Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

( My . This girl certainly has swallowed the book of Leyland family history.)

I suddenly feel an uncommonly strong urge to say something nice about Aphra.

Uh …Yes.

Hmmn.

‘She’s a great cook,’ I eventually murmur.

‘He signed himself out for the night a couple of weeks ago,’ she continues (refusing to commit on the culinary issue), ‘he was slightly stronger then- but not nearly strong enough, if you want my opinion…They managed- I don’t really know how- to keep it a secret from the others. Then apparently she just took him back to this cruddy little flat, tucked him up and deserted him. He was so distressed when he returned to the ward on the Monday morning that he had to be forcibly tranquillized. His sister sanctioned it. “For his own good,” she said.’

She pauses.

‘Lovely man. An amazing philanthropist. Hospital patron. Incredibly generous.’

‘But why did she take him to the flat?’ I ask (my mind, for some reason, still dwelling on that).

‘Who?’

‘Aphra.’

‘Oh…’

She frowns.

‘I don’t know. Apparently he owns loads of real estate in this area. They have a huge place on Regent Street, too, but since he’s been officially terminal , lots of the Australian family have been staying there… You know, the kids, the first wife. Perhaps she just couldn’t bear it any more. Or perhaps…’

She widens her eyes, meaningfully.

We’re standing outside the door. I shrug, knock, and enter.

Must’ve been hard at it all day. He’s ploughed his way through to chapter 17–the conclusion. Only six pages to go ( Damn . You know what this means? I’m to be denied the untold pleasures of Part 3: ‘Exiles and Imagined Homelands: On Diasporic Intimacy’).

Before I sit down (He’s not going to make me go through that dense wodge of appendixes, is he?) I take a quick peek at the timetable.

Hmmn . Now let’s see…Punch’s been in (first thing. Of course), then the original Mrs Leyland (who- strangely enough-retains that same moniker i.e. Mrs L (1), then someone called Mordecai Roast ( classic name, eh ?), then Sister Leyland (riding under ‘Sherry L’), who seems to stay longer than almost anybody else here, except for (last but not least) Aphra, who’s due to start at ten and remain through to the morning (the most miserable shift by some margin, in my opinion).

He observes me scrutinising the timetable and grunts, ‘Bad diabetic’, by way of an explanation.

‘Who is?’

He points to his chest, ‘Me. Very bad. Drinker …’ He mimes taking a quick shot. ‘Blood-sugar was erratic. She used to sit up at night and watch over me. The habit stuck.’

He closes his eyes.

‘Johnny Walker, Black Label,’ I say (it’s a great knack of mine to guess a person’s tipple. People are, after all, the brew they consume).

He snorts, derisively. Then he lifts his mask for a second and points at me.

‘Jim Beam,’ he says, ‘with an inch of ginger wine.’

Jesus Christ .

He pauses. ‘You have a powerful appetite for anything fortified.’

( What ? So which of you bastards told him about my weakness for sherry?)

‘Favourite artist…’ he muses, ‘Jackson Pollock.’ He smirks: ‘Because he “ lived ” it. But in your teens you worshipped Peter Blake, because of the Sergeant Pepper album cover…’ He coughs for a while, then clears his throat. ‘You thought it was “terribly clever”.’

(So wasn’t it? Huh ?)

‘Favourite food …’ He frowns. ‘White sliced, spread with ketchup, doubled over. Definitely no butter.’

‘Good God .’

I lick my lips, anxiously (Reckon he might know how I shagged his wife this afternoon on HMS Belfast in the communications centre?).

‘Wasted a lot of time sitting in bars with complete strangers over the years.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s one of the few useful knacks I gleaned from the experience.’

(Fuck him anyway. It’s brown sauce. And I can tolerate a smear — just a smear —of margarine on a good day).

I take a second pop.

‘Maker’s Mark.’

He smirks and jiggles his face mask at me.

‘Chivas Regal.’

‘Fucking pathetic ,’ he coughs, grabbing a hold of his pencil. ‘Just read the damn book, will you?’

When Lorna’s shift finishes, Brandy sends me off on a furtive little mission to discover (and retrieve) Aphra’s food parcel. I don’t have far to search, though. Good Nurse is standing in an adjacent kitchen, cheerfully devouring a summerfruit crêpe direct from the Tupperware.

‘So Brandy wants to take a look at the food again, huh? ’ she asks, through her mouthful.

(Is this woman a mind reader?)

I nod.

She points to the bag. ‘Tell him not to swallow, only to chew. That’s the deal here, okay?’

I nod again.

She looks stern: ‘ Sure ?’

‘Absolutely.’ I grab the bag.

She touches my arm, confidingly. ‘You know, when I was a child ,’ she whispers, ‘I had one of those special dolls. Those crying dolls. You feed her water with a tiny, little bottle, then after a few seconds her tears start to flow, then you feel her nappy and of course she’s pissed herself, so you change her.

But one day I decided to give her some solids along with the water. Proper food, yeah? Fed her some cabbage. Some chicken. I just pushed it right in…’ She laboriously mimes this process. ‘But it wouldn’t go down properly. It just stuck there. Right behind the lips. Wouldn’t flush out. And over the course of time, it started to rot ,’ she grimaces, ‘and to stink .’ She sighs at the memory, shakes her head, regretfully, then releases her grip and bustles off.

Who the hell is this woman, anyway? The reincarnated spirit of Nikolai Gogol?

Here’s what she’s prepared:

A fresh green pesto served with home-fried potato crisps

A tiny, but perfect quail’s egg florentine

Two fat poussins, oven-baked, with whole lemons

Stuffed baby aubergines with chilli and coconut

Mango and yoghurt chutney, date and orange chutney

( To be served with six rye-flour chapattis )

Stuffed baked apples

Half a summerfruit crêpe.

One cup of smooth guava lassi

He can’t swallow , obviously. So I prop him up, he takes off his mask, coughs for a while, reaches some sort of equilibrium, and I pass him a tub. He closes his eyes and inhales (‘ Ah …’). Coughs some more (I wipe his mouth clean with a tissue), he requests a small forkful. I do the honours. He holds the food — dead still, on his tongue (mouth shut), for a minute or so, then he chews, winces, screws up his face in an agony of desire, inhales (to gain strength), and spits it back out (into a plastic cup).

He then cleans his palate with a rinse of water.

Kind of messy . And the entire process takes well over an hour.

Often his eyes fill with tears.

‘Each taste,’ he says afterwards, gasping for breath, ‘each shape, each texture , crashes me into a whole new wave of memory…’

Then, ‘ Love this fucking life,’ he admonishes me.

I toss in Malibu and Coke, as a curve ball.

‘That was my very favourite drink,’ he simpers, ‘as a teenage girl.’

Yeah . Might shelve the champagne cocktail for a while.

As if in joyful celebration of all our culinary endeavours, the next book we commence reading is Colin Spencer’s thwacking-great British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History .