‘But if they do – where do they get them?’
The mother smirked to the father. ‘Well, answer him.’
‘They buy them at the butcher’s, like anyone else.’
‘But what if they do not have the money to buy sausages?’ said the boy. ‘Are they forced to steal?’
‘Then they would be doing wrong.’
‘I expect people would forgive them. Do you think they are born with a big mouth?’
‘Perhaps they stretch it by putting two fingers in and pulling on each side for five hours a day,’ said his father.
‘Do you think they are ever sad?’
‘I don’t know – perhaps.’
*
Let us try to answer the boy’s last question.
*
17 August 1801
JOSEPH GRIMALDI WAS NOT ALWAYS the clown on stage. One August night, in a pantomime at Sadler’s Wells, he made a showy entrance on the boards by means of leather, weaponry and bluster, sporting a gigantic belt, sword, pistols, scarlet bandana and boots, as the second in command of a gang of Genoese desperadoes. One of his pistols, however, was concealed within his boot – and at a certain point in the action, this pistol was required for use. So Grimaldi’s fingers delved into the boot, and he pulled on the firearm within.
It was unfortunate that the handle snagged on a loose stitch, and the trigger alone received his pull. The pistol fired straight into Grimaldi’s boot.
How the audience laughed!
Grimaldi, ever the performer, limped as though the script demanded a limp, and then, for further comedy, he sniffed with great ostentation the fog rising from his boot, for the explosion of the charge had set fire to the stocking, and he wafted the smoke towards his nostrils. He asked the front row, in an aside, if anyone had a nice piece of haddock he could smoke on his toes. Thus he continued, as the clown, even when not a clown, until the curtain fell.
The moment the curtain struck the floor – as though he had been held up only by the gossamer of pantomime – Grimaldi collapsed. He cried out in agony.
Desperadoes and stagehands carried Grimaldi to the dressing room. So great was the pain, he could not bear for the boot to be pulled off, and the leather had to be cut away. His foot was half-cooked.
This was the worst single injury in the great clown’s career, but just one in a long series, which gradually took their toll upon his constitution. There was always a broken thumb, a muscle pulled, an arm in a sling.
‘How do you put up with it, Mr Grimaldi?’ asked a naturally friendly, freckly young stagehand, when bandaging Grimaldi’s ribs.
‘I couldn’t be a clown without pain,’ he said. ‘Every tumble costs.’
The one universal balm for the trials of clowning was the joy provided by his son. Grimaldi adored his boy. Born a little over a year after the accident with the pistol, the child was christened Joseph Samuel William Grimaldi, and always called either ‘Young Joe’ or ‘JS’ after his first two initials.
But in contrast to the resilience of the father’s constitution, the boy grew up weak and sickly. If the father was known for a gaping mouth, then the son was known for a muffler, even on sunny days. The boy’s complexion also developed unpleasant greenish tints, which led his father to remark, when his son was ten: ‘That’s not the sort of make-up we want for you, my lad.’
Once, after a show, the stagehand, who continued to bandage the clown’s injuries, asked Grimaldi whether he wanted his son to become a clown. This was met with a most scoffing laugh. How could such a weak boy withstand the rigours of clowning?
Instead, Joseph Grimaldi concentrated on his son’s education. Tutors came to visit, and each brought some new accomplishment for the junior Grimaldi.
Oh the pride of the father when he heard his son, at twelve years old, speaking French! And not just rote learning of verbs – but French spoken with great fluency and panache. The boy even gestured as he spoke, exactly in the manner his father believed a Frenchman would. The violin tutor said it was rare to see such proficiency in a small boy, and that from the moment he saw the slender fingers grasp the instrument, he knew he had found a natural musician. The father beamed with pride again.
It was when the boy showed a nimble-toed love of dancing, agile as a squirrel, fast as a gazelle, poised as a flamingo, that it seemed possible – at least, not absurd – that the boy might aim for the stage; and then – oh then, Grimaldi’s heart leapt at the very thought! – could his son conceivably become a clown?
The idea became even more conceivable as the boy gradually shook off his childhood weakness. Grimaldi watched his son’s flashing heels in a dance, and the deft stroking of the violin strings, and the melodramatic gestures during a recitation of Racine, and clowning seemed not only a possible future, but likely, and then inevitable.
One day Grimaldi whispered to the dance tutor, as the boy hopped back and forth: ‘When I am too old to lift these bones on to the stage, there will be a new Grimaldi, wearing my make-up. The clown I am will not die.’
Soon Grimaldi made his son play imitative games in the parlour. These were not a complete success. Grimaldi moved one ear, in a definite flap, and then the other ear – the boy strained, and both his ears moved a little, but together. Try as the boy might, he could not move the ears independently like his father.
‘You will have the natural ability because it’s in the blood,’ said Grimaldi. ‘You must simply practise. Try the eyes.’ The father rolled both eyeballs independently. ‘Now you.’
The boy could roll the left eye, but the right simply stared ahead.
Then the father gaped his mouth, and the boy did the same – but the son’s gape, though large for his age, was not in the same proportion as the father’s.
Undeterred, Joseph Grimaldi took his son to the dressing room before the next performance and said: ‘Now watch me carefully as I mug up.’
The boy took up his position on a stool at the side of his father’s dressing table.
‘Always make-up before outfit,’ said Grimaldi. ‘Always take your time. Never rush.’
The boy watched as his father dipped fingertips in the greasepaint, and made natural flesh vanish under the stark white. ‘Don’t miss here,’ Grimaldi said, as his finger went inside the nostrils. ‘And don’t miss here,’ he said shortly afterwards as he stroked within his mouth. The boy gave a queasy look. ‘If you were working the fairs, then the paint wouldn’t have to be so thickly applied, but that won’t ever happen to a Grimaldi.’ Then he pulled a cotton sock from a drawer, which he filled with white powder. He slapped it several times on the edge of the dressing table, before shaking it above his head so that the powder snowed down.
‘Now with the lips, my boy, always remember that the smile on the left must look exactly like the smile on the right. You would be a very strange clown indeed if the two didn’t match.’ He drew on the mouth in bright red, and smacked his lips. The boy made the same sound, and that made the father smile.
Other details followed. Eyes outlined; arches pencilled on as brows; red triangles added to the cheeks. Then the entire costume, surmounted by a three-plumed wig in dazzling blue.
Grimaldi the clown was ready for the stage!
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.
Death and Mr. Pickwick Page 11