Nicola Barker - The Yips

Valentine drops her hands and stares at him, her eyes panicked and unfocused.

‘A piggy-back,’ Gene concludes, somewhat flatly.

‘Sorry?’

Valentine frowns.

‘A piggy-back. It’s the world’s greatest stress-buster. It never fails.’

‘Hang on a second.’ Valentine still isn’t quite sure what he’s getting at. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting …?’

Gene thinks for a moment, and then, ‘Sure.’ He shrugs. ‘Why not?’

He takes off his jacket and throws it on to the sofa. Her turns his back to her and holds out his arms, glancing over his shoulder.

‘Jump on.’

Valentine just stands there.

Gene drops his arms. ‘I mean if you think you’re too old for a piggy-back …’

His tone is fond, but teasing. ‘Or too serious, or too important …’

‘Fine.’

Valentine yanks up the tracksuit bottoms, moves in close behind him, lightly rests her hands on his shoulders and prepares to jump. The first attempt is a disaster. Her jump is too low and he grabs the fabric of the tracksuit on one leg while missing the other altogether. It’s as much as she can muster not to crash, spread-eagled, to the floor.

‘Useless!’ Gene gently mocks her.

‘My tracksuit’s too baggy!’ she grumbles.

‘Really?’ Gene muses. ‘And there was me always thinking tracksuits were designed to improve flexibility.’

‘Fuck you!’

Valentine pulls off the tracksuit bottoms and throws them on to the sofa alongside his jacket. She straightens her boxer shorts to maintain levels of propriety.

‘Ready?’ she barks.

‘As I’ll ever be.’ He nods, bracing himself.

Valentine leaps. This time it’s a good jump. He deftly grabs her legs and bounces her, effortlessly, up on to his hips. He shoves his forearms under her knees. She tenses her thighs and throws her arms around his shoulders. Her hot cheek presses against his ear.

‘Giddy-up!’ she puffs, sarcastic, spurring him on with a bare foot.

Gene starts off with a few, brief circuits around the room, then veers into the hallway, turns a sharp left, heads towards the studio, performs a rapid about-turn, canters towards the front door and then back again. They repeat this trajectory several times. On their third circuit, as they draw close to the front door, Valentine kicks out a leg and points.

‘It’s so bright,’ she mutters, intrigued, ‘is it a full moon out there tonight?’

‘Uh … Yeah,’ he pants, pausing, ‘or as good as.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah,’ he repeats, nodding. ‘Pretty much.’

‘Then we should go moon chasing!’ She laughs.

‘Moon …?’

‘Didn’t you ever do it as a kid?’ She angles her head to stare at his face. ‘Get shit-faced on mushrooms or cider or skunk, then jump in a car and go moon chasing?’

‘No,’ Gene confesses, ‘can’t say that I did.’

‘Then let’s go!’

She bounces up and down, excitedly. ‘You don’t know what you’ve been missing!’

She spurs him on, impatiently, with her foot.

‘Really? Outside?’ Gene’s anxious. ‘Are you sure …?’

‘Why not? It’s late. There’ll be no one about.’

She reaches forward and unfastens the latch — her breath on his cheek — and in that brief instant she is transformed from a simple weight — a general load, a casual burden — into a complete physical entity. He feels the intimacy of his hands beneath her knees. He feels her breasts against his back. The silk of her kimono brushes his arms.

He bites his lip, stricken, wondering how on earth he has contrived to arrive at this place.

‘ Mooon chasing!’ she croons, laughing.

‘What about your mother?’ he asks, daunted.

‘Just for a minute,’ she begs him. ‘It’s been so long …’

‘How long?’

‘Ten months. A year? Please. Please .’

‘But I thought …?’

‘ Please …’ she wheedles, hugging him more tightly, angling her toes towards each other, ‘I feel fine when I’m with you. I can do it. I know I can. Just for a minute … one minute …’

He ducks down his head and they charge outside.

‘ Mooon chasing!’ She laughs, pointing to the sky, ecstatic.

‘Which way?’ he wonders, half-registering the regretful creak of the gate behind him, then the mournful crunch of the tarmac beneath his feet. The moon hangs in front of them — huge, smug and unassailable — behind the opposite terrace of houses.

‘Number seventy-three’ — she points — ‘there’s an entryway … the place is derelict. It’s been empty for years. As kids we all thought it was haunted. There’s a gap in the fence out the back, then a line of garages …’

He follows her directions, feeling less and less confident — less distinctively himself — with every advancing step he takes.

‘ Mooon chasing!’ she whoops.

They enter the passageway and are immediately immersed in a thick, cool dankness, their heightened senses cruelly assaulted by the fuzzy squeak of ripe urine, the grumbling snarl of burned plastic, the poignant whisper of mildew …

He feels her inhale, sharply, then hold her breath, her eyes squeezed shut, her arms tightening around his neck, her nose pushing — puppy-soft — against the skin behind his ear. He thrills to feel her burrow into him. He burgeons in the face of her helplessness — inflates, expands — feels effortlessly bold and brave and powerful. His skin glows and prickles with a sudden, jolting — utterly ludicrous — significance.

Five … six … seven … eight thudding seconds later and they emerge back into the light again. Gene blinks, peering around him, momentarily disorientated. They’re in a long wild garden, high-walled on either side.

The moon shines down, its gaze bold and frank and unremitting, its industrious rays carefully highlighting every edge and leaf and angle, every gland and hair and pore with delicate splashes of luminous, yellow ink. Gene feels the gentle swipe of its brush against his throat, tastes its mellow lustre against his lips.

He apprehends — with a slight shudder — that the world is at once cloaked by this exotic radiance (feathered, sheathed, obfuscated), yet also tenderly picked clean by its glinting beak. This is not a searchlight or a spotlight — not a light with which to intimidate or interrogate — and yet, in spite of that (or perhaps, even, because of it) he sees that it is a light where all that is hidden must somehow, inexorably, be revealed. He knows, in that instant (his heart singing and howling and lurching), that he will envelop Valentine in that lemon glow, and that he, in turn, will be enveloped.

Gene starts wading through the garden — like a doughty, lard-smattered, cross-Channel swimmer entering the choppy surf — his feet far less sure now, sometimes stumbling, forging a chaotic route through a seemingly impenetrable mess of biting nettles, old bricks, broken furniture and brambles. He feels the skin on his arms being torn and stung, feels Valentine tensing her knees and feet, but she does not release her grip on him or urge him to turn back again. Her head is angled to the sky, her pale throat arching, a luminescent hummingbird thirstily imbibing the abundant lunar nectar.

He follows a thin, cracked, concrete path. They pass a ruined pond, then a large, lopsided Christmas tree strangled by honeysuckle, then, just beyond that, an improbable heap — a giant mound — of fresh grass clippings. The back fence lies ahead of them. His arms are smarting and aching. The moon suddenly dips behind a cloud.

‘I can’t see the gap …’

He blinks into the darkness, panicked.

‘Set me down. I’ll find it …’