Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

(ia) Eating

Many Outsiders come to eat. It stops them from being bored, it gives them something to toss (or to think about tossing), it keeps their hands busy, and it’s an explicit slight to the High and Hungry One. To come here and eat is the number one indicator of real hostility (they say the smell of fried onions from the vans has been driving the Illusionist almost wild with frustration).

It’s a curious fact, but I often see packs of women in late middle age standing around and devouring fast food with a far greater sense of malicious gusto than almost anybody else from any other sex/age group (apart from the schoolboys — but then these testosterone-fuelled imps are a law unto themselves).

These aren’t old slags — uh- uh - but polite-seeming women (Matrons. Mothers. Grand mothers). The sorts of people who would normally not even dream of consuming a hot dog (let alone in public, and from some shonky old van ), but who come down here and queue and pay and and scoff with a real sense of vindictive glee . Stand and eat and smirk. (‘Oh my God , Jemima! You’ve got an awful slick of chilli sauce on your pash-mina. Lucky I’ve got a handy pack of Wet-Ones in my bag…’)

‘We are London’s mothers,’ their smug, munching faces seem to announce, ‘and while our fundamental instincts are to provide and to nurture, in your particular case we simply don’t care . You’re a stranger. A nothing . We despise what you’re doing, what you’re attempting to do, what you represent. We despise your Art , your Magic, your deceit, your pretension . We despise what you are .’

I read (in some random newspaper article a while back) about how Blaine lost his own mother when he was 21. And I might be going out on a limb , here, but I can’t help wondering whether this wholesale matronly rejection might not really sting that lonely magician a little ( some where).

Well get me , coming over all empathetic, eh? !

(ib) The Bridge

The real troublemakers like to stand on the bridge. On the right-hand side (at the southern end of Tower Bridge) is one of the best views available (Blaine is at eye level, here, but about twenty-five yards away). This is the place where the crazy-angry types like to stand and aim their laser pens, or hurl their eggs and their other consumables (no chance of the beefed-up security wrangling you here — too many stairs, too many exits, and then there’s always the opportunity to clamber into a waiting car and scoot etc.).

Their aim (like their fruit) is generally rotten. There’s a spot down below on the embankment (not even in the park ) where their missiles tend to land, and usually it’s outside the cordon, slap-bang in the middle of the ‘Outsider’ contingent.

Egging their own people. But still they keep throwing–

Weird , huh?

(ii) The Insiders

The Insiders must legally submit to being filmed (like I said before), both by the maverick Korine and by the TV people at Sky (who have a million dollar deal and access to Blaine 24 hours a day).

And you know what? The Insiders fucking love that shit. That’s partly why they’re here. They’re dizzy, fuckin’ extroverts. They just wanna come on down, pay homage, dance around, show off and be a part of the fiesta.

Yup .

They’ve brought along their knapsacks and their fold-up chairs, their phones and their cameras. They’ve brought along their binoculars, their banners and their bunches of flowers (the gerbera is currently the Number One flower of Insider choice. I can only guess that this is (a) because of their cheerfully lurid — almost fluorescent — colours, (b) because of the big flower-head, which means that when you poke them through the wire — to suspend them, for David — they stay in place more easily, and (c) because these people are so obvious, so benign, so craven , and the gerbera has exactly that classic child-drawing-a-picture-of-a-flower-style-quality — a visual naïveté —which these credulous folk — in my lofty opinion — would instinctively go for.

Aw.

Blaine — of course — shows a slight preference for the Insiders. These are the fans. These are ‘his’ people.

But he doesn’t ignore the others. Already he has this dazed quality, this exhausted veneer, this kind of ‘wandering focus’. He sees a new face in the crowd, and he smiles, and he weakly lifts his hand. If it’s someone he knows, or a person of colour, or a beautiful woman, he might wave, then do a ‘thumbs up’, then the peace sign. It’s got to the point now where he doesn’t even think about it. It’s totally automatic.

So who’s conforming? That’s what I can’t help wondering. And who are the deviants? The Insiders or the Outsiders? Both? Or neither? Is it all just in the context ? i.e. in the world, in general, the Insiders might be considered to be the erratic ones (the hippies, the Art-freaks, the slavish followers — take a straw poll right now, on any major UK high street and the vast majority will still say they think Blaine’s a total madman, a troublemaker, an opportunist, a maniac), but when you’re here (when you’re breathing it), it’s the Outsiders who come off seeming just that little bit buttoned-up (repressed, tight-arsed, scared ). They’ve come to stand and to watch, but not to support. Not to commit. Not to take part. They’re the ghosts at the feast ( Uh …Or at the starving , so to speak).

Above and beyond everything, the Outsiders seem to feel this overwhelming terror at the prospect of being ‘caught in a lie’. Or of being duped. Or diddled. Or bamboozled. (Blaine cut off his own ear in the pre-publicity for this stunt, didn’t he — in front of dozens of reporters? And it was all just a trick, a joke. He rode on the top of the London Eye, pretending he was risking his life — just like he is now, apparently — but he was actually wearing a harness, all the while. In terms of inductive knowledge — i.e. basing your views on what’s gone before — Blaine’s looking like a pretty poor bet to all those cynical Outsiders down here.)

Seems like the need for real ‘truth’ (whatever that is, in the bleak-seeming aftermath of the Iraqi war) has — at some weird level — become almost a kind of modern mania. Perhaps without even realising, this loopy illusionist has tapped into something. Something big. A fury. A disillusionment. A post -disillusionment (almost). He personifies this sour mood, this sense of all-pervasive bafflement . And he’s American . And what’s even more perplexing is that he’s starting — with the dark skin, the beard growth and everything — to look a tad, well, like an Arab .

He’s the ally and the enemy (which, either way, symbolically, is pretty bad news for the guy).

So is this thing real?

Is it an illusion?

He can’t lie, people are thinking, he’s transparent . And he’s moving . He’s there . He’s not a puppet, an imposter or a hologram. But how can we be sure? How can we possibly believe in a person whose very career (their wealth, their celebrity) is entirely based on casual deception? Even if we wanted to? Even if we needed to? How?

How?

The Haters

Now the way I’m seeing it, these certifiable anger-balls are standing way outside more than just one restrictive cordon. They’re outside Blaine’s world (that’s for sure), and almost (I said almost ) outside the world of social acceptability (alongside the truant, the graffiti artist, the petty-criminal and the football hooligan). They live inside a tabloid feeding frenzy, where everything’s in bold and italics and capital letters–