Nightmare Carnival

There’s no room in the caravan for three, and so the men sit outside whilst Ruth busies herself with the stew. The stew smells good, and Ed says so, and Ruth looks uncommonly pleased. They all eat as the sun sets, and Ed says it is the best stew he has ever tasted, and he grips the handle of his spoon in his fist too tightly for Shelton’s liking. There is a little tattoo of a star below Ed’s knuckles, and it is clumsy enough for Shelton to guess it’s been self-administered.

The meal is done, and Ed pats at his stomach and sighs, as if his belly is full and tight as a drum. He takes out a hand-rolled cigarette. “Would you like one, sir?” But Shelton refuses. Ed lights it with a match, and then, with a flourish of his fingers, causes the match to disappear. Ruth beams with delight, she claps. Ed beams right back at her, a big grin full of confidence, and gives her a wink — smiling and winking, Ed can do them both.

“You like tricks, do you?” asks Shelton.

“Indeed I do, sir,” says Ed, and grins even wider for his benefit, and Shelton distrusts the way that “sir” comes out of his mouth.

“Ed’s going to be a great magician in the circus,” says Ruth.

“I’m going to be a great everything,” says Ed. “I’m strong, and I can tumble a bit too. Why, I could do most of the circus acts myself!” Ruth seems to find this very funny.

“And what do you do now?” asks Shelton.

Ed shrugs. “This and that. I help out. But ‘now’ isn’t important, is it? You can’t settle for ‘now.’ ‘Now’ is no place to be.”

“I make balloon animals,” says Shelton, quite suddenly. “Would you like to see one of my balloon animals?” Ed shrugs again — sure, why not? So Shelton makes Ed a bright orange rabbit. “There you are,” he says to the young man. “That’s all yours. That’s just for you.”

“Why, thanks,” says Ed. “Well, look at that.” He takes the rabbit, and turns it over in his hands, and studies it. “It’s a fine piece of work.” He lifts it up close to see it even better, and he forgets there’s that cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth, and it brushes against the rabbit skin, and the rabbit goes pop. And Ed responds with mock alarm, both at the bang and at the rabbit’s unexpected disappearance — where’d it go, where’d it go? He looks all about him, in the air, over his shoulder, under his seat. “Mr. Shelton, I’m sorry,” he says. “I can’t control my magical powers! Looks like I made your rabbit disappear!”

Later, as Ruth busies away the plates, she asks her father whether he thinks Ed is charming. “He is charming,” Shelton agrees. “I don’t want you to see him again.” Shelton isn’t used to having his decisions questioned, and when Ruth does so he refuses to say another word to her — she refuses to speak either — and that night both go to their bunks in silence.

The next morning Shelton is relieved to see that Ruth is back to normal. She is a little quieter than usual, maybe, but she’s a quiet girl. She makes him his coffee and his porridge and Shelton decides he’ll say no more about the upset of last night. The day is overcast and few people come to the circus, and even fewer to the caravan — still, Ruth sits outside with her father and smiles sweetly at the passers-by. At one point, when there has been no trade for over an hour, Ruth gets up from her chair, she says she’ll go for a walk.

“Should I come with you?” asks Shelton. “Let me come with you. It’ll be nice.”

“No,” she says. “I’m all right.”

Over the next few days she goes off for lots of walks, and Shelton knows he has to trust her, that it is the only way they can be happy — because they are happy, or, at least, have been happy, they were very happy once. He remembers it. And they will be happy again.

One night he wakes up and his bowels feel like they’re going to pop, and he looks from his bunk and sees in the shadows that the trapdoor is open and ready for him. He swings himself over the edge and on to the floor. “Where are you going?” he hears Ruth say, softly, in the dark.

He mutters something about needing a piss.

She is crying. She is trying so hard not to make a sound, he can hear her holding back the sobs.

“It’s all right,” he says. “We’re all right.”

“No,” she says, still soft, so soft there’s no colour to her voice at all, no emotion, and no accusation. “I’m so tired of the ‘now.’ ”

He can’t see her face, can’t see whether she’s facing him, whether she’s facing the wall. He wants to touch her. He wants to put his arms around her. He doesn’t.

“Go back to sleep,” he says. “I shan’t be away long, I promise.”