LITMIR.BIZ

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to put his good trousers and white shirt on so he could don his ringmaster apparel over the top.

      He walked in the front door and Margot was bundled up like a snow bunny: two coats, fur boots, mittens, fur hat and rug.

      ‘It’s um … summer, Margot,’ he said and she snorted.

      ‘Says you who have body fat.’ Then she paused and looked at him critically. ‘Body mass, I should say. Muscle. You look like you could be Allie’s catcher.’

      ‘Rather Valentino than me,’ he said, suppressing a shudder. It was the one part of the circus he didn’t enjoy—watching Allie fly through the air, totally dependent on a great bull of a man whose grip was like iron but whose intelligence …

      ‘He hasn’t dropped her yet,’ Margot said gently, watching his face. ‘So I can’t see why he would tonight. Come on then, get changed. I don’t want to miss anything.’

      ‘You’re coming?’

      ‘Yes. Hurry up.’

      ‘They can hardly start without the ringmaster,’ he said dryly and she cast him a sharp look.

      ‘Neither they can,’ she said softly. ‘How fortunate.’

      Things went well that night. Allie’s dog routine was even more spectacular—their time on the beach seemed to have done them good. No one dropped anything or was dropped. The audience roared when they were supposed to roar and they hushed when they were supposed to hush.

      Margot had an awesome seat. Tickets had been sold out for days but Allie saw her arrive and someone ran for a chair and she was placed right up the front, supervising all.

      Matt was aware of her as he worked.

      She was a force to be reckoned with, his Aunt Margot. He knew she disapproved of the way he’d been raised. She’d never criticised his grandfather to him, but he’d overheard a couple of heated conversations with his grandfather. Very heated.

      ‘You’re bringing that boy up to be a financial calculator, not a child,’ she’d told her brother. ‘For heaven’s sake, give him some freedom.’

      Margot was a Bond—stern, unyielding, undemonstrative—yet she’d never had anything to do with the bank. She’d lived on her own income. She’d refused family help. She was an independent spirit. So maybe a part of her wasn’t a Bond.

      A true Bond would choke seeing Mathew Bond in glittery top hat and tails, Matt thought, but Margot cheered and gasped with the rest of them, and at the end of the performance he watched Allie rush around to talk to her and, to his astonishment, he saw his normally undemonstrative aunt give Allie a hug.

      As the big top emptied he strolled across to join them. Casually. As if it didn’t do anything to his head to see these two women together. Allie was kneeling beside Margot’s chair, smiling and holding her hand, her affection obvious, and the old woman, who only days ago had decreed she was dying, was holding her hand back and smiling and chuckling at something Allie was saying.

      He’d given the circus a two-week reprieve, he thought, but it had also given Margot two weeks.

      And after two weeks?

      Worry about that then, he told himself. Maybe he could pick Margot up and forcibly take her back to Sydney …

      Yeah. She’d be about as at home in his Sydney apartment as Allie’s camels would be.

      The women broke apart as he approached, both looking at him critically. Banker in spangles. He could see a twinkle in Margot’s eyes and half of him loved seeing mischief again, and the other half thought—uh oh.

      ‘You look splendid,’ Margot declared. ‘And you make a wonderful ringmaster. I just wish your grandfather was alive to see it.’

      ‘He’ll be rolling in his grave right now,’ he said, smiling down at her. He loved this old lady and, no matter what, these two weeks were a gift. ‘The whole Bond dynasty will be. My father, my grandfather and his grandfather before them. What do you reckon, Margot—should I give up banking and run away with the circus?’

      ‘There’s not a lot of money in circusing,’ Allie said, smiling but rueful. ‘Plus you’ll have to look for another circus.’

      ‘I don’t know why this one’s closing.’ Margot suddenly sounded fretful. ‘Mathew, you should buy it. You’re rich enough to buy it. He is, you know,’ she said to Allie, as if Matt was suddenly not there. ‘Rich as Croesus. He’s rolling in banking money like his father and his grandfather and great-grandfather before him. Not that it’s made any of them happy. Mathew, buy a circus and have some fun.’

      Allie’s smile remained but it started to look fixed.

      ‘It wouldn’t work,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you for offering,’ she told Margot, with only a sideways glance at Matt. ‘But, even though this has been an appalling shock and we’re not as prepared as I thought we were, this is a circus on its last legs. Look round, Margot. Half our crew is geriatric.’

      ‘They don’t look geriatric to me,’ Margot snapped.

      ‘You’re how old?’ Allie said and her smile returned. ‘Get real, Margot. Could you manage a trapeze or two? There’s a time to move on.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Margot said and glared at her nephew. ‘That’s what I’ve been telling Mathew.’

      ‘I don’t mean dying,’ Allie said indignantly. ‘Just … not playing with the circus any more. Taking life seriously.’

      ‘Why don’t you mean dying then?’ Margot said morosely. ‘You can’t get any more serious than that.’

      ‘Margot …’

      ‘Don’t you worry about me, girl,’ Margot ordered with a decisive nod. ‘Tell me, are you making plans to see these elephants of yours? Mathew tells me you didn’t even know where they were.’

      ‘I can’t worry about them now. I’ll figure …’

      ‘You loved them,’ Margot snapped. ‘That’s why your grandfather asked for my help in the first place. I know he told you he’d sold them to a zoo in Western Australia. I always thought it was stupid, lying to you, but now you know they’re local, you could go see them. Mathew could take you.’

      And the mischief was back, just like that.

      ‘Where are they?’ Allie said cautiously.

      ‘It’s an open range sanctuary, part of a farm, only it’s not open to the public. You’ll need to get more details from Henry but, as far as I can remember, it’s on the other side of Wagga.’

      ‘Wagga,’ Allie said faintly. ‘That’s almost three hundred miles.’

      ‘Matt has a nice car.’ Margot sounded oblivious to a minor hiccup like three hundred miles. ‘The circus doesn’t do a matinee on Wednesday. You could be there and back by the evening show.’

      ‘Not even for my elephants,’ Allie said, and Matt realised there’d been a faint sheen of hope in her eyes, a lifting of the bleak acceptance he’d seen too much of, but she extinguished the hope fast now and moved on. ‘Three hundred miles and back in a day with a show afterwards? That’s impossible. When … when we’re wound up, there’ll be all the time in the world to go look at elephants.’

      ‘But you’d like to,’ Matt said slowly, watching her face.

      ‘You have a gorgeous car,’ she told him. ‘But not that gorgeous. A six hundred mile round trip? Get real. Did you like the show, Margot?’

      ‘I loved it,’ Margot said soundly.

      ‘Well, that’s all that matters,’ Allie decreed. ‘Keeping the punters happy. For the next two weeks this circus is going to run like clockwork, and then I’ll worry about my elephants. I’ll have time then.’

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