Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘Yeah. Maybe …’ Valentine shrugs. She grabs a small, cream enamel jug and commences pouring water over Sheila’s hair, careful to protect her face while she does so.

‘How about you, then?’ Sheila persists. ‘Why do you create art?’

‘One of my biggest inspirations has always been Louise Bourgeois,’ Valentine automatically harks back to her conversation with Gene from the previous day.

‘I love her!’ Sheila exclaims, lifting her head and clanking it into the enamel jug in her excitement. ‘I did a phone interview with her in the eighties for the magazine. She was just … just so incredibly awe-inspiring! So articulate! So mischievous! And believe it or not I actually sensed there might’ve been an influence — very subtle, totally implicit. I think that’s partly what I was responding to so positively this morning.’

‘Well you’ll probably already know that Bourgeois always said she created art “to survive”,’ Valentine doggedly continues. ‘That’s kind of how I feel about it. When I pick up the tattoo gun or I draw a perfect eyebrow on to my face with an exquisitely sharp kohl pencil, I sort of feel my focus shift. I feel a pressure lift. I’m released from the need to think about all this other stuff, this bad stuff, the negative thoughts, the anxieties …’

‘Art’s like a kind of prayer,’ Sheila suggests.

‘Yeah.’ Valentine’s quizzical. ‘I never really thought about it that way before … I guess I tend to forget my emotions when I’m doing a tattoo,’ she struggles to explain. ‘I stop asking questions. I stop panicking. I’m so focused, so intent.’

‘ Exactly like a prayer, then.’ Sheila grins, vindicated.

‘Although art’s all about ego’ — Valentine frowns — ‘and isn’t prayer meant to be the polar opposite of that?’

‘It’s just a question of intent,’ Sheila argues, ‘if the art expresses something sublime then how can it help expressing God?’

‘Yeah …’ Valentine doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

‘Was your dad much of an artist?’ Sheila wonders (tactfully moving to less esoteric ground). ‘Did he have a good reputation in the world of tattooing?’

‘He was always very traditional — very old-fashioned. Hated the ultra-realist stuff.’

Valentine chuckles to herself, wryly. ‘It’s actually quite scary to think that I’m continuing his legacy at some level … that I’m the dutiful daughter carefully following in his footsteps; you know, just by maintaining the house, the way I dress, the tattooing. I always thought I was so defiant, such a rebel …’

She trails off, anxiously.

‘You can enjoy things in common with a person without needing to identify with them completely,’ Sheila opines.

‘I was always so embarrassed by him, though,’ Valentine confesses, ‘the things he did and said in public — the political stuff.’

‘But when everything’s said and done, he was still your dad.’

Sheila baldly states the obvious.

‘I’m marked for life!’ Valentine concedes, almost joking, but not entirely.

She applies a small dab of shampoo to Sheila’s hair and gently rubs it in, then performs a brief head massage with her fingertips. The skin on Sheila’s arms forms into appreciative goose-bumps.

‘That’s lovely,’ she sighs. Valentine’s fingers instantly stiffen.

‘So you have a formal background in art?’ she asks, quickly picking up the jug and starting to rinse.

‘Nope.’ Sheila shakes her head (miraculously avoiding getting water in her eyes). ‘I studied English at Oxford — did a PhD — but in my free time I helped set up this radical arts magazine called OnTheRag . It caused quite a stir at the time — was considered ground-breaking in terms of graphics and content. We had a strong art agenda. A lot of the people I brought through ended up becoming big figures in the international art establishment.’

‘That woman you mentioned in your email?’ Valentine suggests.

‘Exactly. I’ve been off the radar for quite a few years now, but I like to think I still have pretty good instincts.’

Valentine finishes rinsing, then wrings the excess water from Sheila’s hair and uses the spare towel from the draining-board to rub it dry.

‘Okay’ — she forms the towel into a little turban — ‘I think we’re pretty much done here.’

Sheila straightens up, carefully holding the turban in place with her hand, then follows Valentine to a nearby chair and sits down on it.

‘So you …’ — Valentine opens the dresser to find a comb and some scissors — ‘you met your husband at university?’

She remains turned away from Sheila as she asks this question, her voice purposely casual.

‘Heavens, no!’ Sheila snorts. ‘Gene’s not remotely academic!’

She pauses, guiltily. ‘Although that’s through no fault of his own, obviously,’ she quickly modifies, ‘his education was so heavily disrupted as a kid by cancer therapy.’

‘So how many times …?’ Valentine locates the comb and scissors in their special, leather pouch.

‘Seven, all told. Then a major car accident a few years back which killed his sister, severely injured his niece and shattered his leg.’

Valentine’s shocked. She immediately recalls the crazy-paving of scars on Gene’s belly and his chest. Her skin tingles as she visualizes that body so beautiful and strong and lean, yet so clumsily sewn together — carelessly hacked together, like a badly made rag doll — with reams of wild, shiny white stitching. Her pupils expand. Her nostrils flare. Her throat contracts.

‘We actually met while my dad was having minor surgery on his gall bladder,’ Sheila explains, oblivious. ‘I grew up in Suffolk, but my parents moved to Luton when I was nineteen. Dad had a job in air-traffic control. I was in the middle of a divorce at the time, stuck at home with Stan …’

‘Stan?’ Valentine echoes, hoarsely.

‘My son. Gene’s stepson.’

Valentine nods.

‘Anyhow,’ Sheila continues, ‘I met a few people while visiting Dad on the ward — some of the local volunteers. They persuaded me into doing a couple of shifts on the hospital radio station. There was a Christian-led group in charge of the rota. Gene was constantly in and out of the place having bouts of chemo. His cancer had been declared terminal at that stage, but he was such a positive person, really inspirational.’

‘You were married previously?’ Valentine double-checks the bow on her apron, places the open pouch on to the table, then moves to the back of Sheila and carefully unwinds her turban.

‘Yeah. I’d got hitched to this Polish guy at college.’ Sheila grimaces. ‘I guess you could call it a marriage of convenience. He was the brother of a dear friend of mine who needed to secure residency in the UK. We’d liked each other from the off … It was kind of calculated and completely un-calculated at the same time …’

‘Spontaneous,’ Valentine interjects, fluffing out her wet hair and then grabbing the comb.

‘Exactly.’ Sheila nods. ‘He’d run this Polish film cooperative — pre the ’89 revolution. It was all very “underground” and exciting as I recall. Either way’ — she shrugs, as Valentine commences combing — ‘it was a huge mistake. I fell pregnant with Stanislav and he ran a mile. I dropped out of college, had this huge crisis of confidence …’

‘That’s pretty difficult to imagine!’ Valentine grins, almost disbelieving.

‘You don’t know the half of it!’ Sheila retorts. ‘I’d always been very ambitious, very centred, very driven — wanted to grab the world by its lapels and really shake it up. Then suddenly all that certainty, all that focus seemed to fall away from me.’