Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘Never!’ Esther shakes her head.

‘But you want to, though?’

Esther shrugs.

‘So how you scare him off?’

‘A’ tell him you was back with Jerrick Bailey,’ Esther smirks, ‘on the sly.’

‘One time!’ Vicki’s indignant.

‘ Ha! ’ Esther snorts, vindicated. ‘How come you so sure the pickney not his?’

‘Me get him to wear boots is how,’ Vicki clucks (appalled at her sister’s naivety).

‘You not got Ransom to wear ’em?’

‘He wear ’em.’ Vicki nods.

Esther slits her eyes. ‘You meddle with ’em?’

Vicki sucks her tongue, neglecting to answer. Instead she walks to the end of the bed and stares up at the ceiling.

‘Fifteen long year , Esther,’ she eventually murmurs, full of wonderment at the magnitude of her sister’s betrayal, ‘and not even a word ?’

‘A’ was wrong,’ Esther concedes, ‘but what him and me had was bigger , Vicki —’

‘Bigger than what?! His own pickney?!’ Vicki interrupts, patently astonished by her sister’s casual impertinence. ‘This how you apologize? Call it wrong ?! That all?’

‘Him got a real talent, Vicki,’ Esther tries to explain, ‘we was a team. We stuck together through it all . Fifteen year . And who was it support the whole family, meantime? Who buy Mamma house? Who pay for Israel go to school? Huh? Was me, Vicki! Him and me!’

‘Hear yourself!’ Vicki squawks.

‘If a hadn’t been him it would a been somebody else, Vicki,’ Esther gently remonstrates. ‘You was bad news — no motivation — spoil everything for everybody. Bring shame on the family. You need to learn yourself a hard lesson. An’ ya did learn it. Because a’ what me done. Look there!’ Esther points, proudly. ‘See you now! See what you become!’

‘See me ?!’ Vicki exclaims, amazed, then, ‘See yourself , sista! See what you become! Hear yourself, sista!’

Esther says nothing.

Vicki paces up and down for a few seconds, then pulls up, sharply. ‘You tell Mamma?’

Esther shakes her head.

‘An’ him never know?’ Vicki repeats, still trying but failing to comprehend the full implications of this revelation.

Esther shakes her head.

‘Good Lord!’ Vicki’s thoroughly befuddled. ‘Now what the hell me suppose to do with that , huh?’

Esther shrugs.

‘Ransom never know him got a son,’ Vicki repeats, as much to herself as to her sister, ‘Israel never know him got a daddy. All because a’ what you done.’

‘True,’ Esther acknowledges (still no word of an apology).

‘Well, somebody sure gone and told him now,’ Vicki reasons, almost with a grim kind of satisfaction. ‘You must a let it slip somewhere, somehow.’

‘It all over, then,’ Esther murmurs, bleakly, still not willing to accept this possibility.

‘Best thing all round!’ Vicki remonstrates, softly.

Esther finally starts crying.

Vicki stands up and walks to the end of the bed, trying to get her thoughts in order. As she stands there, in confusion, a pair of hands start grappling with the curtains, trying — and failing — to find the gap. After thirty or so seconds the hands move lower, the curtain is lifted — from its base — and a bunch of flowers appears from under it, then a small, open box with a ring standing proud in it, then finally, a head.

‘Sorry — it’s me, it’s Toby, hi,’ Toby finally announces himself, still on his knees, patently surprised — and somewhat flustered — to see Esther’s sister glaring down at him. ‘This isn’t exactly …’ His eyes move from one devastated sibling to the other, then: ‘Marry me, Esther!’ he flutes, proffering the ring. ‘Let’s run away together! I know it’s my baby!’

Silence.

(S.P.I.C.E.! he’s thinking, his cheeks flushing a deep and unforgiving red, S.P.I.C.E.!)

‘Marry me, Esther!’ he repeats. ‘I think I’m in love with you. In fact …’ — he shuffles forward on his knees (the curtain still affixed to his shoulders like some kind of bizarre, chivalric cape) — ‘in fact I know I am, I’m sure I am.’

Vicki bursts into gales of hysterical laughter. ‘I know I am! I’m sure I am!’ she parrots, cruelly.

Esther gazes at Toby, astonished, for a full fifteen seconds then, ‘Stand up you damn fool!’ she sharply expostulates.

Terence Nimrod is leaning against a pillar in the grand entrance to the hotel foyer, passing some time with an irascible Ransom (who is nervously smoking — tapping ash into his cigarette packet) as he impatiently waits for the housekeeper to release the spare key to Esther’s room on the (patently false) proviso that he wants to gather together some extra personal effects for her elongated stay in hospital.

‘I mean he’s not a big guy,’ Nimrod amiably chunters, ‘but he’s solid, emanates a kind of … yeah … solidity . And very burnished, very … very “buff” — to use my daughters’ favourite adjective. Anyway, we were stuck in there for the best part of an hour, just hanging around. It’s a nice room but a small room — wooden floor, heavy drapes, the classic box seat in the window — all fairly uninspiring, except for this amazing, red leather chaise longue sitting in one corner which is very dramatic, very over the top, very camp …’

Nimrod takes Ransom’s cigarette, steals a puff, then returns it. ‘So our photographer — Kenny, the guy who’s turning up to take some shots tonight — was just fixating on this chaise longue and saying, “We gotta get Fiddy to lie on the chaise longue ! We gotta make him do that!”’

‘Fiddy?’ Ransom glances over at Nimrod, frowning.

‘Fiddy — Fifty Cent — the rapper. It was one of those maddening situations where time constraints oblige you to conduct the interview while they’re taking the photographs — a real pain in the arse. Anyhow, Kenny was just desperate to get Fiddy on to that chaise longue . We’d all been gassing about his latest book …’

‘Autobiography?’ Ransom speculates, taking a deep pull on his cigarette.

‘Business-cum-self-help-manual. He was in early negotiations with Robert Greene at the time — you know: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction ?’

‘Yeah.’ Ransom nods (plainly all too familiar with these works).

‘Anyway, we’re standing around together in this cramped, little space and Fiddy’s PR is telling us about Fiddy’s favourite theory which he calls “The Lion in the Room” …’

‘The Lion?’ Ransom scowls.

‘It’s hilarious. Apparently Fiddy thinks the best way to dominate a business meeting — any business meeting — is by the simple expedient of refusing to nod.’

‘What?’ Ransom scratches his head, distractedly.

‘Not to nod. To refuse to nod. Basically you’ve just got to attract the attention of the speaker with strong eye contact but then keep perfectly still. Don’t nod.’

‘But why would you nod?’ Ransom’s confused. He peeks around the pillar to check if there’s any progress being made on the key front. There isn’t.

‘Because that’s what people instinctively do in meetings,’ Nimrod explains, ‘they automatically nod when the speaker is making his presentation. It’s unconscious.’

‘I never knew that,’ Ransom confesses.

‘Well, Fiddy’s theory is that if you hold the speaker’s attention but don’t nod, it undermines the speaker’s confidence so that they increasingly start to direct the entire presentation towards you — the non-nodder — to try and win you over. Naturally everyone in the meeting starts to notice that the speaker is directing his presentation entirely to you — one person — so they all start directing their attention towards you, too, just to try and work out why, thereby transforming you into the Alpha Male — the “Lion in the Room”.’