of costumes, hauling steel rods and ropes and shackles, lining up equipment so it could be carried out neatly as needed.
Allie was back in her boots again, heaving like the best of the men. She had a denim jacket over her sequins.
‘Time for you to change, Allie, love,’ a very large lady yelled. ‘Fizz’s selling popcorn instead of Bella. We’re cool. Allie, dressing room, now.’
‘Someone give Mathew the words for the next half,’ Allie yelled and shoved the last iron bar into place and disappeared.
He watched her go and he felt the slight change in atmosphere among the women and men behind the scenes.
She was the boss, he thought.
Henry was the boss.
Henry was seventy-six years old.
Matt had thought he was coming to deal with an elderly ringmaster, to tell him it was time to close down. It seemed, however, that now he’d be dealing with Allie, and something told him dealing with Allie would be a very different proposition altogether.
He pretty much had things down pat by the second half.
He introduced acts. He was also there as general pick-up guy—and also … set-up guy for the clowns?
‘The gag’s on page three of the cheat sheet,’ Fizz had growled at him at half-time. ‘Henry sets it up for us so you’ll need to do it. It’ll be weird you reading it but it’s the best we can do.’
Right now the Exotic Yan Yan—Jenny Higgs, wife of Bernardo, or Bernie Higgs, according to the staff sheet he’d read ‘… fresh from the wilds of the remotest parts of Tukanizstan’— was there such a place?—was doing impossible things with her body. She was bending over backwards—like really backwards. Her head was touching her heels! Matt was appalled and fascinated—and for some weird reason he was thinking he was glad it wasn’t Allie doing the contorting.
He glanced ahead at the feed lines for the gag and thought … he could do this better if he stopped looking at the Exotic Yan Yan.
And he could do this better if he stopped thinking about Allie?
Do it. He read it twice, three times and he had it.
Yan Yan unknotted and disappeared to thunderous applause. Out came the clowns. It was time to take centre stage himself.
Deep breath. Remember the first line.
‘Fluffy, I have a present for you,’ he called in a Here Kitty, nice Kitty voice, and set the clipboard down, preparing—against all odds—to play the ham. ‘It’s your birthday, Fluffy, and I’ve bought you a lovely big cannon.’
‘A cannon?’ Fluffy squeaked, somersaulting with astonishment.
The clowns responded with practised gusto and foolishness as the great fake cannon was wheeled in. The joke went seamlessly, water went everywhere and the audience roared their appreciation.
Exit stage left, two dripping clowns with cannon.
Matt headed back to the sidelines for his clipboard as the ropes and pulleys and shackles were heading out at a run.
Allie, dressed now in brilliant hot pink, with her trademark tiger stripes making her look spectacular, was in the wings and she was staring at him with incredulity.
‘You memorised it?’
‘I had time.’
‘You had two minutes.’
‘Plenty of time,’ he said and felt a little smug. Banker Makes Good. He motioned to the bars, ropes, pulleys and shackles, set up in well drilled order. ‘Let’s get this show moving.’ He picked up his clipboard and strode out again.
And then Allie was flying in from the outer, twisting and clinging to a rope that looked like the sort of rope you’d hang over a river. She swung to the middle, seized another rope, changed direction—and swung herself up to a bar far up in the high reaches of the big top.
There was a guy up there waiting, steadying her.
It was his turn again.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your hats. From the wilds of outer Mongolia, from the great, wild warrior hunting grounds of the Eastern nations, ladies and gentlemen, the great Valentino, to be catcher for our very own Mischka. Watch with bated breath while Mischka places life and limb in his hands and see if he lets her down.’
He didn’t let her down.
Mathew had watched this act when he was six years old and he’d been convinced the spangly lady would fall at any moment. In fact he’d remembered hiding under his seat, peeping through his hands, afraid to come out until the gorgeous creature flying through the air was safely on the ground.
He didn’t watch with quite the same sense of dread now. For a start, he’d seen how big, quiet and competent ‘Valentino’—alias Greg—was. He was six feet eight at least, and pure muscle. He hung upside down and swung back and forth, steady and unfaltering, as Allie somersaulted and dived.
Terrifying or not, it was an awesome act.
And Allie … Mischka … was stunning. She was gorgeous.
He wasn’t the only one who thought so. Matt had fallen in love with the circus when he was six years old. Now he was watching other children, other six-year-olds, falling in love in exactly the same way.
He was foreclosing. He was declaring these people bankrupt. He was putting Mischka out of a job and he was making this circus disappear.
It’s business, he told himself harshly. What has to be done, has to be done.
Right after the show.
Now.
For the circus was over. Clowns, acrobats, all the circus crew, were tumbling out to form a circle in the ring, holding hands, bowing.
Allie took his hand and dragged him into line with the rest of them. She was bowing and forcing him to do the same. She was smiling and smiling as the kids went wild and Mathew smiled with her—and for a weird, complex moment he felt as if he’d run away with the circus and he was part of it.
Part of them.
But then the performers backed out of the ring with practised ease. The curtain fell into place and Allie turned to face him, and all the pretence of the circus was stripped away. She looked raw, frightened—and very, very angry.
The other performers were clapping him on the back, saying ‘Well done’, grinning at him as if he was a lifesaver.
He wasn’t.
The team dispersed and he was left with Allie.
‘I suppose I should say thank you,’ she said in a tone that said thank you was the furthest thing from her mind.
‘You don’t need to.’
‘I don’t, do I?’ She was no longer Mischka. She’d reverted to someone else entirely. Even the brilliant make-up couldn’t stop her looking frightened. ‘But how can I? The rest of the team think Grandpa’s sick and you stepped in to save us. They’re grateful. Grateful! Ha. To threaten him with bankruptcy…. Of all the stupid … If Grandpa dies …’
She stopped on an angry sob.
‘The paramedics said it was only a faint.’
‘So they did,’ she managed. ‘So why should I worry? But I’m worrying, Mr Bond, and not just about Grandpa’s heart. How dare you threaten our circus? Give me one good reason.’
There was no easy way to do this. By rights, this was between Bond’s Bank and Henry, but Henry was in hospital and this girl had proved conclusively that she was fundamental to the running of Sparkles Circus. More, she was Henry’s granddaughter.
She had a right to know.
He had the file in his car, but he hadn’t brought it in with him. He’d thought he’d come quietly and put the facts to Henry, facts Henry must already know. But he had a summary.
He reached into his back pocket and tugged out a neatly folded slip of paper, unfolded it and handed it over.
‘This is your grandfather’s financial position with Bond’s Bank,’ he told her. ‘The balances for the last ten years are on the right. We’ve been as patient as we can, but no capital’s been paid off for three years, and six months ago even the interest payments stopped. The circus’s major creditor is winding up his business and is calling in what he’s owed. We can’t and won’t lend any more, and I’m sorry but the bank has no choice but to foreclose.’
She read it.
It made not one whit of sense.
She’d done financial training. One thing Henry and Bella had insisted on was that she get herself professional qualifications, so that she had a fallback position. ‘In case you ever want to leave the circus. In case you want to stay in one place and settle.’
They’d said it almost as a joke, as if staying in the same place was something bred out of the Miski family generations ago, but they’d still insisted, so in the quiet times of the circus, during the winter lay-off and the nights where there weren’t performances, she’d studied accountancy online.
It’ll be useful, she’d told herself, and already she thought it was. Henry left most of the bookkeeping to her. She therefore knew the circus’s financial position from the inside out. She didn’t need this piece of paper.
And it didn’t correlate.
She stared at the figures and they jumbled before her. The bottom line. The great bold bottom line that had her thinking she might just join Henry in his ambulance.
It didn’t help that Mathew was watching her, impassive, a banker, a judge and jury all in one, and maybe he’d already decided on the verdict.
Enough.
‘Look, I need to contact the hospital,’ she told him, thrusting the sheet back at him, then hauling the tie from her hair to let loose a mass of chestnut curls around her shoulders. She had a stabbing pain behind her eyes. The shock of seeing Grandpa collapse was still before her. These figures … She couldn’t focus on these figures that made no sense at all.
‘Of course,’ Mathew said quietly. ‘Would you like me to come back tomorrow?’
‘No.’ She stared blindly ahead. ‘No, I need to sort this. It’s stupid. Go back to Grandpa’s van. It’s not locked. I’ll ring the hospital, then come and find you—as long as everything’s okay.’
Mathew dealt with corporate high-flyers and usually they came to him. His office was the biggest in the Bond Bank tower. It had a view of the Sydney Opera House, of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, of the whole of Sydney Harbour.
Allie was expecting him to sit in a shabby caravan among mounds of sequins and calmly wait?
But Allie’s face was bleached under her make-up. With her hair let down, she suddenly seemed even less under control. The pink and silver sparkle, the kohl, the crazy lashes seemed nothing but a façade, no disguise for a very frightened woman.
Her grandpa was ill. Her world was about to come crashing down—as his had crashed all those years ago?
Not as bad, he thought, but still bad.
So … the least he could do was take off this crazy outer jacket, fetch the file from the car, turn back into a banker but give her time to do what she must.
‘Take as long as you need,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait.’
‘Thank you very much,’ she said bitterly. ‘I don’t think.’
‘The doctor says he’s sure he’ll be okay.’
Allie’s grandmother, Bella, sounded tremulous on the other end of the phone, but she didn’t sound terrified, and Allie let out breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. ‘Did the circus go on?’ Bella asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Without Henry?’
‘We used the banker.’
There was a moment’s silence and then, astoundingly, a chuckle. ‘Oh, Allie, you could talk anyone round your little finger. See if you can talk him into lending us more money, will you, love?’
Allie was silent at that. She thought of the figures. She thought … what? Why did they need to borrow?
‘Gran …’
‘I have to go, dear,’ Bella said hurriedly. ‘The nurse is bringing us both a cup of tea. The doctor says your grandpa should stay here for a few days, though. He says he’s run down. He hasn’t been eating. I wonder if that’s because he knew the banker was coming?’
‘Gran …’
‘I gotta go, love. Just get an extension to the loan. It can’t be too hard. Banks have trillions. They can’t begrudge us a few thousand or so, surely. Bat your eyelids, Allie love, and twist him into helping us.’
And she was gone—and Allie was left staring at her phone thinking … thinking …
Mathew Bond was waiting for her in Grandpa’s caravan.
Twist him how?
Twist him why?
CHAPTER TWO
SHE CHANGED BEFORE she went to meet him. For some reason it seemed important to get rid of the spangles and lashes and make-up. She thought for a weird moment of putting on the neat grey suit she kept for solemn occasions, but in fact there’d only ever been one ‘solemn’ occasion. When Valentino’s mother died, Valentino—or Greg—had asked them all to come to the funeral in ‘nice, sober colours’ as a mark of respect.
Allie looked at the suit now. She lifted it from her tiny wardrobe—but then she put it back.
She could never compete with that cashmere coat. If she couldn’t meet him on his terms, she’d meet him on her own.
She tugged on old jeans and an oversized water proof jacket, scrubbed her face clean, tied her hair back with a scrap of red sparkle—okay, she could never completely escape sparkle, and nor would she want to—and headed off to face him.
He was sitting at her grandparents’ table. He’d made two mugs of tea.
He looked … incongruous. At home. Gorgeous?
He’d taken off his ringmaster coat but he hadn’t put his own coat back on. Her grandparents’ van was always overheated and he’d worked hard for the last three hours. He had the top couple of buttons of his shirt undone and his sleeves rolled up. He looked dark and smooth and … breathtaking?
A girl could almost be excused for turning tail and running, she thought. This guy was threatening her livelihood. Dangerous didn’t begin to describe the warning signs flashing in her head right now.
But she couldn’t turn and run.
Pull up those big girl panties and forget about breathtaking, she told herself firmly, and she swung open the screen door with a bang, as if she meant business.
‘Milk?’ he said, as if she was an expected guest. ‘Sugar?’
She glared at him and swiped the milk and poured her own. She took a bit longer than she needed, putting the milk back in the fridge while she got her face in order.
She would be businesslike.
She slid onto the seat opposite him, pushed away a pile of purple sequins, cradled her tea—how did he guess how much she needed it?—and finally she faced him.
‘Show me the figures,’ she said, and he pushed the file across the table to her, then went back to drinking tea. He was watching the guys packing up through the screen doors. The camels—Caesar and Cleopatra—were being led back to the camel enclosure. He appeared to find them fascinating.
Like the figures. Fascinating didn’t begin to describe them.
He had them all in the file he’d handed her. Profit and loss for the last ten years, expenses, tax statements—this was a summary of the financial position of the entire circus.
She recognised every set of figures except one.
‘These payments are mortgage payments,’ she said at last. ‘They’re paying off Gran and Grandpa’s retirement house. There’s no way the loan’s that big.’
‘I don’t know anything about a house,’ he said. ‘But the loan is that big.’
‘That’s monstrous.’
‘Which is why we’re foreclosing.’
‘You can just … I don’t know …’ She pushed a wisp of hair from her eyes. ‘Repossess the house? But there must be some mistake.’
‘Where’s the house?’
She stared across the table in astonishment. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The house you’re talking of,’ he said gently. ‘The house that matches this mortgage you seem to think exists. Is it in Fort Neptune?’
‘Yes,’ she said blankly. ‘It’s a street back from the harbour. It’s small but it’s perfect.’
‘Have you ever been inside?’
‘It’s rented. Gran and Grandpa bought it ten years ago. It’s for when they need to leave the circus.’
‘Have you ever seen the deeds?’
‘I … No.’
‘So all you’ve seen is the outside?’
She felt … winded. ‘I … yes,’ she managed. ‘They bought it while I was away and it’s been rented out since.’ She was thinking furiously. She would have been, what, seventeen or eighteen when they’d bought it? It was just after that awful fuss about the elephants …
The elephants … Maisie and Minnie. Two lumbering, gentle Asian elephants she’d known and loved from the moment she could first remember.
Elephants.
House.
‘They sold the elephants,’ she whispered, but already she was seeing the chasm where a house should be but maybe elephants were instead.
‘There’s not a big market for second hand circus elephants,’ Mathew said, still gently, but his words were calmly sure. ‘Or lions. Or monkeys, for that matter.’
‘Grandpa said he sold them to an open-range zoo.’
‘Maybe your grandpa wanted to keep you happy.’
She stared at him—and then she snatched up the paper and stared at it as if it was an unexploded bomb, while Mathew Bond’s words washed around her.
‘Bond’s Bank—meaning my grandfather—was approached ten years ago,’ he told her as she kept staring. ‘We were asked to set up a loan to provide for the care of two elephants, three lions and five monkeys. A wildlife refuge west of Sydney provides such care, but, as you can imagine, it’s not cheap. Elephants live up to seventy years. Lions twenty. Monkeys up to forty. You’ve lost one lion, Zelda, last year, and two of the monkeys have died. The rest of the tribe are in rude health and eating their heads off. The loan was worked out based on costs for ten years but those costs have escalated. You’ve now reached the stage where the interest due is almost as much as the loan itself. Henry’s way overdue in payments and the refuge is calling in its overdue bills. They’re winding down. Your grandfather’s seventy-six, Allie. There’s no way he can repay this loan. It’s time to fold the tent and give it away.’
Silence.
She was staring blindly at Mathew now, but she wasn’t seeing him. Instead she was seeing elephants. She’d watched them perform as a child, she’d learned to work with them and she’d loved them. Then, as a teenager she’d started seeing the bigger picture. She’d started seeing the conditions they lived in for what they were, and she’d railed against them.
She remembered the fights.
‘Grandpa, I know we’ve always had wild animals. You’ve lived with them since you were a kid, too, but it’s not right. Even though we do the best we can for them, they shouldn’t live like this. They need to be somewhere they can roam. Grandpa, please …’
As she’d got older, full of adolescent certainty, she’d laid down her ultimatum.
‘I can’t live with you if we keep dragging them from place to place. The camels and dogs and ponies are fine—they’ve been domestic for generations and we can give them decent exercise and care. But not the others. Grandpa, you have to do something.’
‘The circus will lose money …’ That was her grandfather, fighting a losing battle.
‘Isn’t it better to lose money than to be cruel?’
She remembered the fights, the tantrums, the sulky silences—and then she’d come home from one of her brief visits to her mother and they’d gone.
‘We’ve sent them to a zoo in Western Australia,’ Gran had told her, and shown her pictures of a gorgeous open range zoo.
Then, later—how much later?—they’d shown her pictures of a house. Her mind was racing. That was right about the time she was starting to study bookkeeping. Right about the time Henry was starting to let her keep the books.
‘The house …’ she whispered but she was already accepting the house was a lie.
‘If they’ve been showing you the books, maybe the house is a smokescreen. I’m sorry, Allie, but there is no house.’
Her world was shifting. There was nothing to hold on to.
Mathew’s voice was implacable. This was a banker, here on business. She stared again at that bottom line. He was calling in a loan she had no hope of paying.
No house.