Clear (27 page)

Home. Bath. Bed.

Sleep like a damn
log
.

Am rudely awoken–
wah? eh? where the clock
?–at ten past eleven by an almighty commotion in the kitchen as Solomon manfully struggles to apply eye-drops to an unenthusiastic Jax (who has–he knows not
how
–recently contracted conjunctivitis), whilst simultaneously conducting a noisy argument with a strident, American female who sounds suspiciously like…

Who
else
?!

Jalisa
!

I stagger upstairs and stand swaying in the doorway clutching my Blaine book (like I’m gonna ask her to
autograph
it for me) but no one looks over. No one even says ‘Hi’.

‘Your position is just so
riddled
with inconsistencies,’ Jalisa’s expostulating angrily, while a grim-faced Solomon locks Jax’s head between his manly thighs, twizzles around frantically to try and reach the drops bottle, and then fails–signally–to do so.

‘Pass me the stupid
drops
,’ he demands.

But Jalisa’s still talking.

‘The allegations of illegal
gun
possession I can just about get my head around,’ she says (Ah. So it’s the tragic decline of South-West London UK Garage supremos So Solid Crew that they’re discussing. Oh
ho
. Jalisa had better tread
very
carefully here. This ground is
decidedly
marshy). ‘Although to threaten an innocent, African parking warden…How pathetic is that?’

‘He never even took the gun out,’ Solomon snarls. ‘Now will you just
pass
me the medication?’

‘He threatened him vocally. The gun was in his girlfriend’s handbag. And the guy was being reasonable. He asked him to put some money in the meter or to move on. That was all.’

‘The
drops!
’ Solomon yells.

‘I mean any normal warden would’ve ticketed him on the spot. And let’s not forget,’ she staunchly continues, ‘that Asher D was actually a child actor before he graduated on to the dizzy heights of South-East London gangsta-dom. He was perfectly well raised. His mother runs the
Personnel
Department at Hackney Council. I mean give me a
break
. He starred in
Grange Hill
–or
The Bill
, I forget which–so it was hardly like the pressures of celebrity were an entirely new phenomenon to him…’

Solomon lunges for the drops. He manages to grab them, but the grip of his legs is temporarily weakened, and Jax–ever vigilant–snatches his chance to make a quick break for it and seeks brief refuge under the table (did ever a grown dog make so much
fuss
about a measly drop before?).

‘
Damn
you!’ Solomon bellows.

Jalisa’s eyes fly wide open. ‘Was that directed at
me
or at the dog?’ she enquires icily.

Solomon falls to his knees (Yeah, that’s
definitely
a question best ignored) and tries to grab Jax’s collar. Jax’s collar promptly slips off.

‘So I can
accept
all the gun stuff,’ Jalisa rants ever onward. ‘All the trouble at the gigs. That poor kid getting stabbed and killed in Luton. The gun-fire in the Astoria. All the shit in Ayia Napa, all the hype and
posturing
even…’

‘Come
here
,’ Solomon instructs the dog, pointlessly shaking the collar at him.

‘But it’s the events in that hotel lobby in Cardiff that I struggle with…’

‘How much
publicity
,’ Solomon rocks back on to his heels, tossing the collar down (
Oops
. Now we’re in trouble), ‘do you remember there being when two individual members of the Crew were violently stabbed in
separate
nightclub attacks,
eh
?’

‘Some,’ she says, testily.

‘Oh
really
?’

‘Yes.’

‘These people were living in fear of their
lives
. That was the
context
, Jalisa. That’s why Asher D was carrying a gun. MC Romeo was stabbed for
no
reason. He was just randomly attacked. Even
you
must accept that he’s a good guy. Wouldn’t hurt a
fly
…’

‘Well I don’t know if I’d put it quite like
that
,’ she demurs.

Jax, meanwhile, has clambered out from under the table and is now sitting calmly by the refrigerator, looking around him, quite obligingly (well, for a Doberman).

‘
Gooood
boy.’ Solomon edges his way slowly towards him. ‘
Goood
Jax.
Clever
Jax…’

He grabs hold of his head. Jax doesn’t object (just looks a little hurt, perhaps, and surprised).

‘
Right
.’ Solomon prises Jax’s head to the correct angle, pulls the eye wide with the fingers of one hand, then tips up the tiny bottle of eye-drops with his other. Nothing happens. The lid’s still on.

‘So Skat D, alias Darren Weir, enters a Cardiff hotel lobby…’ Jalisa starts up (with quite exquisitely bad timing).

‘God, not
this
again…’ Solomon groans, trying to pull the lid off with his teeth.

‘He’s standing around with all his So Solid posse. He sees a fifteen-year-old girl walking by. He makes a crude
pass
at her–’

‘He just
spoke
to her,’ Solomon interrupts weakly, ‘he just
propositioned
her. He doesn’t
grab
her or anything.’

‘Are you
sure?
’

‘Of
course
I…’

Pop
!

The lid flies off the tiny bottle. But Solomon’s had to yank at it so ferociously that his hand flies back with an unexpected force and punches the refrigerator.

Jax barks and leaps up in panic. The bottle bursts out from between Solomon’s fingers and rolls beneath the washing machine.

‘You damn
bitch
,’ he squeaks.

Jalisa, too, has sprung up, having presumed (she was facing the other way) that Solomon has just punched the refrigerator in order to add more colour (and defiance) to
his
side of the Skat D argument (and the ‘bitch’ comment certainly hasn’t assisted matters).

‘Taking a page from Skat D’s book,
are
we?’ she hisses.

‘The girl hit him
first
,’ Solomon’s still down on his knees (Luckily. It’s the only way he’s coming out of this alive).

‘She
slapped
him,’ Jalisa gasps (as if the slap is some kind of fundamental legal and constitutional
right
of the female).

‘And?’

‘So he hits her back and he
breaks her jaw
!’ Jalisa banshees.

‘He went too far…’ Solomon concedes, ‘no one’s actually denying that. But what about
Tupac
?’

Jalisa blinks.

Huh
?

‘What
about
Tupac?’ she snarls.

Solomon shoves the flat of his hand under the washing machine and shuffles it about, violently. The bottle–and some onion peel- comes shooting out. The bottle rolls–at speed–in the general direction of the hallway.

‘Jailed for statutory
rape
,’ Solomon expounds, ‘gets shot, dies, promptly becomes some kind of
folk
hero for radical American womanhood.’

Jalisa’s jaw drops

Now
he’s gone too far.

I duck downstairs, grab some shoes, jeans, a jacket, the i-Pod, and head back up.

‘What do you
mean
double standards?’ Jalisa is bellowing.

‘Double
standards
, you
hypocrite
,’ Solomon yells defiantly, ‘
that’s
what I mean. Because it’s one of life’s
many
cruel paradoxes that the more
fuckable
a man is, the less
culpable
his actions are…’

The air is sucked out of the room.

Silence
.

I tiptoe–with the Blaine book–across the kitchen tiles. I place it down gently on to the table top. I fold it open. I point, tentatively. ‘You were right about
Fitzcarraldo
. Look. He’s listed it under his eleven all-time favourite films. It comes in at number four.’

Jalisa glances down. ‘I don’t even
like
Tupac,’ she murmurs, distractedly, then, ‘Oh my
God
, he likes
Night of the Hunter
…’

I half-turn towards Solomon, touch my nose, warningly, then hum five note-perfect bars from Norah Jones’ ‘Come Away With Me’.

He slits his eyes.

I pause (perhaps enjoying my pivotal peacemaking role slightly more than is completely healthy). ‘Off the record,’ I smugly confide, ‘you’re
completely
right about Tupac. All that sainthood shit’s got
way
out of control if you ask me.’

I bow. I make a faultless exit.

Okay. So I tread on that tiny eye-medication bottle on my way out and smash it.

Fuck.

That pooch is now officially my friend for all eternity.

No.
No.
I can’t quite believe that I’m doing this, either, but less than 35 minutes later I’m comfortably ensconced back in that Philippe Starck chair, up to my eye-balls in
The Future of Nostalgia
(Okay. So it’s a great book, but why don’t
you
try saying
tsyplenok zharenji
*
without the benefit of vodka?).

On my short walk over there I catch that brief (but so-necessary) glimpse of Aphra (from the bridge), sitting quietly on her wall; chin up and cheeks shining, carefully overseeing the rumpled Blaine at his nightly slumber.

Blaine (by the by) has been having a rather tough time of it lately (if Bly’s detailed reports are to be taken seriously). On Saturday (Day 30), he apparently called out for food, banged on the walls of his box and began barking like a dog (he’s hallucinating, has spells of dizziness, is short of breath, and his mouth tastes of pear drops).

Hmmm
. Call me cynical (if you will), but doesn’t it seem a mite
convenient
for this poignant little spectacle to’ve been timed for a
Saturday
–during his peak viewing period? We know the boy went to drama college, after all (and probably magicked himself a nice, neat, grade A there).

I experience some difficulty in gaining access this time (the
hospital
. Yup. The NHS
is
in safe hands after all), because my name isn’t down on the list etc., but the man on reception is persuaded to phone up to the ward, and the Angry Blonde Nurse (her name, it transpires, is Lorna) comes stomping down and gives me the all-clear.

On our way back up, I ask if she’s seen Aphra.

‘An hour ago,’ she puffs, ‘dropped off a bag of food and then bolted.’

She pauses. ‘I keep
telling
her he’s off solids now–has been for weeks–but it just doesn’t seem to sink
in
, somehow.’

She pulls a face.

‘And how’s
Mr
Leyland?’

‘Bad,’ she scowls, ‘and considerably worse for not seeing her.’

She pauses. ‘He just
dotes
on the woman. Although rumour has it she’s been having an affair…’

‘Really?’

‘That’s what the
real
family say. The first Mrs Leyland and Sherry Leyland, his unmarried sister.’

Sherry
?

She clocks my expression. ‘Famous family of
vintners
,’ she explains, ‘didn’t you know that already?’

‘Of
course
,’ I scoff.

‘Although Punch,’ she continues dreamily, ‘was named after his great-grandfather, who was a bare-knuckle fighter in Perth in the second half of the nineteenth century.’

(
My
. This girl certainly
has
swallowed the book of Leyland family history.)

I suddenly feel an uncommonly strong urge to say something
nice
about Aphra.

Uh
…Yes.

Hmmn.

‘She’s a great cook,’ I eventually murmur.

‘He signed himself out for the night a couple of weeks ago,’ she continues (refusing to commit on the culinary issue), ‘he was slightly stronger then- but not nearly strong enough, if you want
my
opinion…They managed- I don’t really know how- to keep it a secret from the others. Then apparently she just took him back to this cruddy little flat, tucked him up and deserted him. He was so distressed when he returned to the ward on the Monday morning that he had to be forcibly tranquillized. His sister sanctioned it. “For his own good,” she said.’