Free Love, Let Me Not Hunger by Paul Gallico Page B

of Rajah the tiger.
    “Some day—some day,” she whispered, “I’m going to touch you.” But what she meant, what she thought, was of enfolding the head in her arms and stroking it as Mr. Albert said he had done; of bestowing upon it that which among themselves the animals did not know—the overwhelming, encompassing, and comforting warmth of human love.
    “That’s right,” Mr. Albert was saying. “Of course you will. You just come around any time when I’m here and he’ll get to know you. You want to come when I’m feeding them, about six. You come at any time and I’ll help you.”
    Rose said, “Thank you.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the white bristle of his greyish cheek, smiled at him once more, and turned and went from the barn.

C H A P T E R

6
    S hortly after her arrival at Chippenham Rose fell in love with Toby Walters.
    He was so trim and appetising. Toby’s legs were long, his buttocks small and firm. Wide shoulders and trunk tapered to a flat, narrow waist. His skin was healthy; white teeth contrasted with the dark shining of hair.
    The boy’s features were rugged but pleasant and youthfully mischievous, but what attracted Rose even more was his elegance and easy, happy, felicitous control over his body. Even when in the early weeks occasionally his timing was still off and he misjudged the distance and fell, it was never an ungainly collapse. He could even make a fall seem like something practised and amusing as he rolled himself quickly into a ball before hitting the ground, to somersault and come up laughing at himself.
    From a distance Rose loved him longingly. Never before had her eyes been delighted by any man. For the first time she found her senses engaged by the glow of a body. The boys she had known, perforce from the same environment as she herself, were pasty, maggoty, undernourished, and the older men even worse—hairy and flabby, cold and ugly to the touch. Toby was firm, vibrant, alive, and above all, clean, clean, clean. His cleanliness drew her like a magnet and made her want to lie close to him and put her cheek to his breast.
    For he was always immaculate, his rehearsal tights newly laundered, his person bathed. Ma Walters had taught her children to be scrupulously clean at all times, not alone due to living in the cramped quarters of their touring caravan, but because as a veteran show woman she was aware that if they and their costumes were always fresh and neat, this would communicate itself to the audience and add more glamour to their act.
    Soon, watching Toby when he rehearsed became Rose’s secret joy.
    She had been given work to do, and Jackdaw Williams had acquiesced in this. He himself was engaged in trying out routines with the three clowns and otherwise practising his juggling endlessly. It had been some time since he had presented a juggling act and, a perfectionist at his business, he would not tolerate the dropped ball or the missed catch.
    It was understood that when they took to the road Rose would don a red coat and peaked circus jockey cap and make herself useful selling programmes, seating people in the star-backs, and dispensing sweets and drinks as well. But she had also been assigned to dress the Liberty act presented by Fred Deeter, and this called for rehearsal. Clad in a spangled evening gown dug out of Sam Marvel’s costume locker, her job would be to carry a whip and point to Deeter to milk applause at the end of each routine of the Liberty horses. This necessitated considerable agility and the learning of where she must be and when, not only to avoid being trampled underfoot but to make the best presentation of the trainer.
    At first she spent most of her time trying to get out of the way of the horses, and since she had never had any physical training of any kind, she found this arduous and difficult, though she was not at all afraid of them. Deeter, who had never worked with anyone who was not of the circus, was impatient with