myself to a cordless phone.’
It didn't cross her mind that she might come across Seb, or that she could pop in on Lisa, or phone Tamsin reverse charges from that phone box over there and say, Tamz, you'll never guess what I did last night. Just then, to Tess, her genius loci centred around herself and Em and Joe and the house. Saltburn was irrelevant. She didn't notice what colour the sea was today, or what was going on along the beach, or how many people were on the pier, or how crowded the café was. She wasn't even aware, really, that she was in Saltburn with its Lisas and Sebs and shops that were now her locals. Her focus was fixed on a place she hadn't known existed until last night. It was a new location, one she was desperate to explore, one she felt compelled to return to and quickly. So she arrived back breathless from both the fast stomp uphill and the anticipation of regrouping with Joe.
He was in the kitchen making doorstop sandwiches. Wolf was in his toppled-scarecrow stance nearby, globs of liver in a semicircle around him. Tess assessed the scene and she felt a calm joy seep through her.
‘Oh, you cruel, cruel man, Mr Saunders,’ she said and she delighted in the return of her larkiness. ‘How can the poor dog reach the liver with that thing around his neck – it's as long as his face, you divvy.’
Joe looked at her. And then he looked at the dog and the liver. He looked at her again.
‘Did you just call me a divvy?’
But he didn't give her time to answer, he walked over and slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her in very close and pressed his lips against hers. His eyes were shut tight. She could see that. Hers closed when he licked along her lips and eased his tongue into her mouth. Then Em walked by and gave Joe a bit of a shove, and he and Tess pulled apart though Joe kept his arm around her. And at exactly the same time, Joe and Tess said, no! Don't eat that, Em! That's for Wolf.
As the evening progressed, the pleasure of sharing their space transformed into an almost agonizing thrill about the potential to make love again. How do we go from here, nattering over supper, to the bedroom? they both wondered. How do we move the conversation from who's washing up and who's drying to let's go to bed and whose room? Should I ask her – or should I wait for her to say she's calling it a night? Is he going to say something – he's been reading that book for bloody ages.
‘I think I'll check on Wolf.’
‘Do you want a hand?’
‘It's OK, Joe, I have it down to a fine art.’
‘I'll say.’
‘Tea, Tess?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘OK.’
‘Anything on the box, then, Joe?’
‘Ten o'clock news – shall we see what the world's up to?’
‘All right.’
‘I'll just check on Wolf again – take him out for a pee.’
‘Do you want a hand?’
‘No – we're fine.’
‘Cup of tea, Tess? A nightcap perhaps?’
‘No – I think I'd better go to bed. Look at the time!’
‘Bloody hell, you're right.’
It's bizarre. Neither of them fears rejection by the other – from the frisson that has underscored their waking hours today, they are both confident they wish for the same thing. Yet there they are, in separate beds on different floors both behind closed doors. And it's late now; really it's time for sleep never mind anything more active. But there she is, wide awake in bed and horny too. She's stuck, though, as if she's acutely aware that there's some finer point of sexual etiquette of which she's ignorant. And there he is, in his bedroom, standing by the window chiding himself for not reaching for her as she left the sitting room, even though that was over an hour ago. Her arm, her slender arm, the downy little hairs revealed only when the light catches them – her arm had practically brushed his when she left the sitting room. Why hadn't he put his hand out, pulled her onto his lap, kissed her and whispered something about coming to bed – or perhaps kissed her and found there was no need to say a thing? In fact, why the need for bed, per se – now Joe is torturing himself with images of him and Tess in naked abandon on one of his capacious sofas? It could have been so easy! But he's in his bloody bedroom, on his bloody own.
‘I've never had this problem before,’ he cusses. ‘I've rarely had to ask, even.’
I'll go to her room, he thinks. I'll just bloody well go to her room and knock on the door – and then I'll go right in.
Tess is thinking much the same thing. She hasn't had the thought about the sofas. The only place she's kicking herself for not being in, is Joe's arms. She has silently opened her door. She has hovered on the landing. But the route to his room, in the thick silence of the night, seems now to be a chasm over which there is only a precarious rope bridge. And she just doesn't think she's brave enough to test how strong it is.
So she goes back to bed.
And Joe goes to bed too because he sees it's almost two in the morning and he tells himself she'll be fast asleep by now.
It's five thirty a.m. Tess's dream is interrupted by a soft knocking. It's very strange, because the entire dream, in all its banal and convoluted detail, has been leading up to this moment of the sound of knocking. She opens her eyes and waits and there's the knock again. And she turns in bed and looks at the door handle and wills it to turn. It does. For a moment, she wonders whether it is telepathic kinetic energy – and she sincerely hopes not. It isn't. The door opens and in walks Joe. He sees she is already holding the quilt open for him and he tucks down beside her, their hips already starting to move in a gentle rhythm, their hands already reaching for each other, their lips already magnetized.
He whispers in her ear. ‘If I know Emmeline, we have a whole hour before she wakes.’
It was beautiful. It was beautiful because it could be played out against a backdrop of early summer, which had arrived now for good in a burst of bluebells and the clement weather scenting the air. The crocus might now have gone and the dog violet was on its way out, but primula sprang a chorus of yellow and cream alongside the proliferation of wild bluebells and tangle of wood sorrel. It was also beautiful because it was so private. The house – their castle. No one need know they were there. It was the perfect stage-set on which they could play out the happiness they felt. And, because it was so private, and they felt so happy, so it became all encompassing. There was no need to venture further afield than the perimeter of the grounds. They allowed nothing to trivialize their time together – no unnecessary excursions from the house, nothing as base as thoughts of work or worries about money. No unwelcome visitors encroached on the space they constructed. Well, one did but Joe told the bloke that no, Tess wasn't in and yes, he'd pass on that Seb had called by, though he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. The phone went unanswered. Well, Joe let Nathalie ramble on his Blackberry voicemail but he didn't return the call.
He likened the building of their relationship to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The East River was too far to cross in a single span in
