Start the day

Start the Day
By
Kim West

The clown morosely contemplated the trickle of his recent tears as it
wriggled its way across a paving slab. He raised his head slightly, his
face a ghastly apparition, his edges blurred, his make up horribly
smudged, as the crisp tip tap of career woman shoes broke his
solitude.
He watched her progress in sheer lines. With mannequin posture, catwalk
precision she sliced across the square.
Tip Tap Tip Tap nearer.
How very far away from her he felt, despite her approaching presence,
with her black handbag, black briefcase and black coat.
His flapping harem trousers ragged at the hem, he huddled into his
duffel coat. His own presence insubstantial.
She was smiling in the morning wind, as fair ground machinery
creaked,
wrapped up in it's poetry as covers billowed in the evidence of an
arduous night for the travellers.
Just that previous day she had attended a meeting about the education
of travelling children and learned categories. This kind of travelling
people were labelled "seasonal travellers" and characterised as
"reliable". Their children would predictably appear annually in schools
almost to the day, having a circle of the world to complete in a year,
from England to Canada, and back. Their vehicles were traditional old
lorries and smart wooden gypsy caravans. Forest green, maroon, golden
yellow.
What a terrible night to be sleeping next to a big wheel and who would
dare to venture onto that ride today in this incredible wind?
She was smiling as a young man stepped out of his van.
"What a wind!" she ventured, passing by.
"Tell me about it" he retorted and set about securing the guy ropes of
a tarpaulin.
At her approach, the clown swiftly retreated to his van, wiping his
smeared face on the arm of his duffel coat. He wanted no
interchange.
He always woke up so sad.
He would have to start this day again.
The tip tap of career woman shoes passed the outside of his van and he
rushed to his window and peeked out at her, catching a surprisingly
close up shot of her very nearby face. Pale, sadness swept over her
features now, as her smile dissolved. She had reverted to the archetype
anxiety. He watched her retreating vision, craning his neck to follow
her as far as his window would allow. Black silhouette against his
multicoloured fairground world.
Bella the fortune-teller stretched out on his horse hair
mattress.
"Give me the cigarettes Tumbles," she muttered.
He reached for the packet, as he sat at his huge oval mirror, cloth in
hand.
"Here you are my dear" and he threw them to his bulky lover, who caught
them deftly mid air, despite her grogginess.
Pan-stick in hand, he now contemplated his craggy features.
"You'll go mad one day Tumbles" he thought for the hundredth
time.
The van filled with Bella's smoky exhalations.
Applying the pan-stick, his crags receded and his canvas cleared. A
moon like face stared back, as his sadness retreated in this morning
ceremony.

Ever the clown.
Every morning the clown.
Every day the clown.

The woman settled at her desk, calling in her secretary, who moodily
took notes as she sulkily shifted from buttock to buttock on her chair.
The restlessness was infectious. This woman was a nightmare to work
with. She knew that an inherited employee could be the bane of a
manager's life. She called the meeting to an early halt.
"I'm going out for an hour"
Her secretary nodded, not failing to recognise that she had only been
"In" for half an hour. Mandy was finding the arrival of this new boss
equally frustrating. The brief case sat on her desk; she had grabbed
her black handbag and left her little office. Mandy could hear the tip
tap of her shoes down the long corridor and imagine the tap of her
fingers as she waited for the lift to land.

What a relief for the woman to be outside in the wind again. Coat
collar turned up, she let herself meander. The fairground was coming to
life. A small figure in a worn boiler suit hunched over the scaffolding
of his stall re-welding a joint. Sparks shot out around him, as a local
posh shopkeeper popped her weather-woman head out of her stylish shop
and frowned.
"This is what we pay our rates for? What benefit do I get from this
nuisance? There's nowhere to park and it will take me a full hour of
sweeping to clear up outside the shop tomorrow." She sourly declared,
as leaves scuttled by.
The big wheel was spinning in a test run.

Tumbles had completed his make up. Bella was washing in the basin. Her
cosiness always reassured him in the end. Large hugable Botticelli
woman, she would leave him to his morning blues and the memory of his
sad childhood. With make up, toast and tea he would always reconcile
himself to the day.
The woman passed his van again, as in the square two fairground women
were talking earnestly. One with a face full of black spots, hands in
pockets, the other a comforter, they strode off towards the fields to
walk their dog. The black spots were a shock, but a smile was
returned.
"Thank you for smiling back" she thought as her tip tap was muffled by
the grinding mechanisms of the big wheel.
It felt comforting not be distanced. In her black coat she was coming
to life. She gazed into the stylish shop window at costumes fit for a
parade. The kind of parade that she was subscribed to. She had been
lured into this slick wearing of suits, she knew that. That centrepiece
cream soft wool two-piece had borrowed from Harlequin its decadent
pointy edged cuffs, collar and skirt hem. It caught her eye, yet
repulsed her in its mockery of the fairground people, who set about
their tasks in faded garb. Such an outfit would make a clown of the
wearer. The shopkeeper gazed pleasantly with "come in"-ness from her
counter. Quite a different attitude now applied as a potential
?250-a-garment customer was in sight. But she soon frowned again as the
woman walked away, stopping to buy flowers from a stallholder.
Back to the office with cakes and flowers. Surely the secretary would
cheer up now.
Tumbles and Bella wrestled the tarpaulin off the back of the van. It
was a thing possessed as a serious gust of wind caught it up. They
eventually conquered and folded it away for the day, as the sky lifted
into bright blue with puffy clouds scudding.
"Here are some flowers for your office Mandy and let's have coffee now.
I have cakes."
Mandy is very taken aback. This is not how Mr. Letheridge treated her.
"Seen and not heard" was his motto. And she had indeed seen a great
deal. Now this new woman was in town in his place, bringing flowers and
breaching old established barriers. Coffee and cakes with the boss.
What a turn up for the books. She sat pertly opposite her boss, who
chattered on about the fairground.
Her eye caught the vision of a newspaper that suddenly appeared in the
sky, gracefully surfing invisible airwaves and tangling in the tree
outside their third floor window. It's page three tore by the Fortune
Teller's van at a rate of knots, swooping briefly onto the pavement
outside the stylish shop keepers door, before impaling itself on a
strut of the big wheel.
Tumbles opened the chest and pulled out his puppets. It would be cold
today on that square in the wind. Bella dressed in her many layered
fancies. He tied her sequin edged bandanna for her and the couple
opened up their van to start their day.

1303 words