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.
When Mark glances at me for approval I show him the palms of my hands. Perhaps my frown is too faint to reach him, because he takes the warning for encouragement. He tiptoes after the staggering giants, and the other children follow in single file until the lead clown indicates that they should copy the dwarfs. The little girl closest to Mark puts an arm around his shoulders, giggling and eyeing her parents. The other children pair off more or less
