Jack glanced at her back at the barn door. ‘All right,’ he said briefly. Then he shot me an imploring look. ‘Don’t ask me now, Meridon. Damn me, you do pick your times! My da’ll come out in a second and there’s a man from London in the front row! We’re as we always were. Hot as a pair of stray dogs, and a deadly secret. She has seldom a civil word for me, and I hate her as much as I want her. Now hush, Meridon. Ask Dandy. Don’t ask me. I try to not even think about it!’

Rea pulled back the doors and the ponies came out in a rush. Jack caught the two first through the door, and I grabbed the next. Rea got hold of two as they trotted past him, and the smallest followed on behind. We took them to their hitching posts and I left Rea to feed them and take their tack off them while I went to my wagon to change. Jack ran past me to his wagon to get into costume for his flying act.

I was back first. I wore a shimmery blue shirt and a pair of thin white breeches, a scaled-down copy of Jack’s flying costume. I was not nervous of the low practise trapeze; and besides my job was only to whet the appetite of the audience for the main trapeze act. But my feet were icy in my clogs as I trudged back to the barn door. And I ached as if I had fallen and been kicked hard in the belly. Dandy and Katie’s elation at their record sales, and the smile the man from London had given them when he had said, ‘No thank you,’ went over my head. I hardly heard them. I had a deep dark feeling, as if I were a bucket going slowly down a deep well. The others’ voices came as an echo from far away.

‘You all right, Merry?’ Jack said as he joined us. ‘You look sickly.’

I looked around for him. My vision was slightly blurred and his face kept coming and going.

‘I feel ill,’ I said. I thought for a second and then recognised that cold feeling in my belly. ‘I feel frightened,’ I said.

Jack’s hand came on my shoulder and I held still and let him touch me.

‘Not that little practice trapeze!’ Katie said scornfully. ‘You can’t be scared of that!’

I looked for her in the fog that was gathering around me. ‘No,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I’m not scared of that.’

I was looking for Dandy. I could not see her. Robert came out and called for Jack to come and help finish rigging the catch-net with him and Rea.

I said: ‘Dandy!’ in sudden fright and then her beloved face was before me and she was saying kindly: