Airs Above the Ground (16 page)

‘Too early for me. The last wagons were due to go at about five, I think. I didn’t hear them.’

‘You must be a very sound sleeper,’ said Timothy cheerfully. ‘I imagined there’d be a lot of coming and going in the village during the night, but perhaps it doesn’t disturb you?’

‘Thank you,’ said Lewis, ‘no. I had an excellent night; far better than I had expected.’

‘Tim,’ I said quickly, perhaps even sharply, ‘you’d better choose what you want in the way of buns, and go in and buy them. We really ought to be setting off.’

‘OK,’ said Tim amiably, and vanished through the shot doorway.

‘Honours about even,’ I said, ‘but will you please not score your points across my marriage bed? That boy knows, Lewis.’

‘Does he?’ I was relieved to see that he looked, after the first frowning moment, no more than amused. ‘The little so-and-so, does he indeed?’

‘I had to tell him. He saw you leaving last night.’

‘I must be slipping.’

‘No, it was pure accident. But I had to tell him.’

‘I suppose so. Don’t worry. How much does he know?’

‘Only who you are. He thinks it’s some mysterious business mission for PEC. May I tell him you asked me to keep in touch with the circus?’

‘I don’t see why not. Tell him the firm may want more details about Denver’s death, and I may have to come back, so meantime I’ve asked you to stick around. That’s nothing but the truth, after all. You can refer any other questions to me.’

‘I doubt if he’ll ask them. Tim’s all right.’ It was a measure of what had happened in the last two days, that I knew that the phrase – and all it implied – was true. ‘When do you go?’

‘I’m on my way now. You all right?’

‘Fine. We’re just setting off for Hohenwald, but Tim was afraid of starving on the way. Have you got a car here?’

He nodded to one which stood under the trees near by, a shabby fawn-coloured Volvo which nevertheless looked powerful. He was decently dressed this morning, I noticed, though still not recognisably Lewis March, my husband. This was still the anonymous and professionally insignificant Lee Elliott. I could see now that his very ability to melt into apparent insignificance was one of the tools of his trade, but nothing, I thought, could take from Lewis the precision and grace of movement which spoke always of strength and self-command, and could sometimes – when he allowed it – give him elegance.

He lifted his head, narrowing his eyes against the morning sun. ‘What’s the boy stocking up with food for? You haven’t a great way to go . . .’ And then, very softly: ‘Stop looking at me like that, for goodness’ sake, my dear girl. You look as if you were bringing me gold and frankincense.’

‘And why not? I has my rights too, Mr M.’ I added aloud: ‘Exactly how far is Hohenwald, anyway? How far does a circus normally go in a day?’

‘About thirty or forty miles. It’s roughly fifty kilometres to Hohenwald. You should have a lovely run; the gradients aren’t bad, and there’s some beautiful country. Have lunch at Lindenbaum, and take your time.’

When Timothy emerged from the shop with his arms alarmingly full of packages, Mr Elliott was giving me directions for a pleasant day’s drive, with a map drawn on the back of an old envelope. I noticed that the envelope was addressed to ‘Lee Elliott, Esq, c/o Kalkenbrunner Fertiliser Company, Meerstrasse, Vienna’.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’ll go. Have a good journey.’

‘And you,’ said Lewis. ‘Enjoy yourselves . . .
Auf Wiedersehen
, then, and remember me to Annalisa.’

As we drove off, Timothy shot a sideways glance at me. ‘Was that just a crack?’

I laughed. ‘No. In any case, you’re a fine one to talk about making cracks. I may tell you, Lewis knows.’

He looked startled, then grinned. ‘Oh, you just told him? You mean he knows I know?’

‘Yes, and leave it at that, will you, before I get muddled. All is now in the clear . . . and thank goodness we can talk.’

This was the first chance we had had of private conversation since our daybreak meeting on the veranda. Breakfast had been a more or less public function in the Gasthof, with Timothy’s devoted waitress watching our every move, but now, as we left the
village behind us, we had not only the road, but the whole countryside, seemingly, to ourselves.

The road was, as Lewis had promised, idyllic. The morning sun cast long, fresh blue shadows, and the hedges were thick, and full of honeysuckle and white convolvulus. A hay cart had been that way, and the wisps of hay were hanging golden from the hedge in the still morning.

I began to explain to Timothy what Lewis had asked me to do, indicating merely that Lewis and his firm were not satisfied with the verdict of ‘accident’ on Paul Denver, and were still curious to know what connection – if any – the latter had had with the circus people, and if he could have incurred any enmities which might have led directly to his death.

‘All he wants me to do,’ I said at length, ‘is keep in touch with the circus, as veterinary surgeon if they need me, or just as a friend. He’s very emphatic that no questions are to be asked, or detective work done . . . there’s no room for your Archie Goodwin act, Timothy. In fact I don’t know whether you want to stay in on this or not? It chimes in exactly with what I’d like to do myself – I mean, if I can’t join Lewis straight away, then I’m quite happy to stooge around here till he comes back, and maybe be a bit of help to him at the same time. And I do want to keep an eye on the old horse. But if you’d rather cut loose here and now, and go to Piber—’

‘No, not a bit. Gosh, no, I’d love to stay, if you’d have me . . .’

His protestations were almost violently convincing,
and only faded into silence when we caught up with the hay cart. This was enormous, and top-heavily laden, creaking along on its wooden wheels behind two plodding sorrel horses. The road was narrow, overhung with high hedges, and with ditches to either side.

‘. . . If you’re sure you could do with me?’ finished Timothy, as we negotiated the hay cart with three centimetres to spare on either side, and buzzed happily on up the next incline.

‘I’m beginning to think I can’t do without you,’ I said.

‘That settles it then. Hohenwald it is.’

The village of Hohenwald was much smaller than Oberhausen. It lay a mile or so behind the main road, in a pretty hanging valley, and was little more than a cluster of houses grouped round its church whose tower rose, crowned with a bell of grey-green shingles, above splayed roofs and gables of red tile. An arched stone bridge spanned a narrow mountain river, and led what traffic it could into the cobbled square. To south and west the land fell away in smiling orchards and fields of corn, some of them cut, golden among the greens, while to north and east the mountains lifted their stepped ramparts of pine forests. The verges of the gravel road were white with dust.

The sense of loss we had felt in leaving Oberhausen was cancelled here, even before we reached the village, by the sight of the now familiar posters wrapped round trees and gate-posts, and then by the Circus Wagner itself, settled in a field beside the river. It seemed odd to
see, in this completely different setting, the same tents and wagons and big top, the whole build-up of the circus so exactly the same. It was indeed as if some genie’s hand had picked it up complete and set it down again here, some thirty miles away.

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived, and the first performance would not start till five, but already children were crowding in a noisy and excited mob round the gate of the field. I saw the dwarf, Elemer, sitting on the gate and talking to the children, and making them laugh. He looked up and saw us as the car went by, and smiled and lifted his small hand in a wave of welcome. So the news would go before us.

There was some coming and going of tourists in the village, but for all that we got beds easily enough at another small and scrupulously clean Gasthof beside the church. Shortly after four, we walked back to the circus field.

As we passed the big top, I paused and looked inside.

The grass was fresh, the ring strewn with fresh sawdust, and on the platforms that crowned the enormous king-poles, electricians were busy putting the last touches to the wiring. The top itself, with its floating spaces, looked different, lit now from above with the curiously unreal diffused light of sunshine through canvas. The whole space echoed to the sound of hammering and shouting as the tent-men put up the last of the wooden tiers of scaffolding and arranged the benches on them. Someone on a high ladder was hanging the rear curtains in place, the crimson drapes through which the horses would come. A couple of
clowns, already in costume but without their make-up, stood talking very seriously in the centre aisle.

In spite of the differences, it was hauntingly the same as last night, and though at the moment this was only a tent enclosing an alien air, I got the strongest feeling that it was full and echoing with the hundreds of past performances, the music of past songs and dances and laughter.

As we emerged again into the sunlight and I saw the strange gate, the strange village, the strange bell-shaped roof of the church tower against its backdrop of pines, I found myself experiencing a sudden sharp sense of loss – which I hadn’t felt that morning – to realise that Lewis was not here. He was possibly already in Vienna. Last night’s episode might have been a dream, gone to join the flickering unreality of that almost forgotten news reel.

Annalisa was expecting us, and, to my relief, seemed pleased that we had come, and very eager that I should take another look at the piebald horse.

‘But of course you are welcome! I wish I could ask you both in now, but I am dressing, as you see.’ All we had in fact seen of her so far was a face peering past the curtain that hung over the doorway of her sleeping-wagon. In spite of her welcoming smile and obviously real pleasure, I thought she looked pale – the gaiety and sparkle had gone. I wondered if she had had any sleep at all last night. ‘But you will come afterwards again and have coffee? You’ll go to the performance, yes?’

‘Timothy’s going to see the show again, and if I know him, he’ll see your act twice,’ I said, ‘but I don’t
think I will, thank you. I’ll just go round to the stables. How’s the patient?’

‘Better, much better. He’s a different horse already. He hardly limps at all, just a little, as if he was stiff . . . not a real limp at all.’

‘We call it “going short”,’ I said. ‘Is he eating?’

‘Not much . . . but he really does look better. I am so grateful to you.’

‘Think nothing of it. I take it you’ll keep him now?’

I smiled as I spoke, and she responded, but (I thought) with a rather wintry charm, and said merely: ‘Then I shall see you later?
Also gut!
If you want to come in here and use my wagon, please do so, it’s never shut. Come in and make coffee if you want it, anything. Just what you wish.’ The smile again, better this time, and the head vanished.

‘She looks tired,’ I said. ‘I hope she manages her act all right. Well, see you later, Tim.’

The stables, too, were uncannily the same. There was the same smell, the same rows of horses’ rumps and idly swishing tails, but the sun was white on the canvas, and the air of sleepy peace was gone. The liberty horses were being prepared for the show. The rugs had been stripped off them, and their skins gleamed in the light. Half a dozen were already wearing their harness. Men hurried to and for carrying rugs, surcingles, plumed bridles. The Shetland ponies, some of them getting excited, were beginning to fuss, nibbling one another’s necks and switching their long tails. The Lipizzan stallion in his stall near the door stood placidly, head down, ears relaxed, taking no notice of
the fuss and bustle. It was difficult to realise that in less than an hour’s time he would be in the ring, magnificent in the spotlights, clothed with gold and jewels and flying through the air. Here in his dim corner he looked ancient and heavy with wisdom, and as earth-bound as a horse of white stone.

Opposite him the piebald stood with drooping head, but as I approached his eye rolled back, and he moved an ear in greeting. What I had taken to be a boy was hunched in the next stall, busy over a piece of harness, but when he spoke, I realised that it was the dwarf Elemer.

‘So you are back to see the suffering one.’ I don’t know where the dwarf had learnt his English; it was guttural and stilted, but the vowels were cultured. His voice was deep and pleasant.

‘Yes. He looks a lot better.’

‘He has eaten a little. Not enough. But he will mend . . .’

I went into the stall to look at the horse. ‘So Annalisa was saying.’

‘. . . For what it is worth,’ the dwarf said. He lifted the jewlled saddle off its trestle, and began to hump it rather painfully across to the white stallion’s stall. It almost hid him from sight, and the girth was trailing, but I thought I knew better than to offer help.

I turned my attention to the horse. The dolly was still in place, the swelling had vanished, and he accepted my hands without wincing. I moved him back a pace in his stall, and saw that he was putting the leg to the ground with more confidence already. The coat still
stared, but his eye was brighter, and his general countenance very much better than last night.

I straightened up. ‘“For what it is worth”?’ I wasn’t quite sure if I had heard the guttural murmur aright. ‘Do you mean they
won’t
keep him?’

He shrugged. The effect, with the tiny short arms and the big shoulders, was awful. I had to exert sharp control to stop myself from looking away. ‘Who knows?’ was all he would say, and set one of those shoulders to the white stallion’s hock to make him move over.

Then all of a sudden, it seemed, the show was on us. The horses went streaming out for the first act. I saw the ‘cowboys’ swing up into their saddles, and the ‘Entry of the Gladiators’ came thudding from the big top. The groom Rudi hurried into the Lipizzan’s stall and, taking the saddle from Elemer, heaved it one-armed on to the stallion’s back. I had been wrong about the dwarf’s susceptibilities; the groom cracked some joke in German which, from the accompanying gesture, had some reference to Elemer’s height, but the latter only laughed and went scuttling under the stallion’s belly to fasten the girth. I straightened up from my examination of the piebald’s leg, and stood fondling his ears, while I watched the white stallion putting on, jewel by jewel, his royal dress. Then the dwarf came across to me.