In hindsight, the clown shouldn’t have been there; in plain sight, he was out of place: staggering in to the party, tripping over the children’s feet as he attempted to tie half-puffed coloured balloons into vague animal shapes to the bemusement of the stay-at-home mothers gathered around the kitchen doorway.

Victoria guessed Mr Giggles was drunk: the cheap curly orange wig askew on his smeared pale face, unshaven whiskers poking through like pin ends; red nose stretched crooked over his face leaving one nostril exposed, held up by string tied behind his head; make-up painted smile smudged into a stain across his cheeks; and billowing clown suit splashed with something frightful, she daren’t hint at what it might’ve been.

Dawn was slightly aroused, though; recalling her first boyfriend who took her to a new years eve fancy dress party as a clown. At the stroke of midnight, they found a free bedroom and she loved every minute.

Claire was embarrassed to say the least; she was the mother who had recommended Mr Giggles to Stephanie, having hired him two months ago for her son’s birthday party. The clown performing before them now seemed literally half the man he used to be; that cheeky chubby face dotted through her latest photo album surrounded by her son’s school friends now wheezed, cheekbones protruding from his gaunt head. He looked ill, he shouldn’t have been there. But, she held her smile in place, gulping from her mug of tea, refusing to look the other mom’s in the eye.

In truth, Stephanie hadn’t noticed; her attention was focused on the front door and telephone sat next to it in the hallway, convinced a neighbour or teacher from school had called the police or social services to report her for organising the Pox Party. Gnawing at her recently manicured fingers, a false smile waxed to her lips as she watched her happy daughter infecting the other spotless kids; their mother’s standing next to her allowing it to go on, to get it over with they said; trust in the MMR jab and other childhood inoculations gone, a controlled outbreak amongst the close knit cul-de-sac. Her beautiful little princess scratching at her skin, face contorted until the itch had subsided, then using that hand to touch her friends and eat crisps from the bowl everyone else snatched and shared from; later on, handling the parcel and tearing at the wrapping while the music stopped, passing it around to be mauled by the other fit and healthy kids. She almost couldn’t bare it.

She excused herself and jogged toward the upstairs bathroom, where she locked the door behind her and vomited her insides into the toilet bowl.

Downstairs, Mr Giggles was braced against the sofa back, hacking into an oversize spotted handkerchief; the gaggle of mother’s covering one hand over their mugs, faces turned toward the kitchen.

It had been a struggle to find a clown at such short notice; a struggle further, to find a clown who had had the requisite inoculations or spots beforehand. It just so happened that Mr Giggles covered every requirement; the fact that he looked, himself, to be terminally ill was a consequence the mother’s had to endure for the next twenty minutes or so, until Stephanie was ready to cut the cake and ensure enough contact time had taken place for the virus to have passed to all their uninfected children.

That same handkerchief, that Dawn swore wasn’t spotted red before the coughing fit, was passed through the clown’s closed fist, only for it to disappear once he prodded at the tip that protruded up against his thumb. Showing his palm was indeed empty, the clown reached into his right ear, eyes wide and bloodshot, and pulled at the reappearing handkerchief to the children’s delight.

Next, he produced a small flute, blew on it and smiled at the strange sound; showing twin rows of equally crooked, yellowing teeth. The kids clapped their sweaty palms together; the mother’s in turn pulling at their tops from the increased heat; had Stephanie turned up the central heating?

As they looked to one another, she appeared on the staircase ashen-faced and clutching the banister with white knuckles. Claire rushed over to her first, helping her down the stairs as the clown pushed the flute into his left ear only for it to pulled back out from his right nostril.

Oblivious to his antics, Mr Giggles was listening hard to the mother’s; especially to the grief-stricken woman being aided down the stairs. She had been up there a wee while and, as he understood it, this was her house. Very tidy it was, too. No man on the scene, so it seemed; he’d heard the fat mom that had booked him for this gig mention something earlier about her fella not being taken with the party; a strange party it was too. No cards lining the fireplace except get well soon; streamers and banners across the living room and balloons but no messages; that fat mom who rang him, asking him all kinds of questions about what diseases he’d had as a child.

‘Eh, love,’ he’d said, ‘if it went around when I was a nipper, I came down wi’it!’ He saw that one of the girls had a few spots; so what, it was the money he counted at the end of his forty-five minutes, provided the cash smelt legit, he wasn’t bothered what else he came away with. In this profession, the odd cough and cold was a necessary evil; what the yanks called collateral damage. He’d had plenty of colds in his lifetime and always plenty of bank notes to wipe his nose on afterwards.

Crowding around the pale mother; herding her on to a wooden chair in the kitchen; one of them went straight for the kettle, filling it up at the sink with a concerned and envious glance back at the table listening against the water surge in case she missed anything. Mister Giggles couldn’t hear what was being said in there; he’d manoeuvred himself closer to the action, pulling bunches of flowers from his sleeves and handing them out to the kids as he trundled over in his floppy shoes. These little modern-day kitchen sink dramas that unfolded in the affluent suburbs he visited; these women who wouldn’t even look at him twice and their pampered offspring who laughed and clapped now, would sooner happy-slap him in a few years time than give him the time of day. Without this make-up, he just blended right back into the forgetful decay of these towns.

Kettle on to boil, the mother’s-prim settled down to exert their goal; they all knew Stephanie had been dead against the idea of the Pox Party from the start. So against the very idea that her husband had packed his overnight bag and left the house. But, once the news was out that her little Chelsea was off school and their little ones were fit, healthy and uninfected, it seemed the perfect opportunity to protect their little bundles of joy.

Claire had heard about these Pox Parties on a daytime chat show between the school run and her Pilates class; with so much mistrust in the papers, so much uncertainty over what to do with their kids health, the mother’s had got together to boycott the vaccines like so many others up and down the country. When she told Dawn and Andrea about Chelsea and the pox party idea that afternoon at the school gates, they all decided that Claire should be the one to visit Stephanie.

‘You won’t have to do a thing,’ Claire’d assured her pale, stalled face; ‘Me and the girl’s will organise everything.’

Her husband, Chelsea’s father, had asked her to leave his house; staring into Stephaine’s eyes in the goading, pleading look Claire had practiced during her own early years in the playground, then mastered over the last seven years on her own husband, holding it there as she slowly got to her feet and crossed toward the front door.

Another visit the next morning and another that afternoon with the rest of the mother’s confirmed the invitations.

But, this, Stephanie slowly revealed, was something else. Mister Giggles’ car; the colourful mini-van that was parked slanted across her brick-paved driveway where her husband’s car usually sat, while she was upstairs, had moved.

Victoria burped free a laugh; so pent up and unexpected, it made the other flinch and sent her face a scarlet red, smoothing over the freckles that she usually took such care to hide with foundation.

The kettle clicked off and Dawn was eyed until she relented to deal with the empty mugs on the counter top, splitting up the pack that closed in around the weaker mom.

‘It moved?’ Claire took concern only by the fact that she had brought this man into their homes; he was already unsightly, she didn’t want another embarrassment to boot; this was her cul-de-sac, too.

Nodding up to Claire, Stephanie repeated her intimation, shaking her raised hands above the table as if to illustrate what she had seen.

With a pressured hand on her shoulder, the same force she had applied on the last afternoon meeting before the party, Claire told them all to wait where they were.

Eyeing her as she eyed the clown, tumbling on the carpeted living room floor as the children piled on top of him, Claire navigated the stairs and entered the master bedroom, pulling the door closed behind her.

In the driveway, the little Bedford Rascal sat crooked like the driver’s demeanour; sweeping the net curtain to one side as she peered down watching for the subtlest hint of movement from the van. Through the front windscreen and driver side window, her breath marking the double-glazing with a steamy oval of condensation, she wiped clear with the netting between her fingers.

Nothing; Claire could see nothing but the unravelling of her hosts senses. Allowing the curtain to fall, she unbent at the waist and noticed a wobble from the corner of her eye; ripping the net curtain back with enough force to shake the line fixed above it. Through the twin panes of glass, the quiet circus downstairs and her own heartbeat, Claire heard the van’s rear panels dull thump as it rocked on it’s tyres.

There was definitely someone inside.

At that moment of realisation, there was a loud scream from the living room followed by a loose shake of cries from their children. Then a soft voice she had trouble associating calling out her name with a defeated urgency she hadn’t heard since her sister had summoned her to the bathroom door when they were still living at home with their mom and dad to tell her, her water’s had broke.

After a static moment, Mister Giggles shouted up in a gruff voice; telling Claire she had better come downstairs.

Which she did, slowly; surveying the eyes that pleaded up to her for help like those daytime television commercials asking to sponsor a child.

Mister Giggles had Victoria’s little boy clutched against his chest; Marshall’s wide eyes and rippling chin passing from his mother to Claire. The other children, including her own and Chelsea were sheltered behind the group of mother’s hips, also looking to her to sort this fiasco out.

‘Claire.’ The clown; the little man who called himself Mister Giggles, who amused kids for a living, sang out her name like it was an elongated sound rather than who she was.

‘Mister Giggles.’ She said his name back to him as if it were a fact rather than a word that didn’t quite fit him. Watching his real smile willow slightly while his painted one stayed as buoyant as the child in his grasp.

They saw his teeth next; those grisly crooked things that lined the insides of his mouth like a handful of tic tacs. A bark of hot air close to the sound laughter might make from a chesty cough. ‘I’m no Mister Giggles,’ Those bloodshot eyes moving his waxy eyebrows up and down. Head reaching toward the van parked on the driveway, visible to the mothers and Claire from the living room bay-windows.

As it snapped inside Claire; this stick-thin decrepit man smothered in make up and baggy clothing was not the same chubby man she had giggled at with her son and his friends. That van out there was the same; those colourful spirals and fancy artwork across the sides, she remembered it as she had recalled the model her first boyfriend had driven when she was at college. Thinking of the moving van; was it the real Mister Giggles inside?

Stephanie blurted it out before Claire had chosen how to phrase it. ‘He’s in the van!’ Her gnarled fingernails covering her mouth; face as pale as the clown’s.

The clown’s mouth a hollow void; backing up toward the front door with the kid in his arms, now sobbing as he was pulled further apart from his stable mother.

Still on the staircase, Claire reduced the number of steps and distance between them, closing in as his attention was focused elsewhere. From the bay windows to the mothers to the front door and freedom, then to the sobbing scratching boy in his arms.

And, once he noticed; they all noticed. Little Marshall was cured. His mother, Victoria, the first to congratulate him; ‘Good boy, Marshall!’ A smile on her face to match the tears in her eyes. She took a step forward toward her darling son and confusion raged on the clowns painted party face. Not knowing what to do with the child that was sobbing and scratching and smiling; his mother the same.

Around the room, the other children had one hand idly rubbing at a place on their bodies, following the infection or actions; a yawn imitated by people in the same room like dominos toppling after the next.

When he realised what he was standing in the midst of, the clown dropped the boy who ran to his mother; one arm outstretched while the other scratching at his reddening neck.

The get well soon cards; the sympathy balloons; the little girl covered in a pox; those questions he had failed to answer correctly on the phone so had lost out on this gig to the fat man Giggles; the man he always seemed to lose out to, no matter where the job was; birthday’s, christenings these mother’s always seemed to chose Mister Giggles over him. It was discrimination; now he was being refused a gig because, through no fault of his own, he had never had chicken pox or mumps or measles. The whole list the fat mom reeled off like personal attributes he didn’t have, so didn’t qualify to work. So Mister Giggles had got the gig, as he always did; and, it had been the final straw.

All the years he had been doing this and all the colds and fevers he’s endured to earn a bit of money; not once had he come down with even a mild case of the pox. What, with the drinking and depression since his own diagnoses, things had got a little worse; he hadn’t felt good for months. Now this.

‘What’s she got?’ He begged the mothers; the fat one standing on the staircase watching him. ‘What else’ve I caught?’ A coughing fit shaking and shuddering his frame as he clutched on to the front door handle.

More importantly, what did he have? Whirling around in her mind; Claire had trained as a nurse before falling pregnant herself, her husband’s job more than sufficiently keeping them to the life they had been accustomed. She had enjoyed her free rein of the home all day; the friends she easily made at the school gates, some even since her ante natal classes. And, why give this life up if she didn’t need to? She just wanted him away.

‘You should’ve read the cards, Mister Giggles; you see these poorly kids, here.’ Waving a hand toward the boys and girls in paper party hats and sullen faces; ‘They’re all from the day centre, having one last party before their operations.’

With the lies, the clown looked visibly retched; as if his eyes were about to roll up in his head and faint off in front of them, right there on the welcome mat in the hallway. He clutched at the door in his oversize white gloves, scratching at the wood to grasp hold of the lock to let himself outside. Back to the van where the real Mister Giggles was tied up and gagged inside; the fat mom from the stairs now slowly trudging down toward him; the other mothers reaching in closer; all those sick kids who had touched and yanked at his arms and face, the germs he had inhaled; that exhaustive list of illnesses read down the phone line two days ago, doubled in his own head.

‘Stay away; don’t come any closer!’ The clown, with nowhere else to go, warned. He’d risked his life stepping through that door; he’d wanted one last final swansong before the disease took a firm hold, take one of the kids as payback; one of them and the fat man outside; climb to the top of a shopping mall or office block, infect them with his filth-ridden blood like those low-lives had seen to infect it upon him and walk away. He’d seen it done on the news; men and women purposely infecting the fit; what jail time he’d get once he’d ravished the courts and saturated the media would be inconsequential, he had so little time left as it was. These years on the kid party circuit had amassed him a viral infection to rival those germ warfare labs they had in the middle east; that, and his weakened immune system and thin blood, he had been counting down to his finale for the past six months or so.

‘I’m going, okay.’ He said, finally getting the door unlatched; white gloves out in front of him to ward them off. ‘I’ve got the fat man; I don’t need anyone else; I don’t want anymore trouble.’ The press would have a field day with him; he’d be crucified by the public for purposely infecting all these sick kids; all he wanted was one, not a hospital ward full.

‘Call the police, Victoria.’ Claire, not taking one eye from the clown at the front door, said as calmly as she might have asked her husband to pass the peas while sat at the dinner table.

Half smile, half grimace; the clown thought it over in his poxed head. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you; nobody wants what I’ve got!’ Letting the latch lock again, seconds from running away from all this.

It was a stale mate; one of those Mexican stand-off’s her husband loved to watch on a Saturday night while she put her daughter to bed.

‘Claire..?’ Victoria with her mobile in one palm and itchy son clutched in the other.

Face turning between them like a game of tennis; back and forth with the ball. ‘You think the pox is bad, sweet heart; you have no idea.’ A wry smile underplaying the lipstick grin.

She didn’t have to call them right now; they could wait until he left the house and ring the police then. They could take down the registration number as he screeched away, she needn’t risk their lives.

Claire raised her hands in surrender; the clown looked happy, for real. Finding the latch again, he checked his escape and slowly opened the door to back his way out.

‘No!’ All eyes turned to Stephanie; the mother that never wanted any of this but had got it in her own home; losing her husband to the selfishness of these women who called her a friend.

The clown saw the knife and sucked in a breath; his last wife liked to wield around the knives; he had nicks on his arms and chest to go with the empty bank account following their divorce.

‘Put the knife down, Stephanie; it’s alright, now.’ As calmly as singing a lullaby to rock her child to sleep, Claire diverted her efforts toward the host who had separated herself from the herd and stood alone in the centre of the living room with an eight inch blade in her hand.

‘He’s not taking Mister Giggles.’ Was all she said, eyes brimming with pointed tears; her arms shaking as she held up the knife for all to see.

She hadn’t noticed it before now; until the house had fallen silent; a low murmur of children sobbing hummed in the background like the television on low. All their kids, quietly crying in witness to this traumatising event; a party gone awry. Like hostages during a raid, these kids would either grow to love clowns or revert from them. Stockholm syndrome on a scaled down housing estate.

A proper Mexican stand-off; Claire’s husband would be so proud.

‘Claire?’ The clown baying for her help.

‘Put the knife down, Stephanie; nobody needs to get hurt.’ Should could think of nothing more to say.

In the steel blades reflection held the answer; ‘Yes they do.’ Soft and gentle, knife point up to the midday light. ‘Take her instead.’

A collective intake of breath, like the airbrakes on a HGV shrouded the room. There was a smile on her pale face now; a face that matched the clowns palate which he seemed to warrant attention to.

‘You want me to take her instead of the fat man?’ Offering the option up to his audience of kids and stay-at-home mothers.

Two of the kids shrieked an answer; kids that loved Mister Giggles but secretly hated the fat mother who organised everything; monopolised their mother’s time and told them not to watch television when she was round but to play outside in the fresh air, instead.

With a smile to match his painted face, the clown asked Stephanie if she had a spare knife?

‘No knife.’ She said, the relief on Claire’s face a pure Kodak moment. ‘She won’t struggle; will you?’ Angling the blade and conversation to the staircase; fear running like sweat from her overweight pores.

‘You’re not thinking straight.’ A start to a line of words directed at her host, that were shot down before getting anywhere near their target.

‘Don’t you talk to me about thinking straight. My husband warned me about you.’ A sequence of tears blinking down to her cheeks. ‘I want you out of my house.’ A step forward and a sniff, redirecting her knife to the man in the clown suit; ‘When you’ve opened the van, and Mister Giggles is safe; she’s all yours.’

 

About the Author

Mark Robinson

Previous short fiction has appeared in Birmingham’s Raw Edge Magazine; Manchester’s Transmission; online at Hackwriters.com and txtlit.co.uk; and forthcoming in Portsmouth University’s Borderlines Anthology, Volume 3.