6
IT’S NOT THE STIG I KNOW
I
must have read for eight or more people. A few treated it as a joke, but most of them were desperate for advice. After the strange man was a woman with a baby. She handed me her scarf and asked if she could trust her husband. At first I couldn’t get anything, and then I saw an image of her checking his phone. She knew he was having an affair; she was just afraid to confront him. The wool was sodden with pain but there was strength there too. I told her what I’d seen and said she’d get through it, whatever happened, and she wept and thanked me.
Next was a man whose grown-up son had committed suicide. I touched his gloves and described the happy memories I had seen – the summers they had spent fixing up a boat and going sailing. He blamed himself but there was nothing he could have done. I held his hand and told him so, realising that he just needed to hear it; he needed someone to say the words out loud.
After that was an elderly lady who had lost everything in a fire, including her cat Charlie Boy. Her husband had died from cancer on the same day a year previously. She grabbed my arm and sobbed. What did it mean, why did it have to happen, had she done something wrong? I tried to comfort her but I didn’t know how. She left shaking her head, and I felt awful, knowing that I’d failed her.
Then there was a man with anorexia, a teenager being bullied, a woman jealous of her sister, and a man in love with his boss. Many of them walked in saying one thing, but their clothes told a different story. It was as if they had pretended to be someone else for so long, wearing a mask of respectability or playing the role of victim, they had lost all sense of themselves. As the session progressed, something unexpected happened. Once I told a customer what I had seen in their clothes, their mask slipped and I saw the real person beneath: vulnerable, hurt, and confused.
Closing my eyes, I think back over their faces. I rub my temples and let out a heavy breath. So much pain and anger, so much fear and regret and love and hope. Such raw fragility. I felt honoured and humbled to have been able to share it with them, but now I feel empty. Like a cloth wrung dry.
‘How are you doing?’
I open my eyes and Ruth is peering around the curtain.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘You sure? You look a bit tired.’
I nod and do my best to smile. If I’ve managed to offer just one person a little comfort, then feeling drained is worth it. But it’s not that. Something doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure I could explain, even if I tried.
‘You’ve done great. Why don’t you call it a day?’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘Of course. See you for dinner later. Is seven OK?’
‘Thanks.’
I pull on my coat then step outside. After the heaters and cloying incense, the blast of cold air is a welcome shock. The rain has stopped but the sky is pockmarked with grey, smothering what’s left of the sun. I glance at the hall of mirrors opposite and zip my coat higher. Maybe it’s the dark clouds, but the yellow eyes of the wolf seem almost alive, watching over the site with sinister intent. Beneath them, the creature’s gaping doorway of a mouth hangs open like a dare, too black and too empty. Why do I feel like it’s jeering at me?
I turn away and focus on Nina. I need to speak to people if I’m going to find out what really happened to her. I head along the walkway, determined to explore the other tents and find some of the performers. Someone must have been friends with her or have known Stig.
The big top stands to my left. I can’t see it on my blind side but I can hear the billowing canvas and sense its looming presence. At first there are dozens of visitors milling about, but then I follow the walkway around to a smaller tent and suddenly there’s no one. The circus feels different without crowds of people, abandoned almost. I glance over my shoulder, hoping to see someone. There’s a couple with a child holding a green balloon waiting by a food truck. Otherwise, the path is empty.
I turn back and gasp. The Norns are scuttling towards me on stilts, their black cloaks huddled together, their spindly stick legs moving like a spider. Their masks are crudely made and covered with clumps of leaves and twigs as if they’ve just crawled out from the earth.
One of them wears a large pair of rusty shears tied around her middle. She reaches a jerky, hesitant hand towards me and her mask raises its eyebrows. I step back, my heart fluttering. The wood moved, I’m sure of it. The other two women take several tiny steps to either side, their stilts tapping on the walkway, until they’re surrounding me. I look from face to face, trying to understand. For a moment, I think they’re going to say something, but then they point into the distance and scurry off, disappearing around the side of a tent as if they were never there.
I press my hand to my chest and try to compose myself. Watching the Norns in the ring was mesmerising, but coming face to face with them was unnerving. I know they’re only women dressed up, but I don’t like the sense that the actual events of my life are being mirrored around me. It feels unreal, as if I’m in a dream. It’s not the performers parodying the gods that disturbs me, it’s that they’re too convincing. And wooden masks shouldn’t move.
Blowing out a deep breath, I try to forget the encounter and keep walking. The first tent I come to has a chalkboard outside, propped on a wooden chair: Knivkasteren, and underneath, Knife-thrower here today, 3pm-4.30pm. I peer inside and the place is empty apart from the Chinese girls in ballgowns I saw yesterday. The one in the top hat is sitting on a chair, the other girl on her lap. She strokes her partner’s hair and they laugh at some shared joke.
Not wanting to intrude, I wander towards the next tent. There’s no sign but the door is open. Carnival music drifts out, slow and off key. I can’t hear anyone in the tent; maybe the performers have left already. Something about the dark doorway makes me feel cold inside and I pause, unsure whether to go in, when I notice someone in the distance.
A woman with afro hair is coming out of a trailer. She wears a big pink puffer jacket and carries a pile of costumes and fabric. I smile, relieved to see someone, and step down off the walkway and head in her direction. She struggles to pull the door closed with one hand, then stumbles down the steps and drops a roll of green material. As she grabs it, another falls.
I hurry over and pick it up. ‘Can I help carry something? I don’t mind.’
She shakes her head, breathing fast. ‘No, no. It’s OK. Just pop it on top.’
I place the fabric on top of the pile under her chin and she mutters a thank-you.
‘I’m Martha. I’m new. I work with Ruth in the psychic tent.’
‘Ah, I thought I hadn’t seen you before. That’s great. Thanks again.’
She walks back towards the big top and I wonder whether to follow her. And then I notice the trailer door is open. If there are costumes in there, one of them might hold a memory of Nina.
I check no one is coming then climb the steps and slip inside. The smell of musty fabric and leather assaults my nostrils along with a more pungent odour of mothballs, reminding me of Mum’s chest of clothes in the attic in London.
The trailer has two rectangular windows set high in each wall, but my nose tells me they haven’t been opened in a while. Ranged down the centre are rails of clothing and beneath them sit dozens of plastic boxes overflowing with shoes, hats, belts and jewellery. The one nearest to me contains wigs and hairpieces, a long matted ponytail hanging over the side. The far wall is covered by rows and rows of masks.