Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

‘But it’s incredibly hard work, and hot ,’ she sighs, ‘and they’re just dripping with sweat…’ She pushes me back, flat, on to the bed, lifts my shirt up, and slowly slithers the top half of her body over my groin and my stomach…

‘Do you remember that?’ she whispers.

I nod again.

She tweaks a nipple. ‘If you must know…’

She suddenly sits bolt upright and her voice returns to normal. ‘I actually found the writing throughout that entire section incredibly laboured .’

I open my eyes. She’s gazing down at me, grinning. A hairclip falls on to my neck.

That’s it . I grab her and toss her down on to the bed. She doesn’t protest. She’s just laughing, really loudly, as I sit astride her.

‘Stop laughing,’ I command roughly.

‘I can’t ,’ she pants. ‘Your face . It’s just so…so funny .’

Her arms are over her head. I half-look for marks there (the kind of marks I saw in the diagrams on the internet) but I don’t see anything, so I push my hand firmly under her crochet.

Astonishing nipples .

Her back kinks at my touch and she laughs even louder.

I push the other hand down between her thighs where the skirt has ridden up. She whoops.

At the sound of her whooping two of the dogs shove their way through the dividing door from the kitchen (Oh great ) and come careering down the stairs. Jax and Ivor. Jax begins barking when he espies me astride her.

She’s laughing so loudly now I think she might be sick.

‘Oh God ,’ she roars. ‘No more weight on my stomach. It’s killing me. I think I might be going to vomit .’

I climb off. I try and force the dogs back upstairs. But Ivor has grabbed one of my trainers and is shaking it around in an orgy of furious sexual hysteria.

‘That’s my best fucking trainer ,’ I bellow, above the cacophony.

Five flights with an erection . I finally retrieve the trainer in the bathroom, covered in saliva, with at least three— count them — serious puncture holes in the fabric around the toe area.

When I return downstairs again she’s hard at work in the kitchen, chatting away, animatedly (skirt, sandals, crocheted bra top) with a delighted-looking Solomon. They’re getting on like a house on fire.

Oh.

So apparently they have this wonderful acquaintance in common. Some queer silver designer called Tin-Tin who has a holiday home in Alaska which they’ve both actually visited over Christmas before (‘I was ninety-nine, when were you?’, ‘Didn’t Yasmin Le Bon go that year?’). Tin-Tin is a source of unbelievable fascination to them…

‘Thinks he’s the new Leigh Bowery…’

‘Lost two stone in one hour …’

‘Oh my God . The guest-room linen ! It’s antique. He got it at this fantastic house sale in Turin.’

‘But did you notice how his eyebrows have grown back ginger ?’

‘What do you think about his new lover? Total cunt? Me too.’

‘Wasn’t all the stuff with Jennifer Lopez just utterly fucked up?’

‘I know. It’s absolutely inescapable. Cardamom is quite literally the base scent of everything .’

‘Don’t you fry the onions off first? What ?! But why not?’

‘Love the Scholls . Seriously. Screw those tight-arsed pricks at Birkenstock.’

‘Jagger? The mystery ingredient? Gives it that musky quality? Really ?’

Blah blah blah blah blah .

Hello? Hello ?

Anyone here actually remember me?

So she cooks and they gabble away, non-stop, for over an hour. Then she fills Solomon a plate, piles the rest of the food into Tupperware and spirits herself out of there.

I follow behind, dragging my shoes on, bleating something about her jumper.

Prepare yourselves.

(Oil your brakes, check your pads.)

The gradient gets pretty steep from here.

I’m chasing Aphra up the road ( remember? ), and she’s trying to flag down a cab. But it’s after eleven on a Sunday evening and her chances of catching one now aren’t looking too spectacular. So she decides to walk. I’m staggering along behind her, stopping, every so often (to try and tie my laces), but whenever I do, she dashes determinedly onwards.

I eventually draw level. She’s put her jumper back on (Thank God) and she’s making great time. She’s obviously in a hurry (Heaven forbid she should be late for Mr Blaine, huh? ).

I try and grab a couple of the bags off her, but she knocks me back. ‘Go home ,’ she says irritably. ‘It’s late . I’ll be fine …’

The Highway is still busy (don’t get me wrong), but it’s not really the ideal kind of place for an attractive woman ( attractive ? Did I say that?) to take a late-night stroll in Scholls and a miniskirt.

‘Let me at least stay with you until the Tower,’ I wheedle. ‘The way’s much better lit from there.’

‘You’re a damn pest ,’ she scowls, finally (and very regretfully) passing two of the heavier bags across.

‘So what a coincidence ,’ I murmur jealously (the crisis duly averted), ‘You and Solomon having that friend of yours in common—’

‘It’s sad, don’t you think?’ she cuts in. ‘That he took all those risks as a kid, supposedly to guard against anything bad happening, and then his mother’s diagnosed with cancer?’

It takes me a second or two to catch on.

‘Oh. Yes. Yes . I suppose it was.’

‘Life’s a bitch,’ she whispers.

We cross The Highway together.

‘He had a very crazy time of it in his mid-teens,’ I say. ‘Did you ever see the film Saturday Night Fever? ’

‘I love that film.’ She grins.

‘Well remember the bit when John Travolta’s character…’

‘Tony,’ she sighs.

( Wow. She does love that film.)

‘Yeah, Tony. Remember when he drives to the Brooklyn Bridge with his gang of friends and they climb up on it and fuck about, and basically almost kill themselves just pissing around and showing off?’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Boys will be boys, eh ?’

‘And there’s the sad one with the bad shoes and the silly afro…?’

She frowns.

‘The little one, who everyone despises, who gets his girlfriend pregnant and doesn’t know what to do about it?’

She finally catches on. ‘Oh, you mean the little one…’

(Didn’t I just say that?)

‘Exactly. And if I remember correctly he’s the nervous kid in the group, and he never usually joins in when they climb, but towards the end of the film, when he’s especially desperate, he clambers up on to the bridge himself. He wants everyone to look at him — just this once —because he feels so bad and lonely and ignored. Then his foot slips, and he falls.’

‘Bloody platform heels ,’ she growls.

(Uh, yeah …)

‘Well Blaine used to do that.’

She turns to look at me. ‘ Really ?’

‘Yup. But not the falling part, obviously.’

We walk a little further.

‘Don’t know which bridge it was,’ I say. ‘Somewhere in New Jersey, I guess. That’s where they moved when his mother remarried. I get the feeling he doesn’t look back on those times especially fondly…’

I pause. ‘But he used to pull the same stunt. He’d just stroll over these crossbars on a bridge, hundreds of feet up, with all the cars below honking their horns in total panic. He was wild . And like they used to say in those nike ads, he’d “just do it”. He didn’t care.’