Eye Lake by Tristan Hughes Page B

the cub and drawing her further and further away into the bush, crying and bellowing and roaring for what she thought was her baby. The men came back and moved in a circle around the cub. When they caught it they tied up its limbs and snout with rope.
    â€˜It all went like clockwork,’ Jim said. ‘Except when they came back to the spot where they’d left the other two they found the wolf man stuck high up a poplar tree, trembling like one of its leaves. He lost heart with his hunting after that,’ Jim said. ‘The day after the picnic Mr. Gordon took pity on him and gave him two wolves he’d poisoned. They took a picture for him to take home, of him standing with his axe raised over one of the already dead wolves, and the day after that he was headed back to Minneapolis.
    â€˜Back on the beach the firepits were ready and were heaped full of fish and game. And as they waited for it to cook, they sat down on the sand by the water and the children swam and the men drank from flasks of whiskey and smoked cigars and pipes and talked. The circus man was in full flow then,’ Jim said, ‘stoked up with the whiskey and pleased with his bear – talking about his old country and the lost happy days of his and his sister’s childhood.’
    They lived on the banks of the Danube, he told them, in a castle made of stone that shone almost white in the sun. It had columns and arched doors and a high tower topped with brightly coloured pennants that flapped merrily in the breeze. The gardens sloped down to the river’s bank, dotted with great oaks and elms and beds of flowers and marble fountains where carved mermaids lounged beneath cascading founts of crystal water. ‘Ah, those gardens,’ the man sighed, ‘such a lush deep green they were, and so soft beneath my feet – like carpets.’ In the evenings he’d sneak out and watch the moon rise above the river, and it was such a big moon you’d feel as though you could reach out and touch it. And the stars … they were stars like no others, like a thousand diamonds in the sky. And there were more diamonds in the castle too – on the nights when they had dances and balls in the main hall – shining from the tiaras and necklaces of the ladies as they waltzed beneath the lights of the chandeliers, the twirling satin of their dresses as sweet and soft as cotton candy. ‘What enchanted nights they’d been,’ the circus man said. What a time and world it had been then! Marked by a glamour and beauty he’d never seen since.
    â€˜We all sat and listened,’ Jim said. ‘It was a pretty story. And what with the smells of the fish and game cooking in the pits and the mellow warm air of the afternoon, it was a pleasant enough picture to doze off into. The circus man seemed to be enjoying it as much as anybody and once he’d got into his stride I reckon he might’ve even half-believed it himself. The tear in his eye when he got to the tragic circumstances that’d taken it all away was almost real. Except this time there was no comforting hand offered by the sister. She sat through the whole performance – wrapped in the sheet beneath the umbrella – without saying a word, not a single word. I reckon she’d heard it plenty of times already.
    â€˜Clarence stood up then and, putting on his finest airs and graces, declared: “If I might be so bold as to interrupt the gentleman, as everyone here knows we have a dance of our own here in Crooked River tonight and though we can’t offer quite the finery and luxury of those dances he remembers, I hope we can at least offer our warmest hospitality.” And saying that he offered the sister an invitation he’d written in his very best hand on a small white piece of paper.
    â€˜Now the thing was,’ said Jim, ‘we had those dances in Clarence’s hotel every night after the picnics – and once a month