The start of summer half-term is unsatisfactory all round. Dolly spends it in a cloud of acid-green bad temper because they haven’t all gone to New York. Deaf to Laura’s protests that it was never an option, Dolly becomes convinced that it is a conspiracy between her mother and Fred because they want to go to sodding Norfolk. Inigo rings plaintively from the airport and Laura remembers that she had promised to meet him with the children and had every intention of doing so until Dolly became a witch from hell.
‘Oh my God, Inigo, we haven’t fetched you, I’m so sorry.’ She cannot think of an adequate excuse because there isn’t one, she simply forgot, although she’d remembered earlier, when she had dressed in high heels and a skirt, special effect clothes chosen to show him she cared. But not enough to remember him.
‘Well, I’d better get a taxi,’ he says in a piqued tone. ‘It’ll take you an hour to get here and I’m through customs and everything. I’ll see you soon.’
‘Lovely,’ says Laura, encompassing relief at not having to go as much as pleasure at his return.
Fred, having trawled the neighbouring streets to their house with a spatula, looking for roadkill for Vice, is red-faced and almost tearful, convinced that she will starve to death between now and the next visit to Crumbly.
‘No one cares about Vice and her well-being,’ he complains to the sitting room at large. ‘And I’ve got to support her myself, and she must have red meat.’ He sighs and clucks, and for the first time Laura can see Inigo in him.
‘Oh shut up,’ snarls Dolly. ‘Go and get her a burger or something.’
Fred perks up. ‘Cool, d’you think she’d eat something like that?’
‘Well, maybe raw mince,’ suggests Laura. ‘Go down to the butcher on the high street and get some, and while you’re at it, maybe a bit of chicken breast for Zeus – he’s been off his food.’
Thus Inigo arrives home from too long away to find his family busy creating a feast for their pets. No one even looks up when he lets himself in, lithe and sun-tanned from hot weekends on the Long Island beaches, and his daily gym session. He bounces on the balls of his feet into the hall, determined to be upbeat. ‘Hi, gang, how’s it going?’ Sunlight dances in the kitchen, and the chaos that always surrounds Laura is familiar and soft after weeks of New York. Inigo looks around; he knows now, from the cognitive group therapy classes he has been attending in Tribeca, that meeting after absences can be challenging, and he is determined to meet the challenge on the chin. And Laura looks younger, carefree and more like Dolly’s sister, laughing over that vile blot Zeus. Apart from the dog, Inigo can handle the challenge of coming home.
‘Oh my God, Inigo, you’re looking so well.’ Laura leaps to her feet, kicking over Zeus’s bowl and scattering his food across the white perfection of the floor. It’s such a relief to see him and to find that she really is pleased. His smile as he kisses her still makes her heart leap, which is amazing considering the wanton direction of some of her thoughts recently.
No amount of sifting has helped her make light of her rekindled interest in Guy, and she cannot banish a growing suspicion that life would have turned out more satisfying if she’d stuck with him all those years ago, instead of taking on Inigo and his ego. Gina says it’s just bored wife-manqueé syndrome and it will pass, but then she would. She has been insufferably smug since coming to the Gate House and Laura has ignoble thoughts about Gina putting on five stone and Laura offering her diet recipes. But now the topic of interest is Inigo.
Fred tucks Vice hastily into his pocket before greeting his father, and is overtaken by Dolly, who has been studiously ignoring the pets and engrossed for half an hour in composing a new ringing tone for her mobile telephone.
‘Dad, you’re back. Listen to this, d’you recognise it?’ And Dolly whirls her phone, now clad in a Barbie case with a Miss Universe bikini and sash, in front of Inigo’s face. It warbles an upbeat few bars of ‘Danny Boy’ before subsiding into silence.
‘That’s great, Doll,’ says Inigo. ‘Now let me say hello to Mum properly.’
‘You’re really brown and really thin,’ observes Laura, wishing she could say the same for herself. She gazes at the floor, then over Inigo’s shoulder, unable to meet his gaze. Inigo’s heart pounds; he has always adored Laura when she behaves elusively, and he’s missed her so much. More than he could bear to tell her. He lifts her chin.
‘Let me look at you.’ He pulls her towards him, kissing her hard, and Laura melts and wants to cry at once. Zeus finds the intensity of the moment a bit much, and lifts his leg on Inigo’s black leather luggage. It takes all the self-control Inigo has learnt in ten sessions of expensive therapy to keep him holding Laura instead of kicking that ugly little black hell-pig down the stairs to the basement.
Within hours of his return Inigo is once more the centre of home and hearth, and every member of the family has cheered up. Laura is aware of this, but squashes feelings of inadequacy as a mother and provider beneath a radiant sex goddess exterior, with plans to examine her shortcomings, and Inigo’s at a later date.
Having despatched the children to the delicatessen and bakery with a list and instructions not to return until both the dog and the ferret have walked off their breakfasts, Inigo walks over to Laura leaning against the cooker and puts his hands over hers on the rail. Unconsciously Laura straightens herself, and they look at one another, standing close, but not touching except their hands. Her heart is jumping, her mouth feels dry. Inigo doesn’t say anything, he can’t, he’s suddenly too nervous, but he kisses her. Laura wants to reach up and put her arms around him but her hands are still under his. He moves his hands onto her hips, pulling her towards him, still kissing. Laura is on tiptoe, leaning every part of her against every part of him, wanting him, but distracted by being in the kitchen. Inigo undoes the first button on her shirt. She stops his fingers on the next.
‘Let’s go upstairs.’ She is walking away as she says this, swinging her hips in her skirt. On the stairs he puts his hand under the skirt and runs it up her thigh. She grins, loving being wanted but not so consumed by desire that she doesn’t look at her watch.
Oh God, how long have the children been gone? Is there time?
Laura runs up the last few steps to their room; this is better than Inigo had ever hoped for. ‘What’s got into you?’ he laughs in the bedroom.
‘You.’ She unbuckles his belt, looking straight into his eyes. Inigo traces her spine with a finger through the cloth of her shirt. Following a shiver of nerves to her waist, Laura tries to banish the domestic preoccupations which are coursing through her mind.
Is there enough Parmesan cheese or should she have told Fred to get some?
Inigo undoes the buttons on her skirt and it falls around her. She steps out, still wearing her shoes, not trainers today, but her most impractical high heels with ankle straps in honour of his return – fawn leather, beautiful, fragile and not at all mumsy. Sexy but not as sexy as boots, she thinks. Inigo’s skin is smooth and smells of rain and summer. Laura runs her tongue down from his chest. His stomach contracts and he sighs her name, his hand raking her hair so it falls heavy and free like water.
What time is Lola the dog walker coming?
Inigo leads her to the bed. Laura runs her hands down his arms following the curve of the muscles and guides his hands to the buttons of her shirt. Inigo groans as her shirt falls away, and Laura undoes her bra, urgency pulsing, thrusting into her mind, blood rushing to her lips making them hot and her skin tingling, electric.
Will he mind that she has employed a dog walker once a week, or will he understand that it’s such fun for Zeus to be with the whole gang that it’s worth the money it costs? Perhaps he won’t notice.
They fall together on the bed and the linen is cool on Laura’s skin.
Oh God, she should have rung the electrician while Inigo was away.
But now he’s back. He’s here: he’s everywhere with his hands and his mouth and his skin. She’s not thinking about anything now, because she’s being. She’s lit up, flaring hotter, arching, yearning, reaching – and it doesn’t matter that the key just turned in the front door because it’s now, it’s now. And it’s everything.
In the kitchen Inigo rolls up his sleeves, drags the dustbin over to the fridge and throws away everything Laura has been keeping cool for the past few weeks.
‘God,’ he says, holding up a soup carton with purple bubbles issuing from its open spout. ‘I remember you buying this borscht before I went. It shouldn’t still be here – you’ll get mould spores in everything.’ He pours the bubbling ex-soup down the sink and turns to the cooker to stir a fragrant pan of garlic, onion and herbs. Laura, barefoot by the door, grins because he is the only one who cares about the kitchen and she is handing it back to him now – what a relief. She tears a corner from the bread and sticks it in butter while Inigo isn’t looking.
Dolly frowns at her. ‘Mum, you go mental if we do that,’ she complains. ‘Now can you move, I need to get some flour from behind you.’
Dolly has shown no interest in family life recently, and scarcely any in food unless it comes freeze dried and just needs hot water, but the force of her father’s personality in the kitchen has her wrapped in an apron, breaking eggs, and peering at a recipe book, determined to add her mite and create sensuous, spoon-licking food to celebrate Inigo’s return. Inigo slices tomatoes and stacks the slices with mozzarella, stuffing basil leaves in each layer until he has built a plate full of small towers, red, white and green and smelling like heaven. Dolly folds dollops of egg white into chocolate and cream and slides chocolate soufflé cake into the oven. Even Fred catches the creative fervour of the kitchen, and with maximum mess and spillage constructs four unlikely cocktails. Laura is left to lay the table, wash up after the others and surreptitiously feed Zeus again.
It’s not great being the kitchen scullion, she reflects, scraping onion off the bottom of the heavy frying pan, but it is a lot better than having to cook, or worse still, think of what to cook. Inigo’s return from New York has coincided with Laura’s culinary repertoire shrinking to baked potatoes or boiled eggs. It isn’t that she can’t cook anything else, it is the determined refusal of the children to eat anything she has taken care over that has caused her to edit her repertoire so severely. There just isn’t any point, and Laura is delighted to hand the apron back to Inigo, while conceding that his ability to make every meal into an event and even a celebration, is a better recipe for tempting the jaded palates of Dolly and Fred than any combination of ingredients could ever be.
Over lunch Inigo is expansive. He is feeling great despite jet lag. His libido is up where it should be, and he reckons he could match a thirty-year-old for virility, while being in no hurry to do so. His wife is pretty hot too. Oh all right, no, she isn’t technically his wife, is she? Sometimes now Inigo is aware of nudging irritation at not being married. Maybe it would cheer Laura up to get married? It might stop her thinking so much about country life. But if she wanted to be married, wouldn’t she have said so? Who knows with Laura? Certainly not Inigo any more. Anyway, his exhibition has been applauded by the critics, and the public are streaming in too, attracted off the street by the smell of baking. Inigo has appeared on three different talk shows and his biscuit recipe has inspired a television company to approach him for a six-part series on art and cooking. The recipe was almost Inigo’s come-uppance, as he left for New York with no idea of how to make biscuit dough, having used Play Do for all maquettes. His cooking has always been more along Mediterranean lines with copious olive oil and capers. But within forty-eight hours he was asked for the recipe he would be using for his pastry-cutter, and to buy time he had to pretend it was embargoed for another twenty-four hours. His mind was blank, but fortunately, his next appointment was to meet his mother off the boat. She would have a recipe for sure. Betty was only too willing to help, while saying in disappointed tones, ‘But I don’t know why Laura hasn’t been helping you with this. She should, you know.’
Inigo, who was missing Laura painfully due to the alarm of almost being caught out, maddened his mother by saying, ‘She doesn’t cook, she’s too busy.’
Betty’s shortbread recipe has gone down a storm, and several of the leading hotels in New York are serving the biscuits with a very nasty sweet sherry as the new aperitif, and calling it the Inigo Miller. While finding the drink repulsive and the combination of it and the biscuit somewhat grannyish, Inigo cannot help being flattered by becoming a bar-room name – surely just one step from entering the vernacular, where infinite fame is assured.
He allows himself a small private smirk and addresses his children. ‘So Fred, Dolly. Tell me what’s new at school?’ Inigo is rewarded with a blank look from each of them.
‘Dunno,’ says Fred finally.
‘Nothing,’ says Dolly.
Laura sees Inigo is looking disappointed. ‘It’s half-term,’ she reminds him, and Inigo nods and starts telling a story about a beautiful actress he met at a party last week. No one is listening. Dolly pushes her salad and the tomato and basil in her mozzarella stack to one side of her plate and leaves it, as she is on a purity binge and will only consume protein and no vegetables at all. Mysteriously, this diet allows all fizzy drinks and crisps, but Laura has learnt now that the quickest way to get Dolly out of any of her obsessions is to act as though they are completely normal. Fred cuts his lunch into small cubes and posts it onto his lap, where Vice is curled contentedly, consuming whatever comes her way. Laura, having listened to the first half of the story with commendable concentration, suddenly notices a small white swelling on Zeus’s ear. ‘Oh you poor thing, what have you done?’ she exclaims, right across the moment when the actress’s boyfriend was refused entry to the night club where the actress and Inigo were enjoying a tequila slammer as the first drink of an evening planned to return jaded New Yorkers to teenagers.
‘She’s got the leading role in the new Disney movie, so we’ll be seeing a lot more of her,’ says Inigo.
‘Oh my God, Mum, it’s squidgy,’ squeaks Dolly from the floor where she is examining Zeus’s ear. ‘And I can’t get it off. It’s stuck, it’s stuck.’
Fred drags his chair back and crouches beside his sister and Zeus, who is trembling now and licking his lips apologetically.
‘Oh, rank!’ exclaims Fred. ‘There’s a smaller one too on the inside.’
Inigo tries to continue. ‘And she wants to buy one of my—’
Laura leaps to her feet and rushes to scrabble in a drawer by the cooker. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake! I’ve just remembered what they are!’ she shouts. ‘They’re ticks. He must have got them in the garden at the Gate House last weekend. We just need a cigarette to burn them off.’
Inigo is torn between exasperation that no one wants to hear his story, surprise that there are cigarettes in the house and irritation that the bloody Gate House has contaminated his return with grey polyps. He will not even allow his gaze, never mind his thoughts to stray towards the amount of attention Zeus is getting.
‘You don’t smoke,’ he says, frowning as Laura puffs on a cigarette to draw red heat into the end. ‘Neither of us do. We gave up ages ago.’
A guilty look flashes across her face. ‘They’re not mine, someone left them here, but actually I quite like having one from time to time.’ She inhales defiantly and at length.
‘No one in New York smokes at all,’ says Inigo crossly.
‘So what do they do about ticks?’ asks Fred, leaning over his mother as she applies the flaring tangerine heat of the cigarette to Zeus’s black velvet ear.
‘They don’t have them,’ says Inigo, trying not to sound superior as he knows it’s not helpful, but rather longing to be back there, and away from the sordid elements of English pest life. ‘The only reason you are smoking is that you lack self-control. Now let me put it out for you.’ He reaches over to Laura, but she is beyond his reach, bending over the pug whose mouth is turned down in deepest gloom. Laura pushes Inigo away. ‘Don’t be silly, I’m smoking to get rid of the tick.’
‘Mum, be careful, you’ll burn him!’ screams Dolly as Zeus yelps and scuttles under the table.
Laura drags surreptitiously on the cigarette, just to keep it alight, she assures herself. ‘No, I won’t. Honestly, I’ve done this thousands of times before and you just burn the tick. The heat hasn’t touched his ear, he’s just frightened.’
‘Poor thing. I’ll hold him,’ coos Dolly, crawling after the dog. Fred and Laura watch for a second as she tries to extract Zeus from the table legs, and hearing him whimper, both crawl in too. ‘Let’s just do it under here,’ says Laura.
Inigo is left alone at the table with half a famous actress story untold, and substantial evidence that his family prefers pest control to conversation. Nothing is going well in the greater scheme of things.