Nicola Barker: Clear: A Transparent Novel

Splat!

Her skin shines bluely in the half-light. Her pubic bone (I sneak a closer look) is flattish. The hair is thick, tangled and dark. I put down the glass on her bedside table and place the bowl beside her, on the floor. Then I go into the en-suite and search for a flannel, but can’t find one, so yank a huge wodge of toilet paper off the roll instead (folding it up, dampening it).

‘Hello?’

A voice. A new voice. A different voice.

‘Aphra?’

A woman’s voice.

‘Aphra?’

Uh …

I freeze, panicked (Now this— this —is definitely not good…)

I hear someone push open the bedroom door.

‘Aphra? Good Heavens . Are you all right in there?’

Oh God. Oh God . Do I skulk in the bathroom? Try and sit it out? Hide ? (If I pull the shower curtain over, I can crouch in the bath…)

No. No .

I casually pop my head round the door.

‘Hello,’ I say.

The new woman — a smarter, older, more traditionally ‘attractive’-seeming version of Aphra, a sister, perhaps — gasps, does a sharp double take and then throws up her hand towards the light-switch.

‘ Not the light,’ I exclaim ( sotto voce ). ‘She’s got a migraine .’

‘Who the hell are you?’ the woman whispers furiously back.

‘Adair Graham MacKenny,’ I say (and as I’m speaking I see her eyes drawn, ineluctably, to Aphra’s naked pubic area).

‘She undressed herself ,’ I say, ‘while I was in the kitchen, fetching her a glass of water.’

I point to the glass of water by the bed.

The woman remains silent as she angrily appraises the seedy-seeming wodge of damp toilet tissue in my hand.

‘She vomited earlier,’ I continue, ‘so I got her a bowl.’

I point again…

‘And I couldn’t find a flannel,’ I stutter, holding up the toilet tissue.

Silence.

‘The porter,’ I stumble on, ‘at the hospital , told me exactly what to do for her.’

Nothing.

I clear my throat, I inspect my watch. ‘I really, really, really must return to work…’ I announce (with just a tinge of regret), then tiptoe over to Aphra and gently place the wodge of tissue across her brow. She immediately tips her head, with a cattish yowl , and tosses it off.

At last the woman finds her voice, ‘You’re scaring me,’ she announces (normal volume).

‘Well you’re scaring me ,’ I shoot back.

I take my mobile out of my pocket.

‘This might all seem a little strange ,’ I say (a small laugh in my voice — not entirely successful— wish to God I hadn’t tried that …), ‘so I’m going to give you my phone number.’ I hold up the phone (my technological talisman) as I march on past her and into the living room. I find a stray pen and a random pizza delivery service leaflet and scribble my number on to its corner. I tear it off and hand it to the woman, who, after a moment’s delay, has followed me through.

‘Adair,’ I say, and point to myself (as if English is actually her second language). She doesn’t do me the honour of repaying the compliment.

‘ Very nice to meet you,’ I add, backing slowly off, ‘I’m actually very relieved you turned up, because I didn’t really want to leave her…’ I pause, still backing. ‘I mean…’ I pause again. ‘I mean…so terribly ill and everything.’

The woman slits her eyes. She utters a single, short, sharp syllable (but it’s certainly a choice one)

‘Scram!’

Okay. Yes . Good idea.

I do my best to oblige her.

God .

There’s one thing I’m certain of: Solomon Tuesday Kwashi (pronounced Solo-m o n, and don’t you dare forget it), my sarcastic Ghanaian flatmate (I call him my flatmate, but we basically share a house— his house — where he pays the mortgage and I effectively squat) is going to love this story. There’s nothing he enjoys more than a tragic tale of chronic, psychosexual trauma with ‘The Young Master’ ( yup , that’s what he likes to call me; or ‘Massa’ when he’s in an especially good humour) as its pathetic butt.

We’ve lived together (like two crabby old queens) in his house on Cannon Street Road (just off Cable Street) for eight long years (four-storey- with an attic- Georgian, all original features: those brilliant, butcher-shop-style rectangular white tiles in the utility rooms, the well-worn stone floors, the deep enamel kitchen sink with its thick wooden draining boards, the beautifully irregular handmade sash windows…).

It’s a house deeply imbued with precisely that kind of ‘effortlessly pared-down’, ‘homespun’, ‘artisan-style’ ambience which all those pathetically desperate, headscarf-wearing, cheesecake-eating, middle-class ponces in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel can only ever aspire to (and slaver over, and throw money at, and still come away wanting).

The bricks outside are stained black from a fire (years ago — possibly when the houses opposite were bombed out during the war, and where now there’s just a tall wire fence, an expanse of municipal lawn and a block of flats), but the front door is immaculate (the palest pale yellow — with an astonishingly large, antique clenched-fist knocker) and the windows inside (curtain-less, of course ) are pristinely shuttered with a series of wonderfully faded, grey oak panels.

Mwah!

Solomon has an enviable eye (for everything , damn him: art, music, fiction, fashion, furniture). And he’s rich. And he’s handsome. And he’s impossibly successful. But it wasn’t always so.

(Don’t think for a moment that he’s one of your proud African princes who wears colourful dresses and a matching tasselled cap. Oh God no . Not he. Solomon has yanked himself up by the bootstraps from irredeemably common stock; his mother — I’ve met her — uses the hem of her skirt to blow her nose on, picks her teeth with a kitchen knife, crosses her arms across her considerable girth, squeezes them — her face set into an expression of exquisite concentration — pushes out a fart, and then sighs her relief.

Solomon knows how to box, is a whizz in the kitchen, falls casually into peerless patois, broad cockney (at a push — although he prefers to flirt with perfect modulation), can fix an old Cortina, owns three killer Dobermans, sneers at ‘ponces’ and ‘cunts’ and affectation, is principled, has ‘standards’, lives by his own ‘ethical guidelines’—and Christ knows they’re strict ones. This man could’ve roomed with the late Ayatollah Khomeini and have found his morals ‘unedifying’.

Clean? You’re saying clean ? Solomon polishes underneath his shoes. His toilet habits make the Japanese look sloppy).

We went to UCL together. I did Media Studies and English. Solomon did Philosophy. In truth, I couldn’t ever have called us ‘the best of mates’ (we’re chalk and cheese — he’s definitely the chalk. And me? I’m generally served up — slightly above room temperature — on a greasy platter).

His attitude towards me has always been one of genial (nay sanguine) toleration (although he could teach Anna Wintour some lessons in haughty . Cutting? Cutting ?! Like Jack the Ripper’s razor ).

I actually found this house (I did . That’s my single claim to fame, and — I suspect — the only reason I’m still living here). I brought Solomon on board to remove the locks (he’s got himself an O’ Level in Breaking and Entering) and we started off as a couple of squatters hanging loose in the basement.