Affair In Big Shoes.

​

“You must be joking!” exclaimed Joan with a look on her face that was a mixture of horror and pure unadulterated anger.

“Who is she this time Jim who is she?”

​

Jim could do nothing but look down at his shoes in embarrassment and shame. His size thirty-two polished shoes shone as red as his rouged cheeks.

Jim was a clown and an unbelievably bad clown at that. And he wasn’t joking.

“It’s Anita,” he stammered.

“Anita!” Joan shouted at him. “How could you Jim, not another one, that’s the fourth this year!”

“But she was hot, Joan, really hot” said Jim scratching his curly blue locks.

“Of course she was hot Jim, she was the bloody fire eater “shouted Joan jumping up and down on the spot in exasperation. “Wait til I get hold of her ill soon show her where she can stick her flaming swords.”

“Now let’s.” Jim never got to finish his sentence as Joan slapped him around the face, his red nose shot off, bounced off the coffee table, and hit the cat on the sofa who screeched loudly and shot out the kitchen door.

“... be sensible about this.” He said as he rubbed his reddening rouged cheek.

J

oan was now sat at the kitchen table and looked up at her clown of a husband.

“Fuck sensible” she said. “You know what this means don’t you?”

Jim looked at her, a tear leaving his eye, rolling down his blue and green eye make up and on to his white cheek.

“Tears of a clown” he joked trying to make light of his situation.

Joan hit him in the unmentionables, with his favourite clown horn. Parp, Parp, Parp went the hooter as she pummelled his privates.

“Tears of a clown indeed” she said with a satisfied look on her face and threw the horn away. In the direction of the watching cat which deftly dodged it. Not this time thought the cat.

​

Jim got up off the floor, still with a look of agony on his face.

“Honey, you aren’t going to do what I think you are going to do are you?” he said trying desperately, to placate his wife. “Please, not again”

“Anita, Anita the fire eater “muttered Joan

“You’re a poet and you don’t know it” said Jim smiling through his pain, his clownish sense of humour automatically kicking in.

 

Joan stared, really stared. “Here’s a poem for you. You’re a liar, shall I set you on fire” she said reaching for the matches she used to light the Aga.

 “No, no best not” Jim said quickly “sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“This is all since you joined that bloody circus, Jim. Why all these affairs?” she asked.

“It’s the thrill of the big top” Jim said. In a theatrical way, that he immediately downplayed lest he leave the house a human torch.

“I’ve loved this life Joan” he said trying to look repentant. “I’ve loved being a clown, I’ve loved being Nobbo, Nobbo the clown! “He did a little dance as he said this. Looked at his wife and stopped doing his little dance.

“Nobbo,” laughed Joan, “What a bloody stupid name Jim, where did you get that from “

“I thought it was fun, but a little rude at the same time” he said, hoping she was calming a bit now.

“A very little Nob and absolutely no O in this house” she said laughing even more now “Doesn’t suit you darling.”

Nobbo looked down at his huge feet again thinking there was really no call for that. But just thinking it. Not saying it.

“You know what I’m going to have to do now Nobbo” she said putting the emphasis on Nobbo. A very derisory emphasis.

“Kill Anita the fire eater, I guess Honey” said Nobbo.

“That’s right” said Joan with an evil smirk. “Just like I killed the others.”

​

Joan killed off all his three previous lovers. There was Ava Twist the Contortionist. She was buried in a bread bin. Well, she was a contortionist.

Then there was Fire O’Bannon, she was shot out of a cannon. She wasn’t actually the human cannon ball act but that didn’t stop Joan. Fire did like to travel though.

Then there was Kate from Pinner the famed plate spinner. Joan dropped her on the floor and she broke. Though it was from twenty floors up.

​

Nobbo sighed to himself. He wondered what Joan would have in store for poor Anita.

 Joan stared at him and thought to herself. ‘Maybe it’s time I got to the root of the problem.’

She got up and went over to Nobbos props wardrobe and after searching found the item she’d been looking for, it wasn’t an item that Jim had obtained.

​

Jim approached Joan. “Hey Honey, I knew you would come round, we can practice a bit of clowning together, like old times “

They both stood in the kitchen. Jim did a little clown dance and squirted Joan with his joke flower in his lapel. He laughed heartedly as she wiped the water from her face.

“Nobbo, Nobbo he is such fun o“ he exclaimed excitedly.

He did another little dance as he watched Joan raise the prop she had gotten from his wardrobe. Although on closer inspection it didn’t look like his prop.

Joan pulled the trigger. Unfortunately for Nobbo it wasn’t a flag with the word bang on it that exited the barrel.

As Nobbo slumped to the floor. Joan laughed...and did a little dance.