Secrets (22 page)

Joe said nothing. But he needn't have said a thing for Tess to know in an instant that something was very wrong. He was no longer looking at the photo, he was looking utterly poleaxed. She saw that this had nothing to do with Kate or Nathalie or Tess – his expression then had been one of wry bemusement. Now something far more fundamental, something darker altogether, striated his face. He turned his back on Tess and walked off, whistling for Wolf who didn't give her even a glance as he trotted after his master for a late-night ramble.

Tess sat by herself for a while trying to figure out what had just happened. She felt no triumph, she just felt panicked. When that subsided, she experienced surges of dread and remorse. What had she done and what could she do? Was there anything she could salvage from the jagged twists of the horribly crossed barbed wires? She tried to tell herself that she'd saved herself future hurt by exposing Joe's duplicity, or even triplicity. But then she pointed out to herself that, in doing so, she'd also forfeited the possibility of ever having that kiss and being able to return one. And what was she to think about his reaction to his mother? She couldn't work that one out at all. By the time she went to bed, though, she deeply regretted her tirade. If only she'd shut up about Kate and Nathalie. If she'd just shut up instead of flying off the handle, then there could have been room for her in Joe's life. Her more involved presence might have furnished him with enough to decide there was no room for the other two. But then she told herself her high self-regard was ludicrous. And so her low self-esteem slid back around her like a constrictor.

I'm just his house-sitter.

And beyond that I'm just a single mum who has run away from a mess of my own making that I fear I'll never be able to clear up.

The look on Joe's face when she told him about his mother.

She might have made a fool of herself venting about the other women. But the look on his face when she told him about his mother. She had been wrong but she had no idea how to make it right.

They met again, in the kitchen, the next morning. Tess shuffled in meekly, fussing quietly around Em. Wolf was spread out in a deep, twitchless sleep, as if he'd been up all night and his battery was dead. Joe was at the stove, cooking a fry-up.

‘Breakfast?’ he asked and Tess tried to analyse his tone of voice. It sounded normal really, friendly even.

‘Um –’ She didn't have an appetite. She didn't have words, either. ‘OK.’

‘The works?’

‘Thank you.’

Five minutes later, a loaded plate was laid before her. She looked up at Joe who was looking down on her, his expressionless face somehow contradicting the gesture of making her breakfast. Actually, he wasn't expressionless, he was closed down, shut off – as if he was giving her breakfast and nothing else.

She looked at the eggs, sunny side up, a little of the browned butter flicked back over the white – Joe's forte. She'd lauded it when he first cooked her one. He'd said, why thank you, ma'am, and it had made her laugh. The morning after, he'd cooked her the same again, and in front of her place setting was a silver salt and pepper set. She'd seasoned her food and held her cutlery with her little finger stuck out at a theatrical angle and that had made Joe laugh. You are a one, he'd said, flicking the tea towel over his shoulder, rolling up his shirt-sleeves to wash up. You are a one, Miss Tess.

He'd been whistling that morning. Never had eggs tasted so lovely. She'd eaten her breakfast listening to him, watching his back as he washed up. The way his shirt caught over his shoulder blades. How it would feel to rest her face between them.

Now look at him – an awful lot to see, nothing coming back. Tess looked down at her plate, thoughts racing to say the right thing.

‘Joe?’ She forced herself to maintain eye contact though she'd rather slip under the table and lie alongside Wolf. ‘I'm very, very sorry.’

She tried to analyse the quick shrug Joe gave her. Reluctantly, she had to admit the answer it gave was that whatever she said, the damage was done.

They ate in silence. Tess cleared the plates. When she turned from the sink, Joe had gone from the kitchen.

She loitered around the house and garden, playing with Em though her mind was elsewhere – a failing that any toddler won't tolerate and will counteract with whingeiness.

‘Sorry, baby girl. Mummy's been naughty. Mummy needs to make things better. Silly, silly Mummy.’

Em called Tess silly and Tess didn't know whether to laugh or weep.

Joe didn't want tea – she'd twice knocked on the study door to offer it.

‘There's a doorstep sandwich for you, on the kitchen table. With pickle,’ she said later. But by the time she came back downstairs from settling Em for her nap, the plate had gone and the study door remained resolutely shut. In the early evening, while running a bath for Em, Tess heard the crunch of tyre on gravel and she hurtled to the window to watch Joe drive away. She darted down to the kitchen. Back through to the hall. Upstairs to her bedroom. No note. Nothing. Just gone.

She was devastated, incapable of doing anything for the rest of the evening apart from sitting downstairs in the drawing room, in a tiny huddle on the capacious sofa, her lolling arm perfectly placed to run Wolf's ears through her fingers, an action conducive to contemplation.

Have I screwed things up?

or

Did I have a lucky escape?

but

Why didn't he leave even a note?

and

Where has he gone?

but

When will he be back?

and

What should I do?

but

Can I do
anything
?

‘I need to build a bridge,’ Tess told Wolf. She felt so tired, too tired to go upstairs to bed even though she was now cold, down here. ‘I need to build a bridge but I don't know how.’

She stirred and woke. From the stillness and the silence, it was obviously very late. She felt discombobulated and stiff-necked from her slump on the sofa. Very cold. And suddenly in a panic at the looming presence of someone else in the room.

‘Sorry – I didn't mean to wake you.’

‘Joe? No, it's OK.’ Tess scrabbled to sit herself up. ‘I must've dozed off – what time is it? I'm—’

But Joe interjected. ‘I'm off.’

Tess stared at him. ‘Off?’

‘France. Elsewhere.’

Words careened around Tess's head while she frantically tried to arrange them into sentences. Practicalities – when where how long. Declarations of regret – I shouldn't have said what I said in the way I said it. Proclamations of intent – if you kiss me now I
will
kiss you back. Naggings of insecurity – France? Oh shit that means Kate and Nathalie. A need to make amends. I'm sorry, Joe, sorry for – it's just, it's just.

But before she could formulate a single sentence, he delivered answers to questions she hadn't yet prepared.

‘My mother has dementia,’ he said, ‘early-onset dementia after a fall and a stroke almost two years ago. She is safer at Swallows. Even before the dementia, she wasn't living here. She hadn't for quite some time. And the dementia might cause her to think this place is still her home, but her dementia does not mean that she is now somehow welcome.’

Tess opened her mouth though she knew she was speechless.

‘I'll be gone for a few weeks,’ Joe said flatly; he glanced across to Wolf and then looked at Tess. ‘You are welcome to stay here in that time – but it would probably be best if you look for a position elsewhere.’

There was a lump that was threatening to obstruct her breathing, but the dryness in her mouth made it impossible to swallow; as if the sides of her throat were coated with sandpaper, rasping together. Joe made to leave but hovered in the doorway and looked back over his shoulder, directly at Tess.

‘There is no Kate, Tess,’ he said. ‘The initials K.L. on the back of that photograph? They stand for Kuala Lumpur. It's a commonly used diminutive –
Kay Ell
. I was involved on a project there. The photo was taken by Taki Kanero, a colleague and great friend of mine. He's in his fifties, a lovely man with a wife and two – no, three now – children.’

Chapter Eighteen

As soon as the seatbelt sign went off, Joe unbuckled, reclined his seat, closed his eyes and willed sleep. But this was not possible, partly because the level of organization required for his impromptu return to France had left him wired, partly because his fellow travellers in row 12 were two elderly ladies yaketting away fifteen to the dozen. He might not be able to sleep but he could certainly make it look as if he was and avoid a flight's worth of pleasantries. Countering the steady motion of the plane, his mind whirred like a small tornado, plucking elements of the preceding days and swirling them in an eddy with his plans for the next few days. Tess and Nathalie and his mother chased each other round and round his mind's eye, while the Transporter Bridge and the bridge in KL and the new bridge he was returning to, vied for his attention; the khaki water of the Tees running into the clearer navy of the Sungai Klang, both running dry on reaching the lush valley landscape of his bridge in progress. Oh, for God's sake, couldn't he just think of one thing at a time? More to the point, couldn't he just empty his mind completely? He tried to cue in to the sounds of the plane, the pressurized cabin, the chirruping chit-chat in row 12, the drifts of people's conversations in the neighbouring rows, the clatter of the trolleys being prepared for their pedantic passage up and down the aisle. He found he could not. His mind was preoccupied and in his mind's eye, the spiral of women had slowed down and it was thoughts of Tess that solicited him first.

Taken on its own, Tess's rant about the other women – even the fictitious Kate – could have been quite flattering, really. Certainly, it fed Joe's ego but more than that there was something quite nourishing about the strength of Tess's feelings towards him, about which he had hitherto been unsure. He thought about this as the plane settled into its altitude. He recalled her ire, the way her eyes darkened with glinting indignation and her jealousy carved itself in the twist between her eyebrows, the purse of her lips. The contortions of her face relating directly to the intensity of her feelings for him. He thought of her brandishing the KL photo with furious triumph, ignorant of the prosaic truth behind the picture. How he could have laughed; how he could do so right now. She'd been so sure, she had kept it until the perfect moment – her trump card with which she could indict Joe, have him fall to his knees, have him entreat her. Plead, even. Kate was then, I don't love her, she means nothing – it's you I want, Tess.

Actually, he had never had a girl called Kate. He didn't even know a Kate. Silly old Tess, in such a tizz. The creeping redness around her throat, the change in her voice, her fiery face. She'd actually stamped. The hand not holding the photo had been in a fist. But she hadn't been rendered ugly and he hadn't felt repelled at the time. Even now he was still struck how all that infuriated him about her colluded with all that he liked and together, they welded an attraction for a woman who was complex, colourful, real.

Now Nathalie – she wasn't remotely complex, her underwear was colourful and his time with her existed outside reality. There was an element of playing at a laissez-faire situation between broad-minded consenting adults. No chit-chat, no pea-squashing, no seconds of custard or endless cups of tea. No gentle teasing, not much laughter. Time spent with Nathalie was about constructing a reality where life was refreshingly uncomplicated, nothing to argue about, little to discuss, no need for extraneous chat – just a fantastic glut of sex which made them feel so good about themselves. What attracted Joe to Tess was what also irritated him about her – the gamut of emotions brought about by the slightest thing. Now he thought of Nathalie, attractive, available, aloof – no demands, just sexual abandon on tap. Nathalie made him feel all man; Tess made him feel fantastically frustrated.

Up at 36,000 feet, with the sensation of putting life at ground level on hold, Joe could think about it all whereas driving to the airport had been another matter. He had been rushing. He had been fuming. He'd spat out loud in the car, you stupid little cow, Tess, you stupid girl. But now, thinking of Nathalie, Joe had to wonder why the hell she'd laboured the point of his bloody BlackBerry being between her frigging sheets. She'd altered the dynamic, unbalanced their equilibrium, and potentially screwed up their zipless fucking. Her sudden possessiveness; his loss.

Women, thought Joe at 36,000 feet, an hour into his journey, bloody bloody women. He opened his eyes to see the air hostesses and their drinks service. Were they any less complicated? Their highly trained smiles and tolerance, their skilled deportment, trolleying up and down the aisles in high heels making light of the trials of turbulence. What were they like on terra firma, he wondered? At home, did they fly off the handle at their partners allowing imagined demeanours to become real? Did they wave innocent photos, exclaiming S.F! S.F! Who the fuck is Sarah Fanshaw? Did their partners have to say, shh, silly, I don't know a Sarah Fanshaw but that photo was taken in San Francisco? Did they phone their lover's home number and, on hearing a female voice, decide to spin out details of his phone – my bed? How about the elderly ladies sitting next to him – would they invent some golden girlfriend expressly for the purpose of sabotaging their son's independence and happiness?

Women – they're never the same. Joe had always loved this about them and, for that reason alone, had indulged himself in more than one at a time. Now, on the plane to France he thought no two are alike – but they're all too bloody similar, whatever their age or nationality.

He gave the charming hostess a what-the-hell smile and ordered himself a Scotch and soda. He took a sip; the taste was immediately reassuring and it settled his gut quickly. As he sipped, he tried to conclude the situation still rampaging in his head. The Nathalie phone call would have been enough in itself for Tess, and for him, without the added complication of Kate. If it had been only the Nathalie phone call, it was very likely that he would have taken Tess in his arms and said, she means nothing to me – it's you I want. But Nathalie alone was not the problem. The woman who complicated everything wasn't Nathalie, nor was it Tess and of course it couldn't be Kate. It was his mother.

Spoiling things again, he thought. She's bloody spoiling things again.

Then he thought, the stealing back to the Resolution is a relatively new thing of hers, but how stupid of me to think I could hide her away. And he wondered if he'd been unfair on Tess – who'd told him about her family when he'd asked though he'd fobbed her off when she'd asked him. They're not around, he'd said of them, and he knew he'd made it sound like they were dead. Up at Swallows, he could deal with his mother because the surroundings were neutral and help was at hand. Why hadn't he told Tess that his senile mother lived down the road and up the cliff and she might appear at the kitchen window every once in a while and could Tess possibly take a bunch of flowers if he was away for more than a two-week stretch? Swallows: the best care, close to home, that money could provide. He'd asked himself, on many occasions, whether he was paying more to feel less guilty. Then he'd chide himself – why feel guilty when the harm was done to him? Are the senile absolved of blame in the way they are released of memory and sense of self? Joe was still unable to balance his anger at his mother with his pity for the dreadful affliction befalling her. The unresolved emotion was apt to churn inside him at the slightest prompt. And that's what had happened when Tess brought her up.

Joe felt restless, confined, cramped in his mind and his body. He needed fresh air, the space to unwind, the privacy to shout, to shadow-box, to chuck a rock or swear excessively. The plane was certainly not helping but another Scotch would. He twisted around in his aisle seat; the neat, navy-clad bottom of the air hostess was just a little too far away now for him to order another drink.

‘They don't hang about, do they?’ said one of the elderly ladies sharing his row.

‘They have the whole plane to do, Milly,’ said the other, ‘and now the drinks aren't for free, they have to do all the
money
too.’

Joe smiled vaguely without facing them full on.

‘I'll say you wanted some peanuts with your Scotch,’ said Milly.

‘I'll say he wanted a double,’ said the other.

‘I can offer you a Murray Mint,’ said Milly and her fingers faffed with a packet and Joe felt it would be rude to say no even though he knew that accepting a mint would invite conversation.

‘Business?’ said Milly.

‘Pleasure?’ said the other.

‘A little of both,’ Joe nodded and suddenly he thought, sod England and Saltburn and all who are there – Nathalie doesn't know the details but she knows she has amends to make and she'll know the perfect way to do that. Finally, Joe had a solution: brain rest in France from the head-fuck at home.

‘A French lady friend, is it?’

‘She comes with the job,’ Joe said, not caring if the women detected his tongue in cheek because he was consumed by an image of Nathalie coming – her gasps and groans, the way her body would tauten, the way she stretched and arched herself worthy of any porn film.

Milly bristled at his rather vulgar turn of phrase.

‘Gracious,’ the other murmured, ‘it's not just the pension and the paid holidays – they think of everything these days.’

Joe looked at her and he liked her wry smile so he chinked plastic cups, though his was empty.

‘Is she French, then, your lady friend – your
chérie
?’ she asked, nudging Milly when she spoke the single word of French.

From nowhere, Joe wanted to ask them, do you have sons? He wanted to ask, do you have a good relationship with them – now? Did you – when they were little? Do they have lady friends, your boys? He wanted to ask, how old are you? Are you well? He wanted to say, my mother is nearly seventy-five – only seventy-five – but she has dementia and I pay for her to stay less than a mile from where I live because she made my life a misery then and I won't let her make a misery of it now. He wanted to say, I don't mean to punish her – I just want my life to myself.

‘I work in France, on and off,’ he said instead, ‘and there's an on–off woman there too. It's been easy and enjoyable and has suited me just fine. But now there's a girl back home – and it's complicated everything.’

‘Whoever said life should be simple?’ said Milly.

But the other lady said, ‘Funny how you call the one in France a woman and the one back home a girl.’

And Joe thought, it is odd that I should do that – not least because the girl at home is older than the woman in France, and a mother herself.

‘I'd say it's make-your-mind-up time,’ said Milly. ‘It can't be fair on anyone to be carrying on like this. Not least yourself.’

Joe was about to clarify the situation – but then he thought, why? What's to clarify anyway? Nathalie – and all the other Nathalies I provide myself with – they are what I know, what I've chosen; they have suited me perfectly over the years. Why break the habit of a lifetime? Never in a million years could it work out with Tess. Anyway, she'll probably be gone by the time I'm next home. Gone – for good.

‘Can I buy you ladies a drink?’ Joe asked, seeing the trolley returning.

Tess spent two days wandering about slightly stooped, often clutching her stomach as if she had some gastric bug. She felt ragged. She felt wrung out – as if the pain of losing Joe before she had even had him was being fed through a mangle together with the gut-wrenched dread of being potentially homeless and jobless. When she was in the house, she'd trail her hand wherever she went; touching the walls gently as if they were animate, clasping the banister as if it was a helping hand, pressing her cheek against the closed door of Joe's study as if to detect a heartbeat, her fingertips trailing the undulations of the dado as if reading for positive messages in Braille. When she went out, it was for short trips only – requisite fresh air for dog and child. She felt depleted of the energy required to walk far, to tackle the hill back home. She ate toast and Marmite without tasting it. She didn't drink enough water and had headaches because of it. She couldn't sleep at night and felt half-hazed by the afternoon. She didn't think of Seb at all, let alone wonder if he was back from wherever he'd been. She didn't think to call Tamsin. The only person she could think of was Joe and she couldn't very well call him though she begged the phone to ring and be him.

The day he left, when Em slept after lunch, Tess shut Wolf in the kitchen and went to Joe's bedroom. There, she lay on his bed and inhaled into one pillow while placing another one lengthways along her back. With eyes closed and her dreaming head on, she could almost conjure the sensation of another body. She let tears blot into his sheets and she whispered out loud to the room, as if her words might somehow travel through the ether to him. Sorry, she said. She said, please come back. She said, please let me stay. I do not want to go, she said, and I so want you to come back.