Touche Eclat? Artily-bespectacleds completely at a loss.
Pale make-up: foundation or powder or concealer, Ransom expands, something to simulate bird mess, basically, which he smeared over the jacket, on the sly, when he realized he was losing, so that he could disappear into the toilets and make contact with a chess helpline on his BlackBerry
A chess helpline?! Blue-blazer expostulates, agog. Are you perfectly insane?!
The chalk was missing from the blackboard in the pool room this morning, the golfing father helpfully interjects. I reported it to reception myself.
Chalk! A stub of chalk! The mans a genius! Ransom emits an ecstatic whoop, shoves his phone into his pocket and makes a sudden beeline for Blue-blazer across the board. Father and son (after a tiny pause) join in the chase, approaching Blue-blazer in a pincer movement from the other side.
But I dont Artily-bespectacled is still mystified. Blue-blazer, meanwhile, has grabbed hold of a white knight to protect himself. Ransom scoops up a black queen.
Checkmate! he hollers. Game over! Throw down the jacket, my little friend, or suffer the consequences!
This is assault! Blue-blazer hollers, as the child grabs at his jacket and attempts to run off with it. This is an utterly unprovoked assault! Del Renzio! Call Security!
He batters clumsily at the child with the white knight and knocks him, backwards, into the small, privet hedge that has been planted a couple of yards beyond the boards outer perimeter. The top of the hedge has been cut to simulate the effect of castle battlements.
Those chess pieces are custom made! Artily-bespectacled runs towards them, horrified. Theyre individually crafted pieces of fibreglass. Each one costs in excess of seven hundred and eighty pounds
The child lands at an ungainly angle, still clutching on to the blazer, his right arm twisted beneath his torso. His initial delight at having wrested the blazer away from his adversary is quickly overtaken by the cruel realization that all is not well with him, physically. He tries and fails to clamber to his feet again, inhales sharply, then starts to wail.
Whats wrong? his father demands.
My arm! the boy keens, pawing at his shoulder, his cheeks flooding with tears. I cant lift my arm! I cant move my fingers!
Dyou have any idea what youve done?! The father rounds on Blue-blazer, jabbing at his chest, furiously, with his index finger. Dyou have any idea who this is? This isnt just some insignificant, little nobody! This is the Wolf! The Wolf, dyou hear me?! This is Britains number-one golfer in the under-twelve age range! The Leamington Echo called him The Great White Hope of the British Game!
(As it so happens, the Wolf is actually ranked seventeenth in the UK under-twelve category.)
Ransom, meanwhile, has dropped the black queen, hurdled the hedge and is at the boys side in a matter of mere seconds. He pulls the jacket out from under him, rifles through one of the pockets and unearths a packet of Polo mints. The boy is still clutching at his shoulder and whimpering as the father snatches the white knight from Blue-blazers tight embrace and whacks him across the side of the head with it.
In the brief hiatus that follows (during which he has helped himself to a Polo mint and proffered one to the wailing child), Ransom is quickly able to assess the full extent of the boys injuries. He promptly lifts him to his knees, positions himself to the rear, wraps his arms around his shoulder and chest, grips him firmly, tells him to take a deep breath, and then makes a sudden, sharp movement (which is followed by a small yet deeply satisfying clicking sound). He then releases the child.
Hows that feel?
The boy sits quietly for a second, shell-shocked.
Hows that feel? the dad echoes, dropping the white knight and hurdling the hedge himself.
Disconnected his collar bone, Ransom explains, proffering him a Polo mint (which is cordially refused), then delving back into the blazers pockets again. Therell probably be a small amount of bruising. Just keep it rested for a day or so and hell be right as rain.
The boy has lifted his arm and is moving his fingers, gingerly, as the father watches on, in awe.
Youre a Godsend, he murmurs. A genius!
The Wolf (in accordance with his fathers stupefied assessment of the situation) scrambles to his feet and commences an ear-splitting howl of victory (the howl is his trademark, his bugle call).
How the hell do I go about thanking you? the father demands, turning to Ransom, his eyes tearing up.
Uh I dunno Ransom winces (slightly unnerved by the baying child). He considers his response for a pico-second. A nice letter to the Official Website, maybe ? He shrugs. A phone call to the local press ? I mean, whatever you feel comfortable with
As he speaks his attention is momentarily distracted by a second, mystery object in the blazers pocket. He withdraws his hand and blinks down at it, quizzically. It is a small tube of a popular brand of spermicidal cream.
Wow, Ransom shakes his head as he inspects it, perfectly astonished. I thought you could only get this stuff as a foam in those tiny, pump-action aerosols Man! he cackles. Are they seriously still manufacturing this shit in tubes? Thats brilliant! Its hilarious! He rocks back on his heels. Jesus, Joseph and Mary, I love this country! Its so friggin old school!
Valentine enters the room and discovers Gene standing in front of her tiny shrine, gazing with some astonishment at a large, black and white photograph of a vagina which hangs, lopsidedly, on the wall behind it.
Thats not what it looks like, she says, bending down to blow out a tea-light (which still flickers away, doggedly, before the tiny, roaring, cartoonish image of Kali). I mean its not pornography, its art. Its a tattoo. The hair on the the hairs not real. Its a tattoo.
But its so incredibly lifelike, Gene murmurs, squinting, then drawing in still closer, amazed.
Yeah.
She runs a nervous hand through her newly bobbed fringe. During her brief absence shes removed the curler and changed into a pair of high-waisted jeans: classic, dark denim, American-made; tight on the hip, baggy on the legs, with matching, beige, elasticated braces attached, and a snugly fitting gingham shirt underneath.
Its not normally hung up there, she adds, I was just showing it to a client.
The wicker was impressive, Gene muses, but thats actually quite astonishing.
Wicker? Valentines slow to catch on.
At the hotel. Your brother removed his shirt
Really? She scowls, irritated. Whyd he do that?
Im not sure. Gene turns to face her and immediately notices how the elastic of the braces curves around her breasts. He quickly turns away again. To show it off, I guess.
The wicker was an early piece, she mutters.
And now youve moved on to uh Gene points, lamely.
Merkins.
She isnt afraid to say it out loud.
Merkins, Gene parrots, ruminatively.
I got into it by accident, she expands. I was offering a cosmetic tattoo service at my dads parlour. Hed sent me on a course learning how to do permanent eye-liner and lip-liner; that kind of stuff. I developed a really good technique for doing eyebrows for tattooing hair, basically. I did some work on a woman with alopecia and she really loved it. She was quite a character; a performance artist. It was originally her idea for me to tattoo her well down there
She grimaces. Word quickly got around especially on the internet. She helped me set up my website. Since then Ive mainly concentrated on she clears her throat on what you might call specialist clients.
I suppose this gives true meaning to the phrase a niche market, Gene jokes, lamely.
She glances over at him.
Niche, he explains, instantly regretting this light-hearted foray, a shallow recess.
A niche?
She returns her attention back to the photograph again, somewhat perplexed. Ive never really thought of a vagina in that way before.
Me neither, he mutters, humiliated.
Ive done my fair share of nipples for women whove had reconstructive surgery on their breasts. Im pretty good at them matching the woman to the nipple; the right size, the right colour. Its really rewarding work. Bread and butter stuff. Ive taken a lot of photographs. Some Im really proud of. I mean Im quite into scars in general. Theres a specialist scar market people who want scars she shrugs and I can do that. Im into all that
I had breast cancer myself, Gene murmurs.
Oh okay. Valentine nods, distracted. Its not only about the body, though, she continues. It started out that way, but now Im mainly just obsessed by textures, she confesses, abstract textures: wools, woven grasses, woodgrains, marble, even concrete. Ive got this house-brick on my thigh
A brick?
His brows rise.
A couple of bricks. She nods. I tattooed them there myself. Ive got a photo in my portfolio
She walks over to a large, black art folder which leans behind the door, unzips it and then pages through some photographic prints inside. Each piece is separated by a sheet of tracing paper. She eventually locates the one shes looking for and pulls it out.
Im completely obsessed by Louise Bourgeois, she says, carrying it over, the tracing paper still in place. Dyou know her work at all?
He shakes his head.
Shes really old now, French, has this huge retrospective coming up at the Tate Modern Valentine glances over, briefly, towards the slumbering Nessa. Not that Ill get a chance to see it. She shrugs.
Childcare a problem? Gene speculates.
Too scared to leave the house, she murmurs, smiling.
Too scared ? he echoes.
Im agoraphobic.
As she speaks, she places the bottom edge of the print on to the rug, removes the tracing paper and reveals the image for his perusal.
Her work deals mainly with issues surrounding women and domesticity, she explains (focusing entirely on the photo now), women and the home, basically women being defined, psychologically, by the actual fabric of their homes. Thats my own, particular area of interest: ideas surrounding intimacy, privacy, anxiety; the textures of my immediate environment the comfort I find in them and at the same time the feelings of disgust they sometimes evoke in me
Gene stares at the photograph as she talks, struggling to process the glut of information shes feeding him. It is a beautifully taken picture of the left-hand side of her body from knee to hip. On her thigh are two exquisitely well-tattooed bricks house bricks, with a thick slick of cement oozing out from between them. Even as he marvels at the extraordinary artistry of her work, he is intensely conscious of the flesh that surrounds it the quiet, soft canvas of her nudity.