‘Spider ancestors?’
Toby blanches. He’s mildly arachnophobic.
‘Yeah, spiders,’ Ransom reiterates. ‘We share a genetic background. Why else d’you reckon Nimrod’s got such hairy shoulders?’
Nimrod smiles wanly as Ransom slaps him, jovially, on the back.
‘Spiders are naturally aggressive,’ Ransom expands, ‘same as we humans are …’
He tips his head, disparagingly, towards Esther (who is sending an SMS on her phone, jabbing away at the keypad with a face like thunder).
‘But most other animals in the world seek to actively avoid conflict,’ Ransom continues, ‘by resorting to various strategies. A pecking order, for instance …’
‘Like hens?’ Toby’s quick to catch on.
‘Yeah, like hens. And take the piranha, for example. Piranhas are completely lethal. They’re these bona fide little killing machines, but because they’re so dangerous – and they’re fully keyed into this fact about themselves – they choose to fight each other with their tails, not their teeth.’
‘They slap each other around?’ Toby grins.
‘Like Laurel and Hardy’ – Ransom chuckles – ‘but with fins!’
Esther’s looking up from her phone now, gazing at Ransom through slitted eyes.
Nimrod grabs his notebook and primes his pencil. ‘So this fortune-telling guy …’ he starts off.
‘Hold on a sec …’ Ransom focuses in on Toby with a sudden – almost bewildering – level of intensity. ‘What was it you said the I stood for again?’
‘Sorry?’
Toby’s in a completely different head space.
‘The I. In S.P.I.C.E.’
‘Oh. Right. Yeah. The I. The I stands for incongruity.’
‘Seven times, though?’ Nimrod mutters, scribbling frantically. ‘Surely that’s gotta be a record of some kind?’
‘Incongruity …’ Ransom echoes (apparently riveted).
‘You’re much more likely to be able to persuade someone of something if there’s an unpredictable element to the set-up,’ Toby expands. ‘Something strange. Something out of the ordinary – like if there’s a song written in a major key and then the composer sticks in a minor chord when you’re least expecting it …’
‘Something unpredictable …’ Ransom repeats, a distant look in his eye.
‘Like if you see a really beautiful woman but she has … I dunno …’ Toby can’t think of a suitable example.
‘Stupid, blonde ponytails,’ Ransom finishes off.
‘A small gap between her front teeth,’ Nimrod suggests, glancing over towards Esther, fondly. Esther peers down at her phone again, fighting back a smile.
‘So we’ve got simplicity, perceived self-interest, incongruity …’ Ransom counts them off on to his fingers.
‘Then C for confidence – which is pretty self-explanatory – and the E …’
‘Energy,’ Ransom tries to pre-empt him, bouncing to his feet.
‘Empathy,’ Toby corrects him. ‘People need to be able to “relate” at some level, to find you sympathetic …’
‘Right. Good. Brilliant. Well I’m off to the range.’ Ransom grabs his baseball cap from the table and prepares to leave.
‘Don’t forget your book.’
Nimrod nudges Artist of Life towards him.
‘Toby can have it.’ Ransom checks for the phone in his pocket.
‘Really?’ Toby’s touched. He reaches out for the paperback as Ransom applies his cap, touches the brim – by way of farewell – and casually saunters off.
‘We not gone through the itinerary!’ Esther yells after him.
Ransom doesn’t turn to answer, simply makes a little hand signal while he walks, as if to imply – much to his profound regret – that she is no longer fully audible.
‘I’ll be literally thirty seconds,’ he pants, ‘that’s all, I promise.’
Valentine stares at the proffered identification badge, almost disbelieving. She has a dozy, thumb-sucking Nessa on her hip. Her hair is swept back into a ponytail. Her fringe is drawn up into a single curler. She’s wearing a wrap-around housecoat (red, covered with tiny, white dots) and a pair of fancy, white satin slippers with red bows, peep-toes and cute, wooden-look kitten heels. Her make-up is immaculate but her nail-polish – he immediately notices – is chipped.
‘My brother said you work at the hotel,’ she mutters, an edge of accusation in her voice.
Gene uses his sleeve to pat a light film of perspiration from his forehead. ‘I do the odd shift there, yes,’ he admits.
‘Is that the uniform?’
He peers down at his green jumpsuit. ‘No. This is …’
For some reason he resists telling her about the Arndale.
‘I work in a couple of places …’ He inspects his watch. ‘In fact I’m currently on my lunch-break –’
‘When Noel saw you here yesterday he thought Ransom might’ve sent you …’ she interrupts, looking over her shoulder, nervously (as if Noel could be hiding behind the door – possibly wielding a sledge-hammer). ‘He got all stupid and paranoid about it.’
‘But why would I be …?’ Gene finds this idea difficult to process.
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ She shrugs. ‘To spy on us, I suppose.’
She laughs, self-consciously.
‘Well Ransom didn’t send me,’ Gene maintains.
‘I already knew that.’
She gazes at him for a moment, her expression softening.
‘Oh.’
His colour rises. ‘Good.’ He glances down at his clipboard. ‘Thanks.’
‘You want to read our meter again?’
She pushes back the door to reveal the hallway. ‘Is there a problem? Didn’t the numbers add up or something?’
‘No, no, no. No problem …’ Gene clears his throat, self-consciously. ‘I just didn’t get around to reading it on my last visit. I must’ve got distracted …’
‘Can’t imagine why.’ She lifts her eyebrow, suggestively.
Gene quickly shifts his focus from the immaculately raised brow to the lone curler in her fringe. It is large, white, plastic and filled with tan-coloured foam.
‘You dig my retro-curler?’ Valentine grins.
‘Sorry?’
Gene drags his eyes away from the curler.
‘My curler …?’
She points. ‘Of course it’s not remotely functional,’ she avers, drolly, ‘just an accessory – part of my “forties housewife” look …’
She performs a neat, little twirl, holding out the fabric of her housecoat. As she lifts the material she unwittingly reveals the span of soft, bare flesh inside her knee.
Gene’s eyes shoot straight up to the curler again. They take refuge in the curler.
‘You know how it is …’ she sighs, ‘“at home, doing the chores, still gorgeous, preparing to head out on a visit to the aerodrome …”’
Gene’s eyes remain glued to the curler. ‘Well it looks real enough …’ he mutters.
She scans his face for a second, smiling but slightly perplexed. ‘I’m just teasing.’ She reaches up a tentative hand to touch the curler herself.
‘Oh.’ Gene nods. His stomach sinks. He adjusts his grip on his clipboard.
‘I have a collection of housecoats,’ she expands, pinching, dispassionately, at the spotted fabric. ‘I buy them on the internet. There’s still quite a market for them in France …’
‘My grandmother virtually lived in them,’ he volunteers.
‘Mine too.’ She smiles. ‘Although I prefer to wear them in the French way, like the French do: as a dress, with nothing underneath …’
Gene’s own eyebrows now rise, infinitesimally.
‘What I mean to say is that the English like to wear them differently,’ she flounders, her cheeks reddening, ‘over the top of their clothes – like an apron …’
Gene furtively inspects the housecoat as she speaks. It clings to her curves in a way he ca
n’t really believe a housecoat should. He remembers his grandmother’s housecoats: nylon, blue gingham, loose, drab, lumpy …
‘The antique ones are nicer, though,’ she runs on, embarrassed. ‘Softer. Less synthetic. Better fabrics …’
Gene nods. He can’t really think of anything pertinent to add. Valentine bites her lip. Her lipstick, he notices, matches her housecoat perfectly, and there’s a deep and immensely characterful dimple in her cheek.
‘So when did you realize?’ she wonders, eager to change the subject.
‘Pardon?’
He glances up from her dimple.
‘The meter. Our electricity meter …?’
‘Oh, that …’ He smiles, ruefully. ‘I was about halfway home.’
‘You must’ve kicked yourself!’
‘Yeah …’ He nods. ‘This isn’t even my area. I’m usually based around Sundon Park – Limbury – Leagrave … I’m just covering for a colleague who’s been off sick all week.’
As he speaks she shifts Nessa on her hip and then adjusts her grip. He notices a tattoo on her arm – towards the top. It’s a drawing of a cupcake with the words ‘Daddy’s Girl’ written underneath. She catches him studying it. ‘It’s one of my dad’s,’ she explains. ‘I had it made up from an original stencil of his after he died …’
She smiles, self-deprecatingly. ‘… as a kind of two-fingered salute to the world, I suppose. He was a local tattoo artist – Reg Tucker. Reggie Tucker. You probably …?’
‘Sure.’ Gene nods. ‘He had a place over on Mill Street. A friend of mine owned the war games shop a couple of doors down.’
‘Not Marek?’
Her face lights up. ‘I haven’t seen him in ages! How’s he doing?’
‘Great.’ Gene grins. ‘Still living the life of an international playboy with no visible means of support. Dividing his time between London and Warsaw – full of crazy schemes …’
‘Same old Marek, then.’ She chuckles.
‘He’s actually …’
Gene is going to say, ‘… my wife’s ex,’ but he doesn’t. Instead he says, ‘… dumped his old Hummer on me. It’s leaking dangerous quantities of brake fluid on to my back patio as we speak.’
‘That piece of junk’s still roadworthy?!’ She laughs in sheer disbelief.
‘Against all the odds.’ He nods.
‘Oh God …’ Valentine shakes her head as she remembers. ‘We hired it to use as a centrepiece for this rave once and it broke down on the M1 – junction 12 – just after the turn-off for Toddington …’
‘Leak in the water tank,’ Gene interjects, ‘if I remember correctly.’
Valentine looks startled.
‘Marek sent me to fix it,’ he explains.
‘Marek sent you …?’
Valentine’s confused.
‘There was some lanky kid at the wheel with a thick Welsh accent,’ Gene recalls, ‘fancied himself as something of a mechanic.’
‘That’s Yorath.’ Valentine nods. ‘Really tall. Ruby on his front tooth …’
‘Then this huge girl in a tiny, leather minidress …’
‘Glenna Ross. Bright green eyes. Amazing singing voice …’
‘And a crazy woman dressed up as a cat.’
‘Tiger!’ Valentine yelps. ‘Dressed up as a tiger! That was me! I was promoting this disgusting orange vodka drink …’
‘That was you?’
Now it’s Gene’s turn to look spooked. ‘But you were completely …’
He’s going to say, ‘… deranged,’ but stops himself, just in time, ‘… different,’ he compromises, ‘smaller.’
‘I’d probably shrunk in the rain …’ She chuckles, wryly. ‘It was such a filthy night – remember? I was out of my head on painkillers. I’d sprained my thumb, like a bloody idiot, falling off a bus …’
Gene’s still looking incredulous.
‘I was going through this really clumsy phase,’ she expands, ‘kept tripping over – walking into stuff – dropping things. I’d bruised my coccyx, twisted my ankle …’ She shakes her head, forlornly. ‘I’d just been dumped by my boyfriend, Mischa. He’d run away to become a monk’ – she grimaces – ‘which was kind of stupid and embarrassing. My dad had died. My brother and his girlfriend were struggling with all these chronic, addiction problems. We were pretty much broke. Mum was about to leave hospital after her accident …’
She finally runs out of steam.
‘I made you stick your head between your knees,’ Gene recollects.
‘And I puked on to my favourite shoes. A pair of killer stilettos covered in orange sequins. I was completely livid …’
‘Not the greatest of nights out,’ Gene sympathizes.
‘You looked different, though.’ She inspects him, critically. ‘Your hair was different, for starters – short. Like a skinhead.’
‘I’d just finished a course of radiotherapy.’
Her eyes widen. ‘Oh God. And there was me, hyperventilating, totally self-involved, jabbering on at you like a lunatic …’
She’s appalled.
‘You’d wound your hair into these two, funny little buns …’ He grins.
‘Tiger ears,’ she snorts. ‘And you kept reciting that stupid tiger poem at me –’
‘William Blake,’ Gene interrupts.
‘Yeah. To try and shake me out of my blasted funk …’
‘It’s the only poem I know by heart,’ Gene confesses. ‘I learned it at school. If you’d been dressed as a squirrel I’d’ve been screwed.’
‘It was Fated, then,’ Valentine declares.
They stare at each other for a second, both smiling, delightedly. Then, ‘My wife’s a vicar,’ Gene blurts out.
‘Really?’
It takes Valentine a couple of seconds to process this statement.
‘I mean I know how weird it feels when someone you’re in love with suddenly becomes …’
‘Church of England?’ she asks, her voice clipped, almost curt.
He nods.
She promptly lifts Nessa’s dress to reveal a neat pair of pants. ‘We Tuckers aren’t all complete reprobates, you know,’ she mutters, then turns and heads off down the hallway, disappearing into a room on her left.
Gene remains where he stands for a moment, nonplussed, uncertain whether to follow her or not. After thirty or so seconds he decides that he should and enters the hallway himself, instantly detecting – after a couple of steps – that slight but pervasive smell of sandalwood incense. His eyes alight on the large aspidistra and the black, Bakelite phone which perches – like an old rook: head hung low, dull plumage ruffled, wings slightly unfurled – on its handsome walnut stand. He feels a sudden thrill of recognition at the pattern of the antique floor tiles, a feeling – which instantly confuses him – almost akin to coming home.
He remembers his grandparents’ humble two-up-two-down on Charles Street: the highly buffed, red-painted concrete step which his grandmother burnished to a glassy finish every Friday, without fail; the brown door with its stiff, brass, horseshoe-style knocker and number twelve positioned directly above (notable for the absence of its second digit; the two represented – symbolically, at least – by a couple of tiny, black nail holes); the large, elephant’s foot umbrella stand in the hall, stuffed with his grandfather’s walking sticks (his childhood favourite with its finely carved bone handle fashioned into the shape of an albino otter); the air heavy with the smell of damp tea towels, boiled spring greens and bacon rind; a rich, olfactory maelstrom always gently underscored by the acrid, lemon scent of Jif scouring powder.
Gene pulls the door shut behind him. The natural light grows dimmer and is gently refracted through its stained glass into a dozy blur of burgundies, olives and ambers. Everything seems quieter and slower. He notices tiny fragments of dust floating in the air around him, buoyed up not so much by the air itself, it seems, but by … by sound. By music.
Somewhere in the house a piano is being played – a brief refrain
, repeated endlessly. Gene feels dull and soporific, like a heavy, crystal stylus stuck inside a groove; jumping forward, then back again, forward, then back again.
‘It’s my mother.’ Valentine reappears beside him. ‘She’s learning the piano as part of her therapy. Erik Satie. She plays the same, few notes over and over …’
As she speaks she leads him down the corridor, deposits him in front of the meter and then disappears upstairs. Gene opens the little cupboard, shines his torch on to the digits and is about to start taking a reading when he notices, with a scowl, that several of the screws that attach the main body of the meter to the surrounding brickwork have worked their way loose.
He focuses the light from his torch on to one of them and presses it with the soft pad of his finger. The entire box shifts under his touch, then a tightly folded wad of paper falls out from beneath it (where it has evidently been pushed to shore up the base).
Gene reaches down and grabs it, intending to push it back into its original position, but then something – he’s not quite sure what, exactly – stays his hand. He glances around him – projecting a not-entirely-convincing veneer of studied casualness – before carefully unfolding the thing and giving its contents a cursory glance.
It’s actually a letter – the top two-thirds of a letter, to be exact (and of a relatively recent vintage, at that). From what remains of the original, Gene is rapidly able to discern that it’s a final warning from a large, High Street bank. The letter threatens the addressee of its imminent intention to foreclose on their home (he double-checks the address, grimacing – yup) for debts outstanding.
As he studies the letter, one of the screws (bottom left) works itself free from the brickwork and clatters down on to the tiles below. The meter (currently deprived of its paper support) tips forward slightly, with a mournful clank. Panicked, Gene quickly folds up the letter and shoves it back into its original place, then grabs the screw and replaces it, tightening it up with his thumbnail (he performs the same service to the other three).
Once this is done, he exhales, noisily (Phew! Close call!), then shines the torch back on to the digits to take his reading. He frowns. He draws closer to the meter, blinking. The six digits are now a neat row of zeros.
He closes his eyes for a second, then re-opens them … Still all zeros! He rubs his chin, uncertain how to react. His face feels damp. He reaches into a back pocket, withdraws a white handkerchief and dabs it against his forehead as he ponders this conundrum. A cat silently glides down the hallway behind him, opting – when it reaches him – to slither, companionably, against his calves as it passes. Gene slams the cupboard door shut, with an ill-suppressed yelp, and turns, slightly panicked.
The Yips Page 16