Nicola Barker - The Yips

Stan shakes his head.

‘Shall I enlighten you?’

Stan shrugs.

‘Personality!’ Ransom grins. ‘It’s personality , kiddo! I have character . Gallons of the stuff. And I’m just too damn creative — too much of a fuckin’ individual — to turn myself into one of those gormless, brainwashed, Ledbetter-style automatons who only ever plays the next hole, the next shot, while spouting endless, turgid platitudes about their “mental game” and the arc of their fucking “ swing plane”. D’you know what I mean?’

Stan just gazes at him, blankly (he has no idea).

‘Lemme put it this way.’ Ransom gamely attempts to re-state his position: ‘I remember this shit-for-brains journo cornering John Daly outside the clubhouse at the start of a major tournament one time — I forget which tournament it was, off-hand — getting right up in his face and demanding to know what his “golfing strategy” was for the week’s play ahead. Daly’s obviously really unimpressed by this half-wit’s attitude, not to say bored and pissed off by the question itself, but, as always, he’s very friendly and courteous and listens to the journalist really politely before considering his reply. “My strategy?” he finally murmurs, plucking at his chin for a moment as if he’s going to say something really deep, really significant. “ Yeah … Well I guess that would probably be …”’ Ransom clears his throat and then attempts a (perfectly passable) impersonation of Daly’s slow American drawl: “ Hit the ball, find the ball, then hit the ball again.”’

Ransom smiles at Stan, beatifically. Stan looks puzzled.

‘“ Hit the ball, find the ball …”’ Ransom repeats, slapping his hand against his thigh, snorting, ‘like this is the most incredibly profound , fuckin’ insight: “ Hit the ball, find the ball …” Like this is the hugest fuckin’ revelation! Man! It was pure, undiluted genius ! A defining moment in the history of the game! A two-finger salute to all the vultures and the bullshitters and the mind-wizards and the … the …’ (Ransom momentarily runs out of suitable targets for his mirthful ire, and flounders. His eyes fill with sudden, hot tears.) ‘It was absolutely fuckin’ brilliant ,’ he huffs, then turns — blinking, self-consciously — and gazes, impatiently, past the modern, slightly shabby rectory building, to the large, somewhat static and forbidding, Victorian, red-brick church beyond.

‘What was that phrase Dad always liked to use?’ Valentine wonders, indicating, somewhat wryly, towards her mother. ‘Full of piss and vinegar?’

Her mother — who seems in unusually high spirits — is singing ‘Frère Jacques’ at the top of her lungs to a slightly bedraggled cat which is crouching, terrified, halfway up the stairs.

‘So what’re they trying to pin on me this time?’ Noel demands, slowly unwinding a grubby-looking keffiyeh scarf, while carefully ensuring that the sterile gauze dressings (which have been neatly applied to his neck beneath it) remain intact.

‘Pin on you?’ Valentine’s down on her knees, unfastening Nessa’s shoes. ‘Who d’you mean?’

‘Who?!’ Noel exclaims, thumbing over his shoulder, towards the front door. ‘Who the fuck else , stupid?!’

‘Watch your mouth , stupid!’

Valentine glances up at him, indignant, as she removes the first shoe. ‘And don’t call me stupid,’ she adds (as a guilty afterthought), inclining her head, warningly, towards the child.

‘Yeah, stupid !’ Nessa immediately echoes, snatching her other foot from her aunt’s grip, jutting out her chin and boldly squaring up to him.

‘Oh great.’ Valentine rolls her eyes.

‘Yeah, stupid !’ Nessa repeats, grabbing a handful of the baggy fabric of her father’s jeans and yanking at it, hard.

‘Get the fuck off!’ Noel screeches, snatching for the belt on his trousers (which are already alarmingly low-slung), but his response is too slow, and the trousers slip down, with virtually no resistance, from his hip-bones to his knees.

Nessa clings on to the concertinaed fabric, giggling, delighted. Valentine struggles to contain a wan smile.

‘ Enough! ’ Noel hisses, raising the back of a warning hand to the child. Nessa promptly lets go and Noel yanks the trousers up again, cursing. Valentine pulls the toddler back towards her and embraces her, protectively.

‘ MUM! ’ Noel bellows — effortlessly displacing his irritation (principally, admittedly, with himself). ‘Could you put a bloody sock in it, please?’

His mother sings — if possible — still louder.

‘I said could you put a sock in it?’ Noel repeats (an added edge of menace in his voice this time).

‘She’ll carry on for hours at this rate,’ Valentine mutters (with a strong element of ‘and I can’t say I’d blame her if she did …’).

‘She’s been singing that damn thing, non-stop, since we left the day centre,’ Noel gripes. ‘It’s driving me round the twist.’

‘Let it go, Bro’,’ Valentine advises him, stifling a yawn.

‘I had to remove her filthy hand from my thigh, twice , in the car on the drive home,’ Noel hisses. ‘She’s absolutely, bloody disgusting!’

‘I’ll have a word with her about it, later,’ Valentine promises, untangling one of Nessa’s bright, blonde curls with a distracted finger.

‘So where’s your client?’ Noel demands, suddenly glancing around him.

‘Gone.’ Valentine shrugs. ‘I called her a cab.’

‘Jeez. That was one hell of a turnaround,’ Noel murmurs (cheerfully ignoring the fact that he’d promised, faithfully, to transport her himself). ‘Was she happy with the end result?’

‘I dunno … Yeah’ — Valentine nods — ‘so far as I could tell. She was shy. Her English wasn’t great, but she cried when she saw it in the mirror.’

Pause.

‘Did she pay in cash?’

Her brother tries to appear disinterested.

‘By cheque …’

Valentine starts to remove Nessa’s other shoe.

‘I thought we had a strict rule about that,’ Noel grumbles.

‘We do …’

Longer pause.

‘… but she needed some of the cash she’d put aside to pay for her ride to the airport.’

Noel turns to glower at his mother again (who is now banging along in time to her ditty on the wooden banister).

‘So how’d it look?’ he demands, turning back to face her.

‘Fine. Nice. Good . Although I was so knackered by the end of it that I could hardly …’

‘But she was happy?’ he repeats.

‘Yeah. So far as I could tell. The skin was incredibly delicate — unusually delicate. I really had to hammer away at it.’

‘Did you get a photo?’ Noel demands.

‘For my portfolio?’ Valentine asks, fixing him with a dry look.

‘Why else?’ He shrugs, grinning.

‘Why else,’ she echoes, smiling back.

‘So did you?’ he persists.

‘Nope.’ Valentine shakes her head. ‘It was difficult to get her to trust me and relax. I mean after all the fuss at the hotel …’

Noel raises a tentative hand to his throat.

‘And — like I said — her English wasn’t all that great. She was really stressing out about making her flight in time. She’d lied to her husband about taking the trip. She’d told him she was visiting her sister in Osaka. She didn’t want him getting suspicious. She was planning to surprise him for their anniversary …’ Valentine pauses for a second, cradling Nessa’s tiny shoe in her hand. ‘Then, just when I was about to take the plunge and ask her, this guy turned up to read the meter and walked in on us by mistake —’