The aerialists, p.1
The Aerialists, page 1
THE AERIALISTS
Katie Munnik
Copyright
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
Copyright © Katie Munnik 2022
Katie Munnik asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover Design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Illustration: Shutterstock.com
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical fact, are the work of the author’s imagination.
Poster for The Cardiff Fine Art, Industrial & Maritime Exhibition of 1896
‘Man on trapeze’ from The Modern Gymnast by Charles Spencer, first published in 1866
‘Main Entrance to Exhibition from Park Place’ from the South Wales Echo, 4th May 1896 (with thanks to The National Library of Wales)
‘Mdlle. Albertina Fully Equipped’ from the Evening Express, 24th July 1896 (with thanks to The National Library of Wales)
Vintage Hand-crank Sewing Machine © Sergey Pykhonin / Alamy Stock Vector
Excerpt from True Stories by Margaret Atwood (Simon & Schuster, 1981). Permission sought.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008473198
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2022 ISBN: 9780008473211
Version: 2022-03-23
Dedication
For Isla
Epigraph
The true story lies
among the other stories …
Margaret Atwood
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Spring: Paris: 1891
Chapter 1 /
Chapter 2 /
Chapter 3 /
Chapter 4 /
Chapter 5 /
Chapter 6 /
Chapter 7 /
Chapter 8 /
Summer: London: 1896
Chapter 1 /
Chapter 2 /
Chapter 3 /
Chapter 4 /
Chapter 5 /
Chapter 6 /
Chapter 7 /
Chapter 8 /
Chapter 9 /
Chapter 10 /
Chapter 11 /
Chapter 12 /
Chapter 13 /
Chapter 14 /
Chapter 15 /
Fall: Cardiff: July 21st, 1896
Chapter 1 /
Chapter 2 /
Chapter 3 /
Chapter 4 /
Chapter 5 /
Chapter 6 /
Chapter 7 /
Chapter 8 /
Winter
Epilogue
A Note about Historical References and Many Thanks
About the Author
Also by Katie Munnik
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
And up.
The earth fell away, and she looked down into the opening space beneath her, then quickly up again for courage. Overhead, the ropes spread like tree branches and the belly of the balloon blocked the sky. Her hands gripped the ropes tightly, and she looked down again to the vanishing grass, the surge of people left behind, all their voices, then the castle tower on its hill with its bright ring of water. All the trees looked soft from above.
Not yet afraid. Good, she thought. So, it was a good day for flight.
The light above the city was still bright, but the air felt cool and the evening close, and she kept rising. She concentrated. Balance, patience, persistence, strength. The parachute’s lines were fast and ready, the clips in place, the webbing secure. Not yet time to think of the valve and the right moment to release. For now, that strong west wind was carrying her out into the open, away from the city, and all would be well. It was simply a matter of well-timed science.
She started counting churches. They were easy to see from above and easy to navigate by. Did the builders think of that, how their towers might be useful from up above? Of course they did. Isn’t that the point of church towers? Getting God’s attention when He looked down from on high? Maybe.
She’d climbed a church tower once. Where was that? Bristol? No, somewhere in Cornwall, away from the hills. Built of granite, grey and heavy, and every surface carved and decorated like sailors’ arms with flowers, animals, and patterns every which way. There were a lot of stairs and she thought she’d be dizzy when she reached the top because it looked so high from the churchyard. When she got there, it wasn’t like that at all. She was just above the roofs, their slates close beneath her like paved streets, and the sky above unfinished, unthreatening. Looking out to the horizon, she saw gentle fields beyond the town lifting to a ridge of trees silhouetted in the distance and if she stepped out, if she could, up and over the tower’s stone wall, she could walk there quickly, she thought, long strides right over everything until she reached the edge of the sky.
The wind teased her hair loose around her face and it tickled, but she couldn’t brush it away. This wasn’t a moment to let go her grasp. She tried to focus and looked down on the city. So many people there; she could see them crowded in the streets, moving about, looking up, watching her. What a show. But she shouldn’t be distracted by them, either. She needed to focus. Remember the map, the pencilled arrows and that cross out on the moor. She wished she had that bit of paper now, just to check and to be sure, only no point in wishing. What good would it do? There was no going back and very little steering. She held the ropes tighter.
Now, too many churches below and she’d lost track. The wind was strengthening, the city slipping away below, and her shoulders ached, but she told herself it was all right. She was safe; it was a sturdy system, well made, with every modern innovation, and her harness was secure. Still, the wind slipped inside her clothes like fingers, and she shivered. Fear started. The prickle, the clench. There it was, and maybe she’d been waiting for it all along, expecting it like church towers expect God. Now, she needed to rise above it and let the fear stay below. It could be the field she left behind, the city she was flying over. It could sink away, and she could rise up higher. Show them all.
Who knows if anyone down below could see her clearly? For all the brightness of her careful costume, she and the balloon may just have been a distant smudge against the evening sky, and soon enough the crowds would look for some closer distraction or simply walk away, off down the streets, back towards their houses, their own filled lives. They’d forget this latest spectacle and that hardly mattered now. With the quick wind behind her and her eyes fixed on the horizon, she let go of the rope with one hand. The skin on her palm was unexpectedly cool and light, and she smiled, threw up her arm and waved to whoever might still be watching.
SPRING
Paris: 1891
1 /
HOOKED. THAT’S HOW SHE DID IT, EASY AS THAT. LIKE a hook that snagged me, that look she gave me, bright flash in dark water, and I swallowed. Yes, there was a moment of strain, struggle as she drew me close and I pulled back, muscled and thought I’d got away, but she reeled me in, drew me out into her brightness, out into the air.
She was wearing blue that day and I was alone, sitting on a stone step when she caught my eye. Kingfisher blue, peacock blue, the blue of March skies, sashaying down the street towards me just when I was thinking it couldn’t be winter forever. The cold afternoon light was fading and if I’d been with someone, we could have huddled together like birds on a branch, puffed up against the cold, but there was only me, and I wasn’t trying or wishing anything at all. I swear I didn’t do anything at all. Just sat alone, thinking.
That morning, there’d been a discussion about me being alone. Madame Jacq said two children might make more money, especially if one was smaller and preferably crying. The older one – me – could offer comfort, maybe spark sympathy that way. It might even be more respectable, sending kids out in pairs. They’d keep each other safe, she said, but Jacq didn’t like the fuss of it, the complication.
‘Kids alone cover more corners. And don’t cover that yellow hair. Keep it out where it shows.’
He’d been wondering if he should be working me nights now instead of days, and Madame Jacq argued there wasn’t money for those kinds of clothes, proper clothes and paint.
‘She’s old enough, but not pretty. She’ll need lots of paint,’ she said.
‘Lemme take a look,’ Jacq said, lurching to his feet, and the kids scattered. I got behind Madame Jacq before he could get anywhere close. We were used to this. He stood almost perfectly upright in the dingy room like a beast a t the circus, and I wished Madame Jacq had a whip.
‘Bah, you’re a’ bastards anyways,’ he growled. ‘Get to work, and don’t come home without money, y’hear?’
I’d headed out to the streets near the Opera where there were shops for the wealthy and people came and went. Wealthy? They seemed wealthy then. All gentlemen, I thought, in their dark city coats and the ladies, too, beautiful in stylish dresses, sweeping over the pavement like swans on a pond, safe and always moving. I anchored myself in a doorway, my feet already cold, my dress thin, and my hands sore and chapped. I rubbed them together hard so they looked worse and stretched them out to the moving ladies who could be spooked into reaching for a purse or a pocket and find a warm coin for me. They never took time to pay attention, just dropped the coin into my cold hand and hurried off.
But not her in royal blue, cobalt blue. She stopped in front of me, and this was new. This was different. This lady looked to see me, and her expression was confused, almost excited, not with pity but recognition, as if my face meant something to her. Her gentleman noticed her look and his face turned, too, more curious than hers, as if he expected to see something wonderful.
They were both young and clean, his moustache trim, his eyes dark and flickering back and forth, confident and watching. She matched his height, and her shoulders were swung round with a blue cape, embroidered and fancy as anything and a matching hat. I lowered my eyes and didn’t lift my hands her way. I didn’t want to be a curiosity, to be looked at like that. I concentrated hard and thought of other things, because it was hard enough asking for money without that sort of look.
‘Are you well?’ Her English voice made me look up so quick, I caught the moment the blue lady gripped her gentleman’s arm and, though her next words were soft, I caught them, too. ‘See? I was right. She isn’t French. I can spot an English rose anywhere.’
‘Peut-être. Or she is attentively alert because you addressed her.’
I said nothing. In a moment, they would go. Only they didn’t. She turned back to me with another question.
‘But are you well?’ she asked again. ‘It is such a cold afternoon, even for March. Do you have somewhere warm to sleep tonight?’
‘Marina, really,’ he said.
‘Well, would you like to have to sleep in that cold doorway, my dear? I’m sure we could help in some way. She is very young.’
I wanted to fight because twelve wasn’t young at all and I was practically grown up, but why fight with strangers when they’re only talking?
‘Marina, we really must go. Your appointment.’
‘But this girl. I can’t leave her. I must do something.’
‘Non, Madame,’ I said, trying to sound very French. ‘Tout va bien.’ They stood right in front of me and I couldn’t get past without shoving them out of my way, which would alert Jacq and bring trouble. I waited, willing them to go. Any moment now, they would go away. They just needed to go away.
The blue lady stepped towards me, bunched her skirt up and sat down. I’d never seen a lady do that before. I didn’t think they could. Not on a step like that, practically on the ground. Of course, ladies could sit at café tables and on the graceful iron chairs in the park, but not down like this. The colour of her skirts was shocking down here, so real it would leave puddles on the ground beside me.
‘It is rather cold, isn’t it? You must be perishing. And you’re far from home. Well, me, too. How did you get to Paris?’
‘My … my father. He was French.’
‘Ah, like my husband, then. Frenchmen can be very handsome. And your mother? English, I assume. From your looks and accent. Though your French is very good, I must say.’
‘She was American.’
‘Then you are very far from home. And on your own?’
Too much. She smiled and her long earrings swung back and forth and she was beautiful and English and looking at me. Far too much.
I cracked right open and ran.
Pushed past the people walking, pushed and turned, kept my head down, kept running now not even looking, and my heart thumping thunder all around and the deafened crowd stepped back so I’d get away down the street, I’d get away, I was going to, could – then he grabbed my arm hard enough to stop anyone.
Jacq.
‘Tout va bien?’ Words spat out and his eyes all trouble.
‘Oui, Monsieur.’ Only he could see it was an act or why would I be running? He asked if I had made any money yet and I said no, but he grabbed me all over to check, then snarled and slapped me back into a doorway.
‘Don’t even think of trying that again, would you? You so close to being grown up, too. You stay there and hold out your little hands until you have my coins, you understand? The money they give you, that’s mine, isn’t it? And if you even think about running or trying to get away, I will teach you to swim, you hear?’ He stood up straight now and smoothed his coat, then slowly, gently walked away as if he were a gentleman with all the money in the world.
When I looked up again, the crowds had thinned. The blue lady was nowhere to be seen. I shouldn’t have expected anything else. She looked like the sort who’d only scoop you up to drop you off at the nearest church, and Madame Jacq warned about that sort. Useless optimists, because what did the church want with a tangle of ratty gutter kids? It wouldn’t even feed them despite whatever bread the priest promised the do-gooders. Best case was he’d open the back door and push you out again, but Madame Jacq said some priests might keep you and Lord help you then. You might as well say your prayers. Madame Jacq was good at those kinds of vagaries, and between all that and Jacq’s threats of swimming lessons, there wasn’t much time to be anything but terrified.
I’d spent all winter terrified or sad, or maybe those were the same thing when you’re alone. I might have said I wasn’t old enough to be alone, but how old do you need to be for loneliness to be good? Ma said sometimes even she was lonely, and she was old and it sounded bad when she said it. And she had me, so her loneliness was different. The loneliness of not being where you want to be, not doing what you feel you should. I get that now, though I didn’t when she said it. Being without her meant I had time to remember things she used to say and turn them over and over to find the truth underneath.
The first two nights without her in Paris, I really was alone. I’d left the room where she lay and ran away. I didn’t know what else to do. Her open eyes. I walked beside the river and when the street lights went out, I walked faster. I tried to look like I knew where I was going, like I had a purpose and a mission and people waiting for me. My shawl was still in the room, stretched out on the bed, useless. I was so cold that night, and for a while, I hid under a bridge, curled in a shadow away from the wind. But the ground was hard and it hurt to lie on. As soon as it was morning, I was walking again, trying to get warm. I found an apple in a puddle and ate it. I didn’t beg. I was thirsty and dipped my hands in a fountain. The water was colder than cold. The next night, I didn’t sleep, but kept walking.
Madame Jacq found me that day and I didn’t know any better, so I went with her. She gave me a bun from a bakery, and it felt warm to hold.
‘Put that inside,’ she said. ‘It’s best put away. You’ll feel better fed, won’t you now? That’s right, eat it up and things will be better.’
I wasn’t scared of her for the first few days. She kept me close and fed me plenty. Yelled at the others, but it was easy to see they were gutter kids and wild. She told me I was different and safe now and her special one, and she fed me more buns and something strong to drink from the bottle she kept inside her clothes. She said it would make me well.
Now, she didn’t do that any more. Just got me to work with the rest of them, got me to do what I was told.
I didn’t mind the streets by the Opera, not a bad place to beg, really. In the late afternoon when the lights came on in the shops, everything looked beautiful. You could see all the colours of the bright things to buy, and the colours in the street changed, too. Everything looked gold when the lights came on. Not gold like a cold morning, but proper gold set against the shadows of the street, shining like something precious dug out of the ground, something expensive and worth all the weary work. I could love the Paris streets then and even see them as my mother saw them, brighter and better than all the stars in the Colorado sky.
