CHAPTER 14
Mrs Tommo was sitting at the table in the Santino kitchen. She had handed Pearl’s bail money over to Constable Webber and was enjoying a coffee after delivering her back home. ‘At least you have her home for the night and I’m so glad she managed to get to sleep without much trouble.’
‘Yes, all four asleep within minutes,’ replied Lou. ‘Which,’ he added. ‘gives me a good chance to say how grateful we are, Sara and I . First though, I cannot begin to describe how surprised we all were when you stood up in court today and announced you were Beth Shanghasi and wanted to stand bail. No, hardly a surprise, more a complete shock and for everyone in court, even the Judge.
‘Anyway, as I say, Sara and I are more grateful than we can possible say and maybe by this time tomorrow the case against Pearl will have been dismissed – which I’m sure it will be - and the bail money returned to you. However, if things do go wrong for whatever reason and her release is delayed, I would like you to know at Sara and I will be trying all we possibly can to raise the money and as soon . . . . ‘
Sara had pushed back from her chair. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ she said. ‘I think I’d best do another quick check upstairs. If Tiger Lilly suspects for one moment that we are possibly discussing something she should know about, she’ll be at the top of the stairs like a flash, no matter how tired she is. Not that the others are a whole lot better but Tiger Lilly is the champion eavesdropper of all time and by a country mile.’
Mrs Tommo laughed out loud. ‘Talking of champions,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it is getting rather late and I have to confess my husband, Zach, is also a champion – a champion worrier that is. At least about me However there are certain things I’d like to discuss with you and I feel sure you are more than curious to know why I stood bail today and, even more, why I may seem to be pushing myself on you and - how shall I say – acting perhaps a little too friendly. However, as I say, it is getting rather late and I wonder, Lou, whether you would like to walk me home so we can talk on the way. That’s if you don’t mind, Mrs Santino, and please say if you do. It would be no trouble for me to come back later in the week if it would suit you better.’
‘Oh no, I don’t mind in the least,’ Sara replied. ‘I’ll be busy enough preparing for tomorrow and Lou will be able to tell me all you have to say when he returns. All I know is you have been more than kind to us and you are welcome here at any time. At any time at all and please, it’s not Mrs Santino, it’s Sara.’
Surprisingly, neither Lou nor Beth seemed eager to say much at first; seemed more than content with their own thoughts until Mrs Shanghasi stopped to point to the side of the road. ‘Over there! That bench! That is where I sat after I left you that first morning; sat for ages with my head in a spin, trying all I knew to calm myself down, desperate to make some kind of sense of what I had just seen. You remember that morning, you were working in the field and you saw me and you looked up and waved.’
‘Of course I remember.’
‘Yes, and you all came over to talk to me and that is when I saw her.’
‘You mean Pearl, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Lou. Yes I do.’
Lou took her by the arm and led her to the bench. ‘Mrs Tommo, he said, sitting beside her. ‘You know I am grateful for all you have done – are still doing - for my daughter, but I think there is something I don’t know about that goes beyond mere kindness and I would like to know what it is. To be absolutely honest, and I can’t tell you how difficult it is for me to say this, but there are times when I find the way you are with me and my family is a little, shall we say, overwhelming. Hard to understand, even embarrassing
‘Yes,’ said Beth ‘I’m sure it is,’
And then she told him about Tessa. Told him about the terrible illness that had come so suddenly on a bright summer morning to take her from them. And she told of the sorrow that had overwhelmed them; had engulfed their lives.
‘A bad time,’ she said. ‘The worst of times.’ She said it quietly, hardly a whisper. ‘We were devastated beyond any words can say and, almost immediately, Zach began to deal with it in a way that only he could. He literally threw himself into our businesses, expanding the ones we had, established new companies almost by the day, took over others risking everything we had in a wild frenzy of buying that gave no thought to the risks he was taking: and all the time making more and more money. Day and night he worked, a man gone mad, while I stood by, hardly noticing, caring for nothing. I suppose we were what you might call reasonably wealthy even before it happened, but then and almost without noticing, we found we were rich. Very rich. It meant nothing. Then one day Zach came to me with a document to sign.’
‘It’s the circus,’ he said. ‘We have to do something about it. You’ll not be surprised to learn it is still managing to lose money - not enough to trouble - but the Raphines have decided it’s time to retire, to call it a day, and they say their sons have no interest whatsoever in taking it over. So I think you’d best sign this paper, Beth, have it over and done with. Say our goodbyes to the thing.’
‘In truth, I had almost forgotten about the circus. It was something we had somehow acquired as part of a company merger, a buy-out or something like that, and hardly worth the name of circus: more a collection of rag-tag stalls and a patched up excuse of a Big Top. But, Tessa absolutely loved it. Loved every shabby bit of it: loved the clowns – which included Mr and Mrs Raphine when they were not doing their juggling and balancing acts; the acrobats – their two boys - and everyone else who happened to be working for them. And they loved her in return. I suppose Zach and I became little more than bystanders, sort of lookers-on as Tessa and the circus crowd became like another family. She actually called them her circus family.
‘But that, I thought, was in the past: Zach was still busy adding to his mountains of money and a run down circus was about the last thing I wanted as part of my life. But it was then – and I can still remember reaching for a pen – when Zach suddenly seemed to take a grip of the document, pulled it to his chest
Tessa loved it, didn’t she?’ he said. He said it with a smile – what you might call a wistful smile. ‘Pestered the life out of us non-stop with the blessed thing, always wanting us to pack up and re-visit it no matter where we were, no matter how busy or how inconvenient it was for everyone. Drove us mad.’
‘I remembered.’.
‘So what would you say? he asked in a sort of slow and deliberate way, ‘if I was to suggest we should think of turning the Raphine Circus into a really great circus. Perhaps the best circus the world has ever known. We could scour every continent, search for the best acts, have the biggest ever Big Top and fill it with acrobats to take your breath away, with clowns to adore, with world famous artists wanting to be part of our circus. Why not, Beth? Just think of it. And, not only that, we could make more money than we have ever made and we could use ever penny, nickel and every dime we made in profit to help children. Children in need everywhere. We could call it the Shanghasi Circus. The Children’s Circus.’
‘I can’t remember what I said, have never tried. All I knew – knew without a second thought – that it was what Tessa would have wanted and from that moment on, Zach had a work-crazy partner with no other ambition but to help him make it a success. Which, I suppose, made for two work-crazy people.’
Mrs Tommo stopped then and turned to Lou. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Going on like this, boring you with my nonsense.’
Lou shook his head. ‘Not a bit. Mrs Tommo’.
‘Beth, please call me Beth Come to think, I suppose it has to be Beth Shanghasi with you and everyone else from now on. Yes, I’m afraid Mrs Tommo said
her final goodbyes in court today and everyone will know by now who I really am. Including, of course, the circus people, although I must say, it was great fun being one of them.’ She studied him, head on one side. ‘It must have been more than bewildering for you these last few days, having a strange woman pushing herself into your family, acting l
ike a would-be, fairy godmother gone mad. And yet, how can I begin to describe the shock at seeing Pearl for the first time? How can I tell you just how much your daughter looks exactly like my darling Tessa; looked at that same age? So alike. And it’s not just her looks. It’s the way she holds her head; that crooked smile, her laugh. Everything. And how can I begin to put in words the way I felt as I sat on this bench, my heart beating, my mind in a whirl of silly wishes and all the time knowing, even as I made them, how ridiculous they were? Knowing, even more, how ludicrous the idea that being with Pearl would be like having my daughter back with me again.
‘I don’t know how long I stayed here on this bench. Could have been minutes, an hour maybe, but anyway I eventually managed to talk some kind of sense into myself and went back to the circus. But then, I arrived at the circus the next morning and saw her standing there . . . Oh Lou, it seemed like a miracle! Destiny.’
‘Your husband, Mr Shanghasi. Did he not see the likeness?’
‘Of course he did! How could he not!. But he took it more sensibly than I did, which isn’t saying much, the state I was in. He said something about a spitting image and said, yes, it gave him a real turn.’ She gave a laugh: ‘Lou, you will never guess what I asked him to do! Suggested he come to see you, see if he could talk you into allowing Pearl to come to work for us on a regular basis.’
‘You mean leave home?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Not much. Said he didn’t think she would want to leave her family, that you probably needed her on the farm.’
Lou put a hand on hers. ‘Yes, and he was absolutely right, Mrs Shanghasi. There is no way I would I have agreed to her leaving home, would have given it not a second thought.’ He shook his head. ‘I was about to say not in a thousand years, but then again, I’ll not be the one always deciding her future – God knows she seems more a young woman every time I look at her. Perhaps, though, if you lived here, saw her more often, well who is to say what time would bring, but then again, and as I understand it, your circus will be leaving here at the end of the week and there’s no telling when you will return. If ever.’
’Actually, Lou, that’s not entirely true. The circus will be leaving at week-end, true enough, but Zach and I will be staying on for a while. The thing is, we are in the middle of a series of business discussions with Prince Xavier and, if our talks work out the way we hope, Zach and I will be spending a great deal of time here in Mandredela. One of the reasons we came here in the first place. Two reasons actually. We came here firstly because of wanting to get together with the Prince, but also because we were looking to take one of our smaller circuses to some out of the way place. It’s a something we like to do every two or three years: try out new ideas, new acts, that sort of thing So you see, Lou, I’ve reasons for hope.’
Lou grinned: ‘I don’t suppose you know this is a magic bench?’
‘Magic?’
‘Well absolutely. At least according to Tiger Lilly and Lilac it is. Mind you, Tiger Lilly seems to be losing patience with it lately, gave it a sly kick last time we were here. Not Lilac though. Lilac says it is only when you have wished your very hardest and with all your heart that your wish will come true. Only when you have wished harder than you have ever wished before and for something that you want more than anything else in the world.’