Nicola Barker - The Yips

She feels hot and disorientated. The robe is over-long and keeps catching underfoot. In her mind she is struggling to visualize Gene’s face — his strong hands tucked beneath her knees, the slim bones of his hips, the scent of his hair, his ear against her cheek — trying to recreate the effortless confidence and ease she felt the previous night, but every time she visualizes these things with anything amounting to success (and a brief feeling of mildly distracted euphoria descends) another image promptly pops into her head — of Sheila (Sheila twirling in front of the mirror — Sheila’s face wreathed in delighted smiles — Sheila remarking, jauntily, on the kitchen curtains) and her throat contracts and her heart duly plummets. I deserve this! she thinks. Every second of this torture! The world closing in! The sky up so high! God! Throat so tight! Heartbeat-heartbeat-heartbeat-heartbeat …

Her vision begins to blur and her head starts to spin.

‘I knew a Hamra at school’ — Farhana is still considering the various ramifications of Valentine’s new name — ‘and she laughed like a pig. She wore braces. Her ears stuck out like jug handles.’

‘At school?’ Milah scowls. ‘Are you sure? I definitely don’t remember a Hamra at school.’

‘It’s a miracle you remember anything about school!’ Hana snorts.

‘How d’you mean?’ Milah demands.

‘Because you were always off playing hooky!’ Hana kindly elucidates.

‘Playing hooky ?!’ Milah repeats, sarcastic.

‘Yes! Playing hooky!’ Hana’s eyes widen, indignantly. ‘What’s wrong with that?!’

‘I was “bunking off”, Hana.’ She briefly raises her eyes, heavenward. ‘ Astaghfirulla! May Allah forgive me! I wasn’t “playing hooky ”! I mean, seriously ?!’

‘Yes, “seriously”!’ Hana grumbles. ‘Who elected you head of the Word Police, Milah?’

She turns to Valentine. ‘Playing hooky, Valentine. What do you think?’ she demands.

‘Hamra,’ Milah interjects, punctiliously.

‘Sorry?’ Valentine glances over her shoulder, her heart pounding and pounding. The little wasps with their gongs playing faster and still faster.

‘“Playing hooky”. Are you familiar with that saying at all?’

‘Uh …’

‘It sounds American,’ Milah interjects, contemptuously.

‘Playing hooky?’ Valentine echoes, distractedly, trying not to get the fabric of the hijab caught in her mouth while simultaneously shifting herself and Nessa to one side as a woman tries to walk past them along the pavement in the opposite direction. She fails to negotiate this transition rapidly enough, though (Aamilah doesn’t bother giving way at all) and the woman — who has just turned a corner — ends up being crushed into a hedge as they sail past, en masse .

Valentine mutters an apology — gagged by the hijab — and the woman shoots their group a lethal look. They turn right and head out on to a busier road.

‘Well how about “Jehaan”?’

Valentine has been focusing on the cracks in the pavement. Her face is drenched in sweat. She has no idea how much time has passed since she first started focusing on the cracks. It could be seconds, it could be minutes. Time has condensed and then expanded inside a screaming wave of panic. Or was that blaring commotion just a bus roaring past? Was the sensation outside or within? She suddenly can’t tell. She becomes confused about which response is real and which is simulated, then — in a brief moment of existential crisis — wonders how her feelings can be simulated. Aren’t feelings always true?

Nessa’s hand in my hand, she thinks, Nessa’s hand in my hand.

She glances up — mouth dry, can’t swallow — just in time to see a man in the passenger seat of a slow-moving silver car grinning at her while calmly and deliberately showing her the finger. Her eyes widen. She is jolted. She holds tighter on to Nessa’s hand and turns to look at Milah who chunters on, apparently oblivious.

‘Jehaan?’ she’s saying. ‘Why Jehaan?’

‘Because it means …’

‘I know perfectly well what it means thank you very much! It means “intelligent one” if I’m not mistaken.’

‘You are mistaken, Milah!’ Hana chuckles, delighted.

‘Pardon?’

‘It doesn’t mean intelligent one! You’re wrong!’

‘Yes it does!’

‘No, it doesn’t. It means …’

‘Yes it does , Hana! The Prophet — peace be upon him — had a niece called by that name.’

‘I don’t think the Prophet — peace be upon him — did , Milah.’

‘He did. You know that I have a photographic memory for such details …’

‘Pardon me?! I don’t know anything of the kind!’

Their conversation is briefly interrupted by a phone ringing. The ringtone (which causes the over-stimulated Valentine to start and almost trip) features a haunting, echoey male vocal singing Ya Allah Ho Ya Alah! Ya Allah Ho Ya Alah! Ya Allah Ho Ya …

Milah stops, reaches inside a pocket in her abaya , pulls out the phone and places it to the spot on her hijab where her ear should be.

‘Hello?’ she barks, releasing Valentine’s hand and turning, ‘What …? What?’

The silver car, meanwhile, is slowly reversing back up the road again. The man in the passenger seat is simulating the act of masturbation through his window while pulling a series of obscene faces, spurred on, it would seem, by the driver (the harsh echoes of his laughter are audible through the glass).

Valentine grabs Nessa’s shoulder and turns her face into her skirts, her cheeks reddening under the hijab . She glances over towards Farhana who is casually leaning into the pram to adjust the angle of Badriya’s sun-hat, and then to Aamilah who’s still struggling — apparently oblivious to the dumb-show — with the conversation on her phone.

Her breath comes in gasps. She suddenly realizes that the robe deprives her of most — possibly even all — of her traditional modes of social response: to gesture back, to shout something, to swear. Not only do these stifling acres of heavy black fabric render her blankly inarticulate, but — somewhat paradoxically — easier to objectify and more vulnerable to attack. She turns towards Farhana again, her eyes pleading for guidance. Farhana — ignoring the macabre pantomime playing out beside her — merely smiles and murmurs, ‘ Rahimullah! May Allah have mercy on him!’ before adding, ‘Do you like spicy food, Hamra?’

Hamra? Valentine blinks. She struggles to focus. ‘Do I like spicy food? Uh …’

Does Hamra like spicy food she wonders. Does Hamra …?

Valentine nods. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes she does …’ she stutters, ‘Although she’s not —’

‘And little Nessa?’ Farhana interrupts. ‘Does Nessa like it, too?’

Valentine frowns. ‘Nessa?’ She glances down. ‘I’m not sure.’ She shrugs. ‘I mean she’s quite an adventurous eater at home — loves all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Even olives. They give them tacos at daycare, sometimes. She enjoys those …’

Aamilah finally completes her conversation, shoves the phone into her pocket and joins them again. She grabs Valentine’s hand and they continue walking. Farhana is talking about the first time she tried olive tapenade (hated it). Milah passionately holds forth on the subject of avocados. ‘I love tomato salsa, but that slimy, pale green paste? Urgh! ’

‘Guacamole,’ Valentine murmurs, struggling to keep her eyes focused steadfastly ahead, icy trickles of sweat cascading down her spine.

All the while the silver car slowly trails them. Bored now of hand gestures, the man on the passenger side is unbuckling his belt and yanking down his jeans (intending to moon them, perhaps).