Circus by Claire Battershill Page A

it’s an ongoing quest. Her ex-boyfriend was the best crossworder she’d ever known, and could even do cryptic ones with clues about the Anglo-Saxon word for “helmet” or a type of Gregorian chant or the anatomical term for the space between the upper lip and the nose. She never showed an interest until she was about twenty-five, when her roommates started reading clues out loud at the breakfast table, and she’d felt anti-social for not joining in. Leon had never done a crossword before he met Susan, and now he usually finishes them before she has a chance to see the paper.
    Halfway through Susan’s thirty-seventh trip across the living room, the phone rings. For a moment, she’s uncertain about whether she’s allowed to leave the tightrope to answer it. After three rings she jumps and runs to the coffee table, snatching up the phone just as the answering machine beeps in.
    “Are we being recorded?” her mother asks.
    “I’m afraid so,” Susan replies.
    For precisely two minutes, neither of them speaks. Susan sighs. Her mother coughs. The answering machine beeps again, and they both say “Hello” at the same time.
    “So,” says Susan’s mother.
    “So,” says Susan.
    “Well. The thing is,” she pauses, “you know I miss it.”
    “I know. What is it this time? Has Dr. Harman seen you?”
    “Well, Susan, it’s my hip. I’ve dislocated my hip. Dr. Harman seems to think I can’t really manage this sort of thing on my own. So I was wondering. Where’s Leon? Is Leon home?”
    “He’s at work.”
    “So late? Is he always this late?”
    “No. What do you need?”
    “I need you to come, just for a week or so. I mean, I imagine a week would just about do it.”
    “Of course.”
    They hang up. Susan goes to the bedroom and begins to pack her suitcase. What’s in there already is:
    One spoon.
    One marble hippo, palm-sized.
    Thirty-seven cents.
    One unused tissue.
    A list.
    She packs the rest of her belongings and pauses for a minute, her fluorescent pink lacy underwear that she bought as a joke (but secretly quite likes) dangling from her finger. It occurs to her that maybe this has been the apartment phase,the job phase, the Leon phase. She packs as much as she can fit in the roll-along suitcase, and heads to her mother’s.
    Before she goes, she leaves a Post-it note on the counter.
    Contortion accident. Love
.

I T WASN ’ T THE SPORT I WOULD HAVE CHOSEN . That’s the thing about being an Olympian, or any kind of serious athlete, musician, or artist. You don’t decide. Maybe your parents do, or your teachers or your coaches or your friends. One well-timed suggestion and the course of your life is set. But it’s never really you who makes the call. Many people, I’m sure, can’t fully explain why they do what they do for a living. Or they might have a great deal to say, but none of it gets to the heart of the matter. Maybe someone says she became a doctor to help people. But there are lots of useful jobs. Postal workers are immensely helpful, for example. That’s why I find it bewildering when people ask: “Why did you become a lugist?” I just don’t know how to answer that question. I embarrass myself every time. All those repetitive hours of training, those doleful looks from friends who wanted to hang out during sliding times, and I simply have no answer. I didn’t even like toboggans or crazy carpets as a kid, which is a reply I’ve heard my teammate give. No, luge is not something that occurs to a child when he’s at swimming lessons or riding his bike in endless circles in the driveway so his grandmother can keep one eye on him and one eye on
Coronation Street
. Hockey is the stuff ofchildhood fantasies. Kids dream of snowboarding, skiing, and speed skating, even. But two-man luge?

    Don’t get me wrong: we’ve always been an athletic family. My dad was a champion hammer-thrower in his day, and my mum is still freakishly good at cartwheels and handsprings from her time as a