Prologue

IRENE

1971, Israel

I let out a groan of pain as I touched my chest.

A moment of panic engulfed me. The kids. Are they okay? I have to find out. I strained to lift my head but was too weak even to do that. I squinted, trying to get my bearings, my eyes out of focus. To my left lay the bleary form of a woman, tubes and wires trailing from her body, a machine blinking softly beside her bed. To my right, another woman swam into view, sitting up and reading a magazine.

‘Boker tov,’ she said, smiling.

‘Sorry. English only.’ My voice was hoarse. The words came out as a croak.

‘I said good morning. How do you feel?’

‘Not too good.’

‘It’s okay,’ she nodded, ‘I will get someone for you.’

Lying back in bed, I struggled to recall what had happened.

A pretty, young nurse, her dark ringlets tied back, walked over to me and lifted my arm to take my pulse. ‘Shalom Irene. My name is Shula, and I will help you. Do you have pain?’ Her voice was soothing.

I struggled to sit up. ‘Where are my children?’ I could feel my weak and fluttering heart thumping against my ribs.

‘You don’t worry. All is good. Dr Levy will be here soon to talk to you about your condition, and someone will come and speak to you about your children. Now, you must rest.’

I sat back against the pillows, dozing on and off until I heard footsteps and the rustle of cloth. Next to my bed stood a short, bald man in a white coat, eyeing the readings on the machine attached to me.

‘Oh, you are awake. Good. I am Dr Levy. I operated on you when you arrived at the hospital.’ He smiled. ‘You were very lucky. You were shot in the chest, but the bullet missed your heart by a fraction of a millimetre.’ He held his fingers up to demonstrate. ‘Any closer, and you would not be with us. That is what we call mazel. Luck.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘I am confident you will make a complete recovery. Now, do you have any questions?’

‘Yes, I need to know about my children,’ I said, straining to speak.

‘Of course, but they are fine. Do not worry. Also, your husband is here.’

Joe.

‘Joe’s outside? Can he come in?’

‘No, no. You see, unfortunately, he had a major heart attack, but he is recovering in the ICU. He will need to be here for some time. You may visit him when you are able to get out of bed. I will come back later and see how you are. Shalom.’ He patted my hand and left.

I sank back into the pillows, exhausted, a dull, hot pain throbbing in my chest. I never learn, do I? It’s always trouble with Joe.

Part One

(Childhood)

Children are to be seen and not heard.

Chapter One

JOE

1932, London

I hated them boys. I hated school. I hated everything. Why did I have to be smaller than everyone else? It wasn’t fair. I was six years old but looked about four. From the first day, all the other children pointed and laughed at me, calling me names. ‘Sissy boy,’ they shouted, ‘who’s a sissy, eh? Leslie is.’ I could feel me eyes burning. I scrunched them up cos I didn’t want to cry, but it happened anyway. That made them laugh even more and then they got close up, and I thought they were going to hit me. I was so afraid that I wet meself. Their jeering made me sob with shame and I ran, as hard as I could, out of the school gates and into the fields. I stayed hidden in the damp barley till it was time to go home.

The next day I was called into the headmaster’s office.

‘Leslie.’ Mr Crabtree’s gravelly voice was cold, ‘You have disobeyed the rules and absconded from school grounds.’

I hung me head. I couldn’t speak.

‘Have you nothing to say for yourself? Very well then. You will receive your punishment and that will be the end of it.’ He opened a tall dark wood cupboard and took out a huge cane.

‘No,’ I yelped, but it was too late.

The headmaster bent me over a chair and raised his cane up high. Down it came over me arse and legs, two, three, four bloody times. I could hardly sit down after that.

‘Go back to your classroom and don’t let me see you here again. Understood?’

‘Yes sir,’ I gasped, me eyes watering.

Every day it was the same thing; the boys laughed and catcalled. I arrived and left feeling stupid and puny.

After weeks of it, I decided to tell me father. Maybe he’d go to school and beat them all up. Yeah. That would be great.

I ran home and found him in the sitting room smoking his pipe, the crumpled newspaper resting on his lap.

‘Pa,’ I cried, ‘All the boys in school are laughing at me. They call me a sissy.’ Tears dripped down me face, wetting me shirt.

My father put down his pipe and stood up, towering over me. He rolled up the sleeves covering his massive arms, his face turning the same dark red as the flames burning in the grate behind him.

‘Boy, I’ve about had it with you. Come with me. Right now.’ Grabbing me ear, he dragged me into the kitchen. ‘I’m going to teach you a lesson you won’t forget. It’s time you stopped blubbing and start acting like a man.’

I yelled and struggled, but his pinching fingers held tight. Our old bulldog, Bully, with his rolls of fat sagging down and drool all over his brindle-striped fur, was lying on the rug by the warmth of the oven door. Sensing trouble, he waddled quickly out of the room, snorting with the effort.

Pa stood with his arms stretched out. ‘Okay, boy, today you will learn how to fight. Punch me. Come on, come on!’ He beckoned, his eyes mean and hard. I stood frozen to the spot. Sense told me I had to move, to do as he said, or it would only be worse.

I didn’t know what to do. I tried to throw a jab, me arm flailing, but Pa caught me fist in one hand and punched me in the stomach with the other. The air whooshed out of me like a popped balloon as I crumpled on the floor, doubled over in pain. If there had been air in me lungs I would have cried out, but I could only cough.

‘Get up, boy, and hit me. Come on.’ He stood over me with his beetroot red face, so I dragged meself up and gave it another go. I did me best, but every time he hit me, it left me gasping for air. I lay whimpering on the floor, me nose running, clutching me aching belly.

At last, he was finished.

‘That should do it. Now you’ll be a man.’ Pa looked down at me, curled on the floor. He shook his head, lit a cigarette and left the kitchen. I heard him calling out, ‘Bully, come up, come on, it’s okay,’ in that soft, kind tone he only used on the dog. I loved Bully, I did, but sometimes I wanted him gone, because truth be known, both Ma and Pa preferred him to me. It was because Bully had an enormous pair of balls, and I didn’t have any when I was born. Well, I did have them, but they were up in me tummy, and I had to have an operation to make them drop down.

Pa wasn’t happy about that. Balls were very important to him. He was often going around saying; ‘A man may not have material gifts, but the best present he can possess is a magnificent pair of testicles.’

‘After the operation,’ Ma told me, ‘Your pa came in the room and opened up your nappy to inspect the goods. What he saw didn’t impress him one bit, I tell you.’ Her mouth went small and wrinkly like she was sucking on a lemon. I’d been upset when she told me that, even though I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but she said, ‘It’s not the end of the world. At least you’re good looking.’

But being good looking didn’t help me with the school bullies, did it? By the time I was eight, I had barely grown two inches, but the boys lost interest in me. There was a new boy in school. His name was Howard, and he was so overweight, he looked like Humpty Dumpty with glasses. Boy, did he get it every day from the bullies, and even though I was relieved I’d been left alone, I felt sorry for him. Still, he shouldn’t’ve stuffed his mouth with grub all day, like he did, should he?

I didn’t have a problem with eating too much. What Ma cooked was bloody horrible. I don’t know how she made it taste so bad, but when I went over to me friend Tom’s house, his ma was always in the kitchen wearing an apron and cooking up delicious food: sponge cakes, warm treacle puddings, apple pie and custard, all sorts of goodies. When she smiled and offered me a second helping, I wished more than anything that she was me ma. She would stroke Tom’s hair and ask him how it was in school and what he learned that day. My ma never asked me anything like that and I don’t remember her ever touching me hair or giving me a kiss. She ignored me most of the time, except to complain or criticise me.

One day, when Ma had gone shopping, I was sitting at the table in our old dingy kitchen on one of the old wooden chairs that always left splinters in me bum. I wasn’t allowed to get down until I’d finished me dinner. I’d been sitting there for ages, but there was no way I was going to put those brussel sprouts in me mouth. They tasted like a cat’s arse.

Pa was doing his one-handed push-ups on the floor, like he did every day. He was so strong; he made Popeye look like a weakling. I was pushing the food around my plate with me fork, when all of a sudden, he jumped up, clapped a hand on the back of my chair and barked in me ear, ‘You eat your supper, boy. You want to be like this all your life? Like a sissy?’

Even though I knew he could thump me one, I said, ‘No. I won’t,’ and I crossed my arms over my chest and stuck out my jaw. Pa turned red, but I carried on. Somehow, that day, I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t backing down. ‘I’m going to run away and join the circus.’ I told him. He put his face close to mine. I could feel his hot, sour breath on my eyelashes. When he spoke, it was quiet and dangerous. ‘Go to your room, right now, before I belt you so bad, you’ll work in the circus as a deformed freak when I’m finished with you.’

Well, I was happy cos I didn’t have to eat any more of that shit. As I got down from the table, me elbow accidentally knocked me plate, and all the sprouts tumbled to the floor, rolling everywhere. Pa went bloody bonkers. Before I could make it out of the room, he’d undone his belt, screaming, ‘Right boy, this is bloody well it. I’m going to thrash the living daylights out of you.’ I scarpered up the stairs as fast as I could. I knew I had to make it to me room before him, but I tripped on the fifth step and fell right in front of him. He grabbed me by the arm.

I was already crying, begging ‘Pa, no. I’m sorry, Pa. I’ll eat them,’ but he wasn’t having any of it. He took his thick leather belt, wound it around his hand, raised it above his head and whacked it down on me arse, over and over. My bum had red and purple marks all over it. I hardly slept that night because I couldn’t lie still or stop the tears.

The following morning, when I came in the kitchen, he was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. I winced as I lowered myself into a chair and grabbed a piece of toast, cold and burnt to a crisp, from the toast rack.

‘Good morning, son,’ Pa boomed as usual, like nothing had happened. It was just a regular day for him.

Education wasn’t a big deal in our house. Money mattered most— getting it, mainly. Pa owned an antique and silver business and went around London buying and selling. ‘Because of my hard work, I put food on our table and clothes on our backs. That is something to be proud of,’ he told me. ‘I hope one day I can be proud of you, too.’

I would be over the moon if Pa would look at me with respect. Now that would be something.

When I turned fourteen, Pa pulled me out of school. ‘Anything you need to know; I can teach you. You will come and work with me. There is no better education than to experience life itself.’ That suited me fine. I’d had it up to here with Arithmetic and books, so without hesitation I accompanied him every morning after that. Together we visited the silver and antique shops and, day by day, I got to know the value of each item, and how to spot the manufacturer and production date from the hallmarks. It puffed me up to be introduced to everyone as his son, following in his footsteps and all. Truth was, though, all of it bored me to tears. Once I got the hang of things, I started to lose my enthusiasm and concentration. When Pa caught me outside sneaking a fag and reading a comic, he threw a wobbly.

‘Can’t you do anything right? I hand you a career on a platter and you piss all over it. I tell you, boy, I don’t know what’s to become of you.’

It wasn’t fair. Just because Pa’s business was chronically dull, it didn’t mean I was a failure. There had to be something I could succeed in.

For as long as I can remember, since I was just a little kid, the one thing that could always grab my interest was the circus. I lit up when it arrived in town. The smells and the sounds of the wild animals and the colours and antics of the clowns, with their enormous noses and shoes, would get the blood pumping through my veins. I used up all my pocket money on tickets to see the show every day. I would sit on the edge of my seat, feeling the sawdust under my feet, inhaling the excitement. Sometimes I sneaked out of school just to walk around the grounds and watch the acrobats rehearsing. When the season was over and I had to go back to my daily routine, grey and endless as the winter skies above me; it left me with a longing I couldn’t fill.

I was reading the newspaper one morning when I spotted an advertisement. My heart skipped a beat. The circus was due to open in a week. That meant they must have already arrived. I leapt out of my chair, grabbed my cap and jacket, and raced out the door towards the village green. I was on a mission. I was going to get a job with the circus, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

There it was— the big top. It was just as I remembered it, its canvas walls striped like a peppermint candy cane, with pennant flags fluttering at the peak. The circus caravans surrounded the green in a comforting circle. I breathed in the familiar smells of candy floss and manure. My pulse quickened with apprehension. It was such a lively scene. There were people coming from all directions. A young fellow led an elephant down a soft sawdust pathway, another led an enormous brown bear, followed by a line of several clowns, two dwarfs, and an obese lady who needed a shave. I took a deep breath, approached, and cleared my throat. ‘Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find the manager, please?’

‘You mean Benny?’ asked a clown with a teardrop painted on his face. He smiled. ‘Over there.’ He pointed to a white caravan.

I nodded my thanks, went over and knocked on the door.

‘Da,’ a deep voice answered. I pulled open the door. At the back of the caravan, sitting in a huge, winged armchair was a bald, heavyset man with a massive bushy red moustache. He was sucking on a dead cigar between gigantic rubbery lips.

‘Why you come here, boy?’ he said in a heavy foreign accent.

‘I’m looking for a job, sir,’ I said, trying to sound confident.

Benny grunted, picked up a magazine and began leafing through it without looking up. ‘No jobs. Go away.’

‘Please sir. I’ll do anything you like. You don’t have to pay me much, but please let me work here. Just give me a chance. Please.’

‘How old you are?’ Benny plucked the cigar from between his teeth and squinted at me.

‘Fourteen, sir.’ Sweat trickled down my neck and back. I hoped he couldn’t see it.

‘You want work in circus so bad?’

‘Yes, yes, I do. Honest, and I can be a great help to you all. I’ll work hard as anyone.’

Benny studied me as he looked me up and down. Finally, he smiled.

‘Okay. I have son your age in Moscow. Alex. A good boy. I know you boys. When you want something, you must have it. So, I give you job. You come tomorrow six in the morning, okay?’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, I won’t let you down.’ I clasped his hand, shook it, and walked away with a huge smile on my face. I’m going to work in the circus. It’s a dream come true. Pa will be so impressed, so proud I’m making my own way.

I burst into the house. ‘Hey Ma, where’s Pa?’ I called, almost running into the kitchen. I was having a hard time keeping still.

‘He should be home soon,’ Ma said, raising her eyebrows. ‘What’s going on? You look like the cat that got the cream.’

‘I’m not saying anything until Pa comes home, cos I need to tell you both at the same time.’ I sat down and waited, my foot tapping the ground in a constant rhythm. The moment I heard the key in the lock, I flew out of my chair and raced to the front door. ‘Pa,’ I shouted, ‘Guess what? I got a job. Got it all on my own.’

‘Hang on a minute, son,’ Pa waved me away. ‘Let me take my coat off. You’re like a dog waiting for his master.’ As if on cue, Bully came waddling out.

‘But Pa, I want to tell you what happened today.’ I was buzzing with anticipation.

‘Just a minute. Let me spend a moment with my lovely Bully.’

I fiddled with my sleeve as Pa crouched down and rubbed Bully. ‘Who’s a beautiful doggie, eh? You are, my love.’ Bully squirmed with delight.

‘Okay, son. So, what’s this job then?’ he said, getting up and hanging his coat on the hook by the door.

‘It’s in the circus, Pa.’

‘What?’ he scowled. ‘What are you on about?’

‘You know, the circus in town? On the green. It’s back. We’ve seen it tons of times. Anyway, I went down there and spoke to the manager, and he gave me a job and I start tomorrow.’ I beamed.

‘Doing what?’ Pa frowned. ‘And how much are they going to pay you?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll find out. But I know you’re going to be ever so impressed.’

He scoffed. ‘I’ll be impressed the day you bring in lots of money and can fight like a man.’ He turned to Ma who was coming out of the kitchen, the conversation over with, ‘Now Liz, what’s for dinner? I’m starving.’ He walked away.

I stood, looking after him. I may not earn big money for starters, I thought, but when he sees me swinging by my teeth on a high rope trapeze, his mouth will hang open, and he’ll eat his words.

The next morning it was hard to get out of bed at such an ungodly hour, but I grabbed my clothes, got dressed in the dark, and let myself out, racing the two miles to the village green. I arrived, huffing and puffing, at ten minutes to six. The sun was just rising, and I spotted Benny sitting on the steps of his caravan drinking a coffee in the dim light.

He lifted his chin. ‘Good morning, boy. What is your name? I forget yesterday to ask you.’

‘Joe Leslie, sir.’

‘Well, Joe Leslie. You ready to start new job in the circus? You ready to learn? Yes?’

‘Yes sir, boss.’

‘See that man over there?’ He pointed to a fellow across the green wearing an undershirt, standing over a bucket, shaving himself with a razor. ‘That is Vladimir. You go to him and tell him Benny said for you to start work, ok?’

I walked over. ‘Good morning,’ I said to Vladimir, and removed my cap out of respect. ‘I’m Joe, and Benny said to tell you I’m ready to start work.’

Vladimir glanced at me and kept on shaving. ‘You wait one minute, then we start. You no afraid of animals, right?’

I laughed, ‘Me? Afraid? I’m not afraid of anything.’

‘Good, soon we start.’

Animals, eh? Maybe I’ll be a lion tamer. “Joe Leslie and his fierce cats”. Yes, then Pa will notice. Or maybe, “Joe Leslie and his dancing bear.”

Vladimir wiped his face on a towel. ‘Come with me.’

Already I could smell the manure. Benny must’ve seen in me a natural talent. A leader. One who can control wild beasts. We entered a large tent. I stopped in my tracks, amazed. Inside, like a great grey house, stood a gigantic elephant. She swung her massive head towards me and blinked her gentle brown eyes.

‘This is Elana,’ said Vladimir. ‘She my girlfriend, so you be good to her. You see shovel over there? Go take it.’

I rushed to get it.

‘You see that kaka?’ He pointed to a steaming pile of dung. ‘You clean it up. That is your job.’

‘Elephant poo? For how long?’ I asked. It was probably a test, for my first day.

Vladimir flashed a grin that was missing several teeth. ‘Every day, all day. Every time Elana does kaka, you clean it up.’

I didn’t dare say a word. I nodded and lifted the shovel.

At night when I came home, Ma wouldn’t let me in the house until I had hosed myself off. She covered her nose. ‘You’re not coming in here like that.’ Pa just laughed and laughed.

Every morning it got harder and harder to drag myself out of bed. There wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t throb or ache. I would collapse into a deep sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

On the day Elana had the runs, I just couldn’t cope. It was coming out of her arse quicker than I could scoop it up. I went home covered in poo from top to bottom, stinking to high heaven, exhausted and thoroughly demoralised.

The next morning was the official opening. There were crowds of people waiting in line, and I could hear them buzzing with excitement from behind the animal tent, where I was hosing myself off with freezing cold water. As I sat on a wooden crate, shaking the water out of my ears, Benny dropped by.

‘Joe Leslie. Today, after Vladmir and Elana finish their act, you must go in the big top and clean up the kaka she has done. Okay?’

‘Yes sir, boss.’

Vladmir came in dressed in a red and gold costume and draped a matching cape and headdress over Elana. She looked very smart. They both did.

‘Good luck,’ I told them, as Vladmir clambered up on Elana and steered, lumbering her over to the big top. I followed behind and stood in the shadows. I prayed that Elana might have constipation after yesterday’s attacks, so I wouldn’t need to go in and clean, but luck was not on my side. I watched as piles of poo poured out of her as Vladmir rode on her back. I clutched the shovel in one hand and the bucket in the other as they did their final dance to the music under the swirling lights.

Once they had left, I raced over to the steaming heaps at the same time the clowns appeared. The crowd clapped and cheered watching them bouncing around with their floppy, over-sized shoes and honking noses. As I was bending over, trying my best to fit all the muck into the container, I heard shouts from the audience.

‘Hey Leslie, sissy boy. That’s right. Shovel it all up.’

I looked up, cringing at the sight of the class bullies, the whole lot of them, sitting in the front row, pointing at me, laughing their heads off. I clenched my jaw shut and carried on with my work. When I was finished, I headed to the exit, staggering as I carried the overflowing bucket, and lurched to avoid the clowns that were in my way.

‘Sissy boy can’t even carry a bucket of shit,’ one of the pock-faced bastards shouted at me.

I stopped. Turning around, I stood there for a moment, staring at him, my eyes like slits.

‘Sissy boy. Too weak to carry a bucket of shit.’ He hooted again.

I didn’t know what came over me. All I knew was I’d had enough. I marched straight over to him and, in a flash, dumped the whole bucket on his head, grinning like crazy. He spluttered and gagged as masses of elephant dung splattered over him, covering him from head to foot. I roared with laughter, turned and left; my head held high. With poo all over me, I headed over to the manager’s caravan.

‘Benny, I’m sorry, but I just can’t anymore. I quit.’

To my surprise, he smiled and laughed. ‘It’s ok, Joe, my Alex does not like shit either. Good luck with whatever you do.’ He said and handed me my wages.

I walked home, hosed myself off outside and went in search of Pa. He was with Ma in the kitchen.

‘Pa, I just want you to know that I’ve quit my job.’

He snorted over his newspaper. ‘Just as I expected. You couldn’t hold down a job.’

‘I could Pa. I tried, really, I did, but the boys from school turned up and laughed at me.’

‘And I suppose, as usual, you cried like a baby,’ he sneered.

‘No. I emptied a bucket of elephant shit all over one of them.’

‘Did you indeed?’ Pa put down his newspaper. His face broke into a grin. ‘Well, that’s something else. Pull up a chair, and Ma, put the kettle on. Let’s have a cuppa together and you can tell me all the details.’ He took a cigarette packet out of his shirt pocket. ‘Here lad, take one. I gotta say, for the first time, you’ve made me proud.’

I had never felt so happy as I did at that moment. I was beaming. It was the best day of my life.