Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

Shit .

The door opens. It’s the blonde nurse.

‘Who are you?’ she asks (she has a soft Irish accent, but her voice is tight and defensive, and her cheeks are still flushed from the argument she’s just had).

‘Adair Graham MacKenny,’ I say calmly. ‘I came along with Aphra.’

‘Oh.’

The nurse scowls.

‘This is my book,’ I say, grabbing the Shane , opening it to the frontispiece and showing her my name printed there (Yup. I know it’s a childish habit, but it’s helping me out of this embarrassing predicament, isn’t it?).

‘You wrote that?’

(She looks momentarily impressed.)

‘Don’t be ridiculous ,’ I cluck. ‘Jack Schaefer .’

The nurse continues to weight me up. ‘So she brought you along to take her place?’

‘Yes.’ (If in doubt, agree. That’s my philosophy.)

She glares at me for a moment, obviously quite disgusted (I check my fly), ‘And you know Mr Leyland well ?’

I shake my head. ‘No. I couldn’t honestly admit to that…’

‘So is she paying you?’

I draw myself up to my full five foot eight (Oh come on , what’s an inch between friends, eh ?). ‘Absolutely not .’

She turns and inspects a timetable on the wall.

‘Taking the damn piss ,’ she mutters (in that lovely, musical, nurse way, just underneath her breath). ‘Okay, fine ,’ she eventually grouches. ‘Can I get you anything?’

(From her tone of voice I realise that my answer has to be ‘No. Absolutely not.’)

‘Like what?’ I ask.

‘I dunno. Tea? Coffee?’

‘Coffee. That’d be good. Milk, one sugar. Thanks.’

‘Take a chair,’ she scowls, and points.

I take the chair.

Wow. Nice chair. Philippe Starck.

She leaves.

I stare over — a little anxiously — towards my unsuspecting ward. He’s in his late forties. Well upholstered. Not bad looking (like James Spader with an MA and less hair).

But ill. Very ill.

He tries to say something through his oxygen mask. I lean in closer.

‘Vacant,’ he says.

‘Pardon?’

‘Vacant.’

‘Vacant?’ I quiz him. ‘Who is?’

He clumsily knocks the mask off. ‘You cunt .’

Ah. Good. Right …

‘She’s a nurse ,’ he groans, ‘not a fucking tea hostess.’

‘Yes. Of course.’ I clear my throat, nervously. ‘Sorry.’

‘Well don’t apologise to me ,’ he pants.

(Is that an American accent? Australian? Canadian?)

He’s silent for a while, struggling to breathe, his left hand shaking, uncontrollably.

‘ Lovely room,’ I say.

No response.

‘Certainly looks like you’ve been in here a while…’

Blanked .

‘Made yourself quite at home, eh ?’

‘I’m fucking dying ,’ he snaps.

(Funny, isn’t it, how these death’s door types lose all sense of propriety?)

He turns and attempts to push his face back inside his mask. I jump up and help him. He brusquely nods his acknowledgement.

(Australian. I’m almost certain now. And sharp as a damn kumquat).

I slowly sit down again (I mean should I just leave ? Or will things pan out better for me — legally speaking — if I stay a short while longer and prove myself obliging ?).

‘Fantastic chair,’ I say.

‘Can’t take it with you…’ he gasps (Vader style-ee ).

‘Of course not,’ I say (chastened). ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘No.’ He rolls his eyes and points weakly to his chest. ‘ I can’t.’

For some reason, the image of a dying man struggling to carry a Philippe Starck chair into the afterlife strikes me as rather droll.

‘The Ben Nicholson’s a better bet,’ I opine, ‘less bulky.’

He snorts (and I’m not sure whether it’s actually with amusement), then he’s quiet for a while, his breathing laboured, as if he’s slowly gathering his resources together. ‘Aphra?’ he eventually asks. There’s definitely an edge to his voice (Christ knows I’ve been there).

‘Fine,’ I say immediately.

Silence.

‘She was gonna come in,’ I continue, ‘but I think the scented candle might’ve scared her.’

‘Fucking thing,’ he murmurs, continuing to fix me with a demanding glare.

‘The oven in her flat broke down,’ I burble on, shifting uncomfortably, ‘so she came over to my place to cook…’

‘Food?’ he asks, almost excitedly.

‘Of course ,’ I say (I mean what else ?).

‘For you?’ he asks.

‘Are you kidding?’ I bleat pathetically. ‘She brought it all over here , packed up in Tupperware.’

He’s smiling. He seems to’ve been immeasurably heartened by this news.

‘Where?’ he eventually gasps.

‘She gave it to the nurse.’

He slits his eyes.

‘Bring it,’ he says, and motions his hand clumsily towards the door.

I don’t move.

‘Maybe later, eh? Once nurse is off her war path—’

‘Good cook,’ he butts in.

‘Oh yeah ,’ I heartily concur. ‘I mean the way that girl handles a leek …’

He chuckles, dirtily (giving final confirmation — if any were necessary — of the indelible link between sex and the sickening).

‘It may well interest you to know,’ I say, ‘that she prepared the entire meal in a short skirt and knitted bra. My unsuspecting flatmate almost had a seizure …’

He laughs even harder.

The nurse marches back in bearing a plastic cup of lukewarm instant coffee (holding it haughtily aloft like it’s some manner of precious, ancient, papist artefact — perhaps St Paul the Apostle’s index finger). She frowns when she sees him laughing.

‘Don’t make him laugh,’ she says, ‘it hurts him. His stomach muscles are extremely fragile.’

‘What?’ I tease her (she seems quite teasable). ‘He can’t laugh at all ?’

She gives me a stern look.

‘Not even the odd giggle? ’

She sucks on her tongue.

‘A small snigger?’

(His chest starts to move again.) She hisses.

‘A tiny snort? ’

Now he’s really shaking. The beep from the heart monitor speeds up slightly.

She kicks me (like a vicious little Shetland), adjusts something on his arm (there’s a tube entering there, and a bag of fluid hung up above the bed), straightens his oxygen mask, and tells him, ‘ Please press the button if you’re in serious pain, okay ?’

He nods.

She turns back to face me again. ‘So did Aphra send you here tonight with the express purpose of knocking him off?’ she enquires.

I slowly shake my head.

‘Then read him the book ,’ she says, tapping the cover with an aggressive finger, ‘and less of the other stuff.’

She heads for the door.

‘Bitch,’ he murmurs.

‘I heard that, you cheeky sod ,’ she rebuffs (quite some lip on her for a nursing professional).

His chest shakes a little more (he’s pretty, bloody genial for a man with more wires in him than a computer terminal).

I open Shane , flip through it, discover the point at which the corner of the page has been turned over as a marker (Doesn’t that girl have even the vaguest idea of how to treat a book respectfully?): chapter 6 ( Hmmn . Much as I suspected), then start to read him the section about Sam Grafton’s general store…