‘My dad always says if there was an A-level in bullshit then I’d get top marks …’ Jen chatters away, amiably, ‘but, as luck would have it, I’m compelled to operate within the tedious constraints of a regular school syllabus.’
She gently blots the tears from the corners of her eyes. ‘I got such a low score for my maths GCSE that my teacher took me aside and congratulated me for it. She said it took a certain measure of creativity to get a mark that bad.’ Jen blinks a couple of times as she speaks. ‘Are my eyes still all red and puffy?’
She leans towards him, over the bar top.
Ransom puts down the bottle and gazes into her eyes, noticing — as she draws in still closer — that she has a tiny tuft of tissue caught on the side of one nostril and that she smells of raisins, industrial-strength detergent and baby sick.
‘You’ve smudged your make-up,’ he mutters (there’s a thin streak of black eye-liner on her cheekbone). He takes the napkin from her and gently dabs at her cheek.
‘Thanks,’ she says, surprised.
After he’s finished dabbing he doesn’t immediately pull back. Three, long seconds pass between them in a silence so deafening it’s as if the bottles of spirits behind the bar have just thundered out the last, climactic notes of a rousing concerto. This hiatus is only broken by the quiet beep of Ransom’s phone.
‘So you’d do anything to stay at the Leaside?’ he murmurs, ignoring the phone and focusing in on the nostril again, his tone ruthlessly casual.
‘Pardon?’
Jen blinks.
‘Earlier’ — he grins — ‘I thought you said …’
As he speaks, he notices how the milky-white flesh of her inner arm is now stained by an angry, red handprint. His grin falters.
‘I have a boyfriend,’ Jen says, stiffly.
‘God,’ Ransom mutters, withdrawing slightly, his mind turning — briefly — to Fleur, his deeply suspicious (and litigious) American wife. ‘I feel really, really pissed.’
He glances down at his phone and then back over his shoulder again, as though willing Gene to reappear, but Gene’s nowhere to be seen, so he lifts his hands and rubs his face with them (as if trying to revive himself, or excoriate something, perhaps). Jen, meanwhile, has tossed the used napkin into the bin and strolled over to the till, where she starts to cash up.
‘You know we had a kid like that at school,’ Ransom mumbles, dropping his hands. ‘Percy McCord. Played cymbals in the band. Wore lace-up boots, knee-high green socks an’ a pair of burgundy, corduroy knickerbockers. Total mooncalf, he was.’
‘Talking of performances’ — Jen smirks at him over her shoulder — ‘you put on a pretty impressive show back there yourself if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘Huh?’
‘I mean all the crazy stuff about your plaits …’
Jen twirls her two ponytails at him, teasingly.
‘My …? Oh. Yeah …’ Ransom winces, pained.
‘EVERYBODY REMEMBERS THE PLAITS!’ Jen bellows (in a surprisingly passable northern accent). ‘THE PLAITS ARE BLOOMIN’ LEGENDARY!’
‘Hah.’ Ransom smiles weakly as he reaches for the pocket containing his cigarettes, but his hand is shaking so violently that he quickly withdraws it again.
‘I was really getting into character at that point,’ he mutters.
‘Well you deserved a bloody BAFTA!’ Jen heartily commends him. ‘Not that those things are worth diddly-squat, quite frankly,’ she adds.
‘I did a guest appearance on Neighbours once,’ Ransom recalls, almost poignantly, ‘and the director said I put in one of the most gutsy performances she’d ever —’
‘I MODELLED IN PARIS FOR JEAN PAUL GAULTIER!’
Jen strikes a gruesome array of camp poses in rapid succession.
Ransom grimaces. A tiny pulse starts to throb in his lower cheek. His phone beeps.
‘So will we let him in on the whole thing when he eventually gets back?’ he wonders, glancing down at his phone and casually scanning through his messages.
‘Who?’
Jen coldly inspects Ransom’s hairline as she speaks (it’s slightly receding), and the way his golfer’s tan kicks in halfway down his forehead.
‘Who?’ Ransom snorts, looking up from his phone and focusing in on Jen’s lips. ‘Your idiot barman, who else?’
‘I keep telling you’ — Jen’s lips tighten — ‘Gene’s not an idiot. He’s really wise, really funny, really emotionally intelligent —’
‘Emotionally intelligent?’ Ransom butts in, sniggering. ‘Next you’ll be calling him “one of the good guys”!’
Jen lets this pass.
‘Emotionally intelligent?!’ Ransom repeats, a single brow raised, tauntingly.
‘He runs marathons,’ Jen attempts to elaborate, evidently discomforted.
‘Marathons?!’ Ransom gasps. ‘No! Seriously?!’
‘Sponsored marathons,’ Jen snaps. ‘He organizes them.’
‘Sponsored marathons?’ Ransom clutches on to the counter, for support.
‘And triathalons.’
‘And triathalons?! Wow-wee!’
Ransom swoons across the bar top, overwhelmed.
‘Last year he raised almost fifteen thousand —’
‘I once raised double that amount in a single afternoon,’ Ransom interrupts her, straightening up, ‘for a land-mine charity. Just after Diana died, it was. My rookie year. 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 …’