UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Front-Door Man
By DAVID JONES (Balliol College, Oxford)
KA1 LUNG met his beloved over a water-buffalo, and I too have conversed with a woman of China while between us stood only one snorting, sulky Highland ox. She was a little spangled creature with a face of yellow velvet, far more enticing than Mr. Bramah's willow-pattern coquette. Moreover, the ox which I held so gingerly was assuredly more ferocious than that pasteboard water-buffalo; for only ten days before this splendid beast had ripped open his keeper's arm with one petulant shrug of his long, white horn. .
The little Chinese acrobat was perched on a green tub prac- tising contortions in her red, spangled costume. She was one of a troupe of temple dancers, and there can be but few temples which she would not have adorned. We were standing under the rickety platform where the circus-band was blaring, and behind us were mud and the cold night air and a rain-soaked tent full of snorting, shifting beasts. But in front of us were two red velvet curtains which were soon to part for ox and acrobat to pass through. This was the "front door," and through the gap there was an occasional glimpse of horses and yelping gauchos and the red coat-tails of the ring-master. The ox and acrobat were artists of course, while I was only a front-door man, unshaven, in a green smock (although later I was to become a smooth-cheeked ring-man in blue and gold), so that I was less on edge and more receptive to the Hugh Walpole glitter and the Eleanor Smith romance.
It was a pity, then, that the representative of the mysterious East should have turned to me with a Cockney grin and remarked : "Bleeding cold, i'n' it mate ? " It was always so, however. In a circus there is an infuriating mixture of the exotic with the humdrum and expected, mateyness and cheery small-talk with things like superstition, hysteria and passion. Many of the artists were like devotees of some peculiar cult, although their only congregation was a herd of grubby children and their patronising parents.
There were the solemn, patient clowns rehearsing each new mask of make-up and each comical stumble with the same practised care. There were the four " Belgian " tight-rope walkers, two Semitic, two blond with light, far-seeing eyes like airmen; they walked in a dream, men dedicated. Then there was Max the lion-tamer, bloused and booted. During his act he looked like a sheikh from a silent film, prowling round the cage, all black and white, with hypnotic eyes, twirling moustaches and swinging, measured gestures; the yellow beasts around him seemed almost as cruel as he. Off stage, one saw the poor, mauled face under the powder, the sleek toupee and painted eyebrow; but most pathetic of all was the little badge in his button-hole which announced that Max was a member of a pen-friends' club.
One always assumes that cheapjack entertainers despise their work and their customers, but this is not so. Even in the fair-ground mountebanks gamble on each other's stalls. The rowsters and ring-men with whom I worked were as enthusiastic as the artists. One loutish youth who, but for his noisy, assured manner, might have been one of a cinema-queue of dreary young men in waterproofs, was crazily devoted to the circus. He seethed like a devout verger when anyone turned his back on a performer, thus bringing bad luck and possibly leath. When he was soaked or covered with soap by the clowns, he beamed with delight; I was myself bidden to stand by with spotted handkerchief in case this honour should be paid him again. He dressed flamboyantly as became his position, with sheath-knives and colourful skull-caps.
But the most piratical of the whole crew was California, a brown, handsome Irish giant with womanish fripperies on his great limbs, a jumble of knives and bangles. He was very fond of children, a weakness common to most of the circus people; I should as soon have expected it in a professional Santa Claus. Only the circus children objected to the hordes of brats who pestered us as we struggled with tent-poles or ring- boards; and these would swagger up to them viciously in jodhpurs and order them off. But the older men made good use of these children. The ring-master, a talented man, a fine clown and a competent author, managed children admirably, and would keep them for hours spreading sawdust or digging up tent-pegs. Mr. Heinz, the assistant tent-master, would send them shopping for him while he kept a school-cap as hostage. They were certainly more amenable than we sulky "casuals," earning reluctantly our pound a day, vicious, feckless men, deserters, thugs, cretins and drunkards with a couple of drowsy negroes, a lazy undergraduate and one other bourgeois, a bearded Communist, rather recalcitrant, who was gaining "experience of canvas" for a tour of China with his caravan company of folk-dancers and singers.
There was one man whom I feared, a little dark man who, dressed as a Red Indian, did a dangerous trick with horses. He sometimes used to shout to me to hold certain horses, always when I had been ordered, with the Communist, to stand by with our large pieces of wood to ward off the High- land oxen as they came charging out of the ring at the end of their act; for it was feared that they would get in among the horses and gore them. The Communist and I were the only men foolish enough to accept this job. When I tried to explain to the Indian that I could not see to both oxen and horses, he would swear at me threateningly. I was afraid that one day he would strike me and that I should be expected to defend myself. I do not know if he packed a shiv; most men did, and I myself had a long German spring-knife, found in college, which was greatly admired.
The only time, however, that any real violence was mani- fested was at the end of the day, when we queued up at a caravan for our daily pound. Then there were shouts and threats and bangings, and the reiterated replies, "Look, if we 'aven't got it, we 'ayen't got it; is that clear ? " "You go ask Mr. Lenny if you don't believe me," or sweet reason's "Look, if we all got paid strickly by hours I'd be earning £50 a week." I once got my pay simply by adopting my educated voice and saying, "One pawnd please,"; the cashier with automatic snobbism said " Yessir," and handed it over. This only worked once.
I never went on tour with the circus; I got the sack. Mr. Heinz had w,arned me. "You are a-student," he said. "You should set a good example to the others." But I was caught returning from a clandestine visit to the local theatre by Mr. Lenny, officially the "beast man," in fact the boss's son. "Where you been 7" he said. "I been down the hill to see the ballet." "Well you can bleeding well dance away from 'ere." "Mr. Lenny," I replied, "you know what; you're the best bleeding beast man I've ever met." His rage was terrible. I had to go. • I am glad I got the sack when I did. After three weeks the excitement and the slackness, the mud and the ritual were all getting under my skin, and, had I stayed any longer, I should have found it very hard to break away. Moreover, I was becoming brutalised. There was a simpleton, a " goonie," who acted as butt for the other rowsters, and, in the end, I found myself enjoying the tricks these great malicious children played on him. I laughed heartily when he was tripped up or sent to look for the six-foot needle. Nor did I like sleeping thirteen to a caravan. It was all very well for the fastidious Communist; he had brought a taxi for his personal use. A surly, insubordinate man, he would, if they only -called him Francis Drake—for his beard— fold his arms and refuse to move; yet he was one of the more willing workers. Sometimes I wonder that the tent ever got put up at all. Perhaps they got on better without me. I hope so, for they were charming people and I would not have them distressed.
Previous page
