Peacock and peony on the side of a thigh

The fair pulled into Harrowgate Meadows on Tuesday and I have not stopped sneezing since, what with the candyfloss sugar and the wet hay. Mr Aldous has put the bird on the front of the Electric Wonder tent again, the old peacock Mother bought off a Dutch circus in '39. He dragged its crate out himself and made the boys carry the feed. I told him the bird would sulk in this weather and he said a sulking peacock sells more tickets than a happy one, which I have decided not to argue with.

You would like the girl who sweeps the midway. Her name is Ada Fenn and she has a box of pressed flowers from every town we have played since spring, peonies mostly, the pink sort that go brown at the edges if you leave them in the sun. Last night she showed me how she keeps the petals flat by slipping them between the pages of a seed catalogue. Every time the bird fans out its tail she goes quiet and watches the eyes in the feathers, as though she is counting them and keeping a tally of who has looked back.

The last thing I want to tell you is that on the final night, when the lamps were going out one by one, the peacock opened its whole tail against the black canvas of the tent and Ada started to laugh, properly, the way you do when something is too beautiful to be sensible. The keeper swore it was the first time the bird had ever shown off to an audience of one. I have pinned a single petal from her box inside my ticket book. It is still pink. Write back soon and tell me the new rooms at home are warmer than this place.

Your loving sister, Rose