Читать книгу The Yips - Nicola Barker - Страница 6

Chapter 1

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.’

Gene peers over at Jen (who has chosen to ignore Ransom’s request and is now cleaning out the coffee machine). He stands up and goes to fetch Ransom the drink himself (thereby symbolically re-emphasizing the wide emotional, intellectual and psychological distance between them by dint of the happy barrier that is the bar).

As Ransom continues to groan (banging his forehead, gently, on the bar top), Gene goes on to say how he once watched a fascinating documentary about a Japanese girl who was kidnapped by the North Korean government – quite randomly – as she walked home from school one day. The girl was called Nagumi … no … no, Me-gumi, he corrects himself. Apparently (he continues) the North Koreans kidnapped many such young Japanese during this particular historical timeframe (the mid- to late 1970s) to study their behaviour so that their spies could pretend to be Japanese while undertaking terrorist attacks abroad. It transpires that the cultural differences between the North Koreans and the Japanese are very marked (Gene quickly warms to his theme), the way they wash their faces, for example, is very different (he impersonates the two styles: one a lazy splash, the other a more frenetic rub). The way they excuse themselves after sneezing. The way they say hello. The way they blow their noses or position their napkins. All tiny but vital cultural differences.

‘Michelle Wie,’ Stuart Ransom suddenly butts in (having taken a long draught of his new drink, straight from the bottle), ‘has massive feet. Whenever I watch her play I just keep staring at her feet. They’re friggin’ huge …’

Gene frowns.

‘But I still find her pretty damn tasty all the same,’ Ransom avows, glancing down at his phone again and noticing, as he does so, that his hand is shaking. He grimaces, clenches his fingers into a tight fist and then shoves his hand, scowling furiously, into his trouser pocket.

‘Merde! This is useless! My hand just keeps shaking!’ her mother grumbles – in her strange, heavily accented English – awkwardly adjusting a toothbrush between her fingers.

‘Because you’re holding it all wrong,’ Valentine explains. ‘You’re holding it like you’d hold a pen. Why not try and hold it like you’d hold a … a …’ – she thinks hard for a second – ‘a hairbrush?’

As she speaks, Valentine lifts a warm, bare foot from the bathroom linoleum (producing a tiny, glutinous, farting sound) and then dreamily inspects the steamy imprint that remains. She imagines her neat heel as the nose (or jaw) of a cartoon reindeer, and her toes as its modest, five-pronged crown of truncated horns.

‘I DON’T FUCKING REMEMBER!’ her mother suddenly yells, hurling the offending toothbrush into the toilet bowl.

‘Bloody hell, Mum!’ Valentine retrieves the toothbrush, runs it under the hot tap, squeezes on some more paste and then patiently proffers it back to her.

‘I CAN’T USE THAT FILTHY THING NOW!’ her mother bellows. ‘ARE YOU COMPLETELY INSANE?!’

‘Shhhh!’ Valentine whispers, pointing to the door. ‘It’s after twelve. You’ll wake Nessa.’

‘But how do I hold a hairbrush?’

Her mother begins hunting around the bathroom for a hairbrush.

‘Like this …’ Valentine neatly demonstrates exactly how to hold the toothbrush.

‘But that’s a toothbrush and I want a hairbrush,’ her mother snaps. ‘I want to know how I’d hold a hairbrush.’

Valentine opens the bathroom cabinet. ‘Here’s a comb,’ she says, removing an old nit comb from behind a medicated shampoo bottle.

She passes it over.

Her mother takes the comb. She holds it correctly, instinctively. She stares at it for a moment, blinks, and then: ‘Why the hell have you given me a fucking nit comb?’ she demands.

‘For some reason I always thought Michelle Wie was part-Hawaiian,’ Gene muses – half to himself – as he polishes a glass.

‘Nah-ah. You’re confusing her with Tiger Woods, mate.’ Ransom shrugs.

‘Michelle who?’ Jen suddenly interjects after a five-second hiatus (Jen is generally a bright, engaging conversationalist, but she’s just completing an exhausting, twelve-hour shift and also has a small – yet resilient – raft of ‘subsidiary’ issues to contend with, which Ransom can’t possibly have any inkling of, i.e. a) the tail-end of a painful dose of conjunctivitis – caught from her cat, Wookey, a magnificent, pedigree Maine Coon – combined with a prodigious pair of false eyelashes which are so long and audacious that they tickle both her cheeks, distractingly, every time she blinks, b) a ludicrously handsome, lusty and untrustworthy Irish boyfriend – by the name of Sinclair – who is currently living it up for a week on a lads-only break in Tangier, and c) the frightful responsibility of three E grade A-levels to re-sit over the summer. Jen longs to become a vet and is obsessed by Australian marsupials; their fluffy tails, their tiny hands, their huge, saucer-like eyes. Her favourite kind of marsupial is the sugar-glider. She even invented her own cocktail of the same name – a sickly combination of cold espresso, coconut milk and Malibu – which they sell at the bar simply to indulge her).

‘Michelle Wie,’ Gene says, politely glancing over at Ransom for confirmation, ‘is a young, female golfer who ruffled a few feathers a while back by insisting on competing professionally alongside the males –’

‘Why can’t women play golf?’ Ransom jovially interrupts him, with a leer.

Pause.

‘I don’t know,’ Gene answers, cautiously, ‘why can’t women play golf?’

‘Because they’re good with an iron …’ Ransom’s voice cracks with ill-suppressed hilarity, ‘but they can’t drive! Boom Boom!’

Gene smiles, thinly.

‘Sorry,’ Ransom apologizes, simulating embarrassment, ‘that one’s old as the friggin’ hills.’

‘Michelle Wee?!’ Jen snorts (totally ignoring Ransom’s attempted quip). ‘That’s brilliant!’

‘She’s a perfectly good little athlete,’ Ransom allows, ‘but she’s ruined her game by over-swinging. Fact is she can’t compete with the men. Not possible. She simply hasn’t got the power in her upper torso.’

‘Although I imagine the huge advances in club technology over the last decade or so –’ Gene interjects.

‘Phooey,’ Ransom slaps him down, irritated, ‘because when club technology improves, the male players automatically hit that much further themselves.’

‘God,’ Jen groans, rolling her eyes, boredly, ‘what is this fatal attraction between footballers and bloody golf, eh?’

‘Huh?’ Ransom’s head snaps around. He frowns. He looks a little confused.

‘I just don’t get it,’ Jen persists (ignoring a pointed look that Gene is now darting at her), ‘because golf’s so unbelievably dull. I mean why rattle on endlessly about golf all night when there’s so much other great stuff to talk about, like … I dunno …’ She throws up her hands.

‘Basket-weaving,’ Gene suggests, wryly.

‘Topiary,’ Ransom helpfully volunteers.

‘The comic novels of Saki,’ Gene effortlessly parries.

‘UFOs.’ Ransom grins.

‘The worst services on the M4,’ Gene deftly volleys, ‘between Reading and Newport.’

‘The best services on the M1,’ Ransom vigorously retaliates, ‘between Watford and Leeds.’

‘I’ve never been to the North,’ Jen confesses (with cheerful candour), at exactly the same moment as Gene hollers, ‘Leicester Forest East!’ (then blushes).

‘I favour Shovel myself.’ Ransom shrugs.

‘Although I have been to Norfolk,’ Jen concedes.

‘Norfolk?’ Ransom echoes, bewildered. ‘Norfolk isn’t in the North, you bloomin’ half-wit!’

‘I know that!’ Jen snaps.

‘Crop circles!’ Gene promptly endeavours to divert them.

‘The Chinese Horoscope!’ (Ransom’s easily distracted.)

‘The current export price of British beef,’ Gene casually raises him.

‘Which is the luckier number’ – Ransom plucks at his unshaven chin with comedic thoughtfulness – ‘three or seven?’

‘Stones versus Beatles!’ Gene’s starting to sweat a little.

‘Leeches!’ Ransom whoops (slamming down his beer bottle – for extra emphasis – then cursing as it foams up, over and on to the bar top).

Leeches?

‘But I love leeches!’ Jen squeals, baby-clapping delightedly. ‘Let’s talk about leeches! Let’s! Let’s! Oh, do let’s!’

Ransom recoils slightly at the unexpected violence of Jen’s reaction.

‘Jen’s into nature,’ Gene explains (with an avuncular smile), ‘she’s hoping to become a vet when she eventually grows up.’

Jen shoots Gene a faux-filthy/faux-flirty look.

‘Okay …’ Ransom tosses a quick peanut into his mouth and then launches, vaingloriously, into the requisite anecdote.

‘So I was playing this shonky tournament in Japan once,’ he starts off, ‘and I sliced a shot on the fourth which landed just to the right of the green in this really tricky area of rough –’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Jen interrupts, holding up her hand, exasperated. ‘Please, please, please tell me we’re not back to talking about sodding golf again?!’

‘Did you hear that?’ Valentine asks, cocking her head and listening intently.

‘What?’ Her mother stops brushing. She’s been brushing so diligently that her gums are bleeding and the white foam in her mouth has turned pink.

‘A squeak … this tiny squeak and then a sharp kind of … of scratching sound.’

Her mother also listens. A cat pads into the bathroom, sits down and commences licking its paws. There are now three cats in the room: one on the windowsill, one in the bath (where it’s just squatting to defecate over the plug-hole) and one sitting by the door.

‘This house is full of stinking cats,’ her mother grumbles. ‘How can we have rats in a house full of stinking cats?’

Valentine doesn’t answer. She closes her eyes. She places a finger to her lips.

Her mother ignores her. ‘Bobby’s sur le point de chier énormément,’ she announces.

‘Huh?’

Valentine is still listening out, intently, for another squeak.

‘Bobby. The stinking cat. He’s shitting on the plug.’

Valentine’s eyes fly open. She turns. She does a quick double-take.

‘No! Bobby!’ she yells. ‘STOP!’

* * *

‘Football’s bad enough,’ Jen grumbles, attacking the coffee machine with a renewed ferocity, ‘but golf? Urgh! You just can’t get away from it. It’s everywhere – like a contagious disease.’

‘“A good walk, spoiled,” I believe the saying goes.’

As he speaks, Gene reaches under the counter and withdraws a small, black notepad (with a broken, red Bic shoved into its metal binder). He opens the book, removes the pen, jots down a quick reminder about the squeaking barstool, then turns to the back page and in large, block letters writes: IT’S STUART RANSOM – THE FAMOUS PRO GOLFER, STUPID!

He then casually leans back and proffers Jen the pad.

‘In fact this really lovely friend of mine called Candy Rose, who I first met at jazz/tap classes when I was nine …’ Jen pauses, ruminatively, pointedly ignoring the pad. ‘Although – strictly speaking – we already knew each other, by sight, from nursery school …’

Ransom yawns and glances down at his phone.

‘Anyhow,’ Jen blithely continues, ‘Candy works for this animal refuge near Wandon End, and they were desperate to expand their workspace into some adjacent farmland. The farmer seemed perfectly happy to rent it out to them, but for some strange reason the council kept raising all these petty objections to their planning application. Then the next thing we know, this huge, twenty-five-acre plot –’

‘The yamabiru.’ Ransom suddenly turns, quite deliberately, and addresses himself directly to Gene. ‘The Japanese land leech. The mountains are their natural habitat, but over recent years they’ve taken to hitching a ride down on to the flatlands with packs of roaming boar and deer. They’ve become a real pest in the towns where they enjoy slithering into people’s socks and quietly ingesting a quick takeaway meal …’

‘Jesus!’ Gene is revolted. ‘How big?’

‘Small. Around half an inch to begin with, but they can swell to almost ten times that size. I had one gnawing away at my ankle but I didn’t have a clue about it till I felt this nasty twinge by the fourth and yanked off my shoe. At first I thought it was just a thorn or a thistle, but then I realized my sock was totally soaked …’ he pauses, dramatically, ‘… saturated with my own blood.’

‘Wow!’ Jen is clearly impressed. ‘A land leech? That’s wild!’

‘A yamabiru.’ Ransom nods. ‘I swear I nearly shat myself.’

‘Spell that out for me …’ Jen snatches the pad from Gene. ‘I’m gonna look it up on the internet.’

‘Did it hurt?’ Gene wonders.

‘Nah. It was more the shock of it than anything. I mean the sheer volume of …’

‘Wow!’ Jen repeats. ‘So what did you do with it? Did you kill it? Did you stamp on it? SPLAT!’

Jen stamps her foot, violently. ‘Did it explode like a water-bomb? I bet you did. I bet you killed it.’

‘Damn, fuckin’ right I would’ve!’ Ransom exclaims, indignant. ‘But I never got the chance. The little swine’d drunk its fill and scarpered.’

‘So how …?’ Gene looks mystified.

‘The course quack. He identified the wound. Said it was a pretty common problem on golf courses in those parts.’

‘Yik!’ Jen is mesmerized. She is still holding the pad.

‘Did you quit the match?’ Gene wonders.

‘Quit?’ Ransom looks astounded. ‘Whadd’ya take me for?! I poured a small bottle of iced water over my head, smoked a quick fag, downed a quart of Scotch and finished in a perfectly respectable five over par.’

A short silence follows. Ransom takes a long swig of his beer.

‘Although the leeches were the least of my problems in Japan.’ He hiccups. ‘Oops.’ He places his hand over his mouth. ‘It turns out the tournament had been arranged by the Yakuza …’

‘The Japanese mafia?’ Gene’s eyes widen.

‘Yep. They were extorting cash from local businessmen by forcing them to take part and then charging them huge entry fees. I kept wondering at the time why all the course officials seemed so jittery …’

‘Bloody golf !’ Jen exclaims, slapping the pad down, forcefully. ‘Even the word is ridiculous – like a cat vomiting up a giant hair-ball: GOLLUFF! ’ she huskily intones, rolling her eyes while making an alarming retching motion with her throat. Both men turn to stare at her, alarmed. ‘Just name me any game,’ Jen challenges them, ‘I mean any sport on the planet more selfish than golf is.’

Silence.

‘Formula One,’ Gene finally responds.

‘Shooting,’ Ransom suggests, cocking and aiming an imaginary gun at her.

‘Yeah …’ Jen’s plainly not convinced. ‘But could you really call that a sport, as such?’

‘KA-BOOM!’

Ransom fires. It’s a clean shot.

‘They have an Olympic team,’ Gene says, snatching up the pad again, opening it and proffering it to her.

‘It’s not only golf, though.’ Jen waves the pad away. ‘I can’t stand tennis, either. I hate tennis. To my way of thinking it’s just a game invented by idiots, for idiots. Simple as.’

Before Jen can further substantiate this hypothesis, Gene has grabbed her by the arm and spun her around to face the back wall of the bar. ‘What’s got into you tonight?’ he hisses.

Jen gazes up at him, wide-eyed. ‘I hate tennis, Gene.’ She shrugs (raising both hands, limp-wristedly, like a world-weary Jewish dowager). ‘Is that suddenly such a crime?’

Gene studies her face for a second, grimaces, releases her arm, then slaps the black notebook shut and tosses it – defeated – back under the counter.

Ransom downs the remainder of his beer in a single gulp, then burps, majestically, from the other side of the bar. Jen snorts, ribaldly. Gene shoots her a warning look.

Her mother swallows the paste and then gently belches.

‘You really shouldn’t swallow it,’ Valentine mutters. She’s just flushed the cat mess down the toilet and is now washing her hands, fastidiously, under the hot tap.

‘I’ve always swallowed it,’ her mother maintains.

‘Well, you taught me not to swallow it.’ Valentine turns the tap off.

Her mother inspects her teeth, critically, in the bathroom mirror.

‘You’re not meant to swallow it,’ Valentine persists, ‘you’re meant to spit it out.’

‘Really? Il dit ça sur le tube?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Does it say that on the tube?’

Valentine shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Have a look.’

Her mother grabs the tube and proffers it to Valentine. Valentine shakes the water off her hands, takes the tube and inspects it.

‘Does it say you shouldn’t swallow?’

Her mother peers at the tube over Valentine’s shoulder.

‘No.’ Valentine frowns. ‘But that doesn’t necessarily …’

Her mother recommences brushing again. Valentine places the tube back into the tooth mug. She watches her mother for a while and then: ‘I think you’ve probably been brushing for long enough now,’ she says.

‘Really?’ Her mother stops brushing. ‘How long is “enough”?’

Valentine shrugs. ‘Two minutes?’

‘And how long have I …?’

‘About four.’

Her mother stares at her, blankly.

‘Four minutes. One, two, three, four …’

Valentine slowly counts the digits out on to her fingers. ‘So you’ve basically been brushing for almost double the amount of time you need to.’

Valentine illustrates this point, visually, by dividing the four fingers into two.

Her mother stares at Valentine’s fingers, intrigued. ‘If two twos are double,’ she wonders, ‘then what about three threes? Are three threes double?’

‘Uh … no.’ Valentine shakes her head. ‘Three times three is nine. That’s triple. Two times three is double.’

‘Two threes are six,’ her mother says.

‘Exactly.’ Valentine nods, encouragingly. ‘Two times three is six. Well done.’

She holds up six fingers and divides them in half.

‘Okay’ – her mother is now concentrating extremely hard – ‘and twice times fifty-fivety?’

‘Two times fifty-five is one hundred and ten.’ Valentine nods again. ‘Well done. That’s double, too.’

‘And twice times –’

‘You generally say two times,’ Valentine interrupts, ‘and it’s always double. Two of anything is always double. That’s the rule.’

She turns to dry her hands on a towel.

‘My teeth still feel furry, though,’ her mother murmurs, taking a small step forward and staring, fixedly, into the mirror again. ‘I want them to feel clean. I want them to feel toutes lisses.’

‘We’ve talked about this before.’ Valentine gently takes the toothbrush from her. ‘You just think they aren’t clean, but they are. Remember how the dentist …?’

‘You’re being unbelievably patronizing,’ her mother exclaims, suddenly irritable.

She pauses.

‘Condescendant! And by the way,’ she continues, ‘I find it really disgusting that you flushed the cat mess down the loo.’

She goes and peers into the toilet bowl.

‘Je n’ai pas t’élevée comme ça! Ça fait trop commun.’

Valentine is inspecting her own, clear complexion in the bathroom mirror. The cat sitting closest to the doorway commences scratching itself, vigorously.

‘The toilet bowl is filthy! It’s disgusting,’ her mother grumbles. She turns to inspect the cat. ‘And these cats are disgusting, too. So many of them, et tellement poilus! In fact this entire room is disgusting. All the fitments are disgusting. The light-fitment, the blind, even the colour is disgusting. Especially the colour.’

‘You used to adore these tiles,’ Valentine tells her. ‘The bathroom was one of the main reasons why you and Dad first fell in love with this house.’

‘Please!’ her mother snorts. ‘Impossible! I don’t believe you! This shade of pink? Taramasalata pink? Vomit pink? It’s vile! Disgusting!’

‘You’re finding an awful lot to be disgusted about tonight,’ Valentine observes, dryly.

Her mother considers this notion for a moment, and then, ‘Because there’s a lot to be disgusted by, I suppose,’ she sighs.

‘You know it’s always struck me as ridiculous,’ Gene says, removing a large jar of salted cashews from under the counter, unscrewing the lid and then carefully topping up Ransom’s bar-snacks, ‘that golf doesn’t have the status of an Olympic sport yet.’

‘I do quite enjoy the odd match of ping-pong,’ Jen quietly ruminates from the rear, ‘but then it’s a completely different order of game to proper tennis.’

‘Well there’s the table part, for starters,’ Gene mutters (although his voice is pretty much obliterated as Jen commences flushing a clean jug of water through the coffee machine).

‘Golf,’ Ransom is sullenly addressing his beer bottle. ‘Goll-oll-llolf.’

He frowns. ‘It isn’t stupid,’ he protests. ‘What’s so bloody stupid about it?’

He turns to Gene. ‘Do you think it’s stupid?’

Gene shrugs, helplessly.

‘Goll-lluf,’ Ransom repeats, exploring each individual letter with his tongue and his teeth.

‘Although I do find snooker quite selfish,’ Jen suddenly interjects (as the water finally completes its noisy cycle), ‘and snooker’s a table sport, so it can’t be entirely about the furniture, can it?’

Gene opens his mouth to respond and then closes it again, stumped.

‘I don’t even understand what you mean by selfish,’ Ransom grumbles, checking his phone and sending a quick text.

‘Well’ – Jen carefully adjusts an eyelash (which has briefly become unglued) – ‘by selfish I suppose I mean …’ She gnaws on her lower lip, thoughtfully. ‘I dunno. Selfish … Self-centred. Self-obsessed. Self-indulgent. Self-absorbed …’

‘I think we might best summarize Jen’s position,’ Gene quickly interjects, ‘as a borderline-irrational hatred of all so-called “individual” sports.’

‘Ahhh.’ Ransom finally starts to make sense of things.

‘Although I do quite like bowling,’ Jen demurs.

‘People generally bowl in a team.’ Gene shrugs.

‘And gymnastics. I like gymnastics.’

‘Ditto.’

‘And I’ve always liked the javelin,’ Jen presses on. ‘In fact I love the javelin. There’s something really … really basic and primeval about the javelin.’

To illustrate her point, Jen lobs an imaginary javelin towards Eugene’s head.

‘Okay. So the theory’s not entirely watertight,’ Gene concedes, flinching.

‘And surfing …’ Jen persists. ‘I really, really –’

‘I USED TO BE A SURFER!’ Ransom suddenly yells, tossing down his phone and leaping up from his stool. ‘I USED TO BE A BLOODY SURFER! EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT!’

‘Uh … Could you just …?’ Jen raises a sardonic hand to her ear.

‘I did! I DID!’ Ransom is bouncing, hyperactively, from foot to foot. ‘Everybody knows that. Ask anybody! Ask … Ask him …’ Ransom points at Gene. ‘Surfing was my life. I was a total, surfing freak. I loved it. I lived it. I had the tan, the boarding shorts, the flip-flops, the bleached hair …’

‘The hair was pretty extravagant,’ Gene concurs.

‘All the way down to there, it was …’ Ransom lightly touches his chest with his free hand. ‘I kept it that length for years. It was like my talisman, my trademark, my signature …’

‘Didn’t you insure it at one point for some inordinately huge amount?’ Gene asks.

‘Half a million squid.’ Ransom nods. ‘Although it was just some cheap publicity stunt dreamed up by my ex-manager.’

‘Ah …’ Gene affects nonchalance.

‘But I was in all the fashion mags,’ Ransom persists. ‘Started my own clothing line. Had lucrative contracts with two types of styling gels. Modelled for Westwood in London, McQueen in New York, Gaultier in Paris – which is where I first met Karma …’

He stares at Jen, expectantly.

‘Karma,’ he repeats, ‘Karma Dean? The model? The muse? Come on! You must’ve heard of Karma Dean!’

‘Hmmn?’

Jen just gazes back at him, blankly.

Her mother is perched on the edge of the bed, her slight but curvaceous frame encased in a delicate, apricot-coloured silk nightdress. She is staring at Valentine, expectantly. Valentine is standing close by, looking puzzled. She is holding a small, black vibrator in her hand.

‘I’m really sorry, Mum,’ she eventually murmurs, ‘but the battery’s completely dead.’

Her mother’s mouth starts to quiver. Her eyes fill with tears.

‘I’m really, really sorry, Mum,’ Valentine repeats.

‘Can’t we just take one from the video?’ her mother wheedles. ‘We’ve done that before, remember? Just take one from the remote control!’

‘I don’t think that would work.’ Valentine speaks softly and in measured tones. ‘It’s a different size battery.’

‘No! No it’s not!’ Her mother stamps her foot. ‘You’re lying! You’re just fobbing me off again, same as always!’

‘I’m not lying, Mum. In fact I’m pretty certain –’

‘Stop calling me that!’ her mother snaps.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m not your “mum”. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m a person! I have a name! My name is Frédérique!’

‘Like I was saying,’ Valentine persists, ignoring this last interjection, ‘I’m pretty certain that the ones in the remote are several sizes smaller …’

Her mother hurls herself on to her back. ‘JESUS CHRIST!’ she hollers. ‘IS THIS WHAT I’M TO BE REDUCED TO?’

‘Shhh!’

Valentine glances over towards the door. Her mother clenches both hands into fists and boffs them, repeatedly, against the counterpane.

‘I’d go to the shops, Mum,’ Valentine struggles to mollify her, ‘but Nessa’s in bed and –’

‘THEN ASK A FUCKING NEIGHBOUR!’ her mother bellows.

Valentine closes her eyes and draws a deep breath. ‘Why don’t we try some of those breathing exercises you learned at the day centre the other day?’ she suggests, her voice artificially bright. ‘Or I can fetch you your crochet …’

Hostile silence.

‘I can’t ask a neighbour, Mum. It’s way after twelve …’ She pauses, grimacing. ‘And anyway, the doctor –’

‘Ah-ha! ’

Her mother sits bolt upright again. She has a victorious look on her face.

‘Maintenant nous arrivons au coeur de la question!’

‘He just thinks it’s advisable for you to try and lay off …’

‘Number one’ – her mother lifts a single, accusing digit – ‘you’re too damn scared to go out on your own, Nessa or no Nessa. Number blue’ – she lifts a second finger – ‘you’ve swapped the live batteries with dead ones – on the doctor’s instructions – simply to spite me and stop me from having a bit of fun. Number tree’ – she lifts a third finger – ‘I’m a gorgeous, healthy –’

‘… because this thing is much too hard,’ Valentine interrupts her, ‘and you’re rubbing yourself raw with it.’

Her mother lifts her nightie, opens her legs and shows Valentine her vagina.

‘C’est belle! And you should know! You’ve seen enough of the damn things over the years!’

‘Mum …’

Valentine is upset.

‘What?’

Her mother is unrepentant.

‘Will you just …?’

‘What?’

‘That’s not really …’

‘WHAT?!’

‘That’s just not really acceptable, Mum.’

Her mother drops the nightie. ‘But it’s acceptable to interfere with my toy and then stand there, bold as brass, and lie to my face about it?’

‘I didn’t …’ Valentine begins.

‘God!’ Her mother collapses back on to her bed again. ‘You bore me! This is so boring! I’m so fucking bored !’

Valentine turns to leave.

‘Menteuse!’ her mother mewls. ‘Imbecile! Prude!’

‘But of course I’ve heard of Karma Dean!’ Jen scoffs. ‘Are you crazy?! I mean who hasn’t heard of Karma Dean? She’s huge!’

‘Well we were an item for about eighteen months.’ Ransom shrugs, nonchalant. ‘She was still married at the time – to some pig-ugly old French actor … I forget his name. The tabloids had a fuckin’ field-day. It was totally insane.’

Ransom takes a long swig of his beer. He seems understandably smug at the sheer magnitude of this revelation.

Silence.

‘But Karma Dean’s really famous,’ Jen eventually murmurs.

‘Yeah. I know.’ Ransom scowls.

‘I’m serious!’

Jen pulls her ‘serious’ face.

‘Yes, I know.’ Ransom struggles to hide his irritation.

‘But I don’t think you do,’ Jen enunciates slowly and clearly (as if describing something new-fangled to a deaf octogenarian), ‘Karma Dean’s really, really …’

‘FAMOUS! YES! I KNOW!’ Ransom barks.

‘Here.’ Gene chucks Jen her cleaning cloth. She catches it. He points at the machine, and then (when she shows no inclination to get on with the job) he gently but firmly angles her towards it. Jen finally gives in to him (with a cheeky, half-smile) and commences cleaning again.

‘I remember how you always used to wear it in those two, scruffy plaits …’ Gene gamely returns to their former subject. ‘Hiawatha-style.’

‘Huh?’

Ransom’s still gazing over at Jen, scowling.

‘Your hair?’

‘My …? Oh, yeah …’ Ransom finally catches up. ‘I was the original golf punk. Man. D’you remember all the fuckin’ stick I got for that?’

‘Absolutely.’ Gene nods.

‘An’ Ian Poulter suddenly thinks he’s the latest wrinkle just ’cos he’s got himself a couple of measly highlights!’ Ransom snorts.

‘The latest wrinkle?!’ Jen sniggers.

‘I still miss the old goatee, though.’ Ransom fondly strokes his chin (doing his utmost to ignore her).

‘It was pretty demonic,’ Gene agrees. ‘I believe you grew that around about the time the tabloids first coined …’

‘“The Devil’s Ransom.” Yeah …’ Ransom grimaces. ‘But I loved that goatee. Shaved it off for charity just before my big comeback in 2004 – my new manager’s idea. That twatty comedian did it, live, during Children in Need.’ Ransom scowls. ‘The bald one with the fat collars and all the –’

‘D’you remember that brilliant campaign she did for Burberry?’ Jen turns from the coffee machine.

‘Huh?’ Ransom looks blank.

‘Karma. Karma Dean. That amazing …?’

‘Urgh. Don’t tell me …’ He rolls his eyes, bored. ‘Nude, on a beach, with the teacup chihuahua slung over her shoulder inside a Burberry rucksack? I was there when they took that shot. The dead of winter in San Tropez. She got a mild case of hypothermia – lost all sensation in her feet. Believe it or not, journos still pester me about it now, a whole seven years later …’

‘What a drag,’ Jen smirks, tipping a pile of damp coffee grounds into a brown, paper bag.

‘Yeah,’ Ransom sighs, glancing down at his phone (seemingly oblivious to the irony in Jen’s tone). ‘It’s dog eat dog out there, kid.’

‘Weren’t you banned from the Spanish Open or something?’ Gene quickly interjects.

‘Huh?’

Ransom looks up, confused.

‘The Spanish Open. Weren’t you banned from that at one stage?’

‘Bingo!’ Ransom snaps his fingers. ‘The German Open. They tried to ban me! It was all over the papers. Because of the plaits. They couldn’t accept the plaits. Everybody remembers the friggin’ plaits! C’mon! Who doesn’t remember the plaits?! The plaits are legendary …’

As Ransom holds forth, Jen passes Gene the bag of grounds to dispose of. Gene takes the bag and then curses as it drips cold coffee on to his loafers.

‘Although the point I’m actually trying to make here’ – Ransom ignores Gene’s muted oaths – ‘is that I was a professional surfer – a successful surfer – on the international circuit for two, solid years before I was wiped out in South Africa, so I’m in the perfect position to know, first-hand, how unbelievably selfish surfing is …’

‘Are they real suede?’ Jen crouches down and dabs at Gene’s shoes with a used napkin.

‘Yeah,’ Gene mutters. ‘My wife got me them for Christmas.’

‘Oops.’

Jen grimaces, apologetically.

‘… way more selfish than golf,’ Ransom stubbornly persists, ‘infinitely more selfish.’

‘Well, I can’t pretend to be much of an expert on the matter,’ Jen avers, screwing the damp napkin into a ball and rising to her feet again, ‘but I generally find the most efficient way to delineate between a so-called “normal” sport and a “selfish” one’ – she paints four, ironic speech marks into the air with her fingers – ‘is by employing the handy axiom of sex versus masturbation’ – she flings the ball, carelessly, towards the bin – ‘and then sorting them into categories under similar lines.’

On ‘axiom’ Gene’s jaw slackens. On ‘sex’ his eyes bulge. On ‘masturbation’ his grip involuntarily loosens and he almost drops the grounds. Stuart Ransom is struck dumb for a second and then, ‘MASTURBATION IS SEX!’ he explodes.

‘Exactly,’ Jen confirms, with a broad grin (like a seasoned fisherman reeling in a prize-winning carp), ‘but selfish sex.’

‘Mum?’

Valentine tentatively pushes open the bedroom door and peers inside. The room is dark. Her mother appears to be asleep in bed with the coverlet pulled over her head.

‘Mum?’ Valentine repeats.

Her mother begins to stir.

‘Mum?’

‘Huh?’ Her mother slowly pushes back the coverlet and yawns.

Valentine slowly moves her hand towards the light.

‘NOT THE LIGHT!’ her mother yells.

‘Shhh!’ Valentine frantically tries to quieten her. ‘Nessa’s asleep next door, remember?’

Her mother sits up.

‘What is it?’ she demands.

‘Did you take the remote by any chance?’ Valentine enquires.

‘The what?!’

‘The remote. The video remote. It’s gone missing.’

‘You think I took the remote?’ Her mother looks astonished.

Pause.

‘Yes.’

‘You woke me up when I was fast asleep to find out if I took the remote?!’

‘Yes.’

‘Vraiment?!’

‘Pardon?’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

Longer pause.

‘Oh. Fine.’ Her mother crosses her arms, defiant. ‘Well I didn’t.’

‘I see …’

Valentine nervously pushes her fringe from her eyes. ‘Then I guess you wouldn’t mind if I just …?’

She slowly inches her way into the room.

‘Good Christ!’ her mother exclaims, drawing the coverlet up to her chin like an imperilled starlet in an exploitation movie. ‘What is this?! Who the hell are you?! The fucking remote Gestapo?!’

‘I hardly think it’s fair to compare –’ Gene slowly starts off, shaking his head, evidently bewildered.

‘But what about match-play?’ Ransom interrupts him. ‘What about the Ryder Cup? That’s team golf, right there!’

Pause.

‘Good point,’ Jen concedes, then returns her full attention back to the coffee machine.

Ransom is initially gratified, then oddly deflated, by Jen’s sudden volte face.

‘I was selected for Sam Torrance’s team in 2002,’ he blusters, ‘and we fuckin’ stormed it. Pretty much left the Yanks for dead that year …’

‘That must’ve been an incredible feeling …’ Gene tries his best to buoy him up.

‘It was,’ Ransom confirms.

‘To be perfectly honest with you’ – Jen peers over her shoulder – ‘I don’t even know what the Ryder Cup is …’

She pauses for a moment, thoughtfully. ‘Although when Andy Murray exaggerated the severity of his piddling knee injury to pike out of playing in the Davis Cup the other year … Urgh!’

She shakes her head, appalled.

Ransom gazes at Gene, befuddled. ‘Is she always like this?’ he demands, hoarsely.

‘We had Jon Snow in here the other week,’ Gene confirms, ‘and Jen spent the whole night labouring under the misapprehension that he was her old science teacher from Middle School …’

‘Mr Spencer,’ Jen interjects, helpfully, ‘from Mill Vale.’

‘… which was pretty embarrassing in itself,’ Gene continues, ‘but then she swans off to the kitchens …’

‘I just kept asking if he’d kept in contact with Miss Bartholomew – my Year Seven form teacher,’ Jen butts in, ‘and he was totally polite about it, bless him. He kept saying, “I’m not really sure that I have.” Which I thought at the time was kinda weird … I mean you either keep up with someone or you don’t.’

‘So she heads over to the kitchens,’ Gene repeats, ‘and one of the waitresses mentions having served Mr Snow for dinner. Jen puts two and two together, makes five, and then sprints back to the bar to apologize: “I thought you were my old science teacher,” she says, “I had no idea you were a famous weatherman.”’

‘SHIIIT!’ Ransom covers his face with his hands.

‘That was Lenny’s fault!’ Jen shrieks. ‘It was Len who said –’

‘Lenny’s still struggling to come to terms with the trauma of decimalization,’ Gene snorts. ‘Is he really the best person to be taking direction from on these matters?’

‘Jon Snow’s a fuckin’ newsreader, you dick!’ Ransom gloats. ‘Everybody knows that.’

‘I never watch the news’ – Jen shrugs, unabashed – ‘although when Carol Smillie came in just before Christmas,’ she sighs, dreamily, ‘I was totally star-struck …’

‘If I remember correctly,’ Gene takes up the story, ‘you served her with a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio and then said, “I think you’re amazing, Carol. I’m addicted to Countdown. I’ve never missed a single show.”’

‘And?!’ Jen demands, haughtily.

‘Carol Vorderman presented Countdown, you friggin’ dildo!’ Ransom crows.

‘Oh.’ Jen scowls as Ransom exchanges a celebratory high-five with her benighted co-worker before he turns on his heel (with an apologetic shrug) and departs for the kitchens. Ransom – brimming with a sudden, almost overwhelming exuberance – taps out a gleeful tattoo with his index fingers on to the bar top.

‘She was a real class act,’ Jen mutters, distractedly (her eyes still fixed on the retreating Gene), ‘beautiful skin, immaculate teeth, and perfectly happy to sign an autograph for my dad …’

As soon as Gene’s safely out of earshot, however, she abruptly interrupts her eulogy, places both hands flat on to the bar top, leans forward, conspiratorially, and whispers, ‘I know exactly who you are, by the way.’

* * *

Valentine is crawling around the room on her hands and knees, feeling along the carpet in the semi-darkness.

‘I know the sudden change from dark to light upsets you,’ she’s muttering, ‘that it jolts you – but if we could just …’

She slowly reaches towards the light on the bedside table.

‘A CAT’S COME IN!’ her mother screeches. ‘YOU’VE GONE AND LET ONE OF THOSE FILTHY CATS IN!’

She leaps from her bed. ‘OUT, YOU DIRTY, LITTLE SWINE! OUT! OUT! OUT!’

As her mother chases the cat from the room, Valentine takes the opportunity to dive under the coverlet and sweep her arm across the bed-sheet.

‘LA VICTOIRE!’ her mother yells, ejecting the offending feline with a swift prod of her foot, and then – before Valentine can throw off the coverlet, draw breath, and commence a heartfelt plea to persuade her to do otherwise: ‘GOOD RIDDANCE!’ she bellows, smashing the door shut, triumphantly, behind it.

The door reverberates so violently inside its wooden frame that a small ornament (a cheap, plastic model of St Jude) falls off the windowsill on the opposite wall, and a young child starts wailing in a neighbouring room.

‘Jesus, Mum …!’ Valentine hoarsely chastises her, starting to withdraw her head from under the coverlet, but before she can manage it, her mother – possibly alerted to her daughter’s clandestine activities by the sound of the falling saint – has turned and propelled herself – ‘NOOOOOOOOO!’ – (a howling, rotating, silken-apricot swastika), back on to the bed again.

Valentine gasps as her mother’s knee crashes into her cheek (although this sharp expostulation is pretty much obliterated by:

a) the cotton coverlet

b) the extraordinary racket her mother is making

c) the traumatized squeal of the bedsprings).

She eventually manages to extract herself and collapses, backwards, on to the carpet.

‘Ow!’ she groans, feeling blindly for her nose. ‘I think you might’ve … Woah!’

Her normal vision is briefly punctuated by a smattering of flashing, day-glo asterisks.

‘NO BLOOD ON MY NEW CARPET!’ her mother bellows.

‘Eh?!’

Valentine feels a sudden, inexplicable surfeit of warm liquid on her upper lip. She throws back her head, pinches the bridge of her nose and gesticulates, wildly, towards a nearby box of tissues. Her mother (unusually obliging) grabs a clumsy handful and shoves them, wordlessly, into her outstretched palm.

‘Didn’t you see me?’ Valentine demands, applying all the tissues to her face, en masse.

‘See you?’ her mother clucks. ‘Where?’

‘Where?!’ Valentine honks at the ceiling, through a mouthful of paper. ‘Under the coverlet! In the bed!’

Shocked pause.

‘You were in the bed?’

Her mother affects surprise.

‘Of course I was in the bed!’ Valentine squawks (through her mask of tissue). ‘You just jumped on me! You just landed on me! You just kicked me square in the face!’

‘Did I?’

Her mother seems astonished by this news.

‘Yes!’

Valentine straightens her head and stares at her, indignant.

‘Yes!’ she repeats, removing the tissues. ‘You did!’

‘Oh.’

Pause.

‘Well what the hell did you expect?’ her mother rapidly changes tack. ‘You were crawling around under there like some huge maggot! I panicked! I was terrified!’

‘But that’s hardly –’ Valentine starts off.

‘I mean you wake me up in the middle of the night,’ her mother interrupts her, counting off Valentine’s offences on to her fingers, ‘yell at me, accuse me of stealing the stupid remote …’

‘I never yelled at you!’ Valentine’s deeply offended. ‘I would never –’

‘Then you lure one of your stinking cats into the room.’ Her mother points to the door, dramatically.

‘I didn’t lure the cat anywhere!’ Valentine is gently feeling her nose for any evidence of a bump. ‘The cat simply …’

She shakes her head, frustrated. ‘The point is …’

‘You know I don’t like those cats in my room!’ her mother hollers, almost hysterical. ‘You know how much I loathe them! Petits cons! Les chats sont venus du diable pour me tourmenter! Tu es venue du diable pour me tourmenter! Vraiment!’

Valentine reapplies the tissues to her face again. After a few seconds she removes them and subjects them to a close inspection. The sudden flow of blood appears to have abated. She wiggles her nose and then sniffs, experimentally.

‘I’m very sorry about the cat,’ she finally volunteers, glancing up, ‘it just followed me in here out of habit, I suppose.’

‘You know how much I hate them!’ her mother hisses.

‘Of course,’ Valentine acknowledges, ‘it’s just …’ She hesitates, plainly conflicted. ‘D’you remember that conversation we had the other day about all the various adjustments we’ve been making ever since …’ She pauses, delicately. Her mother simply grimaces.

‘Well, one of the adjustments I obviously need to make,’ Valentine doggedly continues, ‘is to understand that your feelings have changed about the cats, that you’re not –’

‘I HATE THOSE BLESSED CATS!’ her mother yells.

‘I hear you.’

Valentine dabs at her nose again. ‘Although there was a time,’ she murmurs, smiling nostalgically, ‘when you used to actively encourage them into this room. You used to love having them in bed. You used to lie there with them draped all over you. In fact you and Dad were constantly at loggerheads about it …’

‘I don’t care! ’ her mother growls. ‘That was her. C’est hors de propos à ce moment! ’

‘Yes,’ Valentine sighs, standing up. She glances around the room and spots the fallen saint lying in a muddy patch of moonlight on the carpet. She grabs it and returns it to its original place on the windowsill, then cautiously picks her way around the foot of the bed, preparing to make her exit.

On her way out, she bumps into a wastepaper basket and almost upends it. She tuts, catches it before it tips, sets it straight, then impulsively pushes an exploratory hand inside it. Her idly swirling fingers soon make contact with something small, rectangular and plastic.

She calmly retrieves this mysterious object and holds it aloft, balefully, like a down-at-heel court official tiredly displaying an especially incriminating piece of criminal evidence to judge and jury.

‘Huh?’

Ransom’s virile tattoo slows down to a gentle pitter-pat.

‘I know who you are,’ Jen repeats (struggling to repress a grin), ‘I’m just pretending that I don’t to wind Eugene up.’

‘Eugene?’

Ransom’s tattoo stops.

‘Eugene. Gene. The barman. I love taking the mick out of him when someone famous comes in. It’s just this sick little game we like to play …’ She pauses, thoughtfully. ‘Or this sick, little game I like to play’ – she chuckles, naughtily – ‘kind of at Gene’s expense.’

Ransom stares at Jen, blankly, and then the penny suddenly drops. ‘Oh wow …’ he murmurs, instinctively withdrawing his fingers into his fists. ‘Oh shit.’

‘I mean don’t get me wrong,’ Jen chunters on, oblivious, ‘I love Eugene to bits, but he’s just so infuriatingly laid back’ – she rolls her eyes, riled – ‘and gentle and polite and decent, that I can never quite resist …’

She glances over at the golfer as she speaks, registers his stricken expression and then pulls herself up short. ‘Oh heck,’ she mutters, shocked. ‘Didn’t you realize? But I made it so obvious! I mean all the stuff about … about tennis and leeches and … and Norfolk. God. I thought I was telegraphing it from the rooftops!’

Long pause.

‘Oh, yeah. Yeah.’ Ransom flaps his hand at her, airily (although both cheeks – by sharp contrast – are now flushing a deep crimson). ‘Of course I realized! Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Really?’

Jen isn’t convinced.

‘Of course I fuckin’ realized!’ Ransom snaps, almost belligerent.

Jen grabs his empty beer bottle, tosses it into a crate behind the counter and then fetches him a replacement (flipping off the lid by hitting it, flamboyantly, against the edge of the bar top).

‘Jesus!’ Ransom is leaning back on his stool, meanwhile, a light patina of moisture forming on his upper lip. ‘Jesus!’ he repeats, glancing anxiously over his shoulder, towards the kitchens.

‘Here.’

Jen hands him the fresh beer.

‘Cheers.’ The golfer snatches it from her and affixes it, hungrily, to his lips. Jen watches him, speculatively, as he drinks.

‘FUUUCK!’ he gasps, finally slamming down the empty bottle, with an exaggerated flourish. ‘What a gull, eh?’

‘Pardon?’

‘What a sucker!’

Jen looks baffled.

‘A gull – a stooge – a patsy!’ Ransom expands.

Jen still looks baffled.

‘Eugene. Gene. Your barman. What a gull! What a royal fuckin’ doofus!’

Ransom wipes his mouth with the palm of his hand and then burps, majestically. ‘That poor fucker was totally duped back there!’

‘You reckon?’ Jen’s understandably sceptical.

‘Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely …’ Ransom chuckles, vindictively. ‘He didn’t have the first friggin’ clue.’

‘I dunno.’ Jen’s still not buying it. ‘Gene’s a whole lot smarter than you think. Could just be one of those double-bluff scenarios …’

But Ransom’s not listening. His eyes de-focus for a second, and then, ‘My God!’ he erupts. ‘What a performance! You were completely friggin’ nuts back there! You were truly demented!’

Jen merely smiles.

‘And the stuff about selfish sports was a fuckin’ master stroke!’ Ransom continues. ‘It was brilliant! Insane! How the hell’d you just spontaneously come up with all that shit?’

‘I’m a genius.’ Jen shrugs.

‘Ha!’ Ransom grins at her, grotesquely, like an overheating bull terrier in dire need of water.

‘No joke,’ Jen says, firmly, ‘I am a genius. I have an IQ of 210 …’

‘Pull the other one!’

Ransom kicks out his foot. ‘It’s got bells on!’

‘… which is apparently the exact-same score as that scientist guy,’ Jen elaborates.

‘Who? Einstein?’ Ransom quips.

Jen thinks hard for a moment. ‘Stephen Hoskins …? Hokings? Hawkwing?’

Pause.

‘Hawking?’ Ransom suggests.

‘The one who wrote that book about … uh …’

‘Time travel. A Brief History of Time. Stephen Hawking.’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Stephen Hawkwing. We have the same –’

‘Haw-king,’ Ransom interrupts.

‘Pardon?’

‘Haw-king. You keep saying Hawk-wing, but it’s actually …’

‘I’m crap with names,’ Jen sighs. ‘People automatically assume that I’ll have this amazing memory just because I’m super-brainy, but I don’t. My short-term memory is completely shot. I’m not “clever” at all – at least not in any practical sense of the word. I’m intellectual, yes – hyper-intellectual, even – but I’m definitely not clever. The embarrassing truth about intellectuals is that we can be amazingly dense sometimes. And clumsy. And insensitive. And really, really tactless. And incredibly forgetful,’ she sighs. ‘It just goes with the territory. Remember Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind?’

‘I saw it on a plane,’ the golfer murmurs, eyeing her, suspiciously, ‘twice. But I fell asleep both times.’

‘Because our brains are generally operating at such a high level,’ Jen expands, ‘that we simply don’t have the space up there for all these reams and reams of more conventional data …’

The golfer gazes at her, perplexed, noting, as he does so, a slight, pinkened area – almost a gentle chapping – on her upper lip. This idle observation sends a frisson of excitement from his inside knee to his thigh.

‘… data relating to, say – I dunno – table manners,’ Jen rambles on, ‘or road safety, or basic personal hygiene. Take me, for example,’ she expands, ‘I actually started reading Aristotle when I was five – in the original Greek. By seven I’d discovered that a particular chemical component in bananas advances the ripening processes in other fruits. A tiny fact, something people just take for granted nowadays. But it was a huge revelation at the time – had a massive impact on the wine and fruit export industries …’ She shrugs. ‘I got my English language GCSE when I was eight, maths A-level when I was nine. But I was actually twelve years of age before I was successfully toilet-trained.’

‘Wuh?!’

Ransom’s horrified.

‘And I never learned to tell the time.’ She points to her wrist. ‘Couldn’t ever really master it, somehow. I just thank God the world had the good sense to go digital …’ She fondly inspects her watch, notices a tiny smear on its face and then casually buffs it clean on her breast (Ransom observes these proceedings with copious levels of interest).

‘Even tying my own shoelaces was a nightmare,’ Jen continues. ‘At school I always wore trainers with Velcro flaps …’

She illustrates this poignant detail with a little mime. Halfway through, though, Ransom clambers to his feet, reaches over the counter, grabs her arm and yanks her, unceremoniously, towards him.

She squeals, half-resisting. He ignores her protests, roughly twists her wrist and pulls the newly buffed timepiece right up close to his face. He inspects it for several seconds, his breathing laboured.

‘You manipulative little cow,’ he eventually mutters.

Much as he’d surmised, her watch has a leather strap, a gold surround, a traditional dial and two hands.

* * *

‘So you just took out the batteries and then tossed the casing into the bin,’ Valentine murmurs (more rueful now than accusing).

Her mother gazes at Valentine in much the same way a slightly tipsy shepherd might gaze at the eviscerated corpse of a stray sheep on a neighbouring farmer’s land (a gentle, watercolour wash of concern, querulousness and supreme indifference).

‘Well it’s my remote,’ she eventually sniffs, ‘so I can do what the hell I like with it!’

As if to prove this point, categorically, she marches over to her daughter, snatches the remote from her hand and returns to her bed again.

Valentine remains where she stands. ‘It’s not really a question of ownership, Mum –’

‘Frédérique,’ her mother interrupts.

‘Sorry?’

‘Frédérique,’ her mother repeats.

Valentine struggles to maintain her composure.

‘It’s not really a question of ownership, Frédérique …’ (she pronounces the name with a measure of emotional resistance), ‘no one’s denying that the remote is yours. It’s more a question of …’

She is about to say trust.

‘Piffle!’ her mother snorts (before she gets a chance to). ‘Absolute, bloody piffle!’

Valentine freezes.

‘I do find it odd how it’s never a question of ownership,’ her mother grumbles on, oblivious, ‘whenever I happen to own something.’

Valentine doesn’t respond.

‘I mean don’t you find that just a tad hypocritical?’ her mother persists.

Still nothing from Valentine.

‘Well don’t you, though?’

Her mother squints over at her daughter through the gloom.

Valentine is silent for a few seconds longer and then, ‘Piffle!’ she whispers, awed.

‘What?’

Her mother stiffens.

‘Piffle!’ Valentine repeats, raising a shaky hand to her throat, her voice starting to quiver. ‘You just said … you just said …’ She can’t bring herself to utter it again. ‘That was one of Mum’s favourite …’

‘I’M FRÉDÉRIQUE!’ her mother snarls, pointing the remote at her (as if hoping to turn her off with it – or, at the very least, to change the channel). ‘Don’t you dare start all that nonsense again!’

Valentine promptly bursts into tears.

‘STOP IT!’ her mother yells.

‘I can’t stop it!’ Valentine sobs, the grip of her hand on her throat growing tighter. ‘That was one of Mum’s favourite words, don’t you see? She used to say it all the time! Not in a nasty way. Not in a mean way. But when there was some … something she didn’t like on the TV or the ra … radio. “Piffle!” she’d say. “Absolute, bloody p … piffle!” And then she’d reach for the –’

‘FRÉDÉRIQUE!’ her mother screams, covering her ears.

Valentine’s suddenly bent over double, her chest heaving, her face convulsing. She can’t breathe.

‘GET OUT! GET OUT! I HATE YOU!’ her mother yells, then hurls the remote at her. The remote flies over Valentine’s shoulder and hits the wall behind her. Valentine turns, feels blindly for it in the half-light, locates it, grabs it and then darts for the door. She staggers out into the hallway.

‘I feel dizzy, Mum,’ she pants, clutching at her throat again. ‘I can’t breathe. I think I might be going to … I think I might be …’

Her voice slowly fades down the stairwell. In a neighbouring room a child is crying. Valentine’s mother cocks her head and listens intently for a while, then, ‘VALENTINE!’ she yells.

Pause.

‘What?’ Valentine finally answers, hoarsely, from some distance off.

‘How about twice of thirty-one?’ her mother demands.

‘What?’ Valentine repeats, incredulous.

‘Twice of thirty-one. Twice of … Merde!’ her mother curses. ‘Tu es sourde ou seulement –’

‘SIXTY-TWO!’ Valentine howls. ‘SIXTY-TWO! DOUBLE! DOUBLE! DOUBLE!’

Jen snatches her wrist from him, clamps her hand over her mouth and staggers backwards, her eyes bulging, bent double, convulsing, like she’s choking on something.

Ransom gawps at her, in alarm, then realizes (with a sudden, sinking feeling) that she’s not actually choking, but laughing – at him.

‘Oh God!’ she wails. ‘I’m so sorry! I just couldn’t resist …’ And then, ‘Urgh! Look! How disgusting! I’ve snotted on my hand!’

She holds up the offending digits and then goes to grab a napkin.

To mask his confusion, Ransom lunges for the beer bottle and tries to take a swig from it, but the bottle is empty.

‘My dad always says if there was an A-level in bullshit then I’d get top marks …’ Jen chatters away, amiably, ‘but, as luck would have it, I’m compelled to operate within the tedious constraints of a regular school syllabus.’

She gently blots the tears from the corners of her eyes. ‘I got such a low score for my maths GCSE that my teacher took me aside and congratulated me for it. She said it took a certain measure of creativity to get a mark that bad.’ Jen blinks a couple of times as she speaks. ‘Are my eyes still all red and puffy?’

She leans towards him, over the bar top.

Ransom puts down the bottle and gazes into her eyes, noticing – as she draws in still closer – that she has a tiny tuft of tissue caught on the side of one nostril and that she smells of raisins, industrial-strength detergent and baby sick.

‘You’ve smudged your make-up,’ he mutters (there’s a thin streak of black eye-liner on her cheekbone). He takes the napkin from her and gently dabs at her cheek.

‘Thanks,’ she says, surprised.

After he’s finished dabbing he doesn’t immediately pull back. Three, long seconds pass between them in a silence so deafening it’s as if the bottles of spirits behind the bar have just thundered out the last, climactic notes of a rousing concerto. This hiatus is only broken by the quiet beep of Ransom’s phone.

‘So you’d do anything to stay at the Leaside?’ he murmurs, ignoring the phone and focusing in on the nostril again, his tone ruthlessly casual.

‘Pardon?’

Jen blinks.

‘Earlier’ – he grins – ‘I thought you said …’

As he speaks, he notices how the milky-white flesh of her inner arm is now stained by an angry, red handprint. His grin falters.

‘I have a boyfriend,’ Jen says, stiffly.

‘God,’ Ransom mutters, withdrawing slightly, his mind turning – briefly – to Fleur, his deeply suspicious (and litigious) American wife. ‘I feel really, really pissed.’

He glances down at his phone and then back over his shoulder again, as though willing Gene to reappear, but Gene’s nowhere to be seen, so he lifts his hands and rubs his face with them (as if trying to revive himself, or excoriate something, perhaps). Jen, meanwhile, has tossed the used napkin into the bin and strolled over to the till, where she starts to cash up.

‘You know we had a kid like that at school,’ Ransom mumbles, dropping his hands. ‘Percy McCord. Played cymbals in the band. Wore lace-up boots, knee-high green socks an’ a pair of burgundy, corduroy knickerbockers. Total mooncalf, he was.’

‘Talking of performances’ – Jen smirks at him over her shoulder – ‘you put on a pretty impressive show back there yourself if you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘Huh?’

‘I mean all the crazy stuff about your plaits …’

Jen twirls her two ponytails at him, teasingly.

‘My …? Oh. Yeah …’ Ransom winces, pained.

‘EVERYBODY REMEMBERS THE PLAITS!’ Jen bellows (in a surprisingly passable northern accent). ‘THE PLAITS ARE BLOOMIN’ LEGENDARY!’

‘Hah.’ Ransom smiles weakly as he reaches for the pocket containing his cigarettes, but his hand is shaking so violently that he quickly withdraws it again.

‘I was really getting into character at that point,’ he mutters.

‘Well you deserved a bloody BAFTA!’ Jen heartily commends him. ‘Not that those things are worth diddly-squat, quite frankly,’ she adds.

‘I did a guest appearance on Neighbours once,’ Ransom recalls, almost poignantly, ‘and the director said I put in one of the most gutsy performances she’d ever –’

‘I MODELLED IN PARIS FOR JEAN PAUL GAULTIER!’

Jen strikes a gruesome array of camp poses in rapid succession.

Ransom grimaces. A tiny pulse starts to throb in his lower cheek. His phone beeps.

‘So will we let him in on the whole thing when he eventually gets back?’ he wonders, glancing down at his phone and casually scanning through his messages.

‘Who?’

Jen coldly inspects Ransom’s hairline as she speaks (it’s slightly receding), and the way his golfer’s tan kicks in halfway down his forehead.

‘Who?’ Ransom snorts, looking up from his phone and focusing in on Jen’s lips. ‘Your idiot barman, who else?’

‘I keep telling you’ – Jen’s lips tighten – ‘Gene’s not an idiot. He’s really wise, really funny, really emotionally intelligent –’

‘Emotionally intelligent?’ Ransom butts in, sniggering. ‘Next you’ll be calling him “one of the good guys”!’

Jen lets this pass.

‘Emotionally intelligent?!’ Ransom repeats, a single brow raised, tauntingly.

‘He runs marathons,’ Jen attempts to elaborate, evidently discomforted.

‘Marathons?!’ Ransom gasps. ‘No! Seriously?!’

‘Sponsored marathons,’ Jen snaps. ‘He organizes them.’

‘Sponsored marathons?’ Ransom clutches on to the counter, for support.

‘And triathalons.’

‘And triathalons?! Wow-wee!’

Ransom swoons across the bar top, overwhelmed.

‘Last year he raised almost fifteen thousand –’

‘I once raised double that amount in a single afternoon,’ Ransom interrupts her, straightening up, ‘for a land-mine charity. Just after Diana died, it was. My rookie year. I had this little, pre-match wager with Jim Furyk’s caddie …’

‘That’s very impressive,’ Jen concedes, ‘but have you ever been diagnosed with terminal cancer?’

‘Sorry?’

Ransom’s temporarily thrown off his stride.

‘Cancer. Gene’s had it, almost constantly, ever since he was a kid. In pretty much every region of his body. Twice it was pronounced terminal. But he’s fought it and he’s beaten it – eight or nine times. He’s a miracle of science. In fact he was awarded an OBE or a CBE or something,’ she adds, nonchalantly, ‘for his voluntary educational work in local schools and colleges.’

Ransom receives this mass of information with a completely blank expression.

‘And he does all these fundraising activities for armed forces charities,’ Jen persists (with a redoubled enthusiasm). ‘His grandad was a war veteran. Gene always dreamed of becoming a soldier himself, but his health got in the way of it. His parents were both Carneys: – his dad worked as a mechanic and his mum was a palm-reader. She came from a long, long line of palmists. Her great-uncle was Cheiro …’

She glances at Ransom for some visible sign of recognition. ‘He’s really famous.’ She shrugs (having received none). ‘Anyhow, Gene’s family toured all over Europe with loads of the big fairs, but when Gene started getting sick, he couldn’t stay on the road. So they dumped him here, in Luton, with his paternal grandparents. His dad’s dad suffered from severe shell-shock. He was a lovely guy, heavily decorated – amazing brass player. He actually lived on the same street as my mum: Havelock Rise, near the People’s Park. All the local kids were scared of him. He’d be sitting quietly on a bench one minute, then the next he’d just go nuts. Start screaming and yelling …’

‘Hang on a second’ – Ransom’s overwhelmed – ‘his mother was a famous …?’

‘No,’ Jen tuts, ‘his mother’s great-uncle was Cheiro. He was the really famous one – wrote loads of bestselling books and stuff. Although his mother was pretty talented herself, by all accounts, and so was Gene. Had a real gift for it, apparently. Like I said, he toured with the family before he got sick. His sister did this amazing contortionist act …’

She pauses to adjust a false eyelash, blinking a couple of times, experimentally. ‘And another thing,’ she adds (unwittingly knocking the fleck of lint from her nostril with her cuff), ‘about three or four years ago, just when he was really starting to turn things around, his sister and her husband were involved in this awful car crash. They were both killed. Gene was sitting in the back with his stepson and their daughter. His stepson was unharmed. Gene’s legs were completely smashed up. They’re held together by these massive metal pins now, but he still ran the London Marathon last year in under three hours …’ She pauses, thoughtfully. ‘Oh yeah, and they adopted his niece – Mallory – which is French for unlucky, and then his wife became a hardcore Christian – a Pentecostal minister …’ She pauses again, frowning. ‘Or – I forget – is she with the C of E?’

Ransom’s gawping at her, incredulous.

‘Psycho, huh?’ She chuckles. ‘She’s about nine years old – Mallory – but the whole lower half of her face was totally destroyed in the crash. Her teeth are a disaster. Two-thirds of her tongue was bitten off. Her jaw’s been completely rebuilt. She still can’t eat solids. Gene works three jobs to try and raise enough cash to afford private dental and cosmetic surgery for her in America. They’ve got the world’s most advanced specialists in the field in California – brilliant cosmetic dentists and what-not. So he works all the hours reading people’s electricity meters, collecting charity boxes and running the men’s toilets in the Arndale … Hi.’ Jen glances over Ransom’s shoulder. ‘Can I help you with something, there?’

Ransom turns – slightly dazed – to see a very tall, very lean young man standing directly behind him. The man is dripping with sweat and his chest is heaving, as if he’s been running.

‘Noel!’ Ransom exclaims, clambering to his feet.

‘You’re a real piece of work, Ransom,’ Noel hisses, shoving him straight back down again. ‘Anyone ever tell you that?’

* * *

Valentine – still gasping for breath – strikes a match and crouches down to light a candle and a bright cone of incense. Her hand is shaking so violently that she’s obliged to strike a second match, then a third. Once the candle and cone are finally lit, she places them on to a small, battered yellow shrine and sits, cross-legged, in front of it.

‘Calm down, you idiot!’ she chides herself, then closes her eyes and gently starts to rock. Five seconds later, her eyes fly open and the rocking stops. ‘No! Don’t calm down!’ she growls. ‘Don’t! Be angry! Feel something for once in your miserable life!’

She starts rocking again, more violently, now.

‘I hate her!’ she confides to a small, primitive portrait of the goddess Kali which rests, in pride of place, at the centre of the shrine. Kali is a terrifying, cartoon-like figure with a pitch-black face and wild, coarse, flying hair. She stands astride the prostrate body of a man (her husband, the god Shiva, whom she’s accidentally slain in an orgy of bloodlust) surrounded by mounds of corpses (her victims), wearing a necklace of baby heads while screaming, demonically.

Valentine stops rocking. Her eyes shift off, guiltily, to the left. On a nearby bookshelf is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Mary stands there, uncontentiously, smiling, benignly, in her azure-blue cloak, gently cosseting a prim, bleeding heart between her two, soft, white hands.

‘Nope. Not angry,’ Valentine murmurs, ‘that’s stupid – counter-productive. Be calm. Calm. Renunciation. Equanimity. Focus. Renunciation. Equanimity … Urgh!’ She shakes her head, frustratedly. ‘Don’t give in to her! Why do you always give in to her? Why?’

Her eyes well up with tears.

‘Stop crying, you pathetic fool !’ she hisses.

Her hand moves to her throat. ‘No!’ She wrenches the hand away again. ‘Ignore the cruel voice. Ignore it! Say whatever you want! Feel whatever you like!’

She pauses, frowning.

‘What am I feeling?’

She looks panicked and quickly hones in on the image of Kali. After a couple of seconds she raises her eyes to the ceiling, focusing intently, twisting her hands together on her lap.

‘Can mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of stone?’ she recites, haltingly.

‘Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her Lord?’

She lowers her eyes, shakes her head, forlornly, and then focuses in on the picture again.

‘Men call you merciful,’ she whispers, awed, ‘but there is no mercy in you, Mother.’

She bites her lower lip, grimacing. ‘You have cut off the heads of the children of others, and these you wear as garlands around your neck …’

She reaches out and picks up a long string of sandalwood beads, looking almost afraid. ‘It matters not how much I call you “Mother”, Mother,’ she concludes, shrugging. ‘You hear me but you will not listen.’

Valentine raises the beads to her lips and kisses them, then closes her eyes again.

‘Om krimkalyai nama,’ she intones, hardly audible.

‘Om kapalnaye Namah.’ Her voice grows louder.

‘Om hrim shrim krim –

Parameshvari kalike svaha!’

She repeats this phrase in a flat monotone, and each time she repeats it she moves one bead on the necklace forward with her middle finger. As she incants, a small child can be seen, through the open door into the hallway, gradually making her way down the stairs. When she reaches the bottom stair, she pushes open the gate and toddles through into the living room. She stands and watches Valentine for a while, then takes off her nightdress, drops it on to the floor and wanders, naked, around the room, touching various objects with her hand. She finally sits down (with a bump) on the rug directly behind Valentine and gazes at her, fascinated, rocking along in time.

Valentine eventually stops chanting. Approximately ten or so minutes have now passed. She slowly opens her eyes. She stares at the picture of Kali again, raptly, pulling her face in close to it.

‘Monster!’ she murmurs, smiling.

She seems calmer.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ a little voice suddenly demands.

Valentine turns, surprised. She gazes at the small child.

‘Where’s your nightie, Nessa?’ she asks.

‘What’s rehob?’

‘Rehob?’ Valentine echoes.

‘Is Grandad gone to rehob?’ the little girl wonders.

‘How did you get down here?’ Valentine tuts, gazing out into the hallway. ‘You should be in bed.’

The little girl just stares at her.

‘No,’ Valentine eventually answers, ‘Grandad is in heaven. Mummy is in … in rehab.’

She pauses. ‘Mummy will come home soon, but Grandad …’

She frowns.

The little girl stares at her, blankly. Valentine takes the sandalwood beads and hangs them around the child’s neck.

‘Beautiful!’ She smiles, then claps the child’s hands together. ‘Hurray!’

The little girl peers down at the beads.

‘So who told you about rehab?’ Valentine wonders.

The little girl continues to inspect the beads.

‘Was it one of the big boys at Aunty Sasha’s?’

The little girl doesn’t answer.

Valentine sighs then turns, picks up the candle from the shrine and offers it to her.

‘Would you like to blow the candle out?’

The little girl nods.

‘Okay, then. Deep breath,’ Valentine instructs her. ‘Deep, deep breath.’

The child leans forward and exhales, as hard as she possibly can, but the flame just flattens – like a canny boxer avoiding a serious body blow – then gamely straightens up again.

Although plainly startled – and not a little annoyed – by Noel’s boorish behaviour, Ransom tries his best to disguise his irritation. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ he mutters, appraising him, almost tenderly.

Noel has long, curly black hair, pale green eyes and an intelligent face, but his youthful bloom (he’s only twenty-one) has all but evaporated. There is a weariness about him, a sallowness to the skin, a sunkenness under the eyes and cheeks. He looks hollowed-out, withered, shop-soiled. He reeks of skunk and cigarettes. One of his front teeth is badly chipped and prematurely yellowed. He is heavily tattooed. The left hand has, among other things, LTFC printed – in a somewhat amateurish script – across the knuckles. The right hand and arm – by absolute contrast – have been expertly fashioned into the eerily lifelike head, neck and torso of a snake. Only his fingers remain un-inked and protrude, somewhat alarmingly, from the serpent’s gaping mouth.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Ransom asks (gazing, mesmerized, at the reptilian tattoo), and then (when this question garners no audible response), ‘You seem a little tense.’

‘My mother used to work in this place,’ Noel growls, glancing around him, angrily. ‘Head of Housekeeping. But I guess you already knew that.’

‘Sorry?’ Ransom stares up at him, confused.

‘My mother,’ Noel repeats, more slowly this time, more ominously, his nostrils flaring. ‘My mother used to work at this hotel.’

‘What?! Here?! At this hotel?’ Ransom echoes, visibly stricken. ‘You’re kidding me!’

‘Kidding you?’ Noel scoffs. ‘You actually think I’d joke about a thing like that?’

While this short exchange takes place, Jen casually strolls to the far end of the counter and peers over towards the front desk. The desk has been temporarily vacated. A small, conservatively dressed, middle-aged Japanese woman is standing in front of it, her finger delicately poised over the bell.

Jen cocks her head for a moment and listens, carefully. She thinks she hears a commotion near the hotel’s front entrance and wonders if the receptionist might be offering back-up to Gerwyn from Security (who’s currently on door duty). She scowls, checks the time, then returns her full attention back to the bar again.

‘Man! You’re just incredible!’ Noel’s laughing, hollowly. ‘I mean the levels you’ll sink to for a little bit of press.’

He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘It’s scary, Ransom. It’s fucked-up. It’s sick.’

‘Now hold on a second …’

The golfer frowns as his drink-addled brain slowly puts two and two together, then his expression rapidly transmogrifies from one of vague bemusement, to one of deep mortification. ‘Aw come on, Noel!’ he wheedles. ‘You can’t seriously think …?’

Noel delivers him a straight look.

‘But that’s crazy!’ Ransom squawks. ‘I didn’t have the first idea – I swear. I just got a message from Esther. You know Esther? My PR?’

Noel looks blank.

‘Esther. Remember? Jamaican? Bad attitude? I was booked in at the Leaside. She texted and said you’d switched the venue, so I –’

‘So you thought you’d set up a lovely, little photo opportunity at the Thistle, eh?’ Noel sneers, pointing. ‘Slap bang in front of the giant, plate-glass window.’

Ransom turns and gazes over at the window. Three photographers are now standing behind the glass, two of them busily snapping. The third starts banging, aggressively, at the service hatch.

‘FUCK OFF !’

The golfer grabs a handful of nuts and hurls them towards the glass.

‘Oi!’ Jen yells (in conjunction with the golfer – recognizing this malefactor from their previous encounter). ‘I thought I told you earlier …’

She stands there for a second, momentarily flummoxed, then reaches under the counter, grabs the first aerosol that comes to hand, and steams around the bar.

‘I don’t understand …’ Ransom pulls out his phone. ‘This doesn’t make any kind of sense … I was booked in at the Leaside and then I got a text …’

He begins paging through his messages while Jen dances around in front of the window, chuckling vengefully and spraying voluminous clouds of furniture polish all over the glass. The photographers curse and bellow as their view is initially compromised and then entirely obfuscated (Jen only adds insult to injury by sketching a dainty, girlish heart in the centre of the goo and then – after a brief pause – neatly autographing it).

Ransom finally locates the message and shows it to Noel. ‘There. See?’ He passes Noel his phone. Noel takes it, inspects it for a few seconds and then tosses it over his shoulder. The phone slides across the parquet and comes to rest, with a clatter, under a nearby table. Jen – like a well-trained blonde labrador – promptly charges off to retrieve it.

‘Just tell me what you want,’ Noel growls, ‘so I can get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps.’

‘Jesus.’ Ransom shakes his head, depressed. ‘You really must think I’m some kind of a monster …’

‘You destroyed my family.’ Noel shrugs.

‘And I’m really, really sorry about that, Noel’ – Ransom’s plaintive, almost resentful – ‘but it was a fuckin’ accident, remember? And like I’ve said countless times before …’

‘It’s not the accident I’m talking about,’ Noel snarls, ‘as well you know. It’s all the crap that came with it.’

‘But that’s hardly –’

‘Save it!’ Noel snaps.

‘Here.’ Jen hands Ransom his phone back, then turns to Noel. ‘I’m about to close the bar, so if you’re wanting a snack or a drink …’

She pauses, mid-sentence, peering up into his face, quizzically. ‘I recognize you. We met before somewhere …’

Noel ignores her. His eyes remain locked on the golfer’s.

‘Pizza Hut!’ Jen exclaims. ‘Didn’t you temp there for a while on the delivery truck?’

‘Two beers.’ Ransom valiantly attempts to dispatch her.

‘Or … Hang on a sec … Weren’t you the guy roadying for that crappy DJ at Amigos last Thursday when the big fight broke out with those lippy, Sikh kids and you went and got my friend Sinead her bag back?’

‘What’s wrong with you people?’ Noel hisses, his face suddenly reddening. ‘I don’t want a stupid drink and I don’t want a stupid chat, all I want is to find out why the hell it was you called me here!’

He glowers down at the golfer, his fists clenching and unclenching. ‘So for the last fucking time –’

‘I’m really sorry, Noel,’ Ransom interrupts him, ‘but there’s been some kind of a mix-up. I honestly thought you organized this meeting tonight.’

Noel looks astonished, then livid.

‘WHAT IS THIS?!’ he yells, finally losing his rag. ‘Are you DEAF ?! Are you STUPID?! Do we need a fucking INTERPRETER here?’

‘I got a call from Esther, my PR, like I said –’

Before Ransom can complete his sentence Noel has grabbed the empty beer bottle on the bar top and has slammed it, violently, against the edge of the counter. Jen shies away as shards of glass cascade through the air. Ransom doesn’t move. He doesn’t flinch. He barely even blinks.

‘You want drama?!’ Noel menaces the golfer with the bottle’s jagged edge. ‘A little excitement?! Is that the deal?!’

Ransom slowly shakes his head.

‘Or how about this?’ Noel calmly pushes the bottle against his own throat. ‘Is this more like it? Is this the kind of thing you had in mind, eh?’

‘Fabulous tattoo,’ Jen mutters, inspecting Noel’s forearm as she straightens up and shakes out her hair. ‘What is it? A swan? A goose?’

Noel ignores her.

‘I swear on my life I didn’t set this thing up,’ Ransom persists. ‘I swear on my daughter’s life –’

‘Fuck off !’ Noel snaps, stepping back, jabbing harder. A small rivulet of blood begins trickling down his neck.

‘Or a big duck,’ Jen speculates. ‘A big, ugly old duck …’

As she speaks Jen sees the Japanese woman from the front desk entering the bar and peering around her. Jen makes a small gesture with her hand to warn her off. The woman stands her ground. Jen repeats the gesture.

‘This is crazy, Noel,’ Ransom is murmuring. ‘I’m sure if we just …’

‘A really big, ugly, old duck,’ Jen repeats. ‘A really nasty, mean old duck. Like a … a …’

She struggles to think of a specific breed of duck. ‘… a Muscovy or a …’

Noel’s eyes flit towards her.

‘It’s not a fucking duck,’ he growls, insulted.

‘Sorry?’

Jen takes a small step forward.

‘It’s not a duck,’ he hisses, lifting the arm, ‘it’s a snake, you fucking bubble-head.’

‘Really?’ Jen draws in still closer, taking hold of the arm and perusing it at her leisure. ‘A snake you say? Lemme just … Oh … yeah … yeah! Look at that! I can see all the scales now. The detailing’s incredible!’

Noel says nothing.

‘So what kind of a snake?’ Jen persists. ‘Is it indigenous or tropical?’

Noel ignores her. He’s focusing in on the golfer again.

‘An asp?’ Jen suggests.

Still nothing.

‘A viper?’

‘It’s a fucking adder.’

On ‘adder’ Noel pushes the bottle even harder into his throat.

‘Oh God, yes,’ Jen exclaims, ‘of course it is. An adder. I can see that now. If you look really closely you can make out the intricate diamond design on the …’

Behind them – and over the continuing commotion from beyond the window – another conversation suddenly becomes audible.

‘Ricker,’ a woman is saying, ‘Mr Ricker.’

‘Did you enquire at the front desk?’

(Gene’s voice, getting louder.)

‘I went to desk,’ the woman replies, in halting English, ‘but there is nobody …’

‘Did you ring the bell?’

‘She say he will meet in bar. Mr Ricker.’

‘Well, the bar’s almost shut now. It’s very late …’

(They enter the bar.)

‘I know. Yes. My flight also late. My plane also late.’

‘It’s been pretty much empty since …’

Gene slams to a halt as he apprehends the scene.

‘What on earth’s happened to the window?’ he demands, indignant.

‘If you don’t mind’ – Jen raises a peremptory hand – ‘we’re actually just in the middle of something here …’

Gene focuses in on Noel, who currently has his back to them (and Ransom, who’s all but obscured by Noel). He starts to look a little wary.

‘Mr Ricker?’

The Japanese woman steps forward. Noel half turns his head.

‘Is everything all right?’ Gene asks.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Jen says, nodding emphatically.

‘No problem,’ Ransom echoes, shifting into view and smiling, jovially.

Noel slowly lowers the bottle from his throat.

‘What’s happened to your cheek?’ Gene wonders.

(There is blood on Ransom’s cheek where a tiny splinter of glass from the beer bottle has lightly nicked his skin.) Ransom lifts a hand to the cheek and pats at it, cautiously. ‘It’s fine.’ He winces. ‘It’s nothing.’

As Ransom speaks, Noel gently places the broken bottle on to the bar and then casually lifts his shirt to show Jen his chest. His chest is painfully emaciated but exquisitely decorated. The tail of the adder curls over his shoulder and finishes – in a neat twirl – around his nipple. All the remaining skin on his belly, waist and diaphragm has been intricately inked into a crazily lifelike, rough, wicker corset.

‘Oh God!’ Jen gasps, suddenly remembering. ‘Wickers!’

Noel grins.

‘But of course – my dad coached you in five-a-side for years …’

She squints at the tattoo work, amazed, as bright trickles of blood drip down on to the design.

‘Mr Ricker?’ The Japanese woman takes another cautious step forward.

Noel half turns, dropping the T-shirt. ‘Mrs Kawamura?’

Mrs Kawamura bows her head as Noel tramps his way, carelessly, through shards of glass and goes over to formally introduce himself. They shake hands, then Noel politely indicates the way and they leave the foyer together. Gene gazes after Noel, bemused.

‘His mum was Head of Housekeeping,’ Jen says, matter-of-factly. ‘Mrs Wickers. D’you remember her?’

‘Uh … no.’ Gene shakes his head.

Jen squats down and starts picking up the larger pieces of glass. Ransom is still sitting on his stool, looking pale and disorientated.

‘Should I fetch the first aid box?’ Gene wonders.

‘Hang on a second …’ Ransom lifts a hand. ‘You didn’t …’ He blinks a couple of times then frowns. ‘That story you were telling earlier. About the Jap kid. The one who was kidnapped by the North Koreans …’

‘Sorry?’

It takes Gene a few moments to make the connection. ‘You mean Megumi? The girl who –’

‘Did they ever find her?’ Ransom interrupts.

‘Find her?’ Gene echoes, frowning. ‘Uh, no. No. I don’t believe they did.’

‘Oh. Great.’ Ransom looks depressed.

‘Although, in the final reckoning, Megumi’s disappearance was actually just the start of something way bigger – something almost revolutionary –’

‘How d’you mean?’ Ransom interrupts again, somewhat irascibly.

‘Well, her case ended up having all these really widespread social and political repercussions throughout pretty much all of Japanese culture,’ Gene continues (somewhat haltingly to begin with). ‘I mean it’s fairly complicated’ – he shrugs – ‘but what basically happened was that quite a few years after Megumi first disappeared her parents were approached – out of the blue – by this North Korean spy who claimed to have been involved in the initial kidnap plot. He was seeking asylum in Japan and told them exactly what had happened to their daughter and why …’

‘They believed him?’ Ransom’s sceptical.

‘It seems he was fairly convincing’ – Gene nods – ‘so they promptly informed the Japanese authorities of what they knew, but the Japanese government refused to do anything about it.’

‘Why not?’ Jen looks up, outraged, from her position on the floor.

‘Because they didn’t want to risk antagonizing the North Koreans,’ Gene explains. ‘Relations between the two countries were especially volatile during that period …’

‘How many people are we talking about, here?’ Jen wonders. ‘Kidnap victims, I mean. In total?’

‘I don’t actually remember,’ Gene confesses. ‘Quite a number. Definitely in double figures. Fifteen? Nineteen?’

Jen receives this information without further comment.

‘Anyhow, instead of just putting up and shutting up – like the government wanted – Megumi’s parents decided to take matters into their own hands. They virtually bankrupted themselves spearheading this massive, public campaign, transforming Megumi and her plight into a huge, cause célèbre.’

He clears his throat. ‘It’s important to bear in mind that what they did – how they behaved – was considered completely shocking and outrageous in the Japan of that era. In general people weren’t encouraged to make a public fuss about personal dramas. It flew in the face of Japanese etiquette which prefers, as you’ll probably know from your own extensive experience,’ Gene addresses Ransom, respectfully, ‘to do things quietly, surreptitiously, behind the scenes, so that people in positions of authority don’t ever risk feeling compromised.’

The golfer takes out his phone and starts checking his texts, so Gene focuses his attention back on Jen again.

‘But Megumi’s parents flew in the face of all that, marching, picketing, leafleting, protesting for year after year after year. Megumi became a household name throughout all of Japan – a celebrity. And in the end the Japanese government were pressurized into making some kind of a deal with the North Koreans whose rice crop had just failed so they were desperate for Japanese aid. This was ten or more years later – even longer – maybe fifteen …’

Ransom finally puts his phone away.

‘Up until then the North Koreans had always hotly denied any knowledge of Megumi and the other kidnap victims,’ Gene continues. ‘They were obliged to perform a complete about-turn – it was deeply humiliating for them – and quite a few of the victims were eventually returned to Japan, to this huge, public fanfare.’

‘But not her.’ Ransom’s poignant.

‘Nope. Megumi never made it back. They claimed she was dead. They said she’d hung herself during a short stay in a mental hospital when she was around twenty-six or twenty-seven, although there was scant formal evidence to back this up. What they did admit, though – and I suppose this is one of the few, really positive aspects to the story – was that she’d given birth to a child during her captivity, this beautiful little –’

‘Christ. I gotta get out of here!’

Ransom turns and dry retches on to the bar top.

‘Oh great,’ Jen murmurs. ‘Oh bloody wonderful.’