Green Grass (26 page)

Two photographers, both swarthy and wearing leather jackets, hear the click of her heels before they see her, and throw the lit remains of their cigarettes into the gutter. They lurch forwards, unbalanced beneath a battery of cameras and flash guns. Laura grits her teeth and raises her chin, knowing what will come next. The younger one almost hoists a camera to his face, and begins to shout out, ‘Come on love, give us a—' but a whispered word from the other and he turns away, fumbling in his pocket for another cigarette, not wanting to catch her eye now he's been told she is no one they need to photograph. Laura flashes a tight smile at them and steps in over the threshold. It would be so much better for morale if they could just pretend to take a picture of you
at these parties, she thinks. No need to waste film, anyone would fall for the tungsten gulp of a flashbulb, but that lit-up moment of being wanted, glamorised for a white bright second, would be as good as a drink for creating a small cushion of confidence with which to greet the party.

The room is colossal, ill-lit and loud when Laura walks in. There is no one she knows and no one she wants to know, and not for the first time at a party, she wishes she had worn dark glasses like Inigo, so she could hide the nervous sweep of her gaze around the crowd. There are hundreds of people here, all impossibly thin, striking poses with hips thrust forward and shoulders back or spines curved over a pointed toe to give an impression of angles and concavities.

A girl wearing almost nothing except a criss-cross of belts offers Laura a glass from one of the belt's pouches. ‘Here, have a shot. I've got vodka, tequila or absinthe.'

God, what a choice. Laura teeters between living dangerously and diving into a bohemian abyss of drunkenness, and chooses the middle way – tequila. The alcohol burns a path into her stomach, and lighting a cigarette Laura nods at the bottle, signifying her enthusiasm for a second one. The tequila girl shrugs her indifference and refills Laura's glass,
then moves on through the room. Feeling very much braver, Laura stares at the crowd, craning on tiptoe for a glance of a familiar face. Remembering her mother's somewhat redundant maxim that, ‘At a party you should always have a talking point handy – how the room is heated, for example, or the many uses one can find for a ball of string,' Laura takes a deep breath and plunges into the crowd in search of Inigo and another, less challenging drink. She finds neither, but a warm hand clasps the back of her neck and Jack Smack presses a really horrible soft kiss on her cheek and a second, worse still, on her mouth.

‘Laura, what a pretty dress!' His amused gaze travels slowly up her person, making her long to punch him on the nose, the patronising git. Smiling sweetly she steps back from him.

‘Hello Jack. Where's Inigo? Have I missed the awards?'

Jack's attention span has never been impressive, but with her first words he has already lost interest, and his eyes move restlessly past her as he answers, ‘Er, Inigo? Inigo? Can't tell you that, m'dear, but I do know you haven't missed any awards and,' he grips her by the elbows and swings her forcibly to one side, ‘just stay there a minute,' he murmurs. ‘There's the chairman. I must just catch him, we've been trying to have a word all evening.'

Jack dives back into the throng, his now realistic-looking bottle-brush hair sailing for a moment above the surface of strange figures before sinking with him into a fawning greeting. Laura is relieved to have got away so lightly from him. Peering round a man wearing a white velvet suit who is gazing silently, but passionately at a small electric fire which is dangling from a socket next to a label saying Hang Fire, Laura at last sees Inigo. She jumps up and down and waves, suppressing an urge to shout, ‘Yoo Hoo!' because she would only be doing it to annoy him. Inigo raises one eyebrow to acknowledge her approach, but continues to nod and gesture to his companion, a figure draped in black feathers and lace and looking more like a shuttlecock than a person.

‘Are you an exhibit?' Laura asks with polite interest, having kissed Inigo on the cheek and rubbed off the lipstick she inadvertently smeared on his face. Inigo laughs lightly while shooting Laura a venomous glance.

‘Now darling, you must know Mabel Babel-Bentley? She's with the
Daily News
and, I think I'm right in saying, she is our most feared and revered art critic.' The pleading note in Inigo's voice is not lost on Laura. What fun. She puts her head on one side and scrutinises the pile of lace in front of her, deciphering a large, vigorously powdered nose and
a bloodshot eye behind the filigree. She shakes her head regretfully. ‘No. I'm sorry, I don't think I've had the pleasure,' she says, enjoying herself hugely. ‘But then it's so hard to tell. People tend to blur into one after a few years of going to these parties.'

There is a snort from within the Babel-Bentley outfit and a muttered outpouring which Inigo bends his head to decipher. Laura's memory stirs, with the recollection of a children's programme she used to watch in which a creature looking very similar to Mabel Babel-Bentley had a walk-on part.

‘Do you remember Michael Bentine's
Potty Time?'
she asks no one in particular. ‘It was on when I was little anyway and – Ow! Don't do that, Inigo, I'll fall!'

Laura is thrust forwards and away from the lacy lunatic by a firm hand between her shoulder blades. Suddenly she is sandwiched between the wall and an ironing board with a Barbie Doll strapped down on it in front of a tiny toy train. Inigo stands over her, a black expression on his face.

‘You bloody idiot,' he hisses. ‘That woman is incredibly important. What were you playing at?'

‘Well, she looks ridiculous. I can't take this nonsense seriously any more. I mean, look at this.' Laura pings the rubber band holding Barbie down and it flips away. Inigo slaps his hand down over the doll,
as if protecting her modesty. Laura pulls his hand up, and holding it in both of hers, looks at him beseechingly. ‘This is real crap, and it was shortlisted with your stuff. I think it's undermining, Inigo. You shouldn't be doing this any more, we're too old to play these games.'

Inigo's eyes are opaque with rage. He grips her arm and steers her away from the throb of noise in the party to a shadowy doorway.

‘This is not crap.' He leans towards her mouth. Laura closes her eyes. Surely he can't be about to kiss her? She rather likes the swoony savagery of a snog in the middle of a row. Mmmm. Why not be a little depraved? However, Inigo merely sniffs her breath and steps back again.

‘You're drunk,' he says accusingly, adding in a special slow voice for halfwits and drunken wife figures, ‘Now listen to me, Laura. This is the art world and it pays for our lives. I have a reputation in it, and a place in it, and so do you, so pull yourself together and play the game, because if you don't we're on the streets.'

Laura pulls free, rubbing her arm, exhausted now, the alcohol flush already burnt out and the truth of his words hanging in the air between them. Hot tears sting and fall on her cheeks, and her bravado landslides to dust.

‘I'm sorry, Inigo. I didn't expect to feel like this. I can't play this game any more. I don't believe in it. I'm going home.' She squeezes Inigo's hand, then pats the back of it and walks away, biting her lip to stem the falling tears.

At home, she unlocks the front door and treads as silently as possible across the hall, wanting to reach her bedroom and not be seen by the children. However, the click of her key in the lock, the creak of a floorboard and the pug Zeus is at her side, the tip of his tongue peeping out, absurdly pink in the wrinkled anxiety of his face. Laura scoops him into her arms and runs up to her bedroom, where, placing Zeus gently on the bed, she takes off the milkmaid dress and pulls on jeans and a shirt. Grabbing a small bag, she flings in socks and jerseys, books and underwear, overtaken by the momentum of her own actions now. Zeus finds her behaviour upsetting, and climbs into the bag, burrowing into the pyjamas Laura flings towards him.

‘Good, that's enough.' Laura looks round the room, slides shut all her drawers to hide the chaos within them, and picks up the Zeus-heavy bag, groaning a little at its weight. She opens it to reassure him before hoisting it onto her shoulder, and gazes in fondly. ‘Don't worry, I won't leave you,' she says.
Dear God, if Inigo could see her now, talking to a bag, he'd say she's gone nuts. Lucky he can't then. Laura glances at the clock on her bedside – it is only nine thirty; she will be there before midnight if she goes now.

The children blink astonishment and yawn when she floods on the lights in the sitting room where they are watching television.

‘Whaddryoudoin?' groans Fred, ducking beneath a cushion. ‘Turn it off, Mum, I'm trying to watch something.'

Laura marches into the room and stands in front of the television. She keeps experiencing moments of panic when she is sure she shouldn't be doing this, but before she can change her mind and unpack the dog and her pyjamas, she finds she has done something to push herself further along the path towards going.

She tells the children, ‘I'm going to Crumbly. I've got things that I need to do there and I'm taking Zeus. You two can come with Daddy at the weekend as usual if you want to, but I won't be back for a bit.'

‘What do you mean “a bit”?' Dolly asks suspiciously. Fred, however, accepts Laura's behaviour without a blink.

‘Cool. Mum, can you take my ferret with you? She much prefers it there.'

Dolly jumps up and stands facing her mother in the middle of the room. ‘Does Dad know you're going?' she asks, her hands on her hips.

‘Er, no.' Laura tries a competent brisk grin. ‘But you can tell him if you like.'

Dolly's face collapses. She presses her hands to her cheeks and stares wide-eyed and shocked at Laura.

‘You're leaving,' she gasps.

Rolling her eyes, Laura adjusts her bag on her shoulder. ‘Yes – I mean no, I'm not leaving, I'm just going to Crumbly. I've got a lot to do there and I thought if I went up early this week I could get it all done for you at the weekend.'

Dolly continues to look stricken; Fred finally catches on to the existence of a scene taking place and hurls himself at his mother, lagging his whole weight on her waist. ‘Mum, please take me with you. I can't stay here, I won't go to school. We could say I had flu, no one would know.'

By now Laura is regretting not just the way this evening has gone, but almost everything that has ever occurred in her life, with special reference to motherhood and the fact that her children are huge now, and so are still up at nine-thirty at night being obstacles to her escape instead of tiny angels tucked up in their beds sleeping innocently.

‘Oh bloody hell,' she shrieks, stamping her foot
in frustration. ‘This is a sodding nightmare from hell.'

Dolly and Fred leap away as if they have been electrocuted. Dolly unzips Laura's bag and grabs Zeus, holding him high for a moment as if he is a football trophy.

‘Stress-yyyy,' whispers Fred under his breath, and departs, muttering, ‘I'll just get Vice and my stuff. Hang on, Mum.'

‘You sh-sh-shouldn't swear,' sobs Dolly, now heaving with tears, hugging Zeus close to her chest and watching her mother with imploring eyes.

Laura is cornered and outwitted. For a moment she stands poised for flight, glancing wildly at the door, her bag clenched in one fist, the car keys in the other, panting slightly. Fred comes back, and both children stare at her apprehensively. Fred attempts a brave, reassuring smile and suddenly all the hysteric energy she has been relying on deserts her, and she drops bag and keys and slumps onto the sofa, her head in her hands.

‘All right then, I won't go!' she exclaims, half-waiting for protestations of joy from her offspring.

‘Why not?' Dolly leans solicitously over her, all tears gone now, a soothing nurse-like calm attending her every word and movement. ‘You must go if you want to, Mum. We'll be all right.'

Fred drops a duffel bag on his mother's feet. It contains a trail of clothing and emerging from the pocket is the bushy and electrically smug-looking tail of Vice the ferret.

‘I won't be all right,' announces Fred. ‘I want to come with you and I don't want to stay here. Come on, Mum. Let's go before Dad gets back and tries to stop us.' Fred's eyes glitter with excitement, he is clearly enacting a scene from some ghastly Hollywood teen movie; Laura has played unwittingly into his hands and is now too confused and depressed to see a way out at all. Dolly's nurselike references are more obscure, but Laura has no doubt that self-interest is fuelling her new enthusiasm for this departure.

‘Why don't we all just go to bed?' she suggests feebly.

‘No way,' chorus the children.

‘Come on, you'll feel better when you get there,' soothes the new, weirdly kind Dolly. ‘Here, let me take the keys. Come on, it'll all be fine, and look … we're by the car now.'

And somehow Dolly and Fred have martialled Laura across the hall, out of the front door and down the street to the car. Orange street-lighting throws a Haliborange glow on all their skin, and has turned the car dank pond green, its dials bleeping and flashing as Dolly leans in to put the keys in the
ignition. Laura protests once more that Fred should stay behind and go to school, but no one pays any attention, least of all Fred who is strapping himself into the passenger seat, making a little bed for Zeus at his feet with a jersey and reminding Dolly to tell his friend Shane that he's gone away for a bit and doesn't know when he'll be back.

‘I will. Byeee! Byee, Mummy, see you soon!' Dolly waves them off, and Laura finds that she is indicating, drawing out of the parking bay and setting off up the street towards Norfolk.

Fred settles back in his seat, twists the volume on the car sound system to high and in the pause before the beat begins, grins at her and says, ‘This is so cool, Mum, I love it.'