My insides feel as if I have swallowed my bag of juggling balls. They tumble inside my stomach, piling up ready to burst out through my throat. Now they stick together as a solid lump and bring tears to my eyes. This is my reaction whenever I see Bella: I yearn for her, and it hurts. She pulls my soul towards her like gravity pulls me to earth. As always, today she is centre stage, star of the show and top of the billing. And I, as always, watch her from the side, a little off centre, never quite within her view but always close. I am her audience, her cheerleader, and her support. I am the first to applaud and the last to leave after every show. I am the wings to her stage. I am never certain whether she knows I am here.
The crowd falls silent as she makes her entrance to the band’s solemn march. The procession is led by a pair of dancing horses, each as white as the sombre face of a clown; each bedecked with a plume on their headpieces as black as the fall of the curtain as the lights go out. Next comes Bella, held high on the shoulders of her supporting cast – the troupe of acrobats. The acrobats march in perfect step, three each side of her, to the beat of the band. Left, together. Left, together. They hold Bella firm and still in pride of place, balanced with perfect poise above them. The band falls silent, then a single trumpet proclaims her presence.
My gaze follows her, and there is silence once more. I sense in the slight shift of the air that the heads of all others in the audience also turn to track her path. We are spellbound. The horses part, one left, one right, led by their handlers to the grass where they will graze contentedly until needed for their next part in this show. I know they are gone, although I do not see them go – I cannot tear my focus away from my beautiful Arabella. The rest of the procession continues onwards towards the dais, where the acrobats lower Bella into position. Even in this total stillness the gathered audience is enthralled by her. The silence is broken only by small sounds of awe and the uncomfortable shuffling that accompanies hard wooden benches. A muted sigh ripples from the seats behind me. I am not alone in being moved to tears by her entrance – I hear muffled sniffing from across the aisle and I am distracted from Bella for an instant by slight movement from the couple along from me. They surreptitiously wipe their eyes, her with a delicate handkerchief, him with the corner of his sleeve. Bella’s presence is mesmerising and the spectators overflow with emotion.
I crane my head towards her, as does every other person here. We are drawn irresistibly towards her, as children during an interval are drawn to the line for candy floss. She is the pop to my corn. I can see her clearly now. She is dazzling. I gaze at her face, the thick stage make-up hiding her perfection and her flaws. I have watched her in her dressing room and I know her marks and blemishes. Her smooth white skin is layered with stage paint – it hides the smattering of bronze freckles and the scar on her neck. Delicately painted swirls of shimmering blue frame her dusky lashes. I cannot see her eyes. She keeps them shut for the trickiest moves and the falls. Her unruly dark hair has been coerced into a neat chignon. The two ends of the lace bow twist through a few stray tendrils that soften her cheekbones. I yearn to brush the curls back from her face, to softly kiss the lines of her throat, but I remain unmoving, rooted to my seat as if my legs would not hold me upright.
Bella, also frozen in place, loses the crowd’s attention momentarily, as the Ringmaster steps to the podium. He turns to the gathering with outstretched arms. With pride and passion etched into the lines on his face, he begins his introductions:
“Arabella: our outstanding aerialist…” but his words are drowned out by the customary applause that always follows these words. His speech rarely varies as he presents his star performer. I drift in and out of listening as my focus is still with my exquisite dancer. The Ringmaster’s words will never be enough to describe her and they bounce off me like raindrops: ‘flying with angels’, ‘to the skies’, ‘a heavenly being’; ‘not of this earth’. I long to hold her down to earth, to ground her with me forever. I long to hold her, but she is out of reach.
As the Ringmaster gives the address, Arabella lies unmoving, wrapped in endless yards of sky-coloured silk, ready for the next cue. Today’s address is tinged with sobriety: this afternoon matinee will be her last show. Poignancy hangs in the air like Bella’s shadow. I imagine her shadow now, dancing in the spotlight with her, high above the enthralled onlookers as she soars through her routine in the roof space of the Big Top. They fly together as one, Bella and her shadow; swirling, twisting, rising, falling.
I see her again and again, night after night, show after show. I have seen her show so many times now that I do not really see it anymore, but instead see a montage of overlapping moments from many performances. I see her in my thoughts even when I am not in the Big Top, and when she is not performing. She haunts my dreams and my daydreams. A slideshow of our own private performances runs on an endless loop through my mind, and I cannot imagine a world where I will never see her dance again. I watch her turbulent descents as the caresses of her flimsy blue ropes unravel. I feel my heart stop momentarily every time she skilfully halts her drop just inches from the sawdust covered floor. I feel my heart jolt awake again as she untangles herself to begin each new ascent. She is a spider on a web and I am her captivated prey. I see her suspended above me, soaring across the striped roof space – a bluebird against a red and white sky. She is swirls of blue silk. She is sequins glistening in the flashes of illicit cameras. She is grace and serenity. She is Bella, my Belle, my exquisite Arabella.
As always at her shows, people bring flowers. Now, they surge towards her, to lay their wilting blooms around her. They stroke her skin, touch her arms, her face, the shining fibres of her azure costume. Their tears and her sequins sparkle in the glare of the electric lights. Today, she accepts this attention with serenity and calm. Today, her usual fire is quenched. She displays no sentiment amid the emotions of her devotees. Tears are flowing freely now, as this, her final appearance, reaches its climax. The crowd moves back to their seats, and the acrobats come forward once more to escort Bella for her grand exit. The lid is closed onto her coffin and these six pallbearers lift her again to their shoulders. The congregation falls silent once more. Those juggling balls in my stomach have converged to obstruct my throat. They choke me. I cannot breathe. I cannot stop the performances replaying in my head. I know that slow-motion flashbacks of Bella’s last show will come unbidden and unfettered. I cannot breathe and I cannot stop the show. Bella, my Bella, swirling, twirling. Bella, flying, gliding, rising, falling. Bella hanging, spinning. Still.
She rested there on the sawdust in a glittering lake of her silks; the colours of the fabric darkening with the acrobats’ tears. They cradled her head in their arms as they unwound the cascade of material from her neck. I reached silently, uselessly, towards her from my place in the shadows, with my arms and my heart and my soul. The crowd, still expecting this to be anything but her swansong, had waited, frozen and silent for their cue to applaud, but were given only a final curtain as Bella’s lifeless body was shrouded from view. Now, as then, she is wrapped in a cocoon of azure; a heart wrenching parody of the tangle of cloth pooled around her as she lay dying in the circus ring.
The two white horses are brought to the church steps to lead the procession to the graveside. The acrobats resume their careful harmonised steps: Left, together. Left, together. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth but it is not enough and I cannot quell my tears. My heart beats as slowly as the steady beat of the drum. I wonder if it will stop. From this walled graveyard outside the little church on the hill, I look down to the field where the Big Top still stands, silent, empty, flagless. Then I sink, sobbing, to my knees in the damp earth by the graveside as Bella and my heart are lowered, in blue silken ropes, for the very last time.
