The Clown at Dinner

THE CLOWN AT DINNER

By Gavin Collins

Ralph looked around the dinner table as conversation stuttered. There was his Helen his girlfriend. And then there were her two friends from university; Toby and Imogen.

“So you’re a red wine drinker now are you,Imogen? I remember in first year when you said you’d never touch the stuff. Reminded you of your parents, you said,” said Toby.

“Yes, well, that was fifteen years ago now, Toby. Fifteen years is a long time, enough to develop a new taste or two.” Imogen picked up her freshly refilled glass and sipped. “Well, this looks delicious, Helen. Really delicious.”

“Thank you, Imogen.” Helen, Ralph’s girlfriend, stretched and stooped to place the last plate of pâté and toast in front of Toby (the lawyer). “Well, dig in everyone!”

And dig in they did. They dug with the interest of people glad to have an activity. People who hadn’t seen each other for years, and were now brought together by a few chance meetings and a we must all get together again suggestion too many. All aside from Ralph, who was essentially here under protest, having been persuade by Helen.

So here they were, getting together. But it was different than before. Gone were the intrigues of student life, replaced instead by the polite, grown-up small talk. And Ralph. Of course.

“Well, this is delicious,” said Imogen, again. “Really it is.”

“Hmmm,” muttered Toby, in a rare moment of obedient agreement.

A few seconds of content munching passed. Imogen decided to address the elephant in the room. Which was the clown at the table.

“So, Ralph, how did you get into clowning?” she asked. Toby stifled a guffaw and took a sip of wine in a token attempt to mask it. Something about the word clowning tickled him.

Before responding, Ralph shot a weary glance at Helen. Ralph held her responsible. Ot was through her that he found himself at this university reunion with which he had no other real connection.

“Well,” began Ralph, turning to direct his response back at Imogen, “the same way anyone gets into anything I guess. Drifted into it a little bit really. I knew one or two people who were clowns. When it came time to pick a career, I kind of followed them into it.”

“Oh I see, quite simple really.”

“Come on,Imogen,” said Toby, looking up from his pâté and toast starter and glancing around the other three people at the table. “It’s not simple, is it? I mean, clowning, it’s not something you hear of every day. There’s got to be more to it, right Ralph?” Toby pointed his glass of red wine toward Ralph before taking another sip which verged on a gulp.

Ralph’s eyes hinted towards a roll, which he suppressed at the last minute. “Well, I’m not sure there is. I saw my friends doing it and I didn’t really have any other big career plans. I asked them about it, and they pointed me towards a good clown school. I took it from there. It’s a fairly structured career path really. Quite boring.”

“Oh COME ON Ralph!” Toby again, clearly feeling freed now this topic of conversation had finally been brought up. “Boring? I’m a lawyer, mate, that’s boring. Clowning! You’ve got to have a better story than ‘a bit of schooling, and hey presto’?”

Ralph looked pleadingly at Helenbut found only a meekly embarrassed expression on his girlfriend’s face. “I’m not sure what to tell you. It’s a year-long course, then you graduate from clown school...”

“...pfff, brilliant, clown school...” Toby actually dribbled a little of his red wine at this point, not a gesture that was lost on Ralph.

“Yes, clown school. Then they help you find a regular gig or two. You generally start as an assistant clown, then you can jump up to junior clown in a year or so. I’m what a standard clown now, but I’m aiming for a managing clown role as soon as I can find one.”

Ralph stared at Toby as he looked imploringly around the table at his university friends. A second passed, and Ralph’s gaze drifted back to Helen and then to Imogen.

“Come on Imogen,” said Toby, looking for an ally. “Tell me you’re finding this funny. A ‘managing clown’?”

“Well, I can’t say I am really. Sounds like a respectable career path to me,” she replied.

Ralph exhaled, hoping that was that. But that was not that. Imogen’s self-constraint wavered. She smiled and let out a brief exhalation of a laugh. She looked maternally at Helen. “Oh, I’m sorry Helen, I am. But who would have thought all those years ago at university that you’d end up with a clown? Not even a managing clown at that!” Imogen laughed through this last phrase, the various career levels in the clown industry having instantly turned into a source of amusement for this otherwise professional crowd.

Ralph’s expression had turned black. He looked at his girlfriend first. “You told me they wouldn’t laugh at me. You know I hate that.”

“Ha!” Toby the lawyer again, chiming in. “You’re a clown man! You’d think you’d be used to it!”

Ralph looked intensely at Toby, putting on his most non-clown face. “Well I’m not.” He leaned forward slightly in Toby’s direction. “I work hard at my job. I may not be a lawyer like you, but I go to work every day, I earn my money, I come home again, and I try to leave the office at the office.”

“Quite right,” said Imogen, recovering her composure. “The man’s career isn’t something to laugh about. Pipe down Toby.”

Toby took another sip which this time definitely qualified as a minor gulp. “Well I’m sorry Imo. But you can’t tell me this isn’t at least a little funny. Helen– one of us, an alumnus, a doctor, a professional – has committed her life to a clown. An actual clown! If that’s not worthy of a few laughs, I don’t know what is.”

“Come now Toby!” Imogen, composure returning almost completely, decided to try and save the situation. “Behave yourself. If Ralph here wants to be a clown, it’s perfectly legitimate and respectable career pa...” at which point even Imogen, aloof icy Imogen, gave in a second time and let out a giggle or two.

Her two university friends now sat around Helen’s table, their giggles an open mockery of her choice of partner. She looked around them with panic, and then at Ralph, whose ire she could see reaching a peak. She had to do something.

“Well, time for a main course I think.” She stood and hastily set about tidying away plates of half finished pâté. The movement she created in the room seemed to reset the mood. Her friends gathered themselves, straightened their faces. Ralph’s disposition remained below the point of eruption, but set with a hair trigger.

“Toby, would you be a dear and help me?” Helen continued to rescue the situation.

“Of course, Helen, pleasure.” Toby picked up two of the half empty plates in one hand, using his other to carry the bottle of red wine and his own glass into the kitchen with him.

Toby and Helen adjourned to the kitchen, leaving Ralph with Imogen the accountant.

“Can’t you be nicer to him?” pleaded Helen when she and Toby had reached the sink.

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I mean stop teasing him. He takes it very seriously you know. It’s a profession for him just as the law is for you. He’s very sensitive when he feels people are belittling his choice of career.”

“Come on Helen, I’m not belittling it. I’m sure clowning is very difficult, and I’m sure he works very hard at it. But you know full well that it’s not ordinary. And if it’s not ordinary, then people are going to remark on it. That’s all I’m doing.” Toby refilled his empty glass and promptly half emptied it again.

“I know, I know. But do you think you could do it in a less funny way.”

“Ha! Come on Helen, listen to yourself. He’s a clown! He loves funny. He must, otherwise he’d be a pretty average clown. We’ve been over that already. And if there’s one thing more tragic than being a clown, it’s being a bad clown. The kind perpetually stuck as a, what was it, a ‘junior clown.’”

“You’re doing it again, Toby. Mocking him. Just try and be nice, OK?” Helen reached out and touched Toby’s forearm. “For me?”

Toby drained his glass, and looked more seriously at Helen. “Oh, OK, for you Hel.”

Toby filled his glass again, grabbed a fresh bottle of wine to take through to the dining room and made his way through. Helen followed with the first two plates of the main course, her first ever attempt at cassoulet.

The two of them appeared in the doorway of the dining room, greeted by the scene of Ralph juggling five oranges from the fruit bowl, wide smile on his face, entertaining Imogen the accountant.

Toby couldn’t help himself. “HA! Look at that, he’s juggling, just like a real clown!”

Ralph, concentration broken by the unexpected interruption behind him, promptly dropped all but two of the oranges. His shoulder slumped and he turned to look at Ralph and Helen, an orange in each hand. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.” Ralph wasn’t smiling any more.

Helen stepped forward to her boyfriend. Her hands were full with cassoulet, his with oranges. “Do what dear? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I clowned. I didn’t want to do that, but she asked me what I could do, and before I knew it I was juggling oranges. I just want an ordinary evening, off of work, where the topic of my profession doesn’t come up once. We haven’t talked about doctoring, have we? Or accountancy or law.”

Imogen tried to help. “Well, that would be a boring evening, if we talked of nothing but accountancy. All very dull.”

Ralph turned to look at Imogen. “That’s what I want! For no-one to care. It’s just my work. I care about it, yes, but I’m sick of talking about it to everyone that finds out. Especially when they end up just mocking me.” The last remark directed towards Toby, who was clearly finding the whole show highly entertaining. “Like this dick here.”

“Now come on, there’s no need for that!” Toby’s mood changed swiftly.

Ralph looked back towards Helen, his increasingly nervous girlfriend. “Sorry Helen, but your friend here is a dick. He’s got no idea how difficult it is to be a clown, and he’s not interested in finding out. He’s wanted to laugh about my job from the minute he’s walked in. Been itching for it. I could tell from the way he was smirking at me when he arrived.”

Helen hurriedly placed the two plates of cassoulet in-front of Imogen and Toby’s places at the table. “Ralph, come into the kitchen and help me with the rest of the mains, would you?”

The two reached the kitchen without further incident. “Please, just try to ignore him, please!”

“I’m sorry Helen, but I can’t help it. He’s clearly got zero respect for me. How can you stand it?”

“I know, I know. I haven’t seen him for years, and even back then he rubbed people up the wrong way. But the three of us - Imogen, Toby and I - we got on well at University. And it’s been such a long time. And I’m glad to catch up with them, have the old gang back together again in some sense. This is a reunion, and there’s always bound to be people who don’t get on as well as they used to. Just let’s try and get through the evening without any more arguments. Please?”

Ralph could see Helen was near breaking point herself. “Oh, OK, I’ll apologise and I’ll try to drop it.”

“Thank you. It’s not his fault really. He spends all day every day at a big law firm, and has done for years. He’s bound to lose a bit of perspective about the outside world.”

“I know, I know. I should be a bit more tolerant as well I suppose. Let’s just try not to talk about work at all.”

“Good. Now pick up that and let’s go through.” Ralph and Helen walked back towards the dining room, each with hands full of salad and condiments.

They got to the doorway and found Toby standing up with his back to them, facing Imogen. He looked around. “Ralph, I found your make-up store. What do you think of this?” Toby grinned inanely, huge red clown smile slapped around his blue-ish, red wine stained teeth.

“That’s it. That’s taking the piss.” Ralph strode forward, placed the plates of salad on the table, spun around, and swung for Toby.

“Ralph!”

Toby swerved to the side and avoided the contact. In swerving, he lost his balance, tried to regain it, and fell into Ralph.

Ralph grappled for a second, but Toby had lost all hope of staying on his feet under his own steam, and was determined to take Ralph down with him. Both men fell backward. Ralph’s head struck the corner of the dinner table sickeningly. Once they reached the floor, Toby on top and Ralph on the bottom, Toby hurriedly and clumsily got back to his feet. By the time he achieved a vertical state again, it was clear Ralph wasn’t moving.

“Ralph!” Helen rushed to her boyfriend’s side, depositing the last plates and condiments on the table en route. “Ralph, are you OK!”

Ralph lay on the floor, slightly comical expression on his face.

Toby, ruffled but determined to regain some sense of posture (which was difficult with the red clown grin painted on his face), stuttered “Come on Ralph, get up. He’s fine, he’s totally fine. Look, I saw his eye brow twitch. He’s fine.”

Ralph’s eyebrow had twitched. His eyes opened, groggily. He slowly took in the scene, a circle of eyes all looking down at him. His girlfriend kneeling at his side. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He stood up, swooned a little.

Helen stood up with him. “Ralph, you’re not OK, you could have concussion. Come over here, sit down.”

Ralph windmilled his arm, shrugging off the attention of his girlfriend. “No, screw this. I don’t need this Helen. I told you it would be like this. It always is. It always ends up being about my job, and my job is never good enough for people like you,” this last accusation directed towards the room in general. “I’m going.”

Ralph stamped out of the room. A second later, the lawyer, the doctor, and the accountant heard the front door slam.

-ends-

The clown at dinner.docThe Clown at Dinner

By Gavin Collins -