OK for her to swap the lampshade in ‘her’ room for the one in the top bedroom. And did he mind if she brought in the bedside drawers from the other bedroom. And could she move the single bed in Em's room through to the furthest bedroom because the iron bedstead concerned her and the paint was probably lead-based. And if she moved the Persian rug from that furthest bedroom into Em's room, would that be all right? Because then the iron bed wouldn't put unsightly dints into it and anyway what a shame for such a lovely rug to be stashed away in an unused bedroom. Joe really didn't need the details, or the rationale, and in the end he shouted from the bottom of the staircase, mi casa su casa– sorry, but I really need to crack on with my work. And she called down, oh! sorry! And he called up, don't worry. And she called down, OK! sorry again! And he didn't call back up. But he found that he did wait until he heard the floor-boards creaking again before he closed the study door.
He saw to his emails, organized his diary, looked through his file and then went to sit at his drawings. It was always the same when he next looked at his watch. He tapped it, held it to his ear as if it had malfunctioned and could not possibly be telling the correct time. It was gone nine o'clock and it was very quiet upstairs. Even in the silence, another's presence in the house was palpable and a few minutes later it became apparent that it was so quiet upstairs because actually she was downstairs, in the kitchen. Help yourself, he'd said earlier and he assumed she was now doing just that. He was tempted to wander in on the pretext of a cup of tea and was about to do so when a glance at his drawings and their glaringly overdue incompleteness drew him to his desk.
But then she started singing.
He wished she wouldn't.
Not that she couldn't hold a tune.
Just that it was a distraction.
He switched the radio on and tuned it to the World Service and turned the volume down so the voices sounded hushed, reverential, as if in a library. He concentrated on the plans in front of him, his initial freehand drawings on torn scraps Blu-tacked around the large sweep of graph paper; notes and measurements and calibrations pinned around his desk.
It was odd having young female energy in the house. It was unexpectedly compelling, really. New and different. But of what concern was it to him? He'd be away, mostly. France at the beginning of next week. London. Possibly the Far East later in the year. A trip to California in the late autumn. Various interludes in Belgium in between.
Concentrate.
It's only the house sitter finding her way.
Tess was making an omelette when she caught sight of a photo of Joe propped against a milk jug on the Welsh dresser. She had wondered whether she should offer to cook for him too, or if that was more a housekeeper's job than a house-sitter's. She decided not to. Anyway, there were only two eggs left and he looked like a three-to-four-in-an-omelette type of bloke. She'd make him a cup of tea instead, builder's tea not gnat's pee, and leave it outside his study door, knock once and then disappear. Perhaps she'd make it in one of her own teacups. Or would that be rude? Would that suggest she thought his crockery not good enough? Or was she being slightly ridiculous? First she needed to have her food and a sit-down. Her back was nagging – she'd never driven such a distance and then manoeuvred so much furniture before unpacking her life to make things just right for Em, now sound asleep in her new room. She took her plate to the table, picking up the photo of Joe on her way. He was younger then; his hair not so flecked. Bare-chested and tanned, wearing baggy khaki shorts, work boots and a hard hat. There was a bridge in the background. San Francisco, perhaps. He was smiling, looked ecstatic, actually. Probably grinning at a girlfriend, Tess thought. They probably swapped positions and somewhere there's a picture of her in front of this bridge too. Is it San Francisco? Perhaps not – isn't the Golden Gate Bridge a reddish colour? She put the photo back. Glanced at a postcard in pidgin English from a Giselle Someone, postmarked Brasil a couple of years ago. Tess liked to browse recipes while she ate but there appeared to be no cookery books, only an old National Geographic on top of the pile of unopened letters and discarded post on the kitchen table. She tapped Joe's chest in the photo. Bet you're one for the ladies, she thought.
She sat down and gazed at the food on her plate. She marvelled at how Em had been so compliant, eaten well, welcomed sleep so amiably for once. Tess smiled at the thought of her daughter snuggled down for a really good night's sleep. In a house. Fingers crossed she'd sleep through tonight – Tess knew she was in desperate need of a few hours’ total rest herself and she wasn't sure how Joe would react to Em's midnight or dawn chorus. Or Wolf for that matter. She felt she'd done a good job making Em's room homey and suitable; finding a low bookshelf in one of the attic rooms on which she'd arranged Em's toys invitingly. She'd vacuumed the Persian rug and placed it centrally so that Em had somewhere warm on top of the bare floorboards on which to play. She'd tacked up the paper border she'd bought ages ago but had never fixed to the rented walls in London. Funny how she'd thought to bring it with them. She'd used sellotape, lightly because she planned to ask Joe if she could do it properly, with paste. She'd ask him tomorrow because by tomorrow she suspected there'd be a lot more to ask him. She'd make a list in bed.
The omelette tasted so good. She hadn't eaten all day because her car had needed fuel more than she had and there had only been money for the one of them. She thought she was possibly romanticizing the omelette – she'd been so hungry even stale bread would have tasted ambrosial. She looked around her and realized she liked this kitchen so much because all the stuff was owned, it all belonged to someone, it belonged here; it hadn't been bought on the cheap for tenants past, present and future. Mi casa su casa, he'd said. Don't mind if I do, Tess said under her breath as she took her plate to the sink. Conversely, she also sensed that she could relax because if the phone went in this place, it wouldn't be for her. And no one could come thumping on this front door for her because they couldn't know that she was here. She was a lifetime away from London and it was a relief. As she boiled the kettle, she thought how she was making tea for Joe and a new life for herself.
She hovered outside his door. She could hear a radio. She didn't even know what he did for work, what it was that took him away for periods long enough to require a house-sitter. She didn't even know his surname. She put the mug down and knocked gently, twice. Heard huffing and panting and was taken aback for a moment before she remembered Wolf.
It was not yet ten o'clock; too early to turn in though she was fantastically tired. However, recalling how the bath had taken an age to run for Em, Tess decided to start it now. While it was filling, she would make a final check of the car. It looked a little lonely, very small, out there on the gravel drive.
‘Thank you for bringing us here in one piece and on a single tank,’ she whispered. In the boot, the three cardboard boxes. She poked one accusatorily, as if it was animate. There was probably little call for the contents up here in Saltburn but Tess could not have left them behind. She might hate them and level blame against them, but there was a little bit of her inside them too. She dug around in the two smaller boxes, retrieved a pot from one and a tube from the other. ‘Made With Love,’ she muttered, as if reading the label for the first time. She was about to twist the lid off one, a moisturizer, but resisted when she remembered the twelve-month shelf life once opened. Anyway, she'd packed a tub of Nivea which was still almost full. The thought of it brought her grandmother to mind. She'd have given Tess short shrift. Put Tunisian what on my face? she'd have said. How much do you charge for one of those tubes, did you say? Good God, girl, she'd have chided, what's wrong with Nivea?
What's wrong with Nivea indeed? If only I'd asked myself that question in the first place. Suddenly Tess was tearful. One of her earliest memories was deep in that iconic navy-blue pot. Her grandmother's face slathered with the thick, white, gently-scented cream, used in such quantity and applied in such a way that it coated her face in little peaks like a miniature mountain range, like Christmas cake icing. Her skin had been very good, Tess reminisced and, looking back into the boxes
