NICOLA BARKER

Clear

A Transparent Novel

For my Dad, Derek Royston Barker,

For Ben Thompson’s Dad, the Right Revd Jim, and for Tina Miller’s Dad, Dick, who stood helplessly by, as a boy, and watched an illusionist die.

Contents

Cover

Title page

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Notes

About the author

Also by Nicola Barker

Copyright

About the publisher

One

I couldn’t even begin to tell you why, exactly, but my head was suddenly buzzing with the opening few lines of Jack Schaefer’s Shane (his ‘Classic Novel of the American West’. Remember?). I was thinking how incredibly precise those first lines were, and yet how crazily effortless they seemed; Schaefer’s style (his – ahem – ‘voice’), so enviably understated, his artistic (if I may be so bold as to use this word, and so early in our acquaintance) ‘vision’ so totally (and I mean totally) unflinching.

‘I have huge balls.’

That’s what the text’s shouting:

‘I have huge balls, d’ya hear me? I have huge fucking balls, and I love them, and I have nothing else to prove here.’

The rest – as they say – is all gravy.

Because let’s face it, when you’ve got balls that size, you automatically develop a strange kind of moral authority, a gung-ho-ness (for want of a better word), a special intellectual certainty, which is very, very seductive to all those tight-arsed and covetous Princess-Tiny-Meats out there (the Little-Balls, and the No-Balls – Good God, let’s not forget about them, eh?).

I don’t make the rules, okay? I’m just a dispassionate observer of the Human Animal. If you feel the urge to argue this point (you’re at perfect liberty to do so), then why not write a detailed letter to Ms Germaine Greer? (That’s it, love, you run off and fetch your nice, green biro…Yeah. And I’m sure she’d just love to read it, once she’s finally finished rimming that gorgeous teenager…)

Schaefer (to get back to my point), as a writer, simply jumps, feet-first, straight into the guts of the thing.

If I might just…uh…quote something, to try and illustrate (and this is entirely from memory, so bear with me)…

‘He rode into our Valley in the summer of ’89. I was just a kid back then, barely as tall as our perimeter fence…’

Yes. So that’s a really (Ouch, no…I mean a really) rough approximation of the original (I can’t find my copy. And don’t sue me, Jack, if you’re still alive and misquotation is the one thing that keeps you up at night. Or – worse still – if you’re some crusty bastard working in the copyright department of some big-ass publishers in Swindon who just loves to get his rocks off prose-cuting over this kind of harmless, well-meaning shite: it’s meant to be a tribute to the man, so will you maybe just cut me a little slack here?).

It’s a rough approximation (as I believe I already emphasised), but I’m sure you get the gist of the thing…

Let’s cut it right back to the bone then, shall we?

He. Yeah? The first word: He. That’s him. That’s Shane: The Man.

Just a single, short breath into the narrative, and already he’s here. He’s arrived. It’s Shane. He’s standing right in front of us: completely (quite astonishingly) dimensional.

And in the second breath? (If you can just try and suppress your excitement for a minute.) In that second breath he’s…Oh. My. God. He’s coming even closer.

WAH!

He’s almost on top of you now (Smell the warm leather of his chaps – the sweat on his horse – the grease in his gun-holster).

Uh, let’s rewind for a moment: the second word (second word, right?) is ‘rode’. He rode…He rode…(just in case some of you weren’t keeping up).

‘He rode into our valley…’

He rode…

And there you have it. In just two, short, superficially insignificant words, A Hero Is Born.

God.

It’s so fucking humbling.

Please (pretty please) don’t let me harp on too long about all of this (because I will harp. Harping’s my trademark) but what absolutely immaculate styling, eh?

(Give the man credit for it why don’t you?

Schaefer?

Stand up and take a bow!

Schaefer…?

Wow. He’s certainly getting on a little now, isn’t he?

And…uh…he’s kind of wobbly on his…

Whoops!

Can he…?

Would you mind…?

Oh.

Is that his secretary, just next to him there?

Could she maybe…? Yeah?

Well that’s…that’s good. Great…Uh…

Hup!

Wowsa.

Phew!

Steady. Steady…

Aw.

Just look at the old dog – look at him! – lapping it all up.

And the audience?

On their feet. Waving their bic lighters, singeing their thumbnails. Stamping their feet. In a state of complete bloody ecstasy, and all because of just two simple words. That’s two. Count ’em.)

You can’t learn that stuff. No way. It’s born (I’m serious. I should know). And you can call me naive (if you like. I’m man enough to take it), but I’m not seeing Schaefer (in my mind’s eye), his head tilted on one side, his mouth gently gaping, his pencil cocked, taking detailed notes on ‘structure’ or ‘the use of metaphor’ at some cruddy creative writing seminar in some embarrassing further education college in the American Mid-West circa 1947. (Fuck off!)

Because this is no-frills writing at its very best. This is ‘am-it’, ‘lived-it’ stuff. Shane (yeah, remember him? He…? He rode?) is the first person Schaefer mentions in the book; the first syllable, no less. And if I’ve got this right (and I’m fairly sure that I have…Okay, bollocks, I know I have), then he’s also the last. He’s the last syllable.

(Cue music for The Twilight Zone.)

It can’t be an accident! It just can’t.

The novel ends on his name (this time, though, Shane is leaving, not arriving). The whole narrative essentially resounds to the rhythm of his name:

Shhhh-aaay-yne (Yeah. I think that works better phonetically, for some reason).

Please note – the secret poets among you, especially – that perfect hush in the first part of the word – Shhhh! Be quiet! Someone important owns this name! Pay attention! Shhhh!

(Okay, so maybe I’m starting to over-egg this thing a little.)

But the name definitely chimes. It’s almost as though the book (that heavy weight in your left hand – the pages read – and no weight at all in your right, because it’s over: the journey is travelled, it’s done) is just this great, big, old grandfather clock, striking for all it’s worth. This huge, sonorous bell:

‘And he was Shane.’

(That’s the last line.)

Boinggg!

I mean Ka-fucking-Pow or what?!

I’m actually laughing out loud. I swear to God (sad bastard? Me? Won’t bother denying it). Because I am putty – literally putty – in Schaefer’s hands. And I love his hands (Calm down. There’s nothing even remotely unmanly about it). I just love this feeling. I do. To be manipulated, to be led, to be played, and so artfully. It’s just…I’m just…I’m very, very happy to be a part of that process. Because you can’t beat that sensation (so you might as well join it, eh?).

Bottom line: Schaefer’s just owning that shit. (Man, you’ve got to own your shit. Fact.)

So maybe I think about Shane a little too much, sometimes. And maybe I’m prone to overanalysing everything, but then ‘life is in the details’, as they say (‘they’ in this particular instance being the Special Features Writer in a copy of Elle Decoration, which I paged idly through at the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic in Bow last Tuesday, who was holding forth – and so passionately – about leather-look wallpaper. It’s the coming thing).

It was his first book, actually. Shane. It was Schaefer’s first. I read his other big one – can’t remember the title (fuck it. That’s so…uh…).

Company of Cowards!

Ting-ting!

Yeah. It just wasn’t so good.

But then lightning rarely strikes, etc.

Hmmn.

Are you…? Am I…?

Let’s press rwnd for a moment, shall we?

Slow it right down…

Then just…uh…

…HOLD!

Good.

Freeze it for a second…

Yes…

Uh…

Oh. No.

Okay…

Just a couple of frames more…

Just a couple…

STOP!!!

That’s it!

That’s me. I’m just…

I’m very small right now. Okay? Bottom left-hand side of the picture…

If you could maybe…?

Bingo!

So we’re jumping around a little – the focus is all shot – the sound’s terrible. But I think if you look closely you can just about see me, hanging around, unobtrusively, almost lost in the background…

I’m sitting, slightly hunched over (my habitual posture – I have a clinical condition known as ‘Masturbator’s Back’), my free hand jammed deep inside my trouser pocket and my headset blasting (ODB, eff-ing and blinding for all he’s worth – which is quite a lot), and I’m thinking about Shane while I munch on my sandwich (it’s lunchtime). I happen to be straddling this gonad-freezing marble wall by the mother of all rivers (No. Not the Nile. You want Agatha Christie? Then look under C).

The River Thames:

Tah-dah!

In all her sweet autumnal glory. Tower Bridge is quite literally towering behind me – her huge, turquoise ramparts (okay, so I’m no whizz on architecture) flying out from between my two puny shoulder blades like a couple of crazy bat-wings (this image so very nearly works that I’m tempted to leave it in. Yes, it is a tad far-fetched – especially when you consider the angles and everything – but I think Jack would’ve approved. I think Jack would say, ‘You’re doin’ real good work here, kid; but just remember the story. Keep your mind focused on the narrative, because that’s what truly counts in this business. That’s what really matters here.’

Is this guy some kind of saint, or what?).

We’re in only the second week of Master Illusionist David Blaine’s spectacular Public Starvation Pageant, Above the Below (so how the fuck does he go about translating that into plain English, without sounding a complete twat?).

It’s day 8 or day 9 – I forget which (can’t quite read it on that handy 44-day digital clock of his from where I’m currently sitting) – but it already feels like it’s been going on for ever (we’ve had the golf balls, the eggs, the girls baring their breasts, we’ve had the paint gun, the fences raised, the security doubled and Shiraz Azam with his all-nite bhangra drum…).

Don’t think (for a moment) that it’s just some lucky accident that I’m perched here (right in the hub, you might say), because I work (as a clerical assistant, much against my will, my instinct, my inclinations) in the only building directly adjacent to this psychotic happening (you might’ve seen us – in all the design magazines – early last year): a huge, grey-green-glass Alessi milk-jug of a structure (a tipsy fat penguin): the Greater London Authority Building (we were the centre of the world till they went and built that stupid gherkin near Aldgate. Now we’re just last night’s chip paper. Modernity’s like a badly trained dog: try and make it heel, even for a moment, and it turns and bites the hand that fed it. Snap).

I’m sitting a little way along from all of the kerfuffle. The press are still very much in attendance, having their field day, ‘making’ all their pictures, ‘writing’ all their commentaries (uh, is it just me, or don’t they actually realise that this slightly chubby, very famous 30-year-old illusionist isn’t really going anywhere? Don’t panic, lads, you have about 36 more days to sort out your copy. Sit back, relax. Just do as the magician does).

It’s a tragic fact, but Blaine is definitely bringing out the worst in we Brits. I don’t know if this is what he wants (if it’s all part of the buzz for this American Christo-like) or if it’s what he expected, but he’s headlining it in most of the tabloids today. They’re calling him a fake, a cheat, a freak, a liar. They’re up in bloody arms, basically. And it’s a moral issue, apparently. Because it’s in Very Bad Taste to starve yourself if you have the option not to – yeah, so why not go and tell all those fucked-up, deviant Anorexics that? – especially (especially) if you’re calling it Art (and pocketing a – purely coincidental – 5 mill. pay-out).

Cynical? Moi?

Look, I’m just sitting on this damn wall and watching all the colour unfold around me. I don’t quite know if I’m loving it or loathing it (you’ll find me on the fence. I’m the kind of guy who used to actively enjoy leaning on his bike’s crossbar as a kid). But who (who?) can deny that it’s a big story? It’s a big setting – I mean Mary Mother of Jesus, how the hell did the council give permission for all this crap? Right here, on their doorstep? In the middle of everything?

It’s just a wild guess, but I’m definitely getting the impression that some poor bastard has currently got his nuts in a vice over this whole farrago.

‘Uh…’ he’s stuttering, ‘I thought it might attract the tourists, Mr Mayor. I thought it might be a nice…an impressive culmination to some of the other cultural events we’ve been staging in the park throughout the summer. I mean the kids loved the visit from the local city-farm, didn’t they? All the goats and hens and everything? And then there was that cookery demonstration in the striped marquee. That went swimmingly…’

The cleaners (let’s get down to brass tacks) are absolutely fucking livid (I’m not certain if they have the mayoral ear, but if they do, then that fall guy’s nuts are definitely for the high jump).

I’m actually on nodding terms with Georgi (Gee-or-gi. Twenty-two. Toothless. Romanian. Angriest man in the world right now).

Georgi already deals with a lot of shit (he sells me dope, the occasional E), because the life of a cleaner on this part of the river is not an easy one. The whole area’s paved – and enclosed – for one thing. And it’s a huge tourist draw, a landmark (the whole world feels like it already owns this view, and in some ways – if affection begets possession – it does).

It needs to look good – at all times – and because of the tons of dodgy marble and smooth cement and dramatic architecture, any stray detritus just – kind of – sits there. It stands out. It looks bad. It needs to be dealt with, and quickly (So fuckin’ jump to it, lad), else all we proud Londoners (okay I’ve lived here 10 years, so I think I qualify) start to look shoddy.

And we don’t like that.

But with the advent of Blaine’s box, things have started to go crazy. Is it Blaine himself? The excitement? The fury? The awe? Whatever the root cause, people suddenly seem to feel the powerful need to generate mess. It’s Goo-ville. It’s Crap-town. There’s old fruit, rotten eggs (British poultry farmers are just loving this situation. Fuck Sky, man. We really need to start seeing the colour of their sponsorship money), and worst of all, there’s the ‘human’ element.

Now don’t get me (or Georgi) wrong: people have always pissed in corners (a bridge – any bridge – almost demands as much from any man with a working penis), but the way things are currently, it’s like the embankment is a toilet and Blaine is just the scented rim-block dangling in his disposable plastic container from the bowl at the top. It’s getting completely degenerate. People are shitting everywhere. Man, it’s Shit-o-fucking-rama down here. Huge steaming piles of the stuff, in every alcove, every crevice, every corner. And then there’s poor Georgi – with his broom, his weak hose, his little shovel – being expected to clean all this crap – your crap – up.

But here’s the best part: He doesn’t blame you.

Uh-uh.

Not at all.

He blames the hungry (and decidedly shitless) bugger in the box.

Blaine.

‘Is him,’ Georgi gesticulates irately towards the pallid New Yorker with his broom, ‘tha’ stupid, crazy, dirty-fucky-bastar’ Jew.’

Yeah. So where the hell am I supposed to stash my sandwich wrapper?

I have an agenda. You really need to know that. I mean all this isn’t just arbitrary.

Uh-uh.

I have an agenda.

So my dad’s name – for the record (and this is pertinent; it’s the core of the thing, the nub) – is Douglas Sinclair MacKenny, and all things being equal, he’s a pretty run-of-the mill kind of guy. He enjoys gardening, Inspector Morse, steam trains and Rugby League. He’s into trad-jazz, Michael Crichton, elasticated waists, Joanna Lumley and lychees. When he was nineteen years old he swam the English Channel. But he doesn’t swim much any more.

He runs a sub-post office in north Herefordshire (where I was born, 28 long, hard years ago – not on the counter, obviously, let’s not be that literal, eh? – his lone progeny: Adair Graham MacKenny). He’s happily (well, within reason) married to my mum (Miriam), and he’s fundamentally a very genial, affable, easy-going creature.

(Fundamentally – so he doesn’t like black people or queers, but which underachieving 55-year-old, small-minded, Caucasian, Tory-voting cunt does? Huh? Name me one.)

Nothing bugs him (not even the long and inexorable queue of pensioners at closing). Nothing winds him up.

Well…okay, then. So there’s this one thing…it’s a really tiny thing…and it bugs him just a little.

Is that a fair representation?

No.

Fine. Fine. So this particular thing bugs him quite a lot.

He doesn’t like it, see? It pees him off. It rings his bell. It pulls his chain. It sits – it really sits, and it presses, hard – on his buzzer.

This thing is (has always been/will always be) a source of unbelievable distress to him. It’s a thing which he loathes / fears / distrusts more than any other. This thing (if you refer to it, idly) makes him clam-up, then blanch, then shake uncontrollably. He’s virtually lethally-fucking-allergic to this thing.

Any guesses?

Wheat? Pigeons? Lichen? Jasper Carrott? Dahlias? Lambswool? Beer?

Nope.

Douglas Sinclair MacKenny hates – I said he hates – illusionists. And with a passion.

Let me tell you why.

Great Yarmouth. Nineteen fifty-nine. The height of the Summer Season. My dad, still then but a boy, is down on the beach with a large crowd of deliciously rambunctious, candy-floss-speeding, bucket-swinging, spade-waving, snotty-nosed comrades. He’s clutching sixpence which his mother has just given him. He is planning to spend this money on – deep breath now, Dad, deeeep breath – a Magic Show!

The magician or ‘illusionist’ in question is no less (and no more) a man than ‘The Great Carrazimo’. Carrazimo is (by all accounts) fairly competent at the magicianing thing. He does some nifty stuff with doves. He can pretend – very effectively – to chop off his thumb. He can throw his voice. He even (and Dad still doesn’t know how) stole some little girl’s laugh. Seriously. He nicked it (she was temporarily hoarse) and then found it again inside her sticky bag of Liquorice Allsorts.

This is all good stuff (I know you’re thinking) so why the angst?

Here’s why: at the end of his show, Carrazimo pulls a stunt which leaves everyone agog. He gets the kids to dig a hole – a deep hole – in the sand. He climbs into the hole. He then tells the kids to fill it up.

That’s right. The Great Carrazimo is intending to get himself Buried 100 Per Cent Alive.

The kids – they aren’t a bad bunch – are slightly nervous at the prospect. I mean it’s been a good show. The little girl’s laugh is back. The thumb’s on. The doves are cooing. It’s very nearly lunchtime.

But Carrazimo insists. It’s the climax of his act.

The kids still aren’t entirely convinced. ‘And here’s the thing,’ one especially ‘responsible’ (read as: ‘opportunistic’) young ’un pipes up, ‘if you don’t come back, what’s gonna happen to the rabbit and the doves and all the rest of your stuff?’

Carrazimo grins. ‘If I don’t come back,’ he says, ‘then you can divide it among you.’

Two seconds later, Carrazimo disappears under a hail of sand.

It takes about ten minutes to bury the illusionist completely. Douglas Sinclair MacKenny has played his part – has even taken the precaution of patting the sand neat and flat on top. He’s concerned for the illusionist (yes he is), but he has one (very constant, very careful) eye already firmly affixed on the illusionist’s grand collection of magic wands. There’s a fat one (the very one he used to fix his thumb back on), and if the worst happens, Douglas Sinclair MacKenny is determined to have it.

When all the work is done, the kids sit down, en masse, and they wait.

And they wait.

Eventually (it’s now half an hour past lunch), one of the mums happens along.

‘What on earth are you all up to?’ she asks.

‘We’re waiting for Carrazimo,’ they respond.

‘Well where is he?’ she asks.

‘In the sand,’ the kids boom back.

Pause.

‘So how long’s he been under there?’ she enquires.

‘Thirty-seven bloody minutes,’ Douglas Sinclair MacKenny yells furiously.

Another five minutes pass. By now quite a crowd has formed. One of the fathers has asked the kids to indicate precisely where the illusionist is buried. The kids are still quite cheerful at this stage (if getting a little hungry), and they happily mark out the spot.

The parents start to dig (the poignancy quotient of this scene is presumably dramatically heightened by the fact that all these men and women have borrowed their kids’ tiny shovels). The atmosphere is grave (on the surface, at least), but then – 32 seconds into the rescue operation – an unholy scrap breaks out.

It has finally dawned on the children that Carrazimo might not actually be returning to collect his stuff, and everybody wants first dibs on the things he’s left behind. Douglas Sinclair MacKenny is – in his own mind at least – now first in line to get himself that fancy fat magician’s wand. But two other boys – at least – have their greedy eyes glued on this exact-same prize.

There is a brief halt to the digging as the tragic magician’s possessions are firmly removed from a host of small, grasping hands, and when the digging resumes, the children are duly frogmarched up the beach, on to the prom, and into the warm, distracting embrace of the funfair for ‘a couple of rides’.

It isn’t a long while after that Carrazimo’s body is pulled from the sand. Yes. He’d performed this feat a hundred times before. But it’d rained at breakfast and the sand – for some reason – was just slightly wetter than it usually was in summer.

He’d drowned.

Douglas Sinclair MacKenny was scarred for ever. Not just by the death (although that took its toll – he was, after all, an accessory to the illusion), but by the fact that he was cruelly denied that most tantalising, powerful and coveted of items: the magician’s fat wand. Carrazimo had promised, hadn’t he? The perfidious, two-faced, double-crossing liar.

Hmmn. Think there might’ve been any phallic significance in all of that?

I know what you’re thinking: it was all a very long time ago now (this illusionist stuff). And he’s just my old dad, after all – I mean if he happens to see me more than twice in your average year – Christmas / birthday – he starts to think the worst.

Suspicious?

Suspicious?!

‘Got dumped by your lady friend, did you, Adie?’

‘Running a little short of money, eh?’

‘Thrown in the towel at your job again, then?’

‘Still living with that immigrant?’

‘Got yourself the effing clap?’

‘Finally planning to tell your poor mum and me that you take it up the arse, for pleasure? That you’re a dirty (tick one or all of the below:) transexual/bisexual/pansexual/disgusting bloody fag?!’

(Look, for the thousandth time, Dad, I’m not a homosexual. It’s just the way I wear my hair – I mean if TV’s Vernon Kay can do it and marry a beautiful woman and sustain a successful career…)

Jesus, that illusionist has got a lot to answer for.

And the fact is…(to get down to the facts again)…Hmmn, how to put this into actual words?

The fact is (to reiterate) that blood is marginally thinner than an iced vodka slammer (and not half so digestible) and I’ve been using…

No.

I’ve been employing…

No.

I’ve been deriving…

Score!

…a certain amount of…

Uh…

…real…

Scratch

…serious…

Scratch

…active…well, pleasure, in getting my own back. On magicians. Per se. And on Blaine, specifically.

And it isn’t (no it isn’t) just opportunism. It’s so much more than that. It’s a moral crusade. It’s righting the wrong. It’s fighting the good fight – sniff! – for my trusty old dad.

Ahhhh.

(NB. Please don’t hate me, sensitive Girl Readers. Just try and understand – if you possibly can – that vengeance is never a pretty thing. But it still has to be done. I mean where would your girl-philosophy of ‘kiss ’n make up’ have left Shakespeare? Or Scorsese? Or Bridget fucking Jones. Eh?)

So I’ve been (uh…let’s put it this way) purposefully (and cheerfully) avenging Douglas Sinclair MacKenny (and myself, I guess, on him, in some strange, messed-up angry-only-son kind of way) in the most uninhibitedly primal manner, by cunningly employing the boxed-up Illusionist as my…

Now what’s the word I’m searching for here…?

‘Pimp.’

Pardon me?

‘Pimp.’

A woman – average height, average build, average looks – is suddenly standing before me, grimacing, clutching her forehead, and pushing a plastic bag brimming with Tupperware on to my lap.

Eh?

I refuse to take the bag, rapidly yanking my headphones from my ears. What is this?

‘Pimp,’ she repeats. ‘You’ve been using that poor, starving bastard to pimp all the women around here.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I say.

‘You’re ridiculous,’ she says. Then she drops her Tupperware, groans, slithers down to the tiles, and lies slumped against the wall.

I jump down myself, alarmed. But before I can ask, she waves her hand dismissively, and murmurs, ‘Migraine. Mild autumn. The dust.’

She’s clutching her forehead with her other hand and rocking slightly. I give her the once-over. Hmmn. Strangely familiar. I’ve definitely seen her around. I gather up her Tupperware (about twenty small boxes, like the kind you can get at good Thai restaurants to take home your leftovers. Neat. Reusable. Microwave friendly) while I try to remember where, exactly…

Nope.

‘Can I get you a glass of water, maybe?’ I ask. ‘I actually work in this building.’ I point. She has her eyes shut. She is deathly pale.

‘Did you ever get migraines?’ she asks vengefully.

‘No.’

‘I thought as much.’

‘I often get headaches, though,’ I squeak, defensively, ‘from the glare off my computer.’

She snorts.

I inspect my watch. Lunch is almost over.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask.

She waves her hand again, ‘I’m fine.’

I lean forward, preparing to put her bag down next to her (and then scarper).

‘Open me a box!’ she suddenly yells.

‘Pardon?’

‘A box.’

She lunges for the plastic bag. She grabs a box. She rips off the lid. Then she leans over (quite gracefully) and vomits straight into it. The vomit is thick and glutinous. Instead of detaching itself from her mouth and filling the box neatly, it stretches, in a silvery spider web, from her mouth to the Tupperware.

My God.

She spits and detaches it.

We both stare, blinking, into the container. She sniffs, matter of factly, then reaffixes the lid.

She hands the box back over.

‘In the bag,’ she orders, feeling around inside her pocket for a tissue. The puke still hangs in fangs down her chin.

A middle-aged man stops, proffering a handkerchief. The be-fanged one takes it.

‘Thanks,’ she mutters.

‘Migraine,’ I explain to the Samaritan.

‘I know.’ The man smiles and squats down in front of her.

‘Is it a bad one, Aphra?’ he asks.

Aphra?

‘Pretty bad,’ Aphra murmurs.

‘I thought when I saw you leaving,’ he says, ‘that something was up.’

‘The dust,’ she says, and waves her hand regally towards the magician.

He nods.

I find myself taking a slow step back. I am thinking, ‘This is great. They know each other. I’m off the hook. I’m out of here.’

The Samaritan turns and peers up at me, ‘I work at the hospital,’ he says (as if this might prove meaningful), ‘Guys. I’m a porter there.’

‘Ah.’ I nod my head. I’m still holding the bag of Tupperware.

‘You’ll need to take her home,’ he says. He turns to the woman. ‘It’s not too far, is it?’ he asks.

She shakes her head, then winces.

‘Shad,’ she says, ‘just straight down…’

She indicates beyond Blaine, beyond the bridge, to one of the best parts of town.

‘Let’s get her up,’ the porter says.

We slowly manoeuvre her into a standing position (strike what I said before about ‘average build’. This girl ain’t exactly thistledown).

Once she’s up, the porter moves her arm around my neck, and my free arm around her waist.

He steps back, appraising his work.

‘Good,’ he says, smiling. ‘Now just take it nice and slow, yeah?’

Then he turns and addresses me, exclusively, ‘When you get her in, close all the curtains, don’t try and give her anything to eat or drink (well, maybe just pour her a glass of water), then gently lay her down and place a moist, cold flannel across her forehead…’

I scowl. I open my mouth. I close my mouth. I swallow. I adjust the Tupperware…

Aw, bollocks, man!

I fucking nod.

Pimp?

Pimp?!

Okay. Okay. So just hold your fire. I’m throwing down my weapon, see? And I’m coming out – very slowly – with my hands in the air.

I’m co-operating.

Now can we please, please just try to get this whole thing back into proportion? I mean come on. Don’t take it all so seriously. This is fun. Just fun.

And another thing (while we’re at it) let’s bin Above the Below already (cheesy, cheesy, cheesy). I’ve got my own little carry-on a much better moniker. I’m calling it ‘Above the Pillow’, and my current strike rate is five (five!) and counting (Yup. It’s an Adair Graham MacKenny International Shag-a-thon down here, baby).

Maybe I exaggerate, slightly. Four. Well, three and a half (in one instance I didn’t quite get to come. There’s been a couple of ‘hitches’, in other words. But heck, who’s complaining?). It’s early doors (Day Nine for Christ-sake), and I’m still – ahem – ‘feeling my way’ – insert Frankie Howerd-style exclamation of your choice – around here.

There are several approaches (if you must know. And if you mustn’t, then I’m still determined to tell you), but the important thing to bear in mind (morally – urgh, yawn – speaking) is that I’m happy – more than happy – to take each and every one of them:

Approach (A) The Girls who Love Blaine

There’s nothing more attractive to a sensitive, beautiful, highly-strung girl (who still attends college, believes in Karma and dresses like Nelly Furtado) than an attractive (well, quite attractive – if I’ve cleaned my nails and applied my hair gel), sensitive, highly-strung boy who’s ready, willing and able to empathise with them over the many complexities of Blaine’s tragic predicament.

Girl steps back (temporarily overwhelmed) from the dramatic spectacle of the ‘angelic’ Blaine. She is shaking her head, bemusedly.

‘I mean why would people want to throw eggs at him?’ she asks poignantly. ‘Haven’t they got anything better to do? He’s not hurting anyone, is he?’

Adair Graham MacKenny (doctor on call) shrugs his shoulders, resignedly, ‘Nope. Only himself. And that’s absolutely his prerogative, if you ask me.’

Girl turns to look at A. G. MacKenny, immediately digesting the fact that A. G. MacK. is (like her hero) dressed principally in black.

‘Exactly.’ She smiles, shyly. ‘I mean I think people are threatened by him. By the statement he’s making.’

A. G. MacK. nods, ‘Yeah. And I definitely think people are confused by him, and that’s half the trouble.’

Girl considers this for a moment, ‘You’re right,’ she says, ‘I think they are.’

‘And sometimes,’ A. G. MacK. continues (as if he’d only just thought of it), ‘when people are confused, they lash out. They do stupid things.’

Girl turns, impressed, the dark pupils in her blue eyes dilating. ‘That’s sad, but it’s so true.’

Insert invisible brackets here: I think I might want to make love with you – so long as I’m

(a) not on the rag;

(b) don’t have a last-minute history essay to write on the Mau Mau for a bastard tutorial this afternoon and;

(c) my Halls of Residence/your London pad isn’t/aren’t too far from here

Oh yeah.

Approach (B) The Girls who Hate Blaine

‘What a twat. What a stupid, self-indulgent, idiotic fucking twat.’

A. G. MacK. (on hearing this seductive mating call), rips off his neat, black pullover to reveal his lairy Gunners colours underneath. He commences a conversation with a remarkably pretty – if slightly loopy – girl about the possibility that David Blaine’s transparent box might actually be made of glucose (when he thinks nobody’s looking, can’t you see the bastard licking?), and puts forward the additional hypothesis that when the autumn weather really kicks in – when it rains – the box will gradually dissolve, and that attention-craving American fraud will take the mother of all tumbles.

Hah!

Approach (C) The Girls who Have Yet to Make Up their Minds

‘I mean what’s he do up there all day?’

‘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?

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.

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