Read Online Green Grass by Raffaella Barker - Free Book Online Page B

don’t start this one you two,’ Laura says wearily. ‘You sound like Laurel and Hardy, you really do.’
    â€˜It beats your saunter down Memory Lane,’ says Inigo defiantly, sounding so like a spoilt toddler that Laura wants to slap him. Inigo in giant baby mode is maddening, and unfortunately it is one of his most frequently adopted poses. Look at him now, bottom lip out, scowling as he pushes the debris of supper away from his place setting, where he has assembled a handful of candles, removed from the many candelabra placed around the hall. Lighting the first one he warms the base of the next until the wax is tacky and receptive, then presses the lit wick of the first into it, and so on until he has one long candle. Laura keeps her head turned towards her brother,ostensibly discussing Tamsin, but she can see Inigo out of the corner of her eye, and has to close her eyes and take several deep breaths, which she exhales in a ribbon, to stop exasperation spilling over within her. Thank God some of the yoga has sunk in.
    Gathering her thoughts to the internal rhythm of ‘I must focus on Tamsin, I must focus on Tamsin,’ Laura makes her cupped hands into blinkers and leans towards Hedley. ‘Tell me properly what’s been happening,’ she says.
    Wrestling with the corkscrew and another bottle of wine, which Inigo, with a patronising smile, removes from him and opens, Hedley explains.
    â€˜Tamsin will be fifteen in April.’ Laura nods. Hedley glances at her doubtfully, but her expression is sympathetic, and in direct contrast with Inigo’s scowl, so to irritate him more than anything, Hedley launches in with detail. ‘She’s been telephoning her mother to discuss her birthday. It isn’t for a few weeks, but Sarah’s been so off-hand.’
    Inigo leans back in his chair, balancing it on its two back legs and stretches, yawning. Hedley ignores him. ‘The calls got off to a bad start when Sarah appeared to have forgotten who Tamsin was. By chance I came into the kitchen and found her sobbing by the telephone. I thought she must have had bad news, and I picked up the receiver. Sarah was onthe other end saying, “Jasmine who?” and sounding lobotomised. I got rid of her and spent an hour convincing Tamsin that her mother was deaf and dim now she was nearly fifty, and should have an ear lift as well along with the soul cleansing she was enjoying in Turkey.’ He gulps wine, rubbing his eyes. ‘She has spoken to her now, but she resents her mother for having left her. Her form mistress at school says she needs someone to talk to about makeup and boyfriends and whatever else teenage girls obsess about.’ Hedley coughs, to represent everything else in the teen repertoire. Laura tries to imagine him in the role of Agony Aunt and suppresses a smile.
    Hedley rushes on, ‘Anyway, Tamsin says her mother is a bitch from hell and won’t let me mention her name or bring up the subject at all. And she says she wants to have a party here for her birthday, and I’ve no idea how to go about it.’ He tips his chair forwards and peers anxiously at his sister from beneath his lowered brow. He sighs. ‘She seems to hold me responsible for Sarah’s behaviour, and a lot of the time I feel that I am.’
    Inigo pulls himself up from the table. ‘I think you are,’ he says. ‘Sarah would never have left you if you’d stayed in America. You should have sold this place when you inherited it. You would have bought yourself freedom, and you’d still have a wife.’
    Laura glares at him and looks pointedly towards the door. ‘Inigo, just shut up, can’t you? You don’t know anything about Sarah, or about Hedley. If you did, you would remember that they were hopelessly unsuited, and splitting up was a huge relief for both of them. And to sell Crumbly would have been heartbreaking, as well as stupid. Think of the