Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

Before I can really respond to this bombshell, she adds, ‘Of course I have no concrete reasons for even believing that Blaine is a Jew.’

Wha ?

‘Yeah. Very funny,’ I mumble.

‘Well why should he be?’ she demands.

‘Because he must .’

‘But if he’s Jewish ,’ she muses, ‘then why does he have a huge tattoo of a crucified Christ on his back?’

‘As a homage to Dali’s original painting,’ I say. ‘He admires Dali’s work .’

‘That’s just silly, Adair,’ she snorts, ‘and you know it.’

‘He’s a Jew !’

‘Why?’

I’m clutching my head, derangedly. ‘Because that’s what makes sense . That’s how it all adds up. Because I like him Jewish. I understand him better as a Jew, and the hostility he’s generating.’

‘Well that’s your problem,’ she snaps.

‘My problem,’ I hiss, ‘was spending five and a half hours, in mortal turmoil, reading Primo bloody Levi, on your instigation…’

‘ God , you’re a lightweight,’ she says. ‘Shame on you. You have all the moral fibre of a feather.’

I grab the Blaine book. ‘But you were right about the Kafka,’ I witter: ‘And here’s another thing…On the back page of his autobiography there’s this small black-and-white photograph of Blaine, in a short-sleeved shirt, and on the soft flesh inside of his left arm are a series of numbers…’

I inspect the photograph again. ‘174517. Six digits. A tattoo. Like the ones they were given in Auschwitz.’

I lean over and grab the Levi and start flipping through it. My eye alights, rapidly, at the bottom of page 33. An italicised number.

‘The exact- same tattoo Levi was given.’ I gape, ‘The same digits. I mean he wouldn’t dare do that if he wasn’t a Jew, would he?’

‘Must be a direct reference to the Levi,’ she begins to speculate, ‘or some kind of clue…’ (At last, at last , I’ve drawn her in), but then her subtle thought processes are interrupted by a persistent beeping on the line. ‘Urgh,’ she mutters. ‘Call Waiting…’

And cuts me off.

Thanks.

Charmed .

Hang on. That was my phone. A message.

I play it back.

‘It was you , wasn’t it?’ an unfamiliar female voice growls accusingly. ‘I simply can’t believe that you’re doing this. It’s obscene. It’s so incredibly wrong . She’s confused. She’s not properly herself. She’s vulnerable. She’s sick . And if you have even an inch of decency you’ll leave her the fuck alone .’

Click .

The Vaselines, ‘Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam’

Classic eighties Indie shlock.

God , I really, really love that track.

And it is a ridiculous name, now you actually come to mention it.

I replay the message to Solomon when he returns (extra-late) from some fantastic party at the Egyptian Embassy.

‘She must be ill,’ he says matter of factly, pulling off his jacket.

‘Who?’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Let’s put all the clues together, shall we? Number One: the headaches.’

‘Migraines,’ I correct him.

‘Number Two ,’ he persists, ‘the fact that she’s on first-name terms with a porter at Guys, when she doesn’t actually work there…’

Ah yes. The hospital porter. Of course .

‘Number Three: her diet. She’s made healthy eating into an art form: low fat, low yeast et cetera .’

‘But that’s exactly what Jalisa said,’ I interject.

Solomon scowls. ‘You just spoke with Jalisa?’

‘The other evening ,’ I counter deftly. ‘And you utterly ridiculed her for it.’

He merely shrugs. ‘Number Four: she’s plainly psychotic. She sits alone on a wall all night, surrounded by Tupperware, her eyes pinned, unswervingly, on to the recumbent torso of an International Illusionist (when any sensible person would simply invest in cable). She sniffs strangers’ shoes. She likes flashing her pudenda …’ He pauses (as if saving the best until last). ‘And she listens, voluntarily, to Premier Christian Radio .’

‘In short…’ He lets the dogs out into the backyard for a late-night piss. ‘This nutcase is quite spectacular girlfriend material.’

Hmmn.

‘You think I should cool things down a little?’

‘No. I think you should set up home together. I hear the embankment’s very congenial at this time of year.’

Ah .

‘Drop her like a hot brick.’ He opens the door and whistles. ‘Avoid the magician. Date that dumpy girl from work instead. The ginger girl with a silly name. She’s infinitely more suitable…’ He pauses. ‘More at your level.’

My level?

The dogs.

One

TWO

Three

— trot demurely back inside again.

My level?

What’s he actually mean by that?

Two a.m. I’m frenziedly tapping away on my keyboard, surfing the www.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe she’s ill. Maybe she’s very ill. The headaches. The constant hospital visits. The porter. The wildly overprotective ‘sister’ figure…

Kidney failure.

Must be.

She’s on dialysis.

I key frantically into Google.

Dialysis …

Ping !

The Kidney Dialysis Foundation. Now we’re talking…

So it transpires that the kidneys are a pair of bean-shaped organs located to the rear of the abdomen (6cm wide, 11cm long, 3cm thick, weighing in at 160 grams). They’re made up of one million nephrons (and the nephrons are made up of a million other things. But let’s not get into all that, eh ?).

The kidney’s main function is to remove toxins, waste and excess water from the body, but it also maintains the balance of salts and releases a variety of hormones…(Perhaps this could explain the mood swings?).

Symptoms of a kidney disorder…

Uh …A burning sensation passing water (Right. Okay ). Blood in the urine (Yeah. Whatever ). Puffy eyes (Her eyes are sometimes puffy, actually). Swelling of the hands, feet and abdomen…

What?!

(No wonder the boots didn’t fit. No wonder she felt ‘confined’. No wonder her waist’s so thick…)

…and, breathlessness.

( Breathlessness ! The panic attack!)

I read — at some length — about special diets (yup, yup, yup). Then about how regular dialysis can involve a patient visiting hospital for, on average, three hours approximately every four days.

That’s it.

Enough.

The girl’s a goner.

Her kidneys are fucked.

Thank God I found this out now.

That poor, sick creature. So brave. So alone. So proud. So beautiful. So mixed-up. So bloated .

I lie in bed and plan how I’m going to dedicate every available minute from here on in to researching her condition, raising awareness, being helpful and encouraging and gentle and indispensable .

I even consider donating a kidney of my own…play this fantastic little film backwards and forwards in my head for a while — the white hospital robe, the brave smile, the hospital trolley, the incredibly sexy nurse, the powerful anaesthetic…

Drive the pigs to market.

Wake up with the birds, unbelievably refreshed.

Think about that sexy nurse for a few minutes.