Blood and Circuses

Начало книги

Fervent thanks to David Greagg, Jean Greenwood, Nick Engleman the juggler, Gregory Carter the clown, Jenny Pausacker, Richard Revill, Keryn D’Arcy, Stephen D’Arcy, Roz Greenwood, Ann Dwyer, Meredith Rose, Sophie Cunningham, Simon Barfoot the diva, Judith Rodriguez, Jude Bourguignon, the staff at Footscray Library, the Performing Arts Museum, the Moscow Circus, Circus Oz, Bullen’s Circus, and all circuses, carnivals and fairs.

‘People must be amused, Squire . . .

they can’t always be a-working, nor yet

they can’t always be a-learning. Make

the best of us, not the worst.’

Charles Dickens

Hard Times

CHAPTER ONE

These were a part of a playing I heard

Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife

Love that sings and hath wings as a bird

Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.

Algernon Swinburne

The Triumph of Time

Mrs Witherspoon, widow of uncertain years and theatrical background, was taking tea in her refined house for paying gentlefolk in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. It was four o’clock on a warmish Friday afternoon. The month was October and the year was 1928 and she had no idea, as she reached for the last slice of fruitcake, that the worst moment of her life was a mere minute away.

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