Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

‘Well once we got home ,’ I sidetrack, ‘she told me I had to be very quiet, because there was someone sleeping in the spare room…’

‘Who was it?’

I shrug. ‘No idea.’

‘The sister ,’ he chuckles, ‘the one who took your number. She comes out of the bedroom while you’re looking at the shoes, buck-naked, and rotates like a small tornado on your lap…’

‘It might’ve been a man,’ I say, ‘I think I heard a man’s voice at one point. Heard someone call out, like they were having a bad dream or something…’

‘Hang on there…Let’s just wind back a bit…’ Solomon quickly inspects his watch. ‘I need some coffee. I have an appointment at eleven. Come upstairs with me and finish off.’

I don’t move. He scowls.

‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ he promises.

‘Jalisa’s number,’ I sigh, collapsing back smugly on to my pillows, ‘or no details.’

He gives this some thought. ‘Only if it’s really mortifying,’ he says.

‘Trust me. It is.’

‘I mean really humiliating. Really awful. Utterly degraded. Vile. Sickening .’

‘I can tick all your boxes,’ I brag, ‘but give me Jalisa’s number, up front, or the deal’s off.’

Solomon heads for the stairs.

‘Gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,’ he mutters.

God. I should’ve known he’d get his own back.

Twenty minutes later (meeting? What meeting?) Solomon is delivering me a lengthy lecture on the myth of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

‘It was essentially the cornerstone of the anti-semitic idea,’ he says. ‘This fantastical notion of a shadowy group of Jewish Elders who are holding secret meetings, raising funds, forwarding the Jewish agenda on an international platform and setting serious social and political changes in motion…’

‘But they didn’t even exist?’

‘Nope. Just anti-Jewish scaremongering.’

I blow my nose, bleakly.

‘All I’m really saying ,’ he continues, ‘is that Jalisa is perfectly good — in fact extremely talented —at repackaging the chat and the gossip and the hearsay. She’s an intellectual firecracker. A magpie . She loves nothing better than to line her nest with all that sparkles in the culture. But the dull stuff? The flat stuff? The dates? The facts? The context? Uh- uh . Nothing. Zilch. Nought. Zero .’

I blow my nose for a second time.

‘I mean I should know. I dated the girl for two damn months . If you’re looking for depth there then you’re diving in at the wrong end, my friend.’

‘Fine.’

(Let’s just ignore the diving metaphor, shall we?)

‘And if the water’s too shallow, you’re gonna end up breaking your neck .’

(Should’ve known he wouldn’t let us get away with that.)

‘Because what’s the point of reading the Kafka if you can’t set it into some kind of historical perspective, huh ?’

Silence .

‘I mean she didn’t even know he was Czechoslovakian. She thought he was German .’

‘She did,’ I eventually murmur. ‘That’s true.’

‘I’ll bet you fifty quid ,’ Solomon continues, ‘that Jalisa knows diddly- squat about the Russian pogroms under the czar…’

I smile, weakly.

‘Or the Dreyfus Case.’

I merely shrug.

‘ Eh ?’

I shake my head.

( Ouch . Headache back.)

‘She probably thinks the Beerhall Putsch was a dispute about lager .’

I laugh, weakly (Do Jews even drink beer?).

‘To prove my point,’ he says, ‘I’m gonna give you her number.’

He pauses for a second: ‘In fact you can ring her on my phone. I haven’t deleted her digits yet.’

He takes his phone out of his pocket, selects her number, sets it ringing and slides it across the table at me.

‘There you go,’ he says.

I refuse to touch the phone.

‘I don’t want to speak to her now ,’ I say.

‘Hello?’

Jalisa answers her phone.

‘Solomon!’ I growl.

‘Hello?’

Solomon just grins.

‘Hello?’

I pick up the phone.

‘Jalisa,’ I say. ‘It’s Adair. I’m speaking to you on Solomon’s phone.’

‘Why?’ she asks.

‘Ask her about the Dreyfus Case,’ Solomon whispers.

I close my eyes for a second. I open them.

‘Jalisa,’ I say, ‘Solomon wants you to tell me about the Dreyfus Case.’

A short silence follows.

‘Oh. Okay ,’ Jalisa intonates each syllable with a terrifying, clipped efficiency. ‘Tell him that Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the late-nineteenth century French army who was scapegoated in a spying case because of his religious orientation.’

I look over at Solomon. ‘She knows about Dreyfus,’ I say. ‘Jewish officer. French army. Scapegoated in spying case et cetera .’

He slits his eyes.

‘Beerhall Putsch,’ he says.

‘Tell that arrogant, fat-headed little dick ,’ she snaps (before I’ve even said anything), ‘that The Beerhall Putsch took place in Munich in 1923 and was Hitler’s first, unsuccessful attempt at taking power.’

‘She knows about the Putsch,’ I say.

He leans across the table and snatches the phone off me.

‘I was right about the food,’ he hisses. ‘It transpires that Aphra has a highly developed sense of smell.’ Pause .

‘I said it was “aromatic”,’ he squawks. ‘I said it was “unusually aromatic”.’

Another pause .

‘So what were the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?’ he asks.

He listens for three seconds and then hangs up.

‘What did she say?’

‘She didn’t have a clue .’

‘ Really ?’

‘Of course not.’

He puts the phone down and picks up the coffee jug. He clears his throat.

‘So you’re telling me that Aphra actually sits on that wall every night?’ ( Uh —excuse me, but am I currently the only person in my social circle with any kind of serious commitment to conversational flow ?)

‘That’s what the security guard said.’ I shrug. ‘Sean or Saul or something…’

‘And after you found that out, you still wanted to shag the girl?’

‘I don’t believe I ever actually confessed to such an urge,’ I sniff.

‘Didn’t have to,’ he grimaces. ‘It’s written all over you.’

I glance down at my torso, as if hunting for the lettering.

‘Tell me about the shoes,’ he says, pulling out a chair.

‘I thought you were disgusted by the shoes.’

‘I am.’

Right .

Fine .

‘Well, she actually had the shoes all lined up on her dining-room table,’ I say, ‘although she has no dining-room as such, just a corner of the lounge close to the french windows which is a designated “dining area”. But the lounge is big and there’s plenty of room…’

‘Could you sketch me out a floor plan?’ Solomon asks (the bitch ).

‘Anyway,’ I stagger manfully on, ‘attached to each pair of shoes — and there must’ve been about fifty or so — was a small, handwritten tag, and printed on to each tag was a list of information particular to that pair — where they were bought—’

‘But why were the shoes on the table?’ he butts in.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask.’

‘You didn’t ask ?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Do you actually want me to get to the part when we have terrible sex or not?’