their spartan rooms. A distraction from the unrelenting woodchip of student digs, relief from the boredom of course-work, succour from the sudden panic of final exams, a cheap form of student exercise. Nice enough, but about as symbolic as the lower second degree they both came away with.
Then came Tess's move to London and it seemed that for a long while, the furthest flirting went was the odd person smiling at her on the tube – odd being the operative word. Then came Dick. Tess thought about Dick as she dipped her roller and worked the paint to suitable tackiness. Dick hadn't really flirted with her at all – he'd spouted some cod-Shakespearean poetry at her instead. She couldn't remember it precisely – only that he'd actually used the word ‘maiden’ in all seriousness. He broke off, mid-riff, from some long instrumental number on his beat-up guitar, to gaze at her as if she was a gift from the gods. He'd pointed his plectrum at her and delivered his ‘maiden’ soliloquy. As a rambling preamble, it worked. Some more second-rate prose-poetry, a further few chords on his guitar and bed followed. And so he came. And then he went. And Em arrived. Em, usurping utterly the love anyone else could possibly give Tess or ever elicit from her. Emmeline, her everything.
And though Em has remained her everything, the love of her life and the light in it, Tess quietly wondered about the recent rushes of adrenalin. As much as the love she shared with Em was primal and vast and utterly sustaining, feelings of a different type and intensity were surfacing. As the utility room walls brightened with every run of the roller and the skirting in the lounge became smoother with each rub of sandpaper, Tess thought about these swells of adrenalin; how they crested each time Joe said something like, you've missed a bit, or, would Rembrandt care for a cuppa? And she thought how, when she'd been so engrossed glossing the window frame singing along to a Golden Oldies radio show, she hadn't noticed him leaving a Mars Bar and an apple on a plate by her side – and how she'd been too thrilled to eat them. She recalled how she felt when she was carefully cutting-in along the dado and he'd knocked on the door and said, I think I hear Em – I'll go to her if you like. These little surges of adrenalin, Tess conceded, were actually good old-fashioned butterflies. But her scant experience and battered self-esteem left her unsure whether fetching a baby, or leaving a Mars Bar or calling her Rembrandt or sharing a steak was flirting, or perhaps something more. Or there again, less – just friendship or simply social grace.
She wasn't to know that Joe had told the office he'd be in afternoons only – after lunch. Nor did she know that when he was in his study, rigorously calculating forces and stresses and the risks of compression and tension, torsion and resonance; the truer challenge taxing his mind was whether it was too soon since the last cup of tea to make Tess another. And when he heard her singing, he tried to work out various ways to watch her, unseen. And how he wished he could have witnessed her reaction when she found chocolate and an apple by the white spirit! Joe hadn't really ever had to do much flirting because women had generally fallen, legs akimbo, at his feet. Or fallen to their knees to unbutton his flies. Or simply fallen for him with all the sweet nothings that brought with it which, to Joe, was precisely that: sweet but nothing. There's Nathalie in France, Rachel in London, Eva in Brussels; there had been Giselle in Brazil and there would always be someone in Japan. They all come with the job. It's a perk that he's exploited – the cost of foregoing anything long-term and solid has not been a high price to pay. It's been preferable and it's been his choice. It's kept his life simple. He comes and he goes – to them and away from them and back to the sanity and sanctity and seclusion of his house.
Only now, his space here has been halved and yet somehow broadened too, by the presence of Tess. And Joe can't deny the impact it's having but he's just not sure how to calculate it. It's growing, developing, taking form – yet without him having any control over the design. The details often surprise him. There's a solidity that unnerves him as much as a fragility too. Will it hold his weight?
For the duration of Joe's visit, Mars Bars, lunch and supper, and endless cups of tea, have punctuated the days. But after a week of this, he's off again tomorrow, a fact that has been hovering like a wasp inside a window. They haven't wanted to approach it, because of the sting, so they've tried to ignore it, to pretend they're not acutely aware of it. There's been an inordinate amount of tea-making today and it's only early afternoon. But she's still painting in the snug and he's shut himself away in his study. Em is having her nap. Wolf is convinced the garden is full of rabbits that can climb trees. Joe really can't drink a sip more tea and he has much to organize prior to his departure but it seems like a good enough time to tell Tess the plumber will be calling tomorrow about the downstairs loo.
‘He'll come in the morning – but take that with a pinch.’
And as Joe says it, he's looking down on Tess who is crouching in a corner working the sandpaper into some nook. And her jeans have ridden down just enough to reveal the top of her buttocks. She'll curse it as builder's bum but to Joe, it resembles the upper part of a heart shape. And he thinks, pinch. And he thinks, nook and then he thinks, cranny. And he has to turn around and tell himself to get a grip or fuck off back to his study. When he turns back, she's standing and he thinks, why the hell didn't I look for longer? And she's thinking, shit – these bloody jeans. There's an inordinate amount of eye contact and loitering for the simple information of a tradesman's impending visit.
‘The plumber?’ she repeats, as if the rasp of sandpaper had drowned his words.
‘Yes – tomorrow morning.’ He looks around the den. She's done two walls in a sludge-grey, a period colour that's perfect and, bizarrely, was the only one on offer at the small DIY shop in town. He nods his approval. He decides he'll be calling it the snug from now on, too.
‘I'm just sanding down the Polyfilla,’ she says. She's come over because she needs a new piece of sandpaper and it's on the table right by Joe. She has sludge-grey freckles over her cheek and a scab of Polyfilla on her chin. And Joe just can't help himself. He touches her cheek and he touches her chin and then his fingertips pause before he touches the tip of her nose. He used to have a den, out of bounds to previous house-sitters. Now he has a snug thanks to Tess.
‘You're covered,’ he says, ‘in stuff.’
And Tess can't speak because though she didn't know about the paint and the filler she's pretty sure there was nothing on her nose. It strikes her that he just might be touching her because he wants to. She is immobilized by the possibilities this could provide. But because she can't move, when he moves away she can't reach for his arm to stop him, to turn him back towards her, to raise her lips to his so that he can kiss her mucky face.
Once he's left the room, Tess chides herself. You idiot girl, he's not going to kiss you. He was just pointing out that your face is a mess.
She feels distraught and she starts sanding again, vigorously. Briefly, there are tears and when she wipes them away, she feels the sensation of salt water and sand mixed together – a combination she hates. It's not gentle on her skin and she is rough on herself.
I'm just his house-sitter, his odd-job girl, with my spattered face and ancient jeans and pasty bum. Who do I think I am that he would want to kiss me?
She has no way of knowing that Joe has been standing still in his bedroom, the feel of her cheek, her chin, her nose, imprinting into his fingertips. He's been standing there like a lemon for ten minutes or so, looking at an open drawer thinking, I don't want to pack, I want to stay.
It was time for another last supper and Joe had done the honours. It was impossible for roast chicken, potatoes, peas, carrots, broccoli and onion gravy not to make life seem OK again.
‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’
‘After breakfast.’
‘What time will you arrive?’
‘Marseilles
