Green Grass (8 page)

Laura is woken at first light by Fred whispering, ‘Come on, Mum, you don't want to miss the ferrets arriving, do you?'

The bed is warm, Laura's nose, exposed to the room, tells her that it is arctically cold – she must have forgotten to turn the heater on when she went to bed, out of practice with the primitive system at Crumbly Hall. There is nothing she would like more than to miss the ferrets arriving; she would love to wallow in this soft bed in the room that was hers when she was growing up, watching the light change throught the roses scattered on the curtains, but Fred is tugging at her arm.

‘Come on, Mum,' he is whispering loudly. ‘If I can get up, I know you can. Dad said he was coming too, didn't you, Dad?'

Inigo groans and turns over.

‘Mmm, later, just a bit later,' he agrees sleepily.

Fred pulls back the curtains with a clatter of rings,
and Laura braces herself and throws off the covers. The room is icy cold; she can't face taking her nightie off, so pulls her clothes on over the top. She follows Fred out into the sullen morning, inhaling damp air with each breath. Mud stretches in furrows towards a small copse where Hedley is part of a huddled group of men. They stamp their feet, and flap their arms, pacing around one another, their feet crunching through frosted leaves and crystalline grass. Feeling like King Wenceslas's slave, but with mud instead of snow, Laura trudges behind Fred to the spinney, half-listening to his torrent of information. ‘… the girl ones are called jills and Hedley says they are more difficult to train, but there's one I really like here called Precious. They like to eat dried food, but obviously dead things are better.'

This is truly ghastly, thinks Laura, waiting at the edge of the spinney for Fred to make himself known to the group. She wonders how soon she can mutter some excuse and go back to the warm oasis of peace that is the kitchen. Her fantasies about toast, and coffee-scented air, the newspaper waiting to be read, an egg to be boiled and eaten at leisure are broken by Fred. He ambles towards her, waving an animal.

‘Here, Mum, hold this one while I put its harness on. It's a she and she's called Precious. I told you about her. She belongs to Jeff, over there.' A slither
of ferret, pink-eyed and wriggling, is thrust into her hands. Intentions of being a ferret whisperer and a great help to her son suffer a setback.

‘Urgh, it stinks.' Laura drops it at once, repulsed by the foxy aroma and the density of its blonde pelt. There is something unnervingly smug about the ferret; even when dropped it retains self-possession, sniffing keenly at Laura's feet. Fred retrieves it, with a pained glare at his mother. Hedley nods a greeting to his sister and with Fred turns back to the group. Fred, showing all the ease with which Hedley greets everyone he meets, and none of his father's reserve, gets involved immediately in mending one of the electric ferret collars which beep when the animal is underground to help the owner find it.

Laura shivers in her coat, tucking her hands up the sleeves and stamping her feet to return some feeling to them. Now she has shown herself to be no use as an assistant, she can watch uninterrupted. This is much better, as she has no further enthusiasm for becoming a ferret groupie, and can think of nothing at all to say to Jeff or any other of the men bundled in balaclavas and muddy waxed coats now preening their ferrets as a prelude to stuffing them down into rabbit holes. A figure appears out of the white fog on the field, jogging towards them, his breath a pale cloud as big as his face in front of him. Laura is impressed to see
that it is Inigo, up and dressed already and carrying a camera.

‘Hi, Dad,' calls Fred in a stage whisper. ‘Come and see.' He is in his element. Eyes shining, he darts between the three ferret men and Hedley, asking questions, watching each ferret manoeuvre intently. Inigo moves over to where Laura is standing.

‘Some hellish chickens started screeching as if they were being murdered, so I had to get up,' he says, folding away the lens of his camera and shoving it deep into his pocket.

‘I like your country casuals,' says Laura, grinning as she takes in his new camouflage trousers and jacket, and his black balaclava, pulled up like an ordinary hat at present. Inigo ignores her; he is fascinated by the group in front of them.

‘I'm actually quite glad I got here so early,' he says. ‘Tribal ritual like this is so important. Every country has a version of this, with men parading their killing machines in front of their women.'

A pheasant call cracks through the copse, otherwise the muffled conversation of the ferreters is all Laura can hear. Despite the gnawing cold, the unsavoury smell which now hangs on her clothes, and her own inclinations, she lingers. Inigo, still talking in his special, urgent wildlife programme voice, nudges
her. ‘Isn't it interesting? The women have got themselves dolled up, even though it's dawn in a muddy field. It's tribal paint, you see.'

Both entertained and exasperated by his commentary, Laura dutifully observes, and agrees that he does have a point – the two women in the group are made up with great care and peacock-bright glamour, and considering the time of day and the circumstances, they are giggling and flirting with unusual energy. Wishing that Hedley would introduce her, but at the same time thinking it silly to need introductions on a ferret hunt, Laura moves closer. The taller woman, Jen, is with the oldest man in the group. She has big fat curls of dark hair, and the red cheeks of a pantomine dame, and is wearing a large squashy coat like a duvet. She is paying scant attention to the ferrets, but with a lot of bobbing back and forth and winking, is making lewd jokes at her husband's expense as he pulls his ferrets. The jokes are much enjoyed by the trio of slightly aimless men standing about doing nothing because they don't have ferrets.

The younger woman, Marion, has pale pink lipstick, and a helmet of white-blonde hair which is in dazzling contrast with the flash of electric blue on her eyelids. She is quiet and pretty, her skin as soft and perfect as her pale sheepskin coat. Her boyfriend Jeff
has two ferrets as well as Precious, and Marion stands attentively holding them like a pair of poodles on a short red leash.

Inigo moves closer, catching a little of the action on his camera. His somewhat sinister outfit gives the rustic scene an air of brutal depravity. Marion holds Precious up; her pudgy fingers with their blood-red painted nails sweep down the ferret's coat. Much to Laura's surprise, Inigo takes the ferret from her, holding it on his chest, stroking it for a moment. Inigo has always claimed to be useless with animals. Perhaps he needed to fondle a ferret to find his lurking animal instinct. Laura turns to Hedley to make sure he has noticed Inigo's heroic effort. As she moves, Inigo yells and starts backwards, his arms flailing. Astonishingly, Precious is clinging by her teeth to his chin, extended and dangling like a nicotine-stained Father Christmas beard.

‘Bloody bastard rat. Get this hell fiend off me,' Inigo roars, staggering about with the ferret swaying, her jaw locked onto his chin. No one moves for several long seconds, then Hedley, as if suddenly defrosted, shakes himself and runs towards Inigo, shouting, ‘Don't pull! Whatever you do, don't pull!'

It is too late. Inigo has recovered his balance, and with both hands clamped around Precious's plump waist he is trying to yank her away. ‘My God, it's a
fucking praying mantis,' he hisses, between clenched teeth. ‘I'll have to go to hospital.'

The ferret fanciers huddle together, not liking this disaster in their midst, unconsciously forming a human shield around Marion in case anyone thinks it's her fault. Jen and her husband shake their heads and mutter to one another in disbelief, but no one steps forward to help Inigo.

‘We'd better get on,' says Jeff. ‘We won't catch these rabbits standing about all day.' He and his sidekicks move back into the wood with the other ferrets and become deliberately busy with beeping devices, terriers and nets.

Fred frowns after them. ‘They should help Dad,' he says. ‘They must know what to do.'

‘They don't want to be responsible for it.' Hedley puts an arm around Fred, a rare gesture for him. ‘Don't worry, we'll manage.'

‘For Christ's sake get this thing off me!' Inigo yells. Laura rushes over, and not knowing what else to do, holds Inigo's hand, patting it absently. She is suspended between hysterical laughter and tears, and is fighting an almost overpowering urge to pass out. Inigo's chin with Precious dangling is a demonic sight. Blood begins to soak through and out of the ferret's mouth, seeping onto her nose, staining her head dark red. Behind Inigo, the hunched figures
of Jeff and his friends burying things and crouching over holes in the ground, and the closing in of dank creeping fog, increases Laura's sense of nightmare. She clings tighter to Inigo's hand, suddenly letting go as she realises she isn't being helpful and her squeezing grip could in fact feel like another ferret to a man in shock. She glances up at his face, now deathly pale as though Precious has sucked all the colour out.

Hedley, his expression grim, attempts to prise Precious's jaws apart. ‘They won't let go,' he says regretfully. ‘Their instinct is to hold on, especially if someone has tried to remove them. My hand is too big, I can't get her to open her mouth.' He turns to Fred. ‘You'll have to try, I'm afraid. Sorry.'

Fred steps forward, his face as white as the fog, eyes dark and wide with shock. He reaches up and inserts a finger into the ferret's jaw. Laura closes her eyes for a quick prayer to beg that Precious does not maim Fred as well. Immediately, though, Hedley's triumphant voice booms into the fog.

‘Well done, Fred. She's let go. She's let go.' Laura opens her eyes to see Precious coiling down into Fred's arms, biddable and innocent save for the wine-dark mask which seeps past her eyes and trickles along her back. Inigo's legs fold and he crumples onto the earth.

‘Christ. I've probably got bubonic plague,' he says, carefully running his fingers over the wound to feel the four toothmarks among the oozing blood.

Fred recovers from his shock the instant the drama is over, and is fascinated by the wounds. ‘They're like vampire toothmarks. I didn't think you could get bitten like that in real life,' he marvels.

Inigo is not impressed. ‘I'm delighted to be able to increase your knowledge of toothmarks,' he says sarcastically, ‘but rather than leaving me here on the ground as a case study, I think you had better help me up and get me to a doctor before some filthy disease sets in.'

‘Come on. I'll take you. What a vile thing to happen – it must be a rogue ferret.' Laura, still suppressing nausea and finding her face creasing into shocked laughter, helps Inigo up from the ground, holding her hankie over her mouth to hide her inane giggling.

‘I don't have to come, do I?' asks Fred, with the natural callousness of youth. ‘It's just that I want to stay and help do some proper ferret work with these guys.'

Hedley laughs, slapping him on the back. Laura leads Inigo, nursing flesh wounds and seething spirits, back to the house to be ministered to and fussed over by the girls.

Tamsin and Dolly are eating toast in the kitchen, both wearing pale green face packs as the final part of a lengthy morning bathroom session.

‘OhmiGod, what happened?' screams Dolly, cracking the lower half of her mask in her concern for her father.

Tamsin drops her toast and runs to fetch the First Aid kit. ‘I love cleaning wounds,' she purrs.

‘Good,' says Laura, who doesn't. ‘You clean him up then.'

Tamsin and Dolly happily settle down to mend Inigo. Their dabbing with cotton wool to the damaged chin and tender sympathy to the lacerated spirits perk him up a lot. This unexpected attention, followed by a telephone call to the doctor, has a tranquillising effect on Inigo. The doctor takes a suitably serious view of the event and agrees that tetanus is a danger, and that an injection will be necessary. As a committed hypochondriac, this is great news for Inigo. He puts the telephone down and announces triumphantly to Laura, ‘You see, it is very primitive here. I shouldn't be surprised if you can get the plague too and a lot of other medieval illnesses that have been wiped out elsewhere.'

‘Yes, you can,' says Hedley, who has just come in and is enjoying this train of thought. ‘You can get ringworm, and cow pox.'

Inigo looks very alarmed; Tamsin rolls her eyes. ‘No one gets cow pox! You're thinking of chicken pox.'

Inigo's visit to the local GP is enhanced by a discussion about primitive cultures including those in Norfolk, the doctor sensing a need in his patient to rant for a while after such an undignified accident. By mid-afternoon, Inigo is in recovery, and vocal in his desire never to set foot in the countryside again. Making the sitting room his salon, Inigo lounges on the sofa, his mobile phone in one hand, the television remote control in the other. Next to him, a laptop computer teeters drunkenly on a cushion while his new toy, the digital camera, records what it can see of his recovery from a tripod. The faded paper on the walls, the sagging scant curtains as much as the ash heap in the fireplace make an unlikely backdrop for this nerve centre of modernity. Inigo has made the most of his surroundings. He has readjusted the furniture, arranging a chair to put his feet up on, a table for a mug and a plate and the television all within easy reach of his sofa. Lying there he swigs whisky from Hedley's hip flask between telephone calls, and with Dolly's assistance is now working on the lighting.

His phone trills; he reaches for it. ‘Hello, Jack? Inigo here. I'm in Norfolk, we should be back
tonight … Yes, I know it's Saturday. I've been thinking about
Death Threat
—' He breaks off, waving his arm wildly. ‘No, not there, Doll, now there's a lampshade frilling over the motor racing – anyway, Jack, are you there? ARE YOU THERE?' He hurls the phone into heaped cushions beside him. ‘No proper signal here. Why is everything done so badly in the country? There's no need for it, it's just acceptance of incompetence.'