Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘Hang on a second …’ Ransom scowls. ‘Please tell me you didn’t actually let slip to that gobby, talentless little pip-squeak that Stuart Ransom is strapped for cash?’

‘Strap?!’ Esther echoes, astonished. ‘We stony-broke, Stu! We mortgage to the hilt! We strugglin’ to find cash for last night bar bill!’

‘And you reckon that’s okay, do you?’ Ransom’s almost hoarse with rage now. ‘I mean you reckon it’s perfectly acceptable, as Stuart Ransom’s manager, as Stuart Ransom’s chief representative on fuckin’ earth , to go around cheerfully informing complete, friggin’ strangers what he can and he can’t afford?!’

‘Keep your hair on, boy!’ Esther exclaims. ‘This Don Hansard we talkin’ about …’

‘Holy fuck , Esther!’

Ransom grabs a towel from the nearby rail and pushes his face into it, horrified.

Esther sucks her tongue, bored. ‘You went to Q School with Don Hansard,’ she sighs, ‘you bail him out in Finland over that dodgy score-card. He live in your house in Holland Park, rent-free, for eighteen month after he split from Shirley. That man owe you, Stu —’

She’s interrupted by a gentle knock on the door. She inspects her watch. ‘That’ll be Toby. He schedule in for ten.’

Ransom’s head remains sunk in the towel. His hands are shaking.

‘An’ we not even get to look at the itinerary,’ she grumbles, observing the hands with a somewhat jaundiced eye. ‘You want him come back in the morning? You got Terence Nimrod at nine …’

Ransom makes no effort to respond.

‘We ain’t got nobody for the bag,’ she persists. ‘The course got three caddie, but they all book up an’ I sure as hell not humpin’ that thing around again …’

She places an anxious hand on her stomach. ‘I hear James Ray twiddlin’ his thumb in Dublin while Tim Pagel recovering from back surgery …’

Still nothing from Ransom.

‘Look, me not wanna freak you out, Stu,’ she murmurs, her tone suddenly gentle, almost caressing, ‘but you been talkin’ about yourself in the third person again …’

Pause.

‘The shrink said …’

‘Bollocks!’ Ransom’s face emerges from the towel, puce and indignant.

‘You done it three time in as many minute.’ Esther is typically unyielding. ‘You said, “as Stuart Ransom manager”; “as Stuart Ransom chief repre—”’

‘It was a figure of speech!’ Ransom hisses.

‘Everything that come out your mouth is a figure of speech.’ Esther shrugs. ‘Everything that come out my mouth is a figure of speech, come to that.’

‘I don’t think you grasp the meaning of a “figure of speech”,’ Ransom rejoins.

‘I understand perfectly well, thank you very much,’ Esther demurs. ‘I also remember all what the shrink say about it. He say referrin’ to yourself in the third person was an early warning sign that you was becoming “detached from reality” and it must be strongly discourage under all possible circumstances.’

‘I can’t believe you’re bringing this up!’ Ransom’s childishly defensive, bleating, almost stamping his foot. ‘And at such a critical moment, Esther! The start of the week’s play!’

‘There never gonna be a good time, Stu,’ Esther maintains.

‘At the start of a week’s play , Esther!’ Ransom reiterates. ‘It’s completely counter-productive!’

A second knock on the door.

‘The pro-am not till Friday,’ Esther informs him, checking the itinerary.

‘And it was a virus ,’ Ransom persists, slinging the towel on to the floor. ‘A virus. Yeah? I was ill . My face was like a balloon. My balls were covered in scabs. It was glandular . I only saw the shrink because the insurance people —’

‘It a yeast infection, Stu!’ Esther snaps. ‘If a woman get a yeast infection she go to the chemist an’ buy herself some bicarbonate, then it done and dusted. When you get yourself a yeast infection it glandular fever! It “Stop the world! Hold the front page! Stuart Ransom got him some tiny little scab on his testicle!”’

‘How many times do I have to repeat myself?’ Ransom’s bored and exasperated. ‘The yeast infection was just a tiny symptom of the larger malaise …’

‘As God is my witness’ — Esther raises an impatient hand to ward him off — ‘Jimmie tell me you was discussing the Course Management idea just a couple of day since …’

‘Oh yeah, I discussed it with him all right.’ Ransom’s face is glowing. ‘I discussed it with him directly before I sacked his scraggy arse!’

‘Course Management always come in handy,’ Esther persists. ‘Remember Royal Birkdale? Huh? Micky fall down on his knee an’ he beg you not to use that wood on the twelfth …’

‘The bloody wood!’ Ransom throws up his hands. ‘One shot! One, stupid, bloody shot! When will I ever hear the end of it?’

Esther stares at him, darkly.

‘Well if you not listen to your coach, an’ you not listen to your caddie, then maybe …’

‘Maybe what? I should listen to you ?’ Ransom smirks, contemptuously.

A third knock at the door. Esther hands him the clipboard, then bends down, with a grunt, to pick up the dropped towel.

‘Could do worse,’ she murmurs, straightening up again.

‘See this?’

Ransom points to the small cut on his cheek. ‘This is what happens when I give you free rein with my career, Esther. I end up meeting a deranged, drug-addled, bottle-toting kid whose mother I put into a coma at the hotel she formerly worked in as a publicity stunt.’

‘No point cryin’ over spilt milk.’ Esther shrugs. ‘’Specially when it get ya page twelve in the Mail …’ she snorts, mirthlessly. ‘Man, that as close as you been to the sport section in some while …’

‘This is precisely why my life is falling apart!’ Ransom gurgles.

‘This is precisely why you got a career right now,’ Esther corrects him.

‘I have a career because I’m a world-class golfer,’ Ransom corrects her.

‘You got a career because you could handle a club an’ had good hair — good, thick hair — fifteen, long year ago,’ Esther retorts, sharply. ‘Ya got lucky, Stu. But your luck finally run out. Now you gotta buckle down an’ work, same as the rest of us.’

Ransom’s hand moves to his hairline, then down to the cut on his cheek again.

A fourth knock sounds on the door.

‘Some likkle-ickle, baby cut on your cheek!’ Esther guffaws, heading off to answer it. ‘I took a bigger blow to my dignity this afternoon gettin’ your room upgraded.’

‘Great. Terrific. Thanks .’ Ransom turns to face the mirror again, wincing. ‘The gloves are finally off, eh?’

‘Gloves?’ Esther chuckles, wryly. ‘I wa’ dragged up in Trenchtown, Stu. We never had us no gloves in the ghetto.’

‘ Jeez . Cue the friggin’ violins!’ Ransom mutters, palpably outmanoeuvred.

‘Listen up,’ Esther volunteers, fingers gripping the door handle. ‘If you want me treat you “world class”, then you better start behavin ’ world class: play a round in under four over par, dally more than twenty minute on the range, phone your wife so’s I don’t spend half my born day fieldin’ her call, quit them muscle relaxant an’ ditch the belly putter. Deal?’

Esther spits on her palm and proffers him her hand.

Ransom doesn’t respond. He’s staring down at his itinerary, scowling. After several seconds he pulls the yellow Post-it from the front and screws it into a ball. ‘Don fucking Hansard offering the Stuart Ransom pathetic, little hand-outs on a Course Management seminar?!’ he scoffs. ‘That’s pure, unadulterated bullshit! It’s an outrage! I mean a whole ten per cent off for a tragic DVD appearance?!’