‘God,’ Jen groans, rolling her eyes, boredly, ‘what is this fatal attraction between footballers and bloody golf, eh?’
‘Huh?’ Ransom’s head snaps around. He frowns. He looks a little confused.
‘I just don’t get it,’ Jen persists (ignoring a pointed look that Gene is now darting at her), ‘because golf’s so unbelievably dull. I mean why rattle on endlessly about golf all night when there’s so much other great stuff to talk about, like … I dunno …’ She throws up her hands.
‘Basket-weaving,’ Gene suggests, wryly.
‘Topiary,’ Ransom helpfully volunteers.
‘The comic novels of Saki,’ Gene effortlessly parries.
‘UFOs.’ Ransom grins.
‘The worst services on the M4,’ Gene deftly volleys, ‘between Reading and Newport.’
‘The best services on the M1,’ Ransom vigorously retaliates, ‘between Watford and Leeds.’
‘I’ve never been to the North,’ Jen confesses (with cheerful candour), at exactly the same moment as Gene hollers, ‘Leicester Forest East!’ (then blushes).
‘I favour Shovel myself.’ Ransom shrugs.
‘Although I have been to Norfolk,’ Jen concedes.
‘Norfolk?’ Ransom echoes, bewildered. ‘Norfolk isn’t in the North, you bloomin’ half-wit!’
‘I know that!’ Jen snaps.
‘Crop circles!’ Gene promptly endeavours to divert them.
‘The Chinese Horoscope!’ (Ransom’s easily distracted.)
‘The current export price of British beef,’ Gene casually raises him.
‘Which is the luckier number’ – Ransom plucks at his unshaven chin with comedic thoughtfulness – ‘three or seven?’
‘Stones versus Beatles!’ Gene’s starting to sweat a little.
‘Leeches!’ Ransom whoops (slamming down his beer bottle – for extra emphasis – then cursing as it foams up, over and on to the bar top).
Leeches?
‘But I love leeches!’ Jen squeals, baby-clapping delightedly. ‘Let’s talk about leeches! Let’s! Let’s! Oh, do let’s!’
Ransom recoils slightly at the unexpected violence of Jen’s reaction.
‘Jen’s into nature,’ Gene explains (with an avuncular smile), ‘she’s hoping to become a vet when she eventually grows up.’
Jen shoots Gene a faux-filthy/faux-flirty look.
‘Okay …’ Ransom tosses a quick peanut into his mouth and then launches, vaingloriously, into the requisite anecdote.
‘So I was playing this shonky tournament in Japan once,’ he starts off, ‘and I sliced a shot on the fourth which landed just to the right of the green in this really tricky area of rough –’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Jen interrupts, holding up her hand, exasperated. ‘Please, please, please tell me we’re not back to talking about sodding golf again?!’
‘Did you hear that?’ Valentine asks, cocking her head and listening intently.
‘What?’ Her mother stops brushing. She’s been brushing so diligently that her gums are bleeding and the white foam in her mouth has turned pink.
‘A squeak … this tiny squeak and then a sharp kind of … of scratching sound.’
Her mother also listens. A cat pads into the bathroom, sits down and commences licking its paws. There are now three cats in the room: one on the windowsill, one in the bath (where it’s just squatting to defecate over the plug-hole) and one sitting by the door.
‘This house is full of stinking cats,’ her mother grumbles. ‘How can we have rats in a house full of stinking cats?’
Valentine doesn’t answer. She closes her eyes. She places a finger to her lips.
Her mother ignores her. ‘Bobby’s sur le point de chier énormément,’ she announces.
‘Huh?’
Valentine is still listening out, intently, for another squeak.
‘Bobby. The stinking cat. He’s shitting on the plug.’
Valentine’s eyes fly open. She turns. She does a quick double-take.
‘No! Bobby!’ she yells. ‘STOP!’
* * *
‘Football’s bad enough,’ Jen grumbles, attacking the coffee machine with a renewed ferocity, ‘but golf? Urgh! You just can’t get away from it. It’s everywhere – like a contagious disease.’
‘“A good walk, spoiled,” I believe the saying goes.’
As he speaks, Gene reaches under the counter and withdraws a small, black notepad (with a broken, red Bic shoved into its metal binder). He opens the book, removes the pen, jots down a quick reminder about the squeaking barstool, then turns to the back page and in large, block letters writes: IT’S STUART RANSOM – THE FAMOUS PRO GOLFER, STUPID!
He then casually leans back and proffers Jen the pad.
‘In fact this really lovely friend of mine called Candy Rose, who I first met at jazz/tap classes when I was nine …’ Jen pauses, ruminatively, pointedly ignoring the pad. ‘Although – strictly speaking – we already knew each other, by sight, from nursery school …’
Ransom yawns and glances down at his phone.
‘Anyhow,’ Jen blithely continues, ‘Candy works for this animal refuge near Wandon End, and they were desperate to expand their workspace into some adjacent farmland. The farmer seemed perfectly happy to rent it out to them, but for some strange reason the council kept raising all these petty objections to their planning application. Then the next thing we know, this huge, twenty-five-acre plot –’
‘The yamabiru.’ Ransom suddenly turns, quite deliberately, and addresses himself directly to Gene. ‘The Japanese land leech. The mountains are their natural habitat, but over recent years they’ve taken to hitching a ride down on to the flatlands with packs of roaming boar and deer. They’ve become a real pest in the towns where they enjoy slithering into people’s socks and quietly ingesting a quick takeaway meal …’
‘Jesus!’ Gene is revolted. ‘How big?’
‘Small. Around half an inch to begin with, but they can swell to almost ten times that size. I had one gnawing away at my ankle but I didn’t have a clue about it till I felt this nasty twinge by the fourth and yanked off my shoe. At first I thought it was just a thorn or a thistle, but then I realized my sock was totally soaked …’ he pauses, dramatically, ‘… saturated with my own blood.’
‘Wow!’ Jen is clearly impressed. ‘A land leech? That’s wild!’
‘A yamabiru.’ Ransom nods. ‘I swear I nearly shat myself.’
‘Spell that out for me …’ Jen snatches the pad from Gene. ‘I’m gonna look it up on the internet.’
‘Did it hurt?’ Gene wonders.
‘Nah. It was more the shock of it than anything. I mean the sheer volume of …’
‘Wow!’ Jen repeats. ‘So what did you do with it? Did you kill it? Did you stamp on it? SPLAT!’
Jen stamps her foot, violently.