And there was no Israel of course; the circus had crept its way up the coast as usual from one dirty seaside town to another where for the most part all you got were mudflats and the sea glinting on the horizon like a piece of tinsel, so there was no swimming that season, which had disappointed the boys.

     Jack heard the Red Indian music and adjusted his headdress. Last time then, give the punters their money’s worth, he thought, terrify them out of their wits. He leapt into the ring flinging sawdust up behind him, and gave a savage blood-curdling war cry as the ringmaster stepped quickly out of his way, swearing under his breath.

     The drumbeats sounded louder than usual as Jack lit his torch and ran it up and down his bare arms, leering at the crowd. He fastened on the teenage girls in the ringside seats and snarled at them in his most menacing fashion. He remembered a time when young girls squealed and hid their faces when Chief Choopaki stared at them. He singled one of them out and glowered at her, rubbing the burning torch over the flesh of his belly. The cool look she returned hurt him, and for a moment, he lost concentration and burnt his flesh on the hot wire. The world had changed, and done so when he wasn’t looking. The fact of it left him in a state of bewilderment that frequently turned to fear. Amongst the many secrets he had from Barbara, that was the gravest and deepest of them.

     He could see Barbara standing in the shadows at the front of the tent by the entrance, and was relieved at the sight of her; perhaps she had finally forgiven him for taking all her wire coat hangers two seasons ago to make new torches. He raised his glass of paraffin to the punters as if it was whiskey and took in a larger than normal amount of the oily stuff. The drumbeats became slower as the spotlights dimmed, and Chief Choopaki, the mighty Mohican, gave the most fantastic fire blow; four and a half foot of sheer rolling flame roared from his mouth as he stood in the centre of the ring with his breastplate glimmering, and swung the lit torch upwards into the spray. He bowed low, and the punters, stunned to silence at first, clapped a bit and someone in the tent whistled.

     On the winter grounds, the Barrys’ trailer was right at the back where the mud was thickest, and Barbara was sulking again. Jack borrowed a duckboard and did the best he could to make things better for her. He spent most of the day outside with the twins. He’d already sprayed the drum silver, and was thrilled by the look of it. He’d used plain black for the lettering, nothing gaudy. ‘But, where’re you going to put the keys, Dad?’ Ricky asked. ‘When we saw that lady do it at the Hippodrome, she had it in her hair. I was watching; I saw her reach up for it. You haven’t got any hair.’

     ‘That’s the difference between doing the act in a glass tank and an oil drum. In an oil drum, the punters can’t see what you’re up to. I could leave the keys on the bottom; pick them up with my toes.’

     ‘What’s Mum think?’

     ‘I don’t know; I’m trying to keep her out of it. I don’t want to go upsetting her. I haven’t told her about the chains yet. They’ll be expensive.’

     ‘I know where there’s some chains hanging over a gate, Dad.’

     Jack had been at the swimming pool on the morning the bullocks got into the winter quarters. They chucked all the duckboards about in their stampede, and the lions roared and paced, and refused to settle. Jack could hear them as he walked back onto the ground. ‘And the frigging cows pulled the washing line down, I’ve been picking our clothes up out of the mud all morning. I hosed them down in the oil drum.’ ‘How d’you get on under the water?’

     Jack flushed. He stared at Barbara’s back. ‘Thirty-nine seconds.’

     ‘Is that good?’

     ‘Anything’s good, it’s early days yet,’ he snapped.

     ‘What’s got into you, Jack Barry?’

     ‘I don’t want anyone, not you nor the twins, nor anybody else touching my props.’ He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. His hand was shaking again.

     Barbara snorted. ‘It’s all right to help yourself to anything you want in the trailer to make the bloody props with though, isn’t it? The boys’ suits were all crushed and covered in fluff when we went to the Flying Curbys’ funeral. I felt really ashamed of us.’ 

     ‘Where’s the kids now?’

     ‘Elephant tent.’

     Jack left and didn’t bother to shut the trailer door. He hadn’t done well in the swimming pool, almost as soon as he was under the water his chest began to hurt and his ears roared. The attendant had been watching him carefully, and as he passed him on the way out of the pool, Jack said, ‘Underwater swimming practice, coming here every few days. Due in Israel in a month - snorkelling.’ That seemed to settle things. The problem was pressure, in the oil drum it’d be a lot easier. He banged the side of his head to release the water from his ear. Some of the acts Jack had done in the past were much more dramatic than a mere water act, although Barbara, who was less sullen in those days, complained that it was horrible to touch the deep dents in his back after he’d been on his bed of swords. Very few men had the mystical gift of mind over matter, none that Jack had ever met in person at any rate - except himself. The only time he’d encountered these giants amongst men were in his book, ‘Greatest Feats of Daring Magic,’ men like Houdini, naturally, and still in living memory, Tanksley Quinton, the Human Pincushion.

     Nobody on the winter quarters was particularly curious about what Jack was up to until he erected a metal frame around The Eagle, and hung shower curtains around it. He found the Francetti sisters staring into the enclosure one morning and came up slowly behind them. ‘What d’you think?’ he asked.

Vivian giggled. ‘We were on the lookout for a new washing machine; ours packed in at Great Yarmouth.’

     ‘Don’t look like an eagle to me,’ Maureen added.

     ‘That silver fabric, you got any left over?’ Jack asked. ‘I’ll fix your washing machine for a few yards of that.’

     The sisters would be laughing on the other sides of their faces when they saw the act in the ring for the first time. Jack had imagined every detail of it during his sleepless nights next to Barbara. He’d even worked out the logistics of getting the fifty-five gallon oil drum into the ring; four attendants accompanied by a tense drum roll would push it in on a Tandem Axle trailer. The more difficult it looked, the more thrilled the punters would be.

     After a few electrifying moments, The Great Buzzanti strides into the ring in his silver cloak and helmet, and pretends he hasn’t seen the punters. One of the attendants removes his cloak slowly, revealing his smooth bare torso, and the other three make a great business of chaining him up and handcuffing him. Buzzanti bows his head the while as if he’s a humble man. Finally, his helmet is removed - cycling or motorbike, Jack hadn’t worked out which - and Buzzanti stares into space, his face set, but calm. The punters are silent, even small children watch in fascination. Of course, the second he’s under the water, he’s already worked the handcuffs off - handcuffs you could buy, according to Maureen, in The Whip and Torture - and is searching at the same time for the padlock keys with his toes.

     Three minutes go by, four, five, and by now the punters are very agitated and most have risen to their feet. Finally when the tent is full of anxious murmuring, the drum rolls grow louder, more urgent, and out he bursts, arms raised, water glistening on his taut body, The Great Buzzanti, mystical man of all the elements.

     Jack was glad to be outside again, the air in the Whip and Torture had been foetid. He’d found a decent looking pair of handcuffs at the back of the shop, but the rubber suits nearby had unnerved him. Some had full headpieces patterned with metal spikes, ugly slits for mouths and horrible oval holes to look through. Maureen hadn’t told him the place didn’t have any windows, and he’d watched for a long time from the tearooms across the road before he saw a man slink in through the handle-less door. 

     ‘They don’t like people who just go in there for a laugh,’ Maureen had told him. ‘Rubber, whips and handcuffs are down the back.’

     ‘How do you know about the place?’

     Maureen shrugged. ‘Me and Vivian like strange things. We came across it last winter.’

     ‘If you like strange things, you’ll like my escapology act. There’s something missing, though,’ he said, looking at her ankles. He gave her time to get curious, but it didn’t work. ‘An assistant. I’d pay a bit to the right woman. Lovely silver bathing costume cut high on the thighs, little ruff of silver on the backside, cheeky, calf-length boots, again in silver, stacked heels. I can see it all.’

     Maureen laughed, and moved back a pace. ‘Me?’

     ‘You and Viv make all your own costumes, don’t you? And you’ve got yards and yards of the silver stuff left over. Why not you?’

     Maureen shook her head. ‘I’m already in trouble with Barbara. She spent the whole season watching us, and every time I walk past your trailer, she pulls the curtains shut.’

     ‘Oh, she’s like that about any woman,’ Jack explained. ‘Jealous. She’d get used to it. D’you want to give it a go?’

     ‘They’ve been hanging around the tent men again. I don’t want them talking to that riff-raff. Bet you didn’t know Mike O’Neil murdered his own parents and went on the run, did you?’

     ‘Shall I get us some nice pork chops while I’m there?’ Her voice sounded normal.

     At the pool, the attendants had grown used to seeing Jack Barry, and no longer stared over at the deep end as he plunged in and burst out of the water, coughing as he came up. He could stay under, with a bit of effort, for up to two minutes sometimes. ‘Make out like you’re having a fight, so they all rush over.’

     Marty and Ricky blinked. ‘Can we play as well?’

     Jack smiled. ‘Yeah, but only when you see me come up again. I’ll give the thumbs up sign. This is important, boys, our future depends on it.’

     ‘How will we know when to start fighting?’

     Jack felt a twinge of impatience. He pulled the cubicle curtain aside and pointed at the attendants. ‘You two go out before me and walk round the pool to the shallow end. Start a big fight, lots of shouting and splashing. When those two men are trying to separate you, I’ll be under the water already, working the handcuffs and padlock.’

     ‘You going to drop the keys on the bottom and pick them up with your toes, Dad?’

     Jack looked at Marty’s face. Maybe he should’ve given in to Barbara about letting the boys go to school during the tenting season. ‘This is just a trial run. I’m going to keep the keys in my fist.’

Ricky sniffed, and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. Jack looked away for a second. ‘I saw a little plastic skeleton in a fish tank in the pet shop when we were in Skegness, it bobbed about all the time. I keep dreaming about it now.’

     ‘Me too,’ Marty said.

     ‘No you don’t you bloody liar.’

     Jack smiled. ‘Go and have a fight about it, boys. Make it good.’

     He sank quickly downwards close to the side of the pool. He kept his legs straight and thought about torpedoes. He sensed that he was further under the water than he’d been before, everything was speckled and soft and vast. There were echoes and ovals of light that slid and widened, and broke up into ragged shapes and long fragments almost at the moment they formed. He fumbled with the handcuff key as he fell, and he was out of the puny thing in a second. He tucked it into his swimming trunks and groped for the padlock on his chest. He could feel the smooth wall against his back as he sank, and it comforted him.

     He felt the strength of the water flowing through the vent on the back of his legs first, and its power shocked him. What part of the apparatus became caught fast in the grills of the vent mattered little to him as he struggled to pull himself free. His lungs were hurting badly and in his terror, he couldn’t decide if he should battle with the padlock itself or the horrible sucking vent. He tried to remind himself that he was a logical man, but instinct kept him wriggling against the vent, so that inserting the key in the lock was a desperate and clumsy affair. Before he’d even burst free and shot to the surface leaving the chains and padlock caught in the grill, he had reconsidered his future.

     ‘Did you watch us, Dad, did we do good?’

     Jack looked at the faces of his twin sons and knew that he loved them. ‘Well, I was under the water, Marty, at the deep end practising escapology, so I wouldn’t have been able to see you from there.’

Ricky sniffed. ‘Those men asked us what the fight was about, and I said dead skeletons. Was that right, Dad?’

     They’d reached the winter quarters, with its line of dreary leafless trees; Jack was gladder to be there than he could ever have thought. It was as if his heart was raw and swollen. ‘You did well, boys. I’m proud of you both.’

     He walked straight past The Eagle enclosure without looking at it. His boys were either side of him and the palms of his hands were warm against the napes of their necks. He was aware of Maureen beckoning him from her trailer door, but the sight of his own trailer and twenty foot around it in all directions took all his attention. There were knives and forks scattered across the muddy grass, and the good saucepan with the copper bottom was upside down in the dirt and badly dented. All the twins’ clothes and Jack’s too, were hanging in the scraggy bushes around the trailer. Jack heard Ricky say, ‘Can Marty and me go to the elephant tent now, Dad, and see Gina and Sophia?’ and they were gone, running like the wind before he could answer.

      She’d rolled herself a cigarette, and it hung lumpy and drooping from her fingers. Her eyes were startlingly beautiful; they seemed to burn and glint amber and fiery red. Jack searched her face for the fury that was always there after one of her fits, but found nothing of the sort. Fear was there, he saw it flash up and burn away, and he saw loneliness that he’d never known about in all the years he’d lived and fought with her, and in all the times, brief though they were, that they remembered they loved each other. ‘What?’ he whispered.

     ‘Maureen Francetti,’ she mumbled. ‘She told me.’

     ‘She told you wrong, then,’ Jack said, coming towards her a step at a time. He took the cigarette from her fingers and threw it through the trailer door.

     ‘She said you’ve always lusted after her.’ Jack couldn’t deny it in his own mind. He liked Maureen, liked standing at the back of the tent with her, liked the way the tassels on her costume followed the curve of her bottom, and the way the pretty thing was cut high at the thighs, and how, over the years, small bulges of flesh had appeared where the fabric bit hard into her. ‘I found her inside The Eagle enclosure. I asked her what she was gawping at, Jack.’

     ‘Why are you smoking, Barbara? You don’t smoke.’

     She wouldn’t look at him. ‘Where are the kids?’

     ‘Elephant tent. Talk to me.’

     Her bottom lip was out again, and trembling. She tried to shift away from him. ‘I’m not going on like this, Jack. I’m going to get a job in a shirt factory and sew buttons on all day. I’m going to take the twins and live in a house or something.’

     Jack wanted a cigarette, his lungs hurt badly, and the remnants of his terror beneath the water still lingered. ‘You can’t do that, Barbara. We’re a family,’ he whispered. ‘Maureen’s not important.’

     ‘Then will you tell her to bugger off?’

     He must have broken her somehow; she should be raging with anger, yet she sat beside him like a doll, crumpled and desolate. ‘I love you, Barbara. ‘It’s just I don’t always remember it. I’ll give up the whole act, just to prove it to you. You never liked the idea anyway, did you?’ She shook her head, and turned slowly to look at him and she was the same old Barbara again, and the rush of relief he felt was as powerful as when he broke through the surface of the water at the pool, gasping and shaking, and knowing he had very nearly died. He lit a cigarette and put his arm around her. ‘If I have to give up the Great Buzzanti to show you how much I love you, then I will. Never mind the hard work that’s gone into it already, and the props, and the money spent. None of it means anything to me if you’re unhappy, Barbara.’

     She looked startled. ‘I feel awful now, Jack. It’s just the way Maureen looked at me - all insulting. Please don’t give up the water act just for me.’

     ‘Too late, Barbara, I’ve made up my mind.’ He raised her chin between his finger and thumb and waggled her head gently from side to side. ‘When Jack Barry makes a decision, there’s no going back. There will be no water act. Goodbye the Great Buzzanti.’

     He waited for her to smile, and gaze at him with her head on one side like she used to do when she was fourteen and they were on Arkwright’s Fairground. She bit her lip. ‘Jack, there’s no need to be so compestuous on my account.’

     ‘Nope. It’s settled and that’s that. We’ll say no more about it.’ Jack stood up and arched his back. He could feel the water moving in his ears, and for a second his terror came back to him. He hadn’t seen any images of his life flashing past his eyes as you’re supposed to do, his mind was heavy and blackened with the hideous knowledge that he was drowning in the public swimming pool. He laughed and turned towards her. ‘Well, the old Mohican will be glad to be back.  I suppose the costume’s in the bushes somewhere. Let’s get everything back in the trailer before the boys come in.’

She was very pale. She stared at him. ‘Chief Choopaki’s dead, Jack.’

     ‘Nawww. Come on, girl, we’re all right now. Everything’s back to normal.’

     ‘He went up in flames. I threw a cigarette butt out the door and it landed on him.’

     Jack rose to his feet. ‘Costume’s burnt?’ Barbara nodded, and bit wildly at her lip. ‘Show me where.’

     The costume was still smouldering. The magnificent headdress was barely recognisable, all the beautiful feathers were gone, and the suede fringes on the trousers and the shirt were blackened and shrivelled. Barbara wept silently, and stood like a child at Jack’s side. He slipped his arm around her, and prodded the ashen mess with his toe. ‘You know what I think? Chief Choopaki got tired of the act. He was old; people weren’t that impressed by him anymore you know. He felt that, and it hurt him badly. Things have changed in the world, Barbara, even if circus can’t see it.’

     ‘What’re we going to tell people?’ Barbara whispered. ‘What’re we going to tell the twins?’

     ‘We’re going to say that Chief Choopaki, the great Mohican warrior and warlord, spontaneously combusted, and his spirit, a beautiful eagle with great tawny feathers, flies in the heavens and watches over us.’ He knew Barbara didn’t know what spontaneous combustion meant, but that didn’t much matter.