What would Philip Astley, the Father of the Circus, make of today’s animal-free big top? Find out in this timeslip story by Douglas McPherson, which originally appeared in My Weekly.
In 1794, flames lit up the night sky. Astley’s Amphitheatre, the greatest hippodrome in London, was ablaze.
The streets south of Westminster Bridge were full of smoke and running men.
Philip Astley hadn’t seen such chaos since the war against the French, which he’d fought his way through on horseback, sword in hand.
At least he’d got all the horses out of the arena, and the people, with no lives lost.
The business he’d built for twenty years, he couldn’t save.
Choked with smoke and physically spent, England’s greatest showman staggered into a dark lane.
He fell against a wall and then to the ground.
His world dissolved into blackness.
Two-hundred-and-thirty years later, the sun rose over a man laying on the pavement.
He opened his eyes and blinked.
“Patty?” He grabbed the wrist of the woman leaning over him.
“I’m not Patty, sir, I’m Jane – a paramedic.”
“The fire!” The man’s eyes appeared to focus. “Where’s Patty?”
“What fire is that, sir?” It had been a long shift, but Jane hadn’t heard of any conflagrations in the area.
“My amphitheatre! It was ablaze.”
“Try to stay still, sir, until I see if you're injured.”
Jane put the man at around 50 – twice the age of the typical male she found passed out on a pavement after a party.
He’d clearly been to some kind of event. He wore knee-high black boots, white breeches and a short red tunic with rows of gold braid across the front, like a member of a marching band.
His clothes and face were smeared with soot and he smelt of smoke.
“Can you tell me your name, sir?”
“Philip Astley.”
“As in the man who invented the circus?” Jane realised his clothes were a circus outfit.
“Yes, that’s me,” he said without smiling.
“Fancy dress party, was it? So what’s your real name?”
“That is my real name!” Brushing aside her protests, he climbed to his feet. He was tall and powerfully built.
“Where am I?”
“Cornwall Road, Lambeth,” Jane told him.
“I don’t recognise these buildings.” Philip’s eyes widened as a car sped past Jane’s ambulance, which was parked on the kerb. “What in the name…? Carriages without horses?”
“I think you may have hit your head,” said Jane. “Can you tell me the date?”
“The 17th… no, that was yesterday. The 18th of September, 1794.”
“Try adding a couple of centuries,” said Jane. “It’s the 18th of September ….2024.”
“What nonsense do you speak?” Philip demanded.
“Does it look like 1794 to you?” Jane asked.
“No.” Philip rubbed his chin. “It does not.”
A thunderous rumbling made him spin around. He watched in wonder as a train rolled over a bridge.
“Is this witchcraft?” he mused. “But hold on! If this is the future, how would you recognise my name and know of my circus?”
“My dad’s a circus fan,” Jane grinned. “And there’s a blue plaque over there.”
Philip followed her pointing finger along the pavement. High on the orange brick wall was a blue disc.
Cupped in the bottom of the circle were the words 250th anniversary 2018.
Philip stared at the memorial like a man who had found his own grave.
Jane gazed at him and shivered. She’d never believed in ghosts or time travel, but an icy feeling was making her pulse race.
Taking out her phone, she looked up Astley’s Wikipedia page.
“Sir, what is your date of birth?”
“8th of January, 1742,” he answered automatically.
“Place of birth?”
“Newcastle-under-Lyme.”
Jane’s throat tightened as she checked the information.
“When did you open your amphitheatre?”
“Twenty years ago, in 1773.”
“And your riding school before that?”
“Just after the war. 1768.”
“What regiment did you serve in?”
“The Light Dragoons,” Philip snapped. “Why?”
Jane thought it was a lot of backstory for a fancy dress party-goer to memorise.
But he couldn’t really be Astley, could he?
Jane stared queasily at the date Astley’s first amphitheatre had burned down: it would have been last night, 230 years ago.
“Do you have any ID on you?” she asked.
“ID?” Philip frowned, as if she'd used a foreign word.
“Anything in your pockets that might help us… clear this up.”
He checked, and Jane prayed he would find a driving licence that would prove he was John Ordinary, born in the 1970s.
“Looks like I have just a few farthings to my name.”
Jane looked at the coins in his palm. The pavement wobbled beneath her. She was no coin collector, but she knew at a glance that the money was 18th century.
“I think we should have a doctor take a look at you,” Jane said carefully.
“A ride in your horseless carriage?” Philip flashed a showman’s grin. “If this is a dream, I might as well enjoy it.”
Late that afternoon, Philip stood in a hospital gown, staring from an upstairs window at a London he didn’t recognise.
The dream that he’d begun to enjoy had long lost its novelty. He wondered impatiently if he would ever wake – and, more worryingly, if he was dreaming at all.
The door of his room opened and he turned to see Jane. She’d changed from her paramedic overalls to a jumper and long skirt.
“Ah, a visitor to the lunatic asylum.” Amid all the confusion of the day, Jane had been a kindly presence and he was glad to see her again.
She reminded him of his darling Patty: a strong, capable woman.
When he’d set out his first ring in the open air on Lambeth marsh, Patty had played the drum while he performed tricks on horseback, standing on the galloping animal’s back with his sword brandished aloft.
Patty had ridden her own horse in the show – side saddle with no reins and her hands in the air, gloved in two swarms of bees that buzzed around her, to the amazement of the crowd.
“It’s not an asylum, it’s a hospital,” Jane gently corrected him.
“An asylum is where you think I belong, though, isn’t it?” Philip said grimly. “You all think I’m mad – and perhaps I am.”
“Not mad. Maybe confused.”
Jane said it without conviction, because it was she who was baffled.
“I’ve brought your clothes. Freshly dry cleaned.”
She put his tunic, shirt and breeches on the bed. They’d turned out to be not a costume. Not the modern fancy dress type, anyway.
A silk label inside the tunic identified its tailor and date of manufacture: 1790. She supposed it could be an antique, but it looked almost new.
“The doctor did a DNA test and there’s no record of you anywhere,” Jane said. “You don’t match any missing persons. The address you gave no longer exists.”
“Then I’m to be locked up here?”
“You’re not a prisoner. You’re free to go at any time,” said Jane, although she wondered where he could go with just a handful of 18th century change.
“I’d be better off locked up.” Philip indicated a newspaper he’d been reading. “Out there seems to be the madhouse.”
“The doctor recommends you stay here a few days to see if…” Jane stopped herself saying, “... you remember who you really are.”
“In the meantime,” she said, “I had an idea, and the doctor agreed it might be worth a try. We wondered if you’d like to go to the circus?”
It was a balmy evening, with the sun just setting, as they walked across the heath towards the lights of a red-and-yellow big top.
On Jane’s right were her husband and two children. On her left, Philip and her dad, Mike, were locked in lively conversation.
She smiled at the sound of the two men getting on so well, as her dad filled Philip in on 250 years of circus history.
Mike didn’t believe for a moment that he was talking to the real Philip Astley, but he could talk about the circus for hours with anyone who would listen – and he seldom met anyone who was prepared to!
“Look how popular your creation remains!” Mike enthused as they joined the crowd converging on the tent.
At the entrance they were met by an usher wearing a similar tunic to Philip’s.
“Are you a circus man?” the usher asked.
“Indeed I am.”
“Which show?”
“My own: Philip Astley’s!”
“Good one, mate!” The usher laughed. “Enjoy the performance.”
They took their seats at ringside and Jane began to doubt her reasoning behind the outing.
Would taking Philip to a circus really break his delusion that he invented the entertainment – or might it deepen his belief?
And how realistic was her other half-formed hope, that a confused homeless man might find refuge in a business where he thought he belonged?
She wondered if he actually had any skills to offer a travelling show.
The show began and Jane cast sideways glances at Philip. The lights gleamed in his eyes as he watched transfixed the clowns, tightrope walkers and trapeze artists.
“What do you think of it?” she asked between acts.
“No horses,” he said, sadly. “But even so…”
“Instead of horses, there are bikes!” Mike beamed.
They watched a quartet of Chinese girls pedal around the ring, then stand on their saddles – no hands! – the way Astley had stood on horseback centuries before.
At the end of the show, the packed audience rose in a standing ovation.
Philip thumbed his eyes.
“I’m quite overcome. Excuse me. I need a little air.”
He left his seat and Jane touched her dad’s arm.
“You’d better keep an eye on him.”
“Of course.”
It took a while for the audience to file out. When Jane and her family emerged on the dark heath, she looked around for her dad and Philip – and saw only her dad.
“Where is he?”
“I’m sorry, Jane, I lost sight of him.”
For the next half hour they searched inside and outside the tent until there was no one left around but the circus staff, none of whom had seen Philip.
“He can’t have disappeared,” said Jane’s husband.
Trembling in the chill, Jane wondered if he had – as mysteriously as he’d arrived.
In the dark grass, something glinted.
She picked it up: a bronze farthing.
It was the last trace she ever found of the man who thought he was Philip Astley.
Philip opened his eyes and blinked in the morning sun.
The air stank of smoke, but there was no roar of fire – the inferno must have burnt itself out.
A woman leaned over him.
“Patty?”
“Oh, Philip, you’re all right!” His wife’s face was streaked with tears. “I searched all night and couldn’t find you. I must have walked past this very –”
He cut her off by pulling her to him and kissing her lips with a deeper gratitude than he had ever felt before.
“I’m back!” His eyes soaked up the familiar buildings.
He climbed to his feet.
“I had the strangest dream… or was it a vision, a glimpse of a possible tomorrow?”
“The amphitheatre is completely destroyed.” Patty’s eyes were empty.
“Then we’ll rebuild it! Come, Patty,” he took her hand. “We have history to make.”
About to lead her away, the showman paused and frowned.
For a moment he thought he’d seen something on a nearby wall. A blue plaque…
But no, it was a shadow.
Shrugging, he put his free hand into his pocket and was surprised to find a small piece of paper.
ASTLEY’S
Philip and Patty Astley first staged spectacular horse-riding feats nearby in 1768.
Adding acrobats and clowns they created what we know as
CIRCUS
He took it out: a ticket. On it was printed: Zippos Circus, 18.09.2024.
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