Free Clear by Nicola Barker Page B

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan instead. Once he’s effortlessly dismantled my angry-pimple-ridden-street-kid-style ambience (you think this shit comes easy to a boy from north Herefordshire?), he approaches the table.
    ‘ Hmmn ,’ he hmmns, picking up one of the containers and sniffing at it, quizzically. ‘Dusty girl she make picnic for we?’
    I say nothing. He takes off his coat. Jalisa produces a bottle of wine and goes off to locate the corkscrew.
    ‘How long you sit here?’ Solomon enquires.
    I check my watch.
    ‘Hour,’ I say ( Yeah . Two can play at that game).
    ‘So what’ve we got?’ Jalisa asks, returning to the table with the wine and three glasses, setting them down, sitting down herself, pushing her spectacles back up her nose again and leaning greedily forward on her pointy elbows.
    ‘Feast,’ Solomon opines, removing a stray pistachio from one of the aromatic salads.
    ‘ Stop that,’ I say, ‘We can’t eat. It’s here for safe-keeping.’
    ‘Pity,’ Solomon opines.
    I glance up, sharply. ‘Why?’
    ‘Because how better to get to the heart of this girl’s messed-up, stalkerish, beaver-baring psychology than through the delicious repast she’s prepared, eh ?’
    ‘Really?’
    He nods.
    I frown. ‘But can’t we do all that simply by looking ?’
    Solomon shakes his head. ‘No way . That’d be like singing a song without knowing the melody.’
    ‘Oh.’
    My face drops, disconsolately.
    Solomon sighs.
    ‘Okay then,’ I retract, ‘just a tiny taste. A tiny taste.’
    ( God , am I this boy’s patsy , or what?)
    Solomon pads off to grab a muddle of cutlery–we each select our weapon of choice–and he’s just about to dive in (the yams. He loves yams), when I raise a warning hand…
    ‘One possibility,’ I murmur, ‘worth bearing in mind, is that it was no accident she left this behind today.’
    ‘ Huh ?’
    ‘Spiked.’
    ‘Ouch.’
    Solomon withdraws, then he whistles, then he peers down, fondly. ‘Bud will know,’ he says, reaching out a tender hand to the savage beast’s muzzle, ‘he’s a ludicrously fussy eater.’
    ‘Talking of hunger,’ Jalisa says, sipping on her wine as Solomon slowly waves tiny portions of Aphra’s food in front of Bud’s twitching snout, ‘I heard someone attacked Blaine today.’
    ‘They did, too,’ I confirm, ‘climbed right up the Support Tower. Pilfered his water. Tried to yank out his colostomy bag…’
    ‘ Hard core,’ Jalisa whistles.
    ‘I was there ,’ I continue excitedly, ‘on site, when it happened, but I didn’t actually see –’
    ‘Ah,’ Solomon solemnly interrupts me (Yeah. Try and say that in a fast wind), ‘blinded by the stench of pussy, were we?’
    I accord this comment all the credit it deserves (none–the mixed-metaphor is a dubious device at the best of times. I mean blinded by a stench ? I ask you) and from here on in I dutifully address all further conversational snippets to Jalisa, exclusively. ‘I was having a chat with this fruit-loop–just a few minutes before the attack,’ I say, ‘who was labouring under the illusion that the whole anti-Blaine thing is actually a mask for widespread anti- Jewish feeling…’
    ‘Anti-schmanti,’ Solomon grumbles.
    Jalisa grins. ‘Poor Solomon’s worried ,’ she goo-goos (almost tickling him under the chin). ‘He guards his Social Oppression jealously , in case there isn’t quite enough to go around…’ (Solomon shows his irritation by clucking his tongue at Bud, whose nose–he suddenly decides–has drawn slightly too close to a tub).
    ‘Anyhow, Kafka was a Jew,’ Jalisa casually continues.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘Kafka,’ she repeats (not a little patronisingly), ‘ Franz Kafka. The writer. His short story, “A Hunger Artist”, was the inspiration behind this entire thing.’
    It was?
    ‘You didn’t know that?’ she purrs, then tops up her wine, smugly.
    ‘Isn’t Kafka German?’ I ask (struggling to disguise my furious bemusement–I mean I saw