Things I Did for Money

by Meg Mundell

‘Maybe she’s good.’ Distracted, I stroked the cat too vigorously and didn’t snatch my hand back in time — there’s still a red scratch on my wrist. She’s a pretty thing, but unpredictable.

  As I sucked at the scratch Marianne got up to make coffee, but after announcing this plan and banging cupboard doors busily she just stood at the sink in a kind of dream. She left the tap running for a long time. I had to remind her that we’re in the middle of a drought.

  It happened down by the river. Summer would turn us into mosquitoes, quick and irritating, whining in our parents’ ears until they shooed us out the back door and we all flew down to the water.

  Each passing year blurs the memory, another hazy layer of plastic wrap laid over the senses, but at the age of eleven things were still as clear as water, solid as the river stones. The world around us existed in a bright bubble and nothing beyond the immediate horizon counted.

  The water tower loomed over a bend in the river, near the train tracks, a squat cement cylinder stained with lichen and faded graffiti. It cast its shadow over our swimming hole, darkening a rectangle of water that shifted slowly with the path of the sun.

  Daniel was the first to conquer it. One still afternoon, after weeks of brutal heat, he climbed the worn metal ladder and stood on the tower’s crumbling edge, peering down at our upturned faces. Before anyone could yell out ‘Chicken!’ he’d done the unthinkable. Those skinny bird legs pedalling the air like Road Runner suspended over a cliff, eyes and mouth three black circles in his pale face; the drop of his scrawny body seemed endless.

  Water exploded everywhere like glass. The swimming hole rocked and surged against its banks. We waited.

  Finally Daniel surfaced, eyes huge above the choppy water, the shock in his face already turning to pride. He strutted ashore, chest pushed out like a pigeon’s, face split by a grin, and he shook his wet hair all over us.

  But the hero shrank in status as, one by one, we followed. Marianne was first; my turn came later. By the weekend, all but two of us had jumped off the tower. John, who was only seven and deemed too small, looked relieved when we forbade him.

  Alice didn’t get off so lightly.

  Children are not, by nature, kind. They know that a group is made stronger by the presence of an outsider, that someone has to be the runt of the litter. Perhaps they know this instinctively, or perhaps they learn it from their elders.

  That summer Alice had already been made to pay for many crimes: chickening out of our stick-fight tournaments; running home crying when a rubber tarantula landed in her hair; telling her mum about Marianne’s strip show, with us selling tickets at twenty cents a head. Alice, who went to church every Sunday, who once wet her pants in assembly, who stared at the ground when teased. Alice the bag carrier, the moneylender, the punchline, the one whose clothes got hidden after swimming. Alice the lonely, and I later realised (hindsight being an inferior source of knowledge), the harmless and helpless.

  The water tower waited for her like a judge.

  Cajoled, enticed, bullied — I’m still not sure how she got up there. From below I could see her crouching near the edge, the panicky flutter of breath in her ribs; it brought to mind a tiny mouse I once found cornered by our cat. It was easy enough to save the mouse.

  The rest is blurred in my memory — a deliberate haze, I suspect. But Marianne and I have always agreed that it was Sarah and Dean’s fault.

  Nasty little Sarah with her beautiful hair shimmering, her sharp stick prodding. Mean Dean with his goblin teeth, laughing too high and too loud. They scampered up the ladder after her. I don’t remember what the rest of us were doing; just watching silently, I hope. It was a long time ago.

  Hot mixed-up air, the sounds ugly and jumbled: Alice’s jagged sobs, Dean’s wild laughter, the swish of Sarah’s stick cutting through the air. Five children staring up at three.

  And then there were two.

  I am certain she was meant to land in the water. If she had fallen into the river, rather than landing on the bank, one of us could have pulled her out before panic swallowed her — Alice couldn’t really swim.

  But after the sickening sound of flesh on solid earth there was only silence. The sun smiled down on seven tanned children standing very still. Only the river moved.

  I refused to go with my mum to visit Alice in the hospital. This didn’t arouse suspicions. I’d always been petrified of anything even vaguely medical.

  Anyway, it was an accident. We were all fooling around on top of the water tower and Alice slipped and fell — didn’t she, Helena? Right, Daniel? That’s what happened remember, John? That’s what happened. We all knew the drill.

  And, incredibly, Alice’s story was no different. To my knowledge it never has been.

  I cried that first day she came to school in a wheelchair. I contracted a mysterious illness, thoughtfully passing it on to the others, and we all spent the week in bed.

  Eventually we had to go back to school. At first, Sarah and Marianne would bring Alice Redskins, sherbet bombs, Wizz Fizz. But Alice never said thank you. Alice didn’t say much at all. And after a few weeks we came to an unspoken agreement: it had never happened. Alice got no more lollies. We used the stairs instead of the corridors. When the bell rang we’d head for the back of the field, far from the smooth asphalt, on the rough grass where wheels could not travel.

  At first, parental concern forced token visits. But after a few months the dreaded questions (‘Helena, why don’t you go and visit Alice and lend her your new book?’) became less frequent, and then ceased altogether. I guess Alice made new friends. We went to the movies, hung out at the mall or played quietly in our bedrooms. We stayed away from the river. Our parents said the current was too strong.

  Marianne flicked a chocolate in the air, caught it in her mouth. I’ve never seen her miss yet. Like she says, maybe if her hand–eye coordination wasn’t so good, her jeans would still fit.

  ‘So, Hells. Want to go and have a look?’

  ‘No,’ I answered.

  Friday lunch hour. The gallery doors flick shut behind me. The woman behind the counter offers a catalogue without glancing up.

  The room is all-white, long and narrow, the sculptures set along its length. The first one I come to is a black cauldron filled with cement feet; further along I find an ornate life-sized window frame, carved entirely from a block of soap, hung with a black lace curtain; then a three-course meal for one, hewn from white marble and set on bone china. The titles, written in the language of art, make no sense to me.

  And then I see it.

  It is more of a scale model than a sculpture: a cement temple, an icon of the rural landscape. A monument cut down to size. Below it, on the rocks, lies a tiny broken doll. The title card reads Birth.

  The next weekend is my mother’s birthday and I must make the rare trip out to the country. The train ride is hushed, each stranger wrapped in their own silence, and the landscape is parched and singed. Cheek laid against the synthetic fabric of the seat, I retreat into my quiet bubble.

  With me I take Alice’s black-and-white smile from the gallery catalogue. It’s not a posed smile, and there is nothing modest about it. She is smiling just like Daniel was when he walked out of the water.

  An hour into the journey, by the time the train clatters out of the burnt trees and past the gorge, I have fallen into a gentle half-sleep. I don’t see that grey concrete mass standing sentry over the river. I tell myself that on the train ride back, if I keep my eyes shut tight, I can pretend that it was never there at all.

  SOFT LANDING

  When the heroes go off stage, the clowns come on — Heinrich Heine

  The carpark smells of rinsed concrete and car exhaust. People lurch back and forth, bodies disfigured by luggage, one shoulder weighed down by bare necessities. Inside the terminal, trolleys glide past one another i
n silence. Children surf across the smooth floors, laughing; modern women chop past in noisy heels. Half-heard departure times echo from high white surfaces and coffee sours in polystyrene cups abandoned at last call.

  I won’t lie to you: airports frighten me. All that cold white space full of tiny people, who don’t realise how little they matter in the scheme of things. They greet, they goodbye, they buy a mouse-shaped chocolate and shuffle off with their hearts all crumpled. I don’t want to be like that.

  I could count on one hand the clowns who have received due credit for their art, for their genius gift to those poor lost creatures, the tiny people so worn down by all the greetings and goodbyes that make up this life. This is the clown’s lot, and we grin and bear it. Don’t get me started on due credit.

  No, I won’t pursue that line of thought. I’ll just sit here and check my balloon supply, watch the arrivals board, and, as is my destiny, do my best to entertain small children. Here’s a Japanese kid. Half fearful but can’t resist the face paint. They know they’re meant to love us, but there’s always an element of caution.

  As the child waddles closer a security guard swivels his head suspiciously, clocks my coordinates and starts pacing the near distance like a seagull eyeing up a stray chip.

  ‘Takeshi,’ warns the kid’s mother as his smooth face, that perfect skin, the plump cheeks and tulip mouth wobble toward me. I peek between gloved fingers, miming his fear. The kid’s not the only one — he scares me too. We have something in common but it’s not helping. I get nothing but a blank, petrified stare.

  A good clown is not fazed by the language barrier. I try a balloon trick: a moment’s furtive, rubbery wrestling, then — ‘Konichiwa!’ — a bulbous green dog is born. Or from certain angles it could be a goat. Not perfect, but not bad.

  The kid frowns. ‘Mummy, I don’t like the clown,’ he says in faultless English, then turns and waddles away without looking back.

  The feeling, my friend, is mutual.

  It wasn’t always like this. Not so long ago I earned a lot of money and everyone wanted me around. People knew my name. People loved me, or gave me the impression they did. But respect is cheap. Here, in the vast cold expanse of this halfway place, no one wants to know a clown in a curly yellow wig. (Don’t be fooled: check my body language. The pathos is all part of the act.)

  The plane’s not due to land for another ten minutes and there’s a familiar tug in my bladder. I had hoped to avoid this. As I head toward the stick-man sign that indicates imminent relief for man and clown alike, I note with concern that more nervous seagulls in black airport-issue caps are clustering at the rim of my vision.

  When I emerge from the men’s room an entire flock of security guards is waiting for me.

  Here is the problem: people cannot accept that clowns need to do the same normal things that normal people do — drink coffee, buy health insurance, expel urine. Especially that last one. It throws their entire conceptual system into disarray. Your idealised clown is a clean-living, asexual being who entertains children with buffoonish antics. Sure, his trousers might fall down onstage; but in no situation is it permissible for him to drop his pants, flip out his procreative tool and let human waste gush forth. The image is blasphemous, even sinister, like the idea of Santa fornicating or Bambi getting diarrhoea.

  No. Once you put on that clown suit, you’re strapped in and nothing but the cleanest fun will do. Rule number one: clowns do not have genitals.

  The flock surrounds me. Curt words are spoken. There is a long, strange march through that milky-white airport space, all the way from the restrooms to the guards’ office. Acres of marble floor stretch on forever like a dream. A tumbleweed blows past; a forlorn wind sighs in the building’s pale rafters. As we cross the departure area, the hallowed hall of goodbyes, the silence thickens and parts to let our troupe pass through: six foolish guards and a dignified clown. Delighted children gape. The elderly give us a wide berth.

  When the guards’ office door closes behind us they wheel and turn on me. Want to know what I’m doing here. Who is my employer? Who I have come here to meet? What is the passenger’s name? Why won’t I tell them? And what was I doing in the men’s room?

  I tell them I am a law-abiding citizen with a job to do and a uniform to wear, a citizen not so different from themselves, who is forced by the laws of nature to obey my bladder with the same urgency as my fellow countrymen.

  There is mention of a full body cavity search and an agreement is reached. We go our separate ways. I do not think we will meet again.

  History knows their names, or it will learn them in good time: Plautus, Jean Bouchet, Harlequin; the many Pierrots, Grimaldi, Auriol; the brothers Durov, Fratellini and Marx; Footit and Chocolat, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Lou Jacobs, Emmett Kelly and Otto Griebling; Grock, Popov, Charlie Rivel, Coluche (who, incidentally, ran for president of France in 1981), Laurel and Hardy, Cousin Otto, Bubba Sikes, Jango Edwards. Beautiful names. (My own name is not worth mentioning yet, but its time will come.)

  But today? The world’s most famous clown is Ronald McDonald. While he does TV cameos and oversees the production of fibreglass replicas of himself, the rest of us eke out a feeble, balloon-twisting half-life — tolerated, vilified and ignored in equal measure. Horror movies starring evil clowns both mock and hasten our fall from grace. Oldest trick in the book: take something innocent and put a nasty twist on it. The cheap thrill of juxtaposition has cost the clowning industry millions.

  Not that we have ever been universally loved. An old English law went so far as to say, ‘Players and minstrels are not people like other men, for they have only the appearance of mankind and are almost akin to the dead.’

  Unkind, perhaps, but not completely untrue. We have always been the underdogs, the outcasts and rejects. The foolish and lacking, the reflection in the funhouse mirror. But there’s also a certain power in it: our tread transforms the world into a stage; we plant mirth in the bellies of grown men. You may give us your laughter, pop us like aspirin, love or mock us, but you will really never know us.

  Today we are reduced to flogging burgers and busking to the lunch-hour rush. But we know the Earth will turn, and our day will come.

  I was never a funny child, and the circle that formed around me in the playground was not an appreciative one. My brother, who came first, who was funnier and better-looking and more charming, is now a wealthy real estate agent with hair implants. Perhaps I should give him my charcoal-grey suit, or even the navy-blue pinstripe, as a gesture of goodwill. I can’t see myself needing them again.

  Some days I have my doubts: the audience is stony, the laughs must be dragged to the surface like fish fighting the hook. There is a gap in the crowd, my guest of honour is missing. I wonder if I have any talent for this. Did I choose this path, or was it chosen for me? What’s so funny about big shoes anyway? They just cause knee problems.

  On the way up to my apartment I bump into my neighbour. We are the only residents in our block who seem to prefer the stairs to the lift — she is vain and a little on the heavy side, and I am not comfortable with small spaces. Catching me navigating the steps in my oversized footwear, she lets out a fearful squawk and flings a jewelled claw against her cheek with unnecessary force. I greet her politely and leave her in the stairwell, a ghastly, uncertain smile lurking near her undulating chins.

  The answering-machine light is blinking again. I know who it is and what they have said. I won’t replay the bluster, the threats and questions, the thinly veiled pleas and recitations of company policy. All that is behind me now.

  I remove my huge red shoes and pace the floor in striped socks, draining a bottle of pinot and smoking a cigarette (more activities forbidden to the public clown). At some point I note from afar that the itch of my wig has burrowed its way inside my skull. I sort the mail into two piles: bills and personal letters. The first pile
is looking robust, but the second refuses to take shape at all.

  Night comes and I talk to the mirror. Plot the week’s movements on a map, sweep a chopstick from point A to point B like a master conductor. There can be no theatre without an audience.

  I set up at noon as the office towers begin to empty. The mall is lit by a bright band of sun, making the people squint as they pour from their buildings in search of lunch. My face paint oozes in the heat and my balloons take on a surreal, almost painful brightness. A crowd of six has coagulated around me.

  My act opens with a toot on a toy whistle. The sound startles me so much that I fall down in shock. After some coaxing, a small boy helps me up. Gratefully I give him the whistle. He blows a loud toot, which startles me. I fall down. The pace builds, momentum gathers.

  Then a single great swoop of laughter rings out, an uncalibrated hee-haw that sets off something inside me: a Pavlovian rush of some pleasant brain chemical swirling through my blood like wine. I spot the girl in the wheelchair, her jaw hanging wide with approval, saliva gleaming. The surge of strength she gives me is fleeting but sweet.

  But don’t assume I am totally immersed in all this tooting and laughing. No — the world is much bigger than that.

  I’m preparing for a dangerous high-wire stunt involving two rickety chairs and a piece of string when I spot her: the blonde woman stopped rigid in a nearby doorway, her mouth a cartoon horror zero pasted across her white face. The moment freezes. I can smell her fear. When I turn back to my audience, they’ve melted back into the swarm of the mall. I’m alone.

  Some people are terrified of clowns, but I can hardly be blamed for that. The most rational people fall prey to the stupidest fears: that shameful Achilles heel they try so hard to hide. That secret they tell no one but their closest loved ones. It’s a shame.

  My flow broken, I struggle to win back a few bodies from the midday herd. After much earnest capering I’ve finally collected two schoolgirls, one elderly gent and a labrador, when a tall man with an impeccable grey silk tie sidles up and touches my elbow.