Clear (24 page)

I pause. ‘These two worlds were probably entirely separate at first. But then one day, in the library, the 5-year-old Blaine accidentally happens across this extraordinary image of the great Houdini. And it’s when his eyes connect with Houdini’s eyes that those two initially disparate sides of his life suddenly forge together. Houdini was the unifier, see? When he saw Houdini’s eyes, maybe–at some fundamental level–he recognised his
own
eyes (and through them, by extension, his own dead
father’s
eyes). Through the terrified gaze of this master magician, Blaine suddenly experiences this powerful sense of a
unity of suffering
. And
magic
was the facilitator.
Magic
brought everything into relief.
Magic
brought his father
and
his suffering back to him. But through a filter. In an accessible way, a distanced way, a
controllable
way.’

Aphra stays quiet, presumably digesting my diatribe. I quietly indicate towards the little straps and bolts on the baby Blaine’s leg.

‘God bless him,’ she gasps, and leans down to kiss the picture. ‘God
bless
him.’

‘But what about his
mother
?’ I murmur. ‘His mother always supported him, he says, no matter what. She was his rock. But part of me can’t help thinking that maybe she supported him too much. And maybe that’s because he’d lost his dad, but maybe it was
also
because he was actually sick himself, and she really needed to nurture him. He was in
pain
, so she indulged him.’

Aphra has fallen down off the bed on to her knees. She has crawled forward slightly and is inspecting a line of my shoes by the wall as she listens. Her skirt just about trims the back of her buttocks.

‘He says at one point, when he was in his teens,’ I blabber on, trying not to stare too much (but still staring), ‘that he locked himself into his bedroom cupboard for two entire days. He can’t remember why. But she didn’t object, she just brought him all his food in on trays. And at another point he says how he slept on his hard bedroom floor for a whole
year
because he became obsessed by the idea of
mites
in his bed linen.’

She picks up my yellow trainers and sniffs them.

‘You
love
black olives,’ she says.

‘He was very obsessive, very compulsive,’ I continue, ‘he used to challenge himself to do things–like climb a tree or cross a road, and as he grew older the challenges became more risky, more dangerous, but he convinced himself that if he didn’t do them straight away then something bad would happen…’

‘We’ve all done that,’ Aphra mutters.

‘
I
didn’t.’

‘Well
you’re
the exception, then,’ she says, grabbing an old pair of Patrick Cox’s and inspecting them quizzically. ‘Adair Graham MacKenny,’ she sighs, ‘
so
well adjusted. A shining example to us
all
.’

A quick sniff later she murmurs, ‘Mints.
Terrible
for male fertility.’

I simply gaze at her.

‘Didn’t anyone ever
tell
you that?’

She crawls over the floor towards me on her hands and knees (I can see her breasts, hanging down, through the V in her sweater, partially confined by some kind of bizarre, crocheted bright pink bra top). She reaches my legs, pushes them open and shoves herself between them. She stares into my face.

‘Hello,’ she whispers, then starts adjusting the collar on my shirt and tucking my hair behind my ears (in an irritating way, in a
false
way, like I’m some scruffy kid she’s preparing for his first day of school, or an ancient
invalid
uncle). I grab her hands and restrain them. Then I kiss her. She bends back on her knees under the pressure. The harder I push, the more she gives. Eventually I’ve moved a foot forward and she’s arched into a lithe, girlie Z. I feel her teeth against my lips and tongue. I open my eyes.

‘What’s so funny?’ I ask.

‘Everything,’ she says. ‘
You
.’

I grab her shoulders, yank her forward and kiss her again.

‘
Ow
,’ she says afterwards, falling back on to her heels, touching her bottom lip, scowling, ‘that
hurt
.’ Three long seconds pass. Then she looks up, sees my concern and laughs.

She’s vicious. Careless. Wildly provoking.

I let go of her shoulders (What to do next? How to
contain
this mischief?), and in that same moment she puts her hands down to her sweater, grabs the fabric at the waist and pulls it over her head.

Wow
. She suddenly looks like a cover shot from one of those slightly sordid
Summer In Ibiza
albums. Very pale. Slightly dirty. Several pins drop from her head on to the wooden floor. Scraps of hair fall loose.

Slowly she rises up again and leans her weight in against me. Her hands are behind her back. I can see her fingers twisting lithely together as her chin rests on my shoulder. Then she turns her head and kisses my neck. I start to move my hands and she stops. I stop moving my hands and she starts again.

Her lips are soon at my ear. ‘Remember that bit,’ she murmurs, grabbing my lobe between her teeth and pulling slightly, ‘when they’re trying to dig up that old
tree
stump–Shane and the kid’s father…?’

Her hands are on my knees, moving up slowly towards my thighs.

I nod, my breathing irregular.

‘And they’re just chopping into it,
hacking
into it, one after the other?’

She draws a deep breath, tickles my ear with her nose, moves her hands up past my hips, under my shirt and on to my stomach.

‘But it’s
incredibly
hard work, and
hot
,’ she sighs, ‘and they’re just
dripping
with sweat…’ She pushes me back, flat, on to the bed, lifts my shirt up, and slowly slithers the top half of her body over my groin and my stomach…

‘Do you remember that?’ she whispers.

I nod again.

She tweaks a nipple. ‘If you
must
know…’

She suddenly sits bolt upright and her voice returns to normal. ‘I actually found the writing throughout that entire section incredibly
laboured
.’

I open my eyes. She’s gazing down at me, grinning. A hairclip falls on to my neck.

That’s
it
. I grab her and toss her down on to the bed. She doesn’t protest. She’s just laughing, really loudly, as I sit astride her.

‘Stop laughing,’ I command roughly.

‘I
can’t
,’ she pants. ‘Your
face
. It’s just so…so
funny
.’

Her arms are over her head. I half-look for marks there (the kind of marks I saw in the diagrams on the internet) but I don’t see anything, so I push my hand firmly under her crochet.

Astonishing
nipples
.

Her back kinks at my touch and she laughs even louder.

I push the other hand down between her thighs where the skirt has ridden up. She whoops.

At the sound of her whooping two of the dogs shove their way through the dividing door from the kitchen (Oh
great
) and come careering down the stairs. Jax and Ivor. Jax begins barking when he espies me astride her.

She’s laughing so loudly now I think she might be sick.

‘Oh
God
,’ she roars. ‘No more weight on my stomach. It’s killing me. I think I might be going to
vomit
.’

I climb off. I try and force the dogs back upstairs. But Ivor has grabbed one of my trainers and is shaking it around in an orgy of furious sexual hysteria.

‘That’s my best fucking
trainer
,’ I bellow, above the cacophony.

Prepare yourselves.

(Oil your brakes, check your pads.)

The gradient gets pretty
steep
from here.

I’m chasing Aphra up the road (
remember?
), and she’s trying to flag down a cab. But it’s after eleven on a Sunday evening and her chances of catching one now aren’t looking too spectacular. So she decides to walk. I’m staggering along behind her, stopping, every so often (to try and tie my laces), but whenever I do, she dashes determinedly onwards.

I eventually draw level. She’s put her jumper back on (Thank God) and she’s making great time. She’s obviously in a hurry (Heaven forbid she should be late for Mr
Blaine, huh?
).

I try and grab a couple of the bags off her, but she knocks me back. ‘Go
home
,’ she says irritably. ‘It’s
late
. I’ll be
fine
…’

The Highway is still busy (don’t get me wrong), but it’s not really the
ideal
kind of place for an attractive woman (
attractive
? Did
I
say that?) to take a late-night stroll in Scholls and a miniskirt.

‘Let me at least stay with you until the Tower,’ I wheedle. ‘The way’s much better lit from there.’

‘You’re a damn
pest
,’ she scowls, finally (and very regretfully) passing two of the heavier bags across.

‘So what a
coincidence
,’ I murmur jealously (the crisis duly averted), ‘You and Solomon having that friend of yours in common–’

‘It’s sad, don’t you think?’ she cuts in. ‘That he took all those risks as a kid, supposedly to guard against anything
bad
happening, and then his mother’s diagnosed with cancer?’

It takes me a second or two to catch on.

‘Oh. Yes.
Yes
. I suppose it was.’

‘Life’s a bitch,’ she whispers.

We cross The Highway together.

‘He had a very crazy time of it in his mid-teens,’ I say. ‘Did you ever see the film
Saturday Night Fever?
’

‘I
love
that film.’ She grins.

‘Well remember the bit when John Travolta’s character…’

‘Tony,’ she sighs.

(
Wow.
She
does
love that film.)

‘Yeah, Tony. Remember when he drives to the Brooklyn Bridge with his gang of friends and they climb up on it and fuck about, and basically almost
kill
themselves just pissing around and showing off?’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Boys will be boys,
eh
?’

‘And there’s the sad one with the bad shoes and the silly afro…?’

She frowns.

‘The
little
one, who everyone despises, who gets his girlfriend pregnant and doesn’t know what to do about it?’

She finally catches on. ‘Oh, you mean the
little
one…’

(Didn’t I just
say
that?)

‘Exactly. And if I remember correctly he’s the nervous kid in the group, and he never usually joins in when they climb, but towards the end of the film, when he’s especially desperate, he clambers up on to the bridge himself. He wants everyone to look at him–just this
once
–because he feels so bad and lonely and ignored. Then his foot slips, and he falls.’

‘Bloody platform
heels
,’ she growls.

(Uh,
yeah
…)

‘Well Blaine used to do that.’

She turns to look at me. ‘
Really
?’

‘Yup. But not the
falling
part, obviously.’

We walk a little further.

‘Don’t know which bridge it was,’ I say. ‘Somewhere in New Jersey, I guess. That’s where they moved when his mother remarried. I get the feeling he doesn’t look back on those times especially fondly…’

I pause. ‘But he used to pull the same stunt. He’d just stroll over these crossbars on a bridge, hundreds of feet up, with all the cars below honking their horns in total panic. He was
wild
. And like they used to say in those nike ads, he’d “just
do
it”. He didn’t care.’

She shakes her head, slightly shocked. ‘Always
hated
those ads,’ she mutters.

‘In fact one time he was pulling a similar kind of stunt on a cliff-top. He was right on the edge of this precipice and he slipped, lost his footing, and just went hurtling down this dead drop…’

‘
Then
what?’

‘That’s the weird thing. He thought he’d had it. He thought he was going to
die
. But by some bizarre miracle–which, to this day, he still doesn’t entirely understand–he survived. A huge fall, and barely a scratch on him. After that all his friends used to call him, “the cat”.’

‘Nine lives…’ Aphra’s frowning. ‘Well that hardly sets the greatest precedent,
does
it?’

‘Why?’

‘Because he thinks he’s immortal. But of course he’s not. Nobody is.’

I shrug. ‘I suppose we could say that he lives a “charmed life”.’ Well…charmed in
some
ways, but definitely not in others. He’s seen everyone he truly loves slowly die around him, but he’s survived. Part of him, I’m certain, wants to punish himself for living on. And another part–a
Messianic
part–probably believes that he’s pretty much indestructible.’

We’re standing and talking by the Tower, now.

‘I’ve gotta go,’ she says, and takes the two bags from me.

‘I had a
happy
time tonight.’ She smiles. ‘Thank you.’

Then she kisses me, softly, on the cheek, turns and heads off into the light.

I follow her.

Obviously.

I mean, wouldn’t
you
?

She doesn’t know I’m behind her. She never looks back (Nope. Not
once
), not even when she first takes her leave of me (when most normal people actually might). And maybe part of me thinks (to
begin
with, at least) that she will, and if she does, then I’ll be able to turn resignedly around again (tongue-lashed and scalded), head off home, have a quick nip of Jim Beam, fall into a warm bath, a soft bed…

But she doesn’t look back.

She crosses the bridge.

(How I
love
this damn bridge at night…Although I love it best at dawn; the sky tender and blushing like some uptight, Victorian virgin on the morning of her deflowering, the clouds crazily spiralling, the random puffs of vapour from the city’s air conditioning, the tug horns blaring, a thousand lights on the riverside blazing, then gradually growing dimmer and more ineffectual in the shimmering glare of the rising sun.)

She stands at the far end of the bridge and watches Blaine for a while. Then she checks herself (I can tell–even from where I’m standing–that it takes some effort of will) and strolls on. She walks
on
. She’s not heading for the nightwatch. And she’s certainly not heading home again. So
where’s
she going?

My following gets more furtive now (I mean if she catches me behind her at
this
stage it’s gonna look pretty dodgy,
eh?
). She walks on briskly for a further five minutes, then she stops. I, peer up at the large, grey building towering above her.

But of course. Of
course
. Guys. The bloody
hospital
.

I shouldn’t (don’t even waste your breath), I
know
I shouldn’t, but I still keep on following. And it’s not like I’m saying that the hospital security is a bunch of
shit
or anything (wouldn’t fucking
dare
), but I pursue her, unchallenged, down a labyrinth of corridors, through a dozen swing-doors, up a series of stairs…

Eventually she reaches her destination; enters a brightly-lit ward and marches up to the nurses’ station.

I’m peering in at her through the wire-meshed glass in the heavy, white, hospital regulation swing-doors. She’s talking with a nurse. A blonde nurse. The nurse is listening, then frowning, then responding quite emphatically. Aphra says something else, then dumps a bag of food on to the desk. The nurse grabs it, lifts it up, holds it out to her, gesticulating. Aphra turns on her heel. The nurse calls after her…

Jesus wept
, she’s heading back!

Fuck
.

I sprint down the corridor and turn a sharp left.

She’s still coming. I zip into a private room (dimly lit. Some poor plugged-up geezer beep-beeping it on a heart monitoring machine).
Still
I hear her footsteps approaching (How unlucky is
that
?). I shove my back against the wall, in the lee of the door, holding my breath.

I feel her–I
feel
her–peering in through the glass (the light from the hallway cuts out as her head blocks the gap).

I count to ten. Then to twenty.

She sneezes, loudly (the bloke on the bed stirs. His breathing quickens, his
heart
rate)…

And then she goes.

She
does
.

I count to five, put my hand on to the doorhandle, twist it,
pull
…Am
just
about to take my chance and scarper, when I detect a further- rather sharp- exchange underway in the hallway (between Aphra and the nurse), so I pause, push the door to, and glance anxiously around the room.

Wow.
It’s
nice
in here.
Very
nice. Homely. Swanky. Flower displays everywhere (forget the
bunch. Fuck
the bunch. The bunch is
so
passé), a strongly scented candle- Jasmine? Lavender?- a veritable
stall
of fruit, and a whole host of well-framed family photographs all crammed together on a side table in a fashionably congenial bohemian mish-mash.

A piece of sculpture. A small, bronze
minotaur
. Looks old. And important.

Paintings on the walls. Huge fuckers. This
amazing
Ben Nicholson (swear to God, it’s the real deal–I touch the paint with my thumb); something brilliant and abstract which just
must
be by Howard Hodgkin; and some very strange but rather magnificent work by the Chapman Brothers (which I saw–or something very like it–I’m pretty certain) at a recent exhibition.

Along from those, on a beautiful, dark-wood sideboard (ebony? Swathed in carved birds and ivy–
Man
, this just
can’t
be hospital issue) are literally
dozens
of Get Well Soon cards (
someone
–or someone
s
–certainly loves this sick-o). At the front of the pack is a scruffy, hand-drawn cartoon, which looks like the work–if I’m not
very
much mistaken–of no less an individual than serial Brit-Art sex-kitten, Tracy Emin.

An Apple laptop (of
course
. The last word in modern). A fantastic crystal ashtray (spotless).

And he’s wearing a watch (this sick geezer, keeping
time
? Crazy, huh?), which the dull light catches. Solid gold. Flecks of ice. Looks like something which even 50 Cent might consider a little too blingin’
obvious
.

Bedside table is stacked with magazines and books (this is some
cultured
ill-mother-fucker). I cock my head towards the door, holding my breath. The argument continues.

At the sound of raised voices, the sick geezer (no word of a lie, he has this fabulous silk counterpane, hand-embroidered and beaded with this sumptuous–but manly–geometric pattern in black and silver) starts moving around and grunting slightly.

Has he seen me?

Oh
God
.

I take a step closer. I don’t want to intimidate him–or to come over like some kind of crazy interloper (which–let’s face it, I effectively
am
).

‘Hello…’

In my keenness to introduce myself I knock into his books–quickly snake out my hand to stop the pile from falling (I mean is this
any
kind of an arrangement for a very sick person?) And guess what?

No. Seriously.
Guess
…

Top of the pile (I say
top
of the pile),
Shane
by Jack Schaefer.

Shit
.

The door opens. It’s the blonde nurse.

‘Who are you?’ she asks (she has a soft Irish accent, but her voice is tight and defensive, and her cheeks are still flushed from the argument she’s just had).

‘Adair Graham MacKenny,’ I say calmly. ‘I came along with Aphra.’

‘Oh.’

The nurse scowls.

‘This is
my
book,’ I say, grabbing the
Shane
, opening it to the frontispiece and showing her my name printed there (Yup. I
know
it’s a childish habit, but it’s helping me out of
this
embarrassing predicament, isn’t it?).