Secrets

Quick, quick, quick.

Socks. The good jeans. A clean black top. Hair tamed into a pony-tail. Baby fragrant, pink, cute, clean face.

Slow down. Slow down. Silly to be so excited. Really silly.

He was in the kitchen, with a cup of tea.

‘The French are very, very good at most things,’ he said, ‘but making tea is not one of them.’

‘Welcome back,’ Tess said and she glanced around the room. Has he noticed anything?

‘Everything OK? Did Wolf behave himself? He looks well.’

‘All's fine,’ she said. ‘How was your trip?’

‘Good. Productive. The project is progressing. I ate a lot of garlic. I ate horse. I argued with the concrete company, I assured the planners that there's been no change to the height, I persuaded the client it may be a little more expensive than we agreed. Oh, and I drank too early in the day – France is France.’

Tess was nodding as if she'd been there. ‘Well, welcome back.’

‘Merci, mademoiselle.’

‘Must be nice to be home after hotels.’

‘Oh, I was in an apartment,’ Joe said and he wondered why he made the place sound corporate rather than Nathalie's.

‘Did you have a balcony? And cast-iron twirly railings, long thin French doors and wafting organza drapes?’

He regarded Tess – by the look of her, she dearly wanted the answer to be yes. He recalled briefly Nathalie's ultra-modern pad. ‘Of course. And I drink my morning coffee out of a big white bowl.’

He started to glance around his own kitchen, as if it was taking him minute by minute to reacclimatize to his surroundings. ‘It's all looking very –’

Tess didn't want him to finish his sentence before he'd seen it all.

‘Let me show you!’ She rushed through the room, cupboard after cupboard, flinging open the doors and presenting the interiors like a showroom sales manager.

‘You've been busy,’ he said, flicking through his post. She realized she had hoped he'd jump to his feet, to inspect and marvel.

‘Just making myself useful. You don't mind, do you? It's the sort of job that's a shag to do yourself – but I thought it could be part of why I'm here.’ She was a fast fidget of words. ‘I'm making a start on the drawing room—’

‘– the where?’

She reddened. ‘The grander sitting room – the one without the telly.’

‘Making a start?’

‘Just cleaning and organizing. Doing your books – you know, in alphabetical order. I could do your CDs in the other room too, if you like. You can decide the system – you know, whether Bruce Springsteen comes under B or S. If you have Bruce Springsteen.’

His expression was illegible.

‘Your herbs were alive,’ she continued, ‘and you had stuff two years out of date. And no disinfectant. So I took the liberty – you know, out with the old, in with the new. But I did replace most stuff, at least store-cupboard essentials. And fresh food in the fridge, like you asked. Have you seen the fridge? A lemon cut in half put in the egg tray keeps whiffs at bay – my grandmother told me so.’

She was tying herself in knots of trivial information and it amused Joe. He'd put his post to one side.

‘I can't pay you more,’ he said and he really didn't mean it to sound curt but it did – harsh even. And if she'd given him the chance to retract it and apologize for it, he'd have thanked her and praised her too. But she'd already leapt to the defensive.

‘I'm not doing it for the money,’ she said, intentionally spiky.

And they stared at each other and thought to themselves, oh, it's you. I remember now, you have the ability to wind me up.

Tess took Em out for a walk straight away. Wolf took it upon himself to follow them out. Joe called the dog from the house, when he thought he was straying, but the dog ignored him, much to Joe's annoyance and to gentle satisfaction on Tess's part. Once she'd gone, Joe looked in at the disarray in the large living room or drawing room, said, Jesus Christ, shut the door and made for his study. At least his study was as he'd left it. He swivelled on his stool. He'd intended only to tease; he'd meant no offence. But that Tess should bristle so excessively had served to shut down his apology. However, he regretted the situation now. And he was sorry that the house should have emptied so soon after his arrival. He went to the kitchen and glanced in a cupboard. He'd never seen it like that. He looked in the others and had to admit to himself that he was impressed and not irritated. She really had been busy. What had she done in her rooms? He made another cup of tea and took it upstairs, to have a nose.

The child's room looked just that: a room for a child – toys in mutiny all over the place, miniscule clothes on scaled-down hangers, a floral border mounted not very precisely at dado height, pastel-patterned bedding folded neatly over the sides of the travel cot. It had been Joe's bedroom this, once upon a time, but he had no memories of it being so – he pondered – being so what exactly? What was it that it seemed now, that it had never seemed then? It took a while to pinpoint. Friendly, he decided. Friendly. He was tempted to sit cross-legged on the floor. It alarmed him a little. He left the room without looking back into it.

Tess's room appeared peculiarly feminine. She'd changed the configuration of the bed but apart from that, and adding furniture from elsewhere in the house, the room remained much the same. She'd found tiebacks for the curtains from somewhere and had taken cushions from elsewhere to put on the window seat. A throw Joe knew wasn't his made the bed seem, well, made. Against the fireplace, the LPs he'd lugged in from her car. The little table in the corner, which he hadn't seen for years and she'd found God only knows where, had on it a notebook and pen, a pot of Nivea, and a jaunty little pouch containing make-up. He casually flipped through the notebook. It was blank. Over the chair, her handbag – a beat-up brown leather thing. Maybe not genuine leather. On the Lloyd Loom seat, the scrunch of clothes he now remembered she'd been wearing when he first arrived this morning. Under the chair, a cardboard box. In it, he saw an iron, a kettle, a strange little wire basket and three rather dated fitness videos. Rather strange equipment to have brought with her, he thought. On the windowsill outside, three small handmade terracotta plant pots. Crocus and narcissus in flower. She must have planted those in London last autumn. Overall, the room smelt nice. Of clean things. Of fresh air having been let in on a daily basis. It didn't seem anything like the room his father used, that he escaped into for hours on end when his mother was being unbearable. The uninvited memory made Joe leave quickly.

The bathroom was gleaming. He sniffed at the baby shampoo and bubble bath and discovered it was this gentle scent which permeated the two bedrooms. Nicer than his Head & Shoulders. He noted that Tess had been through his entire towel supply to carefully choose only those that matched. Flannel, hand-towel, bath sheet. The baby, it appeared, had brought her own personalized set; soft, thick and fluffy with an embroidered duck and a curlicue ‘E’.

There was a spare loo roll. A bottle of bleach. A book called Splishy Splashy made out of plastic. Rubber ducks in pink, mint and yellow. A new, higher wattage light bulb. Toothpaste for sensitive teeth. Another tube for one-to-three-year-olds. A little toothbrush that looked like it was for a doll. A sponge in the shape of a frog. A lovely room. Magazine worthy. Yet was this not the room he'd been locked in as a child, when he'd been bad or had been perceived as such? His parents’ version of today's Naughty Step. It was also the place he'd been sent to when his parents needed him out of sight and sound so they could fight uninterrupted. Today, the transformation of the bathroom was so extreme it was as if an exorcism had taken place. He was sitting in there, feeling no need to shudder. If she could do this to these three rooms, she could do what she liked with the rest of the house, he decided. He'd be sure to tell her so when he next saw her. He'd give her carte blanche to alphabetize his CDs; she could choose whether Bruce Springsteen was filed under B or S. He'd let her know all this once she was back from her walk. Maybe they could have a late lunch, a chat.

He was hungry now, though, and he went back down to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich, admiring the gleaming interior of the fridge, the fresh contents that were in it. Then he took a longer look in all the cupboards and he checked out the freezer and he wondered to himself, was I really that much of a slovenly old dog? And he thought perhaps he had been. And he wondered, why did she do it? Doesn't she have anything better to do? And he thought perhaps she doesn't which, for his ends, was no bad thing. He thought back to Mrs Dunn. He'd made the right decision – for the old place. He wondered if Tess felt the same – it continued to strike him as odd that a young woman should move from the liveliness and opportunities of the capital city to keep house for a sometimes snide bloke in a sleepy seaside town in the North.

‘I could throw a pasta dish together,’ he told Tess when she arrived back soon after. ‘The cupboard fairy appears to have updated my herb rack.’

Tess smiled a little shyly; aware of the peace offering. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I bought olive oil and balsamic vinegar – they're only small bottles but it was a twin pack, on special offer in Real Foods. I reorganized your wines in that cupboard. White on the upper shelf, red beneath. I hope that's OK.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It is OK,’ he said. ‘Say, eight-ish?’

So she repeated eight-ish and they nodded at each other, appeased.

Joe went to his study, shutting his door, leaving Tess to fill the rest of the afternoon doing whatever it was she finds to do in this old house of his.

Do I dress for dinner? Tess wonders while popping the snap-fastenings on Em's night-time babygro. ‘Shall I?’ She pauses. ‘Stop it.’ She pauses again. ‘Not you, Em – me. We'd probably be in the kitchen preparing our supper at the same time anyway. It's just convenience.’ She snuffles Em's tummy much to the baby's delight, scoops the child up and watches their reflection in the window. She often gazes at the sight of herself holding her child in this particular embrace; it is an image that cannot be bettered.

I love you, little girl. I love you. You and me, my baby, you and me.

She puts Em down in the cot, switches on the night-light, winds up the music box, watches her a while longer, then tiptoes from the room.

She hasn't many clothes but she does want to change. There's her denim skirt, a skinny black polo – a total makeover from the bagginess of her daytime garb. There's an unopened pair of black tights too. No suitable footwear really, only trainers. She'll go shoeless – she's noted that Joe never wears shoes inside, just chunky socks with or without his well-worn moccasin slippers. The latter are usually at the say-so of Wolf, who likes to take them tenderly to bed with him.

She puts on a little mascara for the first time since London and sits at the mirror having a look. You are a bit mad, she says to herself. Dressing for dinner with a man you don't know in a house you're treating as your own, you deluded thing.

It has just gone eight. She waits until ten past – indulging in a woman's prerogative to be late-ish when the plan was eight-ish.

But he isn't in the kitchen and there's nothing on the stove and the herbs are still in the cupboard and there are no sounds of life coming from the study. She stands there a while, furious that she should feel dejected, for feeling suddenly self-conscious in a stupid skirt. And brand bloody new, black bloody tights. Don't even mention the mascara. The stone floor is cold; through the soles of her feet she can feel the chill snaking an insidious path up her body. She is just wondering whether to add socks to her ensemble or change outfits completely when the back door opens and Joe appears, followed by Wolf who bounds to her in a skitter of muddy affection.

‘Bloody hell, Wolf,’ Joe says, ‘it's only been a couple of hours.’ He looks at Tess. ‘It must be love.’ He looks at the kitchen clock. ‘Shit. Sorry.’ He looks at Tess again. She looks different. She's in a skirt. Good legs. Something about her eyes. Nice though. Shame Wolf has left his mark. ‘Are you hungry?’

She nods.

‘Thirsty?’

She smiles as she nods.

‘Wine? Water?’

She looks a little embarrassed.

‘Wine?’ Joe helps.

‘Please – I mean, if you're having.’

‘Red or white?’

Again, she looks self-conscious.

‘This is a nice red,’ Joe says and they chink glasses and sip quietly.

‘Many hands make light work?’ Joe says as he plucks up an onion and throws it underarm to Tess. She catches it, much to Wolf's chagrin, who has been sitting quietly focused at her side.

‘Slice?’ she asks. ‘Dice?’

‘Finely chop, please.’

‘Is this for a secret recipe?’

‘It's my “if-you've-got-it, chuck-it-in” speciality,’ he says and once she's done the onion, he sets her to work on the tomatoes. Bolstered by the wine, it is a genial and industrious atmosphere and, when they aren't working their knives or humming to themselves, they talk lightly about their time apart. Joe finds out what she's been up to whilst he's been gone and Tess discovers he's off again, to London, then possibly straight on to France.

‘This smells good, don't you think?’ ‘It smells lovely. A welcome change from toast and Marmite.’

‘Is that what you live on?’ Joe gives her a stern but theatrical frown. He stirs the sauce and proffers the wooden spoon towards her lips. She would have preferred to take it off him but, a little self-consciously, she comes closer and sips straight from his spoon. She licks her lips and hums approval. He is looking at her intently and for a suspended moment they lock eyes before Tess turns away; calls herself crazy, tells herself she's been too long without male company, that it's ridiculous to melt just a little just because he's spooned sauce into her mouth. Joe notes the reddening to her cheeks and, when she turns away, he is left looking at the nape of her neck and he can't deny that it is all rather Thomas Hardy again. He's doing an Alec D'Urberville – albeit feeding this Tess sauce off a spoon instead of a strawberry by hand. He can see that she feels awkward and actually this quite stirs him. Also, he can see that she is unaware how this emotion affects her looks and actually, he likes the look of her. And he liked the look of her lips parting for his spoon, the feel of her mouth against it, the closeness of her body. The nape of her neck.

‘I'd better check on Em,’ she's saying and while she is upstairs, she takes off her mascara, looks at herself in the mirror and thinks she looks worse which, bizarrely, makes her feel better.

The pasta is in bowls on the table when she returns.

‘Seasoned with tarragon and sage,’ Joe announces, not actually noting any difference in barefaced Tess. ‘I like the labels you drew – very artistic.’

Tess has no complaints about toast and Marmite but Joe's pasta really does taste good. As it warms her, it thaws her awkwardness. ‘That Everything Shop is a treasure trove.’

Joe laughs, he knows exactly which shop she's referring to. ‘That's why I have a tab there.’

Tess stops chewing.

‘If you need anything for the house, just stick it on my tab,’ he clarifies.

She swallows thoughtfully.

‘Have you spent much?’ Joe asks and she should say, well, yes actually. Relatively speaking, she's spent quite a lot. Her purse is all but empty now. She should be recompensed, she's the house-sitter after all. Instead, Tess brushes away the suggestion as if it's grains of salt on the table. She twists her fork gamely into the pasta.

‘I'll add it to what I owe you. I need to pay you anyway,’ Joe says. ‘I'll write a cheque tomorrow.’

Tess stops eating again. She takes contemplative sips at her wine before finally saying that, actually, if it wasn't a problem, cash would be better, if that was OK.

‘Cash?’

‘If that's OK?’ Tess thinks, please say it is.

‘No problem. We'll walk to the bank tomorrow morning, if you like – assuming you'll be taking Emmeline out. Been to the beach yet?’

‘I told you – I don't like beaches.’

Joe is about to ask why ever not, but there's something about the way she has lowered her face, how her look has gone all inward, that stops him. It appears sand is dangerous territory so he moves their conversation to neutral ground and they chat easily about bridges and fingernails, dogs and babies, late into the night.

Chapter Nine

‘Cash, then?’ Joe confirmed, standing outside the bank the next morning.

‘If that's OK.’ She fought to sound casual and nonchalant though the notion of money soon fleshing out her purse filled her with near manic relief. She hoped Joe might just think it was the whip of the mid-March wind making her quiver a little.

‘You guard the Wolfster,’ he said, handing Tess the retractable lead, which Wolf took advantage of just as soon as he was in her hands and his master was out of sight.

An unbelievable length of cord spewed out of the casing and though she said, shit, and pressed anything she thought could be pressed, Wolf was around the corner in no time and she was having to set her feet against his almighty lug.

‘So, I'm taking it that you don't water-ski either, let alone surf?’

Seb. She'd met him only the once and he'd been semi-naked. Today he was fully dressed and appeared taller than she remembered, but his accent was as distinctive as the shaggy fair hair spiralling out from his black fleece beany. He put his thumb and index finger in his mouth, blasted out a long whistle and within an instant, Wolf was back. ‘Universal Language of Dog,’ he shrugged and he placed his thumb over Tess's. ‘Push it forward – don't press it in.’

‘Does my dog know you?’

‘Nope – but that whistle always works. Well, it does for the larger, stupider dogs – no offence, big guy. Whereas the little 'uns – they'll just give you the canine equivalent of the finger.’ He didn't have to pause long for Tess to smile. ‘I have another whistle I use on the ladies.’ He gave a lusty wolf whistle through his teeth and finished with a wry, cocky grin at Tess. ‘Never fails,’ he shrugged and he laughed when Tess raised her eyebrows at her gullibility. He fanned a paying-in book. ‘I ought to go.’

Tess found herself hoping Joe wouldn't come out just yet and Seb wouldn't go in just yet. And would bloody Wolf stop his frisk and frolic.

‘Pop by,’ Seb said. ‘You know where to find me. And if I'm not in – just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you?’

‘Of course I can whistle.’

Funny girl, this one. With her blonde baby and oversized dog.

‘Do you know him?’ Tess asked Joe who'd come out of the bank at much the same time as Seb went in.

‘Who?’

‘The guy from the surfing place?’

Joe looked back briefly, not sure to whom in the queue Tess referred. ‘Er, no. Do you?’

She shook her head. ‘Not really – he said hi the first time I went to the pier. He's friendly.’

‘We are, mostly,’ Joe said.

‘He's Australian.’

‘They're friendly too, mostly.’ He gave Tess a fold of banknotes which she put in her jacket pocket. He could see that her hand remained curled around them, clinging on tight. But he did note that her eyes were watery and her cheeks red. But there again, the wind was particularly brisk this morning. ‘Beach?’ He said it very, very casually.

‘Not today,’ Tess replied briskly, as if she already had plans. ‘Em and I will see you at home.’

See you back at the house, Joe said to himself, watching Tess walk away.

What is it about the beach, Tess? And what is it about home?

She says she's eaten, when he offers to cook again later that day. He doubts it, though. She looks pale and tired. It seems her daily tea quota is down too – her two china cups and saucers have not been moved from the dresser.

The baby has been fractious; Tess working hard not to appear harried. But he's heard her cuss the dog and the singsong voice she usually employs to feed the baby has a strained edge to it. Her smile is there, but her eyes, which appear dark and dull, do not confirm it. Bath-time jollities have been less audible too.

She disappeared into Em's room long ago.

All is quiet. So quiet that Joe hovers on the first-floor landing, then again halfway up the second flight of stairs.

He looks up and there she is. He can see her, she's all in a crumple outside the baby's room. She's slumped on the floor, her back against the wall, her knees up, her head in her hands. Her shoulders are heaving. She's crying soundlessly – she appears to be consumed by utter sadness. He detects the effort it's taking her to counteract the need to let go with a stronger need for silence and invisibility. Mustn't wake the baby. Mustn't let anyone know. But her desolation descends the staircase heavily and every now and then, he can hear how her voice breaks through involuntarily; hollow and desperate.

Joe backs away.

What does she have to cry about?

Why so sad?

He wishes he could ask. He oughtn't to. He senses it is unequivocally private.

He'd like to make her a cup of tea.

Or offer her a glass of wine.

A chat.

But she doesn't appear again until the next morning.

She looks so fragile she's practically transparent.

It's so windy today, Joe thinks to himself. If she goes out in this, she might be blown away.

‘I'd stay in if I were you, Tess. I'm not venturing out myself in this weather. Thank God April's round the corner. Cup of tea? Kettle's just boiled. No? Later then – lunch too, perhaps.’

Chapter Ten

‘My father was a doctor,’ Joe told her, ‘and his father before him. And so on. Right from the beginning. When Victorian Saltburn was thriving, they required the finest doctor around – so they perused the revered physicians from York to Durham and offered the position to my great-great-grandfather.’

They were standing at the foot of the valley, near the Cat Nab car park where the clear water of Skelton Beck is joined by the rust-coloured water of Saltburn Beck and they tumble out to sea. Tess and Joe were looking back up inland, both telling themselves that it was perfectly normal for the house-sitter to be out and about with the employer.

‘My dad lives in Spain,’ she said. ‘With his second wife. He's dodgy.’

‘Pardon?’

‘My dad. I don't really know what he does – career-wise. My grandmother used to tell me he “flew by the seat of his pants”. When I was little, I took this to mean that he had magical powers and the months he was AWOL I comforted myself imagining him flying to exotic lands – really flying, with no need for a magic carpet, his trousers sufficing.’

Joe smiled but curbed a chuckle – it was amusing but rather sad. He had to curb a stronger urge to tuck away the strand of hair caught across Tess's cheek. ‘Your mum?’

‘She remarried too. She lives in Florida. In a condo with a man called Merl.’

‘Do you visit?’

‘No. She comes back, once a year, to see my sister.’

‘And you,’ said Joe because he didn't like the way Tess had cut herself out of the equation.

‘Well, she stays with my sister who has a nice place in Edinburgh. And two children. I can't offer my mother anything close.’

‘But what about your Emmeline!’

Tess shrugged and looked downcast before visibly pulling herself together.

‘And your sister? Are you close?’

‘Claire's fifteen years older than me so no, we're not that close. Our lifestyles are very different. We don't really know each other.’

Joe was about to comment.