Your dad fell in love with the Clown that busks in Oxford Circus Underground station. 

The Clown wore chalky makeup the first time you met. It pulled handfuls of handkerchiefs, rubber chickens and playing cards from its endless pockets until finally, it produced a red foam ball. The Clown pressed the ball firmly over your nose. It smelt damp. You wanted to gag. 

You hated how the Clown clattered and crashed through the front door, leaving symbols, bells and an accordion in a pile on the floor. You hated the face-paint stains on the bathroom sink; smears of primary school red against white porcelain. The way it spoke with grand, flamboyant gestures. The way it smelt. The way its nicotine-stained molars showed when it cackled. You hated the 50 pence pieces that apparently materialised behind your ears whenever the Clown was present. You hated that, despite all your resistance, the Clown loved you like a son. 

After a few years, your dad and the Clown drifted. There was no argument, no bang, no great crescendo. The bathroom sink was clean. The Clown had left you. 

The Clown still sent you birthday cards and letters, asking if you’d like to meet, leaving phone numbers, addresses, details of where a performance would be. After the signature, the Clown would draw you a caricature - comically large ears, buck teeth and freckled cheeks. In the envelope, a 50 pence piece would roll from corner to corner. You refused to reply. The letters sit crumpled in the back of a drawer in the hallway. 

This birthday the card didn’t arrive. 

And you hate the Clown for that, as well. 

An adult now, your teeth were straightened by braces, you grew into your ears, and your freckles are fainter - though they still gather in crowds on your cheeks in the summer. 

Occasionally you go through Oxford Circus. The Clown is still there, in the tunnel. Older, thinner. The white paint doesn’t do much to cover the worry lines etched into its forehead or the crow’s feet by its eyes. The broad red smile seems to have been applied with less precision and care, smeared from ear to ear. 

You’ll drop 50 pence into the worn purple top hat by the Clown’s comically large feet. Over the ceaseless tune of a harmonica, accordion or oversized penny-whistle, the Clown winks. You’ll look into its face, and the disappointment will hit you all over again, as it had a thousand times before, because you know who is under that thick layer of paste, and you know that person is altogether unimpressive and plain. There is no comedy, no laughter; no joy in knowing that the Clown is just a man; a man with a voice and a smile that belong to him. A man that makes perfect scrambled eggs and leaves piss on the toilet seat. The Clown isn’t a Clown at all, and it disgusts you. The smell of damp rises in your throat. 

The Clown doesn’t know who you are anymore. Perhaps the man knows, but the Clown doesn’t let on. Its gaze passes clean through you. 

And you hate him for that, too.