Your Lover, The Clown

You meet him at your niece’s birthday party, where the kids run feral, coked-up on pink juice and icing. While he performs his act, your sister is with her mum friends, drinking warm wine in the kitchen and whispering loudly about that mother in the PTA. The men are outside, comparing their latest acquisitions: BBQs, lawnmowers, mistresses.

He makes balloon animals, a menagerie passing through his hands. You watch the deft way his fingers move, creating knots and curls, producing life from nothing. The children request eagles, frogs and unicorns, which he produces with an effortless flourish. He asks you what animal you would like. You look into his whitewashed face with its scarlet smile and diamond eyes and reply

“A hedgehog”

 because you’ve never been easy and spending time with your family makes you bitter. He keeps smiling and creates a dolphin, presenting it with a comical bow. It’s not even close.

“I will practise,” he says, which may be the kindest thing anyone will say to you today. You want to tell him that a group of hedgehogs is called an array, but that you have never seen a group. You have only ever seen one.

You take him to a bar after and ask if he’d like to take off the face paint and the oversized rainbow dungarees. He says he’s comfortable as he is, and you’re relieved.  You order a Negroni, and the ice cubes click against your teeth with each sip. He tells you about his family. You expected fire-eaters and acrobats and are disappointed when he talks of a plumber and a librarian. You tell him about your parents, how you always wanted to be different but never quite managed.

That night you take him home. You undo his bow tie and remove his blue bowler hat, but ask him to leave his face paint on. As you have sex, you stare into his face, which is always smiling, and wonder if it could always be like this. In the morning, after he leaves, you apply your lipstick, moving the crimson paste beyond your lip line, curling up the edges in a permanent grin.

You meet your lover, the clown, every Thursday. He smells of grease paint and candyfloss. He always comes in costume, straight from a shopping centre opening or a circus audition. Every time, you ask him to leave it on. It amuses you to think that you may be passing your lover on the street or the bus, and never know it. That you have never seen his real face. 

The last time he comes over, you tell him you’re ready and ask him to take off the mask. But he won’t.

“You never take off yours,” he says.

He kisses you, smearing paint on your face, below your eye, like a tear, ties his red shoes, and leaves.

You find the gift he has left on the bedside table. A balloon animal. The hedgehog he promised, and beside it, a pin. Because he knew you so well, after all.