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‘My teeth still feel furry, though,’ her mother murmurs, taking a small step forward and staring, fixedly, into the mirror again. ‘I want them to feel clean. I want them to feel toutes lisses.’
‘We’ve talked about this before.’ Valentine gently takes the toothbrush from her. ‘You just think they aren’t clean, but they are. Remember how the dentist …?’
‘You’re being unbelievably patronizing,’ her mother exclaims, suddenly irritable.
She pauses.
‘Condescendant! And by the way,’ she continues, ‘I find it really disgusting that you flushed the cat mess down the loo.’
She goes and peers into the toilet bowl.
‘Je n’ai pas t’élevée comme ça! Ça fait trop commun.’
Valentine is inspecting her own, clear complexion in the bathroom mirror. The cat sitting closest to the doorway commences scratching itself, vigorously.
‘The toilet bowl is filthy! It’s disgusting,’ her mother grumbles. She turns to inspect the cat. ‘And these cats are disgusting, too. So many of them, et tellement poilus! In fact this entire room is disgusting. All the fitments are disgusting. The light-fitment, the blind, even the colour is disgusting. Especially the colour.’
‘You used to adore these tiles,’ Valentine tells her. ‘The bathroom was one of the main reasons why you and Dad first fell in love with this house.’
‘Please!’ her mother snorts. ‘Impossible! I don’t believe you! This shade of pink? Taramasalata pink? Vomit pink? It’s vile! Disgusting!’
‘You’re finding an awful lot to be disgusted about tonight,’ Valentine observes, dryly.
Her mother considers this notion for a moment, and then, ‘Because there’s a lot to be disgusted by, I suppose,’ she sighs.
‘You know it’s always struck me as ridiculous,’ Gene says, removing a large jar of salted cashews from under the counter, unscrewing the lid and then carefully topping up Ransom’s bar-snacks, ‘that golf doesn’t have the status of an Olympic sport yet.’
‘I do quite enjoy the odd match of ping-pong,’ Jen quietly ruminates from the rear, ‘but then it’s a completely different order of game to proper tennis.’
‘Well there’s the table part, for starters,’ Gene mutters (although his voice is pretty much obliterated as Jen commences flushing a clean jug of water through the coffee machine).
‘Golf,’ Ransom is sullenly addressing his beer bottle. ‘Goll-oll-llolf.’
He frowns. ‘It isn’t stupid,’ he protests. ‘What’s so bloody stupid about it?’
He turns to Gene. ‘Do you think it’s stupid?’
Gene shrugs, helplessly.
‘Goll-lluf,’ Ransom repeats, exploring each individual letter with his tongue and his teeth.
‘Although I do find snooker quite selfish,’ Jen suddenly interjects (as the water finally completes its noisy cycle), ‘and snooker’s a table sport, so it can’t be entirely about the furniture, can it?’
Gene opens his mouth to respond and then closes it again, stumped.
‘I don’t even understand what you mean by selfish,’ Ransom grumbles, checking his phone and sending a quick text.
‘Well’ – Jen carefully adjusts an eyelash (which has briefly become unglued) – ‘by selfish I suppose I mean …’ She gnaws on her lower lip, thoughtfully. ‘I dunno. Selfish … Self-centred. Self-obsessed. Self-indulgent. Self-absorbed …’
‘I think we might best summarize Jen’s position,’ Gene quickly interjects, ‘as a borderline-irrational hatred of all so-called “individual” sports.’
‘Ahhh.’ Ransom finally starts to make sense of things.
‘Although I do quite like bowling,’ Jen demurs.
‘People generally bowl in a team.’ Gene shrugs.
‘And gymnastics. I like gymnastics.’
‘Ditto.’
‘And I’ve always liked the javelin,’ Jen presses on. ‘In fact I love the javelin. There’s something really … really basic and primeval about the javelin.’
To illustrate her point, Jen lobs an imaginary javelin towards Eugene’s head.
‘Okay. So the theory’s not entirely watertight,’ Gene concedes, flinching.
‘And surfing …’ Jen persists. ‘I really, really –’
‘I USED TO BE A SURFER!’ Ransom suddenly yells, tossing down his phone and leaping up from his stool. ‘I USED TO BE A BLOODY SURFER! EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT!’
‘Uh … Could you just …?’ Jen raises a sardonic hand to her ear.
‘I did! I DID!’ Ransom is bouncing, hyperactively, from foot to foot. ‘Everybody knows that. Ask anybody! Ask … Ask him …’ Ransom points at Gene. ‘Surfing was my life. I was a total, surfing freak. I loved it. I lived it. I had the tan, the boarding shorts, the flip-flops, the bleached hair …’
‘The hair was pretty extravagant,’ Gene concurs.
‘All the way down to there, it was …’ Ransom lightly touches his chest with his free hand. ‘I kept it that length for years. It was like my talisman, my trademark, my signature …’
‘Didn’t you insure it at one point for some inordinately huge amount?’ Gene asks.
‘Half a million squid.’ Ransom nods. ‘Although it was just some cheap publicity stunt dreamed up by my ex-manager.’
‘Ah …’ Gene affects nonchalance.
‘But I was in all the fashion mags,’ Ransom persists. ‘Started my own clothing line. Had lucrative contracts with two types of styling gels. Modelled for Westwood in London, McQueen in New York, Gaultier in Paris – which is where I first met Karma …’
He stares at Jen, expectantly.
‘Karma,’ he repeats, ‘Karma Dean? The model? The muse? Come on! You must’ve heard of Karma Dean!’
‘Hmmn?’
Jen just gazes back at him, blankly.
Her mother is perched on the edge of the bed, her slight but curvaceous frame encased in a delicate, apricot-coloured silk nightdress. She is staring at Valentine, expectantly. Valentine is standing close by, looking puzzled. She is holding a small, black vibrator in her hand.
‘I’m really sorry, Mum,’ she eventually murmurs, ‘but the battery’s completely dead.’
Her mother’s mouth starts to quiver. Her eyes fill with tears.
‘I’m really, really sorry, Mum,’ Valentine repeats.
‘Can’t we just take one from the video?’ her mother wheedles. ‘We’ve done that before, remember? Just take one from the remote control!’
‘I don’t think that would work.’ Valentine speaks softly and in measured tones. ‘It’s a different size battery.’
‘No! No it’s not!’ Her mother stamps her foot. ‘You’re lying! You’re just fobbing me off again, same as always!’
‘I’m not lying, Mum. In fact I’m pretty certain –’
‘Stop calling me that!’ her mother snaps.
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m not your “mum”. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m a person! I have a name! My name is Frédérique!’
‘Like I was saying,’ Valentine persists, ignoring this last interjection, ‘I’m pretty certain that the ones in the remote are several sizes smaller …’
Her mother hurls herself on to her back. ‘JESUS CHRIST!’ she hollers. ‘IS THIS WHAT I’M TO BE REDUCED TO?’
‘Shhh!’
Valentine glances over towards the door. Her mother clenches both hands into fists and boffs them, repeatedly, against the counterpane.
‘I’d go to the shops, Mum,’ Valentine struggles to mollify her, ‘but Nessa’s in bed and –’
‘THEN ASK A FUCKING NEIGHBOUR!’ her mother bellows.
Valentine closes her eyes and draws a deep breath. ‘Why don’t we try some of those breathing exercises you learned at the day centre the other day?’ she suggests, her voice artificially bright. ‘Or I can fetch you your crochet …’
Hostile silence.
‘I can’t ask a neighbour, Mum. It’s way after twelve …’ She pauses, grimacing. ‘And anyway, the doctor –’
‘Ah-ha! ’
Her mother sits bolt upright again. She has a victorious look on her face.
‘Maintenant nous arrivons au coeur de la question!’
‘He just thinks it’s advisable for you to try and lay off …’
‘Number one’ – her mother lifts a single, accusing digit – ‘you’re too damn scared to go out on your own, Nessa or no Nessa. Number blue’ – she lifts a second finger – ‘you’ve swapped the live batteries with dead ones – on the doctor’s instructions – simply to spite me and stop me from having a bit of fun. Number tree’ – she lifts a third finger – ‘I’m a gorgeous, healthy –’
‘… because this thing is much too hard,’ Valentine interrupts her, ‘and you’re rubbing yourself raw with it.’
Her mother lifts her nightie, opens her legs and shows Valentine her vagina.
‘C’est belle! And you should know! You’ve seen enough of the damn things over the years!’
‘Mum …’
Valentine is upset.
‘What?’
Her mother is unrepentant.
‘Will you just …?’
‘What?’
‘That’s not really …’
‘WHAT?!’
‘That’s just not really acceptable, Mum.’
Her mother drops the nightie. ‘But it’s acceptable to interfere with my toy and then stand there, bold as brass, and lie to my face about it?’
‘I didn’t …’ Valentine begins.
‘God!’ Her mother collapses back on to her bed again. ‘You bore me! This is so boring! I’m so fucking bored !’
Valentine turns to leave.
‘Menteuse!’ her mother mewls. ‘Imbecile! Prude!’
‘But of course I’ve heard of Karma Dean!’ Jen scoffs. ‘Are you crazy?! I mean who hasn’t heard of Karma Dean? She’s huge!’
‘Well we were an item for about eighteen months.’ Ransom shrugs, nonchalant. ‘She was still married at the time – to some pig-ugly old French actor … I forget his name. The tabloids had a fuckin’ field-day. It was totally insane.’
Ransom takes a long swig of his beer. He seems understandably smug at the sheer magnitude of this revelation.
Silence.
‘But Karma Dean’s really famous,’ Jen eventually murmurs.
‘Yeah. I know.’ Ransom scowls.
‘I’m serious!’
Jen pulls her ‘serious’ face.
‘Yes, I know.’ Ransom struggles to hide his irritation.
‘But I don’t think you do,’ Jen enunciates slowly and clearly (as if describing something new-fangled to a deaf octogenarian), ‘Karma Dean’s really, really …’
