by Limmy
‘A coincidence,’ she said, still looking at her phone.
‘Then we saw your dad’s face.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not we. You. You saw my dad’s face.’
‘And I’m just worried,’ said Jason. ‘That one day I’m going to put my spoon into the porridge and pull out another face. And that face will be yours.’
She looked up from her phone when he said that. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, if she was going to laugh at him, or be angry at him for going on about seeing things in his porridge when her dad was in hospital.
But then she saw that he was crying.
‘Jason,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but there is no connection between the porridge and the things that have happened. I know it’s spooky, but please stop it. My dad’s in hospital.’
‘I put the brick through your dad’s window,’ said Jason. ‘It was me who did the thing to Charlie’s brakes. I can’t eat the porridge anymore, Mary, I’m serious. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I want my Frosties. Where are they? Have you hidden them?’
The Clown
It was Colin’s first day as a clown. A children’s clown. His first day on the job, officially.
He’d always wanted to be a clown, he had a knack for it. He was good at tricks, and he was good with weans. His sister had a couple of wee twins and they loved his magic tricks. He reckoned he could get a right good career out of it. He didn’t want to be a circus clown, he preferred close-up magic, doing it right there in the living room. Plus he imagined that circus clowns don’t get work as regular as children’s clowns.
He looked up how to get into it, and met up with a few other folk who were clowns. They told him the job wasn’t as easy as he might think, it isn’t all fun and games. Some of them even seemed a bit miserable, a bit worn out. But he couldn’t imagine ever getting like that. He was being a clown, after all. It was entertaining, it was unpredictable, and seeing the surprise on people’s faces was almost payment in itself.
He put his details online, and it didn’t take long for him to get a phone call, by a mum in Partick called Lesley.
She was having a birthday party for her five-year-old son Oliver, and she wanted to know what kind of things she could expect. Colin told her that he did jokes, card tricks, disappearing tricks, he pulled things out of his magic hat, he did balloon animals. She said all that sounded perfect. She asked him if he could be over there at 11 a.m. on the Saturday.
And with that, he had just got himself his first job. He told his clown mates the good news, and they wished him all the best, in their slightly jaded sort of way.
He drove to Lesley’s flat in Partick, arriving five minutes early. He chapped on the door, holding his suitcase of tricks. He had a look at himself before the door was opened. He fixed his stripy trousers so they were sitting well on his colourful brogues. There was a piece of fluff on his red T-shirt just above his waist, and he brushed it off. He had a look in the mirrored nameplate on the door to check his nose. He’d painted it red, just the tip. He’d checked it in the mirror in the car before he came up, but he had another look anyway. He wanted his first day to be perfect. And so far so good.
The door was answered by Lesley, who seemed rushed off her feet and happy to see him.
‘Oh thank God,’ she said. ‘In you come.’
‘Thanks,’ said Colin, and he walked inside. He stopped when he remembered that he’d left his suitcase outside the front door, and he turned quickly to pick it up. He didn’t want Lesley to see that mistake, and she didn’t. But he thought that if she had seen it, he could have passed it off as part of the act. He knew that it was a mistake, though, and he hoped there weren’t any more.
He walked into the hall with the suitcase, and he could hear the weans somewhere in the flat. It sounded like there were about 20 of them. Some of them ran through the hall, then stopped to look at him, then ran into the living room.
He felt nervous, but he tried not to show it.
‘So,’ said Lesley. ‘How do you want to do it?’
He pointed to where he’d just seen the weans run, and asked if that was the living room. She said it was, and he said that he’d get set up in there then. He told her that if she could clear everybody out of there for a wee while, that would be great, he wouldn’t be long.
‘No bother,’ she said, and she got everybody out.
After he was set up, he poked his head out the door and told Lesley that he was ready now to start the show.
‘Kids!’ she shouted. ‘It’s time for the clown!’ She looked at him and whispered, ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Coco,’ he said. ‘Coco the Clown.’
‘Love it,’ she said. Then she shouted again. ‘Come on and see Coco the Clown!’
Colin went back into the living room and waited for the weans to come in. As they came in, they looked at him. Some were shy, some were excited.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said, owning the room. He was aiming to be confident, but not too loud and dominating. He wanted them to know he was a silly man, he wasn’t their teacher or their mum and dad. ‘The show’s about to start,’ he said. ‘That’s it, sit anywhere, on you go. My name’s Coco. Coco the Clown. Sit anywhere.’
They sat on the floor. There were around 15 of them, boys and lassies, and some of the adults came in to watch as well, including Lesley and a guy who Colin assumed was her man, because they were leaning up against each other.
‘Okay, kids,’ he said. ‘Hands up who likes magic.’
The hands all shot up, even the hands belonging to the shy weans.
‘Well, I’m very glad to hear that. Because that’s what I do. My name’s Coco the Clown, and I do magic tricks. Who wants to see one right now?’
The hands went up again, and some started saying ‘Me, me!’
Lesley smiled at Mark, her man, who was smiling as well. This clown seemed good, he thought. He wasn’t one of the scary ones with the bald head and the colourful hair around the side, he was just a normal cunt being a clown. A modern kind of clown. Mark liked it.
‘All right,’ said Colin to the weans, walking in amongst them. ‘I’ll do a show, but first you’ve got to pay me. I don’t work for free, Mum and Dad!’
The grown-ups laughed. A bit of patter for the grown-ups there.
‘Now, who’s got the money?’ said Colin, looking at each of the weans. And then ‘Ah! There it is!’ And he leaned down to pull a 50-pence piece from behind the ear of a wee lassie.
The weans went ‘Ahhhhh!’ at the clown pulling a coin out from nowhere. The wee lassie smiled and checked behind her ear with her hand to see if there were any more coins.
A wee boy said, ‘I know how it’s done, I know, I know!’
‘Ah ah ah,’ said Colin, wagging his finger and smiling. ‘Don’t ruin the magic. Otherwise I’d be out of a job. Isn’t that right, mums and dads?’
Another bit of patter for the grown-ups. The guy was good. He had something for everybody.
And on he continued, doing various tricks for the weans, like pulling things out of his magic bowler hat, or guessing what card the wean was holding.
He’d sometimes pretend to make a mistake, like guessing the wrong card, to give the weans a laugh and make the adults think he was making an arse of it. But then they’d realise that it was just part of a bigger trick, when he’d say, ‘Oh, I forgot what card you had, but it’s all right, I had it written down’, then he got Oliver to take off his shoe, and there in the shoe was a piece of paper with the four of hearts written on it.
‘Now, that was good,’ said Mark, and Lesley agreed. Money well spent, so this was. The clown charged £100 an hour. It seemed a lot when she booked it, and she had to get the other parents to chip in. But 100 quid to keep a room full of weans entertained for an hour solid. Only a parent would know that was money well spent.
She checked the time, and saw that there were five minutes left. Colin saw her looking, and i
t reminded him that it was time to wrap things up.
‘Okay, kids,’ he said. ‘It’s time for me to go.’
‘Awwww,’ they all said, including the grown-ups.
Colin pretended to have a think to himself, then he smiled. ‘Would you like one more trick?’
‘Yeeeah!’ shouted the weans.
‘All right,’ said Colin, looking into his suitcase. ‘Now, where is it? Ah, there it is.’
He reached into his suitcase and pulled out a sheet. A dark purple, velvety sheet covered in stars. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Now, I need a volunteer. Someone who is very brave. A very brave boy, I wonder if there’s one here.’
He turned towards Lesley and said, ‘Can you think of one, Mum?’
She understood. ‘Oh, I can think of one.’ She didn’t want to make the other boys and girls jealous, so she said, ‘There are lots of brave boys here. And girls! But I know one in particular whose birthday it is.’
‘Yeeeah!’ said Oliver, sticking up his hand.
‘Then up you come, brave Oliver!’ said Colin. ‘Give him a big round of applause.’
They all clapped, as Oliver stood up and walked to the clown.
‘Now, Oliver,’ said Colin. ‘Have you ever wanted to disappear?’
‘Yes!’ said Oliver.
‘Has your mummy or daddy ever got you into trouble, and you wished you could just vanish into thin air?’
‘Yes!’ he said.
‘Oh, I bet,’ said Lesley.
‘And what about you, Mummy and Daddy?’ asked Colin, smiling. ‘Has Oliver ever been a tiny bit naughty and you wished that he disappeared?’
Lesley said ‘Oh yes’, and they all smiled and laughed.
‘I can see that some of the other mummies and daddies are thinking the same thing,’ said Colin, and they all laughed again.
Colin was pleased with the reaction. He’d rehearsed what he said to Oliver, but he was ad-libbing when he talked to the parents. He took a mental note to write some of that patter into the act next time.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Come, Oliver, you stand right there. And then I’ll just do this.’
Colin held up the purple, sparkly sheet so that it hid Oliver from view from the rest of the room.
‘Are you ready to vanish, Oliver?’ asked Colin.
‘Yeah!’ said Oliver.
‘All right. Then get ready. One, two, three. Shazam!’
Colin whipped away the sheet, and Oliver was gone.
The room gasped.
The weans were amazed, and sat with their mouths open and eyes smiling. But the adults were dumbfounded, their brains working overtime to figure out how the fuck he did that.
Mark had an idea of how it was done. What he reckoned was that when the sheet had been held up, Oliver had crawled behind the seat next to the clown, and when the clown saw that Oliver was in the clear, he whipped the sheet away to make it look like he’d vanished. And in a minute, the clown would hold the sheet up again, and Oliver will crawl back and reappear. Mark had done the same thing himself with Oliver a year or two ago with a quilt.
‘Okay everyone,’ said Colin. ‘Byyye!’ and he closed his suitcase and walked out the living-room door, which made the grown-ups laugh. The weans just shouted bye.
Lesley waited for the clown to come back in, but he didn’t. So it looked like that was the end of the routine. She shrugged at Mark and walked out to the hall, where the clown was waiting.
‘Oh that was great,’ said Lesley, going into her pocket for the money. ‘Fantastic show. Money well spent.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Colin, pleased with how it went himself. He’d made a wee mistake with one of the card tricks at the beginning, but he didn’t think anybody noticed. Other than that, it couldn’t have gone better.
‘Ah, but what have you done with my boy?’ she said, smiling, bringing the money close to her chest. She looked into the living room. She saw Mark looking behind the seat. She had the same idea about how the trick was done.
She saw Mark then tipping the seat back and looking under it. He got down on his knees and tapped around at the black fabric underneath, presumably feeling around for Oliver.
Then he looked behind the seat again. Then he looked around the room.
He saw Lesley watching him, then he looked behind the seat again. He looked at Lesley and shrugged, then pointed to the clown, to suggest that she should have a word with him.
She stopped smiling, and looked at Colin.
‘Where is he really?’ she asked.
‘He’s vanished,’ said Colin, smiling. ‘Shazam!’
He put his hand out for the money, but she wasn’t giving it over. Not yet.
‘No, seriously,’ she asked. ‘Where did he go? I know he didn’t vanish, but I need to know where he is, in case he sneaked out the door.’
The clown didn’t answer. He looked confused. Lesley turned away from the living room and towards the kitchen door. ‘Mum!’ she shouted.
‘Aye?’ came an older voice. And out walked Lesley’s mum from the kitchen. ‘What?’
‘Is Oliver back there?’ asked Lesley.
‘Oliver? No. I don’t think so. Wait there.’ She walked back into the kitchen.
Lesley looked at Colin again. ‘Mate, where is he?’
Mark came walking out of the living room, with a couple of the other parents behind him. They all looked concerned. ‘Lesley,’ he said. ‘I cannae find him. Mate, where is he?’
One of the other parents said something about how everything will be fine.
Colin didn’t know what was going on here. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, looking at them all.
Lesley and Mark raised their voices, talking over each other.
‘What d’you mean you don’t know what we mean?’ asked Lesley.
‘Where’s my son, mate?’ asked Mark.
‘Where is he?’ asked Lesley.
The parent who said that everything will be fine was telling them to calm down a bit, but he agreed that the joke had gone far enough.
Colin looked at Lesley and Mark. ‘He’s gone. You saw.’
He looked to the parent that had been appealing for Lesley and Mark to stay calm, hoping that maybe the guy would help explain, even though there was nothing to explain. But they all looked back with the same unhappy expression.
This was getting scary.
‘Gone where?’ shouted Lesley, giving Colin a fright.
Mark put his hand on her shoulder. They all listened for the answer. Lesley’s mum came back from the kitchen and said, ‘No, he’s not back there.’ When she saw the body language and faces of everybody outside the living room, she asked, ‘What’s happened?’ But nobody turned towards her. All eyes were on Colin.
He didn’t know what else to tell them. How else could he put it? They saw what happened.
Mark stepped forward to grab him. Like the other parent said, the joke had gone far enough.
Colin didn’t know if Mark intended to hurt him, but he didn’t want to take any chances, because it was all beginning to turn into a mob. There was an insanity taking over the group, and he wanted to get out of there, and get out of there now.
He reached into his pocket, and threw a ball on the ground. A small explosion threw up a swirl of red smoke. Lesley’s mum said ‘Oh!’ and stood back.
Mark reached into the smoke to grab the cunt, but there was nothing there. He kept walking with his arms outstretched, but all he felt was the wall at the other side of the hall.
When the smoke drifted away, they saw that the clown was gone.
The following Monday, Colin told his fellow clowns all about it. He told them about how everything had been going so well. He told them that the kids loved the show, he told them that the adults liked the wee ad-libs he was throwing in and that he planned to write them down for next time. He told them that it couldn’t have went any better. Yet, at the end, all the parents started acting mental. An i
nsane mob. Torches and pitchforks stuff. And for the life of him, he just couldn’t understand why.
The other clowns nodded, knowingly. All too knowingly.
Colin didn’t understand.
He asked them if they thought he’d be able to get the money he was owed. That 100 quid. It was a full hour that he did, and the parents seemed happy with the show, until the very end. Until after the very end, in fact.
‘You can forget it,’ grumbled Bobo from the back.
Bobo was the oldest of the clowns.
He had a red nose, but not because it was painted or stuck on. It was because of the whisky. The only fucking thing that got you through this job.
Biscuits
Listen to this.
Try and work this out.
I’ve got this mate, and I went over to his flat one night to play some FIFA and have a drink. We’re always playing FIFA. He’s shite at it and he’s always trying to beat me, but he never does. He sometimes does, but very, very rarely.
Anyway, I was going through a bit of a fat phase at the time, so I ate pretty much all his biscuits. And he had a lot of biscuits. A lot.
This is top secret, by the way. Not the thing about eating his biscuits, I mean what I’m about to tell you. Utterly top secret.
I ate tons of his biscuits. He has this biscuit jar, which is a bit unusual for a single guy. A biscuit jar. It’s something you’d expect maybe an older couple to have or an old granny. But he has one, and that goes to show you that he likes his biscuits. There’s a reason for me pointing that out. I just want you to know that he eats the biscuits in his biscuit jar, they’re not just for visitors. He disnae just buy them for me.
So I ate pretty much all of his biscuits in this biscuit jar. He had lots of different types. Good ones, cheap ones. Cheap ones like custard creams and wafers, good ones like Fox’s Classic and Choco Leibniz. I pretty much finished the lot of them while we were playing FIFA, probably about a tenner’s worth, and he was like that to me: ‘Fuck sake.’
The jar was up to the top with biscuits before, and now it was almost down to the bottom. Right? Remember that.