Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘I found Jen,’ Gene interrupts her, after swallowing.

‘Yes. I got your text. What a relief!’

Mallory wanders into the kitchen to try and locate a lost hairband.

‘Will the police need to speak with you again?’ Sheila wonders.

‘Uh … I’m not sure. I shouldn’t think so. I suppose it depends on what they discover in the autopsy.’

‘So sad.’ Sheila shakes her head.

‘He seemed like a very sweet man.’

Mallory leaves the room again.

Sheila looks at her watch. Gene pulls off another segment of the orange and places it into his mouth where it sits on his tongue like a small, indigestible missile. The effort of working his jaw seems almost beyond him.

‘Just for the record,’ Sheila murmurs, her eyes focused on his lips, ‘I’m not angry about what happened — I mean I was upset at first — more astonished than anything — disappointed. And I’m not standing here and suggesting that I’m entirely blameless — I mean I’m hardly perfect — I suppose I must’ve deserved this at some level —’

‘Please don’t say that!’ Gene interrupts her, horrified, the lone segment blocking up his tongue, falling into his cheek, making him lisp. He stares at the orange in his hand. He hates the stupid orange. So bright. So tart. So complete.

‘I don’t want to apportion blame, Gene,’ Sheila sighs, ‘and I don’t want to pass judgement — in fact I don’t actually want to talk about it. I just want to …’

She throws up her hands. ‘To forgive you, I suppose. To draw this act of generosity from deep within myself and pass it over to you, like a gift. Sidestep all the rancour and the unpleasantness and just …’

She shakes her head. ‘Carry on. Battle on. Try and survive it.’

Gene laboriously chews and swallows the orange segment as she speaks. The act of doing so seems like the most awful — the most crass and monstrous — offence against her dignity.

‘That’s very big of you,’ he mutters after swallowing. His voice sounds tighter — less humble and obsequious — than he’d expected it to.

‘I’m actually grateful,’ Sheila confesses, with a rueful laugh, ‘to get this rare opportunity to be the bigger person. After the initial shock there was just this … this immense — this overriding feeling of … I suppose I can only call it relief. Just …’ — she shakes her head — ‘this sense of calm, of certainty, that we’d be fine — that I’d be fine. In fact this act of betrayal — this horrendous show of weakness on your part — might actually be a kind of … a test — a way of drawing me still further into my faith — of bringing me still closer to God.’

Gene continues to stare at the orange. He imagines repeatedly stabbing at it with a fork.

‘Obviously to lose her to “the other side” …’ Sheila concedes, her smile faltering, ‘and I know it’s childish of me — pathetic, even. But to … Urgh! ’

She smashes her fist on to the laminate in front of him. Gene almost jumps out of his skin.

‘Oh dear. How embarrassing!’

She withdraws her fist and stares at it, slightly confused.

‘I’m really sorry, Sheila,’ he mutters, ‘I just feel so …’

‘That was a difficult pill for me to swallow,’ she runs on, oblivious. ‘And it’s crazy because it’s the same God — you know — the same God — my God — our God — just viewed through a slightly different pair of spectacles.’

Gene puts down the remains of the orange. They both stare at it.

‘I still trust you,’ she adds, ‘weird as that may seem. I still have confidence in you. I still believe in you. And I want you to be happy.’

‘I love you too,’ Gene responds, automatically, then realizes that she hasn’t actually said that she loves him and feels ridiculous. Sheila stares at him, frowning slightly.

‘This feels odd,’ he confides, ‘to be having this conversation. Unreal. Like we’re not really … like we’re …’

‘But on the positive side,’ she calmly talks through him, ‘it’s like the boil has finally been lanced. This has been a major wake-up call. I’ve had to weigh up my priorities — move out of my comfort zone — no more faffing around. And it’s actually come as something of a relief …

‘ Phew! ’ She physically demonstrates her relief, grinning.

Gene reaches out his hand and starts carefully separating the orange segments, as if the orange alone represents something actual — something tangible.

‘I mean I always thought you were so perfect — so good — so honourable. And now I’ve finally realized that you’re just a normal, flawed human being like the rest of us I … I don’t know … It’s as though this awful burden has been lifted. I feel like I can …’ She inhales deeply.

Mallory wanders into the kitchen again. She’s looking for her lunch box. Sheila removes it from the fridge and passes it to her. She wanders out again.

‘Maybe you’re still a little angry,’ Gene suggests.

‘You want me to be?’ Sheila asks, almost pitying.

Gene withdraws his hand from the orange.

What if I said yes? he thinks. What then?

‘You look tired,’ Sheila observes, ‘pale.’

‘I feel exhausted,’ he confesses, rubbing his eyes with his hand. A second or so later he realizes that his fingers still have citric acid on their tips. His eyes start to sting.

Sheila checks her watch again. ‘Go back to bed. I’ll prepare you a quick tray. Sweet tea. Cornflakes. Bring it up before we leave.’

Gene feels the straightness gradually leaving his spine. Something is being extracted. Something is being exacted. He’s just not sure how or why or what, precisely, just that it must be and that it is.

‘Killing me with kindness,’ he murmurs, trying to look up at her, but still, the light, and now, the sting. Sheila leans forward and picks up the orange peel, presses the pedal on the bin with a quick pump of her foot and tosses it away.

‘We should probably …’

Gene is going to say, ‘compost that,’ but then — for reasons he can’t quite entirely fathom — decides against it.

‘So Tiger Woods has just won the British Open.’ Ransom lowers the bugle and wipes the spit away from his top lip with the palm of his hand. ‘He’s wending his way down the Galway coast to the Irish Open in this stunning 3 Series 325Ci Rwd BMW Convertible —’

‘Hang on a second,’ Jen interrupts, lowering her trombone, ‘why would Tiger be in a car?’

‘Sorry?’ Ransom turns and glowers at her.

‘Tiger Woods would just fly into the Irish Open on his private jet.’

‘Anyway,’ the golfer staunchly continues, using the flap of his shirt to polish the bugle’s mouthpiece (no evidence of a tremor in either hand), ‘he arrives at this tiny, little service station in the middle of nowhere and this thick-as-shit Irishman comes toddling outside to fill up his tank …’

Jen cringes. Ransom pretends not to notice.

‘So he jumps out of the car to go get himself a bottle of water from the shop …’

‘A shop?’ Jen snorts. ‘I thought this was meant to be some tiny, primitive little service station in the middle of nowhere?’

‘… and as he clambers out, a couple of golf tees fall from his pocket …’ Ransom persists, then pauses (although there’s actually no interruption from Jen at this juncture), ‘… so the little Irish …’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jen makes a ‘let’s just skip the racist bullshit, already,’ gesture.

‘… jumps forward and scoops them up off the forecourt. He holds them out to Tiger and says …’ (Ransom adopts a dreadful, Irish accent), ‘“Sure, what are those tings, there, Tiger?”’