Death and Mr. Pickwick (15 page)

The boy stood in the wings. He saw his father distract a man's attention by pointing towards the upper rows, and then move his wriggling fingers close to the pocket watch in the man's waistcoat. As the fingers approached their target, there would be nervous laughter building in the audience; the man suddenly turned, and Grimaldi's fingers darted a retreat and stroked his chin in all innocence. The boy laughed. This was repeated, and on the third attempt, the fingers snatched the watch, and to cries of ‘Stop thief!' Grimaldi ran around the stage, his elbows working up and down, his knees lifting high in the air, and the audience's laughs came in roars, as did the boy's.

After the performance, the boy watched his father change, but all the time he removed his make-up, Grimaldi did not cease to impart wisdom, experience and direction. ‘There are good clowns, and then there are very good clowns and then there are great clowns,' Grimaldi said to his son. ‘And you will be a great clown.'

‘What is the difference between the three sorts, Father?'

‘If you are a good clown, you will amuse the audience. If you are very good, then there will be no sense of the scripted about you. It will all seem a spirited improvisation. But if you are great – if you are great – it will seem you
are
a clown, in life, not just on stage. To reach that standard, my boy, you must not only work exceptionally hard, you must think like a clown even when you are not dressed as one. When you are walking along the street – when you are sitting eating your dinner – when you are in bed – always, you must be a clown in your mind – yes, even your dreams should be clown dreams. If you persist, there will come a point where the clown starts to break through into what you are.'

‘If that happened, would I be a great clown?'

‘You would be on the path. But do not be complacent! I am not. There are a thousand blurred and imperfect clowns in me, and I am aware of them, in the moment before I go on stage. When I am in the wings, sometimes I shake all over, my lips tremble, and I am beset by fear. I have had stage managers say to me, “Grimaldi, why are
you
so full of nerves?” But as soon as I go on stage – then, I am what I am. On stage, no one is more confident. But come – let us eat.'

Grimaldi and his son went to the Sir Hugh Myddleton Inn where a vast double supper was already prepared for Grimaldi alone, while the boy ate a sandwich.

‘A clown needs his fuel,' said Grimaldi, shovelling in a forkful like a stoker, ‘and once you are performing, so will you. But there is one thing I must warn you about.
This
.' He tapped a small glass of beer beside his mountainous plate. ‘I have seen too many good performers destroyed by this stuff. If I see a man of our profession on that road, I warn him. And I am warning you. Moderation in alcohol is the rule.'

The boy sipped from a proportionately smaller glass of beer.

*   *   *

‘You're not
still
here training your boy?' said the familiar stagehand, as he came to the clown's dressing room one night after a show. Grimaldi was in his costume, and the boy was tumbling on the floor. ‘I want to lock up, Mr Grimaldi.'

‘He hasn't got it right yet,' said Grimaldi. ‘I'll lock up for you.'

‘I have never seen you this hard on anyone before,' said the stagehand as he handed over the keys.

‘No one will say that he has got in the cast just because he is my son.'

‘I know it's not my business, Mr Grimaldi – but it's what it's doing to
you
that troubles me as much as anything. You are putting additional strain on your own body by teaching him. You need rest, Mr Grimaldi. And so does your son. I've noticed recently that you are starting to stoop. Your body is getting old even if your soul isn't.'

‘There is a new body here.' He pointed to his son, still tumbling. ‘It will not let me down. And when the time comes, my son will train
his
son. Good! That's it, my boy!'

‘When do you plan his debut?'

‘At Christmas. But since you ask – would you like to witness a special moment?'

‘It depends what it is, Mr Grimaldi. If it's another trick you've both sweated over, no.'

‘It's not. I have the boy's outfit, for his debut. Suppose I buy you a meal, and then we both come back here, and by that time he will have put on his outfit and make-up. I want you to see him.'

‘I don't know, Mr Grimaldi – it's getting a bit late, and I'd have to wait for you to change first.'

‘No you wouldn't. I've eaten in costume and make-up many a time, and the inn's used to it. Besides, it helps my boy learn that a clown must live the life of a clown – that it must be second nature.'

So the two men adjourned to the inn, Grimaldi eating a piled-high plateful in full make-up and costume. To the freckled stagehand's questions about the type of outfit he had acquired for his son, its colours and design, Grimaldi merely said: ‘Just wait and see.'

When they returned to the theatre, Grimaldi opened the dressing-room door an inch and peered inside. ‘Good, my boy. You are ready.' He beckoned to the stagehand, who had waited a little way along the corridor: ‘Come and take a look.'

The moment the door was fully opened, and the stagehand saw inside, his nervous look betrayed the unsettling nature of his thoughts, and the movement of his teeth upon his lips seemed an echo of his unease – although Grimaldi did not appear to notice at all.

For there stood Grimaldi and son. Their predominantly white costumes, their white, black and crimson make-up and their blue plumed wigs were identical in every detail, except that the son's were reproduced on a smaller scale, and his plumes reached only to the father's shoulder.

‘This,' said Grimaldi, with a proud, red-painted grin, ‘is how he will make his debut. This is Clowny-Chip!'

*   *   *

The progress of J. S. Grimaldi within clowndom was sure and steady. His limbs grew strong, his frame became lithe. Also, his complexion darkened, and with thick black hair and features displaying an Italian charm, his attractions to the opposite sex were evident. Yet there was a melancholy and a diffidence about JS. He was quiet, and he avoided the women who hung around the green rooms. Usually, he turned down invitations to theatrical parties. He rarely drank.

One summer evening in 1822, JS found himself in the wings of the Coburg Theatre. Beside him stood the manager, Joseph Glossup, who perpetually smoked a cigar and made wide, sweeping hand movements. JS had just left Glossup's office after signing a contract, and the two walked to the wings to watch the performance then in progress. The audience was unlike any JS had ever encountered, and he was shocked to his core. By reputation the Coburg was rough, but never had JS expected the rows of the stalls to be occupied by heaving gangs, whose upraised arms punched the air, or shook in abuse, or lobbed an orange, coin or bottle at any performer, without a thought.

‘Fucking get him off!' howled a man in the third row, and this was taken up as a chant. From further back in the stalls came another cry: ‘Fuck this, let's have a bell!' A group began singing a song they had an urge to hear, with no relevance to the show at all.

On stage was an actor in Indian garb, his voice stentorian – undoubtedly to make himself heard – but not at all subtle or modulated.

‘That,' said Glossup, ‘is Mr Kemble.'

‘I presume of
the
Kemble family?'

‘Indeed, Henry Stephen Kemble. Though you will never meet a man who shows the family name less awe.'

‘Is that so?' said JS, who now watched the performance from the wings with great fascination.

‘A Kemble in the playbill always fills the rows, no matter if he's not the best of the bunch.'

‘I think he is rather impressive.'

‘I grant you he has the strongest lungs of any actor I have ever heard.'

The stage gestures of Kemble, anyone could see, were larger than the role demanded, though this did not seem to be the performance observed by JS, who continued to gaze upon the actor with complete enthralment. When Kemble threw his arms wide to make a heartfelt declaration, the audience hurled walnuts in response – one hit Kemble in the eye, although he continued with only a moment's break. ‘Bravo!' said JS. ‘Don't let them put you off!'

After the performance, JS waited until Kemble emerged from his dressing room. The actor's face, seen for the first time without make-up, was undeniably handsome – or at least had been once, but was now gaunt, and lines of experience had gouged themselves into the forehead and around the mouth. Kemble's age was ambiguous, for though his hair was as luxurious as any young fellow's, it was also as white as an old man's.

JS took all this in, and approached Kemble with a respectful smile. ‘Mr Kemble, I wanted to congratulate you on your performance,' he said, holding out his hand. The older man smiled with charming white teeth, bracketed between the grooves in his skin.

*   *   *

In a public house that night, JS watched Henry Kemble raise his glass in tribute to the great Kemble family of actors – he toasted them individually, including his aunt, Mrs Siddons – a tribute of naming, sipping, spitting, and rubbing the drink and saliva into the sawdust with his boot. JS laughed, or clapped, or slapped his thigh in response to each disrespectful salvo.

‘The Kembles think they are marvellous,' said Henry Kemble, ‘but I have seen my family without the make-up. I have heard them forget lines, and miss their cues. Hang the Kembles!' He chinked glasses with JS, and his sawdust ritual was performed again, to the entire family. ‘The Kembles' purpose is to promote the family name. But what do they really care about the audience?'

‘On the subject of a family name,' said JS, with a certain caution, ‘you may have seen a piece in the newspaper the other day about myself.'

‘I am afraid I did not. But do tell me more.'

‘It drew attention to how the bills said “Clown, Mr
J. S.
Grimaldi”. It added the comment “Oh, villainous JS!” It said there never was such a clown as my father, and that there never will be another. And that JS is good in his own way, but no Joe.'

‘If my experience is anything to go by,' said Kemble, ‘you will receive many, many, many more notices of that kind.'

JS leant forward. ‘Every notice I get says something similar: that young Grimaldi is the best clown there is, with the exception of his father. I am getting fed up with it. Why am I always the son of Grimaldi? Why never just me?'

‘Son of Grimaldi. I'll tell you what – abbreviate it to S-O-G, SOG – every time you receive a notice like that, get soggy with me, and forget the world.'

‘Sog – soggy – it
does
seem a little better to say that!' He took a mouthful of liquor. ‘Do you know the most annoying thing of all? When someone says I look like him. Even when the make-up is off, I am
still
compared to my father.'

‘Keep drinking, that's the cure. When you feel down, come for lush-outs with me, and ignore it all. Bung your eyes! That's what I do. Get so drunk you can't see a hole in a ladder!' Kemble raised his glass, as for another toast. ‘To your father, Joseph Grimaldi!' He sipped, spat on the floor, and rubbed it into the sawdust. There was a sudden anxiety in JS's face.

‘Go on, my friend,' said Kemble. ‘I have done it for
my
family.'

JS hesitated.

‘Go on. You'll be the better for it.'

‘To Joseph Grimaldi,' said JS, and he stood up, aimed for a triangular spittoon – and cheered his own skill at target shooting. Kemble hugged JS like a long-lost brother, as the saying goes, though actually as anything
but
a long-lost brother, given his abundant antipathy to the Kemble name.

The next night, and the next, and then every night, the pair went for lush-outs, cheerers, and whatever else Kemble happened to call their extended sessions of drinking and debauchery. Soon, if Kemble happened to be unavailable, JS would drink alone. He would seek out new public houses. ‘No water,' he would always say to a barman in a house he had not visited before. ‘I
never
have my spirit baptised.' Before long, JS was accompanied on these trips by the women who hung around the green room; and soon any frowsy whore would do.

3 May 1823

The senior Grimaldi bowed to the audience at Covent Garden; the curtain descended, and he did not fill the clown's outfit as he had a moment before – as if he had donned a costume intended for a larger man. He touched his chest. He started to pant. The Harlequin and the ogress from the show rushed to his side.

‘You all right, Joe?' said the ogress, a huge woman with manacle bracelets. She placed a giant, gentle hand upon the clown's back.

‘Right as rain in a moment.'

‘The dressing room,' she said to the Harlequin with a nod. Even though supported on both sides, the clown barely had the strength to walk, and his shins trembled in their stockings. Other members of the cast lent help and carried Grimaldi to his dressing room, where he was set down in a chair. By now, all the cast that could fit inside the room stood around the clown, and all with anxious expressions.

‘Just give me a few moments,' he said.

Some said: ‘Good old Joe.'

‘Shut the door after you,' he said as the last person, the ogress, left.

When the room was empty, he looked in the mirror at his bold, greasepainted lips. There was immeasurable sadness in the depths of his eyes. After some minutes of sitting and looking, he peeled off the blue-feathered wig and placed it upon its stand. Then, more slowly than usual, he wiped the paint from his lips and applied a towel to his forehead. Stiffly, with great effort, and in no hurry, he removed the shoes, the frilled jacket and the rest of the costume – he winced every time his knees or elbows bent – and he hung up the entire outfit in the wardrobe, adjusting the shoulders with meticulous care and ensuring the breeches were placed in the hanger's exact centre. He looked at his reflection once again. Then he struck his fist on the dressing table: ‘No! Damned if I'll give up!'