The Yips

‘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.