Clear (18 page)

I stick out my own tongue, to demonstrate. She winces. I guess it might be a little furry. (But so far so good.)

‘Then he waits for a while. Looks a little confused–like he’s not entirely in control of what’s happening–then he winces, lifts up his
shirt
and starts inspecting his chest.’

I lift up my own shirt.

‘Why?’ she asks, staring at my belly.

‘That’s the
trick
,’ I say (pulling it in slightly).

‘Oh.’

‘He inspects his chest with his
fingers
for a while, and then he suddenly locates something. Like an imperfection of some kind, on the skin. Right in the middle. And he starts to pick at it, and to pull. And he pulls, and he pulls…And suddenly you can see that he’s pulling a strand of cotton, through his skin. Actually
through
his skin. There’s a close-up and everything. The skin is actually
tenting
under the pressure of his fingers and the cotton…’

‘That’s disgusting,’ she says. ‘
Tenting
…’ (She’s disgusted by my
vocabulary
, note, yet not even remotely alarmed by Blaine’s visceral exhibitionism.)

‘I know.’

‘My God,’ she marvels, ‘and it’s the
same
piece of cotton…’

‘You think so?’

She frowns.

‘Because for the trick to
work
,’ I explain, ‘I imagine he implanted a piece of twine into his chest earlier- maybe under his actual flesh, or under a flap of
false
skin. Then he approaches the kid and pretends to pull a strand of cotton off his collar- but he probably already has the cotton in his hand…maybe it’s normal cotton, or even cotton that dissolves in saliva- and he eats it, then lifts up his shirt. The two events are entirely unrelated…’

It takes her a while to digest this information.

‘So it’s your
job
,’ I say, ‘to smell things?’

She nods (still frowning over all the other stuff).

‘At the hospital?’

She blinks. ‘The hospital?’

‘Isn’t that where you work?’

She shakes her head, almost chuckling at the notion. ‘John Lewis,’ she says, ‘the department store. Years ago, I was a sniffer there.’

‘A sniffer?’

‘But now I mostly do consultation work. I’m actually a qualified perfumier.’

I stare at her nose. She stares at
my
nose.

‘He was an actor,’ I say, ‘to start off with.’

‘Who?’

‘Blaine.’

She stops staring at my nose.

‘Really? An
actor
?’

(I can tell she doesn’t particularly like this idea.)

‘A child actor. Adverts. Soaps…’

‘An actor,’ she murmurs, glancing up at the box. ‘So you think he’s acting in there?’

I shrug.

‘An actor,’ she says again, then frowns.

‘A
sniffer
,’ I say.

She flaps her hand, irritably.

‘But that’s interesting.’

‘No. It’s boring,’ she says.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m hypersensitive to stuff. Strong scents. Tastes. Dust. Pollen. I get headaches.’

‘Migraines.’

Silence
.

‘I’d like to smell
him
though,’ she says, tipping her head towards the magician.

‘You would?’

‘Yeah. I could tell his people things. I could help. I can sense minor physical imbalances. Gauge certain underlying stresses…’

‘Like a horse. Horses smell fear.’

She smiles. ‘
Exactly
like that.’

She turns and appraises me closely for a second. ‘You wear Odeur 53,’ she says, ‘Comme des Garçons. It’s very sweet. Very feminine. I noticed it the first time you walked past. They marketed it as a scent with a
gap
in the middle of the aroma…’ She grins. ‘Like an
anti-
scent. It was very clever. I mean
complete
bullshit…’

She pauses. ‘But
you
fell for it,
eh
?’

Before I can respond she lifts up her left leg. ‘D’you like my shoes?’

She rotates her foot.

I’m still lagging behind a little.

‘Uh,
no
…’ I slowly shake my head. ‘I really
don’t
.’

‘Good. Come home with me,’ she says, and stands up.

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
.

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. ‘She collects second-hand
shoes
.’

‘Does she actually wear them?’

‘Yes.’

He wrinkles up his nose. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘She’s a sniffer,’ I continue (suddenly rather
revelling
in the perplexing wonder that is Aphra). ‘She used to work at John Lewis, in the Returns Department. She told me how they hire people with sensitive noses to sniff the returns and check if they’ve been used or not.’

‘I’ve heard about that before,’ he says.

‘Bull
shit
you have.’

He shrugs.

‘So did you do
fuck
?’ he asks again (I mean who could
guess
that this horn-ball had just broken up?).

‘Well once we got
home
,’ I sidetrack, ‘she told me I had to be very quiet, because there was someone sleeping in the spare room…’

‘Who was it?’

I shrug. ‘No idea.’

‘The
sister
,’ he chuckles, ‘the one who took your number. She comes out of the bedroom while you’re looking at the shoes, buck-naked, and rotates like a small tornado on your lap…’

‘It might’ve been a man,’ I say, ‘I think I heard a man’s voice at one point. Heard someone call out, like they were having a bad dream or something…’

‘Hang on there…Let’s just wind back a bit…’ Solomon quickly inspects his watch. ‘I need some coffee. I have an appointment at eleven. Come upstairs with me and finish off.’

I don’t move. He scowls.

‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ he promises.

‘Jalisa’s number,’ I sigh, collapsing back smugly on to my pillows, ‘or no details.’

He gives this some thought. ‘Only if it’s
really
mortifying,’ he says.

‘Trust me. It is.’

‘I mean
really
humiliating. Really awful. Utterly degraded. Vile.
Sickening
.’

‘I can tick all your boxes,’ I brag, ‘but give me Jalisa’s number, up front, or the deal’s off.’

Solomon heads for the stairs.

‘Gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,’ he mutters.

God. I should’ve
known
he’d get his own back.

Twenty minutes later (meeting?
What
meeting?) Solomon is delivering me a lengthy lecture on the myth of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

‘It was essentially the cornerstone of the anti-semitic idea,’ he says. ‘This fantastical notion of a shadowy group of Jewish Elders who are holding secret meetings, raising funds, forwarding the Jewish agenda on an international platform and setting serious social and political changes in motion…’

‘But they didn’t even exist?’

‘Nope. Just anti-Jewish scaremongering.’

I blow my nose, bleakly.

‘All I’m really
saying
,’ he continues, ‘is that Jalisa is perfectly good–in fact extremely
talented
–at repackaging the chat and the gossip and the hearsay. She’s an intellectual firecracker. A
magpie
. She loves nothing better than to line her nest with all that
sparkles
in the culture. But the dull stuff? The
flat
stuff? The dates? The facts? The context? Uh-
uh
. Nothing. Zilch. Nought.
Zero
.’

I blow my nose for a second time.

‘I mean
I
should know. I dated the girl for two damn
months
. If you’re looking for
depth
there then you’re diving in at the wrong end, my friend.’

‘Fine.’

(Let’s just
ignore
the diving metaphor, shall we?)

‘And if the water’s too shallow, you’re gonna end up breaking your
neck
.’

(Should’ve known he wouldn’t let us get away with that.)

‘Because what’s the point of reading the Kafka if you can’t set it into some kind of historical perspective,
huh
?’

Silence
.

‘I mean she didn’t even know he was Czechoslovakian. She thought he was
German
.’

‘She did,’ I eventually murmur. ‘That’s true.’

‘I’ll bet you fifty
quid
,’ Solomon continues, ‘that Jalisa knows diddly-
squat
about the Russian pogroms under the czar…’

I smile, weakly.

‘Or the Dreyfus Case.’

I merely shrug.

‘
Eh
?’

I shake my head.

(
Ouch
. Headache back.)

‘She probably thinks the Beerhall Putsch was a dispute about
lager
.’

I laugh, weakly (Do Jews even
drink
beer?).

‘To prove my point,’ he says, ‘I’m gonna
give
you her number.’

He pauses for a second: ‘In fact you can ring her on my phone. I haven’t deleted her digits yet.’

He takes his phone out of his pocket, selects her number, sets it ringing and slides it across the table at me.

‘There you go,’ he says.

I refuse to touch the phone.

‘I don’t want to speak to her
now
,’ I say.

‘Hello?’

Jalisa answers her phone.

‘Solomon!’
I growl.

‘Hello?’

Solomon just grins.

‘Hello?’

I pick up the phone.

‘Jalisa,’ I say. ‘It’s Adair. I’m speaking to you on Solomon’s phone.’

‘Why?’ she asks.

‘Ask her about the Dreyfus Case,’ Solomon whispers.

I close my eyes for a second. I open them.

‘Jalisa,’ I say, ‘Solomon wants you to tell me about the Dreyfus Case.’

A short silence follows.

‘Oh.
Okay
,’ Jalisa intonates each syllable with a terrifying, clipped efficiency. ‘Tell him that Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the late-nineteenth century French army who was scapegoated in a spying case because of his religious orientation.’

I look over at Solomon. ‘She knows about Dreyfus,’ I say. ‘Jewish officer. French army. Scapegoated in spying case
et cetera
.’

He slits his eyes.

‘Beerhall Putsch,’ he says.

‘Tell that arrogant, fat-headed little
dick
,’ she snaps (before I’ve even said anything), ‘that The Beerhall Putsch took place in Munich in 1923 and was Hitler’s first, unsuccessful attempt at taking power.’

‘She knows about the Putsch,’ I say.

He leans across the table and snatches the phone off me.

‘I was
right
about the food,’ he hisses. ‘It transpires that Aphra has a highly developed sense of
smell.’ Pause
.

‘I said it was “aromatic”,’ he squawks. ‘I said it was “unusually aromatic”.’

Another pause
.

‘So what were the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?’ he asks.

He listens for three seconds and then hangs up.

‘What did she say?’

‘She didn’t have a
clue
.’

‘
Really
?’

‘Of course not.’

He puts the phone down and picks up the coffee jug. He clears his throat.

‘So you’re telling me that Aphra actually sits on that wall
every
night?’ (
Uh
–excuse me, but am I currently the
only
person in my social circle with any kind of serious commitment to conversational
flow
?)

‘That’s what the security guard said.’ I shrug. ‘Sean or
Saul
or something…’

‘And after you found that out, you
still
wanted to shag the girl?’

‘I don’t believe I ever actually confessed to such an urge,’ I sniff.

‘Didn’t have to,’ he grimaces. ‘It’s written all over you.’

I glance down at my torso, as if hunting for the lettering.

‘Tell me about the shoes,’ he says, pulling out a chair.

‘I thought you were disgusted by the shoes.’

‘I am.’

Right
.

Fine
.

‘Well, she actually had the shoes all lined up on her dining-room table,’ I say, ‘although she has no dining-room as such, just a corner of the lounge close to the french windows which is a designated “dining area”. But the lounge is big and there’s plenty of room…’

‘Could you sketch me out a floor plan?’ Solomon asks (the
bitch
).

‘Anyway,’ I stagger manfully on, ‘attached to each pair of shoes–and there must’ve been about fifty or so–was a small, handwritten tag, and printed on to each tag was a list of information particular to that pair–where they were bought–’

‘But
why
were the shoes on the table?’ he butts in.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask.’

‘You didn’t
ask
?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Do you actually
want
me to get to the part when we have terrible sex or not?’

‘Shoes on the fucking
table
,’ Solomon mutters.

(Yeah. He wants the sex part
real
bad.)

‘All the shoes were antique. And even
I
could tell that it was a pretty amazing collection…’

‘What do you mean, “even
I
could tell…”,’ Solomon scoffs. ‘You’re shoe
obsessed
.’