Clear (4 page)
Authors: Nicola Barker
‘He pees his nappy, he fantasises about nachos, and he considers the various pros and cons of the British Licensing Laws.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
(Slight pause as A. G. MacK. feels around keenly in his rucksack…)
‘Fancy an Alco-pop?’
Approach (D) Blaine’s Girlfriend
The unbelievably beautiful international model Manon Von Gerkan (hair like wheat. Eyes like forget-me-nots. Lips like a mudskipper–Oh
my
, she’s
spectacular
) is reputedly in almost constant attendance (although I–for one–don’t often have the privilege of seeing her because she tends to stay in the vicinity of the TV crews’ caravans in the private car park, to the rear).
Now
think
about it. Her boyfriend is currently thirty-odd-feet up in the air living on a diet of Evian water.
I am down here.
Va-va-va-voooom!
So far (admittedly) we have only shared one conversation. I was standing directly behind her. She took a small step back (while adjusting her binoculars) and stood on my trainer. She turned round. Our eyes met.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Did I stand on your foot?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, inspecting her indelible bootprint on my
incredibly
precious soft-shoe fabric, ‘but don’t worry. They’re only my very favourite, pristine quality, two-year-old yellow leather plimsoles from YMC. It’s
fine
, honestly.’
‘Oh,’ she said, then smiled and turned back round.
Plenty
of room for optimism here, then, eh?
Approximately twenty yards on and the tourists are
swarming
. There’s a man demonstrating ‘the world’s smallest kite’, there’s the hot-dog seller, there’s the T-shirts stall and the exotic South American who can effortlessly forge your name out of silver wire. An ice-cream van pulls into a small clearing. A jogger almost runs into him.
Bedlam
.
And swinging high above us–not a care in this world–that crazy Yank magician, smiling down benignly like this chaos has everything and yet
nothing
to do with him.
‘Pimp.’
She mutters it again (Good
God
she’s tenacious). My only compensation (and it’s hardly much) is that she’s plainly no happier with this arrangement than I am. I yank my headphones back over my ears, and in response, she shoves her sick-smeared hanky into the neat, front pocket of my beautiful, brand new Fendi shirt, and
snorts
(like a
pig
. I presume that’s how she laughs).
Right
. That’s
it
. ODB again, and at full-bloody-
blast
this time. The Tupperware clatters in my ‘free’ hand as I grimly adjust the volume. A tug on the river sounds its horn, but I don’t hear it. Aphra does. She glances, then winces.
I turn the head-set off again (
Aw
, come
on!
).
‘My name’s Adair,’ I say, ‘Adair Graham MacKenny. Most people call me Adie.’
No palpable response.
‘Aphra,
eh
?’ I continue, ‘Like the seventeenth-century playwright and novelist, Aphra Behn?’
‘Who?’
She peers up at me, scornfully, ‘You honestly think I have the
energy
right now to
listen
to your shit, MacKenny?’
Oh
. Right. Good.
Fine
.
You know, I always
really
wanted to make a good film out of that book.
Shane
. You might almost say it’s been a dream of mine. They made one in Hollywood, 1953–starring Alan Ladd, and it was an absolute, fucking disaster. Got six (
six
!) Academy Award Nominations (Including Best Picture, Best Director–George Stevens–Best Screenplay). But how–
How?
–when it was so
bloody
mediocre?
Ladd was a blond for starters (Shane was dark, he was the ‘dark stranger’, with this huge scar on his cheek. Lean, hungry, like an uncoiled spring. Ladd? Chronically bloated–from what I can recall–and pretty much a
dwarf
off his horse).
Nobody takes it seriously now- I mean the book, as fiction. They
never
took the film seriously…although, having said that, when I looked it up in my flatmate Solomon’s trusty
Virgin Film Guide
- 6th edition the critic had given it a spanking
four
stars (yet then cheerfully starts off his critique with the words, ‘Self-important, overly solemn, middlingly paced…’
Huh
?)
He also says–and this is interesting–that Paramount wanted the film to work in their–then, brand new, state-of-the-art–wide screen cinemas, so they hacked the top and the bottom off Loyal Griggs’–the cinematographer’s–visual compositions. The real irony is that Griggs was the only Academy Nomination on the film to actually follow through and
win
(is that messed-up, or what? Although I guess the studio had to do
something
to try to make the short-arse Ladd fill their screens up).
The world has moved on. No point in denying it. Schaefer was writing
Shane
around 1948, 1949, and I suppose there must’ve been a powerful sense (even then–this was post the first atomic bomb) in which he was already looking back (through Rose Tinteds) to a time when it wasn’t entirely inconceivable that one man (one strong man) might’ve conclusively changed things (this is pre-Kennedy, so I guess there’s still a teensy bit of remaining leeway on that particular score).
The world’s certainly soured since. It’s got bigger (they tell you it’s getting smaller, but they’re just full of bull. That’s how they
control
you, see? Make you feel significant. Lull you into a false sense of security), it’s also more complicated, more worn-out, more screwed-up.
And no single man–David Beckham, Justin-
sodding-
Timberlake, US Governor of California, Arnold-blooming-Schwarzenegger is
ever
going to definitively resolve this one, almighty, dirty mother-
fucker
of an unholy mess we’re in.
Uh-uh
.
When we finally (
finally
) stop walking, we’re still in a pretty-good part of town; the far-end of Shad Thames, beyond the cobbles and the Design Museum. She lives above a line of shops (a fancy supermarket, a drycleaners, a swanky film and video store), in a large, smart, modern block called The Square, although (call me a snob) we’re not river-fronting it so much as river-
backing
it. Not a damn thing to look at (from her faux-warehouse windows) but the courtyard within–yeah, big
deal
–and the homes of the people
with
something to look at (so
that’s
what they mean by aspirational living,
huh?
).
Aphra has practically given up the ghost by this stage. I’m virtually carrying her. She’s groaning. She’s dragging her feet. She’s drooping her head.
‘Can’t
see
…’, she keeps mumbling, ‘…the infernal
dot
.’
(She has a dot, a black dot, right in the middle of her field of vision. I believe this phenomenon is fairly common with certain, particularly malicious brands of migraine.)
I actually have to ransack her pockets to find her keys (
note:
two
different brands of ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ condom, a parking ticket, a lip salve, a
gonk
on an elasticated string,
five
hair-bands, a plastic fork, a lavender sachet, some cinnamon gum), as she sits on the doorstep, head back, mouth open, legs akimbo. Passers-by–I’m certain–think I’ve plied her sedate lunchtime glass of Pinot Grigio with the date rape drug (but it’s a good quality neighbourhood, so nobody actually bothers to make the time and the effort to stop and find out.
Bless
’em).
We negotiate the courtyard, some stairs, then the lift (she’s on the third floor), then an extremely long corridor, all without too much unnecessary drama. But when we finally make it to the flat itself (explain
this
, if you can) she keeps changing her mind about whether to go in or not (like it’s actually the
wrong
flat). We struggle through the door, into the hallway. I turn on the light. She gasps. I turn it off. She blinks a few times. Then she says, ‘No’, or, ‘Uh-
uh
’ does a sharp about-turn and staggers outside again.
We briefly reassess (‘This
is
your flat, isn’t it? Number Twenty-seven? I mean the key opens the lock…?’) and then we slowly re-enter (no light on this occasion) and then she pauses, blinks, turns, scarpers.
By the third attempt I’m starting to get a little narky.
‘This
is
your flat, Aphra?’
She nods an agonised
yes
. ‘So can we actually go in and
stay
in this time?’ She nods again, but seems profoundly brought down by the idea.
‘It’s not…’ She shakes her head, confused. ‘It’s not
home
, see?’
She gazes up at me, poignantly, as if expecting some kind of profound emotional response on my part.
Uh
…
Yeah, well,
whatever
.
It’s not very big (the flat. My emotional response–I think we can pretty much take this as read–is not huge, either). There’s a tiny hall, two bedrooms (one en-suite), a tiny kitchen, a cloakroom, a lounge.
I guide her into the main bedroom and sit her down on the bed. I go and close the curtains. I take off her shoes (fat square-toed, bottle-green slip-ons, with tall, wide heels and Prince-Charming buckles–
eh
?). And above? Lord have
mercy! Pop-socks!
To the knee (quite
nice
knees, actually).
‘Lie down,’ I say.
She lies down, groaning.
I go and find the kitchen. I dig out a salad bowl (for her to vomit in) and find a glass and fill it up for her.
I return to the bedroom. Aphra has (and I don’t quite know how) carefully removed the bottom half of her clothing. Skirt, pants, etc. (all folded up neatly and placed on a chair by the bed). But she’s left the pop-socks on, for some reason.
Nice
touch.
Up top, she’s still in her smart but unremarkable French Connection shirt and boxy, denim jacket.
She is asleep, her arms flung out (the two strange shoes I’ve just so painstakingly removed clutched lovingly–
protectively
–in each of her hands), her knees are pushed primly together, but the lower half of her legs
(wah?)
are at virtual right angles to each other (can that be
comfortable?
Is it even
possible
without detaching a ligament somewhere?).
She looks like an abandoned marionette–tossed down, off-kilter–or a B-movie actress in some tacky
film noir
who’s been pushed from the top floor of a very tall tower block.
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).