Nicola Barker - The Yips

Valentine is seething with rage. It’s as much as she can do not to fly at the car — kick in the passenger door — pull the man out by his hair — head-butt him in the face — respond like any true Tucker would. She is incandescent. Her fury is white-hot and scalding. The little wasps between her ears are suddenly silent; they’ve been incinerated and replaced by a giant, copper kettle — perched, somewhat precariously, on a fiery hob — which billows steam and whistles.

‘I hate it! It looks like snot!’ Aamilah’s back on the subject of avocados again (after a brief diversion into the virtues of hummus). ‘Tastes like it, too! Revolting!’

‘Perhaps if you added a little more salt and lemon,’ Valentine suggests, ‘a dash of paprika …’

‘No! It’s the texture! Disgusting!’

They eventually arrive — and not a moment too soon — at the outer reaches of the park. Farhana turns the pushchair on to the grass and sets off across the green. Aamilah and Valentine follow. The car sounds its horn.

‘Don’t look back!’ Aamilah warns her. She peeks sideways into Valentine’s face, then performs a quick double-take. ‘ Subhaanalla! ’ she exclaims, raising her hands. ‘Praise be to God! A little miracle! Your eyes , Hamra! The fear has completely gone — evaporated — pouf! ’

‘Because I’m angry!’ Valentine hisses, astonished. ‘That was so horrible! Degrading! How can you bear it?’

‘ Bear it?’ Aamilah repeats, equally astonished. ‘But it’s a gift, don’t you see?’ She lightly touches her hand to her diaphragm. ‘Righteous anger — degradation — humility — pity — they’re our fuel! Feel them burning deep inside of you! Here …’ — she taps her chest — ‘in your heart.’

Valentine grimaces beneath the hijab , bemused. She tries to search her heart, but the map is old and the compass is faulty.

‘ Now you start to understand, eh?’ Aamilah persists. ‘This is precisely why we do it, Hamra. This is the fight! This is the very essence of what we are! This is for him: for Allah. This is the love …’ She pauses for a second (her eyes briefly fixing on the ever-more-distant Farhana), then scowls, tuts and suddenly yells, ‘Hana! Hana! Under the tree!’ She gesticulates, wildly. ‘Hana! Over there! The tree! Under the … The tree , Hana! Not … No! No! Not next to the dog toilet, you idiot!’

‘I was having the rise out of you, Gene, seriously !’ Jen coos, as he raises an anxious hand to his neck (for the umpteenth time) while she tenderly swipes a touch of pressed powder over his glistening i-zone. He and Ransom are posing by the Hummer, as a duo. Gene (at his own insistence) is in profile, part obscured by shadow, hat pulled down low, golf bag hitched on to his back, military manoeuvres-style.

Ransom has two white stripes painted across either cheek (Jen’s idea) and a skinny black tie (belonging to a wine waiter) tied like a bandanna around his head. He swings his club a couple of times, grimaces (half a canny eye on Jen and Gene), swings again, miscalculates his angles and kicks up a spray of gravel. This hail of stones narrowly avoids hitting Terence Nimrod (who has annexed Israel’s stool — the bored teen having only recently wandered off to watch the closing stages of the Kids’ Comp.) and Del Renzio (who is talking away, emphatically, on his mobile phone).

‘There’s something missing from this set-up,’ Ransom murmurs, dissatisfied (perhaps finally half-registering Esther’s absence).

‘A bugle,’ Jen suggests.

Ransom stiffens. A vague look of surprise, quickly surmounted by a vague look of recognition (imbued with a slight tinge of amorousness), quickly surmounted by a tiny glimmer of fear flits across his face.

‘Or a suppurating tattoo.’ Jen grins.

The golfer reaches over and pushes his hand into Gene’s jacket pocket. He withdraws the old, red bugle tassel and gazes at it, watery-eyed.

‘Are we ready yet?’ the photographer boredly chivvies them along. Gene snatches back the tassel (message duly received) and they each return to their former places.

‘So you don’t think this tattoo thing has legs, then?’

Ransom finds his light and strikes a pose as Jen rapidly retreats.

‘Hold that!’ the photographer calls.

‘The tattoo thing? Nah. Not even stumps.’ Jen goes to stand alongside a jittery-seeming Del Renzio. ‘I mean no offence to the lovely Sheila, Gene,’ she modifies, ‘but this idiot nearly kills the girl’s mother’ — she thumbs, dismissively, towards the golfer (much to his evident disgruntlement) — ‘neglects to pay his insurance premiums which does kill the dad, plays a cruel game of tabloid ping-pong with the brother for several years — sending him into a tragic, narcotic funk — then some hare-brained C of E minister with too much time on her hands comes up with the crazy notion that the exchange of a tattoo — a tattoo of all things — will finally — miraculously! — set things straight between them; become some grand symbol of redemption, a Band-Aid to all their problems; so they’ll finally make their peace and live happily ever after …’ she snorts, disgusted. ‘It’s delusional — deranged, even.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Terence Nimrod exclaims (having listened to Jen’s snarky diatribe, completely agog). ‘Your wife’s a genius, Gene!’ He quickly reaches for his notepad. ‘This idea’s dynamite! Pure tabloid gold! Is the Tucker girl much of a looker by any chance?’

‘I mean what kind of tragic, screwed-up, half-cocked morality is that?!’ Jen sneers (including Nimrod’s recent contribution in her general, critical overview).

‘Great — keep holding it!’ the photographer repeats.

‘In Sheila’s defence …’ Gene suddenly starts off (straightening up and thereby inadvertently ruining the shot). The photographer curses (he’s using an old box camera with an especially slow shutter speed).

‘Oh dear. Very sorry.’

Gene returns to his pose, chastened.

‘There is no defending it, Gene,’ Jen persists. ‘It’s just crass, and weird, and wrong, and kind of … well … creepy .’

‘And conceptually brilliant!’ Nimrod adds (his former enthusiasm evidently undimmed).

This time it’s the golfer’s turn to straighten up, perplexed.

The photographer curses again, exasperated.

‘Are you still managing to feature the main body of the hotel in the background?’ Del Renzio (for reasons unknown — except to himself) decides to choose this awkward moment to make his organizational presence felt.

‘The far end of the portico,’ the photographer confirms, scowling.

‘And we’ve not even started to factor in your embarrassingly girlish fear of needles,’ Jen adds.

‘Brilliant!’ Nimrod grins, pen blazing like a plastic meteor across the page.

‘It’s just that when we initially brainstormed this shoot at HQ,’ Del Renzio confesses (to nobody in particular), ‘we didn’t really envisage the tank in the shot, or the whole “post-apocalyptic” angle for that matter —’

‘It’s a friggin’ Hummer , you imbecile!’ Ransom interrupts (hitting the fastidious PR man with all the suppressed wrath and hostility he’s plainly harbouring for his skinny neighbour in Lycra). ‘And for your information,’ he adds, flicking a couple of stray thunder-flies from the pristine, white hide of his golfing glove, ‘there’s no “angle” with Stuart Ransom, okay? This isn’t simply “an angle”. It’s who I am. It’s not a question of “degrees”, yeah? You can’t measure it with a friggin’… a friggin’ set -square. It’s real. It’s all real …’ He gesticulates, grandly. ‘This is real life not some phony piece of cooked-up, two-bit PR bull-crap.’