Green Grass

by Raffaella Barker

  ‘Found your house guest in distress,’ he smirks, turning to help Gina over the tiny step up to the path, clearly much too difficult for her to manage alone, and taking some time to remove his appreciative gaze from her cleavage.

  ‘Darling Laura, I just couldn’t manage to catch her until these charming men appeared.’ She bats her eyelashes at Hedley and murmurs to Laura, ‘Honestly, everyone in the country is so ruggedly handsome, especially your delicious brother. Why didn’t you tell me about him?’ Laura stares, incredulous, but there is no guile in Gina’s expression, just good old-fashioned come-hitherance, and it is directed at Hedley. Amazing. Laura has no time to think more because the garden is suddenly full of people as Guy and then Tamsin follow Gina in through the gate, and Fred and Shane, liberally covered in bits of twig and leaf, abseil on a frayed rope down from the big oak tree.

  Laura has a sense of her whole being unravelling from the top of her head downwards as everybody begins shouting their business at once:

  ‘Mum, Mum, Zeus got his head stuck down a rabbit hole in that field and I didn’t dare pull him by his legs in case—’

  ‘Laura, that goat is impossible! It tried to eat my bra, thank God your brother came to my rescue—’

  ‘Laura, d’you know where Dolly is? I wondered if she’d like to come to the disco in the village hall—’

  Guy grins across the wall of sound at her, apologetically shifting a basket of vegetables from one hand to the other, and handing her a bunch of fragrant sweet peas. ‘Hedley said you would be here this weekend, so I came to check on the goat, and I thought you might need some veg, but I can see you’re already growing your own—’

  Laura thanks him, wishing that she, like Gina, was wearing a lovely girlie bra instead of baggy jeans with mud caked on the knees and a shapeless old T-shirt of Dolly’s with Elvis wrinkling with age on the front. Gina and Hedley are standing so close together it’s surprising they can see one another to speak, but from the shouts of laughter, they are clearly managing fine. A piercing scream from Dolly’s bedroom window penetrates the clamour, and Laura’s heart misses a beat then pounds in terror. Everyone stands as if petrified for a millisecond. The screaming continues, on a crescendo, and there is a stampede towards the house. Hedley, made omnipotent by the vision of Gina in her small amount of clothing, is first in, choosing to climb onto the roof via the water butt and enter through the window of his niece’s room. Laura, huffing up the stairs, is convinced she is about to die of a heart attack and makes a mental note to sacrifice all pleasures starting with tinned gin and tonic, and to become super-fit and virtuous if only Dolly is still alive when she gets to her. At the bedroom door she takes a deep breath, but Hedley is there first and opens it from the inside to greet her.

  ‘She won’t stop screaming, but I think this is the cause.’ He waves Vice, the ferret, above his head, and Fred leaps to reclaim her.

  ‘Oh, I wondered where she’d got to.’

  ‘She was in Dolly’s knicker drawer,’ whispers Becca, herself on the verge of tears. ‘And I think she bit Dolly. After the goat I think it was the final straw. Dolly says she’s going back to London and never coming here again.’

  Fred rolls his eyes, tucks his ferret into his pocket and says without rancour, ‘Dolly’s mental. She’s always in a psyche nowadays – she thinks it makes her seem older, but I think it’s sad.’ This pithy summary of his sister’s character does not help, and he is bundled out of the room by Laura.

  Everyone looks with interest at Dolly, including Grass, whose unwelcome presence upstairs in the house Laura notices with a rising sense of panic. Grass, masticating busily, coughs, and spits out a pink thong. Recognising Dolly’s favourite underwear, Laura whisks it behind her back and stuffs it in her pocket.

  Becca translates the next scream, staring at the floor, discomfort scarlet on her face. ‘And she says she hopes Inigo leaves Laura and that she can go and live with him in New York and never see another animal as long as she lives.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Laura has really had enough of this absurd scene and is beginning to think that Dolly is doing it on purpose to punish her for Inigo’s absence. He’s been away for two weeks now, and even Laura, still fed up with him, is beginning to long for his return.

  Guy edges into the room and walks up to Dolly, standing rigid and hysterical next to a drawer full of tangled underwear, both Tamsin and Becca draped protectively around her. He takes both her hands in his and rubs them. ‘Come on Dolly,’ he says gently. ‘You need to snap out of this.’

  Laura has to clench both fists and press her arms to her sides to stop herself rushing forward and slapping her daughter, but to her immense relief, Guy is getting through to the three girls and Dolly’s screams begin to subside until she is sitting sniffing on the edge of her bed with her arms around her attendant nymphs, both of whom are murmuring gently and stroking her hair. Drained, Laura creeps away towards the stairs, keen to get Grass out before Dolly notices her. Grass has other ideas, and digs her hooves in, snaking her neck to snatch at the white muslin curtains Laura hung in a fit of domestic enthusiasm last time she was here.

  Laura tugs as the ribboned edging quivers in the goat’s mouth, but too late, Grass chews and swallows violently, the twin toggles at her throat dancing hairily as the ribbon slides down. Laura wants to cry, but is damned if a bloody goat and a curtain will reduce her to tears. She grits her teeth and yanks at the rope. Grass resists.

  ‘You are evil,’ Laura says between gritted teeth. ‘I want to kill you.’

  ‘Come on now, don’t let’s get this out of proportion. It’s only a curtain,’ soothes Gina, who has emerged from Dolly’s bedroom with Hedley in bossy big sister mode. She slaps the goat’s bony bottom, and Grass gallops down the stairs, with Laura running at her side, determined to maintain this small measure of control. Dusk has fallen before any normality is regained. Guy and Hedley secure Grass in her shed, and with ostentatious hammering, then announce that it is fixed. Dolly still won’t speak to her mother and Laura is exhausted by trying to penetrate her stone wall daughter and longs for her to simply vanish.

  Suddenly, Laura’s wish comes true; Tamsin marches into the kitchen and announces, ‘We’re going now. We’ll be back at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Where?’ asks Laura, gaping as Dolly and Becca traipse in behind Tamsin wearing glistening blue and green eyeshadow, silver streaks in their hair and roller blades.

  ‘The village disco, of course.’ Tamsin leads her party out into the garden, where giggling and cursing accompanies them as they wobble out onto the road to the village. The peace, when they have gone, is palpable, but even so Laura cannot shake off the sense of being burdened. She particularly hates people feeling sorry for her; the quarrels with Dolly have been visible and audible to all, and she is sure Gina and Guy are pitying her wholeheartedly. Along with Hedley, they coax her to the pub, where her mood is aggressively cheerful. ‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ she demands as the four of them peer through the darkness of the pub garden at their scampi and chips in baskets. ‘It’s such a treat to be out for supper.’

  Gina, who knows full well that Inigo and Laura eat out more nights than in at home in London, raises her eyebrows. ‘Is it?’ she says. Both Hedley and Guy guffaw as if she is the world’s greatest wit.

  Laura looks at them witheringly. ‘Oh, grow up!’ she snaps. ‘I’m so sick of pandering to teen egos, I’m not going to speak to any of you if you can’t be sensible.’ What she wants to know, more than anything now the children are left behind and the goat is locked up for the night, is why Guy is here on his own. Where is Celia?

  She is about to ask when Guy, who is fidgeting, jumps up saying, ‘I think I’ll get us all another drink.’

  Hedley reaches across the table, his brow quivering, and grabs his sister’s hand, leaning forward conspiratorially. ‘I’d better tell you before you put your foot right in it. Silly’s left.’

  Both Laura and Gina stare at him blankly.
‘Why is he silly?’ whispers Gina, who is hugely enjoying herself.

  Hedley shakes his head. ‘No, no, his wife Celia – we call her Silly – she left three weeks ago.’

  Laura’s phone trills. She longs not to answer it and to hear more of Hedley’s fascinating news, but years of being at her children’s beck and call make it impossible. It is Fred.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘What?’ If only she could train her other ear to absorb outside conversation while speaking on the phone. Hedley and Gina huddle, discussing Guy in low voices. ‘Oh poor him,’ Gina is murmuring. ‘How could you make someone choose like that?’

  Choose what? Laura wonders. It could be anything from curtain material to group sex. Fred is clamouring in her ear.

  ‘MUM. I SAID MUM. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately,’ sighs Laura.

  ‘MUM, have you seen my trainers?’

  ‘No, Fred, I haven’t, and I’m out at the moment so I can’t look for them.’

  There is a moment’s puzzled silence, in which Hedley nods, saying, ‘I know, and of course he’s terribly shocked, poor sod.’ Unlikely to be curtain material then, but quite possibly group sex.

  Fred is still trying to make sense of Laura’s whereabouts. ‘You’re out? I thought you were in the kitchen. You were there a minute ago.’

  ‘Well, I’m not there now, and if I was, you would be much better off walking into the room to speak to me rather than frying your brains with that phone.’

  There is a clunking sound as Fred moves through the house. ‘Oh yeah! You’re not here, are you?’ he says, presumably checking in the oven for his mother. His tone is one of astonishment.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m trying to have supper. Don’t you remember I said I was going out?’

  ‘Did you?’ Fred’s interest flags, ‘OK, bye Mum.’

  ‘Bye, darling.’ Laura is about to press the off button when she hears him again.

  ‘Hey, Mum, wait – is there anything to eat?’

  ‘Oh bloody hell. You’ve had supper. Yes, there are hundreds of Pot Noodles in the larder, off you go now.’

  There is an aggrieved pause. ‘No need to go mental,’ says Fred. ‘I was only asking. Bye, Mum.’

  ‘Bye,’ says Laura, maddened to see Guy returning with a tray already, and Gina and Hedley straightening and addressing their scampi with great interest. So unfair, she has missed it all.

  Guy sits down next to Laura, even though Hedley is on his own on the other side of the table. Gina giggles and moves round to sit next to Hedley. They can’t keep their hands off one another, and Laura is relieved when Hedley suggests a game of pool and Gina follows him into the pub.

  ‘I’m sorry about your wife,’ she blurts out.

  Guy rubs his eyes and grins wryly. ‘I’m sorry she’s so angry,’ he says. ‘She thinks I’m ripping her off over her business, and it’s soured everything.’

  ‘Do you still love her?’ Is it the drink, or the dark or both that is making Laura so bold and uninhibited? Guy doesn’t clam up, he just looks sad as he answers.

  ‘I don’t think either of us ever loved each other. She never wanted to have children with me. I think I was a way for her to escape her family and be an independent woman.’

  ‘What about you?’ Every safety instinct Laura has is beating a warning not to ask this but she does so anyway.

  Guy looks at her blankly. ‘What about me?’

  ‘You said neither of you ever loved one another.’

  Guy laughs, exasperated, and stands up. ‘Well, you know about me, don’t you?’

  Hedley and Gina, brushing their arms against one another walking side by side, appear at the table.

  Guy puts his jacket on. ‘Come on, let’s go home, it’s late.’

  Back at the Gate House, the kitchen is a Marie Celeste wreck with a trail of cereal, spilt milk and sprinkled sugar ending in the god Zeus’s basket, where he lies, snoring gently, his head resting in the sugar bowl.

  ‘It looks as though rats have invaded,’ remarks Gina, slumping in the armchair by the Rayburn, and kicking off her shoes.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I thought pugs were too privileged to pillage.’ Laura groans, automatically stooping to begin clearing up the mess. Through in the sitting room where, against Laura’s wishes, Inigo had a vast television installed two days after they moved in, Fred and Shane are watching something unsuitable with blood spraying everywhere. Laura averts her eyes and forces herself to speak in a kind and loving tone.

  ‘Hello, darlings. Are the girls back from the disco? Did you find what you wanted to eat?’

  ‘Mmph.’ Fred grunts and shifts into a more comfortable position on the sofa, but doesn’t bother to look up. Shane appears to have been turned to stone on his beanbag. Screaming, followed by blood glugging like wine issues from the television and Laura closes the door, happy to return to the squalor of the kitchen if gore is the alternative. Unheeding of the dirty plates, Guy and Hedley have produced a bottle of whisky, and settled purposefully at the table. They are not going home. Guy pats the chair next to him.

  ‘Come and have a drink, Laura.’

  Gina puts a Marvin Gaye track on, and turns the overhead light off, bathing the kitchen in a pleasing rosy glow, caused by the pink T-shirt that is draped over the one lamp. She begins to dance. Hedley, swigging a gulp of his whisky, joins her. The sensible thing now would be to go to bed, but then look where being sensible gets you, thinks Laura. Guy lights a cigarette, and with a sense of leaping into the dark, Laura takes one too.

  Pins and needles, a dead weight on her arm, and a thumping void behind her eyes. Laura wakes with a jolt. She is in bed with Zeus licking her cheek joyfully. She turns away and finds herself staring at a body. The head is invisible beneath a twist of sheet, but in horror Laura examines shoulders beneath a T-shirt, the ribcage rising and falling slowly. She has been sleeping with someone. Oh God. Oh hell. What is she to do? Where can she hide? Nausea, remorse and shock surge in her throat and she leaps up to rush to the loo, wishing that alcohol abuse had killed her instead of leaving her maimed and guilty, the destroyer of a happy family. Returning, only marginally purged, some minutes later to get her clothes and escape, she forces herself to look at the bed again.

  ‘You have to confront these things, you have to face up to your wrongs,’ she tells herself, and holding her breath, pulls back the sheet. A tangle of long red hair and Dolly’s perfect profile greets her. Laura’s relief is indescribable and eclipses her hangover for several moments. But she must have done something wrong to have the instinct of guilt, and sure enough, next to Dolly is another body. She tugs the sheet from this newly discovered form, her heart and head throbbing a vile tympany which may well kill her at any moment. It is Becca, curled up on the edge of the bed and rubbing her eyes as Zeus burrows down next to her. Relief, and the effort of dressing, pump a thousand more toxins around her body, and she totters downstairs moaning weakly, ‘I need to go to hospital, I must go to hospital.’

  Of all the horrible sights in the kitchen, the worst is Hedley, ashen-faced and emitting a gentle non-stop moan. His sleeves are rolled up and he is using the might of both hands to try and turn a tap on to fill the kettle. Laura takes the kettle from him, saying, ‘That’s the wrong tap. It doesn’t work. I’ll do it if you go and let the goat out.’

  ‘Guy’s done it. He’s milked her too.’ Hedley clutches his head with both hands as if it is a rugby ball, and staggers to the table to sit down.

  ‘Oh, he’s here too, is he?’ Laura presses her hands to her cheeks so Hedley doesn’t see her flush. She sips some water to practise before committing herself to tea. ‘Where did you sleep?’

  A spasm of alarm crosses Hedley’s face. ‘Err, umm. In the girls’ room. They said I could, don’t you remember, because they said they could easily both fit in with you.’

  Laura blunders on, wielding obtuseness like a blunt instrument. ‘So you and Guy shared that rickety old bed of Dolly’s?
God, I must have been drunk. I should have put Gina in there. I wonder how she liked the sofa? It’s hellishly uncomfortable to sit on, so lying on it must be like sleeping on cobbles.’

  Hedley shifts uncomfortably but is saved from answering by Gina drifting in, yawning ostentatiously and draping herself along the Rayburn. Hedley attempts a smile but just looks vacant. Laura, watching them, finally realises who slept with whom in Dolly’s bed.

  ‘I’m starving,’ says Gina, shaking her hair voluptuously and throwing a speaking glance at Hedley. Guy appears in the doorway.

  ‘Good,’ he says, ‘because I’ve found some eggs in the barn.’

  ‘But I haven’t got any hens,’ Laura insists, breaking off, distracted from this mystery by the sight of Gina suddenly putting her hand out and pressing it against Hedley’s chest in the v of his open shirt.

  ‘Well, there are certainly some here, so I’d make the most of them if I were you,’ says Guy, putting the eggs down.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone so keen on Hedley,’ Laura whispers to Guy. ‘It’s a miracle.’ He finds a bowl and begins cracking eggs into it.

  ‘It’s good. She’s allowing her inner feelings a free rein,’ he replies, referring to Gina’s drunken and repetitive cry of the night before, that this new country life will help Laura become true to her inner self.

  Hedley’s hand circles Gina’s wrist, and Laura, pushing between them to place a saucepan on the Rayburn, is suddenly struck with a pang of envy. Hurling toast into the oven, her sense of ill-usage intensifies. It is not on account of her brother and Gina’s passionate liaison – no, she is thrilled about that. But she can’t bear the injustice of having suffered wrenching guilt herself, as well as nearly dying of shock at the sight of a person in her bed, when in fact her existence is drearily blameless. The mists of alcohol begin to dissipate, aided by the scrupulous kitchen cleansing programme Laura is operating, and she is left with an increasing belief that a blameless existence does one no good at all. As she reaches the larder door for the second time in the walls and woodwork subsection of her housework marathon, she comes to the conclusion that she might as well have had tempestuous sex with Guy all night, as she has suffered agonising guilt for it without having any of the fun.