The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [12]
“I wrote Paul when Boyd was called to his reward, told him I would do everything to keep his circus ready for him. It was his for the taking, if he wanted, after the War. He could have turned it around. Such devotion.
“Of course, you’ll want to be hearing about the beginning. Paul came to us when he was nineteen or twenty. Boyd discovered him, said he had extraordinary natural talent. He had spotted Paul down in the market and followed him a bit, clandestinely, watched him doing it. Then he pretended to walk in front of Paul, unaware, pretended to bend over and tie his shoe, and when he stood up again, he just grabbed Paul’s wrist and took back his wallet. Of course, for a while, Boyd pretended to be a copper, you understand, to put a scare up Paul. But then Boyd sat off to the side, pointed to people to see if Paul could do it on demand. Boyd was excited when he brought him back to our camp that day. And what a beautiful boy he was, and intelligent as anyone I had ever known. He had been a librarian, as I am sure you know.
“And that instant when Boyd led him to us! You see a face light up sometimes in surroundings like ours, Mr. Ferrell. Something quite intoxicating washes over certain people. Paul was like a little boy. He wanted to touch all the animals, even the tigers. That was the thing about him that charmed one, you see. He knew so very much about a few things, smart as anything, but he also did not know the simplest things. He wandered around the camp. He walked inside the tent, and I followed him. He gazed up at the tied-back trapezes, at all the seats. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a circus, Paul Caldwell? Would you like a job with us?’ You’ve never seen such a happy face, and so handsome. ‘The circus?’ He asked me if I knew of some Italian strongman, some performer he had heard of once. ‘The circus,’ he kept whispering, like he had landed on the moon. I knew just how he felt.”
“And when did he become your lover, Mrs. Hoyt?”
“I was married to Boyd, Mr. Ferrell.”
“But I’ve the impression Mr. Hoyt was much older.”
“Boyd was a clown, you know. I mean, professionally, by trade. He could make you laugh so. He would do his ‘shame face,’ when, for example, he was caught trying to steal a man’s necktie, and he would close his eyes in this long blink and shrug like he was a bad, bad, naughty clown, and people just loved it. People loved him. Off the sawdust he was rather colder.
“Boyd had Paul clean out the cages, sell tickets, seat people. That was necessary, of course, seating people. That let him put those who carried their wallets in their trousers on the elevated seats so he could reach up from below during the show. He performed a few times, a shocking magic and drama act for the evening performances. Boyd thought we should try more sophisticated fare, so to open the show after the entr’acte, Paul would come out dressed as a jungle explorer and do a sort of pantomime where he pretended to fight off attackers, five of the bigger fellows done up as jungle blacks. They’d get the better of him, tie him down, and then one of them brought out a snake. Nothing dangerous, just one of the bigger pythons, and they circled round him and danced a bit and waved the snake about and they bent over him, so the audience couldn’t see what was happening, but we’d released the power of their imaginations! Then off ran the black villains, one of them hiding the snake in his gown, so the audience couldn’t see it, they just saw Paul tied down, writhing in torment, you understand, and he struggles and pulls one of his arms free, and then tears at his chest, he opens his shirt and . . . and his chest bursts open and out comes the head of the snake! Oh, it was a horrible sight, and women