‘What on earth do you look like?’ she enquires, shooting a withering glance towards his headgear.
‘One of Ransom’s crazy brainwaves …’
He snatches the cap off, embarrassed. ‘Please tell me that wasn’t Jen,’ he mutters, following her through to the living room (where he carefully slides the cap on to the sideboard).
‘You said you’d be back by nine …’ Sheila grumbles.
‘I left a message on your phone …’
‘Saying you’d be home well before ten.’
Sheila throws herself down on to the sofa.
‘I got waylaid by Ransom’s manager as I was getting into the car,’ he explains. ‘There were these badgers running amok in the rubbish bins near her room. One had jammed his head inside this thick off-cut of crenellated, silver tubing …’
‘It appears that Jen’s feelings have been deeply injured,’ Sheila enunciates, drolly, plumping up the cushions and then shoving them behind her and leaning back, imperiously,‘by your omitting to tell her about your caddying plans during the cosy, little chat you had in the broom cupboard this morning.’
‘What?’ Gene’s astonished. ‘But that’s ridiculous! The idea hadn’t even been mooted at that stage.’
He pulls his phone from his pocket. ‘And after the stiff dressing-down his manager just gave me …’
He turns it on and registers a prodigious number of voice mails and SMSs.
‘The girl’s a pest,’ he mutters. ‘She’s developing this mad vendetta against Ransom. It’s like she’s obsessed.’
‘Is she ringing his mobile, too,’ Sheila wonders, tartly, ‘or just yours?’
‘I had it switched to message-bank …’
Gene glances up, observing Sheila’s expression (on the chilly side of glacial).
‘And we weren’t “together” in the broom cupboard,’ he rapidly backtracks. ‘I made her hide in there because she was upsetting all the customers. I stood – in full, public view – on the other side of the door.’
‘“Customers”?’ Sheila snorts (suddenly bored and exhausted by the whole affair). ‘Is that their official designation, now?’
As she speaks she picks up the TV remote, turns the television on, tunes it to Newsnight and presses ‘mute’.
On the arm of the sofa is an open copy of Women Who Marry Houses.
‘You found it, then,’ Gene says, pointing (eager to change the subject).
‘Did you know that Jen has a duplicate key to the office,’ Sheila wonders, ‘and that she sneaks in there after work to mess around on the computers?’
‘Uh …’ Gene frowns.
‘You do know?’
Sheila’s shocked.
‘I know she doesn’t have a computer at home’ – he shrugs – ‘so she sometimes uses the hotel’s one to type up her essays for college.’
‘Well, Jen was messing around in there tonight when the phone rang. It turned out to be a woman desperate to get in contact with you following a reading you did on her electricity meter …’
‘Right.’ Gene nods, trying not to appear too alarmed by this piece of news. ‘Did she happen to leave a home phone number?’
‘A mobile number. On the pad,’ Sheila confirms. ‘Jen said it was a woman called “V”, a tattooist –’
‘That’ll be the one I was telling you about this afternoon,’ Gene interrupts, going to fetch it.
‘She said this “V” was very distressed,’ Sheila calls after him.
Gene picks up the pad and frowns down at Sheila’s message, uncertain how to react. He opts to say nothing, just tears off the top page and pushes it into his pocket.
‘And that she’s actually one of the Tuckers,’ Sheila continues, ‘the “crazy” daughter, no less.’
Gene nods, flushing slightly, as he strolls back through to the living room. ‘There was the incident with the trampoline, remember?’
‘Vaguely,’ she concedes, ‘but I’m not sure if you made it clear that those two stories were connected: the trampoline and the tattooist …’
‘Really?’ Gene scratches his head, glancing over towards the TV. ‘Well I guess I just presumed –’
‘So you actually went back to the house again?’ she interrupts, frowning. ‘Was this Ransom’s bright idea?’
‘Ransom?’ Gene’s confused.
‘Why not? He could be employing you as a kind of go-between,’ Sheila gamely improvises, ‘a peacemaker.’
‘In my little turquoise helmet,’ Gene mutters, darkly.
‘Pardon?’
‘It had nothing to do with Ransom,’ he maintains. ‘I just forgot to take the reading the first time around, that’s all.’
‘You went to take a reading and then you forgot to take a reading …’ Sheila’s not entirely buying it.
‘There was a rat in the bath,’ Gene explains. ‘It’s a long story, but basically I fished it out and was carrying it around by the tail, not quite sure how to dispose of it, when I managed to barge in on this woman having a genital tattoo …’
Sheila is staring at him, wide-eyed.
‘So I forgot to take the reading – it slipped my mind – and returned today, on my lunch-break, but when I tried to take it this time …’
‘Sorry. Back up there for a second. You barged in on a woman …?’
‘… it looked like there was evidence of tampering with the meter,’ Gene continues. ‘I didn’t really know what to do – what to say – so I just made my excuses and got out of there.’
Sheila frowns, momentarily diverted by this final detail. ‘You think she’s been defrauding the electricity board?’
‘God no, not …’
Valentine’s name hangs in the air before him, dances in front of his lips, beckons to him – like the warm froth of milky foam on top of a steaming cup of cappuccino. Just uttering this name out loud (how much he longs to feel it fizz and bubble on his tongue!) seems like a strange kind of breach – a sworn secret idly shared – almost a betrayal.
He turns away for a second, slightly puzzled, using the jacket slung over his arm as a temporary diversion. He shakes it out and then hangs it over the door handle.
‘At least I don’t think so,’ he finally mutters. ‘It looked just fine to start off with, but then I noticed a couple of the screws were loose and tightened them with my thumbnail …’ He turns back to face her again. ‘The whole structure was very unstable. It was being propped up from below by a wad of paper – a letter. When I pulled it out …’
‘A letter?’
Sheila’s struggling to keep up.
‘Yes. From their bank, threatening to foreclose on the house. And when I pulled it out to take a quick look, the digits on the meter all miraculously turned to nought.’
Sheila stares at him, saying nothing.
‘I felt a little responsible, obviously,’ he runs on, ‘and there’s no real evidence of foul play, but I’ll definitely need to mention it in my report …’
He rubs his eyes, tiredly. ‘Although if there is foul play, then I seriously doubt that she’s involved. She seems a nice enough kid. Genuine. Straightforward.’
Gene uses the word ‘kid’ with a measure of care. He glances over at Sheila to see how she receives it. Sheila is deep in thought.
‘But what’ll happen to the mother if they lose their home?’ she wonders.
‘God only knows’ – he shrugs – ‘maybe the council will step in.’
‘Doesn’t the son work?’
‘I’ve no idea. His girlfriend’s in rehab. He’s a bit of a mess. Then there’s his daughter and several dozen cats …’
‘And you say this … this “V” is agoraphobic?’
‘Apparently so.’ Gene nods.
‘Poor kid!’
Gene feels a slight sense of satisfaction, then a corresponding sense of shame, at the apparent efficacy of his little linguistic scam.
‘Maybe it’s a sign,’ Sheila muses, ‘an opportunity for Ransom to finally set things rig
ht. I mean his arriving in the area like this – apparently at random – then the argument in the hotel, then your meeting with this “V” girl, his employing you as his caddie, the discovery of the letter …’
‘All part of God’s great plan?’ Gene snorts, mirthlessly.
‘Maybe you’re to be an “agent” of some kind?’ She smiles, mischievously. ‘A mediator, an arbitrator, a modern-day Pandarus …’
‘Pandarus?’
‘From Homer’s Iliad. He breaks the fragile truce between the Trojans and the Greeks by an act of despicable treachery …’
‘Strange kind of arbitrator,’ Gene mutters, uneasily.
‘But he reappears as a go-between in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida,’ she adds, ‘brings together the two lovers.’
‘Does it end well?’ Gene’s suspicious.
‘Nope. Not especially,’ she admits, still smiling, ‘but then meddling so rarely does. That’s partly what makes it so seductive.’
‘I know you’re only joking,’ Gene says, suddenly nervous, ‘but there’s a worrying look in your eye.’
‘Perhaps God is only a deep voice,’ she sighs, half under her breath,
‘heard by the deaf …’
‘Pardon?’
‘Anne Sexton.’
‘Anne …? The woman you were quoting this afternoon?’
‘The poet. Yes.’
She grabs the book from the arm of the chair, turns to the dedication page and passes it to him.
‘Women marry houses,’ Gene reads. ‘It’s another kind of skin.’
‘Your “V” has married a house,’ Sheila observes, almost smugly.
‘She’s built herself into a kind of fortress,’ Gene partially concedes, ‘with all the make-up and the period clothing and the brick tattoo …’
‘It’s actually quite a fascinating book.’ Sheila grabs it back again. ‘The basic premise of the thing is that agoraphobics aren’t so much victims as unyielding feminists, women refusing to comply to the rules of gender, the rules of society. It’s like they’re unable to compromise. They’re passive at one level …’ She frowns. ‘If a refusal can ever be considered passive, which, quite frankly, I doubt …’
‘It seems they often have an overbearing father-figure,’ Gene volunteers.
‘I marked out some interesting paragraphs. There’s a chapter called …’ She starts paging through the book. ‘Here it is: A Most Unlikely Radical Feminist and an Artist … page sixty-nine, and I quote: She became a daddy’s girl and was frequently the only one in the family that could talk back to him, but only about inconsequential matters. She was solicitous of her brother and sought to protect him from the wrath of their father on his infrequent occasions of rebelliousness. Towards her mother she was similarly solicitous, but felt neither awe nor affection …’
She turns the page. ‘And see here …’
She points: ‘Her neurosis, developing as it did, was her rebellion.’
She looks up at him, her eyes glinting, then glances down again. ‘There are many kinds of death,’ she proclaims, portentously, ‘the biological is but one.’
‘So you think …’ Gene starts off.
‘And listen to this …’ Sheila turns on a few extra pages. ‘Those who want to organize or even reorganize knowledge or beauty must do so alone.’
She shakes her head, fascinated. ‘I’d never really thought about art in that way before, as a reorganization of knowledge or beauty … Those who want to organize or even reorganize knowledge or beauty …’ she slowly re-reads, ‘true artists, in other words, great innovators, must do so alone.’ She ponders this for a second. ‘Genius, inspiration, art … they’re rarely communal. They’re intrinsically solitary.’
Gene watches her intently as she talks.
‘You’re really enjoying this,’ he says, surprised – even alarmed – by the extent to which this is true.
‘Sorry?’
She frowns up at him.
‘It’s the first time I’ve seen you looking so excited – so engaged by something – in ages …’
Months, years, he thinks.
‘It just reminded me …’ she starts off, then stops, abruptly.
‘How everything was before,’ he says, ‘before …’ – he indicates around him, loosely – ‘… all this.’
‘Before God,’ she interjects, baldly, just in case he thinks she hasn’t fully understood.
‘You were Called.’ He shrugs, resigned (if not exactly enthusiastic).
‘I brokered a deal,’ she mutters (not even allowing herself the grandeur of a Calling).
‘You were Called,’ he reiterates, firmly, ‘and you answered. You knew it was never going to be easy.’
‘If it were easy …’ she starts off, then can’t be bothered to complete her thought.
‘Perhaps God is only a harsh voice,
Heard by the deaf …’ he quotes, inanely.
‘A deep voice,’ she corrects him, scowling, then puts down the book and turns off the television. ‘Time for bed,’ she sighs, false-yawning, ‘the alarm’s set for five.’
She clambers to her feet.
‘Thanks for waiting up,’ he murmurs, ‘it’s much appreciated.’
He reaches out a hand and touches her shoulder. She glances down at his hand and softly, briefly, covers it with her own. They stand there for a moment, at peace, then Gene’s phone begins to ring.
‘Bloody hell!’ Gene expostulates, with a start.
‘Bloody Jen, more like!’ Sheila mutters, snatching back her hand and heading for the door, her gait slightly bow-legged and beleaguered in her oversized pyjamas, like a cowboy after a long, hard ride, or a tragic toddler, gamely waddling to the bathroom after a small yet catastrophic bed-wetting incident.
Jen’s legs are up and resting, lackadaisically, on the desk (both feet neatly crossed at the heel). She has carefully taken off her work skirt (perhaps to avoid creasing it) and is leaning back on the chair in just her shirt, some salmon-pink-coloured low-rise pants, and a pair of tan-coloured pop-socks.
‘I’m still at work …’
She’s chatting away on her mobile, twiddling a ponytail with her spare hand. ‘I’ve been messing around on the computers, and guess what I just found …?’
She scowls.
‘Who already rang you?’
She continues scowling.
‘I did give her your number, but it’s way after eleven. I didn’t think …’
Eyes rolled.
‘But that’s different, Gene, we’re pals …’
Sticks out lower lip.
‘Has Sheila been kicking your butt again?’
Mischievous snigger.
‘She’s a beast, Gene! I swear! She’s terrifying! When I spoke to her earlier she made all the hairs on my arms stand on end …’
Jen drops the ponytail and gently strokes her phone arm, gazing down at it, tenderly, like it’s a dwarf rabbit at a petting zoo.
‘It’s that scary voice of hers …’
Pause.
‘Does she use that scary voice in bed at all?’
Nano-pause.
‘Don’t hang up!’
Pause.
‘There’s stuff we need to discuss. Not about Vee. It’s Ransom. I’ve been doing a bit of detective work …’
Jen glances towards the computer screen.
‘Turns out that Ransom’s manager – a woman called …’
She leans forward, squinting at the screen …
‘Esther! Exactly. Esther Wilson. Well this manager has a sister, a well-known Jamaican politico. A hot-head. A troublemaker-cum-disgraced MP-cum-writer-cum-poet-cum-all-round-social protester called Victoria. Victoria Wilson. I’ve downloaded all this stuff about her. She was in the papers recently talking about the use of petro-chemicals in the Costa Rican pineapple farming industry. Anyhow this sister’s staying in the hotel with her arty-farty four-eyed boyfriend. Turns out she has a kid …’
Pause. Scowls.
/> ‘I am getting to the point …’
Grimaces, irritated.
‘Why are you so out of breath?’
Pause.
‘Then let’s meet up in the morning for a …’
Raises hand, limply.
‘But I’ve … You’re really gonna …’
Takes the phone away from her ear. Inspects the phone. Scowls at the phone. Points at the phone, accusingly.
‘Dickweed!’
Ransom is sitting on the bed, stark naked, except for a single, pristine, white leather golfing glove.
‘Will ya cover that damn ting up?’ Esther asks, indicating, vaguely, towards his genital region (unable to bring herself to maintain eye contact).
‘It’s nothing you haven’t seen a million times before,’ Ransom grumbles, half-heartedly plucking at the counterpane (but to no perceptible good effect).
‘Me can’t discuss business when ya … ya …’ She waggles her hand, visibly oppressed.
‘Then let’s not talk business!’ Ransom exclaims. ‘My corns are killing me! I’m gagging for a foot massage.’
‘The bub set on makin’ him an early appearance.’ Esther delivers this momentous piece of news (with all due ceremony) to the digital alarm clock on Ransom’s bedside table. ‘Me back was strain earlier, now it end up in contraction. Them comin’ hard – every twelve minute or so.’
‘It’s way too soon!’ Ransom protests, quickly reaching over to grab a pillow and pressing it, firmly, into his groin area (as if to shelter his genitalia from the harsher truths of the reproductive process). ‘Are you sure it’s not just wind again?’
‘This ain’t jus’ wind, Stu,’ Esther snaps, ‘trust me.’
‘Bollocks,’ Ransom curses. He wiggles his fingers inside the glove and scowls. The new leather’s still a fraction stiff. He forms a fist.
‘So is everything good to go?’ he wonders.
‘Me rang the local hospital.’ She nods. ‘My bag already pack. Me call a cab –’
‘I mean the tournament,’ Ransom interrupts, pulling the glove off and throwing it down, disgruntled. ‘What time’s the photographer arriving tomorrow?’
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