‘You hear that, Ma?’ Maisie said. ‘We can see fireworks tonight!’
‘If you go.’ Maggie threw Anne Kellaway a look.
‘We an’t going tonight, and we an’t staying for the parade now,’ Anne Kellaway asserted. ‘Come, Jem, Maisie, we’re leaving.’ She began to push at the people in front of her. Fortunately for Jem and Maisie, no one wanted to move and give up a place, and Anne Kellaway found herself trapped in the dense crowd. She had never had so many people around her before. It was one thing to stand in the window and watch London pass beneath her, safe at her perch. Now she had every sort of person pressing into her – men, women, children, people with smelly clothes, smelly breath, matted hair, harsh voices. A large man next to her was eating a meat pie, and the flakes of pastry were dropping down his front as well as into the hair of the woman standing in front of him. Neither seemed to notice or care as much as Anne Kellaway did. She was tempted to reach over and brush the flakes away.
As the music drew closer, two figures on horseback appeared. The crowd shifted and pushed, and Anne Kellaway felt panic welling up like bile. For a moment she was so desperate to get away that she actually put a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of her. He turned briefly and shrugged it off.
Thomas Kellaway took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. ‘There now, Anne, steady, girl,’ he said, as if he were talking to one of the horses they’d left behind with Sam in Dorsetshire. She missed their horses. Anne Kellaway closed her eyes, resisting the temptation to pull her hand away from her husband. She took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, the riders had drawn close. The horse nearest them was an old white charger, who walked sedately under its burden. The rider was Philip Astley.
‘It’s been a long winter, has it not, my friends?’ he shouted. ‘You’ve had nothing to entertain you all these months since October. Have you been waiting for this day? Well, wait no more – Lent is over, Easter has come, and Astley’s show has begun! Come and see The Siege of Bangalore, a sketch at once tragical, comical and oriental! Feast your eyes on the splendid operatic ballet La Fête de l’Amour! Wonder at the talents of the Manage Horse, who can fetch, carry, climb a ladder and even make a cup of tea!’
As he passed the Kellaways, his eyes fell on Anne Kellaway and he actually stopped in order to raise his hat to her. ‘Everyone is welcome to Astley’s Royal Saloon and New Amphitheatre – especially you, madam!’
The people around Anne Kellaway turned to stare at her. The man with the pie dropped his mouth open so that she could see the meat and gravy mashed up in there. Sick from this sight and from the attention of so many especially from Philip Astley, she closed her eyes again.
Philip Astley saw her turn pale and shut her eyes. Pulling a flask from his coat, he signalled to one of the circus boys who ran alongside him to take it to her. He could not stop his horse any longer to see if she took a swig of brandy, however – the press of the procession behind him pushed him on. He began his patter again: ‘Come and see the show – new acts of daring and imagination under the management of my son, John Astley, the finest equestrian rider in Europe! At little more than the price of a glass of wine, come for a full evening’s entertainment that you’ll remember for years to come!’
Beside him rode the son he spoke of. John Astley had as commanding a presence as his father, but in a completely different style. If Astley Senior was an oak – large and blunt, with a thick, strong centre – Astley Junior was a poplar – tall and slender and trimmed, with handsome, even features and clear, calculating eyes. He was educated, as his father had not been, and held himself more formally and self-consciously. Philip Astley rode his white charger like the cavalry man he once was and still thought himself to be, using the horse to get where he wanted to go and do what he wanted to do. John Astley rode his slim chestnut mare, with her long legs and nimble hooves, as if he and the horse were permanently attached and always on show. He jogged smoothly over Westminster Bridge, his horse capering sideways and slantways in a series of intricate steps to a minuet, played by musicians on trumpet, French horn, accordion and drum. Anyone else in his seat would have been jolted over and over and dropped gloves, hat and whip, but John Astley remained elegant and unruffled.
The crowd gazed at him in silence, admiring his skill rather than loving him as they did his father. All but one: Maisie Kellaway stood with her mouth open, staring up at him. She had never seen such a handsome man and, at fourteen, was ready to take a fancy to one. John Astley did not notice her, of course; he did not seem to see anyone, keeping his eyes fixed on the amphitheatre ahead.
Anne Kellaway had recovered herself without the aid of Philip Astley’s brandy. That she had refused, to the disgust of Maggie, the meat pie man, the woman in front of him with the pastry flakes in her hair, the man whose shoulder she had touched, the boy who delivered the flask – in fact, just about everyone apart from the other Kellaways. Anne Kellaway didn’t notice: her eyes were fixed fast on the performers in the parade behind John Astley. First came a group of tumblers who walked along normally and then simultaneously fell into a series of forward rolls that turned into cartwheels and backflips. Then came a group of dogs who, at a signal, all got up onto their hind legs and walked that way for a good ten feet, then ran about jumping over one another’s back in a complicated configuration.
Surprising as these acts were, what finally captured Anne Kellaway’s attention was the slack-rope dancing. Two strong men carried poles between which a rope hung, rather like a thick clothesline. Sitting in the middle of the rope was a dark-haired, moon-faced woman wearing a red and white striped satin dress with a tight bodice and a flared skirt. She swung back and forth on the rope as if it were a swing, then wrapped one part of the rope casually around her leg.
Maggie poked Jem and Maisie. ‘That’s Miss Laura Devine,’ she whispered. ‘She’s from Scotland, and is the finest slack-rope dancer in Europe.’
At a signal, the men stepped away from each other, pulling the rope taut and making Miss Devine turn a graceful somersault, which revealed several layers of red and white petticoats. The crowd roared, and she did it again, twice this time, then three times, and then she turned constant somersaults, twirling round and round the rope so that her petticoats were a flashing blur of red and white.
‘That’s called Pig on a Spit,’ Maggie announced.
Then the men stepped towards each other, and Miss Devine came out of the last somersault into a long swing up into the sky, smiling as she did.
Anne Kellaway stared at Miss Devine, expecting to see her crash to the ground as her son Tommy had from the pear tree, reaching for that pear that was always – and now always would be – just out of his reach. But Miss Devine did not fall; indeed, she seemed incapable of it. For the first time in the weeks since her son’s death, Anne Kellaway felt the shard of grief lodged in her heart stop biting. She craned her neck to watch her even as Miss Devine moved far down the bridge and could barely be seen, even when there were other spectacles right in front of her – a monkey on a pony, a man riding his horse backwards and picking up dropped handkerchiefs without leaving his saddle, a troupe of dancers in oriental costume turning pirouettes.
‘Jem, what’ve you done with those tickets?’ Anne Kellaway demanded suddenly.
‘Here, Ma.’ Jem pulled them from his pocket.
‘Keep ’em.’
Maisie clapped her hands and jumped up and down.
Maggie hissed, ‘Put ’em away!’ Already those around them had turned to look.
‘Them for the pit?’ the meat pie man asked, leaning over Anne Kellaway to see.
Jem began to put the tickets back in his pocket.
‘Not there!’ Maggie cried. ‘They’ll have ’em off you in a trice if you keep ’em there.’
‘Who?’
‘Them