The Glass Kingdom (11 page)

‘The loss of an assistant can be most vexing. It hasn't been the same around here since Veronica left.'

‘There were rumours you and her…'

‘Don't be preposterous. I was more than thirty years her senior.'

‘Still. She was easy on the eye.'

‘I will concede that point, yes. I don't wish to be indiscreet, but her assets, if you will, were useful in drawing a crowd. However, there are plenty of naïve young fools out there who would make perfectly suitable replacements. You will find one too, I'm sure.'

‘That's not the point. After all I did for him, that little prick betrayed my trust. I'm going to find him, and drag him back here so he understands exactly what that means.'

‘You shouldn't work yourself up so, Benjamin. The turnover of hired hands around here is legendary.'

‘He
stole
from me, Huw. You know the code. You practically wrote it. It's just not done.'

‘If we stuck to the letter of the code, we'd still be settling our grievances with knives. Target Ball's an easy stand to recruit for. You'll find someone else. Let it pass.'

‘I can't. Not this time. You don't understand.'

‘It's hardly worth dwelling upon.'

‘You don't run from the Kingdom, not after they've taken you in, and not with someone's property. You just don't.'

The poor, ruined boy—so filled with anger these days. I never had a son of my own, but…well, it's no secret I always had a soft spot for the lad.

The tornado in my mind subsided as the skies cleared, and suddenly there it was—a memory, crisp and fresh, so present it might well have happened only yesterday. I felt a warm buzz in my chest and reached across to pat Ben on the shoulder, by way of thanks. If I were ever to lose him, so much of me would slip away too.

‘It is every boy's dream to run away and join a travelling show, but on rare occasions, it happens the other way around. I once knew such a boy.'

Ben stared off into the distance, raising a hand to stroke the scars under his chin. ‘I suppose you did,' he said, quietly.

Without his presence on the step of my trailer, my past would be obscure to me, lost. But memory is reciprocal. Locked within me is Ben's childhood, those years that he has undoubtedly forgotten, either by accident or design. It is ironic, perhaps, that his physical embodiment is required as a key, that his past does not exist until he appears before me now. And yet, without a reminder of who we once were, how can we possibly understand what we have become?

*

This is the story of a boy called Benji. His mother, Evalisse, was a tattooed lady who swallowed swords and danced wearing naught but her ink. She was a striking beauty, with many suitors. His father, Francis, a malign individual, came from a long line of thespians and performers, stretching back to the glory days of vaudeville, or so he claimed. Rather than seek a career on the stage, Francis chose instead to use his limited powers of persuasion to hoodwink and embezzle unsuspecting members of the public.

I knew them both. Had I not been betrothed to my now-departed wife, may the Lord bless and keep her, I might well have counted myself amongst the retinue of Evalisse's frenetic courtiers. How the unpleasant, ill-tempered Francis Wallace came to capture her heart when so many better men had failed to do so can be chalked up as one of love's great inexplicable, not to mention frustrating, mysteries. He did nothing to deserve such a charming woman.

And yet Evalisse granted the repugnant Francis permission to enter her boudoir. Perhaps she saw some potential in him that others could not. Perhaps he was a different man in private, a caring, tender husband. Or perhaps he simply was well endowed. The matter has yet to be independently verified.

Both of these idiosyncratic individuals were already firmly ensconced in the Kingdom when I became part of her retinue in the spring of '78. I came to antipodean shores from the town of Ynyshir, in the Rhondda Valley, for the same reason any Welshman might migrate—to seek gainful employment, and for love. My heart had been won by a certain Catherine Butler, an Australian beauty with the calm tenacity and sturdy thighs of a mountaineer. I have heard it said that meeting a woman teaches one more about the world than reading Tolstoy ever will, even if, ultimately, the encounter leads to one's own destruction. This was certainly true of Cathy, whom I promptly married, providing me with a passport to the edge of the world and an unexpected new life.

Our first years in Australia were difficult. The only joy we had was in exploring nature, which Cathy loved to do. I was young then, and open to the idea of adventure. Money was tight. There was not much call for a failed electrical engineer with a penchant for the stage. But Cathy stuck by me through it all. She was my assistant as far as the public were concerned, my manager and the brains of the operation behind the scenes. We toured small towns, appearing at markets and school fêtes as I perfected my routine. If the Kingdom had not come along when it did, neither the act nor our marriage would have lasted.

But this is not our story. That tale is for another day, when I am in the mood for a more maudlin recollection. Needless to say, something of the dread atmosphere in the mining village, from the parlour of my mother's bleak cottage, followed me across the ocean. Some dark thing—a stain that could not be washed out. When my father came home from the mine he would spend hours in the bathroom, scrubbing his fingernails until his flesh was raw, while my mother washed his clothes in the sink. The water was always black.

Cathy was taken from me one day, you see, and another too, but we shall not speak of her. To say her name aloud is to plunge oneself into a terrible void. The return journey is too long, too arduous.

We are intent on exploring the origin of Benji, the son of Evalisse and Francis Wallace. I knew them both for several years before their courtship began in earnest. Evalisse and Cathy were friends. Francis and I were not. Evalisse was one of the most popular acts on the alley—no surprise, given the rampant nudity in her show. Francis made a pittance on his Target Ball stand, due, no doubt, to his sour demeanour and tendency to cheat the customers at every opportunity.

He was part of an unsavoury ring of carnies ready to fleece any suckers who unwittingly wandered down sideshow alley seeking entertainment. Their technique was to rub chalk on their palms and pat the unsuspecting member of the public on the back, thus leaving a white handprint on their coat or shirt. For the duration of the marks' visit to the Kingdom, other stallholders were able to distinguish them and entice them to empty their pockets. The Kingdom, suffice to say, was no place for the gullible.

I rather resented this practice. My living was made honestly, through showmanship, and not without a hint of peril. Those who came to see my act were entertained, at least. Often alarmed, too. It was, for the most part, relatively safe, though had it not been for Cathy I would surely have gone into cardiac arrest on numerous occasions.

Benji was born in 1981, not a year after Evalisse and Francis tied the knot. Evalisse had taken leave from dancing and sword swallowing early in the pregnancy, understandably, and this infuriated Francis. She was the main earner for the couple, so he was forced to redouble his efforts on Target Ball. I knew early on that the childhood of Benjamin Wallace would be fraught. Francis urged his mother back on stage mere months after the child was born, and clearly felt the boy's sole worth would be in replacing him on the stall as soon as he came of age—which, in the carnival world, can be as young as seven years old.

He forbade her from breastfeeding too, his perverse logic being that her milk-swollen breasts would attract more custom, but she managed to defy him in this regard. Poor Benji. Until he was a toddler, the tyke spent a lot of time alone, in his bassinet, ignored by his father and, it pains me to say it, neglected by his mother. This was not really her fault. When the Kingdom was in full swing, she performed at least twelve shows a day. Cathy and I helped out when we could but, alas, we too were attempting to earn a meagre crust in the backwaters of the country, and had our own child to raise.

And so Benji grew, and found his feet, and pottered quietly in the dust. Often the only sounds that came out of him were the engines of diggers, which he emulated as he played with his toy trucks. I don't believe I heard him utter a complete sentence until he was three or four. He had been hanging around our tent, watching the show from a shy distance. He won me over by asking if I could do magic. I told him I could, in a way, and from that moment on we were firm friends.

It is not an easy life for carnival children. Their home is itinerant and they have a tendency to lose their innocence too young, to become sly and cynical. There were other kids to keep Benji company—older children, perhaps not the best influence. They practically raised themselves, that gang of dirty little waifs. It was all the adults could do to keep them in check, to prevent them from becoming too light-fingered or cruel. Benji was a stout fellow who learned to fight long before most children have to face such a challenge. I counselled him when I could, particularly if he bore fresh bruises.

As he sprouted it became increasingly obvious, at least to me, that he did not really belong on the Kingdom. His mind was elsewhere, his gaze always on the horizon. I knew that look all too well, having worn it myself for many years. We were misfits in a world of misfits. He was not especially close to either of his parents, despite his mother's best efforts to win him to her bosom. She had no more children, and the one she did have resented the life of hollow transience she had borne him into. It was clear he had little time for his brute of a father.

Even as a sallow youth, at age nine or ten, Benji openly avowed his intention to leave. Francis had him running the stall when he should have been enjoying the simple pleasures of boyhood, not to mention receiving an education. His schooling was rudimentary, at best. The Kingdom was always on the road. Occasionally he would endure a school term somewhere, if we were shut down for the winter, but it would not last. His friends were few, and those he did have would be left by the wayside when the show moved on. I felt sorry for the lad. He just wanted some semblance of a normal life, no doubt.

It was really only a matter of time before Benji absconded. The most heartbreaking aspect of his flight was that no one noticed he was gone for two days, not even, to my eternal shame, myself. Indeed, his absence was only noted when Francis totted up several days worth of takings and realised three hundred dollars were missing from the poke.

It is a cardinal sin to steal from the Kingdom family. The code is quite clear on that point. Opinion quickly hardened against Benji, who was the obvious culprit. Some said he was a bad seed, that he had no place on the show, that he thought he was too good for us. His enraged father fuelled such loose talk, going so far as to suggest that the boy might not be his son. Evalisse remained silent, afraid of her husband.

The Kingdom was in Stawell at the time, near the Grampian ranges, not too far from the South Australian border. It was assumed, because the highway to Melbourne ran through the town, that the thirteen-year-old had jumped on a bus or hitched a lift in that direction. Francis had friends in Melbourne and, after alerting them to keep watch for the runaway, set out in hot pursuit.

My instincts told me he had chosen a different path. I requisitioned some sturdy walking boots and drove to the nearby hamlet of Halls Gap, at the foot of the mountains. Cathy and I had hiked its trails many years before and I fancied young Benji would be up there somewhere, gazing out over the landscape, seeking perspective. He was not equipped for life in the city, not yet. Terrible to say, I know, but I understood him better than his own father did.

After conducting enquiries at the ranger station, I established that a young fellow matching Benji's description had been seen lurking around the youth hostel in town. When asked, he had claimed to be eighteen, but no one was convinced. The ranger assumed I was his father come to take him home. I almost said that I was. Instead, I claimed to be his uncle and, without going into too many details lest suspicion be aroused, politely asked for the lad's whereabouts.

He had come in that morning for a map and some advice on what trails were open. I was familiar with the one he had chosen and, after reassuring the anxious staff at the information desk that they had done nothing wrong and all would be well, set out to follow in his footsteps.

The ascent was steeper than I remembered, or perhaps it was simply the additional fifteen years of wear and tear on my legs that made a difference. I was not in as good a shape as I once had been, but then what man in his early forties is? It was a weekday, so I had the trail to myself. The sun was warm but not unbearably so, and after the first hour I almost forgot the purpose of my mission, so calm and relaxed had I become.

Benji was at the summit lookout point, a vertiginous platform jutting out from the rock face. He shook his head and laughed when he spotted me, likely relieved to see a friendly face rather than his father's warped countenance. I waved a greeting and clambered up over the final rocks to join him. I was so out of breath I could not say anything for the first few moments. The view was stupendous.

‘Do you have any water?' he asked me.

‘You didn't set out on this climb without water, did you, Benji?'

‘No, I just ran out.'

I disapproved of his lack of preparation more than the fact he had been missing for several days. I handed him a bottle from my pack. He gulped at it eagerly.

‘Evidently you were never a boy scout.'

‘Evidently.'

We sat together in contented silence. I almost felt like taking a nap. A plume of smoke was rising into the sky some fifty miles distant, a rich amber glow at its base. A bushfire, too far away for us to be concerned about our safety.