Nicola Barker - The Yips

Valentine assesses her reaction, almost coldly.

‘The ones with numbers are obviously more valuable,’ she explains.

‘That’s revolting!’

Sheila instinctively wipes both hands on the front of her shirt.

‘There’s a whip, too,’ Valentine adds.

‘Whip?’ Sheila echoes.

‘From one of the camps — I forget which.’ She shrugs. ‘Auschwitz, Treblinka … He’d bring it out on special occasions when we were kids. Tell us stories. Show it off.’

Sheila says nothing. She’s momentarily lost for words. Flaccid. Sickened.

‘This is his real inheritance.’ Valentine smiles, her eyes hard as flint. ‘These are the things we took pleasure in together. His … his legacy? Isn’t that the word you used earlier?’

Sheila just shakes her head, appalled.

‘His legacy,’ Valentine repeats. ‘The skin. The ink. The tattoo. The gift. The pain. The artistry … Doesn’t seem quite so wonderful now, does it?’

‘This was your father’s collection,’ Sheila stolidly maintains.

Valentine concedes this point with a small tip of the head. ‘But I do love the skin,’ she muses, ‘just like he did. And the paler the skin, the stronger the mark — the brighter — the more indelible …’

‘It’s different.’ Sheila winces. ‘God — how can you bear to hold that thing?!’ she explodes. ‘How can you bear to sleep at night knowing that it’s just lying there, hidden, inside your home?’

‘I can’t.’ Valentine shrugs. ‘But I do.’ She slowly shakes her head. ‘It’s like you love something’ — she turns the wallet over in her hand, tracing the number with her finger, mesmerized — ‘and then you’re punished for loving it. I love tattooing but I’m my dad’s apprentice. I love the skin — I’m obsessed by it — it’s so magical and strong yet so unbelievably sensitive — it’s the thing that holds all the feelings in — the thing that touches the world; the mask, the source, the base, the surface …’

Sheila looks down at her watch. Even as she does so she can’t quite believe she’s doing it. She looks up again.

‘I have to go,’ she says, scrambling to her feet.

‘Of course.’

Valentine steps back, resigned. She half-smiles. Her eyes are dead.

‘No, I mean I really do have to go. I really do. I have a baptism at two …’

‘Of course,’ Valentine repeats. Still, the dead eyes.

Sheila tests her bad leg — tries to rest her weight on it. It takes her weight easily but then burns so much as the fabric of her trouser falls down across the shin again that a spurt of pure bile jets into her mouth. She peers over at Nessa, who is quietly watching everything as it unfolds before her, mouth agape, wearing a look of childlike wonder.

‘Very nice to meet you, Nessa,’ she mutters, ruffling the white curls on the child’s head. She takes two steps towards the door, then retches, then a further few steps and retches again, her eyes focused, with a maniacal energy, on those wise, green leaves of the aspidistra.

‘Did you know that the word — the actual word — for “individual” didn’t even exist in Japan until 1884?’ Jen asks, casually fishing the seam of her white catsuit out of the crack in her bottom as she speaks. ‘It first came into regular use following an early translation of Rousseau’s Social Contract .’

Brief pause.

‘Actually, yes — I think I may have stumbled across that particular idea before …’ Terence Nimrod nods.

‘It’s not “an idea”,’ Jen corrects him, sternly, ‘it’s “a fact”.’

They are standing on the green by the fourteenth hole (Ransom is hiding here, determined to avoid the start of the Children’s Tournament at the first), crowded — like a flock of human vultures — around a large packet of Gummy Bears which Israel has recently produced from his briefcase.

‘Nimrod spent part of his misspent youth training in Japan,’ Toby helpfully interjects, politely pressing flat a nearby divot (recently generated by Jen’s unsuitable footwear) with the trusty heel of his Hush-Puppy.

‘Really?’ Jen’s naturally intrigued. ‘I hear the drop-out rate among junior Rikishi is really high. They treat those fat kids like little slaves. How long did you stay at the Heya for, altogether? Time to grow a top-knot?’

Another brief pause follows, punctuated by the laborious champing of several jaws.

‘Do they really force-feed the kids at Sumo Stables?’ Jen persists. ‘Or is that just another of those sick Western myths?’

Ransom — ear-wigging in on their conversation from a few feet away (where he’s just inadvertently hooked a practice shot with a ‘lucky ball’) — almost chokes on a mouthful of Vitamin Water.

‘The force-feeding I didn’t have a problem with’ — Nimrod smiles, blithely — ‘it was the constant chafing from my mawashi which really got my goat.’

Another brief silence.

‘Nimrod at Sumo School?!’ Ransom simply can’t contain himself a moment longer. ‘Just because he’s the size of a friggin’ whale?! Seriously?! Is this a wind-up or what?!’

‘I generally find that great satire, like fresh Battenberg,’ Jen reasons, airily (to no one in particular), ‘always benefits from being broken down into its constituent parts.’

‘Marzipan, thin layer of jam, two types of sponge …’ Nimrod muses, fondly.

‘Battenberg?’ Israel’s confused. ‘Cake or man?’

‘Both, I imagine,’ Nimrod surmises. ‘Toby?’

‘A cake, a man and a location,’ Toby promptly confirms. ‘It was created in honour of the nuptials of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter to Prince Louis of Battenberg in the mid-1880s. Prince Louis had four brothers, which is what the four sponge squares dressed in marzipan were intended to represent.’

Israel inspects Toby with a renewed level of respect. Ransom scowls.

‘The Japanese have this very powerful conception of shame’ — Jen quickly returns to her former subject — ‘but guilt’s not nearly such a big deal there. Shame is social, see? Guilt is individual. Ergo , guilt is an intrinsically selfish emotion, ergo , I shouldn’t feel guilty for eating too many Gummy Bears, at least not in the abstract — but it would be shameful if I deprived the charming Mr Whittaker here of his rightful portion.’

‘Intriguing hypothesis.’ Nimrod takes another bear.

Ransom rolls his eyes, exaggeratedly.

‘It’s the same in many African cultures,’ Israel volunteers, ‘if you commit a crime and it isn’t discovered then you don’t feel guilt. It’s all good. Only the discovery of a crime makes it a problem.’

‘That’s just weird.’ Toby shakes his head.

‘Heard it on the World Service.’ Israel shrugs as Toby reaches for yet another bear, then mutters, ‘I’m frazzled — didn’t get much sleep last night,’ by way of an explanation.

‘Guilt is a very Catholic emotion.’ Nimrod nods, gnomically. ‘Repentance, guilt, self-loathing … all very Catholic emotions.’

Gene arrives — sans ‘lucky ball’ — to hear the tail-end of this conversation.

‘No sign of it in the bushes,’ he puffs, ‘how lucky was it?’

‘Irreplaceable.’

‘Oh.’

Israel offers him a Gummy Bear. Gene takes one and pops it into his mouth, unthinkingly.

‘Like, “the-ball-Tony-Jacklin-won-the-US-Open-with” lucky?’ Nimrod wonders, taking out his notebook.

‘It’s an autographed Arnold Palmer ball.’ Ransom scowls. ‘The King gave it to me himself.’

‘Why did you have it among your practice balls?’ Gene looks irritated. ‘I had no idea when I handed it to you that it was anything special.’