Nicola Barker - The Yips

(Ransom doesn’t actually wait for Gene to respond.)

‘They’re gonna build a whole, new generation of robots with two-tiered brains, yeah? The conscious brain and the unconscious brain. They’re gonna establish this same level of competition within the robot’s mechanical bonce, and when they do, trust me, those evil metal fuckers are gonna take over the world. They’re gonna take over the friggin’ world . Simple as.’

‘But surely …?’ Gene’s starts off.

‘Did your schizo-grandad happen to play the trumpet?’ Ransom wonders.

‘Sorry? My …? Uh …’ Gene’s all at sea. ‘My schizo …?’

‘The trumpet?’ Ransom repeats, miming a trumpet.

Gene finally catches up. ‘Not the trumpet, no.’

‘Oh.’ Ransom looks vaguely disappointed.

‘If I remember correctly it was actually …’

‘A fife?’ Ransom prompts, his red eyes suddenly very focused.

‘Not a fife, no, more of a …’

Gene battles to describe the instrument’s special curves with his hands.

‘A horn?’ Ransom interrupts, struggling to contain his excitement.

‘No, no, not a horn, but something very …’

‘A bugle?’ Ransom springs to his feet (as if having been physically jolted forward by an unexpected parp from exactly such an instrument).

‘Yeah,’ Gene confirms, ‘a bugle, but with …’

Gene twiddles his fingers.

‘A keyed bugle?’ Ransom grabs Gene’s twiddling hand and grips on to it, emphatically.

‘I’ve still got it somewhere, up in the attic.’ Gene tries — within the boundaries of polite behaviour — to free himself (and fails).

A peculiarly uncomfortable five-second hiatus follows before Ransom says, ‘Well that’s exactly what we need to finish off the outfit.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ Gene shrugs.

‘You know, now I actually come to think about it’ — Ransom releases his grip and leans over to grab his hat from its hook — ‘maybe a Club Sandwich wouldn’t be too far off the mark: granary bread, extra bacon, extra avocado. Mango power shake. Packet of parsnip crisps. Banana. Nectarine. Handful of cashews …’

He pushes the cap down on to his head, un-shoots the latch, saunters out of the cubicle and appraises himself for a second in the mirror.

‘Bloody hell!’ he murmurs, applying a moistened thumb to each of his eyebrows. ‘Beware the heavy-handed blonde with the foundation bottle!’

‘Sorry’ — Gene pops his head around the door, confused — ‘are you actually expecting me to go and fetch that for you?’

Sheila gazes at herself in the mirror, draws a sharp breath and bursts into wild peals of maniacal laughter. She then stops — just as abruptly — steps in closer to her reflection, scowls, blinks, raises a tentative hand to her head, then reaches out — with the same hand — to touch her image (like an incredulous primate on first encountering its reflection in a clear, mountain pool).

Valentine stands at her shoulder, saying nothing.

Finally: ‘It’s just that I hadn’t actually realized …’ Sheila whispers (unusually emotional — feminine — girlish , almost), ‘I mean the transformation — it’s extraordinary! It’s like … it’s like I just …’

She gestures, ineffectually.

‘Like you just hatched,’ Valentine fills in, nodding. ‘Like you’re fresh out of the egg. Like you’re brand-new.’

Sheila closes her eyes and shakes her head (as if this profound feeling of joy she’s experiencing must be deeply inappropriate at some level — transgressing a fundamental Commandment, at the very least). When she opens them again she glances down, surprised. Nessa is clinging to her legs, her pink cheek pushed into the fabric of Sheila’s trouser, her blonde halo of curls bobbing against Sheila’s priestly uniform’s ineffable black like a spume of heavenly foam.

The child cuddles with an unexpected intensity. Sheila finds it impossible (in her heightened state) not to be moved. She turns her head to make direct eye contact with Valentine, her hand indicating, her brows raised. She mouths the word ‘ Ow! ’ and grins.

‘You like it, though?’ Valentine steps forward and fluffs Sheila’s tiny fringe. ‘I mean it’s quite radical, but you can definitely carry it.’

‘Not much left to hide behind.’ Sheila stares at herself again, in wonder.

‘Will Gene approve?’ Valentine murmurs, suddenly anxious.

‘Gene?’ Sheila seems confused — almost startled — by this question. ‘ Hmmn … Will Gene like it?’ she ponders, gazing at her reflection for a second, then shrugging. ‘Yeah, of course — I’m sure he will.’

‘Well, for what it’s worth, I think you look amazing.’ Valentine bends down and gently prises Nessa’s arms away. ‘It’s taken years off you. The strong eyebrows work a treat — that powerful jawline — those wonderful, angular cheekbones …’

‘Look at me!’ Sheila marvels, twirling around, buoyed up by all the compliments. ‘Dowdy old Sheila Phillips sporting a Valentine Wickers Original!’

She beams at her, delighted. ‘I’m just so incredibly grateful.’

‘It was nothing,’ Valentine insists — almost ashamed — removing a tissue from her pocket and wiping Nessa’s nose with it.

‘It was extremely kind of you,’ Sheila persists, ‘and bloody brave, come to that. The effortless way you handled those scissors! You really must have nerves of steel.’

‘Brave?’ Valentine scoffs.

‘Although I guess once you’ve etched a deep line of permanent ink into a total stranger’s skin,’ Sheila reasons, admiring, ‘everything else must feel like a walk in the park by comparison.’

‘Walks in the park aren’t really my forte ,’ Valentine avows, grimacing.

‘Gene did mention something about that.’ Sheila nods, sympathetic. ‘How long since you last ventured out?’

Valentine gazes, anxiously, into Sheila’s shining face, looking for any evidence of aside. There is none.

‘This morning,’ she finally murmurs. ‘Mum’s new therapist brought his wife over to the house. She was wearing a full-length black robe. I tried it on and stepped outside in it, just to see how it would feel.’

‘Really?’ Sheila’s fascinated. ‘A burqa ?’

‘If I’m with someone I trust — I mean if they make me feel safe and I’m in the right kind of mood …’ She pauses. ‘But that’s incredibly rare. It hardly ever happens. And even then sometimes this sudden feeling of panic … I mean the thought of being in wide open spaces or — worse still — in crowds …’

She puts a hand up to her throat. ‘So much for the nerves of steel, eh?’ she mutters.

Sheila thinks hard for a moment. ‘Did you ever stop and think that your problem with the outside world might be completely rational?’ she asks.

‘My agoraphobia?’ Valentine lifts up Nessa and slings her over her hip.

‘Well your mother went for “a walk in a park”,’ Sheila logically expands, ‘and she ended up in a coma.’

‘But the odds on that happening again …’ Valentine’s plainly wary of this approach. ‘I mean it was just a random accident.’

‘So there’s no ill-feeling on your part?’ Sheila persists.

‘Ill-feeling?’ Valentine echoes.

‘Towards Ransom? Your brother? Your mother, even?’

‘My mother?’ Valentine’s confused.

‘For clipping your wings. For imposing this huge duty — this awful burden — of care. For stifling your independence.’

‘How d’you figure that one out?’ Valentine’s still befuddled.

‘I read somewhere once how women often develop agoraphobia as a kind of unconscious protest …’

Valentine shakes her head, instantly resistant.