Free Golden Hope by Johanna Nicholls Page A

You’re welcome to bring your sheila along too.’
    Rom kept a straight face. ‘That’d be an invitation to disaster, mate. My girlfriends don’t like each other. I’d have a cat fight on my hands.’
    The boy gave a knowing chuckle at Rom’s bravado.
    Inside the Big Top the German brass band finished playing that haunting new ballad Waltzing Matilda , written by Banjo Paterson, who Rom had read was now a war correspondent in South Africa. The lyrics sounded romantic until he remembered they were inspired by the Queensland Shearers Strike of the 1890s when a rebel shearer on the run from the traps had drowned himself rather than be captured. The memory of the strike remained raw in the national memory.
    The band struck up the Overture, a tempo clearly designed to build expectation and excitement in the audience.
    Shown to his ringside seat and given a program by a pint-sized usher, Rom casually acknowledged the nods of a number of townsfolk who had never previously given him the time of day.
    What do you know? The circus has given me a leg up in status. Everyone and his dog must be here tonight.
    It was a full house. The faces around him included Banker George Tribe and his family, and the publican Tom Yeoman. The corpulent, bearded figure of Boss Jantzen was seated beside his golden boy, Sonny. Rom noted that their Aboriginal servant girl, Alice, was seated at the rear of the cheaper seats – but at least they had paid for her to attend.
    On the opposite side of the ring Noni James was decked out in all her finery, sitting beside her father, her eye focussed on every move made by Sonny Jantzen. Rom recognised outlying farmers who rarely appeared in town. Kids’ mouths were ringed with toffee-apple stains. The whisky-drinking Catholic priest Father Donnelly sat chatting amicably with the teetotal Salvation Army Captain, whose military-style uniform contrasted with the Ringmaster’s scarlet jacket, gold frogging and epaulets.
    Sergeant Mangles stood on duty by the entrance flaps, no doubt keeping an eye out for any larrikin who might try to aim a slingshot to endanger the performers.
    Rom was surprised to see the elderly Chinaman, Long Sam, sitting in the front row, all spruced up and wearing a celluloid collar and tie and spectacles.
    Just as the lights began to dim, a handsomely dressed woman was shown to an empty seat on the aisle of the front row. Her head was held high beneath the veiling of her fashionable hat, but he noticed the way she descended the steps with care as if intent on disguising her limp. On the last step she stumbled and in the act of regaining her balance with Long Sam’s assistance, Rom caught sight of her heavy boot.
    What do you know? A rare public appearance by Doc’s reclusive sister Adelaide. Not bad looking. Pity about her crippled foot.
    Rom felt his heart racing when the lights dimmed. The music swelled, the theatrical spotlights blazed, casting flickering lights across the faces in the audience.
    Rom found himself responding spontaneously to all the thrills and surprises, the clowns’ crowd-pleasing antics, the heart-in-mouth feats of daring, as if he was being given a missing link to the childhood he had never known. He quickly dismissed images of the grey children’s homes where he had been placed when his father was on the grog or drying out in the Watch House. As a child he had never been closer to a circus than a billboard poster.
    He admired the performers’ wide range of skills – one moment a tumbler, the next a high-wire walker. According to the program, next was the equestrienne act billed as Daring Dolores, ‘famous for performing the most difficult feat of all on horseback – the forward somersault!’
    The Ringmaster’s announcement claimed Rom’s full attention.
    â€˜Ladies and Gentlemen, for your edification and pleasure we bring you Little Clytie. This fifth generation child equestrienne will