Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

And what about Aphra, anyway?

Moth killer.

Hmmn . Talking of funny …

Now here’s a really hilarious thing: I’ve suddenly noticed how when I’m passing the time of day in the general vicinity of Blaine lately — on my way to the shops, perhaps, or to the café, or on my walk home, maybe— whatever —and I’m just hanging out for a moment, soaking up the atmosphere , possibly having a quick chat with some passing stranger (some really normal , really amicable -seeming individual), that suddenly — out of the blue — they’ll just turn and say something like, ‘God, I just wish I’d brought those rotten tomatoes with me…’ And they’ll be staring up at Blaine with an expression of such pure, such condensed hostility . And I’ll turn and glance up at him myself, struggling to see the thing they’re seeing, struggling to remember that furious feeling I once felt, but all I’ll see is a coffee-coloured, black-haired man, quietly sitting there, smiling, waving, doing nothing in particular.

Just a man.

And I’ll look back at the person, and I’ll realise that I can’t tell. I just can’t tell any more. I can’t understand what’s going on inside of them. I can’t see what they’re seeing. I can’t comprehend where all that anger’s coming from. And — worse still — I’m not sure where mine’s gone (Where he be? Eh ?).

Not knowing unsettles me. It baffles me. It’s disturbing .

So do I say anything (you’re probably wondering)? No. I say nothing. Do I walk away? No. Not at all, I stand my ground, I stay. I might even — for that matter — continue smiling and nodding and talking…

But inside— inside —something’s happening. I’ll be gradually closing off. I’ll feel myself withdrawing (almost as if a hatch has fallen). And then I’ll slowly feel myself rising (seriously) . Like a bubble . Floating up and away…Bobbing around aimlessly on the river breeze, above everything, perhaps touching a hard surface occasionally — the edge of a wall or boat, or a random piece of masonry — then just pushing off (not bursting, never bursting). Just pushing off, and floating away again.

Kind of quiet. Kind of blank.

Just pushing off. Just floating.

Wow .

I mean that’s pretty funny , don’t you think?

Okay, so it’s not bellyaching stuff.

(Did I actually suggest it would be?)

It’s not tear-spilling, gut -clutching stuff.

It’s not…

Whoops. There I go again…Up, up, up …

God. Where’s my head at, lately?

Bly catches me, at four, fast asleep behind a voluminous office fictus.

‘Oi,’ she whispers. ‘If you’re actually serious about getting away with this, then perhaps you should be aware that your big feet are sticking out.’

‘Uh?’

I sit up, yank my knees in.

‘Shift over.’

She crawls behind the pot and joins me (although the hair — let’s face it — must be a dead giveaway).

When she draws in closer she smells of apples.

‘Granny Smiths,’ I say, yawning.

‘My shampoo,’ she says.

‘How sweet ,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that how nice girls’ hair always smelled in the seventies?’

‘Wouldn’t know,’ she says, ‘I wasn’t a nice girl then.’

We sit.

‘So what’s happening?’ she asks.

‘Wha’d you mean?’

‘You’re sleeping behind a fictus,’ she sighs, ‘when everybody knows that the only sensible way to skive off properly in this place is by dozing on the toilet.’

(Oh. Do the girls do that too?)

‘Are you interrogating me about this,’ I ask suspiciously, ‘in your Human Resources capacity?’

She smiles. ‘Just try and think of it,’ she says tenderly (gently removing a fictus leaf from the close vicinity of my right eye), ‘simply as one evolved ape interacting with another.’

(Yeah. That works. Okay.)

‘So what’s wrong?’ she asks.

I try and think of something palpable to respond with, but can’t quite rise to the challenge.

‘Can you see Blaine from this angle?’ she finally wonders, craning her neck around to gaze through the darkened glass.

‘I was having a nice little chat ,’ I say, ‘with this father and daughter, earlier. Just normal people from Hammersmith. Came straight down here on the District Line. Girl eighteen or nineteen, intelligent, slightly punky-looking. Dad really affable. In his early fifties. And they’re standing there together, staring up at Blaine, and we’re chatting about how the weather’s turned colder. Then all of a sudden the girl starts formulating wildly about Blaine, about what a fool he is, and how much she hates him, and the dad’s just standing by, nodding, smiling on…’

Bly’s staring at me, rather strangely.

‘And I’m just thinking “Why?”’ I glance over at her, furiously. ‘ “Why?” Then suddenly I’m tired . I’m very tired.’

Even as I speak I feel my eyelids drooping.

‘The problem,’ she says quietly, ‘is surely that there is no real reason to hate him.’

I frown. ‘How’s that?’

She shrugs. ‘Because he’s a blank canvas. He’s transparent. He’s clear . So when people look up at him they don’t hate what he is. They project everything they’re feeling on to him. They vent their hatred — their conformity, their rage, their poverty, their fear, their confusion — on to him.’

She pauses. ‘And it works in exactly the same way for the positive people. Blaine becomes everything that they aspire to, everything they admire. He’s like a mirror in which people can see the very best and the very worst of themselves. That’s the simple genius of what he’s doing. That’s the trick. That’s the magic . See?’

Good Lord . Think she might actually have something there.

‘ Loving your work,’ I say, then I squeeze her arm, warmly, and retreat to the toilet.

Got a great little system going with Good Nurse.

Here’s how we do it:

As soon as Brandy’s final visitors have said their fond farewells, she rings me on my mobile (I’m hanging around in the train station, trying to chat up the girl on the photographic counter of the all-night-chemist), she tells me the coast is clear, and I barge straight on up there.

‘Pepper Schnapps?’

‘Fuck off.’

We’ve finished the Spencer. In fact we’ve finished A Corner of a Foreign Field: An Indian History of a British Sport , by Ramachandra Guha (and I loved every second of it). Now we’re on Erich Segal’s The Death of Comedy (You currently find me miserably hacking through a dense maze of iambic pentameter in chapter Sixteen, ‘Shakespeare: Errors and Eros’).

I’ve observed — just in passing — how much more erratic Brandy’s note-taking has become over the last few nights. More than once I’ve seen his pencil move on to the surface of the table below the notebook, but still continue writing there, or I’ve seen the point break, and watched him scribbling on — lead-free — for literally pages , with nothing but the flattened stump.

I mention as much to Good Nurse (Day 36, a Friday night) on my brief excursion to the toilet.

She gazes at me, in open astonishment.