Clowns At Midnight (26 page)

‘Coulrophobia and counterphobia.’

‘Coulrophobia and counterphobia. I wonder how David Leeton would have been without them.’

‘I’d like to think he’d still be looking closely,’ I said. ‘Still being this. Go on.’

‘More?’

‘This kiss matters to me very much.’

She regarded me carefully, saw not a trace of flippancy or sarcasm.

‘All right. I guess we all need to be accepted for what we really are. That’s choice one. Failing that, we settle for choice two: we resemble what the other person wants. We tidy up our act, modify our behaviour, adapt. We’re good at it. It’s what you said earlier: protective coloration. How many relationships go with choice two—spend years at it until time and familiarity bring about a version of choice one? Modern relationships tend to sample a lot of choice twos and move on. Look at the divorce and separation figures. Cynicism helps. We connect too quickly.’

‘You want choice one.’

‘Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? Anyone who’s worth anything. I guess I want choice three really: choice one with a sense of the universal in the everyday. That extra seeing. Can you manage that, David? Sustain that? Most people can’t. Can you allow what I’m saying?’

‘I’m hoping the kiss will tell.’

‘Hey, I like that. Kiss
and
tell. It’s something we’re given few chances at except through organised religion, sometimes music or movies and books, maybe in an act of bravery and sacrifice. That connection with the archetypal, the symbol selves we are as well. It’s the
hieros gamos
. The sacred game. We die small. We have to stay bigger, remember to stay bigger. Work at it.’

‘I understand the kiss.’

‘Then it’s working. We’re two people sitting in a room, but we’re every two people who have ever done it and required it to matter. This kiss is every kiss that’s ever been required to do this task, carry such a message.’

‘Reaffirmation.’

‘Close enough, but devalued like so many good words. You like me, David, for whatever reason, but I’m infinitely replaceable. We’re all replaceable. But we might just do. It might be enough. I’m risking the Nelson Syndrome. You’re risking the standard Gemma Ewins one-kiss test.’

‘Right. Then the statistics are against me. Astronomically.’

‘True. But at least you’re someone who knows what I’m talking about. It should make a difference.’

‘One kiss to do such a job. The physical will get in the way. Can’t help that. It has to.’

‘Right. But that’s okay. It’s focused you. You’re right here, yes? It has to make a difference.’

To save further searching? I almost said, but that really wasn’t the point. It was better than that, more than that.

I was fascinated in spite of myself. It would have been so easy to lean across and kiss her then, bring it into this moment.

‘I’d like to hold you.’

‘So it’s now?’

‘I need to know.’

‘The outcome?’

I smiled. ‘What I’m capable of.’

‘Brave.’

‘What we’re capable of. It matters.’

‘Brave.’

We stood and moved out from the table. I went to her, feeling awkward, clumsy, fifteen, sixteen again, but needing to act. One kiss might buy everything.

Gemma stood waiting, very passively, arms at her sides. ‘Feels weird, I know,’ she said, a welcome kindness.
I’m in this too
. ‘Trust your instincts.’

There could be no hesitation. I moved to her, letting it be slow, took her in my arms, stood almost against her, then let myself move in. There was the thrill, the heat, the rush of touching the stranger, the definite hardening in my jeans. She’d feel it, had to expect it.

I waited till she raised her arms and held me too, then I put my mouth on hers.

It was soft, light, maybe eight seconds of the timeless you trawl for and find so readily in memories from youth, from when there were eternities on call and romance brightened everything, even polished the lies. There was the smallest pressure at the end.
Let it be enough
.

We parted. Nothing was said.

It was her test, her verdict. I’d let her speak.

Gemma turned away, took our empty glasses from the table and went over to the kitchen counter. She pulled the cork from a nearly full bottle of red and poured us each a refill, then came back to where I was standing.

She handed me mine. ‘A more fitting colour.’

‘I dare not comment.’

‘I have another surprise, okay? But I’ve been in these clothes all day. I need to change.’ She took her glass and disappeared into the bedroom.

I stood looking through her windows at the night, feeling my heart slow, my erection sink away. I noted the pictures on the walls, the patterns on the cups and plates standing by the sink, the titles of the magazines under the coffee table in front of the sofa. I crossed to the old wooden sideboard and studied the ornaments there. Among them was a ceramic model of a girl on a swing—somehow no surprise, and reassuring—the tiny stylised hands neatly formed around the twin wires; and there was a jewelled bee resting on a small wooden box with a marquetry inlay on the lid in the pattern of a honeycomb. Fitting for a queen bee, for someone who had drunk mead at a picnic on a hot afternoon.

Her world. I savoured it, sipping the wine, learning the person, seeing everything as choices, decisions, outcomes, much of it comfortingly familiar: the fridge magnets, the post-it notes, the sewing kit on the sofa; much of it at odds with the cosy, four-wheel drive, bingo night, chook raffle commonplaces of life in such a town.

Gemma Ewins at odds, the vessel. Taking everything projected onto her, all I needed her to be. All she needed herself to be. I meant to be fair, sought to be, wanted it more than anything at this fraught, injured time. No Nelson Syndrome. No harm. No harm to others. Being David Leeton at no-one’s expense. If I could manage it.

The kiss had changed nothing and yet everything.

The books on her shelves took the duality further. John D. MacDonald, Tolkien, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Robert Lipscombe’s
The Salamander Tree
, Michael Flanagan’s
Stations
, the new Rick Amor retrospective:
The Solitary Watcher
, Steinmetz’s
The World of Peter Greenaway
, Donald Stoltenberg’s
The Artist and the Built Environment
, things you’d expect of someone interested in graphic design.

She was taking longer than I expected. The wine was good, mellow, edged with just enough oak, but it was getting to me. I set the glass down so I wouldn’t finish it too soon, because the moment
was
so important, so uncertain, and it was all such a cliché, having a drink while she slipped into something more comfortable. I didn’t want to have wrong expectations, do wrong things. It had already been delicate without the kiss.

The bedroom door opened.

And a clown was there. Just like that, a white clown, a hideous, unforgivable, hairless white clown stepped demurely into the room.

She came in holding her glass, smiling inside a bright red smile, a too huge, too wide, painted red smile. Gemma in a long-sleeved white leotard, white tights, white gloves, new white Converse hi-tops, her hair tucked away inside a white bathing-cap, her face all stark white greasepaint with the big red smile stuck on and flaring red stars where eyes should be. Where eyes
were
, eyes inside eyes, wide and knowing, her smile inside the smile widening as she came towards me.

‘No!’ I managed the word. And others. ‘Just stop!’ Others never said: why why why?

Clown Gemma reached out, not to me, rather to steady herself on a sideboard. She set her glass down and moved towards me.

‘Gemma, just stop!’ And like a mirror image, like an echo, I had to steady myself too, found myself reeling, fighting dizziness. Not drunkenness, not a known clown-fear symptom at all. The racing heart, the constricted breathing, the sweats: they were there—all known, but not this new sudden weight, this drawing out, this smearing of vision and pulling away from under. I didn’t know it. Didn’t.

All part of the trap. She would dull me and have me. She was already too near. Awful white thing.

The wine. The opened bottle of red. She had drugged the wine!

But in the shift, the falling away, the white clown was reeling too, it seemed, it seemed. I saw her tipping, toppling, reaching to grab the back of a chair, the edge of the table, tricker tricked, trapper trapped. She’d drunk the wine too. All the while, getting ready, painting her terrible face, she’d been sipping. Such terrible beauty. Such terrible, stupid beauty.

They don’t make clowns…

I might have laughed as the white clown fell away. As we both fell.

…like they used to.

CHAPTER 18

I woke in a darkened, enclosed space, in a shifting dream of one, barely able to move. Something—padded cuffs, hospital restraints?—held my arms to the sides of a bed, held my legs apart near the foot. How it seemed. Seemed was the word. There
seemed
to be straps across my chest and waist, seemed. All vague and fascinating and uncertain. Euphoria was there, too, and a thick, underwater dreaminess, an uncertainty about everything.

I was drugged. That was it. Drugged by a dream of a white clown made from Gemma. Something like that. Did I have that light blanket covering me? Was I naked under it? I had an erection; there was no mistaking that. White clown’s curse. Terrible arousal.

I stretched, shifted, felt myself held. It had to be restraints. Something. There was no sitting up, no leaving the bed.

I’d been medicated before. I knew drug euphoria, the sweet, heavy lassitude, the craziness. I tried to focus, tried to plot it back. What? How? The wine. Of course, the wine. The good wine. White clown’s wine. And now the after-effects of whatever drug Gemma had given. But no nausea, thank God. Good Gemma. Good girl. No nausea. It was unreal, ludicrous, but good Gemma. She had managed it.

But what if? What if not Gemma? This wasn’t the movies. This was real. Seemed to be. What if?

I pulled at the cuffs, kicked at them, no longer content to accept. I strained to sit up. Somewhere in the unreality, the twisting euphoria, disbelief became annoyance, something like anger, though that was unsupported, hard to keep. But in the joy there was alarm too, far off, twisted, thickened by the wonderful torpor. The clown had fallen. I smiled at that. Felt I did. There was fear back beyond the drowsiness, beyond the drift. I feared it, and feared the fear. The falling clown. Falling down. Phobophobia.

Struggled again, meant to, might have, wasn’t sure, but no use anyway. I lay back and let it flow, this dream that had panic, sharps, hard edges set in it, chunks of dread, but as strangers, visitors, bits of someone else. The clown had fallen.

I tried to learn the dream, as you do, like you’re meant to, tried to take it all in: remember this on waking!

A musty-smelling space—too small, too cramped. Not a room in a house or cabin. More like the back of a van. The inside of a caravan.

That was it! Some old caravan. A long window at the end, another above my head when I leant back to see. Two long windows, letting in dimmest moonlight, starlight, dawnlight, a sense of those, through curtains, lighting just enough, just enough, laid out there.

Nothing else. No other furnishings that I could tell, no fittings, other telltales, but the sense of built-in cupboards, the usual tuck-aways.

A caravan, yes. I was doing well. I smiled with languorous joy at doing so well.

And modified, different. No usual caravan bed, no two-person modular convertible. Such words in the drift: two-person modular convertible! Amazing. This was lower, sturdier, heavier. Higher than a futon, lower than granny’s single. I laughed at that. Granny’s single. Things had been taken out, put in. Gemma had been busy.

Gemma, yes. It pushed through. Gemma doing it! Amazing, inconceivable. Gemma in the swing, by the house, in the Exchange. Gemma in the car. Dreamy and wonderful. Dream crazy normal. Falling down. I giggled at it, at the possibility, knew back there, in there, somewhere, that I shouldn’t be finding it so delightful. But it was. Delight spiked with terror. The clown had fallen too.

I tried to get off the bed again, fell back reeling, swimming, getting nowhere. But rewarded just the same. Rewarded with a dim yellow glow through the long window at the far end. A little sun—no, it had to be a torch or a lantern. I lay back, curious, fascinated, with worry pushing through.

Gemma. Or not.

Someone was coming. I could see the glow, could hear twigs snapping and crunching as someone approached.

Now I’d know. Now we’d have it. Dreams went like this, turned like this. The dread came on. No surprises. I didn’t want surprises. No more.

There was the scrape of a key in a lock to my right, a latch being lifted. I knew the sounds from a thousand keys, a thousand locks and latches. A door opened, long and narrow like a coffin lid, too narrow, and a long narrow figure rose up, stepped up into the cramped interior, brought light and terror in an instant.

It was a clown, a black clown, spidery, hairless, as gaunt as a scarecrow, a hideous black mannequin stepping in behind a tiny sun.

The dream had turned. I yelled, arched up and tried to flee.

The figure filled the space, leaned across, set the lantern on a ledge. It turned its face as it did so, turned its slim black form, its breasts.

A succubus, a demon woman painted as one. But another clown! Lon Chaney was right. It was midnight, probably well after, and here/now/this! Nothing was more frightening.

Gemma! Had to be. It resolved in seconds, in a rush of conviction, terror and panic that forced through the dream walls, unlike anything I’d known. Wake up, wake up, wake up!

The demon stayed. The flawed, dark Gemma stayed.

Or not Gemma.

Zoe!

Hah! This was Zoe! Had to be. Dark twin. Gemma couldn’t be. Not this. The white clown had fallen.

My heart tried to tear free of my chest, just like in the song. It was drumming, pounding, thundering through the last of the night, leaping into my skull and back, seeking somewhere to hide. I tried to swim, twist, pull away, desperate to avoid. That was everything. No touch. Black and long and lean. Don’t let her touch. White had been bad enough.

She leaned over, filled the world, placed slender dark spider arms either side and looked down, smiling inside the smile, the painted smile, no teeth showing. No teeth to spoil the effect. Smiling the same double smile.

A human face painted a stark, antique white. A true mouth lost in the huge black clown grin that reached from below her nostrils to the tip of her chin, swept up onto her cheeks, swoosh, drawn into spikes of darkness cleaving her face in a grimace, so manic, slash, slash. Eyes inside eyes, glittering from inside twin black stars whose lowest, outer spikes were dark hooks curving down to the points of her smile. Slash, slash, slash. So sharp. So dark.

Make-up again. All make-up, yes. No—but yes! It was Gemma in there, locked, trapped in there. It
seemed
. Someone like her?

I catalogued the dream, just as we’re told to, noticed that her hair was tucked away inside a black bathing-cap this time, that her spidery black skin was a long-sleeved leotard and tights, black, all black, with black gloves. Just paint and costume, but how could you override clown dread? I catalogued, inventoried, did all I could, but when she leaned down close, opened like that, what chance? What chance mind and reason? What hope of turning the dream?

‘No use calling out, little one,’ she whispered, seemed to, might have. There was drumming in the way, the pounding ache of the dread drum.

A catalogue was the only defence. I could smell greasepaint, the rubber of her cap, other fragrances, rich and wild, herbs and flowers. She’d prepared herself.

‘Gemma –’

She clamped a hand over my mouth, smooth and hard. ‘Good, yes! Gemma. Always who it is.’ The voice was a whisper, giving nothing. ‘Never forget! Gemma.’ She brought up the glittering spike of a scalpel in her other hand. ‘This is her tooth. Her one tooth.’

She took her hand away, stood back, whipped aside the blanket.

I yelled, fearing what she intended, tried to get to the light, explode out to the little sun. No chance. None. She filled the light. Manta, spider, she blocked the sun with her terrible face and her single tooth and the white clown gone.

She was up then and over, kneeling astride, pinning me, then moving down. I barely knew what she was doing till my penis was in her mouth.

My fault! My fault! I’d been erect. She had seen.

The old song came. Dreams hold old songs ready, bits of everything.

Sex and fear, sex and fear

Nature’s fool when death is near.

I’d imagined this at some time, exactly this. The clown mouth there. Believed I had.
Vagina dentata
. Now I watched me taken into the hideous gape, watched as mouth inside mouth took it, gave it, took it, gave, snatched it back into the warm wet rictus. Watched as eyes inside eyes, stars within stars, scorned, dared, defied, gave, snatched back into the hot wet. Mine, mine now, mine, mine!

I yelled, must have. And responded, too, thickening.

She was up, over, astride again. She had her tooth, her scalpel ready. It caught the light, bright and hard, as she brought it up, pulled out her own black belly, drew it right out over me, and slowly cut herself open. No, cut the leotard at the crotch, revealed the stark new mouth, glinting by lamplight. Then settled, leant forward so arms were beside shoulders, and settled, swallowed, snatched me into her, pinned me with her legs, her hard black feet.

Smiling all the while, both mouths, all mouths, grinning inside grimace, no teeth showing now, none biting, working thighs and buttocks. She leant near, brought her terrible, merciful, double smile down, set it inches above, drooled spittle onto my face, did it again and again, let it glisten, spin into thread and fall. Spinning over prey. Loving spider.

I must have yelled, must have spoken: none of it mattered, nothing remained in words and sounds. Neither of us heard.

She had been told to chew her food a thousand times. She worked and worked at it, good demon girl, kept thighs loose, legs locked tight. Her hard black feet dug in, squeaked with the effort, black hi-tops against wood.

It never occurred to me that she would come. I did, an astonishing, wrenching first, a surprising second, a reluctant, palimpsest third, and she never made an end. She kept drooling and humming and heaving. Then she became sharper, heavier, faster, trembling at the edges, arms akimbo. Her thighs locked hard, her sneakers cut in, squeaking; her drooling came with a gibbering edge, cut with little cries.

She heaved into orgasm, bucking, head thrown back, yelling with the burn.

Then settled, mad carnival heart pounding on mine, synchronising, double drums in the night. All I knew was that her face was turned away, bless her, that the clownface was away from mine. It left me with the drums. With the spider drums and not the face. No smile inside the smile. No smile. Just night. Night inside night.