High Anxiety

I used to love the English composition challenges at school – you were given an opening sentence or two, and had to use these as a springboard for your own composition. The trick, supposedly, was to come up with something original, so that your work stood apart from that of the others, making any bored examiner sit up and take notice. You know the sort of thing; if the title were “A Summer's Day” you should avoid any seasonal mentions and instead plump for something about the life of an accountant. This story came following my son being assigned the opening line, “Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget; it was a hard line to walk.” The next line pretty much wrote itself and set the tone for the rest of the piece.

Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget; it was a hard line to walk. On reflection, accepting that job as a tight-rope walker had probably been a poor choice of career. The crowd below was waiting in hushed anticipation, longing for his first step onto the narrow wire stretching beyond him over 25 metres above the ring.

In an attempt to calm his nerves, Finn's brain surged back to that day, when was it? Two? Four months ago? When his step-father threw him out of the family home.

“And don't you dare darken this door step again,” he had yelled, spittle flying out of his mouth and striking Finn's cheek, already moistened with tears.

“Just leave and forget that I and your mother ever existed. It will be better for all of us if you did.”

Finn stifled a sob and looked up at his step-father as he turned to re-enter the house, knocking back a slug of beer as he did so. “But where should I go?” he asked, hoping that his mother would come out and see the state of his coat and jeans and insist that he should come back in for a plate of stew and a rhubarb crumble before packing him off to bed with a hot water bottle and a mug of hot chocolate, just as she had so many times before.

His step-father paused at the door and slurred over his shoulder “What the hell has it got to do with me where you go? Run away and join the bloody circus for all I care.” With this final pronouncement, he stormed back inside and slammed the door, leaving Finn on the doorstep with nothing more than the clothes he was wearing.

Finn had always tried to be an obedient boy, so he took his step-father at his word. As he slouched down Acacia Avenue, the street lights gradually flickering to life as dusk fell, his eyes fell upon a brightly-coloured poster affixed to a lamppost, underneath a heartfelt plea for the safe return of a lost parrot named “Lucky”. “FOR ONE WEEK ONLY” screamed the poster in a gaudy bold font “PIRELLI'S WORLD FAMOUS TRAVELLING CIRCUS. COME AND EXPERIENCE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE” Seventeen exclamation marks followed, which Finn thought somewhat excessive, particularly given his current mood. The poster promised that the circus would arrive on the 6th – two days' time – at the Memorial Field. “Something to put in the diary, “mused Finn, forgetting that his diary was safely lodged under his collection of Marvel Comics which he keep in an old shoe box underneath his bed.

For the next couple of days, he roamed aimlessly, sleeping in doorways and scavenging food wherever he could find it, barely recalling where he had once lived, until, eventually he heard and finally saw flock of vans turning up on the field and disgorging burly men and even burlier bearded women who proceeded to hump canvas and haul on ropes until a gigantic tent stood proudly in the centre, bedecked with bunting, flashing lights and the occasional 3-year-old who had got caught up in all the excitement.

“So this is it,” mused Finn, “My big break from the past”. He scampered down the mossy embankment until he reached a muscle-bound, moustachioed roustabout who was hammering in a giant iron spike with a hammer about the size of a tree.

“'Scuse, me,” began Finn in a quavering pitch that would probably rouse any dog within a 5-mile radius “Got any jobs going?”

The roustabout paused his hammering mid-swing and brought the head of the hammer worryingly close to Finn's forehead. He spat on the ground, wiped his lip with a sweat-stained forearm and sized Finn up.

“Jobs?” he parroted in an accent that was difficult to pinpoint “Jobs? For the likes of a little pippirsqueaker like you? You'd be about as likely to find a musquitch in a sackful of brodderins”. Finn had no idea what a musquitch or a brodderin was, but the roustabout's tone and the fact that he had grabbed Finn's left ear as he bawled at him did not seem to be encouraging signs.

“Please, mister,” Finn continued, in the belief that adopting the tone of some Victorian street urchin would somehow improve his chances of success.

The roustabout's face softened and he let go of Finn's ear, swinging the hammer over Finn's head and indicating in the direction of a plush caravan parked under the oak tree near the edge of the field.

“You'd best go ask Pirelli”, he mumbled, “That's 'is gaff over there, by that gurt quercus, yonder.”

Although only about half of the words made sense, Finn caught the roustabout's drift, and fortunately not his hammer, as he recommenced swinging it at the metal spike, as if Finn had never interrupted his work.

Finn took his cue and sloped over to the caravan, wiped his feet on the mat outside and tapped tentatively on the door, “Hello”, he mumbled, “Is anyone in?”

The door flew open and a rotund gentleman dressed in a flamboyant dressing gown, top hat and riding boots appeared in the gap.

“Si, si, si”, he roared “I am-a in, I am-a aalways in. For it is I, de greeat Pirelli, is it not?”

“I guess so,” said Finn, taken aback by this sudden appearance, “That chap over there said that you might have a job for me?”

“A job?” roared Pirelli, the ends of his waxed moustache twitching in seeming irritation, or maybe intrigue “Si, you is in-a luck, as it 'appens, we 'ad a couple of, er, h'accidenz at de lass show, and I, de greeat Pirelli, fine myself at, 'ow you Inglis say 'A beet of a loss'? No? Come een, come-a een, leetle boy, seet yourself down. You wanna coffee?”

Finn sat down in amongst an elaborate nest of cushions and nodded yes to the coffee. He had last had a drink from a puddle outside the kebab shop on the High Street, and frankly, he wasn't sure that rainwater was meant be yellow. Or full of lettuce.

Pirelli strode over to a small gas stove in the corner, on which bubbled a thick black liquid the consistency of tar.

“Can you ride a biceecle, boy?”

“Sure”, Finn began, “ I had a paper round when I was 13 and I had to ride nearly 6 miles every day...”

Pirelli then asked if the bicycle had been doused in petrol and whether the route involved cycling through 16 flaming hoops whilst being chased by tigers. Finn had to reluctantly admit that it had not, although he once been bitten by a particularly vicious tom cat at number 86.

“S'no good,” continued Pirelli. “Lemme see wha' else we can fine for you...”

He considered the human cannonball, but apparently he wasn't of the right calibre. Likewise Pirelli dismissed his clown idea because of his feet.

“Size 8 is-a big no no. To be a clown, you gotta be at least a size-a 15. Crazy Marco, my best clown, 'e left big shoes to fill-a.”

Eventually he settled on the tightrope job.

“Izza piss a cak”, Pirelli exclaimed, “Only one rule. Don'you ever forgeddit? Capisce?”

“Right now, poised above the ring, Finn breathed in deeply, trying to forget his past life and simply to remember just his mentor's instructions. His stomach was in his mouth, as he took that first step onto the wire, arms outstretched, as instructed, for balance. He knew he must simply not forget. The golden rule, which Pirelli had repeatedly drummed into him from day one. He should, definitely – had to – remember...

“For peezake, donna bluddi fall-off”...