‘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.
On the way upstairs, she grips the banister. Her legs are heavy, weighted solid as if they are filled with flour, and weariness trickles and seeps through her skin and into her bones. Getting into bed she groans aloud with the pleasure of lying down, and settles back against the pillows with the latest weepalong novel, recommended by the morning chat show she and Fred watched when they first arrived.
Opening the book, Laura gazes instead at the wall beyond her bed. Despite Inigo, or better still completely ignoring Inigo, there have been real improvements in her life recently, and it’s important to take stock of them, so as not to be too downcast by his unpleasantness. There is the small joy of each physical achievement she has experienced in learning how to put up shelves, cultivate a vegetable plot and nurture a nanny goat. Laura had never imagined that practical skills could be so rewarding, but now the idea of returning to London and the cerebral challenges of the studio, and Inigo’s brilliant career, is unappealing when set against the reclamation of the garden and the weirdly satisfying pickling and jam-making programme she has planned under Guy’s supervision. As someone who has never been interested in food beyond fuel, Laura is bemused by her own newfound enthusiasm for making things. She finds herself jotting a note on the dust jacket of Thief of My Heart to remind herself to try the rosehip and crab apple jelly recipe she was given by the lady in the village shop today.
The latch clicks, and automatically Laura hides the book under her pillow.
‘Are you all right?’ Inigo keeps his head bowed even now he is through the low doorway.
Laura nods, turning her face away, furious to find that a tear has slipped out and down her nose. Inigo sits on the bed. Nothing about him belongs there – his green jacket instantly attracts a small puff of feathers from a hole in Laura’s flowery quilt, and his oiled hair is slick and almost menacing in the rosy light which dances through a raspberry lace shade Laura created from an old petticoat. He sneezes; she passes him her handkerchief.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He sneezes again. Laura sighs. She doesn’t want to have a painful, raking conversation now, she is tired. And he’s got hay fever.
‘I’m not upset, I’m tired.’ She picks up her book.
‘Chirst, you haven’t started reading that rubbish again, have you?’ Inigo looks at the book with so much disgust that Laura wonders if he has mistaken the cover illustration for something specifically offensive to him – a naff cartoon character or a fast food outlet, for example.
‘Mind your own sodding business, I’ll read what I like.’ She turns over and lies down, hoping to signal that the conversation is over.
Inigo moves nearer, emanating anxiety and smelling faintly of woodsmoke. ‘Laura, there are things we need to talk about,’ he says, sniffing as dust motes rise in the room, disturbed when he moved the lampshade a trifle to see her better. ‘I think we’ve reached the end of the road in London.’
Laura’s heart thumps in her neck. She’s looking at him now; her mouth is dry and her hands are clenched fists on the pulled-up sheet. It’s like a warped scene from Red Riding Hood. She flings the covers back and sits up so she is next to Inigo. Both of them stare at the floor.
‘What are you saying?’ she asks, and it’s like falling in a dream because she can’t go back now they’re talking like this, and she doesn’t know how she would choose her life to change if she could.
Inigo’s arms are folded across his chest, his elbows crunched on his knees as if he has been winded. ‘I think we should move out. Rent the house for a bit,’ he says. ‘I want to give New York a go. The opportunities are there for me and my work and we can have a great life there together – like we did when we met, remember?’ Even the way he’s worded it is selfish. Laura’s eyes smart.
He looks at her, hoping, willing her to say, ‘Yes, of course, let’s do it,’ but she can’t. Laura thumps the mattress, her jaw set, and speaks through gritted teeth. ‘You know we can’t do that. It’s the wrong time. And anyway, as you’ve pointed out, we’ve done it already. I want to move on, not go backwards. That’s what we should all be doing now, Inigo.’
‘It isn’t backwards for me.’ His voice is so low it’s a whisper. ‘And I don’t know what else we can do together.’
There is nothing to lose in suggesting her own idea. Laura shuts her eyes.
‘We could all come and live here and the children could go to school with Tamsin and—’
‘HERE?’ Inigo is gob-smacked. ‘But I can’t stand this place,’ he says, so shocked that he cannot keep his guard or any pretences up at all. ‘This isn’t a place to live. This is the middle of nowhere. It’s quaint. It’s an experience, not a way of life you know, Laura.’
‘Don’t be patronising, and don’t be so narrow-minded,’ she hisses, pulling the covers back around her as protection. ‘I think it would save us from all becoming strangers.’ He might relate to a bit of therapy speak. ‘The countryside is grounding. I’ve found being here so healing.’
‘You’ve been reading too many self-help books,’ Inigo snarls, uncurling from his pleading position to stand scornfully, hands dug into his pockets, looking down at Laura in her bed.
She bounces up onto her knees, hair awry, eyes blazing fury. ‘And you’ve been resting on your laurels so comfortably you’ve forgotten how to behave within a family. Now go away and leave me alone. You can sleep on the bathroom floor.’
‘Oh good. Nice and reasonable,’ mutters Inigo. ‘There is no way I’m sleeping in the bathroom, I’d catch typhoid from that pit. I shall sleep in the sitting room tonight. Tomorrow we shall tell the children.’
‘What are we telling them?’ Laura yells to no avail. He has closed the door behind him and gone. It is only mildly satisfying for Laura to hurl the weepalong novel at the door and to burst into angry sobs.
Chapter 21
Waking early, Laura wavers between continuing her attempts at tweaking home and hearth by making pancakes for breakfast, and following her own inclination, which is to go for a walk. The rain of the previous night has departed, leaving a sky so blue it almost sings above the sparkling waterlogged landscape. Opting for virtue and pancakes, Laura finds that the reward is built in – batter as illustrated in her very easy children’s recipe book only takes a moment to construct, and soon she is walking down the lane, an emancipated woman with a pug at her heels. However, being alone with her thoughts is more than Laura can bear, and she finds herself approaching Hedley’s house, hoping her brother will be up and able to divert her mind.
She hears Hedley before she sees him. ‘Get over. GET OFF. I said GET OFF, you little bastard.’ Following his voice, Laura discovers
him in a small field, glaring at a very small black pony. The pony, which is wider than it is tall, has one miniature hoof placed on Hedley’s foot, and ignoring his fury, is devouring the contents of the bucket Hedley holds in his hand.
‘God, how I loathe horses. You WILL get off my sodding foot now.’ With supreme strength, Hedley pushes the pony off his boot and limps over to Laura. ‘It belongs to Venetia – it’s for the children, but it’s a surprise so I’ve got it for a few weeks until the unveiling.’
‘That was kind of you.’ Laura strokes the pony’s nose. Hedley grunts.
‘Mmm. Well, it was Tamsin. She’s been doing a lot of baby-sitting for them and she encouraged them to get a pony and she’s going to help teach them to ride it. I thought that as she was doing something positive rather than just lying around with the curtains drawn watching television, I should support her. Not that she’s pleased with me,’ he sighs. ‘She seems more removed than ever now Gina’s around, and I thought they’d get on so well.’ He looks suspiciously at his sister. ‘Why are you here? I hope you’re not trying to palm that goat off on me again.’
Laura’s face crumples.
‘No, no. It’s not that. But I don’t know what to do,’ she wails. Hedley’s jaw drops, but he pulls himself together and pats her on the back.
‘Come on now,’ he says heartily. ‘Nothing is ever that bad, is it?’
Laura does not return to the Gate House until much later in the morning. Both she and Zeus are liberally covered in mud from the long walk with Hedley across the marshes. She is restored though, and able to face Inigo without crumpling into indecision. She finds him in the shed, where he has set up a projector and is running through slides of his work with Grass as his silent audience. Laura opens the door as the lecture ends:
‘So, as illustrated by the loop which runs through all my work, there is a universal truth, and that truth is that there is no end, just continual progress towards the future.’ He glances round at Laura, and adds quickly, ‘Let’s get there together,’ but she doesn’t hear.
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