I saw him out of the corner of my eye as I queued with my wife at the barbeque tent next to the Tombola. Standing on an upturned beer-crate and speaking through a pilfered orange traffic-cone, he wore a grubby tweed suit and a maroon bowler hat over what looked like a judge's wig.
His loud buffoonery made little impression on me at first, or it appeared on large numbers of younger fete goers and their parents who drifted passed him without consent or curiosity.
"Madam, yes you Madam." He corralled them from his plastic plinth. "Ah, t'is Gentleman."
From a distance it would be easy to assume that alcohol and drugs had played their part in this poor fool's downfall but as I watched him balance himself on one leg and hold his pose, I realised I was looking at a real pro.
Despite his dress, he appeared to have changed little since I'd last seen him. Remembering Julian from Aske's, it was as if he'd skipped childhood altogether and gone straight to adolescence. Now it seemed, the process had reversed.
If it was a coincidence seeing him in Kingsdown after so many years, it was not a total surprise to see Julian as the clown. In my late-twenties, I had attended a school-reunion in a bar in London and was astonished to learn that he'd become a juggler in a circus troupe. At sixteen he seemed to have the world at his feet. Now in a way, he did.
I remember seeing his ex-girlfriend, Stacey Buck at the same gathering and dropping a terrible clanger that makes me shudder even now.
'You know out of all the kids at Askes' I told her. 'You and Julian were the ones I thought would really make it. What are you up to now?'
'No much.' She answered me cooly. 'I've got three kids and work voluntary at a women's shelter in Plumstead.'
I blamed my 'what to say next' question on jet-lag as I moved along the line to meet people I could barely remember as classmates or friends. The last time I'd seen either her or Julian was on a river-boat disco on the Thames. The pair were like the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton of our year. Young lovers, tormented by their own monstrous talent and egos and endlessly breaking up.
Two girls waiting in front of us in the queue, asked me what venison was as they read from the chalk-board menu.
"It's deer." I said. "Like Bambi." I explained, but they both walked away without ordering.
His loud buffoonery made little impression on me at first, or it appeared on large numbers of younger fete goers and their parents who drifted passed him without consent or curiosity.
"Madam, yes you Madam." He corralled them from his plastic plinth. "Ah, t'is Gentleman."
From a distance it would be easy to assume that alcohol and drugs had played their part in this poor fool's downfall but as I watched him balance himself on one leg and hold his pose, I realised I was looking at a real pro.
Despite his dress, he appeared to have changed little since I'd last seen him. Remembering Julian from Aske's, it was as if he'd skipped childhood altogether and gone straight to adolescence. Now it seemed, the process had reversed.
If it was a coincidence seeing him in Kingsdown after so many years, it was not a total surprise to see Julian as the clown. In my late-twenties, I had attended a school-reunion in a bar in London and was astonished to learn that he'd become a juggler in a circus troupe. At sixteen he seemed to have the world at his feet. Now in a way, he did.
I remember seeing his ex-girlfriend, Stacey Buck at the same gathering and dropping a terrible clanger that makes me shudder even now.
'You know out of all the kids at Askes' I told her. 'You and Julian were the ones I thought would really make it. What are you up to now?'
'No much.' She answered me cooly. 'I've got three kids and work voluntary at a women's shelter in Plumstead.'
I blamed my 'what to say next' question on jet-lag as I moved along the line to meet people I could barely remember as classmates or friends. The last time I'd seen either her or Julian was on a river-boat disco on the Thames. The pair were like the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton of our year. Young lovers, tormented by their own monstrous talent and egos and endlessly breaking up.
Two girls waiting in front of us in the queue, asked me what venison was as they read from the chalk-board menu.
"It's deer." I said. "Like Bambi." I explained, but they both walked away without ordering.
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