‘The boy could already juggle by the age of four
I’m fed up juggling all the nonsense of our lives, Mark,
so he was always destined for greatness in avant-
I’m fed up of having to compete for your time with
garde clown circles.’ The old lady clears her throat
your work commitments, your Saturdays at the football and
noisily before taking a long draw on her ivory pipe and
your disastrously awful punk-reggae group. Sometimes
giving the camera a hard stare. ‘But nothing could
I feel you wouldn’t notice if I ran off with another
have prepared us for the shocking things he did in his
man, unless it was one of the other partners you were
twenties.’ Though I have watched this clip countless times
competing against, one of those spoilt, stupid footballers
it is still impossible to read her tone: is it anger or
you are so obsessed with or an absurd amalgam of
admiration? ‘Who else but him would have contemplated
Bob Marley and Sid Vicious. I could have been a dancing
juggling with white rabbits and black hats on the high-wire
bear in a circus and I still doubt you would have noticed me
or escapology on the trapeze? He was wildly successful
these past few months. Well I’m not going to dance to
of course, but I have to say there was something
your excruciatingly awful tunes any longer – in fact
inevitable about his untimely death.’ This was her last
you could say I am smashing your guitar as well as
interview before her death. Am I wrong to see some sort
puncturing your football: as of today I am leaving you,
of confession in the flicker of her eyes to the left of the camera?
Mark, and the hitman’s bullet should be ending your grief about now.
(Pierre Monceau and Jean-Pierre Sertin)
