Nicola Barker - The Yips

‘Here he is!’ Jen exclaims, emerging from behind a bush, her white, Lycra catsuit still loosely dangling — like a giant used condom — from around her hips. ‘It’s everybody’s favourite cancer-victim!’

Gene stands frozen, like a statue, sweat cascading down his cheeks, staring at his phone. He is re-reading a text from Sheila which says simply, ‘We rlly nd to spk about V. URGENT!’

‘Hello?’

He finally glances up. Jen stands before him, the upper half of her torso encased in only a skimpy, gold bikini top.

‘Bloody hell, Jen!’

He shoves the phone away and rapidly averts his gaze, his offended eyeballs seeking temporary respite in the cool green spears of a clump of ornamental grass. He looks pale and distracted. It suddenly occurs to Jen that the moisture on his cheeks might not be sweat after all, but something infinitely more perturbing.

‘Are you all right?’ she asks, scowling. ‘You’ve been behaving really weirdly ever since you got here.’

Gene bends forward and retrieves a rusty, old padlock from the grassy knoll. He inspects it, with interest, then murmurs, ‘Antique …’ and drops it again. He peers up into the sky where a low-flying plane leaves a curling vapour trail in the heavens’ gently beaten Turkish-blue enamelwork. The contours of his face seem oddly sharp — as though freshly etched in a new — less kind, less congenial — shade of chalk.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jen repeats, almost panicked, now. ‘You look really pale.’

‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.’

Gene drags his eyes back down from the heavens, reeling them in like two errant kites on unreliable strings. But his pupils will not be curtailed. They jump and start like hatching frogspawn in a murky pond.

‘Are you ill?’ Jen’s aghast.

Gene doesn’t answer. He feels temporarily disconnected from his usual, brash familiarity with vowels and consonants.

‘Dehydrated?’ Jen demands. ‘Did you have a row with Sheila? D’you need to sit down?’

Gene remains very still, as if stillness alone can forestall the things he has done and the things he must soon be compelled to do.

‘I’ve really messed up,’ he eventually murmurs, half to himself, his lips barely moving. The eyes remain unfocused.

‘Messed up? How?’ Jen takes a small step closer.

‘I can’t tell you’ — he smiles, wanly — ‘but it’s bad.’

‘Why can’t you tell me?’ Another small step.

‘Because it’s …’ he slowly shakes his head.

‘You don’t think I can be trusted?’ Jen’s deeply offended.

Gene shakes his head again, laughing to himself, hoarsely. Then:

‘Yes.’

‘ Gene! ’ She cuffs him — possibly a fraction harder than just playfully — on the shoulder. He takes the blow, still laughing, his eyes moistening with tears. His insides feel all sharp and tense and tightly packed, like the compressed coils in an old-fashioned sprung mattress.

‘Okay, you’re officially freaking me out, now!’ Jen snaps. ‘Just tell me what’s wrong!’

‘Nothing.’ Gene closes his eyes. ‘I’ll be fine in a minute. I’m just having a little … a little moment, that’s all.’

‘Why? About what? Is it the ball?’

‘Ball?’ He opens his eyes again.

‘The lost ball?’

He turns and glances around him, fuzzily, as if only just getting his bearings. He’s at the golf course — he’s inside his own body — it’s a fine day — there’s a kid in the rough a short distance away searching for something, valiantly poking around in the undergrowth with a specially fashioned twig.

‘Is the boy taking part in the Children’s Tournament?’ he asks.

‘No. He’s here with me. I brought him. You seriously don’t think I can be trusted?’ Jen persists, hurt.

‘That outfit …’ Gene sighs, appraising her, almost mournfully, ‘not really your average golf club attire.’

‘It’s my African-Warrior-Queen-Space-Bandit look.’

Jen puts her hands on her hips, thrusts out her chest and poses.

‘I see.’ Gene’s none the wiser.

‘I’m Shaka Zulu’s Martian wife.’

She puts her hands behind her head, messes up her hair and angles her hips.

‘Very fetching.’ Gene smiles, wanly.

Jen stops posing. ‘You think I can’t be discreet?’ she challenges him, growing increasingly irritated by his dislocated air. ‘Well how d’you fancy this for discretion?’ She draws a deep breath. ‘See the kid?’

She thumbs over her shoulder towards the distant Israel. Gene nods. He sees the kid.

‘Ransom’s secret love-child!’

Gene’s eyes widen.

‘And he doesn’t have the first clue about it!’

‘Who doesn’t?’ Gene demands. ‘The kid?’

Jen nods.

‘And Ransom?’

‘Not really sure …’ She shrugs, tying the arms of her catsuit into a knot around her waist. ‘Plays a close game, that one.’

‘Have you said anything?’

‘Nope. But I kind of hinted. The kid’s mother’s Jamaican — his manager’s sister, and the dates definitely add up.’

‘So — hang on — his mother’s Esther’s sister?’

‘Yup.’ Jen nods. ‘I tried to tell you last night on the phone. She’s over here for the birth. She’s this strident environmentalist. Wages a one-woman campaign against the Jamaican tourist industry. Calls it “parasitic” — the New Colonialism. Very sharp. Very scary. But the kid’s a complete sweetheart.’

Gene scratches his head, trying to take this all in. ‘So what exactly are you hoping to achieve by …?’

‘Not sure.’ Jen shrugs. ‘I’m just playing it by ear. Having a bit of fun. Generating chaos. I’m visualizing myself as some kind of toxic, intergalactic super-being who’s been dropped on to the earth from another galaxy by a mischievous deity. We have a completely different moral outlook in my part of the stratosphere. More arbitrary, more stringent, more sophisticated. Am I the bad girl?’ she ponders, tip of her right index finger pressing into her chin, eyes raised in a semblance of deep thought. ‘A skinny, blonde scourge? A dark mistress of anarchy, artifice and contrivance? Or am I’ — she swaps to her left index finger and raises her eyes to an adjacent angle — ‘the complete opposite? An inspirational, Lycra-clad angel-sprite, single-handedly fighting the forces of disinformation with my trusty, golden bazookas, straw wedgies and deadly mascara wand?’

Jen produces her mascara wand from what seems like thin air.

‘So this isn’t still all about Stan …?’ Gene hazards a guess.

‘It’s like he brings out my Gaia energy,’ Jen sighs, gazing over towards Ransom (who is obsessively inspecting his hairline in a couple of the photographer’s sample shots). ‘I’ve not really got a handle on it myself yet. It’s very strong, very instinctual … And like I say, I’m not even entirely sure if it’s to the power of good or evil.’

‘Well maybe you need to try and work that out before you —’ Gene immediately starts to caution her.

‘It’s like being on fire!’ Jen interrupts, enthused. ‘It’s amazing! It’s like I just woke up. It’s like … it’s like Jen’s finally coming into focus. She’s arrived! She’s here .’

‘You were always here,’ Gene assures her. ‘You’re generally very present, by and large.’

‘Really?’ Jen looks bored. ‘I’m not so sure.’

‘If you want my advice …’ Gene starts off.

‘Oh God, no. Don’t spoil it with your sensible advice,’ Jen clucks. ‘Good advice is the last thing I feel like hearing right now. Pshaw to good advice! Good advice is like, urgh , yawns-ville, foot-tap, eye-roll.’

‘Well maybe there’s a useful message in that,’ Gene counsels.