‘You know that’s not true.’ Mathew closed his eyes, as if searching for something. He sighed and then opened them, meeting Margot’s gaze head-on. ‘How can you say your time is past? You know you’re loved. You know I love you.’
It hurt, Allie thought. She watched his face as he said it and she thought it really hurt to say those words. You know I love you. It was as if he hated admitting it, even to himself.
‘And I love Sparkles Circus!’ Margot retorted, her old eyes suddenly speculative. ‘You’re declaring them bankrupt?’
‘He has the right,’ Allie admitted, deciding a girl had to be fair. ‘Margot, you’ve been wonderful. I gather you persuaded Bond’s to finance us all those years ago. I’m so grateful.’
‘Yet you come here looking for more,’ Mathew demanded and there was such anger in his voice that she stared at him in astonishment—and so did Margot. Whoa.
‘I’m not here looking for more money,’ Allie said through gritted teeth. ‘Or … not much. I didn’t know about the loan, but I’ve been through Grandpa’s files now and I’m horrified. The circus can’t keep going—I know that now—but what I want is permission to continue for the two weeks we’re booked to perform in Fort Neptune. We have sold-out audiences. That’ll more than pay our way. If we need to refund everyone, it’ll eat into your eventual payout and we’ll have a town full of disappointed kids. If we can keep going for two weeks then I can give the crew two weeks’ notice. The alternative is going back tonight and saying clear out, the circus is over and letting your vultures do their worst.’
‘Vultures …’
‘Okay, not vultures,’ she conceded. ‘Debt collectors. Asset sellers. Whatever you want to call them. Regardless, it’s a shock and we need time to come to terms with it.’
‘You’re foreclosing on the loan?’ Margot said faintly. ‘On my loan?’
‘It’s not your loan,’ Mathew told his aunt. ‘You asked Grandpa to make the loan to Henry and he did. The circus can’t keep bleeding money. With Henry in hospital, they don’t even have a ringmaster. How the …’
‘We do have a ringmaster,’ Allie said steadily and turned to Margot. She knew what she wanted. Why not lay it on the table? ‘This afternoon your nephew put on Henry’s suit and top hat and was brilliant as ringmaster. He’s here to take care of you. Could you spare him for two performances a day? Just for two weeks and then it’s over?’
‘Mathew was your ringmaster?’
There was a loaded silence in the hot little room. Margot had been huddled in an armchair by the fire, looking almost as if she was disappearing into its depths. Suddenly she was sitting bolt upright, staring at Mathew as if she’d never seen him before. ‘My Mathew was your ringmaster?’ she repeated, sounding dazed.
‘He made an awesome one,’ Allie said. ‘You should come and see.’
‘I did it once,’ Mathew snapped. ‘In an emergency.’
‘And I couldn’t come,’ Margot moaned. ‘I’m dying.’
‘You don’t look dead to me,’ Allie said, and she wasn’t sure why she said it, and it was probably wildly inappropriate, cruel even, but she’d said it and it was out there, like it or not. ‘If you’re not dead then you’re alive. You could come.’
To say the silence was explosive would be an understatement. She glanced at Mathew and saw him rigid with shock.
He’d throw her out, she thought. He’d pick her up bodily and throw.
‘I’m … I’m sorry,’ she said at last because someone had to say something. ‘I don’t know how sick you are. That was … I mean, if you can’t …’
‘If you ate some dinner, let me help you dress, let us rug you up and use your wheelchair …’ Mathew said in a voice that was really strange.
‘I can’t eat dinner,’ Margot retorted, but it wasn’t a feeble wail. It was an acerbic snap.
‘You could if you wanted to.’ He glared at Allie, and back at Margot, and he looked like a man backed against a wall by two forces.
He loved this woman, Allie thought—and with sudden acuity she thought he loves her against his will. He hates it that he loves her and she’s dying.
What was going on?
And he told her.
‘It’s Margot’s decision to die,’ he said, sounding goaded to the point of explosion. ‘Her dog’s died. Her knees don’t let her walk like they used to, so she’s given up. She’s stopped eating and she won’t see her friends. She’s lost twelve kilos in the last four weeks.’
‘You’re kidding,’ Allie said, awed. ‘Twelve kilos? Wow, Margot, what sort of diet are you on? Our Exotic Yan Yan—Jenny to the rest of us—has tried every diet I’ve ever heard of. She’s currently on some sort of grapefruit and porridge diet. Her husband keeps sneaking over to my caravan for bacon and eggs. Maybe I should send Jenny to you.’
There was another silence at that. A long one. She’d trivialised something life-threatening, Allie thought. Uh oh.
She glanced at Mathew and saw his face almost rigid with tension. How hard would it be, she thought, to watch someone you loved decide to die? And she’d made light of it. Joked.
But in for a penny, in for a pound. Why not go for it?
‘It’s Sunday,’ she said, to no one in particular. To both of them. ‘We don’t play tonight, which is just as well as I’m feeling shattered, but tomorrow’s another day. We’re in the middle of the summer holidays and the forecast is for perfect weather. We have performances at two and at seven-thirty. Choose one. Mathew could rug you up and we’d keep the best seat for you like we always do. You could watch Mathew being wonderful and afterwards you could talk to Jenny about your diet.’
‘You can’t want me being wonderful,’ Mathew exploded. ‘If you think I’m about to make a spectacle of myself again …’
‘You enjoyed it,’ she said flatly. ‘Tell me you didn’t. I won’t believe you.’ She turned back to Margot. ‘Mathew took to ringmaster to the manor born,’ she said. ‘He’s seriously awesome. He could spend the next two weeks playing ringmaster. You could put off dying for a couple of weeks. I could give the team time to figure where we go from here. It’s win-win for everyone.’
‘You think dying’s a whim?’ Margot said faintly and Allie took a deep breath and met her gaze head on. She’d been blunt and insensitive—why not just keep on going?
‘I guess dying’s something we all have to do,’ Allie admitted. ‘But if you could squeeze in a couple more weeks of living and lend us your nephew while you did, we’d be very grateful. More than grateful. You’d be saving the circus. You’d be giving us—all of us—one last summer.’
‘The loan’s already called in,’ Mathew snapped.
‘Then call it out again,’ Margot snapped back and suddenly the old lady was pushing herself to her feet, unsteady, clinging to the arms of her chair but standing and looking from Mathew to Allie and back again.
‘Mathew is your ringmaster?’ she demanded as if she was clarifying details.
‘He is,’ Allie said.
‘I’m not,’ Mathew said, revolted.
‘If I eat,’ Margot said. ‘If I manage to eat my dinner and eat my breakfast … if I decide not to die … would you extend the loan for the two weeks Allie’s asking? You know I’ve never touched Bond’s money. You know I fought with my family. Apart from that one loan to Sparkles, I’ve never asked