The Yips. Nicola Barker

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      Stan gazes at him, blankly.

      ‘Neil Young, dipstick! It’s the lyric Kurt Cobain quoted in his suicide note. You’re a teenager – you should know that. I quoted it at my coach the other day and he just stared at me, like – duh? I go, “It’s Neil fuckin’ Young, Roger.” He goes, “Neil Young? Of course it’s Neil Young! I love Neil Young! Are you kidding me?! The Jazz Singer’s my favourite film of all time!” I just looked down at myself and I thought, Ransom, you’re on a hiding to friggin’ nowhere here. So I sacked the little turd, on the spot.’

      ‘Seriously?’ Stan’s impressed.

      ‘Yeah.’ Ransom bridles. ‘Of course I’m fuckin’ serious. Although now the greedy twat’s suing me for unfair dismissal.’

      ‘Ouch.’

      Stan looks pained.

      ‘The more I think about it, though,’ Ransom muses, adjusting his cap to a less rakish angle, ‘the more I feel like I’m … I dunno … like I’m a man out of time …’ He pauses, wistfully. ‘Nah-ah,’ he promptly corrects himself, ‘it’s worse than that. Sometimes when I walk into the locker room at the start of a tournament I feel like I’ve just landed from another planet. Like I’m extraterrestrial. An alien! And it’s not just that I’m Old School, that I’m Hardcore … It’s much more … I dunno … much more fundamental. There’s something different about me. A uniqueness. I have this … this natural … this basic … this essential quality about me which marks me out from ninety-nine per cent of players in the professional game right now …’ Ransom fixes Stanislav with an implacable stare. ‘D’you know what that quality is, Stan?’

      Stan shakes his head.

      ‘Shall I enlighten you?’

      Stan shrugs.

      ‘Personality!’ Ransom grins. ‘It’s personality, kiddo! I have character. Gallons of the stuff. And I’m just too damn creative – too much of a fuckin’ individual – to turn myself into one of those gormless, brainwashed, Ledbetter-style automatons who only ever plays the next hole, the next shot, while spouting endless, turgid platitudes about their “mental game” and the arc of their fucking “swing plane”. D’you know what I mean?’

      Stan just gazes at him, blankly (he has no idea).

      ‘Lemme put it this way.’ Ransom gamely attempts to re-state his position: ‘I remember this shit-for-brains journo cornering John Daly outside the clubhouse at the start of a major tournament one time – I forget which tournament it was, off-hand – getting right up in his face and demanding to know what his “golfing strategy” was for the week’s play ahead. Daly’s obviously really unimpressed by this half-wit’s attitude, not to say bored and pissed off by the question itself, but, as always, he’s very friendly and courteous and listens to the journalist really politely before considering his reply. “My strategy?” he finally murmurs, plucking at his chin for a moment as if he’s going to say something really deep, really significant. “Yeah … Well I guess that would probably be …”’ Ransom clears his throat and then attempts a (perfectly passable) impersonation of Daly’s slow American drawl: “Hit the ball, find the ball, then hit the ball again.”’

      Ransom smiles at Stan, beatifically. Stan looks puzzled.

      ‘“Hit the ball, find the ball …”’ Ransom repeats, slapping his hand against his thigh, snorting, ‘like this is the most incredibly profound, fuckin’ insight: “Hit the ball, find the ball …” Like this is the hugest fuckin’ revelation! Man! It was pure, undiluted genius! A defining moment in the history of the game! A two-finger salute to all the vultures and the bullshitters and the mind-wizards and the … the …’ (Ransom momentarily runs out of suitable targets for his mirthful ire, and flounders. His eyes fill with sudden, hot tears.) ‘It was absolutely fuckin’ brilliant,’ he huffs, then turns – blinking, self-consciously – and gazes, impatiently, past the modern, slightly shabby rectory building, to the large, somewhat static and forbidding, Victorian, red-brick church beyond.

      

      ‘What was that phrase Dad always liked to use?’ Valentine wonders, indicating, somewhat wryly, towards her mother. ‘Full of piss and vinegar?’

      Her mother – who seems in unusually high spirits – is singing ‘Frère Jacques’ at the top of her lungs to a slightly bedraggled cat which is crouching, terrified, halfway up the stairs.

      ‘So what’re they trying to pin on me this time?’ Noel demands, slowly unwinding a grubby-looking keffiyeh scarf, while carefully ensuring that the sterile gauze dressings (which have been neatly applied to his neck beneath it) remain intact.

      ‘Pin on you?’ Valentine’s down on her knees, unfastening Nessa’s shoes. ‘Who d’you mean?’

      ‘Who?!’ Noel exclaims, thumbing over his shoulder, towards the front door. ‘Who the fuck else, stupid?!’

      ‘Watch your mouth, stupid!’

      Valentine glances up at him, indignant, as she removes the first shoe. ‘And don’t call me stupid,’ she adds (as a guilty afterthought), inclining her head, warningly, towards the child.

      ‘Yeah, stupid !’ Nessa immediately echoes, snatching her other foot from her aunt’s grip, jutting out her chin and boldly squaring up to him.

      ‘Oh great.’ Valentine rolls her eyes.

      ‘Yeah, stupid !’ Nessa repeats, grabbing a handful of the baggy fabric of her father’s jeans and yanking at it, hard.

      ‘Get the fuck off!’ Noel screeches, snatching for the belt on his trousers (which are already alarmingly low-slung), but his response is too slow, and the trousers slip down, with virtually no resistance, from his hip-bones to his knees.

      Nessa clings on to the concertinaed fabric, giggling, delighted. Valentine struggles to contain a wan smile.

      ‘Enough!’ Noel hisses, raising the back of a warning hand to the child. Nessa promptly lets go and Noel yanks the trousers up again, cursing. Valentine pulls the toddler back towards her and embraces her, protectively.

      ‘MUM!’ Noel bellows – effortlessly displacing his irritation (principally, admittedly, with himself). ‘Could you put a bloody sock in it, please?’

      His mother sings – if possible – still louder.

      ‘I said could you put a sock in it?’ Noel repeats (an added edge of menace in his voice this time).

      ‘She’ll carry on for hours at this rate,’ Valentine mutters (with a strong element of ‘and I can’t say I’d blame her if she did …’).

      ‘She’s been singing that damn thing, non-stop, since we left the day centre,’ Noel gripes. ‘It’s driving me round the twist.’

      ‘Let it go, Bro’,’ Valentine advises him, stifling a yawn.

      ‘I had to remove her filthy hand from my thigh, twice, in the car on the drive home,’ Noel hisses. ‘She’s absolutely, bloody disgusting!’

      ‘I’ll have a word with her about it, later,’ Valentine promises, untangling one of Nessa’s bright, blonde СКАЧАТЬ