The Yips - Nicola Barker

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seen Lady Spellbound?!’ Stan parrots, astonished.

      ‘Nope.’ Ransom shakes his head. ‘But isn’t it meant to be really terrible?’

      ‘Oh … uh …’

      Stan quickly reassesses the situation. ‘Yeah … Well I mean it’s basically just a kids’ film’ – he shrugs – ‘although Bill Murray’s pretty good in it. Has this great cameo …’

      ‘I played a pro-am tournament with Murray once,’ Ransom recollects; ‘he’s actually a very handy player. On the third day he turned up at the clubhouse wearing this long, blonde wig, the hair all …’

      Ransom gesticulates, wildly. ‘Man. I laughed till I bawled.’

      ‘Because he wore a wig?’ Stan frowns.

      ‘Duh!’ Ransom’s patently astonished at the kid’s ignorance. ‘He wore it as a piss-take, obviously!’

      ‘A piss-take of what?’

      Stan’s still frowning.

      ‘Of what?! Are you crazy?! My hair, Dumbo! A piss-take of the legendary Stuart Ransom coiffure!’

      Stan looks lost for a few seconds and then, suddenly, ‘Oh yeah. Yeah …’ A slow grin starts to ambush his face. ‘Weren’t you nearly chucked off a tournament once because it was such an unbelievable bird’s nest?’

      ‘Bingo!’

      Ransom high-fives him again.

      ‘And then you claimed in all the papers that you couldn’t brush it because some loopy fan had …’

      ‘Stolen my hairbrush! Yeah!’ Ransom’s beatific. ‘And I was deadly, fuckin’ serious. She had stolen it. But they still refused to let me compete, so as a compromise, I plaited it. Two plaits. The plaits were like this massive sensation. Everyone went wild about them. I was front page news in all the papers for about a week. Got a huge spread in Playgirl. Ridiculous, really, when you actually come to think about it …’

      ‘Crazy,’ Stan agrees (perhaps too readily).

      ‘Although this was way before Beckham had his mohawk,’ Ransom rallies. ‘Way before all the drama with the sarong. It was the German Open. I actually won that year.’

      ‘Stealing a hairbrush …’ Stan muses (apparently very taken by the idea). ‘That’s seriously deluded.’

      ‘Yup. Mandy Pope.’ Ransom rolls his eyes. ‘Canadian Druid. Total fuckin’ nutter. Stalked me for seven years. I had a restraining order out on her. She’d break into my flat while I was off on tour, steal my jockeys and leave these weird, little messages inside my coffee jar …’

      ‘A Canadian Druid …?’ Stan ruminates. ‘That’s retarded.’

      ‘Tell me about it!’ Ransom clucks. ‘Total fuckin’ headcase, she was. But it only gets better,’ he continues. ‘I saw a list of the hundred most visited sites on the internet a while back and nearly puked when I saw her blog close to the top of it.’

      ‘No way!’

      Stan’s impressed.

      ‘You’d better believe it, kid. Mandy fuckin’ Pope. Gets arrested for stealing my jockeys one week, the next she’s at the head of an international fuckin’ faith empire.’

      ‘That’s sick!’ Stan’s deeply amused.

      A short silence follows as they both appraise the Hummer again.

      ‘So your dad’s a Pole?’

      Stan nods.

      ‘You speak any Polish?’

      ‘Some.’

      ‘Can you get me a coffee, please?’ Ransom demands.

      ‘Get your own, Monkey-knob,’ Stan responds.

      ‘Not bad!’ Ransom nods, approvingly.

      ‘Thanks.’

      ‘Are you studying it at school?’

      ‘Nope. At tech. My school doesn’t currently have –’

      ‘Brilliant,’ Ransom interrupts. ‘So shall we take this little beauty out for a quick spin now, or what?’

      Stan turns to stare at him, shocked.

      Ransom leans forward and tries the handle on the door for a second time. The door is – unsurprisingly – still locked.

      ‘I bet I can get this thing moving without a key,’ Ransom brags.

      Stan, meanwhile, is reaching into the pocket of his baggy jeans and feeling around for something. He eventually locates what he’s looking for and withdraws it.

      ‘You know, basketball’s one of the few sports I’ve never really followed,’ Ransom ruminates (sensing imminent defeat on the Hummer front). ‘The skill sets are just so different to those in golf. Although I was playing this tournament in the Dominican Republic a while back …’

      He peers over at Stan and then abruptly falls silent. Stan is carefully unfolding a clean, white, cotton handkerchief. Lying in the middle of it is a long, fat, neatly pre-rolled joint.

      ‘It’s really good shit,’ he confides, proudly, as Ransom reaches out to grab it with a delighted whoop. ‘I got it at Christian camp.’

      ‘Leave it. It’s fine. It doesn’t need mending.’ Gene tries to grab the jacket from her. ‘It’s not like I ever wear the thing – it’s just a keepsake …’

      ‘So when were you planning to tell me, exactly?’

      His wife refuses to give the jacket up. She plumps it down on to her lap and starts rooting around inside an old biscuit tin for a reel of thread in an appropriate colour. She is still wearing her dog collar, but her hair (usually drawn back into a scruffy bun) has been recently washed and hangs down in loose, damp curls across her shoulders. Her face – generally calm but serious, even solemn – currently looks drawn and stressed. Gene notices dark rings around her brown eyes, which – as always – are utterly devoid of make-up.

      ‘I mean if that girl from your work hadn’t phoned …’ She frowns. ‘Jess. Jane …’

      ‘Jen.’

      He notices some tinges of grey around her temples. He inspects her eyebrows. They are thick and un-plucked, but their line is still good, still shapely and graceful. She is attractive, he decides, but in a natural way – unadorned – homely.

      Homely? No. He frowns. Not homely.

      Powerful? Yes.

      Charismatic? Certainly.

      Austere? Well …

      His frown deepens.

      Handsome, then?

      Handsome?! He almost smiles. Why not? With that strong mouth, that straight nose, that no-nonsense set to her jaw …

      He inspects her face, fondly.

      Handsome? He ponders the word for a moment, perturbed. Isn’t handsome the kind of adjective you’d use to describe a brusque but peerlessly efficient ward matron of uncertain vintage? A dashing, Oxbridge undergraduate (male)? An admirably proportioned Arabian stallion?

      She is perched on the stool of her dressing table with the reel of cotton clenched tightly in her fist and a needle held – delicately suspended – in the corner of her mouth.

      ‘If Jen hadn’t phoned,’ she reiterates, ‘I wouldn’t have had the slightest –’

      ‘I planned to tell you over dinner,’ Gene interjects,

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