The Yips. Nicola Barker

I had this little, pre-match wager with Jim Furyk’s caddie …’

      ‘That’s very impressive,’ Jen concedes, ‘but have you ever been diagnosed with terminal cancer?’

      ‘Sorry?’

      Ransom’s temporarily thrown off his stride.

      ‘Cancer. Gene’s had it, almost constantly, ever since he was a kid. In pretty much every region of his body. Twice it was pronounced terminal. But he’s fought it and he’s beaten it – eight or nine times. He’s a miracle of science. In fact he was awarded an OBE or a CBE or something,’ she adds, nonchalantly, ‘for his voluntary educational work in local schools and colleges.’

      Ransom receives this mass of information with a completely blank expression.

      ‘And he does all these fundraising activities for armed forces charities,’ Jen persists (with a redoubled enthusiasm). ‘His grandad was a war veteran. Gene always dreamed of becoming a soldier himself, but his health got in the way of it. His parents were both Carneys: – his dad worked as a mechanic and his mum was a palm-reader. She came from a long, long line of palmists. Her great-uncle was Cheiro …’

      She glances at Ransom for some visible sign of recognition. ‘He’s really famous.’ She shrugs (having received none). ‘Anyhow, Gene’s family toured all over Europe with loads of the big fairs, but when Gene started getting sick, he couldn’t stay on the road. So they dumped him here, in Luton, with his paternal grandparents. His dad’s dad suffered from severe shell-shock. He was a lovely guy, heavily decorated – amazing brass player. He actually lived on the same street as my mum: Havelock Rise, near the People’s Park. All the local kids were scared of him. He’d be sitting quietly on a bench one minute, then the next he’d just go nuts. Start screaming and yelling …’

      ‘Hang on a second’ – Ransom’s overwhelmed – ‘his mother was a famous …?’

      ‘No,’ Jen tuts, ‘his mother’s great-uncle was Cheiro. He was the really famous one – wrote loads of bestselling books and stuff. Although his mother was pretty talented herself, by all accounts, and so was Gene. Had a real gift for it, apparently. Like I said, he toured with the family before he got sick. His sister did this amazing contortionist act …’

      She pauses to adjust a false eyelash, blinking a couple of times, experimentally. ‘And another thing,’ she adds (unwittingly knocking the fleck of lint from her nostril with her cuff), ‘about three or four years ago, just when he was really starting to turn things around, his sister and her husband were involved in this awful car crash. They were both killed. Gene was sitting in the back with his stepson and their daughter. His stepson was unharmed. Gene’s legs were completely smashed up. They’re held together by these massive metal pins now, but he still ran the London Marathon last year in under three hours …’ She pauses, thoughtfully. ‘Oh yeah, and they adopted his niece – Mallory – which is French for unlucky, and then his wife became a hardcore Christian – a Pentecostal minister …’ She pauses again, frowning. ‘Or – I forget – is she with the C of E?’

      Ransom’s gawping at her, incredulous.

      ‘Psycho, huh?’ She chuckles. ‘She’s about nine years old – Mallory – but the whole lower half of her face was totally destroyed in the crash. Her teeth are a disaster. Two-thirds of her tongue was bitten off. Her jaw’s been completely rebuilt. She still can’t eat solids. Gene works three jobs to try and raise enough cash to afford private dental and cosmetic surgery for her in America. They’ve got the world’s most advanced specialists in the field in California – brilliant cosmetic dentists and what-not. So he works all the hours reading people’s electricity meters, collecting charity boxes and running the men’s toilets in the Arndale … Hi.’ Jen glances over Ransom’s shoulder. ‘Can I help you with something, there?’

      Ransom turns – slightly dazed – to see a very tall, very lean young man standing directly behind him. The man is dripping with sweat and his chest is heaving, as if he’s been running.

      ‘Noel!’ Ransom exclaims, clambering to his feet.

      ‘You’re a real piece of work, Ransom,’ Noel hisses, shoving him straight back down again. ‘Anyone ever tell you that?’

      

      * * *

      

      Valentine – still gasping for breath – strikes a match and crouches down to light a candle and a bright cone of incense. Her hand is shaking so violently that she’s obliged to strike a second match, then a third. Once the candle and cone are finally lit, she places them on to a small, battered yellow shrine and sits, cross-legged, in front of it.

      ‘Calm down, you idiot!’ she chides herself, then closes her eyes and gently starts to rock. Five seconds later, her eyes fly open and the rocking stops. ‘No! Don’t calm down!’ she growls. ‘Don’t! Be angry! Feel something for once in your miserable life!’

      She starts rocking again, more violently, now.

      ‘I hate her!’ she confides to a small, primitive portrait of the goddess Kali which rests, in pride of place, at the centre of the shrine. Kali is a terrifying, cartoon-like figure with a pitch-black face and wild, coarse, flying hair. She stands astride the prostrate body of a man (her husband, the god Shiva, whom she’s accidentally slain in an orgy of bloodlust) surrounded by mounds of corpses (her victims), wearing a necklace of baby heads while screaming, demonically.

      Valentine stops rocking. Her eyes shift off, guiltily, to the left. On a nearby bookshelf is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Mary stands there, uncontentiously, smiling, benignly, in her azure-blue cloak, gently cosseting a prim, bleeding heart between her two, soft, white hands.

      ‘Nope. Not angry,’ Valentine murmurs, ‘that’s stupid – counter-productive. Be calm. Calm. Renunciation. Equanimity. Focus. Renunciation. Equanimity … Urgh!’ She shakes her head, frustratedly. ‘Don’t give in to her! Why do you always give in to her? Why?’

      Her eyes well up with tears.

      ‘Stop crying, you pathetic fool !’ she hisses.

      Her hand moves to her throat. ‘No!’ She wrenches the hand away again. ‘Ignore the cruel voice. Ignore it! Say whatever you want! Feel whatever you like!’

      She pauses, frowning.

      ‘What am I feeling?’

      She looks panicked and quickly hones in on the image of Kali. After a couple of seconds she raises her eyes to the ceiling, focusing intently, twisting her hands together on her lap.

      ‘Can mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of stone?’ she recites, haltingly.

      ‘Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her Lord?’

      She lowers her eyes, shakes her head, forlornly, and then focuses in on the picture again.

      ‘Men call you merciful,’ she whispers, awed, ‘but there is no mercy in you, Mother.’

      She bites her lower lip, grimacing. ‘You have cut off the heads of the children of others, and these you wear as garlands around your neck …’

      She reaches out and picks up a long string of sandalwood beads, looking almost afraid. ‘It matters not how much I call you “Mother”, Mother,’ she concludes, shrugging. ‘You hear me but you will not listen.’

      Valentine raises the beads to her lips and kisses them, then closes her eyes again.

      ‘Om krimkalyai nama,’ she intones, hardly audible.

      ‘Om kapalnaye Namah.’ Her voice grows louder.

      ‘Om hrim shrim krim –

      Parameshvari kalike svaha!’

      She repeats this phrase in a flat monotone, and each time she repeats it she moves one bead on the necklace forward with her middle finger. As she incants, a small child can be seen, through