Secrets

She'd seen Joe and Wolf still bounding about the beach so she made haste to be the first one home. There, she paused at the gate and drank in the sight of the house which after the arduous slog uphill from town, had a similar effect to downing a long cool drink. Despite the general sharp chill in the air, she'd needed to take off her coat and bundle it into the hood of the buggy. At a standstill, she could feel the race of her heart and she was surprised at her lack of fitness.

Odd how, apart from its size, she'd noted very little about the building on arriving the previous day. Now, she had the time to. Compared to the creamy white bricks of Pease's buildings in town, the house, a large Victorian villa, was constructed with bricks which had a rose tint to them. Even on a cold March day, they appeared to soak in the sun and radiate its warmth. Decorative arches, some in bas-relief, some indented, broke up the expanse of brickwork between the tops of the windows and the roof. The roof was a mauve slate, its uniformity given interest by the tall chimney stacks of different design and the terracotta pointed crenelations along the ridges which might be to deter birds but could be purely ornamental. The white-framed sash windows were edged in cream stone. There were windows everywhere at all angles – no vista would go unseen from this house. When she had the time and the privacy, Tess would certainly look out from inside from every one of them.

Em was on the cusp of dozing off so Tess pushed the buggy on a tour around the garden – or gardens, for the half acre had been compartmentalized. There were polite lawns at the front, flanking the drive, another large expanse at the back demarcated by a blousy shrubbery and rolling herbaceous borders in something of a straggle. A little path mown through longer meadow grass at the back led to two sheds, one sizeable, one ramshackle. There were specific areas for a compost heap and bonfire site, an overgrown raised vegetable patch where only weeds shot out along the heaped rows. Behind a group of conifers was a plot apparently designated as Wolf's toilet. Well, she'd be asking Joe about fencing that bit off; she couldn't risk Em toddling in that direction. If that wasn't too much for a house-sitter to demand. What a place, though, what a space.

Suddenly, she was clinging onto a tree as if she was teetering on the edge of that great Huntcliff Nab, the majestic cliff which towered above the beach and plunged into the North Sea. The ground felt as if it were moving away from her feet like a conveyor belt in overdrive. Her breath was shorter, her heart racing harder than when she'd just slogged up the hill.

Em, Em, what have I done? Setting out to secure the best life for you? Or have I just run away? Where the hell are we? Where on earth have I brought us? What was I thinking? I didn't stop to think. I never stop to think. Am I running away? Will I be caught? Is this just hide-and-seek – have I gone to ground while kidding myself this is My New Life? These stupid ideas of mine.

When she finally felt able to open her eyes and prise her grip from the tree, she stood still awhile, blinking in the reality of her surroundings in a series of snapshots. The beauty and breadth of the grounds. The majestic poise of the house. The warmth of the bricks. A date stone carved with 1874. She repeated the date out loud quietly, over and over, the sound of the words regulating her breathing. She honed in on another stone plaque over the front door just visible from this angle. She wheeled the buggy over to take a closer look. The lettering was in relief. RESOLUTION, it read. Strange name for a house, she thought. And then she thought, it's time for resolutions of my own. It was a bright moment of calm after a storm of turbulent emotions. She placed both palms flat against the bricks. This house, by name alone, had instilled a new sense of purpose in Tess and she didn't feel merely soothed now, she felt bolstered. She returned to the main swathe of garden and parked the buggy in a quiet spot under a tree within sight and earshot of the kitchen windows and went inside to boil the kettle.

She made a cup of tea, more to hold than to drink. And there was Joe again, grinning from the photo on the dresser, yellow hard hat and the bridge in the background. Thank you, she said, thanks for this chance. She turned her gaze outside. She could see that Em was asleep in the buggy, Em was just fine.

‘Here.’

Joe's back.

Tess hadn't heard him come in and her vantage point from the kitchen window precluded seeing the approach to the house.

‘Keys – though as you've probably found out, the doors are rarely locked.’ He reached up for an old toby jug on the top shelf of the dresser, full of keys, and jangled a set. He looked at her quizzically. ‘Or you could keep mine,’ he said, ‘and I'll take this pair.’

It was then Tess realized the keys were still firmly in the clench of her fist as if she had no intention of letting them go. She looked at them. A Chubb and a Yale on a key ring from Brazil spelled with an ‘s’. Like the postmark on the card on the dresser from Giselle.

‘Have you been to Brazil, then?’

‘Yes. Many times.’

‘Have you a bridge there?’

‘Yes.’

Tess wondered why she wanted to say, and have you a Giselle there too? ‘Tea?’ she said instead.

‘Ta.’

‘Resolution.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Your home – it's a good name. Different.’

‘Next door is Endeavour.’

‘That's different too. But I prefer Resolution. I like the meaning.’

‘Not that up on British history, then?’

‘What?’

‘Resolution? Endeavour? They were the ships James Cook sailed on his voyages of discovery. This is Cook Country – he was born not far from here, just outside Middlesbrough. He sailed from Whitby – just down from here.’

Tess grasped the information. ‘Where did he go to on the Resolution? Where did he discover? When was that?’

‘1772. Cook sailed the Resolution for three years, disproved the southern continent by sailing round Antarctica and discovered Tonga and the New Hebrides. 1776 was his third and final voyage – off to the North Pacific on the Resolution to find the end of the North-West Passage which of course he didn't. But he did sail through the Bering Strait and he did discover Hawaii where, on a return visit, the natives killed him.’

Tess felt shy for her ignorance but she thanked Joe and said that Resolution was a beautiful name for a house.

‘Better than Dun Roamin',’ said Joe who appeared to Tess to be oddly immune to the romance of it all.

She thought about the house, inside and out. ‘All the windows,’ she said. ‘It's like a compass – views from every point.’

‘Well, your maritime analogy is strengthened by the fact that there are mice in the cellar and in a raging storm, the rain finds its way in through the lower windows.’ With that, he let Wolf out into the garden from the boot store off the utility room. Tess realized this must have been the way he'd come in just now. She followed him.

‘Does Wolf always go in that patch – over there? You know, “go”?’

‘Yes, he's very particular.’

‘Could you fence that part off, then?’

Joe looked at her. ‘How about I put a sign up instead. Like in municipal parks – you know, like Keep off the Grass.’

‘What – No Dogs instead?’

‘I thought more along the lines of No Children.’

There was a loaded pause between them.

‘Em can't read,’ Tess said, and her tone harked back to when she first saw Joe's dog. ‘She's only eighteen months.’

‘Wolf can't read,’ Joe said bluntly. ‘He's only a dog.’

‘You didn't say anything about a dog,’ Tess muttered.

‘Ditto child,’ said Joe. He felt curiously irritated. Not because of the child or the dog or the shit, just because this girl was doing it again. Unnerving him. Maybe it was sharing his space that caused it. Maybe those house-sitters who did the job unseen and not heard, suited him better. ‘I'm going to go to France early – tomorrow,’ he said.

‘Very good,’ she said because then she could have the place to herself.

The chill between them lasted a few moments longer but then Joe watched a whisper of vulnerability cross Tess's face.

‘Tea?’ she said though he hadn't finished his first cup.

‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘I need to crack on. We'll go through my diary in a while.’

Alone again, Tess looked out to the garden. Wolf was mooching around like a hairy metal-detector, never far from the buggy. Em's little fists were agitating the air around her.

They'll be OK, those two, Tess thought, they'll get along fine. It's not that relevant if Joe and I don't. He won't be here that often.

But she was appalled that her mind's eye had returned to the smatter of dark hair running from his stomach down to his jeans that she'd seen when he had reached up for the jug of keys.

Get your mind off that, she scolded, and fix your eye on your child outside.

And, though she had no reason to glance again at the photo on the dresser, she was helpless not to. It wasn't the hard hat or the bridge or the bare chest, it was the smile. A blend of euphoria and tenderness and utter focus. There had never been a time when someone had smiled at her like that.

Who were you smiling at, Joe? Where is she now?

‘It's a peace offering.’

Tess turns around, mortified. She is stooped over the bath with her bottom in the air and she knows her jeans are not the most flattering at the best of times. From this angle, there's no escaping builder's bum.

How long has he been standing there, holding the bottle of red wine?

‘A peace offering?’

‘I was arsey,’ Joe says, ‘before – about Wolf and the garden and Emmeline.’ He takes his eyes off Tess and focuses on the slippery pinkness and the foam Afro demarcating her daughter.

Tess scoops Em out of the bath and cocoons her in a towel. She sits down on the side of the bath not knowing what to say. ‘Well, that's OK, Joe. I was a bit – demanding. I'm just the house-sitter anyway. Not a house mate.’

Joe considers this. ‘Well, whoever you are, would you like to share a glass of wine? Save me from drinking the whole bottle?’

She felt herself ricochet between desire and reticence like a ball caught on a bagatelle. Yes, Tess wanted to say, yes please. Adult company. Someone to share an evening with. Someone with a nice stomach. Who can smile so well. Someone currently standing casually against the doorway of the bathroom just a foot or so away. But it is easier to be harsh on herself, lecturing herself as she lowers her head and rubs Em dry that she is here for a very different purpose than sewing seeds of friendship or being charmed by a member of the opposite sex. She's been rubbish at so much else over recent years, but this house might provide the fabric for her at least to be an excellent mummy and a fine house-sitter. And that'll do. That'll really do. She is not going to ask for more than that.

‘Thanks,’ she says, ‘but I'd better not. I'm a bit headachy. I'm going to have an early night.’

Chapter Five

When Joe shut the front door and Tess watched, unseen, as he drove away at eleven o'clock the next morning, she mourned the glass of red wine that had never been. But then Wolf sauntered by and headbutted her and Em was squawking and Tess told herself to get a grip and get on with it.

‘What'll we do, gang? Fresh air?’

Wolf, it soon transpired, would be taking Tess and Em for a walk. She didn't dare let him off the lead so he plunged and strained, dragging her and the buggy in his wake. The steep downward gradient of the hill on tarmac was onerous enough but when Wolf led them into the woods and the path became an uneven assault course of hairpin bends, it was quite terrifying. How safe she'd been in London – nothing more than the occasional raised paving stone to negotiate.

‘Wait!’ she said. ‘Halt!’ she said. ‘Sit!’ she said. ‘Stop, you great oaf, just stop.’ They stood in the dappled lilac-green light of woodland. Em and Wolf looking expectantly at Tess. With her composure and breath back, and Wolf having to walk with a peculiar high-stepping slo-mo gait, Tess became leader of the pack. The steep woodland suddenly opened out and levelled off in a little dell of meticulously organized Italianate design. Raised flower beds in intricate quatrefoils and curlicues currently nurtured embryonic planting that would no doubt proliferate as the weather grew warmer. Running in straight lines around the beds, a pathway plotted with regularly placed benches and punctuated by stone columns currently skeletal but which, by the summer, would be cloaked in extravagant floral displays. It was eerily quiet and though Tess tried sitting, she soon moved away.

They walked on until again the woods gave way to open meadows and a river over which catkins trickled off branches and there was a Poohsticks bridge. She found a bench for herself, plied Em with rice cakes and threw sticks for the dog. He seemed unable to track any of them but was eager to belt off in the approximate direction, bounding back to Tess as if to say, again! again! again! It made Em laugh. And it made Tess consider how pleased she was that Joe hadn't said anything about a dog because if he had, she wouldn't have taken the job. But the dog's character had won her over; his doleful mismatched eyes and soppy head-cocking were so appealing that she was now immune to his bizarre appearance. It was a novelty, having a pet part-time. And it was going to be a good thing for Em, Tess justified.

‘Fetch,’ she said, though she sat on her hands. Wolf looked at her in confusion. ‘Fetch,’ she said, hurling something imaginary which Wolf bolted off for. Daft bugger. She stroked him affectionately when he came galloping back. His ears felt like the rags she had in the back of her car. They were of a similar colour, and just as frayed. ‘Dog-eared,’ Tess laughed. ‘Come on, let's go home and get you two some lunch.’

Pushing the buggy uphill as it dinked and lurched over the pathways, while having to haul an exhausted Wolf lagging behind her was a slog and Tess decided she wouldn't be pitching quite so many imaginary sticks for the dog tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow she'd venture a little further – not afield, but into town again. Today it felt enough to have walked and walked in the woods, to have found the Italian Gardens and the river.

Back at the house, rooting around in cupboards for a tin of baked beans, she came across a jar of preserved apricots over two years out of date. And a dead moth. And then sugar that had congealed into a solid block. Next to it, a lidless jar of Marmite with a layer of fluff furring the surface. Further inspection revealed plenty more in there – crumbled packets, tins with unfurling labels, sticky bottles. But the baked beans at least were in date and there was still half the loaf of the good bread Joe had bought yesterday. She glanced at the clock. Lunch-time. Where would Joe be right now? When exactly would he be back?

The afternoon was washed away by rain which came down like old-fashioned beaded curtains so, while the child and dog were napping, Tess made a start. The only apron she could find, in a scrunch with a collection of old batteries in one of the kitchen drawers, had a cartoon illustration of a naked female body on it, complete with foam breasts that, with time and storage, had puckered like a bad boob-job. Never mind, it would have to do. After all, there was no one here to see her. The kitchen table now had a usable surface large enough (since Tess had liberated it from the piles of Joe's stuff) for her to place items to be kept. Anything out of date, or just plain dodgy (some yellowish powder that was neither sugar nor flour, some worrying dried brown pellets, the apricots, Marmite and moths) she dumped in a bin bag. The cupboards she would disinfect before reorganizing. She looked everywhere for cleaning fluid and though it appeared Joe bought Fairy liquid in bulk and had plenty of pristine cloths that looked nothing like his dog's ears, that was about it.

She thought of the dog. And the baby. And the hill. And the enclave of shops. And the hill back. And the ache in her arms and the nag in her shins. The woods were one thing – she'd liked the company of only oak, ash, hazel and alder; the solitude had made her feel so together. Human contact, she anticipated, was quite another. Too much, too soon. On her own, she could be busy and in control – but how would she answer if someone said, hullo, love, are you new to these parts? Anyway, she wanted Em to have another half-hour's sleep and by the look of Wolf, sprawled halfway across the kitchen floor, he needed the same. She rooted around in the utility room. More Fairy liquid. And cheap washing powder. Even at her most impecunious, Tess had never scrimped on buying leading brand, dermatology-tested hypo-allergenic tablets.

Better make a list – prioritize what's essential. Where's a pen when you need one? Probably up in her bag, hanging on the back of the chair in her bedroom. But two flights of creaking stairs risked waking the baby so she looked around the entrance hall, searched through the drawers of the console. Found a biro. A glove. Some loose playing cards a fair few short of a full deck. A necklace of paperclips. But no scrap paper. Well, there was a Chinese takeaway menu and an address book but all the pages were densely written in the copperplate hand of a much older generation. She cursed herself for having so ruthlessly chucked out the heap of scrap on the kitchen table. Joe had laughed and had said, OK, I get the hint. He had taken some of the papers away while authorizing her to bin the sizeable mound still on the table.

Joe's study. Tess hovered by the door. What were the rules and would this be breaking any? An invasion of privacy? Out of bounds? It hadn't been discussed. He hadn't given her the house-sitter's pack he'd mentioned. She turned the handle, half expecting the door to be locked but it wasn't.

A floor-to-ceiling bookcase ran across two entire walls, the proliferation of spines serving the eye like detailed wallpaper. On the third wall, a collection of frames. Diplomas it looked like, some authenticated by red sealing wax. Certificates. Awards. An old print of a run of classical bridges that Tess knew had to be Venice. Against this wall, a large old writing desk with an inlay of moulting green leather and a stack of drawers with brass hinge handles to either side. A specialist would wince, no doubt, that it was in desperate need of French polishing and the leather, frayed and papery, should be replaced entirely, but Tess felt that would be missing the point. The swivel chair appeared to be a little skew but she imagined that it was perfectly aligned for Joe. The fourth wall wasn't really a wall at all, dominated as it was by full-length French windows looking out to yet another aspect of the garden. From the main approach, the house appeared as an imposing solid block. But Tess now felt how it was far from this. Windows at angles, rooms at tangents to the main walls; it felt fortified, there were no blind spots, the house had been configured so that every inch of its grounds could be viewed.

To either side of the French windows, a column of thick maroon velvet hung, faded along the folds to suggest the curtains were rarely drawn. In front of them, at odds with the entire room yet dominating the space and proclaiming Joe's authority, was a vast, stark white draughtsman's table; its top angled up, a high-tech stool in position.

I'm here for a scrap of paper.

But that did not preclude finding it being a lengthy process. She glanced at the clock. Em would be waking soon – Joe, perhaps landing. Tess imagined him fastening his seatbelt thinking, Christ, who the hell is this woman I've left in charge of my house – she's probably rummaging around my study this very moment.

One of the brass handles on the desk drawers was sticking out, as if suspended in time waiting for someone to pull it. She folded it gently down. She brushed her hand over the surface of the leather inlay and took her face to it to inhale. Ink and dust and history. She smiled, recognizing some of the documents and papers that had been in a scatter on the kitchen table now in a neater pile here, on top of a less ordered pile that was itself balanced on a jumble of others. She didn't give the laptop more than a glance; it was closed, and jarringly sleek and silvery for the desk. She thought of her Hotmail account and then thought better of it. She looked at all the framed certificates and found out Joe's middle name was Randal and his surname was Saunders. She imagined he was teased about this when he was younger. There couldn't have been many Randals in Saltburn in his school days. Nor now, probably. It seemed he was top at everything he'd done. Cross-country running included. There was a beautifully calligraphed, extravagantly embossed certificate in French. Tess's knowledge of the language was limited. Some fancy accolade for M. Joseph R. Saunders. Perhaps it was the freedom of a city for which he'd built a bridge.

Building bridges is what he did and the meticulous sketches on the draughtsman's desk attested to this. Tess perched herself on the stool and peered at them. A myriad of details, they resembled completed studies of architectural fragments, replete with angles and figures and arrows and symbols. Unable to interpret the details, Tess felt a little small, intimidated by the apparent complexity and Joe's obvious expertise. How ever do these two-dimensional clippings materialize into vast structures which carry, cover and join? She swivelled the stool and thought about this. As the stool stilled, she caught sight of a wastepaper basket under the old desk. Bingo. She retrieved a handful of scrap paper and sat at the desk to write her shopping list.

Washing powder (E)

Disinfectant

Nice cheese (me)

Marmite

Organic pasta (E)

Ditto rusks (E)

Biscuits (me)

Fruit & Veg

That would do for now. She did wonder whether to replace any of the out-of-date items she'd thrown away. But then she decided if a man hadn't had the desire for preserved apricots or brown pellet things during the last two years, he probably wouldn't crave them anytime soon. She glanced at the back of the paper – or what would have been the front when it had served Joe. A column of names. Her own included. It was a list of those applying for the job. The first name had a question mark and O.C.D?! written alongside. Mrs Mackey had been rewritten as Mrs Mucky and had a large X by her name. John Forder had mass murderer and a doodle of a dagger dripping blood by his. Mr and Mrs Potts had ANCIENT!! in capital letters by theirs. Mrs Dunn, however, had a tick and an arrow to a telephone number. Then another arrow to a sizeable cross with the word busybody! Then Tess saw her name. Next to it was no tick, no cross, no arrows, just a single word. Barking. No exclamation mark to lighten it. She thought back to the phone call, where she'd used her phoney American accent before exchanging it for a whisper. She remembered accepting the job before it had been offered. Barking, she had to concede, was an acceptable definition. But she would have liked a doodle by her name all the same. She wondered how Joe would rethink this categorization having had a couple of days of her. She slumped a little as if she could physically feel how she'd let herself down. Stroppy Cow, she wrote alongside Barking.

Then she wondered, would Joe declare her a busybody for fumigating his kitchen? Would he think she had OCD for planning to enforce structure in his store cupboards? Perhaps such enterprise would earn her a great big tick, maybe even a doodle. It had been a long, long time since anyone had bestowed a seal of approval on her. Even the paltry tips at the salon had fallen short of being anything but a formality. She looked at her nails and added Emery board (me) to the list. She'd left her manicure set on the sofa in London. A feeble gesture, but a gesture all the same. It was a professional kit and had been expensive. She hoped her landlord, nasty man, might know so. Would he have called by now? Three days, she reminded herself, that's all it's been.