‘And now!’ Robert yelled as the applause died down. ‘We Present. The Daredevil, the Amazing…Jack Gower!’ Jack came in and took a bow. I saw he was white as his breeches, his eyes dazed. He looked as if his life was about to collapse around him. He shot one bewildered look at me as I stood, my upraised hand gesturing towards him as David had taught us. His face was as puzzled and as scared as a lost child.

I tried to smile at him, he should be thinking of nothing but the task of catching the girls as they swung out towards him; but I found I could not. My lips were drawn back over drying gums in a blank parody of a smile. I was baring my teeth at the audience, not smiling. Jack looked at me as if I could help him. He looked at me as if he would ask me what he should do. He looked at me as if he was puzzled, disbelieving what he had heard.

My face was expressionless. I hardly even saw him. We were far, far away from each other. Somewhere deep down inside us we both knew that after the show there would be the end of this life. An end to the comfort and the friendship, the quiet early mornings and the hard-working days. The sense of belonging, all of us, one to all the others. There would be a row which would mean the end of this life. All the long months of training, and this afternoon’s triumph, would count for nothing.

Robert Grower would not be caught by a slut like Dandy. Dandy would never let go. Jack would be trapped between their two conflicting wills. And I would have to take her away, pregnant, idle, incapable of earning money. She and me, a horse and a small purse of guineas. Jack gestured towards me with his hand, directing the applause towards me, and his face was white and imploring. He took his bow as if all the thief-takers in London were after him and started to climb his ladder slowly.

Robert watched him for a second, puzzled. Then he called: ‘And Performing. For Your Entertainment. Flying at incredible height and speed, the Only girl flyers in the World! The Angels Without Wings: Mamselle Katie –’ Katie strode into the ring, smirked all round especially towards the man from London, and started climbing the ladder. ‘And Mamselle Dandy.’

She walked in without a glance to me. I was standing before the trapeze at the foot of her ladder, like a scarecrow in a field, my hand outflung, gesturing towards the middle of the ring where my sister took her bow with her green ribbons flying and her smile bright with the triumph at the trap she had sprung. I went to hold the foot of her ladder and her brilliant smile and her laughing eyes went past me as she climbed up.