Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

‘Gotta see them done up,’ I say, crouching down and taking a hold of her foot. She promptly collapses — with a gurgle — backwards over the arm (almost kicking me in the face) so all that’s now visible from my low angle is her shin and her knee and the boot.

‘ Loads of people bringing along their American flags this weekend,’ she murmurs up towards the ceiling, yawning, ‘but on Friday he’d scrawled this message on to the back of the box.’

I glance up from the boot. ‘How’d he do that?’

(Second button, third.)

‘I’m not sure. Maybe just in the condensation. I heard someone saying he must’ve used his lip salve, but I’m not sure he did…’

‘And what did it say?’

(Fourth — a little tight .)

‘I can’t remember exactly, but something about how he didn’t consider himself to be a member of any particular nation or creed, and that what he was doing was meant to be a demonstration of the strength of the human spirit and how he hoped it would give courage to others.’

(Fifth button — my eyes are watering — I sneeze, hugely —sixth, seventh.)

‘ Bless you.’

Another yawn.

‘But he was really proud of it. Kept retouching it all day, standing on his knees. It gave him something positive to focus on.’

‘Really?’

‘Yup.’

She burps.

‘Sorry. And there was a really noisy woman wrapped up in this huge American flag at one point. She was marching around the compound, waving her arms about, offering support. But he just kept turning and pointing at the message he’d written. I think he was touched by her enthusiasm, but irritated by her patriotism.’

(Twelfth button. Thirteenth is missing.)

‘Your thirteenth button is missing.’

‘I know. There’s this beautiful blonde woman who comes to see him most nights before he goes to sleep…’

‘That’ll be Manon. His girlfriend. She’s German. She’s apparently staying in one of the caravans in the car park.’

‘She’s stunning.’

‘A model.’

‘Yeah. Well whatever she is, she must be incredibly patient.’

‘You’re not wrong there.’

‘I mean how could you do that to yourself? If you loved someone?’

‘Live in a car park?’

‘Starve yourself. Hurt yourself, and expect them to watch on.’

‘His mother died when he was twenty-one,’ I mutter, ‘after a terrible illness, and his father — so far as I’m aware — died when he was young. Perhaps it’s vengeance. Or perhaps that’s precisely how he understands love. Perhaps — for him — the journey of love is in suffering.’

(Twenty-fifth.)

She pokes out her head, to peer at me round the arm, ‘That’s deep .’

She grins.

‘The question is,’ I muse, ‘how long any woman could retain her sense of self-worth in the face of these self-destructive acts. You won’t’ve seen the film they made when he packed himself in ice…’

‘Nope.’

‘Incredibly disturbing.’

She pokes her head out again. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. The stunt’s underway. He’s trapped inside this massive ice-block. There are hundreds of people standing there watching. He’s unbelievably cold. He’s maybe fifty-odd hours in, and he starts to hallucinate. He’s basically going into shock.’

I feel her leg stiffen.

‘Doesn’t anyone try and help him?’

‘They can’t. He has some kind of release sign — or release word — and he hasn’t used it yet.’

‘ Shit .’

‘Yeah. Anyway, things are all getting a little strange when suddenly his girlfriend arrives. She’s come to see him.’

‘A different girlfriend?’

‘That’s exactly my point…’

(Thirty-fourth — I suck on my thumb for a minute.)

‘… Man , these things are pesky . They’re tight and sharp.’

‘So what happens?’

When I finish sucking my thumb I readjust the boots on her legs, then can’t stop myself from stretching out my hand and slipping it along the soft skin inside her knee. In automatic response, her knee jerks straight and she kicks me, squarely, on the chin.

So that taught me , then.

‘ Ow .’

‘Sorry.’

‘Anyhow…’ The buttoning recommences. ‘The girlfriend is this famous actress. Can’t remember her name. Tall, brunette, very beautiful — but she looks absolutely fucking desperate . I mean maybe I read too much into it at the time, but my feeling was definitely that she didn’t like the idea of this stunt, that she was pissed off, that she utterly resented being made to parade in front of the public like that, having her fear, her grief, made a part of the drama…’

‘Tough call.’

‘ Exactly . Anyway, she walks up to the front of the ice-block and glances in at him. Her expression is not compassionate, but more — kind of — blank. Then she walks off.’

‘And what’s he doing?’

(She’s trying to sit up, but I have her leg held too tight.)

‘That’s the tragic part. When he sees her walking away he goes absolutely bloody ape-shit. Frantic . Becomes unbelievably distressed. Is crying, hitting the ice…It’s incredibly claustrophobic to watch.’

‘My God .’

‘I know. And his team fly into a panic. They can see that he’s losing it. So they suddenly start trying to cut him out.’

‘How long does it take?’

‘Too long. A good while. They have to hack into this huge ice-block with an axe or a chain-saw (I can’t remember which) and Blaine, meanwhile, has almost come back to himself, and he’s shouting at them — gesticulating wildly — but it’s impossible to tell if it’s because he does or he doesn’t want to leave the block…’

‘Which was it?’

‘I don’t know…’

(Fifty-eighth.)

I clamber up on to my knees and adjust her leg so that now it’s lying across my shoulder. I can see her below me, stretched out on the sofa.

‘Hope my knickers are clean,’ she muses.

‘You’re not wearing any.’

‘Ah.’

She yawns, ‘I’m a little claustrophobic.’

Hmmn. Okay .

I’m buttoning, now, above the knee. The skin is very soft here, and I have to pull the boot tight to contain its fleshiness.

‘ Ouch ,’ she mutters.

‘Anyway, so he’s finally cut free and he’s in terrible shock. Shivering uncontrollably, then every so often screaming out, in agony, like someone’s just stabbed him.’

‘That’s the cold ,’ she says, with a shudder.

‘Frostbite. They take him to hospital in an ambulance, and the cameras go along with him. His girlfriend is there. I think she’s crying. He’s in and out of consciousness. It’s really grim.’

‘But he’s okay,’ she says, ‘isn’t he?’

‘So far as I can remember, I think his foot’s pretty fucked. He’s in bed for a month or so afterwards…Although that might’ve just been PR. But that’s not actually the important part. The important part is what happened when he was in the block. When he saw his girlfriend approach him and then walk away again.’

‘That feels very tight,’ she says, shunting herself up on to her elbows, inspecting her leg, which is stiff now, as if it’s been set into a pink pigskin cast.

‘It’s fine,’ I say, stroking the leather. ‘It’s beautiful. It’s meant to cling like that.’

She frowns and tips her head, quizzically.

‘The point is ,’ I continue, ‘Blaine says afterwards that when his girlfriend approached the block, he saw her, and he called out to her, but it was as if she hadn’t seen him. And he suddenly thought he was dead. He suddenly believed that he was dead. That he was a ghost. That she couldn’t see him. And that’s why he panicked.’