‘I saw it on a plane,’ the golfer murmurs, eyeing her, suspiciously, ‘twice. But I fell asleep both times.’
‘Because our brains are generally operating at such a high level,’ Jen expands, ‘that we simply don’t have the space up there for all these reams and reams of more conventional data …’
The golfer gazes at her, perplexed, noting, as he does so, a slight, pinkened area — almost a gentle chapping — on her upper lip. This idle observation sends a frisson of excitement from his inside knee to his thigh.
‘… data relating to, say — I dunno — table manners,’ Jen rambles on, ‘or road safety, or basic personal hygiene. Take me, for example,’ she expands, ‘I actually started reading Aristotle when I was five — in the original Greek. By seven I’d discovered that a particular chemical component in bananas advances the ripening processes in other fruits. A tiny fact, something people just take for granted nowadays. But it was a huge revelation at the time — had a massive impact on the wine and fruit export industries …’ She shrugs. ‘I got my English language GCSE when I was eight, maths A-level when I was nine. But I was actually twelve years of age before I was successfully toilet-trained.’
‘Wuh?!’
Ransom’s horrified.
‘And I never learned to tell the time.’ She points to her wrist. ‘Couldn’t ever really master it, somehow. I just thank God the world had the good sense to go digital …’ She fondly inspects her watch, notices a tiny smear on its face and then casually buffs it clean on her breast (Ransom observes these proceedings with copious levels of interest).
‘Even tying my own shoelaces was a nightmare,’ Jen continues. ‘At school I always wore trainers with Velcro flaps …’
She illustrates this poignant detail with a little mime. Halfway through, though, Ransom clambers to his feet, reaches over the counter, grabs her arm and yanks her, unceremoniously, towards him.
She squeals, half-resisting. He ignores her protests, roughly twists her wrist and pulls the newly buffed timepiece right up close to his face. He inspects it for several seconds, his breathing laboured.
‘You manipulative little cow,’ he eventually mutters.
Much as he’d surmised, her watch has a leather strap, a gold surround, a traditional dial and two hands.
* * *
‘So you just took out the batteries and then tossed the casing into the bin,’ Valentine murmurs (more rueful now than accusing).
Her mother gazes at Valentine in much the same way a slightly tipsy shepherd might gaze at the eviscerated corpse of a stray sheep on a neighbouring farmer’s land (a gentle, watercolour wash of concern, querulousness and supreme indifference).
‘Well it’s my remote,’ she eventually sniffs, ‘so I can do what the hell I like with it!’
As if to prove this point, categorically, she marches over to her daughter, snatches the remote from her hand and returns to her bed again.
Valentine remains where she stands. ‘It’s not really a question of ownership, Mum —’
‘Frédérique,’ her mother interrupts.
‘Sorry?’
‘Frédérique,’ her mother repeats.
Valentine struggles to maintain her composure.
‘It’s not really a question of ownership, Frédérique …’ (she pronounces the name with a measure of emotional resistance), ‘no one’s denying that the remote is yours. It’s more a question of …’
She is about to say trust.
‘Piffle!’ her mother snorts (before she gets a chance to). ‘Absolute, bloody piffle!’
Valentine freezes.
‘I do find it odd how it’s never a question of ownership,’ her mother grumbles on, oblivious, ‘whenever I happen to own something.’
Valentine doesn’t respond.
‘I mean don’t you find that just a tad hypocritical?’ her mother persists.
Still nothing from Valentine.
‘Well don’t you, though?’
Her mother squints over at her daughter through the gloom.
Valentine is silent for a few seconds longer and then, ‘Piffle!’ she whispers, awed.
‘What?’
Her mother stiffens.
‘Piffle!’ Valentine repeats, raising a shaky hand to her throat, her voice starting to quiver. ‘You just said … you just said …’ She can’t bring herself to utter it again. ‘That was one of Mum’s favourite …’
‘I’M FRÉDÉRIQUE!’ her mother snarls, pointing the remote at her (as if hoping to turn her off with it — or, at the very least, to change the channel). ‘Don’t you dare start all that nonsense again!’
Valentine promptly bursts into tears.
‘STOP IT!’ her mother yells.
‘I can’t stop it!’ Valentine sobs, the grip of her hand on her throat growing tighter. ‘That was one of Mum’s favourite words, don’t you see? She used to say it all the time! Not in a nasty way. Not in a mean way. But when there was some … something she didn’t like on the TV or the ra … radio. “Piffle!” she’d say. “Absolute, bloody p … piffle!” And then she’d reach for the —’
‘FRÉDÉRIQUE!’ her mother screams, covering her ears.
Valentine’s suddenly bent over double, her chest heaving, her face convulsing. She can’t breathe.
‘GET OUT! GET OUT! I HATE YOU!’ her mother yells, then hurls the remote at her. The remote flies over Valentine’s shoulder and hits the wall behind her. Valentine turns, feels blindly for it in the half-light, locates it, grabs it and then darts for the door. She staggers out into the hallway.
‘I feel dizzy, Mum,’ she pants, clutching at her throat again. ‘I can’t breathe. I think I might be going to … I think I might be …’
Her voice slowly fades down the stairwell. In a neighbouring room a child is crying. Valentine’s mother cocks her head and listens intently for a while, then, ‘VALENTINE!’ she yells.
Pause.
‘What?’ Valentine finally answers, hoarsely, from some distance off.
‘How about twice of thirty-one?’ her mother demands.
‘What?’ Valentine repeats, incredulous.
‘Twice of thirty-one. Twice of … Merde!’ her mother curses. ‘Tu es sourde ou seulement —’
‘SIXTY-TWO!’ Valentine howls. ‘SIXTY-TWO! DOUBLE! DOUBLE! DOUBLE!’
Jen snatches her wrist from him, clamps her hand over her mouth and staggers backwards, her eyes bulging, bent double, convulsing, like she’s choking on something.
Ransom gawps at her, in alarm, then realizes (with a sudden, sinking feeling) that she’s not actually choking, but laughing — at him.
‘Oh God!’ she wails. ‘I’m so sorry! I just couldn’t resist …’ And then, ‘Urgh! Look! How disgusting! I’ve snotted on my hand!’
She holds up the offending digits and then goes to grab a napkin.
To mask his confusion, Ransom lunges for the beer bottle and tries to take a swig from it, but the bottle is empty.