All the while we were learning the business. All the time we were getting to love the contrast between the hard life of the travelling and the magic of the costume and the disguise. And all the time we were growing addicted to the sound of delighted applause, and to the sense of power from being the centre of attention, making magic before scores and sometimes hundreds of people.

While we were learning, Robert was planning. Every time we were anywhere near another show he would go and see it. Even if it meant missing one of our own performances he would put on his best jacket – a tweed one, not his working red coat – take the big grey stallion, and ride for as much as twenty miles to see another show. But it was not horse shows which drew him. I realized that when Jack came back from crying up the show around Keynsham with a bill in his hand, and said with confidence:

‘This’ll interest you, Da.’

It was not a bill for a horse show but a brightly coloured picture of man swinging upside down from a bar which had been hung high in the ceiling. He looked half-naked, in a costume like a second skin and spangled. He had great broad mustachios and was beaming down as if he had no fear at all.

‘Why, you’re white as a sheet,’ Robert said looking at me. ‘What’s the matter, Meridon?’

‘Nothing,’ I said instantly. But I could feel the blood draining from my head and I knew that I might faint at any moment.

I squeezed past Robert and that terrifying picture and stumbled to the caravan step and sat gulping in the fresh air of a warm August evening.

‘Be all right to work, will you?’ Robert called from inside the wagon.

‘Yes, yes…’ I assented weakly. ‘I just felt faint for a moment.’

He left me in silence to look at the staked-out horses and the sun low in the sky behind a bank of pale butter-coloured clouds.

‘Not started your bleeding have you?’ he asked, standing in the doorway with rough sympathy.

‘It’s not that!’ I exclaimed, stung.

‘Well, it’s hardly an insult…’ he excused himself. ‘What’s the matter then?’

‘It was that picture, the hand-bill…’ I said. I could hardly explain my terror even to myself. ‘What was the man doing? He looked so high!’

Robert drew the hand-bill out of his pocket. ‘He calls himself a trapeze artiste,’ he said. ‘It’s a new act. I’m going into Bristol to see it. I’d like to know how it’s done. See…’ he pushed the hand-bill towards me but I turned my head away.

‘I hate it!’ I said childishly. ‘I can’t bear to see it!’

‘Are you afraid of being up high?’ Robert asked. He was scowling as if my answer mattered.