Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘Absolutely. I know your stepfather owns a company that manufactures cat litter. He ran for mayor in some hicksville town in Kentucky on an Independent ticket but lost his deposit. His mother was one of the first, successful, female orthopaedic surgeons in the South — she took up the vocation after her favourite uncle broke his back exercising a horse in the run-up to the Derby —’

‘Completely off the mark.’ Israel beams. ‘My stepfather doesn’t manufacture anything. He’s allergic to cat hair. He’s a lecturer at Berkeley where he’s an acknowledged, worldwide authority on the works of Derek Walcott. He owns three, small sketches by Basquiat which he acquired — in exchange for a shirt and a coach ticket — after they got arrested doing graffiti together. He’s fully ambidextrous — like me — and his non-identical twin brother is currently serving a punitive prison sentence in Indonesia for smuggling endangered birds’ eggs.’

‘How vile!’

Jen pops his glasses back on to his nose again and then carefully adjusts them to her satisfaction. ‘So anyway, this evil little dog’s just squatting there’ — she hastily returns to her story (a couple of new customers have now entered the bar area) — ‘with this filthy, poo-necklace-thingummy dangling out of its arse, and we’re all just staring at it, waiting for it to drop, but nothing happens …’

‘Sounds like it might need some assistance,’ Israel suggests, gently poking at the lone cube of ice in his Coke with a straw.

‘Exactly!’ Jen’s impressed. ‘You’re so sharp! So intuitive! Oh God — you’re not gay , are you?’

She grips the table in mock-horror.

‘If I wasn’t before, then I probably will be by the end of this anecdote,’ Israel sighs, camply.

‘“He’s going to need some assistance …”’ Jen relaxes her grip on the table (briefly mollified). ‘That’s precisely what his owner says. But after she’s said it she just stands there, eyeballing Sinclair, all expectant. “Don’t look at me!” Sinclair’s totally freaked-out. “I’m not going anywhere near it!”

‘“Well I can’t do anything,” the owner says, “I have a sensitive stomach.”’

‘ A sensitive stomach?! ’ Israel clucks.

‘The poor creature twirls and twirls,’ Jen continues, ‘until eventually I just can’t bear it any more. “Okay,” I say, “pass me a poo bag and I’ll try and get rid of it.”

‘“You’ll need to be extra-careful,” — the woman’s suddenly ultra-uptight and over-protective — “because long hairs can get twisted around the lower intestine and if you yank at them too violently you run the risk of disembowelling him through his anal cavity …”’

As Jen speaks the couple who’d formerly entered the bar (and who’d been quietly reading the bar-food blackboard) make a rapid exit.

‘I’m like: “Just give me a bloody poo bag!”’ She rolls her eyes, petulantly. ‘But of course she doesn’t have a poo bag, so now I’m scrabbling around in my school rucksack looking for a tissue or a spare piece of plastic. Eventually Sinclair finds an old Wagon Wheel wrapper in his pocket and I’m obliged to resort to using that. I crouch down in the snow, trying to protect my fingers as best I can, and reach towards the back end of the dog …

‘“Oh, there’s something you should probably know …” the woman tells me, almost as an afterthought.

‘“What’s that?” I ask, still reaching.

‘“He can sometimes be a little bit …”

‘The dog spins around and nips me! On the chin! I swear to God! The cheeky bastard turns and takes a lovely bite out of my chin! Draws blood! You can see the scar under my make-up …’

She lifts her chin to demonstrate, but nothing is visible bar an impressive watermark where her foundation finishes on her jawline.

‘Did you scream?’ Israel wonders.

‘Did I hell! I was in shock! And I was determined the little fucker wasn’t going to get the best of me, so I quickly scrambled to my feet, grabbed his collar, spun him around, clamped his scraggy neck between my calves …’

‘Thereby cunningly disabling his front end …’ Israel interjects.

‘Leaving both hands free to engage with the rear,’ Jen confirms.

‘Ah yes, the rear …’ Israel’s visibly traumatized. ‘How was it looking by this stage?’

‘Dire. But I took my courage in my hands, rearranged the Wagon Wheel wrapper …’

‘We don’t have Wagon Wheels in Jamaica,’ Israel informs her.

‘It’s basically a large, round, slightly soggy chocolate biscuit with a marshmallow centre,’ Jen explains, ‘although that’s a completely irrelevant detail at this super-charged point in the narrative …’

‘Sorry,’ Israel apologizes.

‘Apology accepted,’ Jen graciously allows. ‘So I rearrange the wrapper, and then I bend down and pinch on to the necklace at about its halfway point,’ she explains. ‘I guess it’d be around four inches long at this stage — which translates as approximately seven or eight centimetres …’ She pauses, drolly. ‘Just in case you still feel like you’re short on detail …’

‘Thanks,’ Israel nods, submissive, now.

‘Of course as soon as I start to yank, the dog’s owner is hysterically cautioning me against exerting too much pressure, so I gently tug at it, then release, then tug, then release …’

Jen performs a little pantomime of the process: ‘Sort of like milking a cow; and the necklace gradually extends to about six or seven inches …’ She pauses. ‘I inherited this doll off my mother when I was a kid. If you tugged on its blonde ponytail the hair would grow …’

Israel receives this bonus piece of information without comment.

‘Anyhow, after it reaches around the eight-inch stage the necklace stops coming,’ Jen continues, ‘it’s plugged. The poor dog really starts straining. The owner’s telling me to just “pinch it off …”’ She shudders. ‘But I’m determined to dislodge the remaining clump of whatever it is that’s causing the blockage, so I give it a final, sharp, little tug — the owner’s pretty much hysterical by this stage — and then Bingo! Out it plops!’

‘Thank the Lord!’ Israel exclaims.

‘I automatically release the pressure in my calves and the dog virtually explodes from between my legs and careers off across the park, the owner running after it in hot pursuit.

Naturally I try and gather up the necklace between my fingers so I can place it into a nearby rubbish bin …’

‘Brave, bold and public-spirited!’ Israel commends her.

‘… but it’s then that I notice something hard and round through the mass of hair and poo in what was the final, plug-y, clump-y section. I press at it, gingerly, through the Wagon Wheel wrapper and realize that it’s a piece of metal! As I do this, leaning forward, a drop of blood splashes into the snow from my chin, but I’m so intrigued that I barely even notice. I press at the clump more forcefully, detach the piece of metal and hold it up closer to my face to inspect it. Believe it or not, it’s actually a Claddagh ring …’

‘A …?’

‘A special kind of traditional, Irish friendship ring. Two hands — one on each side — cradling a central heart. I hold it out to Sinclair — who’s Irish. “You won’t believe this,” I say, suddenly almost tearful. “It’s a Claddagh ring. The dog was corked up by a Claddagh ring! Looks like it’s gold, too!”’

‘Incredible!’ Israel exclaims.

‘Even as I’m talking, though, the dog and its owner are strolling back towards us, the dog on its lead again. “Should you tell her?” Sinclair asks. “No,” I say, automatically, “that little fucker bit my chin. I’m owed.”