Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top Read Online Free PDF Page B

wife’s face when I walked in the door. Maybe I would buy some flowers to brighten up the table. The ferry was docking, its passengers stepping out across a plank and onto the wharf.
    From somewhere behind me came a gentle melody, carried upon a breeze unto my ear. It came softly at first and the tune, though unfamiliar, caught my attention. It was gay and uplifting, with a lively step that gave mind of parades and summer days. There was something of the seaside and of circuses in that tune, and of the joy of being young and full of life.
    One from the booth. I turned for a moment to discover the music’s origin and saw, further down the quay, a gathering had formed like a tight knot around something I could not quite see. In the centre of the crowd, rising just above their heads, I could discern a splash of red, a hint of sunlight glinting off polished brass, and a great wreath of steam rising into the air like a cloud. With that great, billowing cloud the music suddenly rose up in volume, stunning everybody on the quay. It was a bone shaking sound and the crowd-knot loosened. It was so loud I was sure it could be heard all the way up Macquarie Street.
    The music drowned out everything around me, like a hundred tuned train-whistles played by a god. And, though there were no cathedral walls to echo that mellifluous song, the surrounding harbour was quite adequate in its acoustics. Every note was felt in the flesh, rising up through the wooden boards of the quay, entering through the feet, filling the soul. A low bass drone sent shivers through my spine, taking control of my legs, moving me inexorably closer to that euphonious epicentre.
    I thought not of the ferry nor of my wife in our home across the harbour. I thought nothing of my promise to her, or of the guests who would soon be arriving. I thought nothing at all as I walked across the quay, entranced by a song.
    I pushed my way through what remained of the crowd, heeding not their indignant vituperation as I passed. There were not so many there now and I could not understand how some, so unaffected by the music, could have felt the desire to leave. Such a thought was incomprehensible to me as I stepped into the front row and beheld the originator of that heavenly choir.
    Before me was a carriage, garish and red, ornamented along its wide panels with gold-leaf scrolls and fleur-de-lys. Across the side in large white letters was written McKenzie’s Universal Circus & Museum of the Bizarre .
    One side of the carriage was open to the crowd and I could see within an arrangement of polished brass pipes stretching up and out through the ceiling. In front of the pipes but within the carriage were set two tiers of polished ivory and ebony keys, like those of an organ. A calliope, I remembered. The instrument was called a calliope.
    At the keyboard, playing the music that affected me so greatly, sat the most beautiful woman I had ever encountered in my life.
    She wore a skirt of mandarin that flared gracefully across her hips, falling in neat pleats to the floor of the carriage. Her blouse was of white merino, cinched tight at the waist and trimmed with purple braid on epaulettes and leg-o-mutton sleeves. Her hair was dark, drawn up and back into a twist of curls that fell like a waterfall down the nape of her long neck, revealing ears as fine as porcelain. Her profile was as perfect a collection of curves and lines as Nature could produce. Face smooth and white as if it had been powdered; lips and cheeks aglow with the touch of petals of geranium or poppy; eyes hidden behind long, dark lashes.
    She did not turn her beautiful head or swerve in any way from the playing of her instrument. Only her fingers and hands moved, running deft and sure from key to key. It was the most pleasing scene my mind had ever the fortune to behold.
    Then, as I stared, watching her play, she parted her angelic lips and started to sing.
    Never would I have imagined a voice that could rise above the