Chapter 15
15
JUNE 2018, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND
Looking along the row under the darkened big top, Kate feels a swell of pride, even if Chloe is scrolling through her phone. What’s she looking at now? These tickets weren’t cheap.
But there they sit, three little eggs all in a row, increasing in size. Youngest first, Jack, leans into Kate’s arm as he waits for the clown to come back, because Jack thinks the clown on the unicycle is the funniest. Izzy is next to her brother, trying not to show that she’s impressed by the aerialist pulling her body up between two swathes of white fabric, but Kate can tell she is. Beyond Izzy, Chloe looks at her new phone, the one she got in anticipation of going to secondary school in September, like all her friends did for their eleventh birthdays. She’s not impressed by the acrobatics in the air. She wants to see what Perrie from Little Mix is doing on Instagram.
Kate pulls Jack to her bosom. Her heart is proud but sad, the vacant seat to her left goading her. The one she decided to pile all the coats on, given George said he had to work today. Zippy Von Braun’s Big Top always comes to Claresham during half-term, and the Wheelers have been coming since Chloe was four. But last night, after they’d had a Chinese from the takeaway in the village, George said he had to go back into London tomorrow. On a Saturday. To tie up some sustainable or responsible investment deal or something, which didn’t sound all that responsible, given Kate had been looking forward to this for months. The pile of coats looms in Kate’s peripheral vision.
She gazes in awe at the aerialist. Her strong arms and muscular thighs, entwined in cloth as she climbs, rising through the air, while doing the splits upside down from a daring height. Kate looks at the acrobat’s stomach, the naked space between her lilac satin crop top and matching big pants, as she uses every sinew of her core. Working hard, relying on her own strength to lift herself higher up towards the roof of the circus tent. Kate marvels at another woman’s body. At her own inadequacies. At the acrobat’s red lipstick in a shade she dare not try.
I wish I were her.
As twists of white cloth unravel, a flash of lilac and a whirl of red falls in a blur, violently towards the floor, stopping with an abrupt and expert tug of two muscular arms.
I will buy myself a new red lipstick and I will dare to wear it.