Bodhisattva figure with lotus on a forearm

The big top came down in Carlisle on Tuesday, and Mr Halloran has finally stopped pretending the Marvels will open again in spring. We have eleven horses left and a wagon of sawdust that smells of wet dog. He sold the calliope to a scrapyard man in Penrith and cried in the cab of the lorry afterwards, which I did not expect from him.

The only thing he would not sell was the Lady. You remember her, the plaster and oak figure from the Liverpool dealer, robed and jewelled, one hand lifted and the other holding a lotus bloom, a halo of carved petals behind her head. Halloran calls her our lucky piece and set her at the foot of the sideshow tent, where children used to rub her palm for luck. Last night a village boy rubbed it so hard the gilt came away on his fingers, and he looked at me as though he had broken something holy.

I told him the Lady has been rubbed by a hundred thousand hands and will take a few more. Then I sat with her after he ran off. The lamp made her eyelids seem to lower, as if she were tired of us all, or perhaps merely patient. I have decided she is patient. It is the only quality a travelling show ever really needed.

Halloran wants her loaded onto the last wagon for the auction in Leeds on Monday. I told him the wagon has no room, which is a lie, and he told me I am a sentimental old fool, which is true. So she stays in the tent until I think of a better lie. Write soon, and tell Mother the lotus has not sunk.

Yours, Ada