Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘So here’s the deal.’ Ransom’s suddenly businesslike. ‘I’ll quadruple whatever’s currently in the pot if Pygmy-boy there hasn’t got a stick of Touche Eclat tucked into his blazer pocket which he nicked out of his secretary’s handbag after last night’s obligatory, conference bunk-up …’

‘Touche Eclat?’ Artily-bespectacled’s completely at a loss.

‘Pale make-up: foundation or powder or concealer,’ Ransom expands, ‘something to simulate bird mess, basically, which he smeared over the jacket, on the sly, when he realized he was losing, so that he could disappear into the toilets and make contact with a chess helpline on his BlackBerry …’

‘A chess helpline?!’ Blue-blazer expostulates, agog. ‘Are you perfectly insane?!’

‘The chalk was missing from the blackboard in the pool room this morning,’ the golfing father helpfully interjects. ‘I reported it to reception myself.’

‘ Chalk! A stub of chalk! The man’s a genius!’ Ransom emits an ecstatic whoop, shoves his phone into his pocket and makes a sudden beeline for Blue-blazer across the board. Father and son (after a tiny pause) join in the chase, approaching Blue-blazer — in a pincer movement — from the other side.

‘But I don’t …’ Artily-bespectacled is still mystified. Blue-blazer, meanwhile, has grabbed hold of a white knight to protect himself. Ransom scoops up a black queen.

‘Checkmate!’ he hollers. ‘Game over! Throw down the jacket, my little friend, or suffer the consequences!’

‘This is assault!’ Blue-blazer hollers, as the child grabs at his jacket and attempts to run off with it. ‘This is an utterly unprovoked assault! Del Renzio! Call Security!’

He batters clumsily at the child with the white knight and knocks him, backwards, into the small, privet hedge that has been planted a couple of yards beyond the board’s outer perimeter. The top of the hedge has been cut to simulate the effect of castle battlements.

‘Those chess pieces are custom made!’ Artily-bespectacled runs towards them, horrified. ‘They’re individually crafted pieces of fibreglass. Each one costs in excess of seven hundred and eighty pounds …’

The child lands at an ungainly angle, still clutching on to the blazer, his right arm twisted beneath his torso. His initial delight at having wrested the blazer away from his adversary is quickly overtaken by the cruel realization that all is not well with him, physically. He tries — and fails — to clamber to his feet again, inhales sharply, then starts to wail.

‘What’s wrong?’ his father demands.

‘My arm!’ the boy keens, pawing at his shoulder, his cheeks flooding with tears. ‘I can’t lift my arm! I can’t move my fingers!’

‘D’you have any idea what you’ve done?!’ The father rounds on Blue-blazer, jabbing at his chest, furiously, with his index finger. ‘D’you have any idea who this is? This isn’t just some insignificant, little nobody! This is the Wolf! The Wolf , d’you hear me?! This is Britain’s number-one golfer in the under-twelve age range! The Leamington Echo called him “The Great White Hope of the British Game”!’

(As it so happens, the Wolf is actually ranked seventeenth in the UK under-twelve category.)

Ransom, meanwhile, has dropped the black queen, hurdled the hedge and is at the boy’s side in a matter of mere seconds. He pulls the jacket out from under him, rifles through one of the pockets and unearths a packet of Polo mints. The boy is still clutching at his shoulder and whimpering as the father snatches the white knight from Blue-blazer’s tight embrace and whacks him across the side of the head with it.

In the brief hiatus that follows (during which he has helped himself to a Polo mint and proffered one to the wailing child), Ransom is quickly able to assess the full extent of the boy’s injuries. He promptly lifts him to his knees, positions himself to the rear, wraps his arms around his shoulder and chest, grips him firmly, tells him to take a deep breath, and then makes a sudden, sharp movement (which is followed by a small — yet deeply satisfying — clicking sound). He then releases the child.

‘How’s that feel?’

The boy sits quietly for a second, shell-shocked.

‘How’s that feel?’ the dad echoes, dropping the white knight and hurdling the hedge himself.

‘Disconnected his collar bone,’ Ransom explains, proffering him a Polo mint (which is cordially refused), then delving back into the blazer’s pockets again. ‘There’ll probably be a small amount of bruising. Just keep it rested for a day or so and he’ll be right as rain.’

The boy has lifted his arm and is moving his fingers, gingerly, as the father watches on, in awe.

‘You’re a Godsend,’ he murmurs. ‘A genius!’

The Wolf (in accordance with his father’s stupefied assessment of the situation) scrambles to his feet and commences an ear-splitting howl of victory (the howl is his trademark, his bugle call).

‘How the hell do I go about thanking you?’ the father demands, turning to Ransom, his eyes tearing up.

‘Uh … I dunno …’ Ransom winces (slightly unnerved by the baying child). He considers his response for a pico-second. ‘A nice letter to the Official Website, maybe …?’ He shrugs. ‘A phone call to the local press …? I mean, whatever you feel comfortable with …’

As he speaks his attention is momentarily distracted by a second, mystery object in the blazer’s pocket. He withdraws his hand and blinks down at it, quizzically. It is a small tube of a popular brand of spermicidal cream.

‘ Wow ,’ Ransom shakes his head as he inspects it, perfectly astonished. ‘I thought you could only get this stuff as a foam — in those tiny, pump-action aerosols … Man! ’ he cackles. ‘Are they seriously still manufacturing this shit in tubes? That’s brilliant! It’s hilarious!’ He rocks back on his heels. ‘Jesus, Joseph and Mary, I love this country! It’s so friggin’ old school!’

Valentine enters the room and discovers Gene standing in front of her tiny shrine, gazing — with some astonishment — at a large, black and white photograph of a vagina which hangs, lopsidedly, on the wall behind it.

‘That’s not what it looks like,’ she says, bending down to blow out a tea-light (which still flickers away, doggedly, before the tiny, roaring, cartoonish image of Kali). ‘I mean it’s not pornography, it’s art. It’s a tattoo. The hair on the … the hair’s not real. It’s a tattoo.’

‘But it’s so incredibly lifelike,’ Gene murmurs, squinting, then drawing in still closer, amazed.

‘Yeah.’

She runs a nervous hand through her newly bobbed fringe. During her brief absence she’s removed the curler and changed into a pair of high-waisted jeans: classic, dark denim, American-made; tight on the hip, baggy on the legs, with matching, beige, elasticated braces attached, and a snugly fitting gingham shirt underneath.

‘It’s not normally hung up there,’ she adds, ‘I was just showing it to a client.’

‘The wicker was impressive,’ Gene muses, ‘but that’s actually quite astonishing.’

‘Wicker?’ Valentine’s slow to catch on.

‘At the hotel. Your brother removed his shirt …’

‘Really?’ She scowls, irritated. ‘Why’d he do that?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Gene turns to face her and immediately notices how the elastic of the braces curves around her breasts. He quickly turns away again. ‘To show it off, I guess.’

‘The wicker was an early piece,’ she mutters.

‘And now you’ve moved on to … uh …’ Gene points, lamely.

‘Merkins.’

She isn’t afraid to say it out loud.