‘There’s not a big market for second hand circus elephants,’ Mathew said, still gently, but his words were calmly sure. ‘Or lions. Or monkeys, for that matter.’

‘Grandpa said he sold them to an open-range zoo.’

‘Maybe your grandpa wanted to keep you happy.’

She stared at him—and then she snatched up the paper and stared at it as if it was an unexploded bomb, while Mathew Bond’s words washed around her.

‘Bond’s Bank—meaning my grandfather—was approached ten years ago,’ he told her as she kept staring. ‘We were asked to set up a loan to provide for the care of two elephants, three lions and five monkeys. A wildlife refuge west of Sydney provides such care, but, as you can imagine, it’s not cheap. Elephants live up to seventy years. Lions twenty. Monkeys up to forty. You’ve lost one lion, Zelda, last year, and two of the monkeys have died. The rest of the tribe are in rude health and eating their heads off. The loan was worked out based on costs for ten years but those costs have escalated. You’ve now reached the stage where the interest due is almost as much as the loan itself. Henry’s way overdue in payments and the refuge is calling in its overdue bills. They’re winding down. Your grandfather’s seventy-six, Allie. There’s no way he can repay this loan. It’s time to fold the tent and give it away.’

Silence.

She was staring blindly at Mathew now, but she wasn’t seeing him. Instead she was seeing elephants. She’d watched them perform as a child, she’d learned to work with them and she’d loved them. Then, as a teenager she’d started seeing the bigger picture. She’d started seeing the conditions they lived in for what they were, and she’d railed against them.

She remembered the fights.

‘Grandpa, I know we’ve always had wild animals. You’ve lived with them since you were a kid, too, but it’s not right. Even though we do the best we can for them, they shouldn’t live like this. They need to be somewhere they can roam. Grandpa, please …’

As she’d got older, full of adolescent certainty, she’d laid down her ultimatum.

‘I can’t live with you if we keep dragging them from place to place. The camels and dogs and ponies are fine—they’ve been domestic for generations and we can give them decent exercise and care. But not the others. Grandpa, you have to do something.’

‘The circus will lose money …’ That was her grandfather, fighting a losing battle.

‘Isn’t it better to lose money than to be cruel?’

She remembered the fights, the tantrums, the sulky silences—and then she’d come home from one of her brief visits to her mother and they’d gone.

‘We’ve sent them to a zoo in Western Australia,’ Gran had told her, and shown her pictures of a gorgeous open range zoo.

Then, later—how much later?—they’d shown her pictures of a house. Her mind was racing. That was right about the time she was starting to study bookkeeping. Right about the time Henry was starting to let her keep the books.

‘The house …’ she whispered but she was already accepting the house was a lie.

‘If they’ve been showing you the books, maybe the house is a smokescreen. I’m sorry, Allie, but there is no house.’

Her world was shifting. There was nothing to hold on to.

Mathew’s voice was implacable. This was a banker, here on business. She stared again at that bottom line. He was calling in a loan she had no hope of paying.

No house.

The ramifications were appalling.

She wanted this man to go away. She wanted to retreat to her caravan and hug her dogs. She wanted to pour herself something stronger than tea and think.

Think the unthinkable?

Panic was crowding in from all sides. Outside, the circus crew was packing up for the night—men and women who depended on this circus for a livelihood. Most of them had done so all their lives.

‘What … what security did he use for the loan?’ she whispered.

‘The circus itself,’ Mathew told her.

‘We’re not worth …’

‘You are worth quite a bit. You’ve been running the same schedule for over a hundred years. You have council land booked annually in the best places at the best times. Another circus will pay for those slots.’

‘You mean Carvers,’ she said incredulously. ‘Ron Carver has been trying to get his hands on our sites for years. You want us to give them to him?’

‘I don’t see you have a choice.’

‘But it doesn’t make sense. Why?’ she demanded, trying desperately to shove her distress to the background. ‘Why did Bond’s ever agree to such a crazy loan? If this is true … You must have known we’d never have the collateral to pay this back?’

‘My Great-Aunt Margot,’ he said, and he paused, as if he didn’t quite know where to go with this.

‘Margot?’

‘Margot Bond,’ he said. ‘Do you know her?’

She did. Everyone knew Margot. She’d had a front row seat for years, always present on the first and last night the circus was in Fort Neptune. She arrived immaculately dressed, older but seemingly more dignified with every year, and every year her grandparents greeted her with delight.

She hadn’t been here this year, and Allie had missed her.

‘My grandfather and Margot were brought to Sparkles as children,’ Mathew told her. ‘Later, Margot brought my father, and then me in my turn. When your grandfather couldn’t find anyone to fund the loan, in desperation he asked Margot. He knew she was connected to Bond’s. When Margot asked my grandfather—her brother—he couldn’t say no. Very few people can say no to Margot.’

He hesitated then, as if he didn’t want to go on, and the words he finally came out with sounded forced. ‘Margot’s dying,’ he said bleakly. ‘That’s why I’m in Fort Neptune. We could have foreclosed from a distance but, seeing I’m here, I decided to do it in person.’

‘Because now she’s dying you don’t need to make her happy any more?’

Her tea slopped as she said it, and she gasped. She stood up and stepped away from the table, staring at the spilled tea. ‘Sorry. That … that was dreadful of me—and unfair. I’m very sorry Margot’s dying, and of course it’s your money and you have every right to call it in. But … right now?’

‘You’ve been sent notices for months, Allie. Contrary to what you think, this is not a surprise. Henry knows it. This is the end. I have authority to take control.’

She nodded, choked on a sob, swiped away a tear—she would not cry—and managed to gain composure. Of a sort. ‘Right,’ she managed. ‘But there’s nothing you can do tonight. Not now.’

‘I can …’

‘You can’t,’ she snapped. ‘You can do nothing. Otherwise I’ll go straight to the local paper and tomorrow’s headlines will be Bond’s Bank foreclosing on ancient circus while its almost-as-ancient ringmaster fights for his life in the local hospital.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Fair,’ she said savagely. ‘You don’t know what fair looks like. I haven’t even started. Now, I’m going to the hospital to see how Grandpa really is. Meanwhile, you need to get off circus land.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and suddenly the emotion, the anger, the distress built up and she could no longer contain it. ‘Now. If I so much as see you skulking …’

‘I do not skulk …’

‘Or any of your heavies …’

‘I don’t have heavies.’

‘I’ll call the police.’

‘I have the right …’

‘You have no rights at all,’ she yelled, and she’d really lost it but right now she didn’t care. ‘The moral high ground is mine and I’m taking it. Get off circus land, Mathew Bond. I’ll sort this mess, somehow, some way, but meanwhile I have my grandfather in hospital, I have a circus to tend and you have no place here.’

She grabbed his half-full mug and her spilled one and she thumped them both into the sink so hard one broke.

She stared at the shattered remains and her face crumpled.

‘Well, that’s one thing you won’t be able to repossess,’ she said at last, drearily, temper fading, knowing she was facing inevitable defeat.

Enough. She stalked out of the caravan and thumped the door closed behind her.

Business shouldn’t be personal, Matt thought bleakly. He didn’t do personal, and he didn’t cope with emotion. It had been a huge mistake to come here himself. He should have sent his trained, impersonal staff who’d do what had to be done and get out of here.

That was what he had to do now, he told himself. Do what had to be done and get out of here.

So he did.

He filed his papers together, making sure every page was in order and the file was complete. He rolled down his sleeves, he buttoned his shirt and he put back on his grey silk tie.

He put on his cashmere coat and walked out of the caravan, out of the circus, out of personal and back to the controlled world of Mathew Bond, banker.

Henry was lying in his hospital bed, and he looked old and white and defeated. Bella just looked sick.

The doctor she’d met on the way in had given her good news. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any damage to his heart. We’re fairly sure it was simply a bad attack of angina, but your grandmother says he’s losing weight. He’s running a slight fever and we need to get his angina under control, so we’d like to keep him in for a few days, run a few tests, see if we can get him looking a bit stronger before we send him back to the wilds of circus living.’

He won’t be going back to the wilds of circus living, Allie thought drearily, but she pushed the ward door open with her smile pinned in place and spent the first few minutes telling her grandparents of the unlikely success of their banker as a ringmaster.

It made them smile—but the big issue couldn’t be avoided.

She didn’t have to bring it up. Mathew was right. Both Henry and Bella had a clear idea of what was happening, and why.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she whispered, holding her grandpa’s hand, and he snorted.

‘Telling you wouldn’t have made a difference. We figured we’d keep the circus cheerful and functioning right up till the moment they pulled the rug.’

Great, Allie thought bleakly. They had two weeks of advance bookings. Almost every show for the time they were in Fort Neptune was sold out. She couldn’t conceive of folding the big top tomorrow and leaving a gap in the heart of the town at the height of summer.

She couldn’t bear thinking today had been their last day.

And wages? To go back to the crew now and say it’s over, no more pay as of now …

Was there any money to pay wages already owed? She should have asked. She should have demanded to see what powers Mathew had.

Her head was spinning, and Bella put her wrinkled hand on hers so there were three hands combined, Henry’s, Bella’s and Allie’s. ‘It’s okay, dear,’ she said. ‘Something will come up.’

‘Something already has come up,’ she muttered. ‘Mathew Bond.’

‘But he has to be a nice young man. He’s the great-nephew of Margot and Margot’s lovely. Why don’t you talk to her?’

‘Mathew says she’s dying.’

There was a pause at that. A really long pause.

Then …

‘Just because you’re dying, it doesn’t mean you’re dead,’ Bella said at last, with a lot more asperity than usual. ‘Your grandpa and I are almost eighty and if people treat us like we’re on our last legs we might as well be. Don’t you think Margot would want to know how appallingly her nephew is acting?’

‘He has the right …’

‘The moral right?’ Bella said. ‘Maybe he has and maybe he hasn’t. We’ve given his aunt a lot of pleasure over the years. At least he can let us have our last two weeks here without refunding tickets. Bond’s is huge. Our loan must be a drop in the ocean. Go and see Margot, love. Talk to her.’

‘But she’s dying,’ Allie repeated, horrified.

‘Yes, but she’s not dead,’ Bella repeated impatiently. ‘Just like our circus isn’t dead until we take down the big top. And just like your grandpa isn’t dead yet. He’ll be fine, Allie, love, as long as he has hope.’

‘That’s blackmail. You want me to front a dying Margot and her cashmere-coated nephew so Grandpa will get better?’

‘That’s the one,’ Bella said and beamed.

‘You’re such a good girl,’ Henry said and gave a wee feeble cough and sank further back into his pillows.

Allie glared. ‘You’re a fraud. Grandpa, was that collapse real this afternoon?’

‘Of course it was,’ Henry said, affronted, possibly with stronger affront than the wee feeble cough signified should be possible.

‘Go and see Margot, Allie,’ Bella urged. ‘It’s the least you can do.’

‘I …’

‘At least talk again to the nephew.’

She did have to do that. There were so many complications.

‘Do you know where Margot lives?’ Henry asked. ‘The second house from the point along the esplanade. It’s a little blue fisherman’s cottage.’

‘You’ve been there before—asking for money?’

‘I had to keep the animals safe,’ Henry said, and suddenly his old eyes were steel. ‘I did that for you.’

And he had, Allie thought. Henry was an old-fashioned ringmaster, with old-fashioned views on circus animals. It was her distress that had made him retire them.

It was her distress that had put them into this mess?

‘They’re still okay,’ she said carefully, feeling weird.

‘We know. We get updates,’ Bella said, beaming. She dived into her purse and produced photographs, and Allie found herself staring at pictures of lions and monkeys and two gorgeous, healthy elephants. Maisie and Minnie. She’d adored these animals as a kid. She’d fought for them.

That fight had got them into this mess. What would happen to them now?

‘You need to talk to Margot,’ Bella urged again, and Allie shook her head.

‘I need to talk to Mathew.’

‘Same thing,’ Bella retorted. ‘He’s staying with her.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Of course we know. We were expecting …’

‘Enough.’ Allie put up her hands in surrender. ‘I don’t want to know what you were expecting. At least, I do want to know, but I’m not the least sure I can trust you two. I may not want to trust Mathew Bond either, but at least he gives me facts. I’ll see him. Meanwhile, you stay well, both of you, and no more conniving. I’ll do my best to see what I can save, but you need to leave it in my hands.’

She kissed them both and left. She headed down to the beach and took herself for a really long walk. She thought about elephants and lions and monkeys. She thought about a circus she loved, a team she loved. She thought about a circus sold out for two solid weeks.

And then she went to face Mathew.

CHAPTER THREE

MARGOT’S HOUSE WAS adorable. This whole town was adorable, Allie thought, as she walked past the long row of fishermen’s cottages to reach Margot’s postcard-perfect cottage.

The rain had stopped. The late afternoon sun was shimmering on the water and the boats swinging at anchor in the bay looked clean and washed. Fort Neptune had once been a major defence port, and the fort itself was still a monolith on the far headland, but the time for defence was long past. The town was now a sleepy fishing village that came alive each summer, filling with kids, mums and dads eager for time out from the rest of the world.

It was Allie’s very favourite circus site, and the thought that Henry and Bella had planned their retirement here was a comfort.

Or it had been a comfort, she thought grimly, fighting for courage to bang Margot’s lion-shaped brass knocker. It was all lies.

Lies created to save her elephants?

This was her call. Her responsibility. She took a deep breath—and knocked.

Mathew answered, looking incongruously big, stooping a little in the low doorway. Margot’s forebears must have been little, Allie thought—or maybe it was just Mathew was large. Or not so much large as powerful. He was wearing a fisherman’s guernsey and jeans. Maybe he’d walked on the beach as well—he looked windswept and tousled and … and …

Okay, he looked gorgeous, she conceded, taking a step back, but gorgeous didn’t have any place here. He was looking at her as if she was a stranger, as if she had no right to be here, and she felt like running.

If Margot was dying she had no right to intrude.

But what was at stake was her grandparents’ future and the future of all the crew. If she didn’t front this man she’d have to go back to the show-ground, give orders to dismantle the big top and do … what?

The future stretched before her like a great, empty void.

‘I need to talk to you,’ she said, but Mathew’s face was impassive. She was a loan, she thought. A number on a balance sheet. A red one. It was this guy’s job to turn it to black.

The human side of him had emerged this afternoon. Her grandfather’s collapse had propelled him into the circus ring and he’d done well, but how could she propel him to do more?

The loan was enormous. She had the collateral of an ageing circus and a bunch of weird animals. Nothing else.

He needed to turn back into a banker and she knew it.

‘There’s nothing more I can do,’ he said, surprisingly gently. ‘But how’s your grandpa?’

‘I … he’s okay. They’re keeping him in hospital for checks.’

‘Maybe it’s just as well. It’ll keep him off site while the circus is disbanded.’

She felt sick. More, she felt like … like …

No. She had no idea what she felt like. Her world was spinning, and she had no hope of clinging to it.

‘Mathew?’ She recognised the old lady’s voice calling from the living room. Margot. ‘Mathew, who is it?’

‘It’s Allie from the circus,’ she called back before Mathew could answer. Margot had always seemed a friend. It would have been wrong not to answer. ‘It’s Allie, alias The Amazing Mischka.’

There was a faint chuckle in return. ‘Mischka. Allie. Come on in, girl.’

Come in …

‘How sick is she?’ she said urgently, whispering.

‘She’s decided she’s dying,’ Mathew said in an under-voice. ‘She’s only eighty, but her dog died and she’s scarcely eaten since. She’s spending her time planning her funeral and deciding who inherits her pot plants. Not me, I gather, because I’m not responsible enough. It sounds comic but it’s not. She wants to die, and she’s making sure it happens.’

‘Oh, no.’ She looked into his impassive face—and realised it wasn’t impassive. He was fond of the old lady, then. Very fond.

‘Come in, girl.’ Margot’s voice was imperative. ‘Mathew, don’t keep her out there.’

‘Don’t …’ Mathew said and then he shrugged his shoulders. But she knew what he wanted to say. Don’t upset her. This loan is nothing to do with her.

‘Allie!’ This time the call was peremptory and Allie had no choice but to brush by Mathew and walk through into the sitting room. She was tinglingly, stupidly aware of Mathew as she brushed past him—but then she saw Margot and Mathew was forgotten.

Margot was sitting hunched over the fire, in a pale pink dressing gown, draped in a cashmere throw.

Allie had met this lady every year, every time the circus came to town. She was tall and dignified, wearing tailored tweeds with effortless grace. For the last few years she’d carried and used a magnificent ebony walking cane and she’d given the impression of timeless beauty.

But now she was shrivelled. Disappearing?

‘Oh, Margot.’ Her cry of distress was out before she could stop herself. She’d always referred to Margot as Miss Bond. They’d greeted each other with businesslike pleasantries—this woman was a patron of the circus and her grandfather’s friend—but here, in her pink robe, her body hunched over the fire, Miss Bond seemed inappropriate and cruel.

She hadn’t realised, she thought, how much this lady was part of her history. Even as a little girl, every time the circus was in Fort Neptune she remembered Margot in her tweeds, sitting proudly upright in the front row.

Could she remember Mathew coming with her? No. He’d be older than she was, she thought, and he mustn’t have come with his aunt for years.

All these things flickered through her mind as she knelt by Margot and took her hand. ‘Oh, Margot …’ she said. ‘Oh, Grandpa will be so distressed.’

‘Your grandfather’s ill himself,’ Margot said, looking down at their linked hands for a moment and then gently pulling away. ‘All my friends are dying.’

It was a shocking statement, one that made Allie sit back and glance at Mathew.

His face was grim.

‘You still have family,’ he said. ‘And friends. What about Duncan? What about me? Just because you lost your dog … Margot, there’s no need for you to die as well.’

‘Halibut was my family,’ she said, gently reproving. ‘And it’s my time. Losing Halibut made me realise it. I’m eighty years old, which is too old to get another dog. I have no intention of lying around until everyone’s forgotten me and even my nephew’s wrinkled and gnarled as he stands by my grave.’

It was such a ridiculous image that Allie stared at Mathew in astonishment. He looked anything but gnarled.

He was thirty-fivish, she thought, surely not more.

‘Wow,’ she said to Margot. ‘You might have a few more years before that happens. Too old to get another dog? Dogs live for less than fifteen years. Ninety-five isn’t such a great age. And Mathew, gnarled? It doesn’t seem an immediate danger.’ And she chuckled.

Okay, maybe a chuckle was inappropriate. Mathew surely looked as if it was inappropriate. ‘Your business is with me,’ he snapped. ‘Not with Margot. Come into the study.’

‘Not yet,’ Margot said, with a touch of the asperity Allie remembered. ‘How’s Henry? Mathew told me he was taken ill.’

‘He’ll be okay,’ Allie told her, deciding to ignore Mathew’s blatant disapproval. ‘The doctors say it’s just angina after a dose of the flu.’ She looked cautiously at Margot, wondering exactly what the matter was. ‘If you’d like to risk a few more years to stay friends with him, it might be worthwhile.’

Margot chuckled then, too, but it was a bitter chuckle. ‘But Henry’s only here in summer,’ she said. ‘You all go. Two weeks of Sparkles Circus … I can’t stick around until next year.’

‘And we won’t be here next year, anyway,’ Allie admitted, and saw Mathew’s face darken and thought … uh oh. Hasn’t he told Margot what he’s doing?

‘In the study,’ he snapped and it was a command, but Margot’s hand closed on Allie’s wrist.

‘Why not?’

‘Because the circus is bankrupt,’ Mathew said in a goaded voice. ‘Because they’ve been living on borrowed time and borrowed money for ten years now. Because their time has past.’

‘Like mine,’ Margot said, and her voice matched his. Goaded and angry.

‘You know that’s not true.’ Mathew closed his eyes, as if searching for something. He sighed and then opened them, meeting Margot’s gaze head-on. ‘How can you say your time is past? You know you’re loved. You know I love you.’

It hurt, Allie thought. She watched his face as he said it and she thought it really hurt to say those words. You know I love you. It was as if he hated admitting it, even to himself.

‘And I love Sparkles Circus!’ Margot retorted, her old eyes suddenly speculative. ‘You’re declaring them bankrupt?’

‘He has the right,’ Allie admitted, deciding a girl had to be fair. ‘Margot, you’ve been wonderful. I gather you persuaded Bond’s to finance us all those years ago. I’m so grateful.’

‘Yet you come here looking for more,’ Mathew demanded and there was such anger in his voice that she stared at him in astonishment—and so did Margot. Whoa.

‘I’m not here looking for more money,’ Allie said through gritted teeth. ‘Or … not much. I didn’t know about the loan, but I’ve been through Grandpa’s files now and I’m horrified. The circus can’t keep going—I know that now—but what I want is permission to continue for the two weeks we’re booked to perform in Fort Neptune. We have sold-out audiences. That’ll more than pay our way. If we need to refund everyone, it’ll eat into your eventual payout and we’ll have a town full of disappointed kids. If we can keep going for two weeks then I can give the crew two weeks’ notice. The alternative is going back tonight and saying clear out, the circus is over and letting your vultures do their worst.’

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