This morning I woke up with bison breath and the dim recollection that I’d had a good night.
My head felt too heavy for my body, I was in pain and would have swapped my worldly goods for an aspirin. My bones ached and I had no idea how on earth I was going to get through the day. In short, I had a hangover. Still, if I heard from the wondrous Simon, it would have been worth it. So, I clambered out of bed and lurched towards the bathroom, comforting myself with the thought that this morning I’d be earning two hundred pounds for three hours’ work. Enough to buy me an entire week of travelling in South America, an incentive that propelled me into my clown costume.
Yes, clown costume. For when I’m not working at Roberto’s, despite the fact most of my peers are having children, I, Marianne Baker can be found on many a weekend dressed as Custard the Clown, entertaining them, complete with oversize shoes, red nose and curly blue wig. I also wear a stripy shirt, huge brown trousers held up with comedy braces and a green tailcoat, which has a big plastic gerbera in the buttonhole that can squirt water. Once I’m in full costume and have made up my face I’d love to tell you I start to embrace my role but, in all honesty, I never feel smaller or more stupid than I do when I’m in that ridiculous bloody outfit. I literally have to think of the money the entire time I’m in it.
Of course, when I made the decision to peddle myself as a children’s entertainer I could have taken the more attractive option of investing in a fairy or princess costume, but after a lot of research I realised this would limit my earning potential. Fairies are two a penny and no self-respecting boy would ever want a fairy anywhere near his party. So, investing in a unisex clown costume had seemed like the best option. Not taking into consideration my own ego.
Fully clowned up I sneaked through the house as quietly as I could in my silly shoes. They’re so big it’s like trying to walk in flippers. Mum and Martin had already warned me that they needed a lie in this morning as they were going out for Sheena and Dave’s wedding anniversary that night, so I knew they’d be annoyed if I woke them up.
Four-year-old Jack’s party was being held at his parents’ house – funnily enough he didn’t have his own pad yet – in posh Buckhurst Hill. It was due to start at eleven, so I was aiming to arrive at ten-fifteen for setting-up purposes. Thankfully, parents of small children always stipulate the time these parties have to end, which in today’s case was one o’clock. No one, it seems, is capable of dealing with armies of small children for more than a few hours at a time …
This last thought caused me to suffer a huge relapse during which I had to steady myself on the banister. ‘Armies of small children’ isn’t a prospect anyone should have to consider when suffering from a hangover. In that moment I decided the only way to cope with the day was to take each minute as it came. Bedtime was simply too far away.
As I tiptoed along the landing my brother, Pete, emerged stealthily from his bedroom.
My nerves were frayed from lack of sleep – and vodka – so I gasped loudly with a dramatic inhalation of breath, in the same heart-stopping way Mum does when I’m driving and she thinks I’m too close to another car. Only I never am.
‘You gave me a shock,’ I accused, when in fact the hysterical noise I’d made was far more shocking than anything.
Pete didn’t bat an eyelid. I don’t think his pulse works in the same way as other peoples. Neither did he react to the way I was dressed, which to be fair he’s seen many times before. Instead he merely skulked through to the bathroom, still in his pyjamas.
I haven’t really told you about Pete yet, have I? He’s my brother, well, my half-brother. My mum’s ‘precious prince’. I don’t mind Pete. He’s pretty easy company, made even more so by the fact that he hardly ever comes out of his room. He’s obsessed in a pretty unhealthy way with Elvis and spends the majority of his time listening to The King’s albums on full volume while playing Xbox. Pete’s a funny boy really. He lives in a world of his own. He’s nineteen and if I’m honest I don’t really know him very well at all.
After a life-saving cup of tea, piece of toast, couple of headache pills, pint of water and a Berocca I left the house. Fresh air was good and as I started piling bags of clowning equipment into mum’s Rover – or ‘Tina’ as she likes to call it, Mum has a habit of naming inanimate objects – I decided I might be OK today after all.
As I slammed the boot shut my phone beeped telling me I had a text. I had butterflies as I went to check it. Ridiculously I was hoping it might be from Simon, despite the fact it was far too early to expect to hear from him. Dating etiquette dictated that it would be at least a couple of days before I did. However, it was from him wishing me good luck with the shoot … He’d signed off with hope to see you soon sexy.
As I pulled away I grinned at myself in the mirror. A white face, black eyes and red nose beamed back at me. Thank Christ he couldn’t see me now.
The party was the usual version of hell on earth once it got going. I get paid a lot for being a clown, but I earn every penny of that money, let me tell you. Little Jack, who was actually exceedingly cute, was trembling with the excitement of it all when I arrived. He was four today and he and his merry band of twenty friends wanted to celebrate hard. It was down to me to show them how. Understandably, when a parent’s forked out so much money for an entertainer, they want their money’s worth. They want to be able to stand back, mainline white wine and let the person they’re paying deal with the hysteria.
Before the party began, while I was setting up in their conservatory style kitchen, Jack’s mum was busy cutting crusts off sandwiches so Jack’s dad took the opportunity to take lots of photographs of the birthday boy. At a certain point Jack grew bored of posing and his dad suddenly swung his excited son around in the air before giving him a giant bear hug. It was a touching scene and I experienced, not for the first time, a pang for the childhood I didn’t have. It wasn’t the party and fuss I yearned for when I felt like this. My mum certainly couldn’t have afforded to do big parties like this. Our treat was always to take a friend to McDonald’s for tea, which we loved. It was witnessing such a close family unit that made me sad, because for a few short years I know it’s what I had. I wish I could remember what it felt like to feel so complete. Growing up I missed my dad so much on special occasions, particularly on birthdays. I longed for him to be there. Always. And every year when I blew out my candles I wished he’d come back. I’d close my eyes and imagine him turning up, full of joy to see us and with an explanation that would make me understand why he’d left.
Still, it wasn’t to be, and gradually over the years I’d started to accept that I’d never know and that he obviously didn’t care.
Jack was a lucky boy.
Once the celebrations got going the noise was incredible. It always is. It’s like an inverse equation. The smaller the person, the more noise they create. My hangover was only made bearable by the fact that as I went through my clowning motions I kept remembering how gorgeous Simon was, and how into me he’d seemed. I couldn’t believe he’d already been in touch too. It was the boost I needed, so summoning up the energy from the bottom of my size fourteen clown shoes I supervised games, performed tricks and made lots of jokes about bottoms. This does the trick every time. Jack wet himself laughing. I mean actually wet himself laughing. Still, after a change of trousers, for Jack not me, just as I was beginning to run out of steam, the kids were sat down for twenty minutes on the floor, around a Spiderman plastic tablecloth where paper plates of sandwiches, sausages and carrot sticks were displayed. These were all largely ignored but, when the biscuits and cakes came out, it was like vultures descending as the children scrambled to consume their body weight in sugar. Once the white stuff had penetrated their veins, and they were one Haribo away from full-blown diabetes, the kids went crazy. With lunch over I knew I was on the home straight but that still didn’t stop me from praying hard for it all to be over soon. After they’ve eaten is always the point when the kids feel