Nicola Barker: The Yips

Stuart Ransom, professional golfer, is drunkenly reeling off an interminable series of stats about the women’s game in Korea (or the Ladies Game, as he is determined to have it): ‘Don’t scowl at me, beautiful …!’ — directed, with his trademark Yorkshire twinkle, at Jen, who lounges, sullenly, behind the hotel bar. ‘They like to be called ladies. In fact they demand it. I mean …’ Ransom lobs a well-aimed peanut at her — she ducks — and it strikes a lovely, clear note against a Gordon’s Gin bottle. ‘… they are ladies, for Christsakes!’

It’s well past midnight on an oppressively hot and muggy Sunday in July and Ransom is the only remaining customer still cheerfully demanding service from the fine vantage point of his squeaking barstool at the Thistle, a clean but generic hotel which flies its five, proud flags hard up against the multi-storey car park and an especially unforgiving slab of Luton’s Arndale.

‘But why did you change your booking from the Leaside?’ Jen petulantly demands (as she fishes the stray peanut from its current hidey-hole between the Wild Turkey and the Kahlua). ‘The Leaside’s pure class.’

‘Eh?’

Ransom is momentarily caught off his stride. He was just idly pondering the wonky pathway of spotless scalp which lies — like a seductive trickle of tropical-white sand — between Jen’s scruffy, dark-rooted, peroxide-blonde ponytails, and then, as she spins back around (pinching that errant nut, fastidiously, between her finger and thumb), he ponders the voluptuous outline of her pert, nineteen-year-old breasts beneath her starchy, cream-coloured work blouse (assessing these other — rather more intimate — physical attributes with the keen yet dispassionate eyes of a man who has oft pitted his talents against the merciless dips and mounds of the Old Course at St Andrews).

‘I’d give anything to stay at the Leaside,’ Jen persists, gazing dreamily up at the light-fitment (where three stray midges are joyriding, frenetically, around the bulb). ‘The Leaside’s so quaint — perched on its own little hill, right in the heart of town, but just out of all the hubbub …’

Jen’s pierced tongue trips on the word hubbub and she frowns –

Hubbub?

Ransom stares around him — tipsy and slightly bewildered — struggling to assess the aesthetic shortcomings of his current environs, then starts, theatrically, at the nightmarish spectre of earth-shattering mediocrity he suddenly — quite unwittingly — finds himself party to. He runs an unsteady hand through his short, brown, fastidiously managed head of hair and then instinctively reaches towards his shirt pocket (groping for his trusty pack of Bensons), but falters, mid-manoeuvre, as he peers, blearily, through the large, plate-glass window directly to his left. Beyond that window a small cluster of shadowy figures may be seen, consorting together, ominously, in the half-light. He debates what his chances are of sneaking a furtive puff inside.

‘Hub-bub,’ Gene, the replacement barman, parrots to himself, amused, as he polishes a low, glass table in the adjacent snug.

Ransom glances over at Gene, then turns to inspect Jen again, who has momentarily stopped considering the countless, bizarre ramifications of the word hubbub for just long enough to become horribly aware of the proximity of the front desk (not actually visible from where she’s standing). ‘Although there’s really nothing out there to match our incomparable health and leisure club facilities,’ she proclaims loudly, with suitably glassy eyes and a ghoulish smile.

Ransom sighs, squints down at his watch, grimaces, clears his throat, takes out his phone, checks his texts, and then quickly goes on to discuss how there are plenty of successful Korean ladies doing extremely well on the American circuit right now. In fact, he says, draining his glass, there are several whose careers he even takes an active interest in (Aree Song for one, Birdie Kim for another, Inbee Park for a third: ‘Aren’t their names just completely friggin’ brilliant?’) and not only because he finds Korean ladies pretty damn hot …

He turns and asks Gene (who is now removing his empty glass and replacing his damp, paper coaster with a clean one) if he finds Korean ladies hot, and as he says so he darts a mischievous glance at Jen again, who neglects to look back because she has been obliged to move to the small, transparent hatch — which connects the bar to the overpass — and calmly inform a persistent individual who is banging on the glass there that they are no longer serving (by dint of a sharp, slicing movement across her taut, milky throat). The individual curses, gesticulates (a deft two-finger salute), then scuttles off.

‘Thanks,’ Jen snarls after him. ‘ Charmed. ’

Gene — following a brief moment’s thought — politely confesses to Ransom that he’s never previously given this issue (about the relative hotness — or notness — of female Koreans) much serious consideration. Ransom appraises Gene, at his leisure, and decides that he is an intensely dull yet profoundly dependable kind of fellow who bears a passing resemblance — the short, swept-back, auburn hair, the square jaw, the calm, hazel eyes — to one of his sporting heroes: a young Tom Watson. His own eyes mist up and he blinks, poignantly (although why the perfectly successful and functional Watson might be inclined to inspire Ransom’s compassion at this juncture is — and will remain — something of a puzzle).

‘All work and no play, eh?’ Ransom says, pityingly, indicating towards a neighbouring barstool with a benign and inclusive sweep of his arm. Gene frowns. In truth, he feels scant inclination to get involved in a fatuous discussion with the tipsy Yorkshireman (he’s on duty and has a certain number of chores to complete before knocking off at one) but then he detects an odd look — almost of desperation — in Ransom’s bloodshot eyes and slowly relents.

Okay, Gene confides (backing into the stool and perching a single, taut buttock on it), so yes, if put on the spot he will admit that he does think Korean woman are quite beautiful. They have a certain measure of … of poise, a certain … a certain understated … uh … grace …

Ransom scowls when Gene uses the word ‘grace’. The word ‘grace’ has no place — no place at all — in the kind of conversation he was angling for. Gene (as luck would have it) is also scowling now (and rapidly backtracking), saying that, on reflection, he hasn’t actually met that many Korean women in his life, apart from a couple who work in local restaurants. He says he therefore supposes that his assessment of the virtues of Korean women — as a unified class — is based entirely on a series of ill-considered — even stereotypical — ideas he has about Eastern women, and he is sure that this is a little stupid — even patronizing — of him because Korean women are doubtless very idiosyncratic, with their own distinct features and dreams and ideas and habits.

‘I’ll grant you that,’ Ransom concurs with a sage nod (informing Jen of his need for another drink with an imperiously raised finger). ‘They’ve got much fuller tits than the Japanese.’

Gene draws back, dismayed, uncertain whether Ransom is joking or not. Ransom collapses forward on to the bar, shaking his head (apparently experiencing this same problem, first-hand). ‘ Fuuuuck ,’ he groans, ‘I honestly can’t believe I just said that.’