Sarah Dalkin

Straw Houses

Novel extract

High Easter

[Here Greta is 20 years old]

Jude stood by the door, one arm resting on the frame, his jeans artfully torn, his T-shirt unnaturally white. On his little finger glinted an aggressive gold ring. Greta turned off the music.

‘So, they keep you in the shed,’ he said, with a sweeping gaze. His left arm was covered in an enormous tattoo. Whatever it was meant to be it was beautifully crafted, though there was something slightly implausible about it. Very likely to do with Jude’s baby-smooth skin and the soft, golden down on his forearms. Amongst the swirl of scales jutted a pair of talons. When he noticed her looking he rotated his arm. A face appeared. An eagle? Eagles didn’t have scales. A phoenix?

‘Lovely,’ Greta said. Jude’s girlfriend, Lily, had a tattoo. ‘Whose decision was that?’

Jude pulled in his chin, frowning. ‘Mine. Who else?’ He examined his arm with the same guileless confidence with which he did everything. ‘Award-winning artist. Russian.’

‘Very nice. What you doing here?’

‘Got to pick up a laptop. What about you?’ Greta indicated the remaining files, fanned like a tidemark across the desk. ‘I hope they’re paying you extra.’ He stepped into the office and immediately began to study the shelves. ‘Nice coffee machine.’

‘We’re out of pods.’

‘I didn’t say I wanted one.’ With a single finger, he pulled open a drawer, rifled the papers and Post-it notes and closed it again.

‘Can I help you?’

He turned to Greta and stared. ‘How long is this going to take?’

‘I don’t know. Half an hour if I go into robot mode.’

After what felt like too long he opened the next drawer along, extracting, examining and discarding an old charging cable.

‘Did you hear about the Perseid shower?’ he said, sliding shut the drawer. Greta shook her head. ‘It’s a meteor shower, visible tonight. I’m going to watch it at Zeb’s.’ Greta blinked. She had never known Jude to be interested in anything profound, anything so unconnected with the material world. When she had seen him before Christmas she had noticed a copy of The Sun in his bag. ‘He’s got this fuck-off telescope and they’re in the middle of nowhere, so no light pollution.’ He leaned on the corner of her desk, far too close, scanning her face with a deliberation that made her skin prickle. She could smell his deodorant. ‘Fancy it?’

Greta stared at him. Was this a date? He already had a girlfriend. She could feel the heat blooming across her chest. ‘I have work.’

‘Come in early.’

‘I’m not dressed for it.’

‘You look great.’

His answer startled a cough from her lungs.

‘I have work.’

‘I’ll help you,’ he said, and to Greta’s surprise sat down, rubbing his hands together with an unnatural air of determination. ‘I’ll unpick. You shred.’

***

Jude really, really liked Beyoncé, but nestled among the tracks on his iPod Nano (4^th generation) was a smattering of John Adams and Philip Glass.

‘Are you pretending to have developed some kind of taste?’

They were in Essex, the whole thing unreal, Greta sitting beside Jude in his three-year-old Golf GTI, whipping along dark country lanes, exploring his music library as if they were friends. Flirting. If that was what they were doing.

It had felt daring to surrender to the moment and upend her plans–her non-plans–for the evening. This was the kind of person she was meant to be.

Jude frowned with a little shake of his head before glancing in the rear-view mirror and dropping a gear to take the corner. ‘Taste? No. No danger of that.’

‘Good. I wouldn’t want to have to start engaging with your opinions.’

‘I’d be terrified.’

Greta knew he didn’t really mean it but it pleased her that he might find her intellect threatening.

On the back seat lay two bottles of red, a twelve-bottle box of Stella, the laptop from the office and a box of Krispy Kreme, made up from the last remaining donuts at the motorway services. Greta had bought and eaten a pasty to keep herself going. She had broken the corner and fed it to Jude as they were driving. As if they were close. As if they were something to each other beyond their murky past.

The party was to include two of Jude’s friends from King’s, Zeb, Zeb’s best friend from his school days, and Zeb’s girlfriend, Mo.

No Lily. Lily was his-tor-eee baby. Jude and Lily had split-up a couple of nights earlier, causing Jude to lose out on a holiday to Turkey. Other than that, he didn’t seem terribly bothered, though Greta didn’t press.

All these holidays. All these people with enough money for holidays. She didn’t know how they did it.

They sat for a moment in a silent communion of speed and night, the thin crescent moon casting a placid light over the fields, she, at least, revelling in the cut-free sensation of leaving the city behind. Jude’s focus on the road appeared absolute but he must have felt her looking because he caught her eye.

‘What?’

She leaned forward, straining the seatbelt as she looked up at the sky. ‘What time is it meant to start?’

‘Between two and four for the main display.’

This was later than expected. She should have asked. ‘I’ve got to get to work in the morning.’

‘Zeb can take you.’

She thumped back against the seat. She didn’t fancy that. ‘I thought he got the train.’

‘Then get the train.’

That would be expensive. She wasn’t due to be paid until her last day. ‘When are you going back?’

‘I’m not getting up at six to drive to London. Are those clouds?’ His brow furrowed. In unison, they stretched forward. ‘Fuck.’ A bank of broken cloud was rising across the eastern horizon. It looked artificial, little round balls of sooty cotton wool. Something exhaled by Thomas the Tank Engine.

‘Did you look at the weather forecast?’

Jude said nothing, his hands steady on the wheel, his gaze pinned on the road ahead.

‘Did–’

‘Shh.’ He cut the headlights with a flick and the world folded into darkness. Greta’s breath snagged, a startled intake that didn’t quite erupt into a scream. The black outside was thick and absolute, an effect heightened by the eerie glow of the dashboard lights.

‘What the hell?’

‘Wait for your eyes to adjust.’

‘We’re going to die.’

‘No, we’re not,’ he said, his foot on the brake pedal, slowing not stopping. ‘I want to see the stars properly.’

The car rolled forward, the tyres creaking over the loose asphalt. There were no street lamps, no buildings and right now, no moon. There was no shape to anything. Greta’s fingers gripped the edge of her seat.

‘Why not just pull over for a few minutes?’

‘Pussy.’

‘Charming.’

This was the Jude she knew from their Let’s-Go-Local-shoplifting days. The pirate-boy from The Barn Grove scaffolding. She resisted the urge to touch his face. As he lowered the windows they were rushed by a balmy concoction of hogweed and cut hay. Greta stuck her head out of the window and looked up, and God Almighty it was like a curtain had been ripped apart. Not NASA, but not London, not even Bexhill. Here were stars, sharp as pinpricks, constellations she recognised from her childhood, clusters–the Seven Sisters, there–she realised she hadn’t seen in years.

A yellow haze bloomed over the horizon, morphing into headlamps. Jude flicked on his own lights, raised the windows and climbed through the gears. They held each other’s gaze for a moment.

‘I didn’t see any shooting stars,’ she said.

‘Ingrate.’

Two miles outside of the village of High Easter they pulled up in front of weighty wooden gates flanked either side by a brick wall. Jude lowered the window and pressed the intercom.

‘Did you get milk?’ someone said. A man. Not a voice immediately recognisable to Greta.

‘Yes,’ Jude said. The gates swung open and they drove through.

‘Did we?’ Greta asked.

‘No, but I don’t want to have to drive back to the Esso shop. Someone else can go.’

The house was not immediately visible along the curving gravel drive, camouflaged by an artfully placed copse of Scots pine, but they were straightaway on top of it when they rounded the bend. It was enormous. A crisply-stuccoed Georgian manor with wings extending out and back on either side. Parked upfront were an Audi and a Lexus.

‘Six bedrooms, five bathrooms,’ Jude said, while they waited for someone to answer the door, laptop, drink and donuts gathered awkwardly in their arms. He rolled his neck extravagantly, and let out a loud sigh.

‘Zeb lives here?’ He was surely too young for this level of wealth.

‘Yes. Well, no. He lives in Harpenden. This is Julian and Margaret’s. You remember them?’ Greta gaped at him. ‘Zeb’s dad. You knew that.’

‘No. I thought his name was McNulty.’

‘First marriage. Zeb kept his mum’s name.’

She surely should have known this. Had she missed it? Julian Dreyer had always made Greta shudder. His too-tight shirts, stretched across his thick arms, his slicky, dark hair protruding at the neck. The nickname he gave her, Toots McBoots, fashioned without warmth, somehow for his entertainment rather than hers. Presiding over family lunches and dinner parties like an intemperate Tudor, always around, somehow stitched into every seam of their lives until, of course, he wasn’t.

‘They’re doing all right, then.’

‘They’re not here. They’ve got a place in France.’

‘Of course they have.’

Greta hadn’t seen Julian’s house on Teesside, but she thought she’d have heard about it if it was anything like this. Part of her wished they were here. She would like to see how they reacted when she told them Gil lived in a thirty-year-old caravan and that she and Tish had to share a bedroom. Oh yes, she’d be taking a big old shit in this house, preferably in the master en suite.

The door was opened by a sandy-haired man, around the same age as Zeb, dressed in a seaside-stripe linen shirt, cargo shorts and flip-flops. Whatever Jude had said about Greta’s appearance, she wished she had been able to change. She’d taken to wearing a white office shirt bought from Asda especially for Merriman & Oak. The more she washed it, the grubbier it got.

‘The children are here,’ the man called over his shoulder, and then, to Greta and Jude, ‘We’re on the patio.’ He led them through an oak-panelled hall, past several closed doors, and across an enormous kitchen of steel, marble and soft lighting. It was difficult to imagine any cooking going on, though it clearly had, given the dirty baking tray and saucepans. They bundled the drink and donuts onto the counter, the laptop onto the dining table.

Laughter rose from beyond the concertina doors, where everyone was sitting around a long wooden table under a pergola entangled with gnarly vines and solar fairy lights.

‘Ahem,’ Jude said, wagging a finger at the lights. ‘These will need to go off.’

The food was over but no-one had cleared the plates. Greta counted eight bottles of wine. It was a bigger group than Jude had described, ten in all, though only two of them female. Which two were Jude’s college friends wasn’t immediately discernible. It looked like a movie set, a scene from The Godfather, perhaps, or a deranged advert for pasta sauce.

When Zeb saw her he looked, not quite startled, but blank for a beat, as though he might have invited her and then forgotten. He recovered, and exchanged a glance with Jude.

‘I rescued her,’ Jude said, pulling out a chair for himself.

‘All done,’ Greta said. ‘He helped me.’

‘It’s fine,’ Zeb said, as if someone had suggested otherwise. ‘You’re very welcome. Sit down.’

‘Anyone seen Harry and Sav?’ Jude asked, inspecting a bottle of red. He raised it to his nose, sniffed, and put it down again.

‘I think they must have seen the weather report,’ said one of the women. Though the sun went down hours ago she too wore shorts and a tiny white vest that did nothing to disguise the outline of her nipples. Greta felt a pang of guilt for staring. The woman began to collect the plates. ‘Shall I see if there’s any food left?’

‘Oh God, yes please,’ said Greta, the words gunning out of her. The woman laughed and Greta instantly liked her.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

While they waited, Zeb introduced his friends, everyone from either school or university apart from one couple, middle-aged Dom and Leo, who owned the antiques shop in the village. Dom was Spanish with droopy eyelids that made him look like a Habsburg without the jaw. Theirs were the only new names properly retained by Greta, who was otherwise distracted by Jude’s leg, pressed firmly against her own. She knew this was deliberate. It took effort to sustain a position like this. She didn’t move–neither of them did–though she thought of Ciarán, and her upcoming date to see his band. How obtuse of the universe to unshackle Jude from Lily, and propel him towards Greta, just as Ciarán appeared on the scene?

Though Ciarán wasn’t her boyfriend, yet. Their only contact since the lunch at Kourosh’s house had been a reminder about the gig via text. There was nothing to say they would ever be more than friends.

It felt luxurious, this surfeit of boys, and right now, only a little bit wrong.

‘Anyone mind if I smoke?’ said Leo. Greta looked at him. None of her friends smoked anything other than weed, and that not terribly often. Leo saw her looking and offered her a cigarette.

‘Go on, then,’ she said, taking one. Tonight, she was someone who smoked.

‘You don’t smoke,’ said Jude.

‘How do you know?’ she said, colouring. ‘The odd one.’

Jude watched as Leo lit her cigarette, his eyes narrowing with vicarious pleasure as she took her first, rather theatrical, drag. ‘Alright. Me too, please.’

Neither of them properly inhaled. Jude held his cigarette like a dart. He narrowed his eyes and tipped his head back to exhale the smoke. Held his arm behind his back to flick the ash on to the patio floor. It was all a little obvious. Still sexy, though. She wondered if she would sleep with him tonight. She hadn’t slept with anyone since the second year, and that had given her cystitis. She wondered what she would do if he made a move.

The table erupted into conversations around them. When he’d finished his smoke, Jude retrieved a couple of lagers from the kitchen. Rowan, or Ryan, anyway the woman with the nipples, arrived with plates of flan and salad, though apparently it was tartiflette, and not flan. She’d given it a blast in the microwave so it might be a bit chewy. She had also changed from her shorts and vest into jeans and pullover, an act which set off a trend amongst the other guests who one by one disappeared and then reappeared in warmer clothes.

‘It doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing any meteors tonight,’ Jude said to the table, eschewing cutlery for fingers.

‘He brought me here on false pretences,’ Greta said.

‘I can show you the grounds.’ He looked terribly solemn. It made her want to laugh. ‘They’re pretty fucking impressive.’

‘A turn around the shrubbery. How lovely.’ They were now talking only to each other.

‘It is, actually. Julian found a Roman coin in the field behind the garden.’

‘Did he?’ She took a sip of beer. ‘A real one?’

‘Hadrian. I’ll show you, after.’

‘Shouldn’t it be in a museum?’ Greta said, pulling back to focus.

‘It’s a coin, not a fucking hoard.’

As they ate, they were drawn into other conversations. Dom was interested to hear about Greta’s college work. He had been desperate to study art but there was a tradition of banking in his family and there had been no question of his doing anything else. Greta nodded along but really had no idea what he was talking about. He can’t have wanted it enough if he was willing to let a bit of family pressure stand in his way. Art took determination. It wheedled out the undeserving. He didn’t seem like a weak man. He had the air of the rich. She didn’t really believe him. He’d had a choice. A real artist had no choice. She liked him, though. She couldn’t catch him out with the likes of Maruja Mallo or Kati Horna. He knew his stuff. She accepted another cigarette, which she smoked while picking the burnt cheese from the crust of her tartiflette.

The screech of a little owl, piercing, raw and unnervingly close, silenced the table. In the moment that followed rose the undulating moan of an aeroplane, high, high up, hidden behind the now-impenetrable cloud. People shifted and readied themselves to leave. All agreed, they had been defeated by the British weather. It was now due to rain.

Greta and Jude remained under the pergola. The solar lights were beginning to yellow. Some had given up entirely.

‘Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour before it starts to piss down,’ Jude said, extending his hand. Greta rubbed the grease from her fingers with one of the cleaner napkins left on the table. She wasn’t sure if he was offering to haul her up or support her on their walk. She stood up and took a last swig of the Stella.

The night still had a little warmth in it, but the air moved strangely as the rain got closer, with little pockets of cold eddying around her neck and shoulders. She shivered.

‘I’ll get you a jacket,’ Jude said, diving inside. Greta couldn’t move. She would shatter if touched. This was hilarious. Because oh-my-God, she was going to shag Jude Laughland.