The Grin of the Dark (6 page)

'Can we see it again?' Mark crouches towards me, and his chair
gives an injured creak. 'I want to see it again,' he begs.

'Don't smash the place up, Mark.' He's far more demanding than
usual; perhaps he feels he can be now that we're alone. 'I take it you
liked it,' I say. 'What did you like?'

'It was funny. Can we see it now?'

'Anything else you'd care to say about it?'

'No,' he says, and even more impatiently 'Yes, I want to watch it
again.'

I wonder how common his reaction would have been when the
film was released. It struck me as a little too disturbing to be popular,
but perhaps it was ahead of its time if Mark is so taken with it. 'We
don't want to be late for the circus,' I say and switch the tape off. 'I'll
lend it to Natalie when I've finished with it. Let me grab a coat and
we'll walk over to the park.'

The slap of waves against equally non-existent rocks greets me on
the landing. A poster for a muscle-bound computerised heroine called
Virtuelle is guarding Joe's door. As I shut my computer down the last
shrill flurry of water sounds like giggling, which seems to be echoed
downstairs. A trumpet is chattering in the front room.

Tubby is back in the toyshop. The head that fills the screen is his,
unless it's the contents of a box. I retrieve the control from my chair
and extinguish him. 'Now, Mark, I said we hadn't time. Maybe we
can have another look at it when we come back.'

He giggles nervously as a preamble to saying 'I didn't touch it.'

'I'm sure you didn't touch the tape.'

Is he testing my limits or demonstrating his skill with words, or
both? I eject the cassette and replace it in its cover, abandoning the
other tape on the mantelpiece. How could I have been so thoughtless
that I left Tubby in the player while I went to my room? I run to leave
the tape on my desk and hurry downstairs. 'Time to move, Mark.'
He's still in the chair, and so wide-eyed with innocence that it
could almost conjure up Tubby on the screen. 'I truly – '

'Don't say it. I shouldn't think your mother would like you telling
fibs, and I'm certain your grandmother wouldn't.' I switch off the
television and wait for him to jam his feet into his trainers. 'Come
on,' I say to make friends with him, 'and we'll have another laugh.'

We're nearly at the bottom of the street opposite the petrol
station, beyond which the night sky is trailing a crimson hem,
when I call 'We're not in quite that much of a hurry, Mark.'

He carries on as if the enlarged letters in the middle of the Frugoil
sign are urging him, and barely glances back to protest 'You said we
were.'

'No, I said we shouldn't get caught up in the video again. The
show won't be starting anything like yet, don't worry,' I say as I join
him at the kerb. 'I'm not an old film, you know. I feel as if you want
to speed me up.'

He looks at me over his shoulder. 'That'd be funny,' he says,
continuing to watch.

This isn't what jerks me forwards. 'Mark,' I shout or quite
possibly scream, but I haven't even completed his name when he steps
into the road.

His small body flares up as if spotlights have been trained on him.
They're the headlamp beams of the lorry that is bearing down on him,
horn braying. I'm too far away to snatch him out of its path, and
what can I shout that will help? I'm terrified that the glare and the
uproar and the sight of his imminent doom will freeze him like just
another species of roadkill. Then he dodges the vehicle with at least a
yard to spare and dashes across the road.

By the time I reach the opposite pavement he's trotting uphill past
the petrol station. 'Mark,' I say, folding my arms and gripping my
fists with my clammy armpits.

He halts but drops into a crouch that suggests he's preparing for
the next leg of the race. 'What?'

'Come back here. We aren't going anywhere till you listen to me.'

He trudges along the pavement between the entrance and exit of
the petrol station. 'What?' he mumbles.

'Do you want to see the last of me, Mark?'

He blinks at me and risks a giggle. 'You're like granny saying I'll
give her a heart attack.'

'You damn well near did, but I don't mean that. Do you want your
mother and me to split up?'

'You aren't going to, are you?' Apprehension or the light from the
forecourt has turned his face so pale I'm put in mind of greasepaint.
'Don't you like me?' he pleads.

'I don't like what you just did, but that wouldn't be why. If Natalie
trusts me to look after you and then you behave like that, she isn't
going to want me around.'

'You won't tell, will you? We swore we wouldn't tell on each
other.'

'I'll keep this one incident between us so long as there aren't any
more like it, ever. Agreed?'

'Promise,' Mark blurts and looks hyperactively eager to be on his
way. Shahrukh is gazing at us through the window of the Frugoil
shop, and I wonder if he's going to make an issue of my letting Rufus
in. Perhaps he feels inhibited now that I don't work there. Before he
can accost me I follow Mark uphill.

In a minute we're alongside the Royal Holloway campus. Beyond
the gates the long five-storey red-brick turreted façade is illuminated
so brightly that it resembles a cut-out against the night sky, an image
of a French chateau patched into the landscape. A long-legged
shadow as tall as the chimneys stalks across it, but I haven't located
the owner of the shadow when the wall blocks my view. Mark has
forged ahead, so that by the time I reach the end of the wall he's
already past a side road. As I cross it, two clownish faces swell out of
the gloom ahead of him. One is closer to the ground than anyone's
should be, and I might have noticed more immediately that it isn't
human if the wide-mouthed faces weren't so similar. Its companion
shuffles into the light of a streetlamp, and I see that her mouth is
surrounded by lipstick like a child's first attempt at painting. I can't
quite shake off the notion that it's the woman who is panting and
snorting, not the bulldog. I've dodged around them after Mark when
a hoarse voice behind me mutters 'Hurry up.'

I could take that personally, because I don't know where the circus
has been set up in the park. I was expecting crowds to show us, but
none are to be seen. Mark's shadow and mine play at giants and
dwarfs beneath the streetlamps as we hurry uphill. The closest section
of the park stretches away between the main road and a lane, and I'm
suddenly aware that the place may be as vast as the visible sky. Mark
halts, and I think he's about to ask which road we should use until he
says 'There's one.'

He's pointing at an entrance from the main road. At first all I can
see is the shadow of a figure on the thickness of the wall. A substance
appears to be bubbling out of its cranium. It steps into my view to
reveal that it's a clown with a presumably artificial mass of white
curls crowning its scalp. It cocks its blanched extravagantly wide-mouthed
head to watch us with a kind of dismayed glee. I pull out the
tickets – one for Cwlons Ulnimited, the other for Cwnols Nutilimed
– and flourish them. The clown beckons while its white-gloved fingers
scuttle in the air, a gesture so eloquent of lateness that I grab Mark's
shoulder in case he's tempted to dash across the road. As soon as the
traffic relents I usher him to the gate.

The clown steps back like a duck in reverse and urges us onwards
with its monster hands. Its baggy big-buttoned one-piece outfit and
its mask of makeup conceal its gender. Where's the tent? The path
across the unlit green leads to a pond, on the far side of which an
object taller than the trees around the green stands guard. As I run
after Mark, all its faces grow visible, a heap of them with wide eyes
and stretched mouths. It's a totem pole, another local landmark that
looks transplanted from elsewhere. We're close to the end of the path
when the lowest face detaches itself and rises to meet us. It belongs to
a clown who was seated on a folding chair. I've scarcely brandished
the tickets when the clown shakes its floppy hands to indicate an
avenue that leads into the dark.

Bare oaks mime praying overhead. Their branches look imprinted
on the black sky. Wouldn't it have made sense to provide some light?
Before long the path angles sharp left, and Mark might have run into
a hulking trunk if a clown hadn't sprung out from behind it to direct
us. The figure prances in and out of the trees beside us, wagging its
glimmering head and flapping its hands so wildly that they seem
boneless. Perhaps the performer needs to reach the tent in the field at
the end of the path.

When we run out of the avenue the white tent appears to shrink as
if a camera is zooming back. It's the change of perspective. The tent,
which has been erected in the middle of the green, isn't quite symmetrical;
the canvas pyramid is inclined slightly leftward, giving it a
rakish or rickety air. As we cross the field I seem to glimpse a dim
leggy shadow that suggests its owner is catching us up, but there's no
sign of our guide.

The tent is encircled by glistening footprints, perhaps of customers
like us in search of the entrance. A midget clown leans against a taut
guy-rope beside the open flap in the canvas. When I hold out the
tickets the puffy white hands wave us through. The mocking tragic
mask is painted on so thickly that I'm unable to judge whether the
diminutive figure is a dwarf or a child. I hurry after Mark into the
tent, and the audience turns to watch us.

They're in families scattered around tiers of five benches indistinguishable
from steps. They aren't merely watching, they're laughing
at us, which strikes me as excessive even if we're late. Mark glances
uncertainly at me, but as his gaze slips past me his mouth widens with
a grin. An assortment of clowns of various sizes is pacing flat-footed
yet silently behind us.

Mark scrambles to join the audience, which doesn't include
Natalie. As I sit next to him on the middle bench, someone higher up
the tier comments 'Maybe they thought it wasn't on yet.'

'We didn't think it was till after Christmas,' their companion
murmurs.

'It shouldn't be till the New Year,' says the first voice or another.

The last clown has entered the ring and is staring at me as if I
spoke. When I hold up my hands as a vow of silence I feel as if I'm
mimicking a clownish gesture. He, if it's a man, copies this so vigorously
that he might be pretending to surrender, and then he scuttles
splay-legged to take his place in the circle his colleagues have formed
within the ring. There are thirteen of them. Two are less than five feet
tall, and two stilted figures are over eight feet each as though to
compensate. I wish I'd seen that pair duck through the entrance,
which is scant inches higher than my head. Four of the clowns seem
familiar, which I take to mean that we were followed by all those we
encountered. They're certainly capable of making no noise. The circle
is facing the audience in absolute silence.

For long enough that some of the children begin to grow restless,
the clowns are as motionless as a film still, and then they start to
shuffle crabwise around the ring. Their unblinking gaze trails over the
audience. Even the stilted figures on opposite sides of the ring manage
to keep in step. Spotlights at the foot of the benches project a
distorted shadow play on the canvas above the seats. The routine
looks more like an obscure ritual than a circus act until a little girl
laughs tentatively. The parade comes to an instant halt as the clown
who's gazing straight at her falls over backwards.

From the solid bulge of his crotch it's reasonable to assume he's a
man. Despite this distraction, he doesn't hit the sawdust. With a
contortion that his baggy costume hides, he bounces upright without
touching the earth or altering his painted expression or uttering a
sound. He couldn't have been as nearly horizontal as he contrived to
appear, but the trick puts me in mind of a film played in reverse. He
puts his fattest finger to his outsize lips as he gazes at the little girl,
and his fellow performers copy the gesture. As she covers her mouth
while her parents pat her shoulders, the clowns recommence circling
with their fingers to their lips.

What joke are we meant to be seeing? Just now I'm more
concerned about Natalie. If all the clowns are performing rather than
directing latecomers, how will she find the circus? Presumably she'll
call me, in which case I'll be guilty of using a mobile during a show.
I assume Mark is too fascinated by the spectacle to think of her. All
at once, and with some deliberateness, he bursts into laughter.

One of the towering clowns is gazing at him. I'm as interested to
watch how the performer will respond as I suspect Mark was eager
to discover. As the parade halts again, the giant figure does indeed
topple backwards and recover his balance without striking the
ground. Not just the painted grimace but the wide unblinking eyes
might as well be set in a mask. I'm so impressed by how skilfully he
wields his stilts that I can't help laughing and clapping my hands like
a child.

The clown fixes his stare on me. It seems capable of freezing my
suddenly clumsy hands and rendering me mute. I'm reminding myself
that it's another joke when I observe that the lanky figure inside the
loose costume is no longer quite vertical. So gradually that I can't
distinguish the movement, the clown has begun to stoop towards me.
He's at least a dozen paces away, even allowing for his elongated legs
and feet, but my awareness is trapped by the ambiguous immobile
painted face that's lowering closer. The audience is so hushed it might
not be present at all. The clown's posture is starting to resemble a
sprinter's crouch, and I imagine him scuttling over the benches at me.
I'm about to break the breathless silence with a forced laugh when a
sound forestalls me: the siren of a distant ambulance.

The stilted figure rears upright, and the circle scatters in all directions.
The clowns dash back and forth across the ring in a panic so
elaborately choreographed that they must have been awaiting a cue.
In the midst of this the giants collide and stalk backwards at a
perilous run and rush at each other once more. This time they trip up,
entangling their legs. There's a loud snap, and another.

They sound unnecessarily painful, which is how the results look.
The victims roll apart and try to stagger upright on their uninjured legs,
only to sprawl on their backs. As they writhe about, legs flailing the
sawdust, at least one parent is unamused by the way the antics
emphasise if not enlarge their bulging crotches. The other clowns
redouble their panic, beseeching the audience mutely as if they're
hoping for a doctor or a nurse. When nobody comes forward and a few
people even laugh, the clowns fall upon their damaged colleagues. The
fattest or at least the one in the loosest costume, which makes his head
look grotesquely small, fetches splints and bandages and less likely
items from under a bench while four of the performers immobilise each
invalid. He dumps the collection in the middle of the ring, and the
dwarfs fight over it before scampering to repair the damage.

They splint the legs by nailing wood to them – the wrong legs.
They keep missing with the extravagantly heavy hammers, and soon
an agonising snap is followed by another. As the voiceless wretches
squirm all they can in the grip of their fellows, the clown with the
small head mimes directing operations between sallies to the edge of
the ring. His outstretched flabby hands urge spectators to participate
as the dwarfs attempt to straighten the broken legs. When the
unblinking gaze finds him Mark whispers 'Can I?'

Bebe and, I suspect, Warren would forbid it, but that's hardly the
point. 'What would your mother say?'

'She'd let me.'

His gaze is as steady as any clown's. 'Go on then,' I say only just
in advance of his sprint into the ring.

The clown beckons other children to join Mark. Several do, having
asked or pleaded with their parents, one of whom peers at Mark and
me as if she suspects us of being planted to entice her daughter to
participate. The dwarfs have completed their task, although the
mended limbs are anything but straight, and some of the children are
visibly disappointed that they weren't given a turn with a hammer.
Then the giants wobble to their feet and begin to stagger around the
ring. They've thrown their arms around each other's shoulders and
are attempting to grip them with their swollen hands, but rather than
providing mutual support they seem to be in even worse danger of
losing their balance. They lurch enormously from side to side,
clutching at each other, and somehow regain their equilibrium for the
next step. All this might be funnier if the dwarfs didn't scurry to catch
up with them and imitate their crooked efforts behind their backs.
Then the clown with the small head gestures the children to follow
the dwarfs while the rest of the troupe sits on the lowest bench to
watch.