Secrets (29 page)

‘I think I'll check on Wolf.’

‘Do you want a hand?’

‘It's OK, Joe, I have it down to a fine art.’

‘I'll say.’

‘Tea, Tess?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘OK.’

‘Anything on the box, then, Joe?’

‘Ten o'clock news – shall we see what the world's up to?’

‘All right.’

‘I'll just check on Wolf again – take him out for a pee.’

‘Do you want a hand?’

‘No – we're fine.’

‘Cup of tea, Tess? A nightcap perhaps?’

‘No – I think I'd better go to bed. Look at the time!’

‘Bloody hell, you're right.’

It's bizarre. Neither of them fears rejection by the other – from the frisson that has underscored their waking hours today, they are both confident they wish for the same thing. Yet there they are, in separate beds on different floors both behind closed doors. And it's late now; really it's time for sleep never mind anything more active. But there she is, wide awake in bed and horny too. She's stuck, though, as if she's acutely aware that there's some finer point of sexual etiquette of which she's ignorant. And there he is, in his bedroom, standing by the window chiding himself for not reaching for her as she left the sitting room, even though that was over an hour ago. Her arm, her slender arm, the downy little hairs revealed only when the light catches them – her arm had practically brushed his when she left the sitting room. Why hadn't he put his hand out, pulled her onto his lap, kissed her and whispered something about coming to bed – or perhaps kissed her and found there was no need to say a thing? In fact, why the need for bed, per se – now Joe is torturing himself with images of him and Tess in naked abandon on one of his capacious sofas? It could have been so easy! But he's in his bloody bedroom, on his bloody own.

‘I've never had this problem before,’ he cusses. ‘I've rarely had to ask, even.’

I'll go to her room, he thinks. I'll just bloody well go to her room and knock on the door – and then I'll go right in.

Tess is thinking much the same thing. She hasn't had the thought about the sofas. The only place she's kicking herself for not being in, is Joe's arms. She has silently opened her door. She has hovered on the landing. But the route to his room, in the thick silence of the night, seems now to be a chasm over which there is only a precarious rope bridge. And she just doesn't think she's brave enough to test how strong it is.

So she goes back to bed.

And Joe goes to bed too because he sees it's almost two in the morning and he tells himself she'll be fast asleep by now.

It's five thirty a.m. Tess's dream is interrupted by a soft knocking. It's very strange, because the entire dream, in all its banal and convoluted detail, has been leading up to this moment of the sound of knocking. She opens her eyes and waits and there's the knock again. And she turns in bed and looks at the door handle and wills it to turn. It does. For a moment, she wonders whether it is telepathic kinetic energy – and she sincerely hopes not. It isn't. The door opens and in walks Joe. He sees she is already holding the quilt open for him and he tucks down beside her, their hips already starting to move in a gentle rhythm, their hands already reaching for each other, their lips already magnetized.

He whispers in her ear. ‘If I know Emmeline, we have a whole hour before she wakes.’

Chapter Twenty-four

It was beautiful. It was beautiful because it could be played out against a backdrop of early summer, which had arrived now for good in a burst of bluebells and the clement weather scenting the air. The crocus might now have gone and the dog violet was on its way out, but primula sprang a chorus of yellow and cream alongside the proliferation of wild bluebells and tangle of wood sorrel. It was also beautiful because it was so private. The house – their castle. No one need know they were there. It was the perfect stage-set on which they could play out the happiness they felt. And, because it was so private, and they felt so happy, so it became all encompassing. There was no need to venture further afield than the perimeter of the grounds. They allowed nothing to trivialize their time together – no unnecessary excursions from the house, nothing as base as thoughts of work or worries about money. No unwelcome visitors encroached on the space they constructed. Well, one did but Joe told the bloke that no, Tess wasn't in and yes, he'd pass on that Seb had called by, though he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. The phone went unanswered. Well, Joe let Nathalie ramble on his Blackberry voicemail but he didn't return the call.

He likened the building of their relationship to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The East River was too far to cross in a single span in 1883 so the towers were to be built in the river itself. To reach the bedrock through 24 metres of silt and sludge, a caisson was built – a watertight box on the river bed in which the miners could work safely. The caisson itself would go on to form the foundation for the massive tower to grow above. That was how it felt to Joe – he was willingly inhabiting a hermetically sealed space in which home life with Tess, even with Emmeline and Wolf, could develop and flourish. This time together, this safe and private caisson, would become the bedrock on which their relationship could prosper.

So she made a large batch of scones. And he made porridge for everyone. They drank wine and tea and had hot chocolate at elevenses. She sewed on his loose buttons and he tinkered with her car. She gave his bathroom a spring clean and he put the border up properly, permanently, in Emmeline's room. It was as though they were playing house, as though they were practising Happy Families and the more enjoyable it was, the more viable and real it felt. With Wolf improving by the hour and Em sleeping through the night and the constant pleasure of each other's company – whether chatting in the kitchen, or sharing quiet in the sitting room, or combining their bodies in bed, or being intrinsically aware of each other while they slept – it ceased to feel like playing or acting, it all felt pretty effortless. And because reality was apparently so easy to construct, the euphoria they felt became the norm, just a regular emotion, a state they were determined to cherish and maintain.

This was not the time to say, Joe, tell me more about your mother. Nor did Joe feel it appropriate to ask Tess why she'd left London in such a hurry. She didn't dare think about the French fancy with the BlackBerry in bed and he wasn't going to waste time wondering about some bloke called Seb who knew where she lived. Instead, he said, show me how to change a nappy, then. And she said, why don't we paint your bedroom. And they sorted out the larger shed in the garden and she found out he was just as wary of spiders as she was.

They'd kiss under the humming neon strip in the kitchen, as well as in the moonlit garden and of course in the thrill of a cool, dark bedroom. And late one night Joe said, Tess! I didn't know you'd do
that
! when she sucked his cock and swallowed. And early one morning she said, Joe! I didn't know I could do that! when he made her come twice in quick succession.

They grinned at Em when they broke away from one embrace in the courtyard to find her chortling and clapping. And they praised Wolf when he managed to wag his bandaged stump in response to Tess and Joe larking about with a tea towel and the water spray she used when she did the ironing. And when she did the ironing, Joe came up behind her and put his hands lightly on her waist and laid kisses up her neck and breathed in the scent of baby shampoo from her hair. And when he was doing
The Times
crossword, she sat herself on the edge of his tub chair and slipped her arm around his shoulders, laying her head against his to help him think. It's
clipper
, she said – 10 Across is clipper –
trim shipshape
. And he said, you're not just a pretty face, you know. And then he said, you don't actually know how naturally pretty you are, do you? He said, it's one of the things I love about you – you and your appalling hoodies and crap jeans. But Tess didn't hear the jibe about her clothes; her head was filled only with the sound of Love.

A week later, however, the phone went when they were in the kitchen debating whether 7 Across could be
lummox
because that meant 5 Down could be
Achilles
. They listened to the ringing for just a second too long to ignore.

‘Perhaps you ought to get that?’ said Tess.

‘You're probably right,’ said Joe.

It was only a phone call but the intrusion seemed a shrill and portentous disruption to their self-imposed isolation. As Joe went to the hallway to answer the phone (thinking, hang up, hang up) Tess sat alone in the kitchen, unable to do the crossword, unable to decide who would be an acceptable caller. Listening to Joe, it did not take her long to deduce it was only the vet. With a lurch, she realized they'd missed Wolf's appointment.

‘God, I'm so sorry,’ Joe was saying. ‘We could bring him down this afternoon? Five sounds good. We'll see you then.’

Joe returned to the kitchen. ‘I clean forgot about Wolf's appointment – I wrote it down somewhere.’

‘You lummox,’ said Tess, thinking to herself, he said
we
– he said
we
could bring him down. He said
we'll
see you at five.

So they all piled into Joe's car.

Driving through Saltburn it felt as if they were returning after quite some time away. There seemed to be more people around and, after days of fine weather, more colour too. There were children on bikes and teenagers in T-shirts and pensioners without headscarves or hats. Some of the shops now ventured their wares outside, promoting them in racks and baskets on the pavement. The milkshake booth was open on the lower prom and there was quite a queue. The cliff lift was in operation. The pier was packed, the sand was speckled with families and the windbreaks looked like colourful punctuation marks.

Joe had to carry Wolf into the surgery because Tess's coaxing hadn't worked; in fact the dog's quaking and whimpers had started in the car when they headed out of Saltburn towards Marske. This, in turn, set Em off but the pair of them yowling and resisting merely made the grown-ups roll their eyes and laugh.

The vet was pleased with Wolf's progress. The bandages were changed (Em was invited to choose and went for orange and mauve) and the dog was extravagantly praised. Finally, the plastic collar was ceremoniously removed and another appointment made for a week's time.

‘I won't be around,’ Joe said, ‘but Tess'll bring him in.’

This torpedoed through Tess like a bolt of lead. Quickly, she forced herself to concentrate on a packet of organic dried pet food because her eyes were smarting at the thought of Joe's departure. She didn't know when, exactly, it was to be. But what she did know was that he would indeed go. And soon. Where? Where was he going?

Stop it! He's still
here
.

As they walked back to the car, she slipped her hand into his, giving him little surreptitious tugs to slow the pace.

‘I
will
have to go,’ he told her the next day, as if he'd been conscripted.

‘But not tomorrow.’

‘Not tomorrow,’ he said, as if the notion was preposterous, ‘but by midweek.’

And though she was about to put her arms around him just then, he quickly set off swanning around the garden, picking up anything he came across. Twigs. Leaves. A peg – as if it was a pressing job earmarked for precisely that moment. He kept his face turned.

‘Belgium,’ he said, ‘then France.’ He was putting the items on the garden table, arranging them into a pointless pattern as if it was all part of the chore.

Tess knew she couldn't afford to comment because the sharp pressure at the base of her throat would reveal itself as a telltale crackle to her voice. She couldn't comment because the notion of Joe's indisputable departure suddenly stripped her of confidence in their closeness. France! she goaded herself, you know who's in France. All she could do was stick a banal smile on her face and busy herself too, picking up the odd leaf or peg or plastic bottle top that Joe had missed on the lawn. How she had felt herself blossom this past week – now she could sense her petals closing; furling themselves tightly around her core.

Joe wanted to be able to say, I'll try and come back most weekends. But he knew he couldn't because actually, he just didn't know when he'd next be back. He also wanted to be able to go over to her and take the garden debris from her hands and raise her face to his and let a thoughtful kiss say it all. But he couldn't do that. Because he found that he was already walking to the house under some ridiculous pretence of checking if his Gore-tex boots were there or whether he had left them in France. It wasn't about the boots; he knew that. It was about feeling bizarrely and horribly awkward in the presence of the girl who'd recently made his life seem wonderfully straightforward.

Tess was able to snatch a moment by herself in her room. Em was happily engrossed watching
Story Makers
and Tess had asked Joe, who was reading the paper in the same room, whether he'd watch Em while Tess ran her bath. With the bath running, she had taken herself into her room and stood in the centre, her face in her hands. She had to acknowledge it wasn't simply that she wanted him to stay because she loved being with him and she'd miss him. It was that she didn't want him to go because she didn't know where it was he went and she suddenly feared where it was that might lead. What if, when she was out of his sight, someone else sprang to his mind? They'd co-existed in this wondrous world in which she'd so easily believed that they had discovered some kind of super-reality. Now, standing alone in her room, she wondered whether they'd simply constructed a hermetically sealed fantasy. She went to check the bath. So much noise, for such a slow system. She had the temperature just right and she added bubbles before sitting herself on the edge in a deflated slump. In a rush of masochistic taunts, she goaded herself that she was just a bloody house-sitter and skint single mum with no hope in hell of the sort of happiness she'd kidded herself was so real and feasible during this last week.

Over the next two days, Joe and Tess tried their best to recapture the spirit of togetherness but the spectre of his departure hung over them in a pall they just couldn't shrug off. Even Em being unbelievably cute and Wolf managing to clown around rather unsteadily didn't bolster them much. They weren't gloomy, certainly they weren't snappish or uncommunicative; it was as if the soundtrack of life in the house was now in a minor key whereas before it had been a veritable symphony in C major. The colours of their aura were in subdued hues rather than the dazzling primaries of the days just gone. The sex was still good but it was more inward and the eye contact lessened.

After a final supper, over a last glass of wine and the crumbs of Stilton and Jacob's Cream Crackers, Joe finally broached the immediate future.

‘What'll you do, Tess?’ he asked. ‘What have you planned when I'm gone?’

She thought about it. She actually hadn't thought about it at all. She'd been too involved in the present.

‘Well,’ she said at length, ‘it'll no doubt revolve around playgroup and the vet.’

Joe nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘not just from Wolf – from me.’

‘I guess I'm going to have to find a bit of work.’ She said this more to herself.

‘Work? Why?’ He paused. ‘Tess,’ he said, ‘my last trip – what I said about you leaving –’

She shook her head, signifying he needn't say more.

He reached for her wrist and squeezed it.

‘Joe,’ she found herself saying. ‘What you said – about the lady, in France –’

But this time he shook his head, signifying she needn't say more and he squeezed her wrist again for emphasis.