‘Gene, you old devil!’ Jen squeals as he gently prods her inside.
He holds the door ajar with his body, maintaining a careful gap of at least two feet between them.
‘So what exactly can I do for you, Jen?’ he asks. He sounds careworn.
‘Ooh! Now there’s a question!’ Jen camps it up for all she’s worth.
‘I’m serious.’ (He’s having none of it.)
Jen leans her elbow against the wall, curls a pigtail around her finger and assesses him, coolly. ‘Was Sheila really pissed off yesterday?’ she wonders. Gene takes a moment to consider his answer, but before he can respond: ‘Because she’s quite scary when she’s angry, don’t you reckon?’ Jen runs on. ‘She actually quite scared me when I rang. Does she scare you too, sometimes?’
She blinks up at him, tremulously.
‘No. Sheila doesn’t scare me.’ Gene almost smiles in spite of himself.
‘Then why didn’t you tell her about Stan half-inching the jeep?’ Jen enquires, with killer precision.
‘Why?’ Gene echoes, unnerved (and not a little indignant). ‘That’s none of your business, quite frankly.’
He delivers her what he imagines is a reproving look. Jen appears signally unmoved by it. He quickly relents. ‘I was just biding my time if you must know,’ he backtracks. ‘I planned to tell her after dinner, but then you rang and beat me to it …’
His attention is momentarily diverted by a brief commotion in the toilets (the rattling of a plastic toilet roll holder as it jumps clear of its metal supports and clatters down on to the stone tiles below). Gene scowls over towards the stalls, then returns his focus back to Jen again. ‘Peerless timing, by the way,’ he adds.
‘I aim to please!’ Jen bats her lashes, unrepentant. ‘So did Ransom get back in contact?’ she wonders, almost as an afterthought.
‘Ransom?’ Gene reaches up and pulls the tiniest remnant of a spider’s web from the corner of the doorframe. ‘When?’
‘Last night.’
‘Nope.’ Gene shakes his head. ‘Why would he?’
‘Why?’ Jen’s astonished. ‘To apologize, you idiot! For ditching poor Stan like that.’
‘Oh. Uh, no.’ Gene wipes the remnant of web on to a clean piece of shammy which protrudes from one of several pockets in the front of his uniform (a baggy, synthetic jumpsuit with questionable design attributes). ‘He didn’t, as it happens.’
‘What a worm!’ Jen’s appalled. ‘Well it’s extra lucky I turned up when I did, then, eh?’
She beams at him, proudly, ruthlessly pressing home her advantage.
‘You saved the day,’ Gene affirms, somewhat mechanically, ‘like I said in my message –’
‘Stan was shitting himself,’ she interrupts, ‘he begged me not to ring you – pleaded with me. Did he mention that?’
‘Uh …’ Gene pushes an uneasy hand through his auburn hair.
‘He said Ransom wanted him to head back to the rectory and pretend like a gang of local hoodies had ’jacked the vehicle. I swear to God he was seriously considering it! He thought you’d cancel his trip. He was going frantic about it. Then the nausea kicked in, obviously …’
‘We were just happy to get him home in one piece …’ Gene does his best to head her off.
‘I guess this means you kinda owe me.’ Jen sighs, inspecting her nails then glancing up, coquettishly. Gene meets her gaze, somewhat guardedly. Jen promptly misreads his expression. ‘Are you cross with me because I had to run off before you could make it home yourself?’ she demands.
‘Not at all.’ Gene’s shocked. ‘You were late for your shift. You’d already gone way beyond the call of duty …’
Jen inspects the split-ends at the tip of her pigtail for a while, mollified. ‘I can’t believe he never rang to apologize.’ She grimaces. ‘What a spineless little shit! I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind the next time we meet up.’
Pause.
‘You think there’ll be a next time?’
Gene’s understandably quizzical.
‘Sure. Why not?’ Jen shrugs. ‘We need to seek retribution. I mean it’s not personal or anything,’ she smirks. ‘Heaven forbid! It’s just karmic.’
It takes a full second for Gene to digest this information, then another to muster his response to it.
‘Have you given any thought to going public?’ Jen wonders, meanwhile.
‘Sorry?’ Gene’s still five paces behind.
‘It’d be a fab story for the tabs, don’t you reckon?’ she muses. ‘Bad-boy golfer feeds under-age kid muscle relaxants then takes him for “joyride” in stolen military jeep?’
‘Bloody hell!’ Gene’s horrified.
‘We’d naturally do our best to keep Stan’s personal details out of the mix,’ she concedes, ‘but if the Tuckers can make a mint out of this stuff …’
‘The Tuckers?’
Gene stares at her, blankly, then suddenly – unexpectedly – everything just falls into place.
‘The Tuckers!’ he exclaims, knocking the side of his head with his palm, infuriated by his own idiocy. ‘Ann Tucker – Noel Tucker. I knew the face was familiar!’
Jen raises a single, inquisitive brow.
‘I bumped into him again yesterday on my rounds,’ Gene explains. ‘Stratton Street. There’s a girl with red hair …’
‘That’ll be Vee,’ Jen affirms. ‘Really pretty. Party organizer. Into all the forties stuff. I never met the mum. She worked as a housekeeper at the Thistle. Before our time, I guess. A real sweetheart by all accounts – bred cats – wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Patty Marsh from the laundry was her best bud …’
‘Hang on a second’ – Gene’s frowning – ‘I’m certain the name was Wickers on the electoral roll. I checked it against my details before I made the visit.’
‘Tucker was Reggie’s business name,’ Jen elucidates, ‘the name he tattooed under: Reggie T. You must remember Tucker’s tattoo parlour on Kildare Road?’
‘Of course.’ Gene nods. ‘Next to the old Bingo Hall.’
‘Well he always went by Tucker, but his real name was Wickers. Tucker was his mother’s maiden name. The dad buggered off when he was a kid. I’m not sure of all the whys and the wherefores, but while he always insisted on going by Tucker, the family went with Wickers, purely for legal reasons, I guess. Both his kids still go by it. Can’t say I blame them, either’ – she shrugs – ‘given the dodgy nature of their dad’s public persona – the Tucker legacy. All the BNP malarkey …’
‘And it was Stuart Ransom who put Ann Tucker into a coma with that stray ball of his …’
‘Duh!’ Jen delivers him a pitying look. ‘I found out all the gory details last night on Google,’ she happily fills him in. ‘Transpires that Mrs Tucker did a bit of fetching and carrying for an elderly neighbour – a widower – whose son’d bought him a couple of tickets for this big charity golf gala in Milton Keynes. The day of the actual tournament an ash tree falls on to his son’s conservatory – it’s chaos – and he can’t actually make it, so Mrs Tucker kindly steps into the breach. Fast forward to a few hours later: Ransom’s on the third hole teeing this massive shot. Mrs Tucker is sitting on a blanket enjoying a picnic – chowing down on a scotch egg or a sausage roll; history fails to record which it was, exactly – when, whack! Ransom’s ball hits her square between the shoulders. She slams, face-forward, into the rough, a piece of pork meat jammed in her throat. Everyone thinks she’s concussed from the blow – which she is – but they don’t realize that there’s a secondary problem till it’s way too late. She’s starved of oxygen for about five minutes. Suffers serious brain damage.’
‘It was just a fluke, though, an accident, surely?’ Gene rallies to Ransom’s defence. ‘I mean not to diminish the obvious tragedy of the whole thing,’ he qualifies.
‘Oh yeah. Completely,’ Jen concurs. ‘But someone still had to take the rap for it. And like I said, her husband, Reggie Tucker, was Luton’s premier local Nazi. He was madly li
tigious by all accounts. You might remember him as the public face of that long-running battle with the local Trades and Standards Commission – when the EU forced us to go metric a few years back? Reggie ran under the banner of “The Upholder of the Sanctity of the Great British Pint” …’
Jen rolls her eyes. ‘The pathetic old troglodyte.’
‘Spoken with all the patriotic ardour of a girl who subsists entirely on root beer and Big Macs,’ Gene mutters.
‘The bottom line,’ Jen continues (ignoring this cruel – if utterly accurate – assault), ‘was that he was determined to get some kind of compensation for his family …’
‘I guess you can see his point,’ Gene concedes.
‘And naturally Ransom’s the first person he tries to finger for it’ – Jen nods – ‘but it turns out Ransom isn’t insured. Worse still, he’s stony broke. In fact he’s recently declared himself bankrupt after the collapse of his clothing line – although rumour had it at the time that he’d secretly squirrelled most of his cash abroad, to one of the Caribbean Islands. Barbados? Bermuda?’
Gene shrugs.
‘So next he tries to finger the course itself – who it turns out are actually part of this massive, American-based conglomerate – and it doesn’t take him long to realize that with the meagre resources at his disposal he hasn’t a hope in hell of beating them in court. He even chances his arm with the St John’s ambulance people …’
Gene winces.
‘Not a good look,’ Jen agrees.
‘But what about his wife, meanwhile?’ Gene interjects. ‘Ann, was it?’
‘Well Ann is now out of the coma and slowly recovering in hospital under the tender ministrations of a Haitian nurse. Takes almost a year before she’s ready to sit up, another three months before she can be fed orally, another six till she can start talking again, and then, when she finally does, it’s in pidgin French! Won’t utter a single syllable of English! Refuses to! It’s Mr Tucker’s worst nightmare: he finds himself married to the enemy!’
‘A rich irony.’ Gene grins, tickled by the idea.
‘And then some!’ Jen concurs. ‘He promptly starts legal proceedings against the hospital …’
‘Oh dear.’
‘… and then six, short months later, he kicks the bucket.’
‘Ouch.’ Gene winces.
‘Heart attack brought on by all the stress.’ Jen shrugs. ‘Noel promptly takes over where his dad left off. But Noel’s a total flake – has a dope addict girlfriend who’s up the duff. The whole thing implodes, basically. Gets really nasty. Really complicated. Really personal.’
‘Is the mother fully recovered now?’ Gene wonders.
‘Not sure.’ Jen pulls her T-shirt askew and shows Gene a small star on her collar bone.
‘The collar bone,’ she informs him, ‘is one of the most painful places to get a tattoo …’
She shows him a second star on the other side. ‘So muggins here gets two.’
‘And that’s Reggie’s work?’ (Gene tries not to inspect the stars too closely.)
‘Nope. They’re Vee’s. She worked as her dad’s Saturday girl for a while – trained as his apprentice. Did these babies illegally, obviously.’ Jen curtseys, proudly. ‘She was pretty good even back then. Although after he died she got into all this weird, ultra-realist stuff …’
Jen grimaces.
‘Hang on …’ Gene’s confused. ‘I thought you said she was a party organizer?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, she was. And she didn’t just organize, either – she was a real party girl’ – Jen gives him a significant look – ‘but after the accident she became her mum’s main carer. Needs must. They’d sold the dad’s business premises to settle their legal fees, so she set up this little studio at home, quit partying and started concentrating on the tattooing side of things again.’
‘Is she any good?’ Gene wonders.
‘Oh yeah. She’s a genius at it’ – Jen nods, emphatically – ‘turns down way more commissions than she accepts. Her dad was a real traditionalist – roses, swallows, pin-ups, that kinda stuff, but Vee’s completely left that scene behind her, now. She’s like ultra-ultra real. Some people love what she does, others think she’s completely whacko. I dunno – I guess it just depends on what you’re into …’
Jen shrugs. ‘I mean I’m more in the traditional camp myself …’
‘Traditional?!’ Gene snorts. ‘You?!’
‘Yeah.’ Jen frowns. ‘Like I’d much rather have a cartoon on my arm than something more literal …’
She pauses again, thoughtfully. ‘Although you’d be surprised how uptight people get about the whole thing. There’s this massive division in the tattooing world – this chasm – between the artists who do the traditional stuff and the ultra-realists. Floating around in the middle you’ve got the “mech” bunch – the nerds – who do all the nasty, sinewy, machine-based work …’
Gene scratches his head, bemusedly, struggling to follow.
‘My crass, half-baked take on it,’ Jen volunteers, ‘if you’re interested,’ she adds (with a rare flash of modesty), ‘is that Vee jumped on to the ultra-realist bandwagon to shake off the shadow of her dad. It was a pretty long shadow – pretty dark …’
She pauses for a moment, glancing around her, speculatively (as if finally becoming aware of her immediate surroundings): ‘This is the cleanest, tidiest, most ridiculously anal broom cupboard I’ve ever had the privilege of spending time in,’ she ruminates. ‘It’s absolutely spotless. It’s psychotic! You could eat off the floors …’
She inspects Gene, quizzically. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but d’you honestly think this job offers a sufficient level of challenge for a man of your obvious dynamism?’
Gene just smiles, distractedly. He’s still pondering the Tuckers.
Jen’s eyes narrow a fraction. ‘So you’re interested in our little Miss Vee, are you?’ she wonders.
‘Interested?’ Gene echoes, his cheeks reddening.
‘Considering a nice sleeve or a back piece, maybe?’ she teases.
‘Absolutely not!’ Gene’s horrified.
‘I guess there are worse people you could go to,’ Jen maintains. ‘I mean did you check out the detail on Noel’s chest piece? That weird kind of wicker effect? It was stunning. Just like the real thing. And did you notice the snake?’
‘I caught a brief glimpse of it.’ Gene nods.
‘Well that was her early stuff. She’s got way better since. Although I think it’s only fair to warn you’ – she grins up at him, mischievously – ‘word on the street is she’s addicted to quims these days.’
‘Quims?’ Gene echoes, frowning.
‘Yeah, quims. She specializes in merkins. And nipples – post-surgical. That’s where the real money is.’
‘I’m sorry …?’ Gene shakes his head, confused.
‘Vagina wigs – merkins,’ Jen smirks. ‘She simulates hair on baldy vaginas. It’s an Eastern thing. In the West we can’t wait to get rid of it. In the East there’s this craze for tattooing it on.’
Gene laughs, incredulous, but then his mind rapidly turns back to the previous morning: the cream room; the padded table; the mirror; the torch.
‘I’m serious!’ Jen insists. ‘There’s this huge market for it over in Japan. A certain percentage of Japanese girls never develop genital hair – the Japanese aren’t a particularly hairy race – and they feel completely self-conscious about it –’
‘But I thought Japan was the original home of the tattoo,’ Gene interrupts, suspicious. ‘Why travel halfway across the planet?’
‘Because the practice is so closely associated with the underworld over there that it’s still considered really disreputable to get tattoo work done,’ Jen explains. ‘Vee’s a serious artist and very discreet. Her reputation’s spread chiefly through word of mouth. The stuff she does looks totally real. She’s the best. Go to her site on the internet. It’s just amazing. I’ll give you the address if yo
u like …’ She pauses for a second as if summoning it up from memory: ‘www.baldytwinkle.com’.
‘Hilarious.’ Gene smiles.
‘It’s true!’ Jen squeals, slapping his arm. Gene winces. She draws back her hand and quickly checks her watch. ‘Balls. I’m rota’d on at ten. It’s five past.’
She bends down and pulls up her socks again.
‘Dodgy elastic?’ Gene speculates.
‘My kid sister said my knees are looking bony,’ Jen grumbles. ‘D’you think my knees are looking bony?’ She hitches up her short skirt. ‘Am I too thin? Be honest. My mum says it’s all the stress of the exams …’
‘You’re not serious about going to the papers?’ Gene firmly sidesteps the contentious subject of Jen’s knees.
‘Give me a break!’ Jen drops her skirt, insulted. ‘Although feeding muscle relaxants to a minor? That’s fucked up! It’s heinous! The poor kid was flopping around like some kind of crazy rag doll when I found him.’
‘You didn’t mention that to Sheila, did you?’ Gene anxiously interjects.
‘Mention what? That he was all floppy?’
Jen flops forward, to illustrate.
‘The muscle relaxants.’
‘How d’you mean?’ Jen straightens up, frowning.
‘You didn’t happen to mention to Sheila that he’d taken –’
‘Of course I did!’ Jen’s horrified. ‘She’s his mother for heaven’s sake! She has every right to know what sick kinds of mischief the little twit is getting up to behind her back!’
Gene’s face falls.
Pause.
‘Aw come on, Gene!’ Jen guffaws, tenderly cuffing his cheek. ‘D’you think I was born yesterday?’
‘Well you blabbed about the dope.’ Gene jerks his head to one side, irritated. ‘You told her the house was “wall-to-wall vomit” …’
‘Did I?’
Jen ponders this for a moment. ‘Oh. Yeah. I suppose I did …’ She shrugs. ‘Well I sincerely apologize if I inadvertently violated your precious wall of silence.’
She pulls an apologetic face.
The Yips Page 14