the same. Joe had always loved this about them and, for that reason alone, had indulged himself in more than one at a time. Now, on the plane to France he thought no two are alike – but they're all too bloody similar, whatever their age or nationality.
He gave the charming hostess a what-the-hell smile and ordered himself a Scotch and soda. He took a sip; the taste was immediately reassuring and it settled his gut quickly. As he sipped, he tried to conclude the situation still rampaging in his head. The Nathalie phone call would have been enough in itself for Tess, and for him, without the added complication of Kate. If it had been only the Nathalie phone call, it was very likely that he would have taken Tess in his arms and said, she means nothing to me – it's you I want. But Nathalie alone was not the problem. The woman who complicated everything wasn't Nathalie, nor was it Tess and of course it couldn't be Kate. It was his mother.
Spoiling things again, he thought. She's bloody spoiling things again.
Then he thought, the stealing back to the Resolution is a relatively new thing of hers, but how stupid of me to think I could hide her away. And he wondered if he'd been unfair on Tess – who'd told him about her family when he'd asked though he'd fobbed her off when she'd asked him. They're not around, he'd said of them, and he knew he'd made it sound like they were dead. Up at Swallows, he could deal with his mother because the surroundings were neutral and help was at hand. Why hadn't he told Tess that his senile mother lived down the road and up the cliff and she might appear at the kitchen window every once in a while and could Tess possibly take a bunch of flowers if he was away for more than a two-week stretch? Swallows: the best care, close to home, that money could provide. He'd asked himself, on many occasions, whether he was paying more to feel less guilty. Then he'd chide himself – why feel guilty when the harm was done to him? Are the senile absolved of blame in the way they are released of memory and sense of self? Joe was still unable to balance his anger at his mother with his pity for the dreadful affliction befalling her. The unresolved emotion was apt to churn inside him at the slightest prompt. And that's what had happened when Tess brought her up.
Joe felt restless, confined, cramped in his mind and his body. He needed fresh air, the space to unwind, the privacy to shout, to shadow-box, to chuck a rock or swear excessively. The plane was certainly not helping but another Scotch would. He twisted around in his aisle seat; the neat, navy-clad bottom of the air hostess was just a little too far away now for him to order another drink.
‘They don't hang about, do they?’ said one of the elderly ladies sharing his row.
‘They have the whole plane to do, Milly,’ said the other, ‘and now the drinks aren't for free, they have to do all the money too.’
Joe smiled vaguely without facing them full on.
‘I'll say you wanted some peanuts with your Scotch,’ said Milly.
‘I'll say he wanted a double,’ said the other.
‘I can offer you a Murray Mint,’ said Milly and her fingers faffed with a packet and Joe felt it would be rude to say no even though he knew that accepting a mint would invite conversation.
‘Business?’ said Milly.
‘Pleasure?’ said the other.
‘A little of both,’ Joe nodded and suddenly he thought, sod England and Saltburn and all who are there – Nathalie doesn't know the details but she knows she has amends to make and she'll know the perfect way to do that. Finally, Joe had a solution: brain rest in France from the head-fuck at home.
‘A French lady friend, is it?’
‘She comes with the job,’ Joe said, not caring if the women detected his tongue in cheek because he was consumed by an image of Nathalie coming – her gasps and groans, the way her body would tauten, the way she stretched and arched herself worthy of any porn film.
Milly bristled at his rather vulgar turn of phrase.
‘Gracious,’ the other murmured, ‘it's not just the pension and the paid holidays – they think of everything these days.’
Joe looked at her and he liked her wry smile so he chinked plastic cups, though his was empty.
‘Is she French, then, your lady friend – your chérie?’ she asked, nudging Milly when she spoke the single word of French.
From nowhere, Joe wanted to ask them, do you have sons? He wanted to ask, do you have a good relationship with them – now? Did you – when they were little? Do they have lady friends, your boys? He wanted to ask, how old are you? Are you well? He wanted to say, my mother is nearly seventy-five – only seventy-five – but she has dementia and I pay for her to stay less than a mile from where I live because she made my life a misery then and I won't let her make a misery of it now. He wanted to say, I don't mean to punish her – I just want my life to myself.
‘I work in France, on and off,’ he said instead, ‘and there's an on–off woman there too. It's been easy and enjoyable and has suited me just fine. But now there's a girl back home – and it's complicated everything.’
‘Whoever said life should be simple?’ said Milly.
But the other lady said, ‘Funny how you call the one in France a woman and the one back home a girl.’
And Joe thought, it is odd that I should do that – not least because the girl at home is older than the woman in France, and a mother herself.
‘I'd say it's make-your-mind-up time,’ said Milly. ‘It can't be fair on anyone to be carrying on like this. Not least yourself.’
Joe was about to clarify the situation – but then he thought, why? What's to clarify anyway? Nathalie – and all the other Nathalies I provide myself with – they are what I know, what I've chosen; they have suited me perfectly over the years. Why break the habit of a lifetime? Never in a million years could it work out with Tess. Anyway, she'll probably be gone by the time I'm next home. Gone – for good.
‘Can I buy you ladies a drink?’ Joe asked, seeing the trolley returning.
Tess spent two days wandering about slightly stooped, often clutching her stomach as if she had some gastric bug. She felt ragged. She felt wrung out – as if the pain of losing Joe before she had even had him was being fed through a mangle together with the gut-wrenched dread of being potentially homeless and jobless. When she was in the house, she'd trail her hand wherever she went; touching the walls gently as if they were animate, clasping the banister as if it was a helping hand, pressing her cheek against the closed door of Joe's study as if to detect a heartbeat, her fingertips trailing the undulations of the dado as if reading for positive messages in Braille. When she went out, it was for short trips only – requisite fresh air for dog and child. She felt depleted of the energy required to walk far, to tackle the hill back home. She ate toast and Marmite without tasting it. She didn't drink enough water and had headaches because of it. She couldn't sleep at night and felt half-hazed by the afternoon. She didn't think of Seb at all, let alone wonder if he was back from wherever he'd been. She didn't think to call Tamsin. The only person she could think of was Joe and she couldn't very well call him though she begged the phone to ring and be him.
The day he left, when Em slept after lunch, Tess shut Wolf in the kitchen and went to Joe's bedroom. There, she lay on his bed and inhaled into one pillow while placing another one lengthways along her back. With eyes closed and her dreaming head on, she could almost conjure the sensation of another body. She let tears blot into his sheets and she whispered out loud to the room, as if her words might somehow travel
