Smile
By
Graham Taylor
Smile
Kindle Edition
Good Guy Publishing
Copyright © Graham Taylor 2009
Acknowledgements
A big thank you to the guys and girls who helped to bring this project back to life, your advice, support and technical genius is fully appreciated and well worth a mention.
Graham
Colin slumped his exhausted, middle-aged body onto a wooden pew. His chest heaved as he fought to catch his breath. He found running difficult at the best of times and even more so when running in full costume. The friction from his movements generated an intense heat inside the heavy clothing as he ran. This paired with the sun on one of the warmest days of the decade made him feel as though he was being cooked inside and out simultaneously.
Nervously scanning the dimly lit areas of the church he decided he was alone, despite the faint sounds of sirens outside. After a long moment Colin finally exhaled whilst resting his clenched fists on his lap attempting to stop them from shaking. Beads of white sweat trickled from his brow all the way down to his red lips. His once painted smile merging into something more suited to a horror film than the children’s party he had just left.
One by one his trembling fingers opened to reveal an item in each palm. In his right was a small velvet cube, which he quickly stuffed into his jacket pocket hoping that once it was out of sight the guilt would subside. A gold locket glimmered in his left and his breathing began to slow. Several moments later he had finally managed to blank out everything else around him, including the sirens. He focused on the locket, as though the answers he was longing to find, were concealed somewhere deep inside.
The cube worked its way out through a hole in Colin’s pocket and dropped to the floor in between his scuffed-clogged feet, causing a slight echo, which made him jump. A sudden rush of guilt dragged his gaze down to where anxiety was waiting and together they chipped away at his conscience, ‘God, if you can hear me, please help!’ he whispered as he knelt forward and picked up the cube.
Colin’s prayer ended abruptly, disturbed by the echo of footsteps somewhere in the shadows behind him. This unwanted interruption forced Colin to glance unwillingly over an aching shoulder to inspect what he felt sure had been an empty church. He quickly stuffed the cube into the opposite pocket of his jacket as a dark figure approached him.
‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ asked a deep Scottish accent.
Almost every fibre of Colin’s being wanted to say just how much he minded and how he wished the stranger would just use one of the other hundred or so empty pews and leave him lone but his words defied his worn out body, ‘Not at all.’
As he looked up towards the stranger the multi-coloured rays that shone brightly through the stained glass window forced Colin to squint, blurring his vision. He couldn’t make out the man’s face but he guessed they were roughly the same age, although Colin judged the suit the man was wearing to be much older.
‘Are you okay?’ Asked the man, ‘Your hands are shaking like Tommy Cooper.’ Colin’s hands trembled involuntarily on cue, ‘Just like that, get it?’
‘Yeah, I get it, very funny,’ replied Colin.
The two men sat silently side-by-side facing the font for a short while until the man grew fidgety. Curious at the half-visible handkerchief protruding from Colin’s chest pocket, the man tugged at it. Faded reds and greens followed equally paling blues and yellows. When the last one left the pocket he scrunched them up into a ball and blew his nose on them before pushing the bundle back from whence it came. Colin’s heart rate increased tenfold but he remained quiet, not knowing quite how to respond to such an invasion.
The man studied Colin’s costume, ‘So, what do you do then?’ He asked in all seriousness, attempting to break the proverbial ice, which from Colin’s perspective had long since hit the ship head on.
‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m a clown!’ he snapped.
‘You’re joking?’ laughed the man as he slapped Colin’s thigh in response to his own joke. Colin again remained quiet but his anger began to override every other emotion he was previously feeling. Who is this guy? What does he want? Why is he here?
‘So?’ The man continued, interrupting Colin’s internal analysis.
‘So, what?’ snapped Colin, almost biting his tongue in two trying not to explode.
‘So, how about you tell me what’s up?’
By this time Colin had had just about enough of the man. He pushed himself up out of the pew and stomped towards the altar, the clonk of his over-sized clogs reverberating around the church. As he reached the alter he realised there was nowhere else for him to go and he turned back towards the man and erupted like Mount Vesuvius.
‘I don’t know who you are, or what you want but please, for the love of God, just leave me alone!’
‘That’s the spirit,’ replied the man applauding Colin’s outburst. ‘Now come and sit down here and tell me what’s what,’ he patted the pew with a hand. ‘It’ll help with my assessment.’
Colin froze, he felt rooted to the spot contemplating what the man had just said. Assessment? He must be a policeman! He knows what I’ve done, or worse, he’s a priest and we’re in a house of God. I can’t lie! I’ll have to confess!
‘Come on now,’ said the man patting the pew again.
It was difficult for Colin to tell whether the man was an officer of the law or a man of the cloth. Either way his clogged-feet were compelled reluctantly to shuffle back towards the pew. He slowly squeezed his costume back down next to the man and sat quietly for as long as he could before the uncomfortable silence encouraged him to speak, ‘I dunno what to say.’
‘I always find that with any story, the beginning’s usually the best place to start,’ advised the man. He folded his arms and leaned his head slightly towards Colin in anticipation of his forth-coming account.
For what felt like the longest moment of his life, varying thoughts raced frantically around Colin’s mind. He was unsure which one would be first past the chequered flag. A flyer announcing a future service on a notice board reminded him of the date. He slowly shook his head refusing to acknowledge it but gave up, ‘It’s my fortieth birthday tomorrow.’
‘In that case congratulations,’ said the man, pausing momentarily, waiting for Colin to introduce himself and eventually, after much deliberation Colin obliged. ‘Er… Colin, and thanks but I haven’t got that much to celebrate,’ he said.
‘Still it’s customary to congratulate a person on their birthday, Colin. Especially on their fortieth, that’s a special one. It’s up there with your twenty-first and sixty-fifth, probably even more important.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Well because, it’s when a person evaluates what they’ve done since their twenty-first and work out whether or not they’re still on track.’
Colin pondered silently on the man’s words and dabbed his sweaty forehead with the handkerchiefs from his pocket. He sighed and pushed them back into the pocket, when he remembered how the man had used them earlier. In a vague attempt to avoid any further conversing Colin looked back towards the notice board or anyway else that was in the opposite direction to the man. His attempt soon failed and the man’s thick accent broke the silence with just one word, ‘So?’
‘So?’ replied Colin, reflecting the question.
‘So it’s your fortieth birthday tomorrow. It’s time to reflect on what you’ve done.’
Colin’s thoughts were immediately drawn to the contents of his jacket pocket. In a failed attempt to conceal his action, he checked to make sure that the item was still there. Guilt ate away at him from the inside out and silently he prayed for the cube to miraculously return to the house he had stolen it
from. He wished he could go back forty minutes or so and stop himself from ever taking it at all. He closed his eyes and for a second imagined what prison life might be like. He saw himself cowering in a small cell wearing striped pyjamas, his face still painted but his familiar red smile inverted and his red clogs replaced by a ball and chain. Then he was pulled back to reality.
‘Come on now, I’m not here for the good of my health, you know!’
With that, Colin made up his mind. The man was definitely a police officer and it was just a matter of time before he would be arrested and dragged outside to the waiting police van.
‘How long have you been a clown, Colin?’
‘In one way or another, nearly all my life. But I inherited this position, along with this old costume, from my dad. He started the business before I was born, after he’d had an accident at work. A forklift truck crashed and a load of stuff fell on him. He almost lost his voice completely when his throat was crushed. It left him with a permanent squeaky voice. It sounded like he was on Helium or something, which was great for a clown, the kids loved it.’ The man nodded encouragingly and Colin continued. ‘We were a father and son double act called Magic-Smile, he was Magic.’
‘And which one were you?’ joked the man.
Colin ignored the laughter and carried on with his account, ‘I’d always assumed it’d be temporary you know and I’d eventually join my mates who were all off having the time of their lives at uni, but I never got the chance to leave.’ He paused briefly, recollecting his past. ‘I couldn’t pluck up the courage to tell him I wanted to go. Every time I tried, something happened. Something always came up and then he started to get ill.’
‘So you stayed to look after him, then?’
‘No, not exactly, I mean not to begin with. You see, first my mam died and I stayed around ‘cos I was all he had. She didn’t have any insurance or anything and while he was sorting things out the business obviously started to suffer. Instead of retiring though, he re-mortgaged to keep it ticking over. He said he’d done it for me and I felt guilty for wanting to leave.’
‘But you told him eventually, right?’
‘Oh yeah, I told him…’ Colin remembered the night distinctly. He recalled every detail, ‘that was the night he first took ill. We were arguing about the business when his heart packed in. He just keeled over, right there in front of me.’ A white tear rolled down his left cheek and Colin watched as the white mixture landed on his lap.
‘And then?’ The man interrupted Colin’s thoughts, eager to hear more. Colin shrugged, ‘Well, obviously I felt guilty for putting him in hospital and I carried on with the parties. I mean, I had to, the bookings flooded in ‘cos he’d spent a fortune on advertising. It went on for months, party after party.’ Colin sighed and out of nowhere a tiny chuckle broke free, as if he had suddenly realised something he had never really been aware of before. He shook his head, ‘you wanna hear something funny… I’ve never really liked working with kids.’
Attempting to gauge the stranger’s reaction Colin looked up towards his face but again the sunlight was too much and he had to shield his eyes with his right hand before once again looking down towards his feet and returning to his story.
The man listened attentively to every word that left Colin’s mouth, occasionally asking a question here and making a joke there when silence interrupted the flow.
‘Time went on and of course I lost touch with everyone. Not many people want to be friends with a clown, unless their kid has a birthday coming up and they’re after a discount. I tell myself I stayed to help my dad, but the truth of it is it’s ‘cos I had nowhere else to go… And now he’s gone, well almost. They just haven’t turned the switch off yet.’
‘What switch?’
‘His ventilator or whatever they call it. They told me this morning that it’s just a matter of time… You try entertaining a garden full of kids after that bombshell.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Colin, really I am.’
After a long pause Colin spoke again, ‘You know I remember him telling me this idea he had about death. He believed that people’s souls relive their happiest moments for eternity when they die. I never quite believed it before, but now I hope it’s true.’
‘That’s a lovely idea and one I think I’ll steal, unless you have any objections?’
‘Not at all, be my guest,’ replied Colin.
‘So what was your dad’s happiest moment then?’
Colin scratched his wigged-head contemplating the question, intensely flicking through the archives of his mind but eventually gave up with a shrug. ‘I don’t remember him ever telling me what his happiest memory was but I’d like to think he’s up there with my mam, dancing or something.’ He smiled, remembering a time when, as a young boy, he had watched his parents dancing cheek to cheek from the stairs.
‘And what about you Colin? What’s your happiest moment?’ asked the man, intrigued by the notion. Colin pondered the question before answering, ‘When I was about six, we’d done this show for a really big audience, the biggest we’d ever done. Dad did this magic trick right at the end of our show where two white doves appeared out of a puff of smoke and then we disappeared. It was fantastic, the audience loved it, we got a standing ovation.’
The warm fuzzy feeling he felt as he reminisced was short lived, turning sharply on him like a knife reopening old wounds. He changed the subject asking the man if he was married.
‘Yes quite recently, in fact. Got a kid on the way too. This is my happiest moment, Colin.’ With that he motioned towards the wedding ring Colin was wearing. ‘And you’re married too, I see.’
The pain attacked again, this time like a razor. ‘Not quite. I’m er…’ Colin sighed, reluctant to admit it to himself let a lone a stranger. ‘… divorced.’
‘Sorry to hear that, too, kidda.’ The man’s voice sounded softer than before and Colin felt that he genuinely meant it, which took him by surprise.
‘Thanks,’ replied Colin as it suddenly occurred to him that he had been telling a complete stranger things he wouldn’t, under normal circumstances, tell anyone. He glanced around the church, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. If I can’t open up here, where can I?
‘She kicked me out about the same time my dad took ill. She’d nagged me for years to get a proper job but couldn’t understand the fact that I agreed with her and wanted to move on but couldn’t. She got the house and I got a bed-sit.’
‘So have you never met anyone else?’
Colin shook his head. ‘No, as much as I hate to admit it…I still love my wife. For a little while I actually thought I had a plan. I really did think I was going to make everything right.’ He fumbled in his pocket making sure he hadn’t lost the item since he last checked it, ‘But like everything else I touch, it all went pear-shaped.’
‘I’ve got to say Colin, for a clown you’re not very cheerful.’
‘Was that meant to be a joke?’ Asked Colin attempting for a third time to look directly into the man’s face but again was forced to squint and look away.
‘Just trying to lighten your load a little, carry on.’
‘I stay in most nights watching documentaries. I like learning about history and antiques…’ The man interrupted. ‘Tell me about the necklace then.’
Colin took the velvet cube out of his pocket thinking this was as good a time as any to relieve his moral burden. ‘That’s where I first saw them… on TV.’ He opened the cube to reveal two pieces of jewellery. The man whistled in response. ‘The pendant’s eighteen carrot white gold tanzanite and diamond and the ring’s a platinum set diamond.’
‘There must be a few bob there then.’ The man reasoned.
‘About ten, maybe twelve thousand,’ said Colin and the man whistled again. ‘That’s an awful lot of dough that, surely that’s your debts sorted then, eh?’
Colin’s head sank, his gaze once again drawn to his scuffed clogs. ‘No, but it would have been a good start�
�� if I’d actually had a buyer. But I didn’t. I never planned to steal them, you know.’
‘I know.’ Replied the man, before explaining that he had actually been referring to the locket still clenched in Colin’s left hand but was glad he was honest enough to admit he had taken the jewellery. ‘It helps when I’m assessing the situation.’
Slightly confused Colin wasn’t sure how to respond so nodded his head as if he understood. He closed the velvet cube and placed it carefully on the pew between them and then explained how the locket had belonged to his mother and had been in her family for generations.
‘I carry it everywhere I go… for luck, I guess. But today of all days I left it at the house I’d done the party at. I hadn’t realised at the time ‘cos I’d been arguing with the kid’s dad over the bill and I’d left in a bit of a hurry. When I went back to get it everyone was in the garden having a barbecue, so I just walked straight in. I’d left it in the en-suite and thought I’d be in and out without anyone knowing. I didn’t want another argument, I just wanted my locket back.’
‘So what happened then?’
‘Well I saw it on the nightstand and figured they still owed me. They’ve got a massive house, loads of money you know. I didn’t think they’d miss it so I just took it. I didn’t know what was in it ‘til I was outside the church. I was worn out from running so I stopped in the road to have a rest and decided to look inside. Course I recognised it straight away and it wasn’t long after that, that I heard the sirens. I panicked and ran in here. I wouldn’t have taken it if I’d known what it was, honest.’
‘I believe you.’
Colin opened his locket and two small photographs of anchestors he’d never known looked back at him with what he imagined were disapproving frowns. The man shook his head. ‘I’m surprised at you though’.
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