Nicola Barker - The Yips

Valentine stops rocking. Her eyes shift off, guiltily, to the left. On a nearby bookshelf is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Mary stands there, uncontentiously, smiling, benignly, in her azure-blue cloak, gently cosseting a prim, bleeding heart between her two, soft, white hands.

‘Nope. Not angry,’ Valentine murmurs, ‘that’s stupid — counter-productive. Be calm. Calm . Renunciation. Equanimity. Focus. Renunciation. Equanimity … Urgh! ’ She shakes her head, frustratedly. ‘Don’t give in to her! Why do you always give in to her? Why? ’

Her eyes well up with tears.

‘Stop crying, you pathetic fool !’ she hisses.

Her hand moves to her throat. ‘No!’ She wrenches the hand away again. ‘Ignore the cruel voice. Ignore it! Say whatever you want! Feel whatever you like!’

She pauses, frowning.

‘What am I feeling?’

She looks panicked and quickly hones in on the image of Kali. After a couple of seconds she raises her eyes to the ceiling, focusing intently, twisting her hands together on her lap.

‘ Can mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of stone? ’ she recites, haltingly.

‘ Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her Lord? ’

She lowers her eyes, shakes her head, forlornly, and then focuses in on the picture again.

‘ Men call you merciful ,’ she whispers, awed, ‘ but there is no mercy in you, Mother. ’

She bites her lower lip, grimacing. ‘ You have cut off the heads of the children of others, and these you wear as garlands around your neck …’

She reaches out and picks up a long string of sandalwood beads, looking almost afraid. ‘ It matters not how much I call you “Mother”, Mother, ’ she concludes, shrugging. ‘ You hear me but you will not listen .’

Valentine raises the beads to her lips and kisses them, then closes her eyes again.

‘ Om krimkalyai nama ,’ she intones, hardly audible.

‘ Om kapalnaye Namah. ’ Her voice grows louder.

‘ Om hrim shrim krim —

Parameshvari kalike svaha! ’

She repeats this phrase in a flat monotone, and each time she repeats it she moves one bead on the necklace forward with her middle finger. As she incants, a small child can be seen, through the open door into the hallway, gradually making her way down the stairs. When she reaches the bottom stair, she pushes open the gate and toddles through into the living room. She stands and watches Valentine for a while, then takes off her nightdress, drops it on to the floor and wanders, naked, around the room, touching various objects with her hand. She finally sits down (with a bump) on the rug directly behind Valentine and gazes at her, fascinated, rocking along in time.

Valentine eventually stops chanting. Approximately ten or so minutes have now passed. She slowly opens her eyes. She stares at the picture of Kali again, raptly, pulling her face in close to it.

‘Monster!’ she murmurs, smiling.

She seems calmer.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ a little voice suddenly demands.

Valentine turns, surprised. She gazes at the small child.

‘Where’s your nightie, Nessa?’ she asks.

‘What’s rehob?’

‘Rehob?’ Valentine echoes.

‘Is Grandad gone to rehob?’ the little girl wonders.

‘How did you get down here?’ Valentine tuts, gazing out into the hallway. ‘You should be in bed.’

The little girl just stares at her.

‘No,’ Valentine eventually answers, ‘Grandad is in heaven. Mummy is in … in rehab.’

She pauses. ‘Mummy will come home soon, but Grandad …’

She frowns.

The little girl stares at her, blankly. Valentine takes the sandalwood beads and hangs them around the child’s neck.

‘Beautiful!’ She smiles, then claps the child’s hands together. ‘ Hurray! ’

The little girl peers down at the beads.

‘So who told you about rehab?’ Valentine wonders.

The little girl continues to inspect the beads.

‘Was it one of the big boys at Aunty Sasha’s?’

The little girl doesn’t answer.

Valentine sighs then turns, picks up the candle from the shrine and offers it to her.

‘Would you like to blow the candle out?’

The little girl nods.

‘Okay, then. Deep breath,’ Valentine instructs her. ‘ Deep , deep breath.’

The child leans forward and exhales, as hard as she possibly can, but the flame just flattens — like a canny boxer avoiding a serious body blow — then gamely straightens up again.

Although plainly startled — and not a little annoyed — by Noel’s boorish behaviour, Ransom tries his best to disguise his irritation. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ he mutters, appraising him, almost tenderly.

Noel has long, curly black hair, pale green eyes and an intelligent face, but his youthful bloom (he’s only twenty-one) has all but evaporated. There is a weariness about him, a sallowness to the skin, a sunkenness under the eyes and cheeks. He looks hollowed-out, withered, shop-soiled. He reeks of skunk and cigarettes. One of his front teeth is badly chipped and prematurely yellowed. He is heavily tattooed. The left hand has, among other things, LTFC printed — in a somewhat amateurish script — across the knuckles. The right hand and arm — by absolute contrast — have been expertly fashioned into the eerily lifelike head, neck and torso of a snake. Only his fingers remain un-inked and protrude, somewhat alarmingly, from the serpent’s gaping mouth.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Ransom asks (gazing, mesmerized, at the reptilian tattoo), and then (when this question garners no audible response), ‘You seem a little tense.’

‘My mother used to work in this place,’ Noel growls, glancing around him, angrily. ‘Head of Housekeeping. But I guess you already knew that.’

‘Sorry?’ Ransom stares up at him, confused.

‘My mother,’ Noel repeats, more slowly this time, more ominously, his nostrils flaring. ‘My mother used to work at this hotel.’

‘What?! Here?! At this hotel?’ Ransom echoes, visibly stricken. ‘You’re kidding me!’

‘Kidding you?’ Noel scoffs. ‘You actually think I’d joke about a thing like that?’

While this short exchange takes place, Jen casually strolls to the far end of the counter and peers over towards the front desk. The desk has been temporarily vacated. A small, conservatively dressed, middle-aged Japanese woman is standing in front of it, her finger delicately poised over the bell.

Jen cocks her head for a moment and listens, carefully. She thinks she hears a commotion near the hotel’s front entrance and wonders if the receptionist might be offering back-up to Gerwyn from Security (who’s currently on door duty). She scowls, checks the time, then returns her full attention back to the bar again.

‘ Man! You’re just incredible!’ Noel’s laughing, hollowly. ‘I mean the levels you’ll sink to for a little bit of press.’

He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘It’s scary, Ransom. It’s fucked-up. It’s sick .’

‘Now hold on a second …’

The golfer frowns as his drink-addled brain slowly puts two and two together, then his expression rapidly transmogrifies from one of vague bemusement, to one of deep mortification. ‘Aw come on , Noel!’ he wheedles. ‘You can’t seriously think …?’

Noel delivers him a straight look.

‘But that’s crazy !’ Ransom squawks. ‘I didn’t have the first idea — I swear . I just got a message from Esther. You know Esther? My PR?’

Noel looks blank.