those T-shirts. It's what they call a capsule wardrobe.’
‘It's what I'd call my biggest nightmare.’
Lisa looked at the clothes thoughtfully. Then she looked at Tess. She thought of her own husband, happy to babysit while she nipped to Yarm to shop. She thought of their cosy but smart two-up, two-down in which he was always tinkering – replacing the plastic sockets with smart chrome, building a breakfast bar, putting in low-voltage lighting, glossing all the sills, skirting and doors. Their home, their castle. A lucky couple – completed eighteen months ago with the arrival of much-wanted baby Sam. She thought of her husband now, babysitting so she could help out her new friend. Happy enough with his takeaway pizza and a couple of tinnies and some crap on telly he wouldn't dream of foisting on her. Bless him.
‘What's he like, then – tell me again?’
‘As I said, he's – he's not here much.’ She paused to dwell on a mental image of Joe, lovely, painful. ‘He's in his forties. He's funny and moody and you could say handsome. He builds bridges. He took me to the Transporter and told me about the Halfpenny Bridge.’
Lisa didn't take her eyes off Tess.
‘I wasn't talking about His Nibs – I was talking about Seb.’
Tess gave Lisa an exaggerated silly-me look.
‘Oh, Seb – like I said, he's – nice. Charming. Chatty. Sporty.’
‘And you've had one snog and one quick kiss-with-subtitles?’
Tess laughed at this. ‘On paper – yes.’
‘What does that mean!’
‘It means both times I sort of suddenly found myself in the process of being kissed.’
‘Did you kiss back?’
‘The second time was so fast.’
‘The first time then?’
Tess remembered her tongue taking over instinctively because her mind was too slow to react. She nodded.
‘Right then, lady,’ Lisa said and before Tess could express any opinion, Lisa had taken off her own skirt (it was cute: vivid blue, corduroy, A-line, just above the knee) and stood waiting in her tights, arms crossed, while Tess put it on.
‘Suits you!’
‘Do you think so?’ Tess moved this way and that in front of the mirror, slightly in awe of what she saw.
‘Look at yourself, Tess – look at the pins on you! It's a crime to hide them. Do something with your hair, though. Get your slap on. You can take my lippy with you – it's only from Boots but it's called Honeytrap and with you in that skirt, it'll do what it says on the packet.’
Borrowing some shapeless old jogging pants off Tess, Lisa went downstairs. Tess sat in front of the mirror and said, hair, what am I going to do with you?
Mascara helped. And a carefully mussed-up ponytail that took ages to perfect completed the look. She sat there a while longer than she needed. She felt displaced all of a sudden – as if dates were hugely adventurous even risky pursuits undertaken by other more qualified people. She thought of Em. And tried not to. She thought of Wolf and tried not to. She didn't let herself think of Joe. She said out loud that she would borrow Lisa's sure-fire lipstick, if the offer still stood. She looked at herself in the mirror and said, you look stupid, you don't look like you. But then she heard Lisa hiss from downstairs that Tess was late, to get a move on or risk being stood up.
She was late but he didn't stand her up. He was waiting for her at the specific paving stone and he took her to the pub at the bottom of Saltburn Bank. It used to be a dive, Lisa had told her. Minging, she said. But now it was the place to go, all fancy decked verandas speckled with little bright blue halogen lights, woodwork painted in New England colours. Lisa had told her, you don't go to the bog there any more – they've restrooms now with polished granite and all. It had a commanding position too, with 360-degree views and an interrupted vista out to sea, hence its new name, the Vista Mar. Tess had never seen it by night. Swish for Saltburn. Then she thought, she hadn't really seen Saltburn by night either – only when passing through by car on the way to the Transporter Bridge.
Stop it! This night has nothing to do with Joe.
‘Loving your hair,’ Seb said. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘Wine, I think.’
Eye contact, Tess, eye contact.
They stayed until last orders. Somehow, she managed to elicit plenty of details about Seb's life without revealing too many of her own. Tess's grandmother always said she was a good listener, for Tess though it usefully precluded too much personal exposure on her part. Her grandmother would have deemed him easy on the eye and Tess would have agreed with her on that one. He was easy to listen to as well, especially on account of his accent. She still had no desire to surf by the end of the evening but his adventures on the waves were entertaining in their own right, as were his tales of Australia and his relatives’ acres in Cornwall. Two ex-girlfriends of any note, one or two rebound flings, a couple of good-time girls this last year. Nothing serious. How about you, Tess?
‘Oh, my family live abroad.’
‘Do you visit?’
‘We're not close, really.’
‘And work?’
‘I'm house-sitting at the moment.’
‘Taking a breather?’
‘I suppose so. Though I find it very satisfying. But I needed a change of scene.’
‘Wise. And men? If you don't mind me asking?’
‘You are nosy, aren't you? Nothing very juicy for you – no one special, really. The teenage sweetheart who was eventually more like a brother. The college boyfriend who I graduated on from once I'd graduated. One one-night stand which was one too many. Em's father, of course – but I wouldn't know how to begin to describe him.’
‘A wanker?’
‘Seb!’
‘Special?’
‘Unique is probably a fairer word.’
‘How so?’
‘He's a free spirit. He's in the wrong decade – he needs San Francisco at the height of hippydom.’
‘Shirks his responsibility, does he?’
‘Not intentionally.’
‘Sorry – tell me to shut up if I'm prying and we'll talk about the weather.’
‘Let's talk about the weather, then.’
‘You don't want to talk about him, do you?’
‘Well –’
‘Do you know how I can tell? It's because you've gone a bit twitchy – here, on your lips,
