Nicola Barker - The Yips

Mutters silent incantation.

‘Loafers?’

Look of utter bemusement.

‘Uh … no …’

Sheila slowly shakes her head. ‘No, he didn’t …’

Dismissive.

‘But I hardly think a few drops of coffee will prove fatal to the …’

Sheila hears the front door opening, turns and lifts a quick hand to forestall Gene from speaking as he appears in the hallway.

‘Yes. Well that’s lovely. Oh dear, I think …’

Unconvincing.

‘… I think Mallory might be calling me from upstairs. I should probably …’

Angry grimace at Gene, followed by a brusque ‘winding-up’ gesture with her free hand.

‘Thank you, Jennifer. I’m sure it’ll be very much appreciated. Lovely …’

Icily professional.

‘You be sure to enjoy the rest of your evening, now …’

Pause.

‘Goodnight. Yes. Goodnight. Yes I will. I’ve written down the number. Yes, he knows how to reach you. Thank you. Take care, Jennifer. Goodnight.’

Sheila places down the receiver, closes her eyes for a moment, draws a deep breath, and manages (with considerable effort) to suppress the worst of her feelings of irritation. When she opens her eyes again Gene is standing before her. He has the military jacket slung over his arm but is still wearing the cap.

‘What on earth do you look like?’ she enquires, shooting a withering glance towards his headgear.

‘One of Ransom’s crazy brainwaves …’

He snatches the cap off, embarrassed. ‘Please tell me that wasn’t Jen,’ he mutters, following her through to the living room (where he carefully slides the cap on to the sideboard).

‘You said you’d be back by nine …’ Sheila grumbles.

‘I left a message on your phone …’

‘Saying you’d be home well before ten.’

Sheila throws herself down on to the sofa.

‘I got waylaid by Ransom’s manager as I was getting into the car,’ he explains. ‘There were these badgers running amok in the rubbish bins near her room. One had jammed his head inside this thick off-cut of crenellated, silver tubing …’

‘It appears that Jen’s feelings have been deeply injured,’ Sheila enunciates, drolly, plumping up the cushions and then shoving them behind her and leaning back, imperiously,‘by your omitting to tell her about your caddying plans during the cosy, little chat you had in the broom cupboard this morning.’

‘What?’ Gene’s astonished. ‘But that’s ridiculous! The idea hadn’t even been mooted at that stage.’

He pulls his phone from his pocket. ‘And after the stiff dressing-down his manager just gave me …’

He turns it on and registers a prodigious number of voice mails and SMSs.

‘The girl’s a pest,’ he mutters. ‘She’s developing this mad vendetta against Ransom. It’s like she’s obsessed.’

‘Is she ringing his mobile, too,’ Sheila wonders, tartly, ‘or just yours?’

‘I had it switched to message-bank …’

Gene glances up, observing Sheila’s expression (on the chilly side of glacial).

‘And we weren’t “together” in the broom cupboard,’ he rapidly backtracks. ‘I made her hide in there because she was upsetting all the customers. I stood — in full, public view — on the other side of the door.’

‘“Customers”?’ Sheila snorts (suddenly bored and exhausted by the whole affair). ‘Is that their official designation, now?’

As she speaks she picks up the TV remote, turns the television on, tunes it to Newsnight and presses ‘mute’.

On the arm of the sofa is an open copy of Women Who Marry Houses.

‘You found it, then,’ Gene says, pointing (eager to change the subject).

‘Did you know that Jen has a duplicate key to the office,’ Sheila wonders, ‘and that she sneaks in there after work to mess around on the computers?’

‘Uh …’ Gene frowns.

‘You do know?’

Sheila’s shocked.

‘I know she doesn’t have a computer at home’ — he shrugs — ‘so she sometimes uses the hotel’s one to type up her essays for college.’

‘Well, Jen was messing around in there tonight when the phone rang. It turned out to be a woman desperate to get in contact with you following a reading you did on her electricity meter …’

‘Right.’ Gene nods, trying not to appear too alarmed by this piece of news. ‘Did she happen to leave a home phone number?’

‘A mobile number. On the pad,’ Sheila confirms. ‘Jen said it was a woman called “V”, a tattooist —’

‘That’ll be the one I was telling you about this afternoon,’ Gene interrupts, going to fetch it.

‘She said this “V” was very distressed,’ Sheila calls after him.

Gene picks up the pad and frowns down at Sheila’s message, uncertain how to react. He opts to say nothing, just tears off the top page and pushes it into his pocket.

‘And that she’s actually one of the Tuckers,’ Sheila continues, ‘the “crazy” daughter, no less.’

Gene nods, flushing slightly, as he strolls back through to the living room. ‘There was the incident with the trampoline, remember?’

‘Vaguely,’ she concedes, ‘but I’m not sure if you made it clear that those two stories were connected: the trampoline and the tattooist …’

‘Really?’ Gene scratches his head, glancing over towards the TV. ‘Well I guess I just presumed —’

‘So you actually went back to the house again?’ she interrupts, frowning. ‘Was this Ransom’s bright idea?’

‘Ransom?’ Gene’s confused.

‘Why not? He could be employing you as a kind of go-between,’ Sheila gamely improvises, ‘a peacemaker.’

‘In my little turquoise helmet,’ Gene mutters, darkly.

‘Pardon?’

‘It had nothing to do with Ransom,’ he maintains. ‘I just forgot to take the reading the first time around, that’s all.’

‘You went to take a reading and then you forgot to take a reading …’ Sheila’s not entirely buying it.

‘There was a rat in the bath,’ Gene explains. ‘It’s a long story, but basically I fished it out and was carrying it around by the tail, not quite sure how to dispose of it, when I managed to barge in on this woman having a genital tattoo …’

Sheila is staring at him, wide-eyed.

‘So I forgot to take the reading — it slipped my mind — and returned today, on my lunch-break, but when I tried to take it this time …’

‘Sorry. Back up there for a second. You barged in on a woman …?’

‘… it looked like there was evidence of tampering with the meter,’ Gene continues. ‘I didn’t really know what to do — what to say — so I just made my excuses and got out of there.’

Sheila frowns, momentarily diverted by this final detail. ‘You think she’s been defrauding the electricity board?’

‘God no, not …’

Valentine’s name hangs in the air before him, dances in front of his lips, beckons to him — like the warm froth of milky foam on top of a steaming cup of cappuccino. Just uttering this name out loud (how much he longs to feel it fizz and bubble on his tongue!) seems like a strange kind of breach — a sworn secret idly shared — almost a betrayal.

He turns away for a second, slightly puzzled, using the jacket slung over his arm as a temporary diversion. He shakes it out and then hangs it over the door handle.

‘At least I don’t think so,’ he finally mutters. ‘It looked just fine to start off with, but then I noticed a couple of the screws were loose and tightened them with my thumbnail …’ He turns back to face her again. ‘The whole structure was very unstable. It was being propped up from below by a wad of paper — a letter. When I pulled it out …’