Snarling lion portrait on a forearm

The big cat has stopped eating the horse meat, so Mr Achterberg says we will be in Hull by Friday or we will be in the ground. I haven't told Ma. She writes that the wireless has your name on it now, and I've been reading your letters twice over, once for the news and once for the bit where you say you miss the smell of the canvas. The canvas smells of wet dog and paraffin. You'd hate it.

The lion is called Caesar, though the posters said Rajah when Father bought him off a dealer in Antwerp. He has a mane like a burnt doormat and he looks at you the way the bank manager does, straight on, as if you owe him money. Last night he got up when the rain started on the roof and stood at the bars, mouth open, showing every tooth, and I thought, that's the only honest face left in this outfit.

Nobody's paid the rigging men since August. Father sold the calliope in March, and the new town councils want a fair with no animals, so we are a show with a lion and nowhere to put him. Mr Achterberg wants to sell Caesar to a farm near Doncaster. I told him I would walk him there myself, and he laughed, but I wasn't joking.

I'm going to open the gate on Sunday night, when the lamps are out and the field is quiet. I'm not going to say more in a letter. Burn this one, please. Come and meet us at the Doncaster road if you can, and bring the old van's keys.

Love, Nell