Nicola Barker - Clear - A Transparent Novel

Blaine .

In his box.

From the front — from the side — from the front again.

‘Staying in this autumn?’ the voiceover enquires coyly, then proceeds to reel off a choice selection of programmes from the channel’s autumn schedules.

But I’m not listening. I’m staring at Blaine. Blaine on TV . I fall off the sofa and draw closer to the screen. Must be old footage. Because he’s so much fatter . And I’m seeing all the buildings around him, locating him, between the trees, and the sky and the river.

I’m feeling the bridge (I am), I’m feeling it — that huge, overmediated landmark, that monolith…

And suddenly it just…it just resonates .

It does .

It sings to me.

Because it’s not great or old or grand or historical any more. It’s just…just there . It’s real . It’s dimensional . And I own it. I’ve landed. I’ve taken hold .

I’m shaking all over, my eyes are tearing up, I’m gasping and laughing…

And in the heart of all this leaf, this sky, this masonry? Slap bang in the middle of them? One man, one ridiculous man, so transformed .

I reach out my hand to the screen and feel the stiff buzz of static there. And suddenly I’m crying. Weeping uncontrollably. Because I’ve fucking arrived . I understand. I’m there .

Then Solomon walks in and finds me.

Hand on the screen, weeping, the whole sordid deal .

Oh yeah .

‘Adair?’

This is worse than when he caught me wanking over a muted-out Judge Judy.

The gavel .

And at least she was female .

He pours me a stiff bourbon. He runs me a bath. He makes me dinner. He hires Amores Perreros on video and makes me watch it with him.

Sunday, I get a text from Jalisa of all people.

‘Read his Dream Manifesto,’ it says, ‘esp. no. 13.’

I haul the Blaine book out again.

The Manifesto…It’s right at the back. Here we go:

Okay… blah blah …Don’t overindulge, respect all life, take a trip to the sea , love yourself, read more, listen more, learn from your mistakes…

All very obvious, very sensible, very straightforward stuff.

Then my eye drops to no. 13, the last of the bunch:

‘Don’t create a robot that’s superior to human beings or it will wipe out the human race.’

O -kay.

Let’s move right on, shall we?

Monday. While I’m out at work, we receive a delivery. I find it blocking up the hallway when I get back that evening.

The Chair. And Shane . And a message (stuck to the seat, on that so-familiar notepaper, in that so-familiar hand) which says:

‘Bols, you cunt.

And this is a fucking Mies van der Rohe–

Don’t you (or your skinny arse) know anything? ’

Skinny arse?

Skinny arse?

So did I ever even hint that Furniture Design was my forte?

Did I?

And here’s another thing: to consciously choose to abuse the very booze you were christened in?

No bloody wonder that arty-farty SOB didn’t want to let on.

Bols?!

What’s wrong with Remy Martin?

The next day, on the dawning of Day 40, I bump into Hilary. He’s standing on the park steps, by the wire, casually perusing a poster of Leonardo Di Caprio (which some imbecile has hung up there), his Fortune Reading sign tucked under one arm, that infernal headscarf tossed around his neck. And he’s clutching two cups of coffee in a plastic holder. One bun. He’s obviously waiting for somebody. I clamber up and join him.

‘Quiet, isn’t it?’ I say, glancing around (nobody about but a couple of guards, and the usual straggle of suited city-folk scurrying to work).

‘Yup.’

Blaine is still asleep.

We both stare up at him. We’re the only two people around (strange, eh? That an event can be so huge in one moment, yet so very intimate the next?).

‘Got some bad news for you,’ he says, clearing his throat.

‘Oh yeah?’

(For a moment I think it’s going to be something about Aphra. But it’s not. What am I even thinking? Of course it won’t be.)

‘You’re gonna get the sack. Tomorrow.’

He turns and offers me a coffee.

‘I got you this,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’

And he smiles.

So what can I do ? I take the cup.

‘Could only afford one bun,’ he says.

( Hmmn . Now here’s an interesting social dilemma…)

It’s during this small, almost domestic interlude that Blaine suddenly awakens. One second he’s fast asleep, lying flat, totally comatose . The next, he’s rocketed up. With an awful gasp. His eyes staring. His mouth hanging open.

(The fluidity of movement . The momentum . The panic. )

Then he turns — in that brief instant — he turns , still jolted, and he stares straight at me.

One

Two

Three

Then, ‘Oh. It’s you ,’ his face seems to say, and it relaxes (his expression relieved yet irritable , like I’m some sickly, needy dog who happens to’ve wandered into view). A weak smile. He lifts up his hand, automatically.

David Blaine— the David Blaine — waves at me.

Without prompting.

Good God .

(Do I wave back , you’re wondering. Of course I don’t. I can’t . I’m holding the damn coffee carton in one hand, see? And in the other I’m holding the bloody bun Hilary gave me.)

He turns and grabs his notebook (like Aphra said he would, just like she said) and he scratches his curly head with the end of his pencil. He calms himself down. He slowly realigns his celebrity mantle (a little to the left. Okay . Now a little to the right…I’m actually a multi- multi millionaire. Did you happen to know that?). Then he sighs and he begins to write…

I blink. I hide my confusion by sipping the coffee. It’s almost cold. ‘Coffee’s almost cold,’ I gripe.

Wednesday, I get the sack .

Hey! Mayor Ken Livingstone? You can suck my fat cock .

Thursday, Bly pops around to see me and casually lets slip how Hilary got his job back.

But in my department.

Did the fucking interview Monday .

Yup. That’s how they get’cha.

( Aw . And there was you idly thinking how there was gonna be some kind of life-affirming romance between Bly and me once that dirty hussy Aphra was out of the picture…

That bitch got me fired .

So pull your damn horns in.)

Three days and counting…

Everything speeds up.

And everything slows down.

Concurrently.

Funny how life can do that.

Bly and I actually stroll down there together— companionably , if you must know — that last Thursday night. And its packed with mums and with dads, with teens and with kids. And there’s this twenty-four-hour homeless singing marathon (A bunch of students determined to use their charitable instincts to drive the poor bastard round the bend again). A blonde cockney girl with a grating voice is banging relentlessly on her tambourine and hollering. And Blaine’s there, exhausted-seeming — lying on his side — his hood pulled up, like a bemused King of Siam, welcoming a hotch-potch of eccentric foreigners to his wayward fiefdom.