Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

‘How much publicity ,’ Solomon rocks back on to his heels, tossing the collar down ( Oops . Now we’re in trouble), ‘do you remember there being when two individual members of the Crew were violently stabbed in separate nightclub attacks, eh ?’

‘Some,’ she says, testily.

‘Oh really ?’

‘Yes.’

‘These people were living in fear of their lives . That was the context , Jalisa. That’s why Asher D was carrying a gun. MC Romeo was stabbed for no reason. He was just randomly attacked. Even you must accept that he’s a good guy. Wouldn’t hurt a fly …’

‘Well I don’t know if I’d put it quite like that ,’ she demurs.

Jax, meanwhile, has clambered out from under the table and is now sitting calmly by the refrigerator, looking around him, quite obligingly (well, for a Doberman).

‘ Gooood boy.’ Solomon edges his way slowly towards him. ‘ Goood Jax. Clever Jax…’

He grabs hold of his head. Jax doesn’t object (just looks a little hurt, perhaps, and surprised).

‘ Right .’ Solomon prises Jax’s head to the correct angle, pulls the eye wide with the fingers of one hand, then tips up the tiny bottle of eye-drops with his other. Nothing happens. The lid’s still on.

‘So Skat D, alias Darren Weir, enters a Cardiff hotel lobby…’ Jalisa starts up (with quite exquisitely bad timing).

‘God, not this again…’ Solomon groans, trying to pull the lid off with his teeth.

‘He’s standing around with all his So Solid posse. He sees a fifteen-year-old girl walking by. He makes a crude pass at her—’

‘He just spoke to her,’ Solomon interrupts weakly, ‘he just propositioned her. He doesn’t grab her or anything.’

‘Are you sure? ’

‘Of course I…’

Pop !

The lid flies off the tiny bottle. But Solomon’s had to yank at it so ferociously that his hand flies back with an unexpected force and punches the refrigerator.

Jax barks and leaps up in panic. The bottle bursts out from between Solomon’s fingers and rolls beneath the washing machine.

‘You damn bitch ,’ he squeaks.

Jalisa, too, has sprung up, having presumed (she was facing the other way) that Solomon has just punched the refrigerator in order to add more colour (and defiance) to his side of the Skat D argument (and the ‘bitch’ comment certainly hasn’t assisted matters).

‘Taking a page from Skat D’s book, are we?’ she hisses.

‘The girl hit him first ,’ Solomon’s still down on his knees (Luckily. It’s the only way he’s coming out of this alive).

‘She slapped him,’ Jalisa gasps (as if the slap is some kind of fundamental legal and constitutional right of the female).

‘And?’

‘So he hits her back and he breaks her jaw !’ Jalisa banshees.

‘He went too far…’ Solomon concedes, ‘no one’s actually denying that. But what about Tupac ?’

Jalisa blinks.

Huh ?

‘What about Tupac?’ she snarls.

Solomon shoves the flat of his hand under the washing machine and shuffles it about, violently. The bottle — and some onion peel- comes shooting out. The bottle rolls — at speed — in the general direction of the hallway.

‘Jailed for statutory rape ,’ Solomon expounds, ‘gets shot, dies, promptly becomes some kind of folk hero for radical American womanhood.’

Jalisa’s jaw drops

Now he’s gone too far.

I duck downstairs, grab some shoes, jeans, a jacket, the i-Pod, and head back up.

‘What do you mean double standards?’ Jalisa is bellowing.

‘Double standards , you hypocrite ,’ Solomon yells defiantly, ‘ that’s what I mean. Because it’s one of life’s many cruel paradoxes that the more fuckable a man is, the less culpable his actions are…’

The air is sucked out of the room.

Silence .

I tiptoe — with the Blaine book — across the kitchen tiles. I place it down gently on to the table top. I fold it open. I point, tentatively. ‘You were right about Fitzcarraldo . Look. He’s listed it under his eleven all-time favourite films. It comes in at number four.’

Jalisa glances down. ‘I don’t even like Tupac,’ she murmurs, distractedly, then, ‘Oh my God , he likes Night of the Hunter …’

I half-turn towards Solomon, touch my nose, warningly, then hum five note-perfect bars from Norah Jones’ ‘Come Away With Me’.

He slits his eyes.

I pause (perhaps enjoying my pivotal peacemaking role slightly more than is completely healthy). ‘Off the record,’ I smugly confide, ‘you’re completely right about Tupac. All that sainthood shit’s got way out of control if you ask me.’

I bow. I make a faultless exit.

Okay. So I tread on that tiny eye-medication bottle on my way out and smash it.

Fuck.

That pooch is now officially my friend for all eternity.

No. No. I can’t quite believe that I’m doing this, either, but less than 35 minutes later I’m comfortably ensconced back in that Philippe Starck chair, up to my eye-balls in The Future of Nostalgia (Okay. So it’s a great book, but why don’t you try saying tsyplenok zharenji * without the benefit of vodka?).

On my short walk over there I catch that brief (but so-necessary) glimpse of Aphra (from the bridge), sitting quietly on her wall; chin up and cheeks shining, carefully overseeing the rumpled Blaine at his nightly slumber.

Blaine (by the by) has been having a rather tough time of it lately (if Bly’s detailed reports are to be taken seriously). On Saturday (Day 30), he apparently called out for food, banged on the walls of his box and began barking like a dog (he’s hallucinating, has spells of dizziness, is short of breath, and his mouth tastes of pear drops).

Hmmm . Call me cynical (if you will), but doesn’t it seem a mite convenient for this poignant little spectacle to’ve been timed for a Saturday —during his peak viewing period? We know the boy went to drama college, after all (and probably magicked himself a nice, neat, grade A there).

I experience some difficulty in gaining access this time (the hospital . Yup. The NHS is in safe hands after all), because my name isn’t down on the list etc., but the man on reception is persuaded to phone up to the ward, and the Angry Blonde Nurse (her name, it transpires, is Lorna) comes stomping down and gives me the all-clear.

On our way back up, I ask if she’s seen Aphra.

‘An hour ago,’ she puffs, ‘dropped off a bag of food and then bolted.’

She pauses. ‘I keep telling her he’s off solids now — has been for weeks — but it just doesn’t seem to sink in , somehow.’

She pulls a face.

‘And how’s Mr Leyland?’

‘Bad,’ she scowls, ‘and considerably worse for not seeing her.’

She pauses. ‘He just dotes on the woman. Although rumour has it she’s been having an affair…’

‘Really?’

‘That’s what the real family say. The first Mrs Leyland and Sherry Leyland, his unmarried sister.’

Sherry ?

She clocks my expression. ‘Famous family of vintners ,’ she explains, ‘didn’t you know that already?’

‘Of course ,’ I scoff.

‘Although Punch,’ she continues dreamily, ‘was named after his great-grandfather, who was a bare-knuckle fighter in Perth in the second half of the nineteenth century.’