Secrets

‘What exactly does a house-sitter do?’ she asked. ‘Am I to tidy and clean then?’

Joe tapped the side of his mug thoughtfully and Tess sensed he wasn't thinking of an answer, he was thinking of the best way to make it known. ‘Well, it's not really a defined role like house keeping. For me, I need someone here for times when I'm gone – and I'm away for work a lot for varying periods of time. In the past, I've had people stay for a few weeks – and that hasn't really worked. That's why I want someone who can stay long-term. I don't want you buggering off after a month. You need to really learn the ways of this house. If lights aren't switched on, they soon enough don't come on at all when you need them to. If rooms are left untended, a staleness hangs in the air that is troublesome to clear. The water, especially, needs to run. The freezer tends to frost up. The sofas go hard and lumpy if they're not sat on. At this time of year, some of the doors can warp and can't shut or others can't be opened. So, unlike some house-sitting jobs you may have done, I don't designate quarters for you. And so – yes, a little light cleaning is part of the deal. And you're OK about the pay?’

It struck her that he presumed she'd house-sat before – whereas she'd always assumed house-sitting was more a brief opportunity than a profession. A stopgap. But he said that this position was potentially long-term. She hadn't thought of that. Perhaps she should have packed more. And then she thought she might make quite a good house-sitter. She thought how there might be muck and mess in her life but she'd always kept her surroundings tidy and clean. She thought back to the flat at Bounds Green that she'd left just that morning and as she did, she felt a plug of lead plummet straight through her, buckling her a little and causing a blear to glaze her eyes. Landlord, nasty man, breaking and entering. Finding her gone. Chucking her stuff out with the rubbish in disgust, even though she'd left her TV set behind in the vague hope it might go some way towards the outstanding rent. Perhaps he'd called the police.

‘Excuse me, are you OK?’

Tess looked up from having been miles away, 250 miles south, and she was momentarily surprised to see Joe and not Landlord, nasty man, sitting there. She nodded and kissed Em, over and over. She gave Wolf an energetic rub, discovering that his coat was far softer on the hand that it was on the eye.

‘I'm just tired – it was a long haul to make my way here.’

‘Well, here you are – and I have work to crack on with so how about the guided tour?’ And, as Joe led the way out of the kitchen, into the utility room, through to the boot store before retracing the route back to the expansive entrance hall, he thought to himself that there was something gently peculiar about all of this, something oddly compelling. However, his prevailing feeling was that it was OK for Tess and the child to be here, for the knackered red hatchback to take up a little patch of the sweeping driveway alongside his Land Rover. For a baby's voice to enliven the stillness of the old house, adding variety to Wolf's low woofs and whines. For a woman's touch to dissuade the dust. For Wolf to have company. And, on the occasions he himself was to be home, for Joe to have company too.

‘Am I allowed to watch your TV? I had to leave mine in London. Do you have a record player and am I allowed to play it?’

Joe stopped and turned. ‘Most house-sitters I've known bring their own stuff – but if you want to watch my TV or play my music, or play your music on my equipment, you are welcome.’

Though he was friendly and obviously at ease, Tess found him slightly detached; he met her questions with a quizzical expression, a rather aloof response. Tess's mind scurried over possible rules that a more experienced house-sitter might want to establish.

‘Should I keep my food separate from yours? Is there a shelf for me in the fridge? Are there times when the heating or hot water isn't to be used?’

‘Start running a bath early,’ Joe advised, ‘the hot water takes a while. And I'd much rather you availed yourself of whatever's in the fridge or cupboards – as long as you restock when I'm due back.’

It occurred to Joe that this woman had never done this before. Some previous house-sitters had even brought their own compact fridges. Most brought their own televisions. They didn't enquire about his hi-fi. They all but stipulated private cupboard space in the kitchen. They usually marked up their food with stickers. And then he thought to himself that, if she didn't really know what was expected of her, then he could change the rules and alter the conventional set-up. He quite fancied doing things a little differently. He was rather amused by the idea of coming across her watching something on the box that he'd planned on viewing himself anyway.

There were times – they were infrequent and it had taken some time for her to feel comfortable in acknowledging that they existed – when Tess really would rather not have Em around. Not permanently, of course, but just for those moments she'd prefer to be on her own. Meeting this marvellous, vast old house was one of them. Room after room where she craved time by herself to drink it all in, see the view from that window, look back into the room and regard it from this aspect or that corner. Run her hands over the wood panelling. Feel how cold, or warm, the marble mantelpiece was. Let her fingers bounce along book covers – the way she used to bounce a stick along the wooden fence which ended at the wall heralding her grandmother's house. Instead, she found herself having to assess rooms in a glance, attempting to absorb what Joe was saying while trying to be low-key and even-toned when repeating, don't touch, Em, don't touch. Come back here. No, no – put that back. Careful!

It wasn't that Tess actually minded Em touching or exploring; rather, she didn't want anything to jeopardize this job being hers. This job now seemed more than the answer to her present predicament; it seemed to be the embodiment of long-held dreams. This house was a haven, if a slightly unkempt one.

And if I look after it, it'll care for me.

‘Sorry?’ Joe was looking at her.

Tess, appalled that she might have spoken out loud, quickly turned to her child. ‘Em! Mummy said be careful.’

‘This is the other sitting room,’ Joe was saying as he led them into a room whose walls were dark red, with two sofas of well-worn brown leather, curtains half drawn. Tess wondered, if you sat still enough, whether no one need know you were there at all.

‘When do you use this room?’ she asked.

‘TV,’ Joe said. ‘I know it's naff – but look.’ He opened a cabinet door to reveal a sizeable flat-screen set.

‘Do you have CBeebies?’

‘What's that?’

‘It's a kids’ channel,’ Tess said, brushing the air as if her question was unimportant and an affirmative answer was no big deal.

‘Probably,’ said Joe and he zapped at the remote control. ‘Is this it?’

‘No.’

‘This?’

‘No.’

‘How about this?’

‘No. It doesn't matter. It's not a problem. I brought DVDs that Em likes. If that's OK, I mean. If you have a DVD player? Oh – and if it's OK for me to use it?’

‘Sure. Why not. See here – and you need this remote control. Now, come through. This is another loo. And this is a room that – well – I just keep stuff like this in. Quite a useful room, really – though it's become a bit of a dumping ground. Now – upstairs. This is my floor – I'm down there. But I keep the hoover in this room here. Slightly extravagant – and actually, there's another hoover downstairs. But I'd say life's too short to lug a lone vacuum cleaner up and down all these stairs.’

‘Or to use either of them much at all, really,’ Tess remarked, eyeing fluff and stuff on the floors. She caught Joe looking a little taken aback. ‘That's what I'm for,’ she said brightly, ‘that's why I'm here, it's part of the job, isn't it – and I quite like hoovering.’

Joe's expression was odd but he walked on ahead and up a flight of stairs before she could read too much into it.

On the second floor were three further bedrooms and a large bathroom, floored in shiny black-and-white chequered lino. There was a smaller bathroom on the landing going up to the top floor where another two bedrooms, without beds, were in the eaves. There was more attic space too, he told her.

‘Take which you like,’ Joe said, walking back down to the second floor, ‘I don't mind. Mostly the house-sitters squirrel themselves away right at the top.’

‘Is that where I should be?’

‘I said – take which you like.’

‘Sorry.’ She paused. ‘Really?’

He shrugged. ‘Of course.’

‘Could I take the front room on this floor?’

‘Sure.’

Tess returned to it. A bay window. A window seat. A double bed, stripped to the mattress, with a dark wood bedstead. Nearly but not quite matching chest of drawers and wardrobe, both almost fitting into the alcoves either side of the fireplace. Cherrywood perhaps. A similar colour to the design decorating the tiles of the fireplace.

‘Which one for Emmeline?’

And Joe had to repeat the question because Tess was looking into the wardrobe as if she could see right through to Narnia.

‘Which one for Emmeline?’

‘Em?’

‘A bedroom – for Emmeline,’ Joe said. ‘Which would be suitable for her?’

‘She can have her own bedroom?’ Tess said, flabbergasted. Joe looked flabbergasted to the contrary. ‘She can bunk up with me,’ Tess said, as if availing herself of anything more than Joe had already offered her would be obscene. ‘She has done so far. I have a travel cot. Well – it's her only cot.’

Joe shurgged. ‘Whatever suits you. But you're welcome to the other rooms. To house-sit successfully, you need to feel at home.’

At home, thought Tess when Joe had gone downstairs leaving her to gawp at her leisure.

This house is a home.

And she sat down and looked around her and thought, how did I come to be here?

How on earth did I come to be here?

Chapter Two

Joe could hear her, clattering around. He listened to his furniture being moved and he wondered if he minded. When all went quiet he reckoned she was making the beds – he'd heard the yawn of the linen cupboard door being opened repeatedly, as if she was searching for the best thread-counts. The other house-sitters had always come so prepared. Some had come positively armoured, especially those from agencies. They never seemed much interested in his offer of a home from home – instead, they turned up bringing portable habitats with them – boxes and suitcases of pillows, towels, lamps, TVs. One young man brought his own cutlery and a bespoke wooden container for it, the Scottish lady brought her own armchair and Joe doubted that she ever sat in one of his. It was as if they pitied Joe or disapproved of the contents on offer and so constructed their self-contained pods within the fabric of his home. Which was probably why they were happy to move on – however long they stayed, the charms of the old house never seduced them and Joe ended up thanking them far more than they thanked him.

He had helped Tess in with her bulging suitcase and numerous bags that appeared to contain solely the accoutrements required by a toddler. There was an iron on the passenger seat of her car and a box on the back seat billowing wafts of the Cleveland Gazette. She told him it contained two bone-china cups and saucers and would he mind if she put them in the kitchen. They were her Grandma's, apparently, and made tea taste its best. The footwell in the back was taken up with carrier bags full of vinyl LPs, which Joe said she was welcome to unpack in his sitting room. There were also three taped-up cardboard boxes in her boot. He'd offered to bring these in – but she'd said, they'll stay there, thank you very much, as if they were in disgrace.

That was a couple of hours ago. He hadn't seen her since, but she'd been calling down to him at various intervals. Checking it was OK for her to swap the lampshade in ‘her’ room for the one in the top bedroom. And did he mind if she brought in the bedside drawers from the other bedroom. And could she move the single bed in Em's room through to the furthest bedroom because the iron bedstead concerned her and the paint was probably lead-based. And if she moved the Persian rug from that furthest bedroom into Em's room, would that be all right? Because then the iron bed wouldn't put unsightly dints into it and anyway what a shame for such a lovely rug to be stashed away in an unused bedroom. Joe really didn't need the details, or the rationale, and in the end he shouted from the bottom of the staircase, mi casa su casa– sorry, but I really need to crack on with my work. And she called down, oh! sorry! And he called up, don't worry. And she called down, OK! sorry again! And he didn't call back up. But he found that he did wait until he heard the floor-boards creaking again before he closed the study door.

He saw to his emails, organized his diary, looked through his file and then went to sit at his drawings. It was always the same when he next looked at his watch. He tapped it, held it to his ear as if it had malfunctioned and could not possibly be telling the correct time. It was gone nine o'clock and it was very quiet upstairs. Even in the silence, another's presence in the house was palpable and a few minutes later it became apparent that it was so quiet upstairs because actually she was downstairs, in the kitchen. Help yourself, he'd said earlier and he assumed she was now doing just that. He was tempted to wander in on the pretext of a cup of tea and was about to do so when a glance at his drawings and their glaringly overdue incompleteness drew him to his desk.

But then she started singing.

He wished she wouldn't.

Not that she couldn't hold a tune.

Just that it was a distraction.

He switched the radio on and tuned it to the World Service and turned the volume down so the voices sounded hushed, reverential, as if in a library. He concentrated on the plans in front of him, his initial freehand drawings on torn scraps Blu-tacked around the large sweep of graph paper; notes and measurements and calibrations pinned around his desk.

It was odd having young female energy in the house. It was unexpectedly compelling, really. New and different. But of what concern was it to him? He'd be away, mostly. France at the beginning of next week. London. Possibly the Far East later in the year. A trip to California in the late autumn. Various interludes in Belgium in between.

Concentrate.

It's only the house sitter finding her way.

Tess was making an omelette when she caught sight of a photo of Joe propped against a milk jug on the Welsh dresser. She had wondered whether she should offer to cook for him too, or if that was more a housekeeper's job than a house-sitter's. She decided not to. Anyway, there were only two eggs left and he looked like a three-to-four-in-an-omelette type of bloke. She'd make him a cup of tea instead, builder's tea not gnat's pee, and leave it outside his study door, knock once and then disappear. Perhaps she'd make it in one of her own teacups. Or would that be rude? Would that suggest she thought his crockery not good enough? Or was she being slightly ridiculous? First she needed to have her food and a sit-down. Her back was nagging – she'd never driven such a distance and then manoeuvred so much furniture before unpacking her life to make things just right for Em, now sound asleep in her new room. She took her plate to the table, picking up the photo of Joe on her way. He was younger then; his hair not so flecked. Bare-chested and tanned, wearing baggy khaki shorts, work boots and a hard hat. There was a bridge in the background. San Francisco, perhaps. He was smiling, looked ecstatic, actually. Probably grinning at a girlfriend, Tess thought. They probably swapped positions and somewhere there's a picture of her in front of this bridge too. Is it San Francisco? Perhaps not – isn't the Golden Gate Bridge a reddish colour? She put the photo back. Glanced at a postcard in pidgin English from a Giselle Someone, postmarked Brasil a couple of years ago. Tess liked to browse recipes while she ate but there appeared to be no cookery books, only an old National Geographic on top of the pile of unopened letters and discarded post on the kitchen table. She tapped Joe's chest in the photo. Bet you're one for the ladies, she thought.

She sat down and gazed at the food on her plate. She marvelled at how Em had been so compliant, eaten well, welcomed sleep so amiably for once. Tess smiled at the thought of her daughter snuggled down for a really good night's sleep. In a house. Fingers crossed she'd sleep through tonight – Tess knew she was in desperate need of a few hours’ total rest herself and she wasn't sure how Joe would react to Em's midnight or dawn chorus. Or Wolf for that matter. She felt she'd done a good job making Em's room homey and suitable; finding a low bookshelf in one of the attic rooms on which she'd arranged Em's toys invitingly. She'd vacuumed the Persian rug and placed it centrally so that Em had somewhere warm on top of the bare floorboards on which to play. She'd tacked up the paper border she'd bought ages ago but had never fixed to the rented walls in London. Funny how she'd thought to bring it with them. She'd used sellotape, lightly because she planned to ask Joe if she could do it properly, with paste. She'd ask him tomorrow because by tomorrow she suspected there'd be a lot more to ask him. She'd make a list in bed.

The omelette tasted so good. She hadn't eaten all day because her car had needed fuel more than she had and there had only been money for the one of them. She thought she was possibly romanticizing the omelette – she'd been so hungry even stale bread would have tasted ambrosial. She looked around her and realized she liked this kitchen so much because all the stuff was owned, it all belonged to someone, it belonged here; it hadn't been bought on the cheap for tenants past, present and future. Mi casa su casa, he'd said. Don't mind if I do, Tess said under her breath as she took her plate to the sink. Conversely, she also sensed that she could relax because if the phone went in this place, it wouldn't be for her. And no one could come thumping on this front door for her because they couldn't know that she was here. She was a lifetime away from London and it was a relief. As she boiled the kettle, she thought how she was making tea for Joe and a new life for herself.

She hovered outside his door. She could hear a radio. She didn't even know what he did for work, what it was that took him away for periods long enough to require a house-sitter. She didn't even know his surname. She put the mug down and knocked gently, twice. Heard huffing and panting and was taken aback for a moment before she remembered Wolf.

It was not yet ten o'clock; too early to turn in though she was fantastically tired. However, recalling how the bath had taken an age to run for Em, Tess decided to start it now. While it was filling, she would make a final check of the car. It looked a little lonely, very small, out there on the gravel drive.

‘Thank you for bringing us here in one piece and on a single tank,’ she whispered. In the boot, the three cardboard boxes. She poked one accusatorily, as if it was animate. There was probably little call for the contents up here in Saltburn but Tess could not have left them behind. She might hate them and level blame against them, but there was a little bit of her inside them too. She dug around in the two smaller boxes, retrieved a pot from one and a tube from the other. ‘Made With Love,’ she muttered, as if reading the label for the first time. She was about to twist the lid off one, a moisturizer, but resisted when she remembered the twelve-month shelf life once opened. Anyway, she'd packed a tub of Nivea which was still almost full. The thought of it brought her grandmother to mind. She'd have given Tess short shrift. Put Tunisian what on my face? she'd have said. How much do you charge for one of those tubes, did you say? Good God, girl, she'd have chided, what's wrong with Nivea?

What's wrong with Nivea indeed? If only I'd asked myself that question in the first place. Suddenly Tess was tearful. One of her earliest memories was deep in that iconic navy-blue pot. Her grandmother's face slathered with the thick, white, gently-scented cream, used in such quantity and applied in such a way that it coated her face in little peaks like a miniature mountain range, like Christmas cake icing. Her skin had been very good, Tess reminisced and, looking back into the boxes in the boot of her car, she liked to think that her grandmother might have liked her hand-cream at least. Made with love. Too bad she didn't live long enough to see any of it. But there again, thank God she hadn't lived to witness the current mess of it all.

I miss her still.

Tess shut the boot gently and walked back to the house, quickening her pace as she wondered if she'd been lost in thought long enough for the bath to have overflowed.

Inside, however, the pipes were still clanging and protesting at having to deliver another bath and the water was retching in fits and starts out of the tap so Tess went for a walk through the house again. At last, she could take time to run her fingers over things, see what books were on the shelves, find out which channels were available on the TV, feel the heaviness of the curtains, sniff at the fireplace to tell whether it was real or gas, test out all the chairs and sofas and find the one most comfortable to her. She pressed her face against windowpanes to look outside from every window even though it was dark.

The house really was immense – not just because she was conditioned to thin stud-walls subdividing the meagre space characterizing the London rental market. Here, the doors were definitely wider, the furniture larger, ceilings higher, floorboards broader, stairs longer. She could imagine turning cartwheels in the expansive hallway when she had the place to herself. She wouldn't need to talk in a whisper when Em went to bed, she could sing at the top of her voice and not wake her.

Sitting curled in a cavernous armchair in the grander sitting room, Tess invited the notion of a dog sprawled at her feet – even if it was to be a giant, mangy old thing. She knew little about dog breeds, but she very much doubted that Wolf was anything other than a mutt. Surely no one would actively breed dogs to look like that? There was something of the greyhound about him, but with none of the requisite grace in either conformation or movement. His colouring suggested German Shepherd but his coat was fashioned along his back and the top of his head with the wiry curls of a terrier, while limp-long stringy sections, which alluded more to an old mop than any breed, hung down from everywhere else. He had one blue eye and one brown, which gave his face a lopsided look enhanced further by him being apparently unable to keep his tongue in his mouth. It was like a flap of chewed leather always lolling out on one side or the other. His owner said he was harmless. Perhaps it would be a good experience for Em too.

Tess thought, why have a dog if he has to leave him here so frequently? And then she thought, why choose a dog who looks sewn together in big clumsy blanket-stitch from a melange of various elements animate and inanimate? Do owners grow to look like their dogs – or aren't they meant to be attracted to breeds that look like them? Well, there was little physical correlation between Wolf and Joe – the dog really was as eye-poppingly ugly as his owner was easy on the eye. Opposites attract, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, don't judge a book – Tess ran through her grandmother's sayings as she left the sitting room to check on her bath. Then she hovered at the top of the stairs, wondering whether to call out goodnight, two flights down.