My hands, which have been resting on the table, visible, deliberately placed in frame because Phaedra suggested it would look more natural than hiding them, begin to shake.
Not dramatically. Not the violent tremor of the worst episodes. A fine vibration, like a tuning fork struck softly. It starts in my right hand — the scarred one, the one that held the putter during the collapse — and spreads to my left within seconds.
I look at them. The camera sees me looking. Claire sees. The sound operator — not Saskia, someone else — adjusts their equipment with the practiced nonchalance of a professional who has watched interviewees fall apart before.
"The putting became difficult approximately eighteen months before the withdrawal," I say. My voice is steady. My hands are not. The disconnection between the two — the composed voice and the trembling fingers — is the precise visual representation of what the yips felt like from the inside. A body at war with itself.
"Can you describe what it feels like?"
I should answer. The question is reasonable. The interview is structured to allow me to describe the experience in my own language, which is exactly what Saskia recommended.
I look at my hands. They're shaking. On camera. Recorded. Preserved. Another clip to join the four-million-view archive of Nerys Quillan's broken machinery.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I need to stop."
I stand. Remove the lapel microphone. Walk out of the conference room.
Twelve minutes. I lasted twelve minutes.
•
That evening. My hotel room. The door is locked. The curtains are closed. The lights are off. I'm sitting on the edge of the bed inthe dark pressing my palms flat against my thighs, trying to force the tremor into submission through pressure and will, the same strategy that has never worked and that I continue to attempt because the alternative — accepting that my hands shake when I'm afraid and that shaking is not a mechanical failure but a human response to overwhelming stimuli — requires a revision of self-concept I have not yet managed.
Tala knocks at nine fifteen.
I know it's her. The knock is three beats — quick, firm, specific. She knocks the way she swings: with confidence and without preamble.
"Nerys."
I don't answer.
"Nerys, open the door."
"I'm not someone you should see right now."
Silence. I hear her breathing through the door. I hear the small rustle of clothing as she shifts her weight. I hear her think — and Tala's thinking is not quiet; her body adjusts when her mind is working, a physical correlate of mental effort that I've catalogued over weeks of standing beside her on golf courses.
"Okay," she says.
I hear her sit. The soft compression of a body lowering itself to the corridor carpet, back against the wall beside my door. She doesn't say anything else. She doesn't knock again. She doesn't argue or cajole or attempt the spectacular emotional recovery that has historically been her response to anything she can't fix with a single dramatic gesture.
She sits.
I remain on the bed. She remains in the corridor. The hotel operates around us — footsteps, distant conversation, the elevator's mechanical respiration. The minutes accumulate.
After an hour, I open the door.
She's sitting on the floor. Legs extended. Head tilted back against the wall. Her eyes are closed and her hands are resting on her thighs and she looks like a woman who has been practicing patience in a hallway for sixty minutes and has discovered that the practice is bearable when you know why you're doing it.
She opens her eyes. Looks up at me. Doesn't stand.
"Can I come in?"
"Yes."
She stands. Enters. I close the door.
The room is dark. I don't turn on the lights. She doesn't ask me to.
