Green Grass (28 page)

By evening she is almost climbing the walls with anxiety. What will she say and do if they come? What should she think if they don't? And what on earth will chicken casserole from the back of the salt packet taste like? The rain pours steadily, creating a dimension of claustrophobia for the evening. Laura cannot sit down; she paces the length of the small kitchen. A car idles in the lane and stops by her gate. Craning out of the window Laura can see nothing but the glare of headlights and a silhouetted cloaked figure running up the path, head bowed in the driving rain. It is the wrong height for Inigo, and anyway, there's no Dolly, not that she would dream of running anyway. Perhaps it's an axe man? Unlikely, but Laura's grasp on reasoned argument is slender enough for her
to consider this option carefully before dismissing it because there is no sign of an axe. She breaks into slightly hysterical laughter when Guy bursts in through the kitchen door wearing a stiff oilskin cape in which he somehow manages to look like a rakish Mexican bandit rather than ET. He pushes the hood back and finding her manic laughter odd, glances covertly at her mug on the kitchen table, presumably expecting it to contain gin.

‘It's tea,' Laura tells him. ‘Would you like some?'

‘No, thanks, I've got to go,' he replies. ‘I need to check the ditches in my field by the stream. The water levels are rising ridiculously and I've got sheep in there.' He kisses her on the cheek and his face is cold and hard. She is horrified by how erotic she finds this moment with him standing there in his oilskins. She had thought she had passed through her crush on Guy and was out the other side now. He hands her a small bouquet. ‘Here, these are the herbs you'll need for cooking the hare. I thought I'd drop them off now as I won't be here this weekend, I'm going to a farm management conference in Kent.'

Disappointment lurches through her. ‘Oh,' is all she manages to say.

‘I should be back on Monday, so I'll see you then.' Steam begins to rise from Guy's dripping cape. ‘I'd better go. I'm soaking your house. Your supper smells
good.' Laura nods, her throat tight, eyes smarting because she won't be here on Monday. It is ridiculous to be this worked up about going home. Anyone would think she was never coming back.

She mumbles, ‘Yes, I know, I have high hopes for it. Next week would be nice,' and she waves Guy off down the white-lit path of his headlights.

‘Who was that, Mum?' Fred's sangfroid in the face of his father and sister's possible and imminent arrival is commendable. Laura cannot suppress a small squeak of alarm when he puts a hand on her shoulder as she sits, perusing the classified advertisements in today's paper.

‘Oooh! You made me jump.'

Fred laughs. ‘You're mad, Mummy,' he says affectionately. ‘What's for supper?'

‘Well, it's a sort of casserole,' Laura explains doubtfully. ‘But I think we should wait until the others come.'

‘Are they definitely coming?' Fred peers into the cast-iron stewing pot, his voice muffled as he sniffs his mother's culinary effort. ‘Blimey, it smells quite nice,' he adds.

‘No need to sound so surprised. I followed a recipe,' says Laura defensively, pinging off the walls almost literally, as she searches for a cigarette she knows Hedley left here a few days ago. ‘It will help, it will help if only I can find it,' she mutters.

Fred lolls against the table, watching her rummage in the drawers, reach up to the high mantle above the Rayburn, then run her hand along the windowsill.

‘What are you doing, Mum?' he asks eventually.

‘I'm trying to find the cigarette Hedley left here.' Laura is on her hands and knees with the torch now, craning her head to see behind the kitchen cupboard.

‘I've smoked it,' says Fred.

Laura reaches beneath the cupboard with the broom handle, sweeping it along and creating a small storm of dust and cobwebs which billows out in her face. ‘I can't see it, but it must be here – you've WHAT?'

Suddenly she is on her feet facing him, her heart thumping, legs turned to jelly. Fred has admitted to smoking a cigarette. Her cigarette. Actually Hedley's. He's pinched a cigarette and smoked it all on his own without peer pressure. Oh God – if he can tell her this, what deeper iniquities might he be hiding?

Laura feels a chasm open in front of her and Fred speed away on the other side of it. She has no idea what to say. Does it matter? Is it true? Did he like it? Why didn't he tell her? Why did he tell her? What does it mean? Is she angry? Should she be?

Laura does not ask any of the hundred questions which have popped into her mind. None of them seems the right thing to say. What is the right thing to say?

‘Have you got any more?' Damn! Hell's Bells. Definitely not the right thing to say. No, no and no again. It just escaped. How wonderful life would be if you could unsay things you should never have said.

Fred reaches in his pocket, and passes Laura half a cigarette. ‘I didn't like it much so I put it out. You can have the rest if you like.'

Laura can't help feeling that he is handling this scene much better than she is. Wordlessly, and shamefully, she lights the fag end, narrowing her eyes as the match flares close to her hair. She exhales and glances sideways at Fred. There is no point in telling him not to smoke. There is no point in being angry, and anyway, she simply isn't angry. Laura tries to be self-aware, and decides that she is amazed that he told her, and honoured. Beyond that she can't see a need to react.

‘Oh well,' she says.

Fred pulls his Game Boy from his pocket and begins twiddling his thumbs on the controls. ‘Why aren't you cross?' he asks, after a few moments where the only sound in the room is the sprightly electronic jangle of his game.

Still feeling her way through this peculiar situation, Laura hesitates. ‘Er, I'm just not,' she says, flailing for her next words. Luckily, there is no need to grapple far for them, as Zeus suddenly hurls himself at the door, barking his toy dog bark.

‘Hooray, they're here,' shouts Fred, rushing out to greet Inigo and Dolly.

Humming like someone in a gravy commercial, Laura ladles chicken onto plates and wishes she was wearing curlers and a pinny to complete the homely effect. Dolly staggers in carrying several spilling bags of books and wearing a huge pink and black rugby shirt, ostentatiously inside out and even more ostentatiously marked with a name tape saying Luke Johnson.

‘That smells nice,' says Dolly, caught off her guard by the domestic scene Laura has created. Laura hugs her, her heart leaping perversely, as Dolly reverts to her customary scowling; she has clearly remembered that it is never a good thing to be enthusiastic.

‘Who's Luke Johnson?' Laura asks casually, but Dolly fields her effortlessly. ‘Oh, just a friend at school.'

‘He's her boyfriend and he's really lame. He likes crud music andxs—Owww!' Fred comes out of the sitting room to be thwacked by Dolly, and retreats again sniggering.

Inigo had expected at best a chilly cheek to kiss on arriving, and at worst a locked door, particularly when none of his messages were answered today or yesterday. To be greeted by Laura smiling and cooking – well, it surpasses not only his expectation but also what he deserves. Inigo is cravenly aware of his mission this weekend, and finds himself wishing Laura didn't look so happy and relaxed. She is laughing now, at Dolly's impersonation of Gina (who had been outraged to discover Laura had gone to Norfolk without telling her), Better by far that Laura should have greeted him with sullen rage. Then he would have had something to bargain with. There seems no good moment to begin the conversation, but Inigo does vigorous penance in advance all evening, washing up, putting away, admiring the chipped china Laura has collected from junk shops, and consciously holding back from his customary overbearing behaviour.

It is curiously restful, taking the secondary role in the kitchen. Taking time to look properly at Laura, Inigo sees her as if for the first time in years. She is dressed differently now, in jeans and an old, frayed shirt, and her hair is wild, coiled around a pencil to hold it up on her head. On the floor, leaning against Dolly's chair, her arms wrapped around her knees, Laura looks young, and carefree in the firelight. She
leans forwards to push a log further onto the fire, and he sees the back of her neck as he saw it the day they met, and he wants to cry out with the rawness of how he feels.

Fred yanks his sleeve. ‘Look, Dad, I've made this,' he says, and passes him a stick he has carved a handle for. This is unbelievable. Fred doesn't make things, he breaks them. That's how it works in this family. Inigo is absurdly moved, and impressed by the detail of the carving.

‘What did you use?' he asks.

‘Oh, Guy lent me his knife. It's a really good one, and I tried to model what I was doing on some of the Red Indian symbols. He showed me them in this book.' Fred reaches behind to the windowsill and passes his father a book.

Bloody Guy again, thinks Inigo, but forces himself to say, ‘That's great, what an interesting book.'

Dolly, kicking the chair as she beeps her way through a series of quickly executed messages on her phone, gazes around the room. ‘Urgh, this is so boring,' she groans, sliding down in her chair until her head disappears beneath a cushion. ‘There is nothing to do here. Can I go to Tamsin's and stay with her tonight?'

‘No.' Inigo hardly looks up from Fred's stick, and Laura hears a storm mounting with Dolly's fast intake
of breath and the clamp of her teeth as she grits them for battle. Laura jumps up.

‘I know, let's all go for a walk,' she says brightly.

‘It's bloody raining,' hisses Dolly. ‘And it's the middle of the night. You're mental, Mum.'

‘Oh all right, we won't then.' It is fine that the idea was a non-starter because Dolly is smiling now; the storm has passed.

A glance at her watch tells Laura it is almost nine o'clock. What on earth can they do for the rest of the evening? It is hard to remember supposedly normal evenings in the bosom of her family because they are so few and far between. In London she and Inigo are often out at Private Views, and if they aren't, Inigo returns late from the studio, cooks supper and then balances a few domestic items or he fiddles around on the computer. There has to be a major family crisis or the smell of fantastic food for Fred to unplug himself from the television, while Dolly is always obsessively texting, bathing or talking on the telephone, according to her mood swing. All four of them sitting gazing into the fire suddenly strikes her as being absurd, and very sweet. It is as if they have become other long-ago people. It isn't a good idea to smile though; Dolly might see and it will make her furious. Of course it can't last. It doesn't. Inigo spoils it.

‘Why are all your clothes too small?' Inigo asks, out
of the blue and without preamble. ‘Have they shrunk or are they meant to be like that?' Thinking he must be talking to Dolly, Laura turns to defend her, and finds he is staring at her. His tone is perfectly friendly; he clearly doesn't realise how cutting the remarks are.

‘They aren't too small, they're supposed to be like this and it's meant to be flattering.' Almost subconsciously she pulls her stomach in to stop it lolling against the waistband of her jeans. Inigo has not finished.

‘But it isn't flattering unless you're twenty-five,' he insists. ‘And if they're meant to be like that, why are you the only person who wears them?'

‘What do you mean?' Laura tries to maintain detached interest, as if she and Inigo are having a non-personal debate, but he is not interested in this technique.

‘Well you don't see Gina going around with a too-small shirt on and those jeans that make your bottom look square,' he says, folding his arms as if that is the end of the conversation. Exasperated, Laura turns back to the fire. It isn't going to become a row, it would be crazy to argue about clothes. She keeps her voice steady and sensible, soothing even.

‘Well, if I had another shirt I'd wear it, but this is the one I brought with me here, and this is what I'm wearing. If you don't like it, don't look at me.'

He is unable to let her have the last word. ‘I don't see why you're getting aggressive, Laura. No one has to wear that teenage stuff except teenagers. You're too old for it now.'

‘What are you trying to say?' Laura asks, bewildered.

‘I'm saying grow up and get real about your life,' he replies promptly. ‘You are not a child of nature living under a blackberry leaf, you are a mother, you are nearly forty and you are a partner in a conceptual art company.' He stands up, thrusting his hands in his pockets and begins pacing.

Laura stares into the fire. There's no reason to cry, there really isn't. It's just such an odd feeling being told you look horrible when you were thinking about cosy family life at the fireside. But there is no such thing after all. And he's not getting the last word in.

‘Thanks, Inigo,' she murmurs, and with forced sprightliness, she scrambles to her feet. ‘I think I'll go to bed now.'

It's only half past nine, but there is no way she can keep going this evening with Inigo here. He delves into the log basket and begins piling logs in neat pyramids along one wall of the sitting room. He works quickly, his lips pursed, and doesn't look up when Fred sighs, ‘Oh Dad, do we have to have balancing here?'

Brushing her teeth, Laura notices the mattress behind the bathroom door from the summer weekend when the house was full to exploding point. If she puts it down on the bathroom floor, with sheets and an inviting brand new blanket, maybe Inigo will get the message and sleep there. There is a malicious joy in imagining him snuggling down next to the avocado green of the panelled bath, the drip of the loo as it finishes all its flushing and babbling and settles for the night. Laura rinses her face and the water feels good – earthy and gentle, fresh as a stream. A child of nature living under a blackberry leaf? Should she go outside and snuggle down in the hedge? No, it's not worth sinking to guerrilla warfare herself, it will simply upset everyone.