Green Grass by Raffaella Barker Read Free Book Online Page A

quick, come up here. Where’s Dad? There’s bright turquoise water seeping out of the washing machine. We didn’t do anything, honestly.’
    Laura shouts, ‘See you on Friday, Hedley,’ andsprints up the stairs, or rather the first flight. By the second flight she is panting. Vowing to take up some form of exercise beyond not achieving yoga positions and watching other people walk their dogs, she hauls herself to the top of the house in time to witness the death throes of her washing machine. It has not enjoyed its role in her underwear dyeing project.

Chapter 5
    When Inigo drives on the motorway, Laura sleeps. She knows she should be a support and talk to him, in fact she would enjoy this companionable way of conversing, side by side, the eye drawn ineluctably onward through the changing landscape, but she can never stay awake for more than five minutes. When the twins were younger, their needs occasionally roused her from slumber, and she would twist round in her seat to buy their silence with fruit or drinks, or lead them through the endlessly repeated chorus of ‘Oh My Darling Clementine’ and ‘Sweet Molly Malone’ (adapted, except for the death verse, to ‘Sweet Dolly Malone’.)
    However, the twins prepared for this journey with CDs and Dolly’s new mobile phone. They have books and computer games, and Laura can see from the moment they leave home and Dolly and Fred both plug their ears with headphones and their mouths with gum, that they want no part in their parents’conversations. Inigo doesn’t care whether he talks or not, because what he wants to do is drive, as fast as is humanly possible. He sees each notch he moves up on the speedometer as a personal victory against time, and he likes this crescendo of speed to build up through stirring highlights of epic opera –
Aïda
or
The Ring Cycle
are both a spur for Inigo’s driving.
    Laura dozes, floating in lovely time off. Today has been nerve-wracking. Inigo, having seen Dolly off to a disco the night before, decided to use strobe lighting to illustrate the story of Verdi’s
Rigoletto
. Even an hour in the studio, with the blackout blinds drawn and light pulsing, not to mention the incessant repetition of the opening aria from the opera, left Laura with eye strain and a bad temper. Thankfully, at the end of that time, Inigo pinged up all the blinds and said, ‘This doesn’t work,’ before removing himself to the computer for an afternoon stress-busting on Super Mario Karts.
    Working with Inigo, in the same space all day, every day, talking, arguing, and endlessly listening can be suffocating. Sometimes at dusk, Laura leaves the twins glued to the television and goes out for a walk, gulping air, her ears singing with the peaceful joy of not being needed. This walk, through the winding down late-afternoon streets, past shops closing and restaurants opening, lit, at this time of year, by the friendly glow of amber streetlights, couldbecome a necessity if only she had a dog. She must persuade Inigo.
    Half-asleep in the car, she turns to look at him now. His profile is not encouraging. It is almost dark outside, but the glow of the instruments on the dashboard cast a green light up towards Inigo’s jaw, highlighting the dark pits of new bristle growth on his chin and up towards his ears. Inigo’s mouth is slightly open; it has been pursed to whistle disapproval at the low-slung sports car which ricocheted past a few moments ago, and soon it will be folded neatly shut, but right now Laura can see his teeth, and the set of his mouth, pulled back in perpetual, slight grimace. Inigo’s nose is beautiful, and in profile is the best way to see it. Face on, his eyes are too close to it, but in profile the nose sweeps out of his brow without indentation at the level of his arching eyebrows. It sweeps nobly on, but midway is interrupted by a bump, which should mar the perfection, but