My big break

I was commissioned to write an article about my father’s death by one of the major women’s magazines. It was my big break, a multi-million selling magazine and they wanted a piece of my writing.

The whole thing happened by chance. I’d driven my father to a friend’s funeral. My father was a clown and had heard the sad news that his friend Bobo the clown had died. The funeral invitation insisted that he come in his full clown regalia, so I had driven him to the church, as he didn’t want to wear his clown suit on public transport.

In fact, it transpired, the whole thing had been a trick, by Bobo, who wasn’t dead at all. My father had driven off in my car with Bobo and two dozen other clowns and I was waiting for a taxi. As I was hanging around the churchyard I bumped into Roman McGinty, a magazine editor I recognised from a session he’d run on my writing course; Why My Magazine Needs You. Roman was walking his dog through the churchyard, seemingly without a care in the world. Astonishingly he recognised me, even though he had shown no interest in the work I had presented it to him following the course. “What brings you here?” he asked.

“My father,” I started to explain the details of the fake clown funeral, but go no further than the first two words.

“That’s so sad,” Roman said, “it’s exactly the sort of story of everyday tragedy that my magazine is all about. In fact,” he whispered, in confidence, “we’re looking for a feature on losing a father for the November issue. Something personal, fresh, real. I know you can do it, shall we say 1,000 words by the end of the month.”

I paused, trying to think of the best way to convey the clown funeral story in two words, but left it too long.

“Of course, if you’re too cut up by grief there are plenty of other writers…”

“I’ll do it,” I said. After all, this could well be my only chance.

At that moment Roman’s dog returned from whichever gravestone he’d been pissing on and Roman continued on his merry way. It was too late to negotiate on the deal, for example saying that I’d write it after my father died.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I couldn’t lie, pretend that my father was dead and write a feature on it. My dad was semi-famous in his day, a minor TV star, he was one of the regular clowns on Bobo’s Clown Circus, a BBC 1 hit in the 70s. He was still well-known enough in clown circles that news of his son writing about his death would soon reach him, and I would be renowned as a great charlatan.

Writing an anonymous piece was also out of the question. Roman had been quite clear that he wanted a personal story; with names, facts, checkable dates.

Of course, I could easily give Roman a ring and say that I wasn’t able to write the story, I was overwhelmed by grief, or something. It would still give me an opportunity to approach him at a later date, maybe when my father actually died. However, I refused to listen to logic. My dad is old, I reasoned, within 20 days there’s a fair chance he’ll die anyway, I might as well make a start on the feature just in case.

I went round to see dad. I needed to know more about him, to gain some information I could use in the story. I realise I didn’t know how he had gotten into clowning, I didn’t even know how he had met my mother. The simple truth was I didn’t know my father very well at all, when I was young he was never around, he was always away on tour with the circus. And by the time he’d retired I’d left for university and it was straight from university into the treadmill of work and marriage.

Dad had the TV on loud when I arrived. He was eating a late breakfast, a plate swimming in the grease of a full English: fried bread, bacon, sausage and two eggs. Good, a malicious part of my mind thought, with that kind of diet he’ll die before the end of the month and I’ll be able to publish the article.

I was surprised to see what he was watching, a DVD of Bobo’s Clown Circus. He didn’t seem embarrassed by the fact and I sat down and watched it with him while he guzzled his breakfast.

“Which one’s you?” I asked.

“Which one’s me,” my dad spluttered between sausages, “after 40 years he finally takes an interest. I’m in the same costume I wore to the funeral on Thursday.”

“You’re the purple one? Wow, you’re leaping about like an acrobat.”

“Course I am. Very physical business clowning. I always lobbied for it to be in the Olympics.” He had. For over a year the only mail he received was letters from Seb Coe explaining yet again why clowning wouldn’t be added as a sport for 2012. I can’t help thinking that Boris Johnson missed a trick there, the perfect chance for him to have become a gold medalist, what could be better preparation for being the next prime minister.

“How did you become a clown?” I asked.

I was treated to a similar tirade about my not having cared enough to ask that question before, but eventually he told his story. “I ran away from home and joined the circus.”

I laughed. “That’s it? Do people really do that? Don’t you have to go to clown school first.”

“Clown school. What bollocks you talk. It may seem clichéd to you but it was a bloody lifesaver for me. Dad beat me he did, a daily stropping, for nothing, just had a temper on him.”

“Any you just became a clown?”

“Course I didn’t. I became a stable boy, shit shoveller for the horses and elephants. I left home to shovel shit. It weren’t a glamorous job. But I spent my spare time hanging around with the clowns, learnt to do pratfalls and in no time at all I’d mastered their act. They thought it was hilarious, a four foot nothing kid copying they routine, and I became part of the act.”

“I never knew,” I said.

“No,” he said, “you never knew, or, you never asked, depends how you look at it.”

After meeting my father I phoned a couple of friends who’d lost their fathers. I said I was writing an article and wanted to hear about their experiences.

“It was just this gap,” the first one said, “a big space in my life. Every day I’d think of something connected to my father, then this realisation that he wasn’t there. It’s hard to put into words, it’s just an absence, an emptiness, a lack.”

My other friend was less clear, less easy to quote in my article. “You know, there isn’t a way of describing it, it’s a million things. Sometimes I’m immobile, useless, overwhelmed with grief, other times I’ve forgotten all about it, seemingly, but it’s still there, lurking at the back of my mind, yes you’re enjoying this party but your father is dead. And there’s the regrets, all the things I wished I’d done with him, that trip to Rome we talked about for years ever since I started learning Latin.”

I knew exactly what he meant. I started work on the feature and within a few days I had written a perfectly good article about my father’s death, how it had impacted on me and what I most missed and regretted. And it came in at exactly 1,000 words.

Later that week I noticed that the circus was coming to town so I went to buy tickets. Of course dad could be quite snobby about other clowns, especially if they’d never been on the TV, but it would be the first time we’d been to the circus together since I was a kid.

I never got to deliver my present. My dad’s neighbour phoned to say that he’d been rushed to hospital. Heart attack. By the time I arrived it was too late.

I phoned Roman to cancel the article. “I’m too overwhelmed by grief to write about it I’m afraid.”