Green Grass

by Raffaella Barker

  ‘Come and smell this, and tell me what it reminds you of.’ Suspicion in every shuffled step, her son sniffs the test tube and recoils. ‘That’s rank, Mum. It smells like rotting stuff. Why is it that weird green colour? You haven’t put it in the bath, have you? It’ll make you smell rotten. Don’t come up to my room afterwards because I won’t let you in.’

  Laura promises not to pollute his bedroom with her presence, and reluctantly gets into her bath, not pleased by this new dimension of Guy. He must have changed more than Hedley has told her if he’s writing pretentious nonsense like this on the side of bottles. And he’s missed a great opportunity to gain more clients because he hasn’t put his number on the bottle. Usually the bath is a good place to practise reaching a state of tranquillity, but Laura finds herself becoming more morose as each moment passes. How has it happened that she spends her days trying to get permission to chuck small pieces of paper around in a park, and her evenings soaking in liquid sugar beet? Where is the life she thought she was going to lead? The one where her intellect was going to burn brightly and she would have woken each morning with a sense of purpose? Is her whole generation as unexciting? Every horizon has shrunk to a point where Laura faces only domestic and practical questions. Even her interpretation of Inigo’s work has become glib and cynical. Laura wonders whether there is anything left to salvage at this stage of her life, or whether the person she used to be has departed for good.

  The luxury of introspection is fleeting, and Laura is unable to wallow properly in self-pity because she has too much to do. Inigo departs for New York with a bag containing one small metal pastry-cutter and a projector. Jack refuses to let him bring any clothes, saying, ‘We only want hand luggage because we’ll be pushed for time when we get there; I’ve arranged three interviews for you hot off the plane. We can buy what you need there.’

  Pushing a laden trolley around the supermarket after driving them to the airport, Laura reflects that Inigo scarcely makes a move of any sort without someone – herself or Jack, or previously his mother – following him to make things easier for him. She pauses at the frozen food section and selects a bagful of spinach parcels, not because anyone at home will eat them, but because she is charmed by the small solidness of them. This sort of aimless shopping is not popular when Inigo is around, but Laura enjoys the tiny rush of triumph it brings. Mainly though, she is in the supermarket to procure crisps and drinks for Tamsin’s birthday party. This event is planned for Saturday night, and Laura and the twins are driving up to get there in time to help set things up.

  They arrive at Crumbly to find Hedley gloomily surveying the front hall. Tamsin is up a ladder, festooning a curtain of fairy lights across the fireplace. The furniture has all gone, and lengths of rainbow-coloured fabric are draped on the bannisters while more are veiling the paintings.

  ‘I don’t see why it looks better with these rags everywhere,’ says Hedley. ‘What I wanted—’

  ‘Well, it would have been better if we had loads of fake fur, but this is all we could find. I like it. Hello, Laura.’ Tamsin smiles; Laura kisses her and gives her the present Dolly chose for her, muttering to Hedley, ‘Well, she seems very cheerful. This is obviously just what was needed.’

  ‘Cool, thank you.’ Tamsin strips off her top and wriggles into the T-shirt in a flash.

  Hedley sighs. ‘Well, you should have seen her earlier,’ he complains. ‘I gave her an umbrella and a suitcase as her present and she said was I trying to say something.’

  Tamsin is prancing about the hall in delight. ‘Look, Hedley! Look what it says. I’m going to wear it tonight! It’s totally brilliant’ She turns round and poses. Please Can You Hold My Drink While I Snog Your Boyfriend is emblazoned on her chest.

  ‘Oh no,’ says Hedley faintly.

  Laura and Hedley spend the evening in the kitchen, and as promised, do not go anywhere near the hall, no matter how loud the thuds and shrieks become. Hedley fidgets and coughs, paces up and down, and when Fred comes in, red-faced and panting for a glass of water, he pounces on him.

  ‘What’s happening? Is everything all right? What have they broken?’

  Fred wrinkles his nose to express disbelief at his uncle’s approach.

  ‘Nothing’s happening and nothing’s broken,’ he says in longsuffering tones. ‘You should go to bed, or just chill out, Uncle Hedley.’

  Laura laughs. ‘Don’t worry, Hedley, just think of the teenage parties we used to have.’

  ‘I am,’ replies Hedley in a doomladen voice.

  To cheer him up and noticing an opportunity to bring Guy into the conversation, Laura remarks, ‘I don’t think we were so bad. You and Guy were always the drivers so you couldn’t be.’

  ‘You mean I was always the driver. You and Guy were usually holding hands in the back of the car,’ says Hedley. This is not at all what Laura wanted to reminisce about in front of Fred, but Fred grins as he fills his glass with water again and looks at her enquiringly.

  ‘Did you actually go out with someone?’ he says, astonishment in every syllable.

  ‘Yes, of course I did. It’s not unusual, you know,’ says Laura, embarrassment making her brusque.

  ‘Was he a punk?’

  ‘NO, he was perfectly normal. He’s a farmer now – actually he was then too. Hedley knows him.’ Laura is surprised to find herself flushing.

  ‘You’ve gone pink, Mum,’ says Fred. ‘I can’t wait to tell Dolly,’ and with a sly grin he heads back to the party.

  Chapter 8

  Wednesday is the ‘Free Ads’ day. Laura remembers this with some pleasure on her way back from dropping Dolly and Fred at school. Good, she can go home and drink tea and read section 178, the ‘Dogs Offered’ column, and no one will know because Inigo is still in New York and the children won’t be home until four o’clock. On the way to buy the ‘Free Ads’, Laura runs through the list of things she should feel guilty about. This is a daily ritual, sometimes she focuses on one subject and wrestles with it. It can be anything from Fred’s cough to her own consumption of a slab of cake in the coffee shop on the way to the studio, or it can be an unanswered telephone call. These are mounting over the Paper in the Park show. Very shaming, something must be done. Laura lets herself into the house with her newspaper. Sometimes she simply reviews the list of things she feels guilty about, running through it with no hope of doing anything about any of it, but on other occasions she makes a plan of action and actually deals with the items one by one. Today, though, she has no room for feeling guilty about anything except having Guy’s telephone number. Getting it from Hedley’s desk at the weekend was simple, and made the horror of clearing up three piles of teenager sick just about bearable. She has not yet tried to use the number, however. To be honest, she is a little nervous that Celia might answer, and even though she only wants to know about fruit nets, Laura absolutely does not want to speak to Celia. How would she describe herself to Guy’s wife? Would it be upsetting to Celia if she said she was an old friend or Hedley’s sister or could she just be Laura Sale? None of it feels right to Laura. So she doesn’t ring.

  Hedley telephones as Laura is preparing to settle down for an hour of work avoidance with the ‘Free Ads’. He is in high spirits because he has just diverted his telephone system to the dilapidated caravan in the farmyard.

  ‘I’m going to make this my summer office,’ he shouts. ‘But listen, I need your advice. Tamsin’s trying to persuade me to let her go to an all-night party with no parents this weekend. It’s being given by that boy I saw her dancing with. I’ve already said no, but she thinks if she goes on at me enough I’ll give in.’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to see that, so you’ve got to pretend you don’t know about him,’ Laura reminds him.

  Hedley gives a cackle of pleasure at his own cunning. ‘But now Tamsin doesn’t know where I am so she can’t get me. And even better, she can’t get the telephone.’

  ‘I don’t think you should be treating her like the enemy,’ Laura
cautions him. ‘She’s quite alienated enough already, and things are supposed to have improved now you’ve given the party she wanted.’

  ‘Too right she’s an alien,’ Hedley agrees, mishearing enthusiastically. ‘Now I’m glad you rang, I’ve got an idea to put to you. It’s—’

  ‘I didn’t ring, you did.’ Laura eyes the ‘Free Ads’ and the almond croissant she is already doing penance for. ‘I’ve got to go, will you call me later and tell me your idea?’ And then, suddenly wondering if she can slip a question in without him noticing, she adds, ‘Does Guy have an office number separate from his home number?’

  ‘Guy? Oh, Guy Harvey. Of course. Umm. I don’t know. Why do you ask?’

  Absurdly, Laura finds this question alarming, and pretending there is a fault on the telephone line, starts shouting, ‘Hello, Hedley? Hedley? I can’t hear you? Sorry! Oh well, we’ll talk later,’ and she clicks the phone down in relief.

  It is not until she has scanned every dog-related advertisement, including the ‘Dogs at Stud’ section, that Laura galvanises herself to go to the studio. Driving there, she is lost in a reverie of pleasure recalling the ‘Dogs at Stud’ section. There is only one entry, but it is fabulous. Cavolo Nero, a black pug of international calibre, is standing at stud. Hips, eyes and pedigree all first class.

  Laura cannot get over this, and although she has never even contemplated pug life before, now finds herself longing more than anything to have a winsome female pug to take to meet Cavolo Nero. She recognises that her fantasies about Guy are getting out of hand when she can’t help thinking it a sign of some sort that the pug is named after a fashionable vegetable which Guy probably grows on his organic farm.

  Reaching the studio she is brought back to reality by six messages from the Royal Park offices about the restrictions on the Paper in the Park show. She no longer has any time to waste; fruit nets must be found. Striding in, she uses the momentum of arrival to propel herself over to the telephone, and without stopping to remove her coat, she calls Guy’s number. It’ll be the answerphone anyway, she tells herself as the number connects and rings.

  ‘Hello?’ It is Guy’s voice on the other end, and not the answer machine. Oh God, what now?

  ‘Hello,’ says Laura, and stops. There is a long pause. Guy eventually speaks.

  ‘Er, who is this, please?’

  ‘Laura.’

  Now the long pause is his. ‘Laura?’ He laughs. ‘How wonderful. It was so surprising, so unexpected seeing you in that restaurant. I’ve been thinking about you since then.’ He tails off, clearly feeling he has said too much.

  Laura, her ear red hot with the handset pressed against it, does not answer. She wants to get off the topic of meeting and on to the safer ground of fruit nets, but she can’t.

  Guy coughs. ‘But that was ages ago. It’s much milder now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is, but it’s been dreadful for weeks,’ Laura says automatically. She has always found talking about the weather soothing. Perhaps Guy has remembered this and is trying to make her relax. ‘Guy?’

  ‘Mmmm?’ She can tell he is smiling by the tone of his voice. How can he smile like that when they haven’t seen each other for all those years? And it’s impossible not to smile back, so suddenly she is flirting on the telephone, which is exactly what she had been afraid of.

  ‘I’m not ringing about anything except fruit nets,’ she explains. ‘I need to find some for Inigo’s installation.’

  ‘Inigo’s what?’ Guy sounds utterly blank. Laura suddenly realises she could have rung a farm supply shop and saved herself this pulse-raising conversation. It has all been a mistake. Guy’s life is not hers to enter when she feels like it, and anyway he’s married and she doesn’t know him any more. You don’t go around ringing strange men and flirting with them when you are nearly forty and have children and a partner and everything set up around you.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I just need some fruit nets. But I think I know where I can find them. Goodbye, Guy, I—’

  ‘No! Stop! I mean wait, don’t go for a minute, Laura!’ Guy is shouting.

  ‘I’m still here.’ She can only just whisper. She is making such a mountain out of this conversation, it’s absurd. Her heart thuds in her throat.

  ‘I’d like to see you. We’ve years of catching up to do. When will you next come to Norfolk? Why don’t you bring your family over?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve got to go. Thanks, Guy.’ Laura rushes the words out and puts the phone down. She is breathless and glowing, shaking even. It is absurd to be suffering this teenage agony over a man she no longer knows. She is shocked by her reaction to him, and by her sense of peeled-back years. It suddenly feels as if it was yesterday that they were last together.

  The day before she left home to go to America and university, Laura caught the train to Norfolk to spend her last night with Guy. They had been together for a while now, all through Laura’s A levels and her year working in the press office of a Cambridge-based theatre company. Her parents would have liked her to have done something more stimulating, but she was stubborn, and they knew she was leaving for NYU, so it didn’t matter if she wanted to spend one last summer at Crumbly.

  Laura and Guy both knew she would be going one day, but neither of them could really believe that the day would arrive. When it did, they were alone at the house. Uncle Peter was away birdwatching in Scotland, and no one knew they were there; not a soul telephoned and nobody came to invade their parting. Laura had made a picnic and they ate outside as the sun went down, flooding golden light up all the panes in the windows of the house behind them. Laura’s bare feet felt the first dampness of night on the grass as a skein of ducks billowed overhead. Guy saw her shifting her feet on the ground and pulled her up.

  ‘Come on, let’s go for a walk.’

  The soles of Laura’s feet were hard from a summer of walking barefoot. She strolled easily beside Guy. Neither of them spoke. They reached the sea as the sun began to slip beneath the horizon, turning the flat surface of the water purple and pink. Guy pulled Laura closer to him, her ribs hard against his side, her hip bumping his when they walked. They followed the shoreline for a bit then paused again to listen to the sea.

  Laura pulled away from Guy. ‘Let’s swim,’ she said, and before she had finished speaking, she was unzipping her jeans, shaking them off and running straight into the sea in black lace knickers and her red T-shirt, twisting her hair high on her head as she jumped the breakers, laughing, and shouting back, ‘Come on, Guy! It isn’t cold, you know.’

  Guy followed, kicking their clothes further up the beach, throwing his shirt up on to dry ground before diving under a swelling wave, his breath snatched by the shock as it broke. He caught up with her and they laughed, treading water, moving languorously now they had adjusted to the temperature.

  Without taking her eyes from his face, Laura wriggled out of her knickers and her T-shirt, waving them above her head. ‘Catch them if you can!’ she cried, and threw them back towards the shore.

  Guy laughed and wolf-whistled. ‘I like the prim touch,’ he teased. ‘And I’m sure you’re right to keep your kit on until you’re underwater – you never know who, or what, might be watching.’ And he lunged at her.

  Laura squealed and splashed him back. ‘Now yours,’ she grinned, and dived down into the clear water, her hair spilling from its knot and smudging red-gold in the fading light, her arm and hands snaking out to yank at his shorts. Both naked, they stood on tiptoe in the water, floating, wrapped around one another, his body solid against hers, their skin hot where it touched and lapped with cold silk water.

  ‘This is a good memory to take away,’ whispered Laura, and Guy groaned suddenly, turning her face to his and kissing her gently at first, but harder, then harder still.

  ‘I want more than a memory to keep,’ he murmured, holding her head, stroking her wet hair, and pressing his mouth on her eyelids, her shoulders, her earlobe, licking the salt taste in the dip of
her throat. He pulled Laura out of the water and lay down with her on the shirt on the sand, propping himself on his elbows to look at her. Laura laughed and hugged him, her arms around his ribs, fingers raking his back, drawing him closer all the time. A wave broke beyond them, lapping near their feet, as the last slice of the sun slipped below the horizon. Laura’s breath was shallow, faster now, her eyes half-open, focusing on his face above hers. She bit her lip and shifted beneath him, gasping, tightening her arms around his neck. Guy ran the tip of his tongue along her neck and rolled his hips, unable to stop anything now she was so close. Laura gasped and arched her back, locking her legs around him, shuddering and kissing him, pulling him to her as he held her close, his heart thumping, his arms around her in the sand.

  The intercom buzzes and Laura starts, pulled back from the Norfolk beach with Guy to now and the Whitechapel Road. Guiltily, she picks up the intercom. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me – Cally. Let me in, can you? I haven’t seen you for ages.’

  Cally is in Whitechapel for her health; she has been attending a Chinese herbalist who is meant to be helping her give up smoking. It is not working. She bustles into the room and her vigour swamps Laura’s guilty thoughts.

  Laura slides her papers into a drawer and slams it, then bursting to confess, pulls it open agains, waving the papers at her friend.

  ‘Look, Cally, I’ve just hidden the number of the man I used to go out with. I’ve hidden it from you, because I shouldn’t be telephoning him. It’s absurd.’ She presses her hands to her hot face.

  ‘For God’s sake, Laura,’ says Cally, delving in her bag for her tobacco and papers, pushing to the depths of the cavernous holdall her newly prescribed and very expensive packet of sinister black-leafed Chinese herb. ‘You’re inventing a drama for yourself. What’s the big deal? I can’t believe you’re getting so het up about it.’ Cally drags keenly on her roll-up, her kind eyes narrowing with pleasure as nicotine thrums through her veins. ‘Christ, that is such a relief. Do you know, I haven’t smoked since Thursday because I was so worried that Mr Ming would notice tobacco in my aura or somewhere and refuse to treat me.’