Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

‘What about him?’

‘So get this…’ Solomon rages (one to ten on the furyo-meter in just a fraction under two seconds- this guy’s ‘fight or flight’ mechanisms are second to none), — ‘they give him the fucking Mercury …’ (Mercury Music Prize- remember?)

‘…and it’s such a radical choice, it’s such a brave choice…’

‘And you’re absolutely livid about it, as I recollect…’ I interject (perhaps unwisely).

He stares at me, blankly: ‘Rasket deserve him prize,’ he says.

‘Nobody’s denying that ,’ I backtrack.

‘Him problem is whitey’s agenda…’ Solomon hisses, ‘Whitey want to castrate him Rasket. He want to make safe him music.’

Fine, fine …

‘But him need to uncover this Rasket weakness , to have him his power …’

Okay…

‘So what did they do?’ I ask.

Solomon throws his clutch of papers on to the floor.

‘ The music teacher !’ he bellows.

Wah?

‘Take a look!’ Solomon shrieks, ‘they find their weasly, white access to Rasket through his school music teacher.’

‘Rasket had a music teacher?’

(Why am I so surprised by this?)

‘Yeah. Mr Smith or Mr Jones or somebody …’ Solomon growls: ‘Now them feel safe with him Rasket: they take him bomb, yeah? And them slowly defuse it.’

I stretch out a wobbling hand towards the papers.

Solomon squats down and snatches up the top tabloid himself — the Mail or Express …

He rips it open and flashes a page at me.

There, smiling out of a photo, is a benign, respectable-looking, middle-aged white man sitting next to some kind of convoluted, computerised keyboard-style thingummy. Next to him (in cut-out form) is an ominous image (he don’t do no other kind) of the be-capped, be-hooded, be-baggy-panted kid-gangsta, Rasket.

‘This the story,’ Solomon whispers. ‘Rasket he fifteen. He go nowhere, yeah? Rasket truant him school, mugging him the occasional old dear. Rasket troubled. Rasket angry . Then one day…’ Solomon’s basic intonation suddenly undergoes a profound alteration, ‘he gets in with this wonderful music teacher who’s a source of unbelievable inspiration to him…’

‘Where is this school, exactly?’ I ask. ‘East London?’

‘This wonderful, enthusiastic, charming, talented, white music teacher…’

‘Or did he grow up in South London?’

‘ Poplar ,’ Solomon snaps: ‘And the school has a ton of modern equipment, see?’

He points to a particular paragraph in the article then snatches it away again: ‘Passed down from all these local Docklands-style do-gooder businessmen who’ve upgraded their computer systems and wanna do their bit for the impoverished community around them. And the teacher — Mr Smith, Mr Jones…

(Mr Smith , in fact.)

‘…he takes the desperate, degenerate Rasket under his wing, rolls back that heavy stone from the mouth of the cave, and kindly gives him access to his inner-artist. He generously unlocks Mercury Prize Winner Dizzee Rascal’s creativity.’

( Wow . This is starting to sound just like British Hip-hop’s answer to The Cross and the Switchblade ! Is it any wonder they’re filling so many column inches with it?)

‘So Rasket now owes everything to…?’ I murmur nervously.

‘ Exactly !’ Solomon hollers.

I’m quiet for a moment.

‘How’d they get on to this story?’ I eventually ask.

Solomon grunts: ‘List of thank yous on the album cover.’

‘Ah.’

Solomon glowers at me.

‘Well, what’s Dizzee’s take on this monstrous PR jamboree?’ I gingerly enquire.

Solomon doesn’t appear to hear me.

‘I mean, it’s not just the fact of it,’ he murmurs, ‘but the sickening inevitability …’

One of the Dobermen (Dobermens, Dobermans) enters the room, observes Solomon’s funk, goes to sit down next to his master, loosens his own stiff spine in an attitude of companionable defeat, and sighs.

‘I mean it’s not that you don’t want people to like Dizzee…’ I nervously mutter.

Solomon’s brows shoot up. ‘Of course I want them to like him,’ he insists, ‘but they need to like him in the right way. They need to be challenged. Dizzee exists to challenge, and to confound, and to intimidate, with his youth, with his blackness, with his outsider cachet . That’s what gives him his power. That’s who he is .’

‘They don’t need to like him because of some geriatric music teacher…’

‘ White music teacher,’ Solomon interjects. ‘It’s like Rasket has to be given permission to be creative, don’t you see? And that very transaction suddenly makes it possible for these patronising Tory bastards to neatly include him inside their fucked-up, self-congratulatory, jaundiced white world-view, when they couldn’t — or just wouldn’t —have considered doing so before.’

Hmmn .

‘Maybe it’s just one of those chicken/egg situations…’ I volunteer (trying to strike a note of positivism).

Solomon says nothing.

‘I mean maybe it doesn’t really matter how people gain access to Dizzee, so long as they do, and then he gets the opportunity to educate them through his music.’

‘Absolutely not !’ Solomon bellows. ‘He’s an artist , you fool, an innovator , a radical , not some affable, slack-jawed Mary Poppins -style figure.’

He suddenly bounces into the air and proceeds to dance around the living room performing a preposterous, ragga-style version of ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’.

(If Jay-Z gets his ears on this shit, we’re definitely in the money.)

‘But if the teacher did actually help him…’ I quietly interject (secretly hoping he won’t hear me).

‘That’s his job !’ Solomon roars. ‘He had all this free equipment, didn’t he? What d’you expect him to do? Lock up the music room and go out and shoot crack every afternoon?’

‘But if Dizzee doesn’t mind,’ I murmur (taking a certain amount for granted). ‘I mean so long as he sells enough copies of this album, and then he gets to make another….’

‘That’s basic capitalism , you twat ,’ Solomon hisses, ‘and since when did an economic system have any significant bearing on the dissemination of genius ?’

He stares at me, intently, holding out the (now rolled-up) paper like it’s some kind of disciplinary baton.

‘I’ve got flu ,’ I squeak: ‘I can’t think . I give in …’

The dog stands up, yawns, turns its back on me (in a most peremptory manner), and then farts its disdain my way.

Pretty lucky that I’m all blocked up, really.

Good God . Where’d that unsightly stain come from?

Woman trouble. I can smell it a mile off. I mean Solomon’s irascible, volatile, highly strung…But this Rasket thing just doesn’t quite sit right. It smacks a tiny- wee bit of what his previous ex but one might’ve called ‘displacement activity’ (Her name was Brook. She was sharp, black, French-Canadian, spoke seven languages, worked as a model, was in constant therapy and knew all the lingo — which was partly why he dumped her, actually; Solomon loathes jargon with a passion — calls it ‘a short cut to fuck-all’—and was especially infuriated when she pilfered one of his dreams — she’d run short — and then found out from her analyst — much to her shock — that the dream was a strong manifestation of sexual indifference. When she confronted him with this information he accused her of ‘whoring my unconscious, you castrating bitch’. And that was it).