Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

He’s this slightly overweight, conventionally dressed, smug-looking, bespectacled, 30-something guy who happens to be wearing a preposterous headscarf — red and white, the kind favoured by Middle Eastern politicos (Yasser Arafat probably has the copyright).

To say the scarf looks a mite incongruous would be to dabble in a grotesque world of profound understatement (If he’s not wearing that thing for a bet , then I certainly wanna know why).

The scarf is literally just tossed over his head (like someone threw it at him and he didn’t quite duck in time). Next to him (and I mean directly next to him — in the gap between himself and Punk’s Not) is a small, rather scruffy, home-made sign which goes some way — I guess — to partially explaining this fabulous head-apparel: ‘Fortunes Read’, it says.

‘You actually know this creature?’ I murmur.

( Jesus . The Illusionist is certainly drawing all the freaks out of the woodwork.)

‘It’s Hilary ,’ she says. ‘Remember? Worked as Mike Wilkinson’s PA last year?’

Nothing clicks.

‘Fourth floor?’

Nope (This chick isn’t in Human Resources for nothing, huh ?).

‘Think he has the gift?’ I ask.

Bly nods. ‘He told my fortune last December,’ she says, ‘and he was really good.’

‘Oh yeah?’

She nods. ‘He said my father would lose his arm. And he did, three months later…’

I jolt to attention. ‘Your father lost his arm ?’

She nods. ‘In an accident at work.’

‘And he said that ? He said, “Your father will lose an arm?” ’

She chuckles. ‘No, not exactly …’

Ahhh .

‘So what did he say?’

‘He said, “A close, male relative will lose a limb.”’

‘Good God.’

‘I know . Weird, huh?’

She pauses. ‘And the strangest thing was that my mother’s brother, Marty my favourite uncle — lost his toe to gangrene literally a month before my dad had his accident, and I briefly thought he was the person Hilary was talking about…But at the time I just kept thinking, “A toe is not a limb…”’

She gazes up at me, full of emotion, ‘I mean it just isn’t , is it?’

‘Wouldn’t it’ve been awful ,’ I interject, ‘if, on top of everything else, Hilary’s linguistic grasp had been found wanting?’

She continues to look up at me, but now more cautiously.

‘You’re harsh ,’ she eventually mutters. ‘I’m going over to say hi. Coming?’

Oh yes. Of course. I remember now. He’s put on some weight and he’s changed his glasses, but underneath that baroque headdress he’s fundamentally the same straitlaced, cynical, world-weary, unbelievably punctilious tool from the fourth floor that he always used to be.

We had an argument, once, about photocopying paper. His department had over-ordered, our department had run short, so I ‘borrowed’ a couple of packs without bothering to fill out the relevant acquisition slip and he got all snooty and snitchy and up on his hind legs about it.

Man .

Who needs that shit?

So get this: I am approximately five feet away from this would-be Paragon of the Paranormal when he glances up from the book he’s reading- a particularly lovely (deliciously battered-looking) American paperback edition of the collected works of Richard Brautigan, with a fantastic black-and-white front cover (featuring a charming, old-fashioned photographic image of the author and his hippie-chick girlfriend), and then a beautiful, bright red back cover with only the word ‘mayonnaise’ written on it, in white, dead centre ( Wow . So isn’t this itinerant paper hoarder quite the man of the moment now with his independent life-style, mystical leanings and iconoclastic reading matter?)- when he looks up, frowns and yells, ‘ Stop !’

(About ten tourists freeze and turn around, in shock. Punk’s Not wakes up from his light doze, with a gasp.)

Bly and I both grind to a sharp halt.

‘Go home,’ the Paragon tells me in shrill, ecclesiastical tones (while pointing, rudely, like Moses on the damn Mount). ‘You have a contagious virus.’

‘Fuck off,’ I say.

‘You do,’ he says, ‘Australian flu .’

‘ Urgh ’

Bly takes a step back.

‘But how can you possibly tell ,’ I ask, ‘when I didn’t even cross your sweaty, petty, embarrassingly opportunistic palm with silver yet?’

He waves my insults aside: ‘It’s an especially virulent strain,’ he cants (causing shocked inhalations from the small audience which his bogus proclamations have already amassed).

‘Well lucky for me you’re sporting that industrial-sized hanky then,’ I say, pointing (somewhat gratuitously).

‘Done any inter-departmental thieving lately?’ he snarls ( Yup . Old wounds).

‘Still have the name of a girl ?’ I sneer.

‘I believe you’ll discover,’ Punk’s Not cordially informs me, ‘that Hilary is actually derived from the Latin, hilaris , which means “cheerful”. And up until the late nineteenth century it was used entirely by the male. There was both a pope and a fourth-century saint—’

‘And then it became a girl’s name,’ I interrupt, ‘and that’s all that matters now …’

‘Fuck off, germ-farm,’ Hilary scoffs.

‘…And not even a nice girl’s name,’ I continue, ‘but the name of a pear-shaped girl with no tits and fallen arches, who wears moccasins and tweed , and collects novelty liqueur bottles, and smells of radishes…’

(Novelty liqueur bottles? Woah , there.)

‘You ignorant, pointless, fluffy little fop ,’ he splutters (plainly mortally offended for the girl he might’ve been).

I take a step closer, and pant, provocatively.

He cowers away from me, drawing some of his excess scarf fabric across his mouth, like a heavily bespectacled Lawrence of Arabia.

‘I’m going to lick you,’ I announce.

A booted foot kicks out at me.

The crowd steps back.

Then I jump, like a wildcat, and set my tongue to work on him.

What?

Has this man never troubled acquainting himself with soap and water?

Hmmn . Is it just me, or does Punk’s Not have an unexpectedly magisterial aspect from down here?

So I got the flu. Bully for him . And it is virulent (just like he said): I have shooting pains in my head, my chest, my legs, my nuts. Fever, nausea, the runs.

Night sweats (really bad ones). Exhaustion. Chapping. Am skiing through a veritable avalanche of phlegm…

And the Illusionist thinks he ’s doing it tough?

(Experiencing ‘A funny taste in the mouth?’ Eh ? While I lie shivering, in the foetal position, looking like Marilyn fucking Manson after three hours in make-up?)

Hey. But Bly did end up telling me about the 4x4/ Wakedavid connection (yeah — I know you’ve been literally on the edge of your seat over that one) although I’m far too ill now to know if it’s relevant or not (and if it is , what — if anything — it’s relevant for …).

I guess you could just say that I’m gradually building up some kind of basic, three-dimensional jigsaw inside my head; piece by tiny piece (as if David Blaine, the rage he’s generated, the logistics of his actual ‘stunt’, are some kind of magnificently fractured, profoundly perplexing, antique ceramic pot …