Marcus had, however, noticed several worrying characteristics in Belinda's behaviour that did little to endear her to him. The first was that she jumped-too easily, too freely-to conclusions. This implied a certain amount of self-righteousness, a nasty, bullying bullishness. Secondly, she completed his sentences, which was something that he especially loathed. He guessed that people who were p.r.o.ne to doing this thought that they were helping him in some way, but it only made him feel useless, gratuitous, inadequate. He'd think: What is the point of me, if it's so easy to predict what I want, so easy to complete everything I begin?

The third and final thing that Belinda had done which had both shocked and disturbed Marcus, had occurred in the pub several nights after the meal out. Alberto had taken Marcus to one side, late that afternoon, shortly after the matinee, and had raised with him the possibility that he and Belinda might perform together during Belinda's contortionist routine. Since hitherto Belinda had been the only contortionist at the circus, this slot had always been solo. Alberto was keen to have Belinda partnered during this section, and although Marcus was no contortionist himself, Alberto felt that his leonine good looks and strong physique would make him the perfect foil to Belinda's dark skinniness.

That evening, in the pub, Marcus started to mention this new possibility to Belinda as she sipped daintily at her Pernod. He said, 'Can we ... talk about ... your ... contortions ...?'

Oh yeah? Belinda thought, and what's he up to?

Alberto had said nothing to her about his plans. She was none the wiser.

She stared at Marcus coolly, vaguely disappointed in him but unsurprised. He was trying to talk again, but she saved him the trouble.

'c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s,' she said, baldly. 'Unfortunately, my tongue is the only part of my body that isn't double-jointed, otherwise I'd dispense with you boys altogether.'

She took another sip of her drink and eyed him over the top of her gla.s.s. He blushed. He tried to say something, but it wouldn't come out. He stood up, drank down his drink in one large gulp and left the pub. Now what? She stared after him, profoundly flummoxed.

Eugenie was lounging against Marcus's trailer, waiting for him to return. She was a small, pretty acrobat with long, red ringlets. She was thirty, single, an old hand at the circus, s.e.xually voracious. As Marcus made his way towards her he was thinking: d.a.m.n Belinda! d.a.m.n her! She's the strangest, coa.r.s.est, crudest woman I've ever met. She just seems to enjoy frightening me, on purpose.

'h.e.l.lo,' Eugenie grinned at him. 'I've come around to borrow a cup of sugar.'

'Sure.'

She wasn't holding a cup. He unlocked his trailer and went inside, then emerged within seconds, holding a teacup full of sweet, white granules. He offered her the cup but she didn't take it.

'You're so literal,' she said, still smiling. 'I like that in a man.'

'Thank ... you.' He inclined his head graciously. After a pause-not thinking to invite her in-he said, 'Be ... linda.'

'What about her?'

'She's ... rude.'

'She is?'

'I find ... her so.'

Eugenie shrugged. 'You must just bring out the worst in her.'

Marcus considered this and then said, 'You think?'

'Maybe.'

'Why?'

She took the cup of sugar from him and said, 'You want to come and have some tea with me? Or coffee?'

'No ... I ...'

His stutter was so p.r.o.nounced that Eugenie didn't wait around to listen to the reason for his refusal. She didn't mind. 'OK,' she said, phlegmatically, handing him back his cup. 'Some other time.'

Marcus sat down on his top step and stared into the cup. Thousands of grains. Mixed in with the pure, white granules were two extraneous tea leaves. That's me and Belinda, he thought. The world is full of millions of people, all friendly, all benign, the same. Then there's the two of us, destined not to get along. Belinda and Marcus. Both in the circus, this small circus. Both tumblers.

He felt relieved that his early and mid-teens had involved a longstanding but secretive intimacy with American Playboy. He was prepared for Belinda's lewdness, her crudeness. His father had kept an entire suitcase full of them in the attic which he had pilfered whenever he felt the inclination. Also, he had taken Latin at school, which in certain situations he found to be an invaluable linguistic tool. Cunnus-v.u.l.v.a. Lingere-to lick. Like choking on an oyster.

'Hi.'

Marcus looked up and almost dropped his cup. Belinda smiled at him. 'Look, I wanted to apologize. I guess I must've shocked you earlier.'

'No ...'

'Well ...' She focused on the strong, firm line of his jaw, its determined progression from behind his ear to the tip of his chin. 'I just saw Alberto.'

'Ah.'

'I don't suppose you want to come and see my parrots?'

'I'm ...'

'Allergic?'

'No ... I'm ...'

'Busy?'

'No.'

'Go on, they're very friendly.'

Inside the parrots' trailer it was cool and dark. Belinda lit a lamp but kept the flame down low. 'It's bed-time for them really. I like them to be well rested. Otherwise they get cross and uncooperative.'

Marcus had seen the parrots already, in the big top. He thought them quaint but unnecessary. One day he hoped to work in a human circus, a wild circus where the performers did stunts on motorbikes and didn't use animals-camels with lopsided humps, sad, fleshy elephants, poodles with full wardrobes. Parrots.

'You like them?'

'I ...'

'You don't like them?'

'No ... I ...'

'You like animals?'

He sighed. 'Yes.'

She said, 'My trailer's adjoining. We could have tea if you like.'

He shrugged.

Belinda opened a door and led him through. Her trailer was identical to his, only full of stuff: posters, trinkets, an extra wardrobe.

'Sit on the bed,' she said. 'I don't ever bother making it into a sofa. Too much trouble. Watch the legs are out properly. It has a tendency to collapse.' She filled the kettle.

Marcus didn't sit down immediately. First he inspected some of the photographs on her pinboard. 'These are ...'

'Me. Yes. When I was a kid. I got gymnastics medals. I was nearly in the Olympics but I sprained my wrist very badly two weeks before. I cried for a month.'

The pictures were eerie. Belinda at eight, ten, fourteen. Belinda doing headstands, handstands, flying on the high bar. Belinda with no b.r.e.a.s.t.s, mosquito bites, b.r.e.a.s.t.s like tiny buds under the thin fabric of her leotard.

Little girls; gymnastics. He always found this combination vaguely unsettling. On television, with their stiff backs, pointed toes, determined visages. Obscene. Tumbling was different. Better.

'Coffee or tea?'

'Coffee.'

He sat down. The bed collapsed.

'Merde!' This word slid out of his mouth as quickly, as smoothly as an angry cat escaping the arms of its owner.

Belinda stopped what she was doing, turned around and then started to laugh at him, at his clumsy disarray. She said, 'You aren't hurt, are you?'

He shook his head and dragged himself up, then tried to rearrange the coverlet and cushions. Belinda turned back, still smirking, to complete her coffee-making.

This bed reminded Marcus in its construction of the deck-chairs his parents had used at home; s.p.a.ce-efficient but impossible to set up and make secure. He pulled out the metal bar that acted as the front legs and pushed up the springs and mattress. As he lifted he saw the tortoise.

Initially, it looked to him like an exotic seash.e.l.l, or a lump of wood, centuries old, glossed up by the touch of many fingers, many hands. Then he saw it shudder, noticed a head, four feet. He reached out towards it, expecting a reaction. None came. One of its eyes was open, the other shut. That couldn't be right. He tapped its sh.e.l.l. Nothing.

I'm going to have to tell her now, he thought frantically, that I've killed her tortoise. How will I tell her? After several attempts, he said her name.

'Belinda ...'

'Yeah?'

She had put two cups on to a tray. She picked up the tray and walked towards him. 'You haven't managed to get the bed up properly yet?'

He stared at her helplessly, as endearing and muddy-eyed as a golden retriever at tea-time. He pointed towards the tortoise. Her eyes followed the line he was indicating.

'Smedley!'

She quickly slid the tray on top of her dresser and crouched down. 'What's happened to him?'

'The ... bed ...'

'He looks all squashed.'

Marcus thought this an exaggeration, but took into account the fact that he hadn't seen the tortoise before its misadventure.

'Is he dead?'

'I ...'

'He looks dead.' She reached out her hand as if to pick him up but then shuddered and withdrew. 'I can't stand the idea of something being not quite dead.' She added tremulously, 'If he wasn't dead and I touched him and he moved ...' The thought of this made her feel queasy.

Marcus was staring at her. She saw his face-his expression a mixture of guilt and horror-and realized that these few seconds were crucial.

'He's dead!' she said, and burst into tears.

'I ... I ...'

For once he couldn't think of anything to say. Usually he could think of things only couldn't say them. Eventually he said, 'Sorry.'

'Tortoises,' she said, 'are protected. Did you know that? I never really knew what it meant, though. Protected. I never really knew. He was my grandmother's. He lived in her garden for thirty-five years. He was called Smedley. He didn't hibernate, only ran about in my trailer. He wasn't terribly demonstrative, but he seemed ... happy.'

Marcus stood up. He was eighteen. He didn't feel sufficiently senior, sufficiently adult, experienced enough, loquacious enough, to be able to cope with this situation. He felt like phoning his mother, packing and leaving, joining that other circus, that human circus, that un-animalled circus. He could see it already, how good it would be.

Belinda sat down on the bed. It promptly collapsed again. Marcus had only propped up the bottom leg, he hadn't got around to securing it properly. Belinda scrambled up. 'Christ! If he wasn't dead before, he is now. Christ!'

She was still crying, but was already sick of crying. Her tears weren't sufficiently effective. He wasn't hugging her yet, wasn't comforting her. Why am I crying? she thought. To seduce him? That was the sum of it. She wondered idly if you could go to h.e.l.l for emotional blackmail.

Marcus took a deep breath. 'The tortoise could be hibernating.'

Belinda stopped crying in an instant and said, 'Five words all in a row! Well done! Five words, just like that!' She then burst out laughing. 'Hibernating? Please!'

He was mortified by her laughter. She's evil, he thought. Absolutely insincere. Absolutely unprincipled.

He's only eighteen, she thought kindly. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Marcus turned to leave, so furious now, so angry that he felt like fire, like liquid. 'Your face ...' he said, struggling, choking, '... Chinese Dragon!' Then walked out quickly.

Belinda stopped laughing after he'd gone, stood up, walked over to the mirror. Her face was still mirthful but tear-smattered. Chinese Dragon?

He was right. She looked like one of those brightly coloured, finely painted Chinese masks, the dragon faces, covered in tears, but grinning, grimacing. A frightening face, apparently, but only, she supposed, if you were Chinese.

Belinda went over to lift her mattress, pulled up the bed and kicked Smedley out from under it. He slid about on the floor like the puck in a game of ice hockey. Click, slither, thud.

Oh, well, she thought, this could've been sad, but I really don't care. I could've shocked myself by caring, but I don't care.

She started to laugh again. Laughing was good for you. A kind of internal aerobics. Then she heard a voice, and it was not her own. 'Merde!' it said, and cackled. 'Merde! Merde! Merde!'

Belinda stopped laughing, her eyes tightened, and her mouth-quite spontaneously-performed a sudden, gorgeous, perfectly inadvertent back-bend.

Gifts.

JENNIFER, 42, HAD A special gift which G.o.d had given her-out of the blue-to compensate for all the things that had happened to her in the past. All the awful things.