Read Online The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell - Free Book Online Page A

hit the sawdust. With a
contortion that his baggy costume hides, he bounces upright without
touching the earth or altering his painted expression or uttering a
sound. He couldn't have been as nearly horizontal as he contrived to
appear, but the trick puts me in mind of a film played in reverse. He
puts his fattest finger to his outsize lips as he gazes at the little girl,
and his fellow performers copy the gesture. As she covers her mouth
while her parents pat her shoulders, the clowns recommence circling
with their fingers to their lips.
    What joke are we meant to be seeing? Just now I'm more
concerned about Natalie. If all the clowns are performing rather than
directing latecomers, how will she find the circus? Presumably she'll
call me, in which case I'll be guilty of using a mobile during a show.
I assume Mark is too fascinated by the spectacle to think of her. All
at once, and with some deliberateness, he bursts into laughter.
    One of the towering clowns is gazing at him. I'm as interested to
watch how the performer will respond as I suspect Mark was eager
to discover. As the parade halts again, the giant figure does indeed
topple backwards and recover his balance without striking the
ground. Not just the painted grimace but the wide unblinking eyes
might as well be set in a mask. I'm so impressed by how skilfully he
wields his stilts that I can't help laughing and clapping my hands like
a child.
    The clown fixes his stare on me. It seems capable of freezing my
suddenly clumsy hands and rendering me mute. I'm reminding myself
that it's another joke when I observe that the lanky figure inside the
loose costume is no longer quite vertical. So gradually that I can't
distinguish the movement, the clown has begun to stoop towards me.
He's at least a dozen paces away, even allowing for his elongated legs
and feet, but my awareness is trapped by the ambiguous immobile
painted face that's lowering closer. The audience is so hushed it might
not be present at all. The clown's posture is starting to resemble a
sprinter's crouch, and I imagine him scuttling over the benches at me.
I'm about to break the breathless silence with a forced laugh when a
sound forestalls me: the siren of a distant ambulance.
    The stilted figure rears upright, and the circle scatters in all directions.
The clowns dash back and forth across the ring in a panic so
elaborately choreographed that they must have been awaiting a cue.
In the midst of this the giants collide and stalk backwards at a
perilous run and rush at each other once more. This time they trip up,
entangling their legs. There's a loud snap, and another.
    They sound unnecessarily painful, which is how the results look.
The victims roll apart and try to stagger upright on their uninjured legs,
only to sprawl on their backs. As they writhe about, legs flailing the
sawdust, at least one parent is unamused by the way the antics
emphasise if not enlarge their bulging crotches. The other clowns
redouble their panic, beseeching the audience mutely as if they're
hoping for a doctor or a nurse. When nobody comes forward and a few
people even laugh, the clowns fall upon their damaged colleagues. The
fattest or at least the one in the loosest costume, which makes his head
look grotesquely small, fetches splints and bandages and less likely
items from under a bench while four of the performers immobilise each
invalid. He dumps the collection in the middle of the ring, and the
dwarfs fight over it before scampering to repair the damage.
    They splint the legs by nailing wood to them – the wrong legs.
They keep missing with the extravagantly heavy hammers, and soon
an agonising snap is followed by another. As the voiceless wretches
squirm all they can in the grip of their fellows, the clown with the
small head mimes directing operations between sallies to the edge of
the ring. His outstretched flabby hands urge spectators to participate
as the dwarfs attempt to straighten the broken legs. When