Clear

by Nicola Barker

  ‘This the story,’ Solomon whispers. ‘Rasket he fifteen. He go nowhere, yeah? Rasket truant him school, mugging him the occasional old dear. Rasket troubled. Rasket angry. Then one day…’ Solomon’s basic intonation suddenly undergoes a profound alteration, ‘he gets in with this wonderful music teacher who’s a source of unbelievable inspiration to him…’

  ‘Where is this school, exactly?’ I ask. ‘East London?’

  ‘This wonderful, enthusiastic, charming, talented, white music teacher…’

  ‘Or did he grow up in South London?’

  ‘Poplar,’ Solomon snaps: ‘And the school has a ton of modern equipment, see?’

  He points to a particular paragraph in the article then snatches it away again: ‘Passed down from all these local Docklands-style do-gooder businessmen who’ve upgraded their computer systems and wanna do their bit for the impoverished community around them. And the teacher–Mr Smith, Mr Jones…

  (Mr Smith, in fact.)

  ‘…he takes the desperate, degenerate Rasket under his wing, rolls back that heavy stone from the mouth of the cave, and kindly gives him access to his inner-artist. He generously unlocks Mercury Prize Winner Dizzee Rascal’s creativity.’

  (Wow. This is starting to sound just like British Hip-hop’s answer to The Cross and the Switchblade! Is it any wonder they’re filling so many column inches with it?)

  ‘So Rasket now owes everything to…?’ I murmur nervously.

  ‘Exactly!’ Solomon hollers.

  I’m quiet for a moment.

  ‘How’d they get on to this story?’ I eventually ask.

  Solomon grunts: ‘List of thank yous on the album cover.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Solomon glowers at me.

  ‘Well, what’s Dizzee’s take on this monstrous PR jamboree?’ I gingerly enquire.

  Solomon doesn’t appear to hear me.

  ‘I mean, it’s not just the fact of it,’ he murmurs, ‘but the sickening inevitability…’

  One of the Dobermen (Dobermens, Dobermans) enters the room, observes Solomon’s funk, goes to sit down next to his master, loosens his own stiff spine in an attitude of companionable defeat, and sighs.

  ‘I mean it’s not that you don’t want people to like Dizzee…’ I nervously mutter.

  Solomon’s brows shoot up. ‘Of course I want them to like him,’ he insists, ‘but they need to like him in the right way. They need to be challenged. Dizzee exists to challenge, and to confound, and to intimidate, with his youth, with his blackness, with his outsider cachet. That’s what gives him his power. That’s who he is.’

  ‘They don’t need to like him because of some geriatric music teacher…’

  ‘White music teacher,’ Solomon interjects. ‘It’s like Rasket has to be given permission to be creative, don’t you see? And that very transaction suddenly makes it possible for these patronising Tory bastards to neatly include him inside their fucked-up, self-congratulatory, jaundiced white world-view, when they couldn’t–or just wouldn’t–have considered doing so before.’

  Hmmn.

  ‘Maybe it’s just one of those chicken/egg situations…’ I volunteer (trying to strike a note of positivism).

  Solomon says nothing.

  ‘I mean maybe it doesn’t really matter how people gain access to Dizzee, so long as they do, and then he gets the opportunity to educate them through his music.’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Solomon bellows. ‘He’s an artist, you fool, an innovator, a radical, not some affable, slack-jawed Mary Poppins-style figure.’

  He suddenly bounces into the air and proceeds to dance around the living room performing a preposterous, ragga-style version of ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’.

  (If Jay-Z gets his ears on this shit, we’re definitely in the money.)

  ‘But if the teacher did actually help him…’ I quietly interject (secretly hoping he won’t hear me).

  ‘That’s his job!’ Solomon roars. ‘He had all this free equipment, didn’t he? What d’you expect him to do? Lock up the music room and go out and shoot crack every afternoon?’

  ‘But if Dizzee doesn’t mind,’ I murmur (taking a certain amount for granted). ‘I mean so long as he sells enough copies of this album, and then he gets to make another….’

  ‘That’s basic capitalism, you twat,’ Solomon hisses, ‘and since when did an economic system have any significant bearing on the dissemination of genius?’

  He stares at me, intently, holding out the (now rolled-up) paper like it’s some kind of disciplinary baton.

  ‘I’ve got flu,’ I squeak: ‘I can’t think. I give in…’

  The dog stands up, yawns, turns its back on me (in a most peremptory manner), and then farts its disdain my way.

  Pretty lucky that I’m all blocked up, really.

  Good God. Where’d that unsightly stain come from?

  Seven

  Woman trouble. I can smell it a mile off. I mean Solomon’s irascible, volatile, highly strung…But this Rasket thing just doesn’t quite sit right. It smacks a tiny-wee bit of what his previous ex but one might’ve called ‘displacement activity’ (Her name was Brook. She was sharp, black, French-Canadian, spoke seven languages, worked as a model, was in constant therapy and knew all the lingo–which was partly why he dumped her, actually; Solomon loathes jargon with a passion–calls it ‘a short cut to fuck-all’–and was especially infuriated when she pilfered one of his dreams–she’d run short–and then found out from her analyst–much to her shock–that the dream was a strong manifestation of sexual indifference. When she confronted him with this information he accused her of ‘whoring my unconscious, you castrating bitch’. And that was it).

  Displacement?

  Yeah. So Solomon is letting off steam about the Rascal (in other words) because he feels conflicted (at some level–I mean this man’s a multi-storey car park of the emotions) about Jalisa.

  If any further confirmation of this fact were needed, Solomon’s music choices that evening totally provide it. At eight we are treated (I’m shuddering in the basement, with a thumping headache; but who gives a damn about me?) to the raucous cacophony that is the Wu-Tang Clan-gers (36 Chambers: Enter the Wu, for the train-spotters among you). By nine, things have mellowed out slightly and Kraftwerk’s pared-down vehicular masterwork Autobahn can be heard chugging and clicking. By ten, things’ve obviously degenerated to an all-time low when I hear Cannon Street Road’s answer to C L R. James yodelling along to none other than Ms Norah Jones.

  Yup. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Solomon is voluntarily submitting his aural senses to Ravi Shankar’s dark-haired and dimpled MOR songsmith daughter–that pretty, malty-voiced chanteuse of ‘Come Away With Me’ fame.

  Things must be at a really low ebb here (Norah only comes out when the percodan stops working).

  Hmmn.

  Perhaps I should venture upstairs and offer a supportive shoulder…?

  But I’m terribly busy, see? (I’ve just spent the last two hours texting all my friends to inform them of how I’m much too ill to text them–and I desperately need a shot of vapour; my sinuses have transformed into two, throbbing pebbles banging around tortuously in a snotty sea–and then–then–there’s still the rest of the Kafka to try and get to grips with…I mean who could possibly have anticipated that being ill might prove so agitating?).

  Five seconds sweet hush and then Track Two kicks in. Oh God. The dogs start howling.

  I rise from my tomb fully intent upon offering him solace (and on fetching myself a glass of water–although this consideration is entirely secondary).

  Solomon’s in the kitchen, sitting on the bench at one side of the table. The three Dobermans (Dobermens?) are sitting, in a neat row, on the opposite bench, facing him. Solomon is drinking (brace yourselves) Amarula (the African version of Bailey’s cream liqueur; one of the main ingredients of which is the amarula berry, famous for being the fruit which eight out of ten elephants prefer to get pissed on. Seriously). He’s act
ually been mixing this syrupy concoction with Sprite (Why not just skip the alcohol and down a packet of caster sugar?).

  He is drunk (a feat in itself–this tipple’s the equivalent of Dirty Harry armed with a popgun), and he’s slowly working his way through a large salad bowl full of Japanese rice crackers (at his elbow, I observe an empty can of chocolate-flavour Nutriment, a scrunched-up American-style pretzel packet, and a very messy, half-eaten beef tomato.

  Urgh).

  Each time he consumes a rice cracker himself, he lobs another three (with sure-fire precision) at each of the dogs. ‘Bud! Jax! Ivor!’

  Snap, snap, snap.

  I take my life in my hands and turn Norah off.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Solomon roars (The dogs–keen as they are, I’m sure, to defend their master–don’t budge an inch. Every panting, salivating fibre is focused on Solomon’s fingers and the bowl of crackers).

  ‘Norah Jones,’ I quietly explain, ‘in case you didn’t already know, writes music for love-lorn 36-year-old clerical assistants from Kettering called Samantha.’

  Solomon angrily slits his eyes at me.

  ‘Even Jalisa,’ I explain gently, ‘would hate to see you brought so low.’

  ‘Bud! Jax! Ivor!’

  Three more rice cakes are duly thrown.

  ‘Adie!’

  A fourth rice cake hits me square between the eyes.

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmur (my motor skills are a little slow this evening).

  ‘Jalisa,’ he suddenly informs me, ‘could yap the hind leg off a fucking donkey…’ He pauses, dissatisfied. ‘If they could somehow harness the energy in that girl’s jaw they could provide enough electricity for a town the size of Basildon.’ He pauses for a second time. ‘Or Stirling. Or Edinburgh. It’s just wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.’

  ‘She dumped you?’

  ‘Unceremoniously,’ he exclaims. ‘It took half a fucking hour. That cow used up the entire Thesaurus for “you’re ditched, you insensitive twat”.’

  ‘Discarded?’ I ask (rapidly catching on).

  He nods.

  ‘Jettisoned?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Scrapped?’

  He merely grimaces.

  ‘Junked?’

  He scowls.

  ‘Renounced?’

  The scowl deepens.

  ‘Pensioned off…?’

  ‘Enough!’ he bellows.

  Right. Okay. I turn to head downstairs again (I mean I think he’s successfully vented now, hasn’t he?).

  ‘And I wouldn’t even mind’ Solomon grouchily continues, ‘but the main crime she accused me of was not actually listening…’

  He unscrews the Amarula again.

  ‘Not listening!’ he repeats incredulously. ‘I mean what the fuck else have I been doing for the past forty-seven and a half days?’

  Oh dear. He’s counting the days. Not a good Healing Indicator.

  ‘That’s seven very noisy weeks,’ I tabulate soberly.

  ‘Yes.’ Solomon nods.

  He inhales. ‘And now…’

  He looks up at the ceiling, poignantly, ‘The quiet.’

  I look up at the ceiling too. The dogs look up at the ceiling (except for Jax, who keeps staring at the crackers).

  ‘I never, ever want to hear that ridiculous name mentioned in this house again,’ Solomon announces. Good.

  I half-turn for a second time–

  ‘Never,’ he says.

  I freeze.

  ‘Not ever,’ he says.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ I whisper encouragingly, and mime zipping my lips up.

  ‘Ja-lisa…Ja-lisa…’

  He revolves the unsayable around on his tongue.

  ‘I mean is it Janet? Is it Melissa? What is it?’

  ‘Both,’ I say, then blow my nose.

  ‘Opinionated?’ Solomon ponders out loud…‘Bud! Jax! Ivor!’

  Three more crackers are hurled out of the bowl. Ivor’s is slightly skew-whiff this time, he lunges, then falls off the bench with a clatter.

  Ouch.

  Solomon doesn’t appear to notice.

  ‘Opinionated?!’ he repeats (even more incredulously), ‘I mean did you ever meet anyone with so many opinions before?’

  Uh…

  Does he actually expect me to respond to this question honestly?

  (Answer: on reflection: almost definitely not.)

  ‘Yes,’ I say (without reflecting), ‘I have.’

  ‘Really?’ he glances over, momentarily engaged. ‘Who?’

  ‘You, of course,’ I cackle (through several dried sheets of snot), ‘you deluded cunt.’

  Silence.

  (Did I go too far?)

  Ivor finally retrieves his cracker (it was stuck in the crack between the fridge and the washing machine), eats it, then jumps back–with a delicious clatter of nails–on to the bench again.

  More silence.

  I blow my nose, pour myself a glass of water, gently press play, and leave Solomon to Norah.

  So where the fuck’s Chris Ofili when you need him, eh?

  Yeah. Some pal he turned out to be.

  In ‘A Hunger Artist’ (Yup. I’m nicely snuggled up between the sheets again, patiently nursing one of those strangely disorientating sick-bed erections) Kafka says how the two beautiful women who are sent into the Artist’s cage to retrieve him from his fast are ‘apparently so friendly and in reality so cruel’.

  (I know, I know. I’m growing far too bold with my summary quotations, but I’m planning to plead this one under ‘diminished responsibility’. Because I’m virtually insensible with fever here.)

  And that’s all Kafka needs to say, really: ‘so friendly…so cruel’. He has no reason to elaborate any further. His point is made. Because we all know who these girls are…They’re the kinds of females who–in modern times–might enjoy a ‘written correspondence’ with a serial killer. Or the type who–in far distant history–might’ve discovered a ‘deep affinity’ with a particular saint, then’ve become a nun (with a heavy sideline in self-flagellation), then’ve had a series of hysterical fits, then’ve experienced a ‘revelation’, then’ve participated in a series of degenerate sex-acts with a 15-year-old monk in the neighbouring monastery as ‘an expression of God’s True Will’ etc. (Is this nun-related scenario especially imaginative, or am I just tiredly reiterating the plot of a second-rate porn film which I saw last year? Oh. You saw that film too, eh?).

  They’re like Valkyries (these women); carefully picking themselves a nice, neat path through blood-sodden fields crammed with the still-steaming corpses of the recently slaughtered.

  Hmmn. I can’t honestly pretend that I feel sufficiently familiar with the Blaine situation to draw too many parallels at this stage…(Blaine. Remember him? Still sitting patiently by the river, a lively crowd milling around restively to the fore, a waxing moon hanging whitely behind…Remember?).

  Although there was this one woman…

  I happened to catch a glimpse of her whilst idly flipping channels (on the late-nite rerun of the Channel 4 reality TV hairdressing series, The Salon). She came in to the salon to tell the nation how she was planning–tah-dah!–not to wash her hair for the duration of the Illusionist’s spate in his box.

  I say again: this simpering dim-wit fully intended to let no shampoo or water touch her (already rather rank-looking) blonde locks (and she was a blonde. I see no point in evading that fact) for the 44-day period of Blaine’s dramatic fast.

  Wha?!

  Is this sympathetic madness? Hard-boiled (but utterly deluded) exhibitionism? A deep-set follicle-related sense of self-loathing? Or does this girl-moron have a subterranean grudge against all the friendly folks at Pantene Pro-v, perhaps?

  Imagine actually appearing on TV–in a salon, of all places–to announce how dirty you’re planning to get? Not only that, but to ‘seek advice’ on the ‘hair ordeal’ you’re about to face?

  This girl actually brought in a photo of herself–down at
the riverside, with all the other punters–hanging out with Blaine’s lady-love (the aforementioned Manon of the Big Feet).

  Poor Manon–being obliged to have her picture taken with this lank-haired girl-maniac on account of something psychotic her boyfriend’s done. I mean is this what an international model expects when she starts dating a multimillionaire? Is this glamorous? Is this ‘spiritual’? Is this meaningful? Is this fun?

  Uh…Sorry. Quick five minute break, there, to ponder a little more on the manifold virtues of Ms Von Gerkan.

  Yeah.

  That’s better.

  Now where were we?

  So they take the Hunger Artist out of his cage–he fights it for a while (doesn’t want to leave–is there a name for that? I don’t know why, but I’m thinking it might actually be called ‘Hostage Syndrome’. Isn’t it what happened to Patty Hearst? Where you kinda become your oppressor?), but he’s so weak now that they can easily drag him out, even under duress.

  Then the band strikes up (to prevent him from speaking–he’d probably ask to go back in again, or make a depressing speech and ruin the celebratory atmosphere) and he is set down in front of a table laid with food (a veritable banquet) and obliged to eat some of it.

  But he cannot.

  So the Impresario crams a few bits and pieces into his hapless mouth as the band plays on. Then the Impresario pretends that the Artist has asked him to propose a toast to the public (although he proposed no such thing) and the toast is made, then everybody disperses, perfectly satisfied.

  Time passes (in the story), and a gradual change takes place in the public’s taste re fasting. Kafka says that there may’ve been ‘profound’ reasons for this change, but, ‘who was going to bother about that?’, i.e. he doesn’t give a damn what the reasons are. Or he does, perhaps, but society doesn’t. So what the heck, eh?