Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

Displacement ?

Yeah. So Solomon is letting off steam about the Rascal (in other words) because he feels conflicted (at some level — I mean this man’s a multi-storey car park of the emotions) about Jalisa.

If any further confirmation of this fact were needed, Solomon’s music choices that evening totally provide it. At eight we are treated (I’m shuddering in the basement, with a thumping headache; but who gives a damn about me?) to the raucous cacophony that is the Wu-Tang Clan-gers ( 36 Chambers: Enter the Wu , for the train-spotters among you). By nine, things have mellowed out slightly and Kraftwerk’s pared-down vehicular masterwork Autobahn can be heard chugging and clicking. By ten, things’ve obviously degenerated to an all-time low when I hear Cannon Street Road’s answer to C L R. James yodelling along to none other than Ms Norah Jones.

Yup . Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Solomon is voluntarily submitting his aural senses to Ravi Shankar’s dark-haired and dimpled MOR songsmith daughter — that pretty, malty-voiced chanteuse of ‘Come Away With Me’ fame.

Things must be at a really low ebb here (Norah only comes out when the percodan stops working).

Hmmn .

Perhaps I should venture upstairs and offer a supportive shoulder…?

But I’m terribly busy , see? (I’ve just spent the last two hours texting all my friends to inform them of how I’m much too ill to text them — and I desperately need a shot of vapour; my sinuses have transformed into two, throbbing pebbles banging around tortuously in a snotty sea — and then— then —there’s still the rest of the Kafka to try and get to grips with…I mean who could possibly have anticipated that being ill might prove so agitating ?).

Five seconds sweet hush and then Track Two kicks in. Oh God . The dogs start howling.

I rise from my tomb fully intent upon offering him solace (and on fetching myself a glass of water — although this consideration is entirely secondary).

Solomon’s in the kitchen, sitting on the bench at one side of the table. The three Dobermans (Dobermens?) are sitting, in a neat row, on the opposite bench, facing him. Solomon is drinking (brace yourselves) Amarula (the African version of Bailey’s cream liqueur; one of the main ingredients of which is the amarula berry, famous for being the fruit which eight out of ten elephants prefer to get pissed on. Seriously ). He’s actually been mixing this syrupy concoction with Sprite (Why not just skip the alcohol and down a packet of caster sugar?).

He is drunk (a feat in itself — this tipple’s the equivalent of Dirty Harry armed with a pop gun), and he’s slowly working his way through a large salad bowl full of Japanese rice crackers (at his elbow, I observe an empty can of chocolate-flavour Nutriment, a scrunched-up American-style pretzel packet, and a very messy, half-eaten beef tomato.

Urgh ).

Each time he consumes a rice cracker himself, he lobs another three (with sure-fire precision) at each of the dogs. ‘Bud! Jax! Ivor!’

Snap, snap, snap .

I take my life in my hands and turn Norah off.

‘What’re you doing ?’ Solomon roars (The dogs — keen as they are, I’m sure, to defend their master — don’t budge an inch. Every panting, salivating fibre is focused on Solomon’s fingers and the bowl of crackers).

‘Norah Jones ,’ I quietly explain, ‘in case you didn’t already know , writes music for love-lorn 36-year-old clerical assistants from Kettering called Samantha.’

Solomon angrily slits his eyes at me.

‘Even Jalisa,’ I explain gently, ‘would hate to see you brought so low.’

‘Bud! Jax! Ivor!’

Three more rice cakes are duly thrown.

‘ Adie !’

A fourth rice cake hits me square between the eyes.

‘Thanks,’ I murmur (my motor skills are a little slow this evening).

‘Jalisa,’ he suddenly informs me, ‘could yap the hind leg off a fucking donkey …’ He pauses, dissatisfied. ‘If they could somehow harness the energy in that girl’s jaw they could provide enough electricity for a town the size of Basildon.’ He pauses for a second time. ‘Or Stirling. Or Edinburgh . It’s just wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.’

‘She dumped you?’

‘Unceremoniously,’ he exclaims. ‘It took half a fucking hour . That cow used up the entire Thesaurus for “you’re ditched, you insensitive twat”.’

‘Discarded?’ I ask (rapidly catching on).

He nods.

‘Jettisoned?’

He shrugs.

‘Scrapped?’

He merely grimaces.

‘Junked?’

He scowls.

‘Renounced?’

The scowl deepens.

‘Pensioned off…?’

‘Enough!’ he bellows.

Right. Okay . I turn to head downstairs again (I mean I think he’s successfully vented now, hasn’t he?).

‘And I wouldn’t even mind ’ Solomon grouchily continues, ‘but the main crime she accused me of was not actually listening …’

He unscrews the Amarula again.

‘Not listening !’ he repeats incredulously. ‘I mean what the fuck else have I been doing for the past forty-seven and a half days?’

Oh dear. He’s counting the days. Not a good Healing Indicator.

‘That’s seven very noisy weeks,’ I tabulate soberly.

‘Yes.’ Solomon nods.

He inhales. ‘And now…’

He looks up at the ceiling, poignantly, ‘The quiet .’

I look up at the ceiling too. The dogs look up at the ceiling (except for Jax, who keeps staring at the crackers).

‘I never, ever want to hear that ridiculous name mentioned in this house again,’ Solomon announces. Good.

I half-turn for a second time–

‘Never,’ he says.

I freeze.

‘Not ever ,’ he says.

‘It’s a deal ,’ I whisper encouragingly, and mime zipping my lips up.

‘ Ja -lisa…Ja- lisa …’

He revolves the unsayable around on his tongue.

‘I mean is it Janet ? Is it Melissa ? What is it?’

‘Both,’ I say, then blow my nose.

‘Opinionated?’ Solomon ponders out loud… ‘Bud! Jax! Ivor!’

Three more crackers are hurled out of the bowl. Ivor’s is slightly skew-whiff this time, he lunges, then falls off the bench with a clatter.

Ouch .

Solomon doesn’t appear to notice.

‘Opinionated?!’ he repeats (even more incredulously), ‘I mean did you ever meet anyone with so many opinions before?’

Uh…

Does he actually expect me to respond to this question honestly?

(Answer: on reflection: almost definitely not.)

‘Yes,’ I say (without reflecting), ‘I have.’

‘Really?’ he glances over, momentarily engaged. ‘Who?’

‘You, of course,’ I cackle (through several dried sheets of snot), ‘you deluded cunt .’

Silence .

(Did I go too far?)

Ivor finally retrieves his cracker (it was stuck in the crack between the fridge and the washing machine), eats it, then jumps back — with a delicious clatter of nails — on to the bench again.

More silence .

I blow my nose, pour myself a glass of water, gently press play , and leave Solomon to Norah.

So where the fuck’s Chris Ofili when you need him, eh?

Yeah. Some pal he turned out to be.

In ‘A Hunger Artist’ (Yup. I’m nicely snuggled up between the sheets again, patiently nursing one of those strangely disorientating sick-bed erections) Kafka says how the two beautiful women who are sent into the Artist’s cage to retrieve him from his fast are ‘apparently so friendly and in reality so cruel’.