Wings and arrows design sheet

The big top came down in Shrewsbury on Tuesday, folded like a wet sheet, and Mr Caddick has sold the elephant to a farm outside Wrexham. I am writing from the back of the lorry because it is the only quiet place left. The tent pegs are in a biscuit tin and the wings are wrapped in tissue paper on the bench beside me.

You will laugh, but I have kept the arrows. There are two of them, the one with the bent shaft that Father filed down for the finale, and the spare with the cockerel feathers. Mr Caddick wanted them for the scrap man. I told him the bow was mine and the arrows went with it, which is true, though the bow is held together with electrical tape now.

On the last night the audience was eleven people and a dog. I stood at the far end of the field where the ring used to be, drew the string back to the old mark, and thought about how Father used to say a wing is only a wing when something is pulling it up. I let the arrow go. It cleared the hedge and I heard it land in the stubble, much further than I ever shot it under the lights.

I walked out in the dark to find it. The shaft was still whole, though the point had buried itself in a rotten stile. I pulled it free and put it inside my coat, and I think I will keep going like that, a little further each town, until someone tells me to stop. Write when you have the address. Tell Ruby the wings are coming with me, and so is the dog.

Yours, Tom