Circus of Wonders
Welcome to our regular feature showcasing the talents of the nation’s best writers.
It begins with an advertisement, nailed to an oak tree. “Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders!” someone shouts. “What is it?” “The greatest show on earth!” Everyone is shovelling forwards, tutting, shouting. A woman shrieks, “Watch your wings!”
Through a gap between armpits, Nell glimpses a fragment of the handbill. The colour sings, bright red edged in gold. An illustration of a bearded woman, dressed in a red doublet, golden wings clipped to her boots. “Stella the Songbird, Bearded Like a Bear!” Nell leans closer, straining to see the whole of the advertisement, to read the looping words. “Minnie, the Famed Behemoth” – a huge grey creature, long snouted – “Brunette, the Welsh Giantess. The World’s Smallest Museum of Curious Objects” – a sketch of a white crocodile in a jar, the sloughed skin of a snake.
At the top of the handbill, three times the size of any of the other acts, is a man’s face. His moustache is curled into two sharp brackets, cane held like a thunderbolt. “Jasper Jupiter”, she reads, “showman, presents a dazzling troupe of living curiosities –”
“What’s a living curiosity?” Nell asks her brother.
He doesn’t answer.
As she stands there, she forgets the endless cutting and tying of violets and narcissi, the numerous bee stings which swell her hands, the spring sun which bakes her skin until it looks parboiled. Wonder kindles in her. The circus is coming here, to their small village. It will pin itself to the salt-bleached fields behind them, stain the sky with splashes of exquisite colour, spill knife jugglers and exotic animals and girls who strut through the streets as if they own them. She presses closer to her brother, listens to the racket of questions. Gasps, exclamations.
“How do they make the poodles dance?” “A monkey, dressed as a tiny gallant!” “Does that woman really have a beard?” “Mouse pelts. It will be mouse pelts, fixed with glue.”
Nell stares at the handbill – its scrolled edges, its fierce colours, its shimmering script – and tries to burn it into her mind. She wishes she could keep it. She would like to sneak back when it is dark and pull loose the nails – gently, so as not to rip the paper – and look at it whenever she wants, to study these curious people as carefully as she pores over the woodcuts in the Bible.
About the author
Elizabeth Macneal was born in Edinburgh and now lives in East London. Her first novel, 2019’s The Doll Factory, has been translated into 29 languages. Circus of Wonders is published by Picador on 13 May, price £14.99.