Day 13

Channel 22

The Baltic winter, as I have said, is not romantic or kind. It is not even cruel, because it takes no pleasure in that which it destroys. Instead, like a shell-shocked veteran, it walks on and on, through walls, across water that dies at its touch, going over the top in its mind forever, seeing nothing new. The winter is as lonely as Midas, but never as mocked, because it cannot touch itself.

When Kiko stepped outside again, the temperature had fallen without a net. Accidental sculptures of snow loomed overhead like curious polar bears and the wind shrieked all around. The orange glow from the doorway pleaded with the little clown to return inside, stoke up the fire, strip off and mumble back into the bedclothes once again, but Kiko shook a made-up head, slammed the door and set off for the furthest trailer.

It took an hour of wading through wet white blankets before a tiny gloved fist rapped on Mystique's door. Waiting there for the pony girl to rise and open up, a hundred possibilities popped into Kiko's head. She was out drinking in the town, she spat on clowns, she was really a goblin, she had a gun, she was in there now with the Ringmaster and his whip, the tumblers, bending about her like suckered tentacles, Atlas the Strongman, his leopardskin loincloth in her teeth. Just then, the click of the latch going up was heard, and Mystique Magnifique opened the door.

Kiko had never seen her without make-up. Indeed, to the outside world in general, she was nothing more than a highly rouged puppet, beautiful, exquisitely wantable and sexless. Nobody came to Mystique's door knowing what they wanted from her and the clown was no exception. Everyone had been present at some point to witness many a flower-armed fan turn sadly away from the door, after a cursory glance through the spyhole that MM had insisted on having fitted. Now she stood there, clean of rouge, the girl seemed so much younger. Kiko saw standing in the doorway not an ethereal netherbeing, as so many supposed when she took centre stage in her sparkles and plumes. No, Kiko saw not that but a simply pretty fellow fourteen year old, shy in the night.

"You're all made up still,she murmured. "Who are you? I don't remember you from the show.

Kiko was almost hurt before remembering the false face.

"A friend. I brought a message.

MM tilted her freckled face quizzically.

"One of love. My friend has fallen in love with you. Sent me out in the cold to tell you.

"How cruel! Well I don't care much for him, whoever he is, the heartless wretch! the pony girl cried. "But you, come in! Come in! I have some whisky we can share.
With that, she whipped out two tumblers, one from the dresser and one from the tiny candlelit table inside.

They sat late into the night and through until the sun purpled the sky, talking about things they missed while in the circus. For MM it was hot stew every night and a peppermint-scented blanket thrown over her by her mother. For Kiko it was a collection of cartoon strips cut and collected from the pages of the daily newspapers, each featuring the same clown protagonist in a different funny scrape.

"What's your name? asked Mystique, lightly touching the strap of Kiko's braces, and prompting a shiver into the bargain.

"Fuzzo.

"Nonono, real name.

Kiko was almost appalled that the name of the hero seemed to sound no alarms.

There was no chance of faking fame for a kiss, then.

"I don't know.

"Well that's the most ridiculous thing. You have to know your own name. If you won't tell me, you can go out in the cold, she said, suddenly playful, gesturing towards the door.

The prospect was not a happy one. The wind had whipped up even more and the drifts had begun to close in like beggars round a golden sedan.

"Kiko.

"That's another stage name, I know it!

"It's my name!

"You just came here to lie to me and try to kiss me, didn't you? She was on her feet now, grinning like a cat grins at a pinned vole. Her blonde hair was messy now, not tousled, and her cheeks were redder than Pippo the fat clown's on opening night. Kiko noticed for the first time the German spice to her accent which had begun to emerge, and she laughed when it was pointed out, claiming it would drew more crowds if she faked a French one.

After several bitter nips of liquor, MM turned, saucer-pupilled, and thumped the table by Kiko's elbow. "Now tell me your name, so I can tell the police exactly who was in my trailer tonight, trying their luck on a tired girl.

Kiko panicked inwardly , and considered bolting, but faced her. "You first.

MM laughed reedily, then struck a tragic operetta pose: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the amazing Mysteeeeque Magnifeeeeeque!

"You don't have a name either.

"I like you, Honourable Clown, she grinned suddenly. "Aren't we both so silly?

Kiko tremored again. "Yes.

Leaning forward, her lips a pink lifebelt, she ran a finger across the small clown's buttoned fly, then touched it to her lip. A gulp escaped.

"Do you ever¦Nah. She shook the thought from her head.
"Please go on. Kiko begged.

She smiled, pleased. "Do you ever find that you just want to go outside to the tsables and cover yourself head to toe in shit?
A pause.
"I mean just do it. Just go out there and wallow in everything that the horses have dumped. Become just this monster of shit that nobody will ever want to so much as smell, let alone look at, this brown swamp on legs, and then run up to all the handsome village boys who propositioned you so rudely earlier and try to hug them, all covered in shit, and watch them run and squeal like pigs.

She giggled briefly before it dissolved into a sigh.

"I just get so sick of it all, you know. I bet you never find that. Bet you don't get admirers screeching outside your door that they want to see you naked. You get to walk around, all dressed up so silly in paint and baggy britches, and nobody knows who you are, what you really look like. You can be as daft as you like and still walk into a Grand Ballroom the next night, all togged up, and pass yourself off as heir to the throne. No mean comments, no catty sneers, no recognition.

Kiko blushed beneath the borrowed face.

"The girls, she continued in a louder voice. "I hate them all - the acrobats and the dancing girls and those snarks of trapezists. They're all vile. They try and wear as little as possible, stick out their chests and push out their seats mid-somersault like prostitutes, so all the boys in the audience leer at them. Then they'll sally past the same boys later in the tavern as if they're weevils in a biscuit.

She tossed back the tot of whisky that had materialised in her hand, swayed back towards Kiko and grinned, her breath all spice and vintage.

"They're all ssslutss, she hissed, toting a wobbly grin.

Then she planted a kiss on Fuzzo's face. Bolts of heat hot through Kiko's body, igniting arms and legs, and the hands which came to rest on Mystique's waist.

"I don't tease boys, she said. "I don't want a reputation like that. It's not fair either. Kiss me again, you funny little clown.

Kiko, heavenbound, smudged Fuzzo onto the pony girl's lips and cheeks, as their tongues rolled over each other like kittens.

"Haha! She giggled. "I see your face below all that grease, you little charlatan! Now what does it matter if your name's Abraham Lincoln or something stupid like Kiko Fuzzo? It doesn't matter at all! Let me find some cream to remove that mess so we can see you. With that, she began to guddle about in a pink drawer.
"Silly, stupid names for silly, stupid people! Ah! Here we are! she cried, whirling round with the pot of cream, head spinning, nightdress riding the air, before stopping dead. "What's wrong? Why are you so quiet?

The door hung open. The little clown was gone, snow filling in the footsteps like a fairy gravedigger.

My grandmother, upon stepping up to bang a five minute call on MM's door the next evening, was the first to discover her body, splayed on the floor of the trailer with flecks of vomit around the mouth, a drooling tumbler on its side at her hip. When she was sent round to collect pennies for a send-off, my grandmother saw no surprise in the faces of the circus folk. Many went to jars they almost seemed to have prepared, emptied the shrapnel into one hand and chinged it into the pork pie hat serving as a memorial tin. The service was swift and simple, the ponies pulling the coffin, each in one of the black plumes used for the clowns' nightly "Funny Funeral skit. The bemused townspeople might well have expected the red-nosed apparition of Pippo to come hurtling through the coffin, like in the show. The circus folk couldn't speak their language though, and nor the townspeople theirs, so nobody asked nobody and the procession went on regardless.

Nobody saw Kiko for certain after that night. The clown troupe were only one short for a couple of performances before an eager camp follower, a black haired fireboy Becko named Rippo, was taken under his wing as replacement apprentice and smothered under white greasepaint just the same. Becko loved orphans. They listened and were attentive and made good clowns as a result.

A week after the circus had moved on, the magic now litter, the days unilluminated, two skinny, scrappy boys, playing in the weeds outside the town square, discovered leaves with white tips. Fairies, they said, or black mages trying to trick us. Poison, they said. Bird shit. Magic. Alongside the stained leaves, they came across a long strip of coarse calico cloth, frozen at intervals into paired indents. The boys were confused. Mages no longer seemed a valid conclusion. One boy joked that a certain girl in town needed a cloth to wrap about herself like that. No laughter. The detective hunt went on. More white treasures: a baggy shirt and chequered trousers. Suddenly the eldest boy made a vomiting sound and held up a pair of ragged underpants, snagged like cobweb on a thornbush. A streak of red warpainted the crotch.

The boys scattered and never mentioned the underpants again, even after most of the mysteries of blood had become medicine and circuses large and small had come and gone, .

So what was the point of that? And how did your grandmother know all this, I hear you ask, if she was a summer ringhand at a travelling circus? How would she know anything about anything except raking sawdust for ponies to crap on and limbs to bruise on? And didn't you say no animals in the circus anyway?

Well maybe my grandmother just knows. Maybe she's a witch or a wood sprite or a government mole with spies in every country. Maybe my grandmother's God. Maybe I have no grandmother or mother and never had because I'm God. Maybe we're all God or gods or godforsaken drainmice. We just don't know, but since I'm the only one here, you may as well trust me.