S u s a n G e a s o n
White Horses
© SUSAN GEASON 2007
White Horses 2
CHAPTER 1
The old Dalmatian couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. When the strange convoy rattled though town at the crack of dawn, he barked so furiously that he almost popped his spots. There were cars and station wagons towing caravans and lorries with Deans’ Travelling Carnival painted on the sides loaded with machinery.
The parade was led by a fire engine red Customline with gleaming chrome fins and the top down. It was driven by a red-faced man with a mane of white hair and... a ten-gallon hat!
The dog was so astonished he forgot his road sense and was almost skittled by a clanking truck carrying an old man, a girl and a teenage boy. They were singing at the top of their voices. When the Dalmatian tried to sing along, they pointed at him and laughed.
Alfie whined. It was dull in this town; he wanted to go with them and be young and foolish again. But when the blue cattle dog on the back of the truck leapt up against the tailgate and barked insults at him, Alfie quickly changed his mind and scrambled back onto the footpath .
Once the danger was past, the Dalmatian ran into the middle of the road and watched them disappear, his tail wagging furiously. The faint echo of an old Beatles song floated back to him long after any human ear could have picked up the sound. He stood there straining forward, his nose quivering, until the paper girl turned up on her bike and yelled at him to get out of the way. After a half-hearted snap at her sneaker, the dog picked up his mistress’s newspaper like a good dog and trotted indoors.
But it’s unsettling to watch adventure come thundering down the road and pass by on its way to Peppertree, leaving you trembling with longing and out of sorts with your life. Mrs Garibaldi never did figure out why Alfie was so difficult that day, but then, he was getting old.
It was in Peppertree that Kirra Kincaid discovered the book that gave her the dream, the dream that refused to go away, the dream that changed her life.
It was odd, because Peppertree was no different from all the other country towns Deans’ Travelling Carnival passed through on its endless, restless journey. It had wide streets and the usual avenue of remembrance, with each tree named for a soldier who’d died in the Great War. There were shops and a post office, two pubs, a service station, a few blocks of weatherboard and brick houses with lovingly tended gardens. And there was a town hall with a clock, an old primary school with some ugly modern bits tacked on, and of course, a School of Arts. Sometimes these towns had a Freemason’s Hall — a mysterious building with no windows — or a Mechanics’ Institute, though Kirra had never seen a mechanic come out of one.
While Ruby Tuesday and Jack Flash haggled with the garage owner about fixing their ageing truck, Kirra mooched around the main street. She bought a gum ball from a machine, tried out some forbidden make-up in the chemist shop until a suspicious young woman in a white uniform made her feel uncomfortable, and then decided to investigate the School of Arts. She’d often wondered about these buildings: did people learn drawing in there? Did naked models pose for artists with moustaches and smocks like they did in old movies?
Peppercorn’s School of Arts was particularly fine, built in stone with its name carved above the door. Kirra was hesitating at the entrance, a little intimidated by the gloom, when a voice called, “Come in child! Don’t hang about.”
It was a kind voice, a woman’s voice, so Kirra sidled in. There were no artists in smocks, no smell of turps and oil paints, just books. It was a library. Kirra was a bit disappointed, but the librarian, who’d looked up from sorting cards at the front desk seemed to expect her to stay, so she did.
Broomstick thin with an iron-coloured perm, the woman had sympathetic eyes behind her old-fashioned glasses. “The children’s section is over there,” she said, pointing, and Kirra did as she was bid. She didn’t think of herself as a child, but knew she’d have trouble with the grown-up books with their tight, black print like battalions of ants.
Skimming the shelves, Kirra soon realised that the Peppercorn School of Arts Library hadn’t bought any children’s books in a very long time. Since the Great War, maybe. Kirra had read the inscriptions on hundreds of statues of soldiers in small towns and was quite fond of the Great War, though she had no idea what it had been about.
As if she’d read the girl’s mind, the librarian said: “They’re a bit old and moth-eaten, pet, but you might find the picture books amusing.”
The librarian returned to her cataloguing. What mysterious wind had blown this odd little leaf into her library, she wondered. With her spiky hair, faded heavy metal tee shirt , tattered cut-offs and bare feet, the girl looked like nobody owned her. Mind you, if you washed off the purple lipstick and black eye muck and combed the pale hair, she would be quite sweet.
Kirra quickly fell under the spell of the Peppercorn School of Arts Library with its scuffed wood floors and polished bookshelves. A shaft of golden light slanted down from the high windows, gilding the dust motes and spotlighting the occasional bumbling fly. It was a time capsule, a refuge. She breathed in its aroma, a perfectly blended bouquet of old books, dust, beeswax, and the faintest hint of violet talcum powder from the librarian’s bosom.
It was so quiet she was sure she could hear the silverfish gnawing away on the yellowed pages of books.
Kirra didn’t read very well. The carnival never stayed anywhere very long, and she’d been to so many schools she’d forgotten their names. After riffling through some novels with too many words too close together, she found an ancient story book with sad, pale pictures. They were watercolours, although Kirra had never heard that word.
Squatting cross-legged on a strip of threadbare, greyish carpet, she was soon engrossed in the saga of Hilary’s Summer Holiday. Set in the dim past in England, the story was pretty boring really. The White girls were awful sooks, and the scenery was impossibly neat and green compared to the landscape Kirra knew, but she couldn’t tear herself away. The White family entranced her.
So why, when she came to the picture of their picnic at the seaside, did something catch in the region of her heart? Like a pain, but not quite a pain. She didn’t know how to describe it: she’d never felt it before. It was probably just the dust.
In the picture a bewhiskered Papa White, wearing a Panama hat, a white shirt with the sleeves turned back and rolled-up trousers, smoked a cigar and gazed out to sea. Mama White, with her soft, flowered dress pulled up to reveal plump knees, kept a close eye on her daughters, Hilary and Daisy, from under a parasol. After sounding out the unfamiliar word Kirra decided it was just an umbrella. The girls paddled at the water’s edge, Hilary holding chubby little Daisy, in a playsuit and floppy bonnet, by the hand.
Riveted to this perfect family on their perfect day at the beach, Kirra didn’t hear the librarian approach. When the woman touched her on the arm, she jumped, alarmed, wondering where she was.
“I’m closing up now, pet. The library only opens three mornings a week now. If you’d like to join...”
“No, I mean, no thanks. We won’t be here for long,” said Kirra.
The girl seems upset, thought the librarian. Surely it isn’t that soppy Hilary book. It’s too boring to upset anyone except a few silly school teachers.
Kirra handed back the book reluctantly, feeling as if she was parting with her own family. But that was mad: Jack and Ruby were down at the garage... She looked up at the clock and let out a squeak of alarm. She’d been here an hour! If Ruby and Jack were cooling their heels waiting for her, all hell would break loose.
But she was lucky. When she emerged, blinking, from the School of Arts, there they were, contentedly eating pies and drinking beer under a huge fig tree in the park across the road. It was going to take a couple of hours to fix the truck, apparently.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” her mother said. She pulled Kirra down, peered into her face, then pulled out a Kleenex and wiped the war paint off the squirming girl. “What’ve you been up to?”
“Reading a book,” Kirra said. She escaped and grabbed a pie from a paper bag on the grass.
Jack laughed. “Books won’t do you no good. Never read one meself.”
Kirra busied herself with the tomato sauce. It was supposed to be a dark secret, but she’d guessed long ago that Jack couldn’t read or write.
Lolling contentedly in the park with her parents, Kirra fed the pigeons with bits of gristle and rough-housed with a stray dog, while the life of Peppertree bustled around them. She began to wonder if she’d imagined the violet-scented librarian, the dusty library, the musty books. Out here in the squinting sunlight under the brash blue skies, the White family and their seaside holiday seemed impossibly far away. Like a dream.
CHAPTER 2
In the uproar of getting the carnival set up in a paddock on the outskirts of town, Kirra forgot all about her strange experience in the library. There was too much confusion. Tempers flared, tent pegs flew, men grumbled and cursed as they wrestled with nuts and bolts to set up the rides. Carny kids were everywhere, squabbling and shrieking like seagulls, looking for trouble and occasionally finding it in angry shouts and slaps.
While Jack and some mates were erecting the Ferris wheel, Kirra helped Ruby arrange her shooting gallery. All carny kids were expected to work. When Kirra wasn’t unpacking purple, pink or orange fluffy animals to put on the prize shelves, she could often be found selling tickets for the Ferris wheel.
Even after a lifetime in the carnival, Kirra still got a thrill when Deans’ opened in a new town. Although there were no true Deans any more, they’d once been a famous circus family criss-crossing the country. In its glory days, Deans’ Circus had boasted a big top with the head of the family as ringmaster in top hat and tails, muscular trapeze artists in sequins, a clown, dancing horses, a couple of camels and a lion. They’d even had an elephant, which travelled on its own float.
But television had changed all that. Only the big, expensive circuses could make money now. But they were in strife now, under attack from animal rights people for keeping wild animals locked up and making them do tricks. It was cruel, some people said. Kirra thought they might be right, though she kept her opinion to herself.
Occasionally old Merv regaled them with tales of the good old days. Merv had joined the circus as a boy and become a strong man and married a tumbler. All the glamour of the Big Top came alive for Kirra when Merv reminisced, but Ruby scoffed. It was all nonsense, she said. The camels had been flea-bitten, the clown a nasty piece of work, and the ringmaster.... well, the less said about him the better.
Kirra didn’t care what the clown did when he took off his make-up: the show was the thing, even if the some of the glitter had gone. Deans’ Travelling Carnival was her whole world. She wouldn’t willingly swap it for any other life, despite the sneers from some of the town kids, despite the misery when the rains went on too long and everything got mouldy and everybody got irritable. And even despite the rough patches when the whole troupe seemed to live on baked beans and tea and Ruby sneaked away to the Salvation Army or the Smith Family to get money for food.
As soon as Ruby turned her back to make a cup of tea, Kirra flew off to Roxy Lee’s caravan. Roxy told fortunes, drew astrology charts and read the tarot cards. When she’d first joined Deans’, Kirra had heard one of the women calling Roxy a Gypsy, and talking about the Gypsies’ strange customs.
When Kirra had asked Ruby what customs were, Ruby had said: “Oh, I don’t know, the way you do things, probably. Like getting married, turning twenty-one, that sort of thing. You’ve been listening to the talk about Roxy, have you?”
Kirra nodded.
“Well, don’t spend too much time hanging around her caravan,” said Ruby.
Sometimes Kirra got exasperated at the way Jack and Ruby babied her, hardly ever letting her out of their sight. To escape from her mother’s eagle eye, she’d had to learn how to be sneaky. She had no intention of staying away from Roxy.
Later, when Ruby calmed down, Kirra asked: “What sorts of customs do Gypsies have, Mum?”
“They don’t mix with regular folk, and they have their own language, for a start. My Gran used to tell us about Gypsies coming through town in their wooden caravans pulled by horses. ”
“Tinkers, they were,” interrupted Jack. “And thieves.”
“What’s a tinker?”
“People who used to fix pots and pans.”
This was a new one on Kirra. She’d never heard of anyone fixing pots and pans: nowadays they just threw them out when they got too dented or rusty.
“Pegs, too,” added Ruby.
“Tent pegs?”
“No, clothes pegs.”
“What did they do with them?”
“They used to carve wooden clothes pegs and sell them door to door,” Ruby explained. “That was in the days before plastic pegs.”
Kirra had never seen a wooden peg: she tried to imagine one. “Are they really thieves?” she asked. Roxy was one of the kindest people she’d ever met: it was hard to think of her harming anyone.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” said Ruby.
Jack had a one-track mind: “Nags,” he said mysteriously.
When his wife and daughter stopped eating and stared at him, he said: “Gypsies are s’posed to be good with horses,” he explained.