The Yips. Nicola Barker

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.’

Chapter 3

      ‘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, ‘it just didn’t seem fair to unload all this stuff on to you directly before Stan headed off on his exchange – you were anxious enough already …’

      ‘You made a deal with him,’ she snaps.

      ‘We forged a compromise,’ he corrects her.

      ‘I kept thinking how unusually quiet he was on the drive,’ she muses, irritated, ‘I just put it down to nerves.’

      ‘He was a little subdued,’ Gene confirms.

      ‘I could happily strangle him!’

      She stares up at the light-fitment, her eyes filling with tears.

      ‘I told him you’d be disappointed,’ Gene tries to reassure her. ‘I said, “She won’t be angry, Stan, she’ll just be really disappointed – really disappointed.” He was devastated. He actually began to sob when I said that.’

      Silence.

      ‘Fine.’

      She blinks her own tears back. ‘So they smoked a huge quantity of pot, and then what?’

      On ‘then’ (possibly pronounced more forcefully than she’d intended) she inadvertently spits the needle out on to the carpet.

      ‘Just one joint,’ Gene corrects her, ‘not “a huge amount”.’

      ‘Oh. Okay. Just one joint,’ she echoes, sarcastically, ‘just one, measly, insignificant little joint.’

      She’s down on her knees now, searching for the needle.

      ‘I didn’t …’ Gene starts off.

      ‘I mean, good gracious!’ She rolls her eyes, facetiously. ‘What on earth am I getting myself so worked up about?!’

      Gene suddenly spots the needle, glinting in the half-light, and dives down to retrieve it.

      ‘I’m not saying it wasn’t significant,’ he murmurs, plucking the needle from the carpet’s worn pile and carefully passing it over, ‘I’m just trying to keep a lid on things, that’s all. It’s late …’

      He inspects his watch and realizes – to his dismay – that it’s much earlier than he’d imagined. ‘You’ve had a long day,’ he quickly runs on, ‘and after your disastrous meeting with the bishop …’

      ‘He’s such a stickler for punctuality,’ she growls, returning to her stool. ‘I was over half an hour –’

      ‘Yes,’ Gene interrupts, ‘I know. I remember. I believe I’ve already apologized for that.’

      At least twice, he thinks.

      ‘So they smoked the joint,’ she repeats, shoving some hair behind her ear, ‘this piddling, insignificant, little СКАЧАТЬ