Handwritten quote on a wrist

The big top came down at four this morning, sail by sail, and Mr Pask stood in the wet grass shouting figures from his ledger at nobody in particular. Three elephants have gone to a farm outside Penrith and the calliope is going for scrap. Nobody asked whether I wanted to keep the wire. I didn't, in the end. I packed it in the bottom of Gran's trunk with the sequins, where it can rust in peace.

You'll remember the banner Gran painted for the old ring, the one with the lettering that curved above the proscenium. Half of it flaked off in Hexham. What survived says the thing she used to say when the generator failed and the crowd went quiet: i am not afraid to walk this world alone. Pask thought it too gloomy for a family show, so she repainted it small on the inside of the ticket booth, where only the cashier could read it.

Last night I walked the wire without a net for the final house, because the net had already been sold to a man from Carlisle. Forty-one people sat in a tent with its sides rolled up and the moon sitting over the hedge. Halfway across I stopped to listen for the band, but there was no band, only the cows in the next field complaining about the noise.

I leave for Edinburgh on Monday, on the early train, with the trunk and a room booked above a bakery. I'll write when I've found somewhere to stand still. Don't come looking. You'd only bring Mum's opinions with you.

Love, Nell