Secrets. Freya North
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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.