if I look after it, it'll care for me.
‘Sorry?’ Joe was looking at her.
Tess, appalled that she might have spoken out loud, quickly turned to her child. ‘Em! Mummy said be careful.’
‘This is the other sitting room,’ Joe was saying as he led them into a room whose walls were dark red, with two sofas of well-worn brown leather, curtains half drawn. Tess wondered, if you sat still enough, whether no one need know you were there at all.
‘When do you use this room?’ she asked.
‘TV,’ Joe said. ‘I know it's naff – but look.’ He opened a cabinet door to reveal a sizeable flat-screen set.
‘Do you have CBeebies?’
‘What's that?’
‘It's a kids’ channel,’ Tess said, brushing the air as if her question was unimportant and an affirmative answer was no big deal.
‘Probably,’ said Joe and he zapped at the remote control. ‘Is this it?’
‘No.’
‘This?’
‘No.’
‘How about this?’
‘No. It doesn't matter. It's not a problem. I brought DVDs that Em likes. If that's OK, I mean. If you have a DVD player? Oh – and if it's OK for me to use it?’
‘Sure. Why not. See here – and you need this remote control. Now, come through. This is another loo. And this is a room that – well – I just keep stuff like this in. Quite a useful room, really – though it's become a bit of a dumping ground. Now – upstairs. This is my floor – I'm down there. But I keep the hoover in this room here. Slightly extravagant – and actually, there's another hoover downstairs. But I'd say life's too short to lug a lone vacuum cleaner up and down all these stairs.’
‘Or to use either of them much at all, really,’ Tess remarked, eyeing fluff and stuff on the floors. She caught Joe looking a little taken aback. ‘That's what I'm for,’ she said brightly, ‘that's why I'm here, it's part of the job, isn't it – and I quite like hoovering.’
Joe's expression was odd but he walked on ahead and up a flight of stairs before she could read too much into it.
On the second floor were three further bedrooms and a large bathroom, floored in shiny black-and-white chequered lino. There was a smaller bathroom on the landing going up to the top floor where another two bedrooms, without beds, were in the eaves. There was more attic space too, he told her.
‘Take which you like,’ Joe said, walking back down to the second floor, ‘I don't mind. Mostly the house-sitters squirrel themselves away right at the top.’
‘Is that where I should be?’
‘I said – take which you like.’
‘Sorry.’ She paused. ‘Really?’
He shrugged. ‘Of course.’
‘Could I take the front room on this floor?’
‘Sure.’
Tess returned to it. A bay window. A window seat. A double bed, stripped to the mattress, with a dark wood bedstead. Nearly but not quite matching chest of drawers and wardrobe, both almost fitting into the alcoves either side of the fireplace. Cherrywood perhaps. A similar colour to the design decorating the tiles of the fireplace.
‘Which one for Emmeline?’
And Joe had to repeat the question because Tess was looking into the wardrobe as if she could see right through to Narnia.
‘Which one for Emmeline?’
‘Em?’
‘A bedroom – for Emmeline,’ Joe said. ‘Which would be suitable for her?’
‘She can have her own bedroom?’ Tess said, flabbergasted. Joe looked flabbergasted to the contrary. ‘She can bunk up with me,’ Tess said, as if availing herself of anything more than Joe had already offered her would be obscene. ‘She has done so far. I have a travel cot. Well – it's her only cot.’
Joe shurgged. ‘Whatever suits you. But you're welcome to the other rooms. To house-sit successfully, you need to feel at home.’
At home, thought Tess when Joe had gone downstairs leaving her to gawp at her leisure.
This house is a home.
And she sat down and looked around her and thought, how did I come to be here?
How on earth did I come to be here?
Joe could hear her, clattering around. He listened to his furniture being moved and he wondered if he minded. When all went quiet he reckoned she was making the beds – he'd heard the yawn of the linen cupboard door being opened repeatedly, as if she was searching for the best thread-counts. The other house-sitters had always come so prepared. Some had come positively armoured, especially those from agencies. They never seemed much interested in his offer of a home from home – instead, they turned up bringing portable habitats with them – boxes and suitcases of pillows, towels, lamps, TVs. One young man brought his own cutlery and a bespoke wooden container for it, the Scottish lady brought her own armchair and Joe doubted that she ever sat in one of his. It was as if they pitied Joe or disapproved of the contents on offer and so constructed their self-contained pods within the fabric of his home. Which was probably why they were happy to move on – however long they stayed, the charms of the old house never seduced them and Joe ended up thanking them far more than they thanked him.
He had helped Tess in with her bulging suitcase and numerous bags that appeared to contain solely the accoutrements required by a toddler. There was an iron on the passenger seat of her car and a box on the back seat billowing wafts of the Cleveland Gazette. She told him it contained two bone-china cups and saucers and would he mind if she put them in the kitchen. They were her Grandma's, apparently, and made tea taste its best. The footwell in the back was taken up with carrier bags full of vinyl LPs, which Joe said she was welcome to unpack in his sitting room. There were also three taped-up cardboard boxes in her boot. He'd offered to bring these in – but she'd said, they'll stay there, thank you very much, as if they were in disgrace.
That was a couple of hours ago. He hadn't seen her since, but she'd been calling down to him at various intervals. Checking it was 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
