Nicola Barker - The Yips

Slight pause.

‘But before I do, please understand that I am in a state of acute, emotional turmoil and your job, your responsibility is to make it stop.’

Another slight pause.

‘That’s all I have to say. Good luck. God bless you.’

Sheila hangs up.

Gene stands in the hallway, immobile, for several minutes, then he turns, walks back to Ransom’s hotel room and opens the door. Inside he finds the golfer — now lying prone on the tattoo bench — chatting away, amiably (Nimrod writing, the camera flashing) while Valentine carefully applies a large, purple stencil between the centre of his shoulders. She seems calm, he notes, perfectly at her ease and completely engrossed.

Esther finds her sister sitting on an empty bench by the large, push-button snack-dispensing machine. The helpful Irish nurse (who has been kind enough to push her there in the ward’s only wheelchair) tactfully retreats, although not without first indicating, warningly, towards her watch.

‘Five minutes, all right Esther? Then straight back to baby!’

Esther readily acquiesces.

The sisters sit in silence for four minutes, at least, then Vicki finally rouses herself — blinking, stretching, yawning — as if from a light slumber.

‘Say yes?’ she eventually wonders, with a smirk.

‘Say what?’ Esther scowls.

‘To your fool?’

Esther sucks her tongue.

‘Tell me!’

‘Me not say yes, me not say no.’ She shrugs.

‘He the poor pickney father?’

Esther merely grimaces, then, ‘Gonna let that girl out from the boot of your car?’

‘Soon enough!’

‘Vicki!’ Esther reprimands. ‘You get put away for that!’

Vicki sucks her tongue, in response. ‘Me don’t care!’

‘Your son — he’ll care!’ Esther reminds her.

They both stare — with a measure of interest and indifference — at an elderly man struggling to operate the snack machine. After several, clumsy attempts he manages to acquire himself a small packet of biscuits. He removes them from the slot and then inspects them, astonished.

‘Me could never come back home an’ not feel like shit,’ Esther confides. ‘Every time I see your boy I feel a wrench in my belly. Hurt so bad,’ she clucks, watching on, idly, as the old man tries, and fails — all fingers and thumbs — to gain access to the biscuit packet.

‘You want me to lie?’ Vicki asks. ‘Say me know all along? Even if Izzy never forgive me for it?’

Esther scowls, unsure quite how to respond to this generous offer.

‘’Cause I will’ — Vicki shrugs — ‘for my one an’ only sister.’

Esther shakes her head, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

‘Me got nothing here, Vicki, I swear!’ she sniffs. ‘No life, no man, no work — me own pickneys don’t even know who their mammy is.’

‘Boo-hoo!’

Vicki cordially offers her condolences.

‘Me deserve worse.’ Esther grimaces.

‘Well none of us been angels,’ Vicki concedes.

‘You gonna let Israel see his daddy now?’ Esther wonders.

‘You gonna let baby Prue see hers?’ Vicki snorts.

‘Me got a whole lot of things to ponder on,’ Esther ruminates, then, ‘ Here! ’

She reaches over and snatches the biscuits from the old man’s hands, deftly tears the packet open and passes them back again.

‘Now get away with you!’ she harangues him. ‘Go on! Enjoy!’

The man takes the biscuits and slowly shuffles off, plainly terrified.

‘You a long time gone,’ Vicki observes, watching his gradual progress, almost sympathetic.

‘’Specially if you starve to death!’ Esther concurs.

A thirty-second silence follows, then Vicki starts to chuckle, disproportionately, almost hysterically, her hands clasped together, her thin shoulders jerking up and down like a mass-produced cardboard skeleton cut-out at Halloween.

‘What you got to laugh about?’ Esther demands, smiling herself.

‘Not a thing!’

Vicki commences upon another, violent paroxysm. ‘Not a damn thing!’

‘Me neither!’ Esther cackles, clutching on to her belly and laughing till her round cheeks are soaked with tears, half in sheer delight, half in complete agony.

The three of them are sitting — like the three wise monkeys — squashed together on the sitting room sofa. There’s a party atmosphere. A video of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang plays on the TV. They’re drinking tea (milk in Nessa’s case) and sharing a packet of lemon puff biscuits.

‘I prefer to pull off the top layer first, dip the side without cream on it into my mug,’ Toby explains, ‘eat it, then follow up with the crunchy, creamy bottom layer.’

He proceeds to illustrate this technique, somehow conniving to over-dip the biscuit so that the soggy end breaks off as he tries to withdraw it.

‘ Mon Dieu! Tu es vraiment enfant ,’ Frédérique exclaims, observing the soggy biscuit floating like a pastry raft in his tea mug, enchanted. ‘Such a baby! See! Even Nessa has more sense than this!’

Toby tries to retrieve the soggy wedge with his fingers but it promptly breaks into several, smaller pieces. Nessa, meanwhile, has split her biscuit in half (following Toby’s example) and is delicately lapping off the lemon filling — a tiny remnant of it decorating the tip of her nose.

Frédérique fastidiously dips her biscuit — whole — into her mug of tea, then places the soggy end between her lips and sucks.

‘Oh that’s good — that’s clever.’ Toby chuckles. ‘Liquidizing the middle and then sucking it all out, en masse . Extremely creative!’

He’s still remarking, in awe, on Frédérique’s innovative biscuit-dipping techniques when a nearby cat decides to get in on the action — leaping up on to his lap, knocking his arm, and sloshing his mug of tea straight down his shirt front. He clambers to his feet, cursing, disgruntled, then quickly reaches up his spare hand to apply pressure to his temples (his head is suddenly throbbing — perhaps jolted by the sudden movement).

On screen, the famous, green car is driving along a hilly pass and — if the swelling music is anything to go by — is just about to grow mechanical wings and take flight.

‘You’ve got to rewind if I miss the song!’ he exclaims, piqued. ‘It’s not fair! I don’t want to miss the song!’

He dashes off down the hallway towards the kitchen, still clutching his temples, holding his mug aloft, and arrives at the sink just in time to hear the others commence yelling and cooing as the car leaves the road and takes to the air.

‘ I don’t believe this! ’ he yells, slamming his mug down on to the draining-board, pushing in the plug and turning on the tap. ‘ Press pause! Press pause! ’

In the other room he can hear laughter and sporadic applause. He reaches towards a cleaning cloth then stiffens, inhales sharply, takes several, rolling steps to the side (still grinning his dismay at missing the flying car), half-turns, sees the rocking chair directly behind him, feels himself collapsing, and somehow, miraculously, throws himself into it.

The chair nearly rocks over at the swift violence of his descent. It hurtles backwards, then forwards, but is quickly stopped by the dead weight of his legs (stretched out, knees locked) and by his heels, which press firmly — like two, trusty, leather brakes — into the antique linoleum.

It’s on his third circuit (he’s yelling her name, furiously — a feeling in his gut that goes way beyond embarrassment/exasperation/frustration/disbelief giving his voice a strange, extra quality of unrestraint) that Gene finally thinks he might detect a response. He grinds to a sudden halt and turns — head down, shoulders hunched, scowling — furtive as a city fox.