take the remote by any chance?’ Valentine enquires.
‘The what?!’
‘The remote. The video remote. It’s gone missing.’
‘You think I took the remote?’ Her mother looks astonished.
Pause.
‘Yes.’
‘You woke me up when I was fast asleep to find out if I took the remote?!’
‘Yes.’
‘Vraiment?!’
‘Pardon?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes.’
Longer pause.
‘Oh. Fine.’ Her mother crosses her arms, defiant. ‘Well I didn’t.’
‘I see …’
Valentine nervously pushes her fringe from her eyes. ‘Then I guess you wouldn’t mind if I just …?’
She slowly inches her way into the room.
‘Good Christ!’ her mother exclaims, drawing the coverlet up to her chin like an imperilled starlet in an exploitation movie. ‘What is this?! Who the hell are you?! The fucking remote Gestapo?!’
‘I hardly think it’s fair to compare –’ Gene slowly starts off, shaking his head, evidently bewildered.
‘But what about match-play?’ Ransom interrupts him. ‘What about the Ryder Cup? That’s team golf, right there!’
Pause.
‘Good point,’ Jen concedes, then returns her full attention back to the coffee machine.
Ransom is initially gratified, then oddly deflated, by Jen’s sudden volte face.
‘I was selected for Sam Torrance’s team in 2002,’ he blusters, ‘and we fuckin’ stormed it. Pretty much left the Yanks for dead that year …’
‘That must’ve been an incredible feeling …’ Gene tries his best to buoy him up.
‘It was,’ Ransom confirms.
‘To be perfectly honest with you’ – Jen peers over her shoulder – ‘I don’t even know what the Ryder Cup is …’
She pauses for a moment, thoughtfully. ‘Although when Andy Murray exaggerated the severity of his piddling knee injury to pike out of playing in the Davis Cup the other year … Urgh!’
She shakes her head, appalled.
Ransom gazes at Gene, befuddled. ‘Is she always like this?’ he demands, hoarsely.
‘We had Jon Snow in here the other week,’ Gene confirms, ‘and Jen spent the whole night labouring under the misapprehension that he was her old science teacher from Middle School …’
‘Mr Spencer,’ Jen interjects, helpfully, ‘from Mill Vale.’
‘… which was pretty embarrassing in itself,’ Gene continues, ‘but then she swans off to the kitchens …’
‘I just kept asking if he’d kept in contact with Miss Bartholomew – my Year Seven form teacher,’ Jen butts in, ‘and he was totally polite about it, bless him. He kept saying, “I’m not really sure that I have.” Which I thought at the time was kinda weird … I mean you either keep up with someone or you don’t.’
‘So she heads over to the kitchens,’ Gene repeats, ‘and one of the waitresses mentions having served Mr Snow for dinner. Jen puts two and two together, makes five, and then sprints back to the bar to apologize: “I thought you were my old science teacher,” she says, “I had no idea you were a famous weatherman.”’
‘SHIIIT!’ Ransom covers his face with his hands.
‘That was Lenny’s fault!’ Jen shrieks. ‘It was Len who said –’
‘Lenny’s still struggling to come to terms with the trauma of decimalization,’ Gene snorts. ‘Is he really the best person to be taking direction from on these matters?’
‘Jon Snow’s a fuckin’ newsreader, you dick!’ Ransom gloats. ‘Everybody knows that.’
‘I never watch the news’ – Jen shrugs, unabashed – ‘although when Carol Smillie came in just before Christmas,’ she sighs, dreamily, ‘I was totally star-struck …’
‘If I remember correctly,’ Gene takes up the story, ‘you served her with a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio and then said, “I think you’re amazing, Carol. I’m addicted to Countdown. I’ve never missed a single show.”’
‘And?!’ Jen demands, haughtily.
‘Carol Vorderman presented Countdown, you friggin’ dildo!’ Ransom crows.
‘Oh.’ Jen scowls as Ransom exchanges a celebratory high-five with her benighted co-worker before he turns on his heel (with an apologetic shrug) and departs for the kitchens. Ransom – brimming with a sudden, almost overwhelming exuberance – taps out a gleeful tattoo with his index fingers on to the bar top.
‘She was a real class act,’ Jen mutters, distractedly (her eyes still fixed on the retreating Gene), ‘beautiful skin, immaculate teeth, and perfectly happy to sign an autograph for my dad …’
As soon as Gene’s safely out of earshot, however, she abruptly interrupts her eulogy, places both hands flat on to the bar top, leans forward, conspiratorially, and whispers, ‘I know exactly who you are, by the way.’
* * *
Valentine is crawling around the room on her hands and knees, feeling along the carpet in the semi-darkness.
‘I know the sudden change from dark to light upsets you,’ she’s muttering, ‘that it jolts you – but if we could just …’
She slowly reaches towards the light on the bedside table.
‘A CAT’S COME IN!’ her mother screeches. ‘YOU’VE GONE AND LET ONE OF THOSE FILTHY CATS IN!’
She leaps from her bed. ‘OUT, YOU DIRTY, LITTLE SWINE! OUT! OUT! OUT!’
As her mother chases the cat from the room, Valentine takes the opportunity to dive under the coverlet and sweep her arm across the bed-sheet.
‘LA VICTOIRE!’ her mother yells, ejecting the offending feline with a swift prod of her foot, and then – before Valentine can throw off the coverlet, draw breath, and commence a heartfelt plea to persuade her to do otherwise: ‘GOOD RIDDANCE!’ she bellows, smashing the door shut, triumphantly, behind it.
The door reverberates so violently inside its wooden frame that a small ornament (a cheap, plastic model of St Jude) falls off the windowsill on the opposite wall, and a young child starts wailing in a neighbouring room.
‘Jesus, Mum …!’ Valentine hoarsely chastises her, starting to withdraw her head from under the coverlet, but before she can manage it, her mother – possibly alerted to her daughter’s clandestine activities by the sound of the falling saint – has turned and propelled herself – ‘NOOOOOOOOO!’ – (a howling, rotating, silken-apricot swastika), back on to the bed again.
Valentine gasps as her mother’s knee crashes into her cheek (although this sharp expostulation is pretty much obliterated by:
a) the cotton coverlet
b) the extraordinary racket her mother is making
c) the traumatized squeal of the bedsprings).
She eventually manages to extract herself and collapses, backwards, on to the carpet.
‘Ow!’ she groans, feeling blindly for