Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 8

‘I think you should be using a blood knot,’ said Leo with authority.

The man looked up at him, this time with real interest. ‘Well, go right ahead’ he said, promptly handing the whole mess over to the boy.

Leo went to work, quickly tying the difficult knot to connect the first two thick pieces, but labouring somewhat as the pieces became thinner and his hands and eyes became tired. For the twenty minutes or so that it took Leo to do the job, the man watched quietly, helping where he could but generally provi

ng too clumsy to be of real use.

‘You’re a country boy, I’ll be bound?’ he asked Leo when the task was at last completed. ‘Yes,’ Leo nodded, ‘from near Random.’

‘Yes, I thought so. These town boys have a different air about them. What are you doing in these parts?’

‘Oh, just wandering,’ Leo said vaguely, still mindful that he was not supposed to discuss his quest.

‘Ah, I see,’ the man said. ‘I’m sorry I asked. It’s just that one forgets . . . the old customs. I guess your folk live in the traditional way. We’ve been travelling in the populated areas too long. Once there was a time when many a lad like you could be seen following his star across the countryside. Yes, and girls too. Guess it just became too dangerous for many.’

There was a pause while Leo digested all this. ‘What do you do with the fair?’ he asked then.

‘I’m a storyteller,’ the man replied.

Leo, who had a great love for stories, warmed to him immediately. ‘My name’s Leo,’ he said.

‘I’m Leo,’ the storyteller responded, and the two gravely shook hands. Knowing that the time would come when he would have to be a storyteller himself, seven times over, Leo wondered what he could learn from this man. The opportunity came unexpectedly when Leo said, ‘Why don’t you get a job here for a while?’

‘Could I?’ Leo asked in surprise.

‘Oh yes, no great problem. They always prefer to take on country boys. And there’s not a week goes by that someone doesn’t leave; so if there’s no vacancy today, there will be tomorrow, in a manner of speaking. These shows always attract drifters. Any strong lad with a practical mind and a good pair of hands can walk into a job here pretty easily. If you’re interested I’ll send you over to my brother’s caravan. He’s in charge of the stringers — they’re the, you know, workers. The fellows who put the tents up and so on.’

Within twenty minutes, to Leo’ great pleasure, he was hired as a stringer by Jud, Leo’s brother. He was given a bed and a cupboard in Leo’s caravan, and sent off on his first job — to pick up litter around the shows where he had so recently been an interested customer and spectator.

He worked on various odd jobs until well into the night, with only a brief break when he was invited to dip into Leo’s cooking pot and serve himself a generous helping of a concoction in which mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes and herbs figured prominently. He was grateful when he was at last free, at around midnight, and he could fall into bed and sleep. It was the first late night he had had since leaving home; and it was the noisiest and most crowded evening that he had ever spent. He had become used to nights spent in solitude under the stars, reviewing the day’s events and thinking his own thoughts. But tonight sleep was upon him too quickly to allow for any conscious thinking.

Chapter Six

As Leo gradually learnt the routines of life with the folk at the fair he was able to do his work more and more automatically, which allowed him time to get to know his surroundings from the inside. His duties were menial — cleaning, painting, repairing, carrying, general labouring. For quite a time though hardly anyone except Leo and a couple of other stringers spoke to him, even to give him a ‘good morning’. ‘Be patient,’ Leo advised. ‘They’re used to stringers coming and going every week or two, like I told you. They get sick of being friendly with someone who leaves the next day.’ So Leo took particular trouble to do his jobs well and to be polite to everyone, and soon he was pleased to see that the thaw forecast by Leo was taking place.

As he got to know his new companions better he met with many surprises. The fat lady, whose name was Ruth, was the easiest — besides Leo — to befriend. She was naturally gregarious, spending all her spare time sitting in the sun at the front of her caravan, collecting gossip and chatting with all who passed. She could not walk far without suffering loss of breath and overheating, so she found it easier to avoid exertion. But Leo could not understand why she was as fat as she was; for she did not seem to eat a lot. Yet she was so fat that if she sat on a chair it would immediately sink into the ground up to its cross-bars, and indeed all her own furniture had been specially made to accommodate her. ‘And my mother was such a little thing’ she confided wheezingly to Leo. ‘Why, if I sneezed she’d be blown across the room. And I was so tiny when I was born.’ She laughed uproariously, and her great sides shook as though she were an ocean in a storm. ‘Now my ears alone would weigh what I did at birth.’

The conjoined twins, Lavolta and Parara, held a great fascination for Leo. He found that Parara, who had spoken to him that first day in the tent, was quite different from her sister. Parara was lively, humorous and outgoing, while her sister was dour and elusive. Parara would greet everyone she knew with warmth and pleasure, and stop to chat. Lavolta, who obviously had no choice then but to stop too, would stand slightly turned away, gazing into the distance and contributing little or nothing to the conversation. One day when Leo asked the twins to help him for a moment, by keeping the tension on a coil of rope he was unwinding to fence off a new enclosure, it was Parara who took the rope and did all the work.

The twins moved around with as much speed and facility as any single person, even though their gait was awkward and graceless. They appeared to have harmonised most of their living relationships; Leo never witnessed an argument between them about when they should eat, for example, or when they should go to bed. Like everyone else he wondered about their visits to the toilet, or what happened if one of the girls had a boyfriend, but he was never brave enough or rude enough to ask. The twins were able to laugh at themselves, but Leo knew they were often asked coarse questions by the crowds who came through the main tent to look at them. He did not want to place himself on that level.

A more disturbing figure was that of Tiresias, the shadowy half man-half woman whom Leo had found so unsettling when he first laid eyes on him. Leo could not decide to which s*x he belonged. Under the artificial embellishments of the special clothes, the moustache, and the haircut, Tiresias was truly a sexually ambiguous figure. And he did not make it any easier for Leo to satisfy his curiosity, because he was always elusive. Seldom seen around the campsite, he kept mainly to his caravan, where, Jud claimed, he made a fortune by entertaining local men in search of something exotic. When all the members of the travelling show were gathered around the big bonfire late at night, as was their custom, Tiresias could sometimes be seen standing unobtrusively in the background, well away from the bright firelight. Leo spoke to him occasionally and was always given a polite answer, expressed in a toneless yet pleasant enough voice that was also sexually indefinable. Leo was unable to explain the fascination and fear that he felt towards Tiresias, but a prickling on the back of his neck and a reddening of his skin always told him when he was near the mysterious half man-half woman.

Another of the exotic figures who had attracted Leo’ attention on his first walk through the big show tent was Titius, the human skeleton. This tall and spindly fellow proved, however, to be boring and irritating. He hung around listlessly all day when not ‘on duty’, complaining to anyone who would listen about anything that was currently annoying him. His fretting wore out Leo’ patience and the boy soon learned to avoid him.

It was the storytellers and the balladeers to whom Leo was most attracted though. As well as Leo, there were two other storytellers: Delta and Cassim, both women, and two balladeers: Cameron and Demy. Whenever they gave public performances Leo tried to arrange his jobs so that he could be nearby; and late at night, when work was over and everyone relaxed, Leo loved to listen to them talk and sing. He particularly liked the fact that they so rarely told the same story twice, or that when they did, they gave it enough new twists to retain its interest. But on the other hand, there were songs whose very familiarity accounted for their attraction, and which he never tired of hearing.

One night Demy sang a ballad which Leo had not heard before but which he was nev

er to forget. There were only a few people left around the fire when Demy picked up his guitar and began:

Now let me sing you a story

Of a child who died one sad day.

It’s a song of love and of loyalty

And the price a girl had to pay.

Eleven years old, she went walking

Down the bed of a stream

And she walked through the water so carefree

Lost in her own private dream.

The name of the girl was Sunday

And she lived up Random way.

She had a dog called Milo

Who was walking with her that day.

Milo was leaping through water,

Loving the splash and the spray,

Staying ahead of his mistress,

The beautiful girl, Sunday.

The dog found a cliff where the water

Fell a hundred feet sheer

And he stood on the edge looking over

With not a tremor of fear.

But Sunday, she saw the danger.

She knew of the boulders below.

She started forward to save him,

To save the dog Milo.

The rocks were wet with the water

And sleek with the moss so green,

The dog turned and slipped, as his mistress

Slid on the bright stony sheen.

The two went over together,

Embraced in love and in fear.

The boulders stood waiting to break them,

To become their funeral bier.