“I shan’t tell you.” She kisses Sam’s head. “I’ll show you.”
“Where are you going?” Rollo follows them to the big top. “What’s going on?”
Leo looks at Rebecca for permission. She’s wearing a robe over her costume. She shrugs.
Once inside Leo dismisses the sweepers who file out, grumbling that their work’s not done. Leo sits on an upturned crate, Christos beside him, but Rollo contrives to insert himself between them, an arm around their shoulders.
Rebecca drops her robe. It lands around her feet in a way that makes Leo’s heart stop and start. He glances at Christos. His brother’s eyes are shining.
Her costume’s made of rough, fire-retardant fabric, cut and stitched into a short flared dress that skims her thighs.
She holds her right hand out to one side. The flame starts as a flicker in her palm that grows. She undulates as if rolling it up her arm and across her shoulders and then lets it come to rest in her other hand. More flames appear, one then another, not just along the path the first flame had taken but on her chest, her stomach, and her legs. They move at random, growing in size.
Rebecca tosses them into the air, juggling with rapid movements that make the fireballs look more like streaks. It looks like she’s fumbled a throw and one of them will land on top of her head but Rebecca puts her head back and opens her mouth, swallowing it. In they go, one after another. Fire’s flying from her hands as if from nowhere and she gulps them down in quick succession.
There’s a pause, in which Leo thinks she’s finished, but then smoke and sparks pour from her mouth, followed by a jet of flames that shoots twenty feet in the air. There’s a flash, then it falls, covering her from head to foot, and Leo starts forward but is restrained by Christos’s hand on his shoulder.
Rebecca claps, a single sharp sound that seems to douse the flames. Done, she awaits judgment.
“What’s in your accelerant?” Rollo asks.
“That’s my secret.”
Rollo turns to Christos, who holds up his hands.
“You can’t work here unless you tell us. There are no secrets from management.” Rollo’s looking at Leo, waiting for affirmation.
“I can do more than this, Leo.”
“May I?” Leo stands close. He touches her jaw with his fingertips.
She opens her mouth and he looks inside. Not a blister, not a mark. It looks entirely normal. Nor is a single hair or eyebrow singed. He’s not fond of fire acts or the arcana of the craft. He knows the tricks. How to harden the skin with a mixture of sulphur and alum, to which some add onion or rosemary essence. Afterward they have to soak off this toughened skin with hot wine. Then there’s what they use to coat the delicate flesh inside the mouth: concoctions of more sulphur and alum, this time with soap and carbolic acid. Rebecca’s skin is soft, not callused, and she smells sweet, not like the bowels of hell. He won’t press her to tell him her secret, not yet, not if she’s not told Christos.
“You like danger.”
Leo’s seen his share of its ill effects. What happens when the wind unexpectedly shifts and immolates a performer. The awful condition, fire lung, which follows accidental inhalation of the fuel being held in their mouths. He’s also seen the longer term consequences of this game: the stained, bleeding gums and then the florid, fungus-shaped cancers of the throat and tongue that fire swallowers are prone to.
“I know the risks. You’ve not told me what you think of me.”
“You’re good. You’ve been practicing but you’re new to this game.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only to me.” Leo smiles despite himself. “It’s about presentation. We can teach you that stuff, if you really want to do it. I want you to know that you don’t have to, though. None of us expects it.”
Christos, why did you bring her here? If she were mine there’d be a house with a lawn. Or an apartment in the city with a view, just a short walk from the theater.
Anything she wanted. Just not this.
His existence seems shabby despite all his enterprise. He’s a vulgar showman grubbing in the dirt for coins.
“Are you joking? She’ll be a star.” Rollo’s praise sounds sour.
“I was born for this,” Rebecca insists.
“Then you’re going to need a better costume. And a name.”
“We’d been on the road all our lives. Leo gave us a home. Rebecca messed everything up. Afterward it all fell apart. We all went different ways.”
Henry has sat up all night, watching Rollo’s interviews again and again.
“For people who are unique you’ve proved hard to find.”
“Who have you talked to?”
“People who worked in Paradise but no one else from this photo.” Henry sees the back of his own head as he leans into the camera shot to hand Rollo the photograph. It’s the one of the group dressed for dinner.
Rollo clutches it, dumb. Looking at a past he can’t get back.
“I’ll send you a copy.” Henry retrieves it. “You stayed on in Paradise for a while.”
“Yes.”
“Until you were sacked.”
“Trumped-up excuses. They had no idea what they were doing.”
“You mean Flint’s men?”
“Flint,” Rollo sneers, “inherited wealth. His father was a match tycoon. William Flint had no business sense, didn’t know show people or the public.”
“Paradise limped on for a few years before it closed.”
“It survived on notoriety. The papers loved the story.”
Henry knows all their ridiculous theories. That the brothers faked their deaths to embezzle from investors, despite the bodies in the morgue. That Rebecca Saunders was wife of one and lover to the other and it was a suicide pact.
“I didn’t want to stay anyway,” Rollo frowns. “I left and took my troupe with me.”
Henry doesn’t correct him. He knows from looking at Paradise’s payroll records that only half the troupe followed Rollo.
“You didn’t stay a clown long after that.”
“My heart wasn’t in it anymore.” Rollo has had a long list of careers.
“You seem so happy and proud when you talk about circus work.”
“Happy? I don’t think I was happy ever again after that day.”
“What do you think really happened?”
Rollo’s eyes are so dark that Henry can’t make out the pupils.
“Leo had handled guns since he was a child. As for Rebecca, even Chris didn’t know her methods. I’ve never understood it.” Rollo shakes his head, a man perplexed. “Not at all.”
Night. Revelers and gulls head home. Rebecca and Leo are out on her apartment balcony, looking down at Christos and Rollo as they collect the turnstile takings and lock up for the night. Lights are going out in the booths around Paradise. Those who don’t live on site are leaving.
“Rollo’s not enjoying Christos’s company.” Sam sits at Rebecca’s feet, eyes fixed on her in adoration.
“Do you think?”
“Rollo’s used to being close to you. And being important.”
“Rollo’s well looked after. What’s bothering you?”
“Christos has been over five years of accounts. He thinks someone’s been skimming off the gates’ take.”
“Who?” Leo holds her gaze.
“Christos says he doesn’t know.”
“You do.”
She looks at Rollo and Christos.
“Rollo doesn’t like being watched.”
“I’ll talk to Chris. I wasn’t expecting him to be so thorough. I know about Rollo. As long as he doesn’t get greedy I let it go.”
“Why?”
“Rollo can’t help himself. This stops him from doing something even more stupid.”
“That’s very understanding.”