Freya North 3-Book Collection: Secrets, Chances, Rumours. Freya North
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paused, racked her brains. ‘Who?’
‘Don't pull the “I don't have any friends” stuff on me. I've been worried. Geoff too. And I bumped into that girl you worked with – she said it was the gossip at the salon.’
‘But I told them.’
‘You didn't tell them why or where.’
‘I couldn't.’
They both paused. ‘When are you coming back? And where are you going to live when you do? I'm moving in with Geoff next month – otherwise, if I'd only known – And I saw your landlord, bizarrely, when I went round to find your corpse – he had a face like thunder saying you'd done a runner.’
‘I have.’
‘So I said he should calm down and there was probably an explanation and maybe there'd been a family crisis – what did you just say?’
‘A runner. I have done a runner, Tamsin. I've run away. I'm not coming back.’
Tamsin didn't dare pause. ‘I sort of want to hang up on you, but if I do I'll risk you never calling me again.’
‘Don't hang up, Tamz. Please don't. You have this number now.’
‘Don't hang up on me either – I just need to know if you're OK?’
‘I think so. I will be.’
‘Tess, were things really that bad? Why didn't you turn to me? I know Clapham is the other side of the world to Bounds Green – but Yorkshire's even further.’
Tess paused. ‘I had to go.’ Memories came back and she shuddered. ‘People made it seem that things were very bad for me.’
‘So you're hiding? How the hell can that help? You can't hurl your secrets out to sea and hope they'll disappear into the deep depths.’
‘Actually, I'm house-sitting, not hiding, and it can help. It already has. It's the most beautiful, beautiful place. And the man is called Joe – he builds bridges. And there's an old lady – Mary. I've just found out she's his mother. And there's a surfer called Seb. And a dog called Wolf. And a garden, the size of which you just can't imagine.’
‘It all sounds charmingly Mary Wesley, Tess.’
‘I had to leave, Tamsin. I know it's cowardly. But it was the only option. I was really starting to panic.’
‘I kept telling you to go to the Citizens Advice Bureau.’
‘I don't want advice. I know what they'll say. All I want is to bury the bad stuff. I just want a new start.’
‘Tess Tess Tess.’
‘I know,’ Tess said, ‘I know, I know.’
‘Don't you think you might be burying your head in the sand?’
‘I don't do beaches, Tamsin.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I don't think so. I'm not actually hurting anyone.’
‘But you – are you OK? And my goddaughter – is she OK too?’
‘We're both very OK. Em's really blossoming. It's just that today I felt a little – I don't know. Lonely. I don't want to cry –. Shit.’
‘Oh, Tess, come back – I'll help you work things out.’
‘You can't.’
‘Well, what can I do? Who knows you're there?’
‘Just you. And my sister.’
‘And I bet she's really interested.’
Tess considered this. And she realized that her sister hadn't even sounded surprised to hear from Tess, let alone to discover she had packed up her life and left London for a seaside town in the North. Tamsin's initial fury at Tess was different. It came from genuine concern. It came from love. And that helped. Tess didn't feel quite so lonely. She might not have Tamsin to hand, she might not see her for quite some time. But the fact that she was there for her, in spirit and now, at the end of the phone, was a comfort.
‘Please keep in touch, Tess? Regularly. Let me know you're OK.’
‘I will but I binned my mobile phone – it's snail-mail or landline only.’
‘How frightfully quaint,’ Tamsin murmured in a BBC accent.
‘Quaint is quite a good word for Saltburn, actually,’ Tess told her, ‘though it's gritty too, but that's what I like about it – it's real. I saw the most incredible sunset the other day. Then the next afternoon, I came across some young scamp glue-sniffing.’
‘You can see that down here,’ Tamsin said.
‘I know what you're saying. And I know why you're saying it. But there is something about this place – at this time – for me.’
‘OK, I hear you. Just stay in touch – please.’
‘I will. But I'd better go – the dog and child need feeding. Bye.’
‘You're loved!’ Tamsin interjected and with such urgency that Tess couldn't reply.
She stood looking at the replaced handset for a while, then wondered what to do about paying for the call. So she went and found one of the clean, empty jam jars she'd stored away and put a fifty-pence piece in it. Then she fed Em and Wolf, after which she bathed the former and turfed the latter out into the garden for his ablutions. She spent her evening designing a label for the jar, complete with a narrative of doodles and fancy lettering.
Telephone Tab.
Every now and then she'd say, oh shh! when the house creaked or the pipes groaned or a door squeaked open all by itself. But it didn't unnerve her. She quite liked it, now she'd grown used to it. The house – its sounds and smells and quirks – was now familiar. The place had such personality. It was as if the house had been a welcoming stranger at first, but Tess now felt she was living with a friend.
If she picks up the phone, I'll be phoning to say I'm coming back tomorrow. If she doesn't, bugger leaving another message – perhaps I'll squeeze in another weekend in London, see Rachel, head to Belgium on Monday. Or maybe I'll stay put, here in France. I don't know yet, until Tess answers.
Odd, though, that out of all the scenarios I'd probably forego rampant no-strings sex to spend time instead with her – to return to the North, to that faded old town, to that hulking old house and to that slightly odd single mum who is rearranging my home.
Tess could hear the phone ringing but she was not going to disrupt her luxuriating in such a decadently full bath. Whoever it was could leave a message. And if they didn't leave a message, then it wasn't her they wanted anyway.
The house was filled, during daylight, with the gibberish chatter of the toddler and the huffing and occasional yowls of the oversize dog. In the evenings, the pipes took over with their cacophony of gurgles and groans while elsewhere the house creaked and rattled sporadically. Recently, such sounds had faded benignly into the background and Tess began to notice instead the quiet that seeped its way through her once her baby was asleep and the dog was dead to the world. Initially, she wasn't sure if she liked it; it felt intrusive and confrontational because the only thing she could listen to was herself. She tried to trivialize it by thinking, well, it's a damn sight better than London where by now Upstairs Bloke would be crashing around, Over the Hallway would be having their flaming row and Ocado, Tesco and Sainsbury vans would be leaving their engines running, making their deliveries. How she used to exclaim, shut up, everyone, you'll wake the baby! Shut up everyone, I can't hear myself think! Thinking back, Tess realized how those warring sounds of London