the utility room taking Wolf's route.
And there he was, the great oaf. Some guard dog. There he was, sitting beside the intruder looking very relaxed by the state of his lolling tongue. She was wearing sturdy lace-up shoes and dark tan tights and she had no ankles to speak of. Her hair was styled in a vague approximation of the Queen's and, though she was quite upright in figure, her coat was buttoned up wrong and her eyes were pale and searching. Though Tess realized she certainly was not ancient, she did appear infirm. One arm lolled by her side. The other hand was busy in her pocket. She was sneaking out treats for Wolf while she looked at Tess, as if she was waiting for her to make the first move. She certainly didn't have the air of a trespasser about her.
‘Hullo?’ said Tess.
‘Hullo, dear.’
‘Can I help you?’
The lady laughed. ‘I was about to ask you the same thing. I live here, dear – what were you doing in my kitchen?’
In the short time it took for Tess to wonder how on earth to respond to this, she watched the lady become visibly puzzled. Her thin lips worked over her teeth as if she was in deep conversation with herself. Suddenly, she'd aged. She touched her hand to her hair, pressing firmly through to her head as if to check it was still there. Doing so left an indentation in her hairstyle.
‘I just popped out to the shops. To get something. Didn't I?’ She looked at Tess. ‘Can you remember what?’ Wolf was trying to put his nose right into her pocket. ‘Stop it, Wolf,’ she said.
She knew the dog's name. And then Tess knew why. She walked over to her and held out her hand – not for the lady to shake, but for her to take as support.
‘I'm Tess,’ she said kindly.
‘I'm Mrs Saunders,’ the lady said, holding onto Tess as a child holds onto their mother. ‘But you can call me Mary.’
Tess felt tears prick but had no idea why they were there. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.
‘Lovely, dear,’ Mary said. ‘I think I probably baked a cake yesterday too. If Wolf hasn't scoffed it.’
They sat at the kitchen table, the contemplative, measured tock from the grandfather clock in the hallway adding a soothing structure.
‘Sugar?’
‘Two, please. Though I used to be sweet enough.’
Mary enjoyed the way Tess laughed at this.
‘Biscuit?’
‘Well!’ She took one daintily, as if she was taking tea at the palace.
‘Joe isn't here,’ Tess said.
‘I should hope not! Unless he's playing hooky from school. He'll be home soon enough.’
‘Soon enough.’ And Tess thought, won't you come home, Joe – won't you come home and see who's here?
Every now and then Mary looked at Tess with momentary confusion but didn't seem to mind being unable to quite place her. It was as if Tess's benign presence rendered insignificant the finer details of who she was and why she was here. Crumbs spittled from Mary's mouth and she dabbed them away. Tess noted her hands were elegant but the nails were uneven and the skin was not only blemished with age; it was also dry and thin from lack of attention. She spread her own fingers out across the edge of the table, like a pianist about to play. Mary took note.
‘Not married yet?’
Tess shrugged and shook her head.
‘Joe'll be down on bended knee – when he's back from university. Though what sort of life he can offer you, I don't know. Now – if he'd followed the family path to the doctor's door, well, that would be a different situation altogether.’
‘I don't mind that he's not a doctor,’ Tess found herself replying before pulling herself up sharp and wondering if facilitating a confused lady's imaginings was tantamount to fraud – or cruelty.
‘What's that?’ Mary looked through to the hallway at much the same time that Wolf took himself off to sit at the bottom of the stairs with his ear cocked.
‘It's the baby,’ Tess said.
‘The baby?’
Tess thought about it. ‘Little baby Emmeline,’ she said. ‘She'll be waking from her nap.’
‘Little baby Emmeline,’ Mary murmured, as if convincing herself that she'd only momentarily forgotten about little baby Emmeline.
If Em hadn't quite woken from her nap then the sharp rapping at the door-knocker and the clangorous din of the doorbell certainly ensured she had.
‘Someone at the door,’ Mary said. ‘Whoever can it be at this time of day?’
‘I'll go and see,’ Tess said, patting Mary's hand. ‘You relax.’ She called upstairs to Em to hang on, Mummy's coming. Then she climbed over Wolf and opened the door.
A plump young woman stood there, in a uniform that was so generic Tess wasn't sure which profession it served – dinner lady or paramedic, cleaner or nurse.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ she said and her accent was local and strong. ‘Is Joe Saunders around?’
‘No,’ Tess said, ‘sorry, he's in London for the time being.’
‘And you are?’
‘Tess. Housekeeper.’
‘Laura Gibbings.’ She was frowning at Tess. ‘From Swallows.’ Tess looked none the wiser. ‘Swallow House Residential Care Home. We've lost—’
‘Mary?’
Laura looked both shocked and relieved. ‘She's here? Already?’ ‘Having a cuppa and a biccie,’ Tess said in what she hoped would be a collusionary sort of way. She didn't want Mary taken from her, from here, just yet.
Laura nodded. ‘I thought I'd pop up here myself – before they send out the search party.’
Tess nodded.
‘The others – they can be a bit – you know – impatient.’
Tess nodded again.
‘She can't half move, that one, when she wants to,’ Laura laughed.
Though Tess continued to nod she thought of Mary's thick ankles and the level of dogged conviction the steep drag up to the house must have required. ‘Laura, why don't you come in for a cuppa too – then I could drop you both back off. Use the phone if you like – tell them the runaway hasn't, well, run away.’
Laura was smiling her gratitude when suddenly she froze. ‘What's that?’
‘That's my baby.’
‘A baby? Here? At Joe's? Whatever does he think?’
Tess
