Secrets (21 page)

And there was no time for Tess to be stunned into silence or to think, shit, shit, parry back – quick! or even to repeat it as if she was taking notes, because the caller had hung up. The grandfather clock tocked but time had stopped for Tess. He has a girlfriend. The notion, the reality, slammed into her with such force that she sat down hard and fought for breath. With the air silent but still charged, she wanted to shout, to vent, to wail, but Em had come toddling up to her, striking a stab of reality. What Tess wanted most was something she just couldn't have. She couldn't have Joe. She couldn't even have ten minutes all to herself, to think, to brood, to practise a soliloquy in front of the bathroom mirror. Just ten minutes, that's what she wanted. In fact, she'd settle for five. But Em allowed her just a few seconds.

‘What is it, Em?’

The toddler could only grouch back her inability to explain.

Eventually, Tess found out that grapes would appease her daughter and, as she peeled and deseeded them, she snatched back moments to reflect. The outcome was somewhat melodramatic.

I am here and I am taking messages for Joe. I'm here because he isn't – and that's the point of me. That's my job.

She tried briefly, unsuccessfully, to equalize the score by deciding that the caller was some landlady who goes in to clean the apartment when Joe leaves.

A French version of me.

She doubted it, though. But, worse, she doubted herself now.

Tess put herself on autopilot; singing row-row-row-your-boat, letting Wolf out and then back in again, hanging out a white wash, going to the toilet. She knew it was ridiculous but everything she did was underscored by a silent chant. Stupid French cow, stupid French cow. French Sow. Sow'n Dairs. Joe leaving his phone in an apartment was one thing. In this woman's bed, with her velvety guttural emphasis on the possessive pronoun, was quite another. Who is she? Is she Kate?
Can
you be French and be called Kate?

But I thought he wanted to kiss
me
.

So Joe arrived back with Tess wanting to belt him. And she knew if she told him about the call straight away, she might very well do that. But she bit her tongue so she could just soak up a little of him first; absorb the warmth from his expansive smile, fill her ears with his voice, come close to him so she could brush by, accidentally on purpose, as she went to make tea, collecting a little of his physicality like it was magic dust that could seep through her clothes, through her skin and deep into her, carrying with it a cure. She just needed a little time to act as though she was fine, time to enjoy the ritual of making two cups again. Just five more minutes of him asking her this and that. Time to glance over at him leaning casually against the wall, or relaxing at the kitchen table, or giving his head a scratch, stifling a yawn, having a stretch. The hair on his stomach. How long had it been since she'd seen that? She'd only seen it the once.

‘What's for supper, then?’ he asked. ‘I'm looking forward to a home-cooked meal.’

Tess felt peculiarly triumphant – as if he'd been underfed or poorly nourished whilst he'd been away. Ha! Kate's obviously a shit chef! But then Tess thought, shit! I bet they eat out every night in romantic little bistros. And then she thought, why am I fretting? Why does this hurt? She could neither justify the feelings – yet nor could she deny them either.

It was only when she began to cook, with Joe wittering on in a friendly, anodyne way, that Tess was consumed with an invasive sadness. An intense and private remorse that there was indeed nothing going on. Because Kate was real. And Tess had been so happy to delude herself with daft little daydreams this last fortnight. Must get a grip. Must not be sad. What would my grandmother say? She told me to cook with love. She said, happiness is like seasoning, tiredness dulls flavours, anger turns food sour but sadness can kill a dish completely while love can flavour a dish to perfection.

So Tess added a lot of garlic and a pinch from every herb jar to counteract this. She didn't have the stomach to taste it. But Wolf gazed up at her expectantly and Joe kept saying, wow, smells great, when do we eat? And she kept thinking to herself, who am I cooking for?
Who
am I cooking for?

They ate. It was easy enough to laugh when Joe said something funny, to smile when he smiled at her, to be captivated by his bridge talk and appalled at the extreme hassles of the particular project. But it wasn't easy to strike up the conversation herself.

‘You're not very chatty, Miss Tess,’ he remarked, thinking she'd say, oh, I'm just tired – Wolf/ Emmeline had me up in the night. He certainly wasn't expecting the monotone response when it came.

‘Miss Tess?’

‘Kate called. She has your BlackBerry.’

It made no sense.

‘Kate?’

‘Yes, she called – about half an hour before you arrived home.’

‘My BlackBerry?’

Tess sighed. ‘Yes, Joe, your BlackBerry. You left it at Kate's. At her apartment. In her
bed
.’ And she scraped back her chair and dumped her plates beside the sink and walked out of the kitchen saying she was knackered, she was going to bed, goodnight.

Joe remained at the table wanting to laugh and groan simultaneously. Laugh because there was something so compelling about Tess when she was stroppy – the effect it had on him was the polar opposite of that which she intended. He just wanted to stop her and tuck her hair behind her ears and cup her face in his hands and call her a mad woman and tell her she was extremely attractive when she was pissed off and kiss her. But he had to groan because he
had
left his BlackBerry in France; groan because Nathalie
had
phoned here and got Tess and from Tess's reaction and the fact that she reported the sodding thing was in her apartment
in her bed
, Nathalie had obviously made it plain to Tess that though this wasn't a business call, she meant business. Groan because why did Nathalie call herself Kate? Groan because it complicated things with Nathalie – he didn't want to have to explain away Tess but nor did he want to relinquish the easy sex. Not yet. And how the fuck could he call Nathalie anyway – she had his BlackBerry and the only record he had of her number was in the bloody thing. He knew he should have synched the bloody thing with his computer. And then Joe realized in all of this there were more groans than laughs. He'd been travelling all day, for God's sake. He was tired, he had a lot on his mind far more pressing than angry lovers changing their names and petulant house-sitters stomping around his home. More groans than laughs, then – that was
not
what he wanted in life, it went coarsely against the grain of all he'd spent the last twenty years cultivating.

Bedtime.

The difference between men and women.

Oblivion in an instant for Joe.

A sleepless night for Tess.

Chapter Seventeen

She was either going to have to say, sorry about last night, or persuade herself that she was entitled to her displeasure and thus manufacture a moral high ground to stomp around on today as well. Had she not been so tired, the former would have struck her as the right thing to do as well as the simplest and most sensible. But her lack of sleep made her crotchety and that made it easier to opt for the latter. She'd passed Joe in the hallway. He'd said good morning cheerily enough but with an audible question mark too. She'd smiled curtly before clattering around in the kitchen, giving an almighty sigh as she removed to the utility room Joe's kicked-off shoes. She also gave Wolf short shrift for darting around her legs with the slinkiness of a silverfish, his trademark display of affection which on all other days Tess would trip over and laugh at.

Joe was nonplussed, wondering quite what had happened to strip this girl of her artless sweetness, to have triggered instead the thunderous demeanour she was hurling around his house. He was about to suggest a cup of tea when he heard the front door slam and glanced from the window to see Tess marching off down the driveway, the wheels of the buggy skittering over the gravel as if she was making it travel faster than it was able.

Fresh air didn't seem to have lifted her mood or smoothed the furrow to her brow when she returned. She declined his offer of a sandwich and, later, she called downstairs that she wasn't hungry when he'd announced, for the second time, that supper was ready.

In her room she sat by the open window, trying to combat the mouth-watering drifts of lamb chops and sautéed potatoes filtering up from the kitchen by switching on the radio so she could concentrate on a sound other than her hunger pangs. She gave it an hour, then she eased open the bedroom door, leant over the banister and listened for sounds of activity. Hearing none, she descended the stairs, craning until she could see that Joe's study door was closed. Downstairs, the kitchen was in darkness and from the gap between study door and floor, she could see the light was on in there. She walked softly, quickly, over the flagstones in the hallway and once in the kitchen, she switched on the light in the extractor hood over the cooker – because the main light buzzed when it flickered into life. She'd meant to suggest to Joe that he consider replacing the strip lighting with something less harsh. What did it matter now? She opened the fridge door. Two lamb chops under cling film on a plate. She didn't take it to the table, but ate them then and there, using her fingers, too hungry to chew properly, swallowing mouthfuls that caught in her throat, sucking at the frills of meat left clinging to the bone.

‘Can't resist my cooking, hey?’

She spun. Joe was standing there leaning against the door-frame in his usual casual stance. Her first thought was to say that the chops were tough, leathery even, but the implicit nastiness shocked her.

‘Ta,’ she said instead, plucking an apple and biting into it smartly. She made to leave, winking at Wolf as she went but avoiding Joe's eyes. The problem was, he was blocking the doorway. She realized this halfway across the kitchen, by which time it was a little idiotic to retrace her steps, go through the utility room, through the boot room, out to the garden, circumnavigate half the house and enter through the front door. She did, though, momentarily consider it. No, she'd just have to stand her ground and keep moving.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, when she was in danger of treading on his socked feet.

Joe moved but as she passed, he caught her arm – he didn't hold on to it, he just caught it for a moment before letting it go.

‘Tess, why are you being so stroppy?’ he said to her back.

‘I'm not,’ she said, without turning.

‘And petulant.’

‘I'm
not
.’

‘You are. You are being stroppy and petulant. What's up?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You're being stroppy and petulant and uncommunicative. I don't like it.’

This was too much for her to tolerate without eye contact. She spun around.

‘Go to hell!’

‘Shall I add “insulting” to the litany, then?’ Joe's arms were folded but no longer in a relaxed way; his eyes had narrowed, he appeared taller, older, stern.

She said nothing, just stared at the space between them.

‘And aggressive – that goes on it too. For fuck's sake, Tess, if I've done something to upset you, will you please have the courtesy to tell me what?’

The deeper and darker Tess's mood became, the more difficult it was to haul herself out. If she was mad at Joe, she was also livid with herself. She'd gone beyond the point of being able to say, sorry about that – I'm just being a silly moo. She was now hopelessly trapped in the vortex of her own bad temper.

And then she looked at Joe and she knew why. What she saw she couldn't hate, she couldn't even dislike – what she saw was what she wanted. That's why she was hurting. The nearly kiss. The loaded silences. The eye contact lasting that exhilarating moment too long. The banter. The teasing. The making time to be – together. She had thought she was wanted too. But that was then, she told herself, that was way back then. That was before the reality of Kate. Before his phone in her bed. She felt caught between the strange dichotomy of mourning the kiss that never was, and outraged at Joe's duplicity. Only a quiet side of her, which she was too preoccupied to hear, wondered if she was entitled to feel either.

‘Tess?’

She turned away.

‘Oh, for God's sake,’ he said. ‘Grow up.’

She swung round to face him, as if she was about to land a punch. ‘You should have said something about Kate, you know. Because – you were going to kiss me on the Transformer Bridge. You
were
. It's not nice for me – I'd been looking forward to you coming back, idiot that I am. Don't you play with me, Joe Saunders, don't you
dare
play with me.’

Her eyes might be bristling with indignation but her voice was wavering and Joe hadn't the heart to correct her transformer bridge to his Transporter Bridge or say, don't you mean
toy
with me?

‘Tess, can we please sort this Kate business out? Why do you keep harping on about someone called Kate?’

Fury scratched itself across Tess's face. ‘You're going to deny it? Oh, come on, Joe. Tell me to my face that your phone isn't in the bed of some girlfriend in France?’

Joe gave himself a moment. ‘I am not in a relationship with anyone.’

‘Forgive the semantics,’ Tess said. ‘Your phone is in the bed of some woman you're shagging, then. Go on then – deny it.’ Yet as soon as she said it, she suddenly dreaded the confirmation.

Again, Joe paused while he organized his response. ‘Look, I don't know why you think it's any of your business but OK then, there is a woman in France who I –’ He paused. Whom he what, exactly. ‘There's a woman in France – it's not a relationship. But yes, I sleep with her – it's just casual.’

Tess looked appalled, as if she'd just been winded. He was not going to feel guilty – which wasn't to say that her visible distress didn't unnerve him.

For Tess, it wasn't the specifics of Joe's consensual fuck-buddy set-up that had stabbed her (she'd had to broaden her outlook when she met Dick); it was Joe referring to Kate as
a woman
. She felt a girl by comparison, diminished somehow. She couldn't imagine any man referring to her as a woman, despite the fact that she was a mother. She felt suddenly small, unappealing, defeated by Kate and her grown-up, no-strings womanly sexiness. She was acutely aware of standing in this man's kitchen with a sulky pout across her face, and stupid Winnie-the-Pooh socks on her feet, her figure swamped and denied by her shapeless hoody and her slack jeans. She felt ashamed of herself and she wished she could look up at him and tell him so. But if she looked at him, he'd look at her and all he'd see was her flushed face and the socks and the sweatshirt and the hair that desperately needed a cut and could do with a wash too.

Joe wanted her to speak to him and he wanted to say something to make her feel a little better. ‘Tess, if it helps, she isn't Kate – she's Nathalie.’ His tone was gentle. He thought the information would appease her – if she thought she had the wrong name, she might think she had the wrong end of the stick too.

However, Tess's hands fell so sharply to her side that when they hit her thighs it sounded as though she'd slapped herself and hard. ‘Great, so you've got more than one on the go.’ She could cry but she fought to glower instead. ‘One for love, one for sex – and me to bandy about in some fucked-up game?’

‘
Game?
What on earth are you on about?’

Do not cry. Don't you bloody dare cry. ‘You
were
going to kiss me on the bloody bridge!’

Joe paused. This was true.

‘You were going to kiss
me
. You could've, you know.’

She sounded defeated and she looked broken.

Was he meant to reach out for her? Look at her, having a silent battle against tears – he could hear it in the brittle croak of her voice. He could so easily put his arms around her, coax that crumpled face up to his lips. Plant the kiss that had germinated that night on the bridge. But he really didn't want to kiss her now – not with her like this.

‘I was, Tess. You're right – that night I really did want to kiss you. And it wasn't just a heat-of-the-moment thing. I was about to kiss you on the bridge that night. And when we got back – I could've done so then too.’

‘But you didn't!’

‘Because you gave me no signs of reciprocation.’

Tess stamped with frustration. It was so true. He was absolutely right and her indignation came from Joe's perception. It was maddening. The sides of the hole she'd dug herself were crumbling and she could not work out how to clamber back to normality.

‘Well! I'm bloody glad I didn't. We wouldn't want you
three
-timing Kate, would we!’

Joe closed his eyes, placing fingers against his temples as if to keep his temper in check, or to protect himself from further onslaught, or to guard against the threat of a headache of blinding proportions.

‘I do not know a Kate, Tess.’

‘You're lying – I've seen the photo!’ Tess was not going to listen to him or think before she spoke.

‘The
photo
? What photo?’

‘This one, idiot!’ And Tess darted back in to the kitchen, snatched the photo off the dresser and brandished it at Joe. ‘
This
one – look. K.L. See!
K.L.
– and the date on the back and smiley loved-up Joe on the front.’

Joe took the photo from her as if he'd never seen it before. He turned it over and over; from the photo on the front to the writing on the back. Then he looked at Tess but she gave him no chance to speak. She was on a mission to have her
coup de grâce
; a little girl power over Kate and Nathalie, a swipe at Joe for saying she'd given the impression she didn't want to be kissed when she had.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I don't need the photo to know about Kate. Your mother has told me all about her.’

‘My
mother
?’

‘Yes, Joe. Your mother. You know – the secret one you keep squirrelled away at Swallows. I thought I was seeing ghosts – someone lurking outside the house at weird times. And one day I confronted this little old lady loitering in the garden and what do you know, she used to live here!’

‘You met my mother?’

‘More than met – I visit her now. I've had her here for tea, for a little sit-down. I drove her back to Swallows. I bought her an ice cream. I chat to the other biddies. So yes, I know your mother, Joe, and
she
told me all about Kate.’