Clear by Nicola Barker

Author:Nicola Barker [Barker, Nicola]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Literary
ISBN: 0060797576
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2005-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

But I’ve got the flu.

Her shoes are awful.

And I wanked at eleven…

That’s only a couple of hours ago.

Well, okay. Four.

Nine

I am awoken – at ten – by Solomon, who takes the unusual step of journeying downstairs to pay me a brief visit; not out of any concern for my health – it soon transpires – but because Bud (the dog) has devoured the post again.

He holds out a tragic-looking copy of Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man/ The Truce, and a slightly less well-masticated copy of David Blaine, Mysterious Stranger.

‘I have an earlier edition of this upstairs,’ he says, pointing at the Levi, ‘if you’d only bothered to look.’

Then he grimaces and adds, ‘You have tufts of tissue everywhere.’

I paw at my face, blearily.

‘Everywhere.’

I paw again.

‘Have you read it, then?’ I ask (as I paw).

‘Well that’s generally what books are for…’ he murmurs.

‘Is it good?’

Solomon ponders this question for a moment. ‘Is it good? One of the intellectual titans of the last century writes a legendary first-person account of his experiences of the Holocaust…Is it good…?’

He smiles brightly: ‘Yeah. It’s a romp.’

He tosses the two books on to my bed and then glances down at the abandoned Kafka. He kicks it, gently, with a leather-booted foot.

‘Let me get this straight…’ he murmurs, ‘I break up with Jalisa…’

‘Shhh!’ I whisper, then peer suspiciously over my shoulder, then perform my (frankly, utterly hilarious) zipping mime. He stares at me, blankly.

‘I break up with Jalisa,’ he repeats, and to help me get over the whole thing you immediately resolve to transform yourself into her slavering, half-witted, intellectual disciple.’

‘The Kafka was great,’ I shrug, ‘for your information she was right about the Kafka.’

‘Well, bully for her.’

His mouth tightens, jealously.

‘It’s given me a whole new perspective on this stuff,’ I say airily. ‘In fact I’ve been making some enquiries of my own and was wondering if you might give me her phone number…’

‘No way on God’s Earth,’ he snaps.

‘Oh come on.’

‘You actually went out last night?’ he asks, pointing at my sweater (which I didn’t bother pulling off before I fell into bed).

‘For a couple of hours.’

(I’m sounding a little defensive, a little wheedly.)

‘Where?’

I don’t answer.

‘Where?’

(Who’s he think he is? My dad?)

‘A walk. I was feverish.’

He stares at me, unblinking, and then…‘Oh my God,’ he says, ‘that fucking magician! You went to see Blaine, didn’t you?’

I shake my head.

‘Three in the morning,’ he gurgles. ‘You’re half-dead with flu. Are you out of your mind?’

‘I went to see Aphra,’ I squeak.

‘What?’ Solomon reins himself in, quite commendably.

‘One of the guards told me she was down there most nights. And I couldn’t sleep. So I decided to go and take a quick look.’

‘And she was there?’

I nod.

‘Alone?’

I nod again. ‘Aphra, a couple of guards and a tramp. Three fifteen a.m.’

He takes a small step back, stretches out a well-muscled arm and leans against the chimney breast. ‘Then what?’

‘We talked.’

He slits his eyes. ‘You do fuck?’

I ignore this.

‘We went back to her apartment…’

‘Apartment,’ he scoffs.

‘We went back to her flat and looked at her shoe collection,’ I say haughtily.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.