Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘I know.’ Gene takes a couple of steps towards her. ‘I’m as shattered by this as you are. But if it’s any kind of compensation, I honestly think he learned a valuable lesson today, and he’s not going to be rushing off to do it again any time soon.’

‘You already said that.’

She takes a couple of steps away from him. ‘And it isn’t,’ she adds, flatly, almost as an afterthought, ‘it isn’t “okay”, I mean.’

Gene stares at her, morosely, and then returns to the bed. He removes his shirt. He is silently cursing Jen in his head. Sheila has sat back down and is picking up the jacket.

‘Why did you say she was here again?’ she asks (as though reading his thoughts). ‘I’m still a little confused about that part.’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ Gene shrugs, and then, ‘D’you need more light?’

He leans over to the lamp on his bedside table and turns it on. As the extra light fills the room, she glances over at him, irritably, then her eyes widen as they settle on a strange, blue-red bruise on his shoulder.

‘When she found out that Ransom had stayed here overnight …’

‘Found out?’ Sheila echoes, distractedly. ‘How did she find out?’

‘She rang me at work.’

‘She has your mobile number?’

His wife looks mildly surprised.

‘She got it off one of the receptionists at the Thistle.’

He sits down on the bed.

‘I see.’ Sheila nods. She seems to find this answer satisfactory.

‘When she found out he’d stayed here overnight, she demanded our home phone number.’

‘And you gave it to her?’

His wife’s eyes are drawn back to the bruise again as he reaches under his pillow and withdraws a vest and some pyjama bottoms.

‘She caught me off guard. I was in the middle of this complicated scenario at work, collecting a little girl from her childminder as a favour to a client. It was …’ He scowls. ‘It was complicated,’ he repeats. ‘The child had been jumping on a trampoline without any underwear, and the neighbour — the childminder — asked me to have a quiet word with the mother — or the aunt …’

He glances over at his wife as he speaks. She is staring at him, almost speculatively. He struggles to decipher the exact nature of her look.

‘It was this ridiculously loaded situation,’ he continues, his confidence starting to flag slightly, ‘a stupid situation, just really embarrassing, and then Jen happens to ring up in the middle of it all.’ He grimaces. ‘I just gave her the number to get rid of her. She probably tried it a few times, got no answer, so decided to head over to the house on the off-chance —’

‘She has our address.’

This is a statement, not a question, and Sheila’s voice sounds disturbingly matter-of-fact.

‘Well she knows you’re the rector of the church.’ Gene shrugs. ‘It probably didn’t take much native ingenuity to work it out.’

Gene starts to take his trousers off.

‘You have a huge bruise on your back,’ his wife announces.

‘Pardon?’

He peers over at her, frowning.

‘A huge bruise.’

‘Do I?’

Gene puts a clumsy hand to his back.

‘Higher. On the shoulder. It’s pretty bad, actually.’

Gene tries to peer over at it.

‘D’you have any idea how you might’ve done that?’

‘Uh … No.’ Gene scowls. ‘Not really.’

Sheila gently places down the jacket. She suddenly looks pale, almost ill.

‘I need to clear my head,’ she announces, standing up.

‘Why? Where are you going?’ Gene asks, confused (still feeling around, aimlessly, for the bruise).

She walks to the door, her voice so low when she finally answers him as to be rendered virtually inaudible.

‘To pray,’ she murmurs, huskily, ‘that’s all.’

A flat-footed, heavily pregnant Jamaican woman (a veritable hormonal maelstrom, with slightly receding hair, a bad weave, gappy teeth and tired, bloodshot eyes) stands at Ransom’s shoulder as he completes his shave in a large, beautifully appointed hotel bathroom.

‘Remember what Jimmie always use to say, eh, Stu?’

She tenderly plucks a pale flake of dandruff from the shoulder of his dark grey bathrobe.

No response .

Ransom carefully glides the razor from his chin to his sideburn.

‘Jimmie always say: “Good golf — successful golf — not about aiming for the star or settin’ yourself unreachable goal, it all about acceptin’ where you are, consolidatin’ what you got, then gently transitioning to the next level.”’

Still no response.

‘Baby step, eh, Stu?’ she persists. ‘That all we need from you right now. That all we askin’ from you right now. Not huge leap or giant stride or any of that other crazy shit. Just baby step. You know?’

‘ We? ’

Ransom leans forward and inspects the small glass cut on his cheek in the mirror.

‘ We? ’ he repeats, snorting, his eyes flicking towards her. ‘I thought I sacked all the others.’

‘You sack me too’ — she grimaces — ‘but I was dumb enough to stick around.’

‘Yeah, funny, that …’

Ransom gently moves his nose to the left and carefully applies the blade to an especially hard-to-reach area below his right nostril.

‘Must be some kinda glutton for punishment!’

She tries to make light of it.

‘You know what your problem is?’ Ransom directs an utterly insincere, saccharin-coated smile her way. ‘One might even go so far as to call it your Achilles heel, Esther: loyalty . You’re just way too loyal. Loyal to a fault. And while it’s extremely sweet …’

He nudges a tiny fleck of foam from the tip of his nose with his knuckle. ‘… almost touching, on occasion, it sometimes borders on …’ He pauses, pensively. ‘It borders on the annoying. You’re like one of those irritating, little burrs that gets snagged on my trouser leg when I’m stuck in the rough. Those pesky little fuckers that won’t come off no matter how hard I pick away at them.’

He wrinkles up his nose, fastidiously.

‘Pick all you wan’, darlin’,’ Esther mutters, falling — still deeper — into her smooth, honey-coated patois , ‘’cos I ain’t goin’ nowhere wit-out dem nine an’ a half mont’ outstandin’ back pay, ya hear?’

‘How much is that in total?’ Ransom wonders, idly. ‘In old money, I mean: pounds and pence? I don’t even know what I’m paying you. I don’t even know if you’re worth that amount. I don’t even know what you’re doing for me nowadays …’ He glances at her in the mirror. ‘What are you doing for me? What’s your role? What’s your official title?’

‘Chump,’ Esther answers, effortlessly.

‘That’d be right …’ Ransom addresses himself in the mirror again: ‘“Stuart Ransom, Professional Golfer, Chalk-talked by Chump!”’

He rolls his eyes, drolly. ‘I mean “transitioning”, Esther? Seriously? Is it any fucking wonder my game has gone to shite?’

He returns to his shave again.

‘Me not chalk-talkin’ ya, Stu,’ Esther mutters, wounded, ‘just offerin’ some tiny scrap of encouragement at the start of a long week …’

She glances over her shoulder with a significant look. ‘I don’t see nobody else here clamouring to do it.’

‘Is this how low we’ve sunk?’ Ransom addresses himself in the mirror again. ‘My idiotic PA catches half of Happy Gilmore on Sky Movies Gold and suddenly starts thinking she’s Dr Bob fuckin’ Rotella?!’

‘All I’m sayin’’ — Esther reaches out and adjusts the angle of the spotlight above the mirror to render the golfer’s complexion in a more congenial pallor — ‘is Jimmie had a fair point to make about —’