of the girl who'd recently made his life seem wonderfully straightforward.
Tess was able to snatch a moment by herself in her room. Em was happily engrossed watching Story Makers and Tess had asked Joe, who was reading the paper in the same room, whether he'd watch Em while Tess ran her bath. With the bath running, she had taken herself into her room and stood in the centre, her face in her hands. She had to acknowledge it wasn't simply that she wanted him to stay because she loved being with him and she'd miss him. It was that she didn't want him to go because she didn't know where it was he went and she suddenly feared where it was that might lead. What if, when she was out of his sight, someone else sprang to his mind? They'd co-existed in this wondrous world in which she'd so easily believed that they had discovered some kind of super-reality. Now, standing alone in her room, she wondered whether they'd simply constructed a hermetically sealed fantasy. She went to check the bath. So much noise, for such a slow system. She had the temperature just right and she added bubbles before sitting herself on the edge in a deflated slump. In a rush of masochistic taunts, she goaded herself that she was just a bloody house-sitter and skint single mum with no hope in hell of the sort of happiness she'd kidded herself was so real and feasible during this last week.
Over the next two days, Joe and Tess tried their best to recapture the spirit of togetherness but the spectre of his departure hung over them in a pall they just couldn't shrug off. Even Em being unbelievably cute and Wolf managing to clown around rather unsteadily didn't bolster them much. They weren't gloomy, certainly they weren't snappish or uncommunicative; it was as if the soundtrack of life in the house was now in a minor key whereas before it had been a veritable symphony in C major. The colours of their aura were in subdued hues rather than the dazzling primaries of the days just gone. The sex was still good but it was more inward and the eye contact lessened.
After a final supper, over a last glass of wine and the crumbs of Stilton and Jacob's Cream Crackers, Joe finally broached the immediate future.
‘What'll you do, Tess?’ he asked. ‘What have you planned when I'm gone?’
She thought about it. She actually hadn't thought about it at all. She'd been too involved in the present.
‘Well,’ she said at length, ‘it'll no doubt revolve around playgroup and the vet.’
Joe nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘not just from Wolf – from me.’
‘I guess I'm going to have to find a bit of work.’ She said this more to herself.
‘Work? Why?’ He paused. ‘Tess,’ he said, ‘my last trip – what I said about you leaving –’
She shook her head, signifying he needn't say more.
He reached for her wrist and squeezed it.
‘Joe,’ she found herself saying. ‘What you said – about the lady, in France –’
But this time he shook his head, signifying she needn't say more and he squeezed her wrist again for emphasis.
‘OK?’ he said, a little sternly.
‘OK,’ she said, a little shyly.
They paused with their empty glasses and dabbed at microscopic remains of cheese.
‘So why look for work?’ Joe said at length. ‘Surely there's still plenty here that could do with your magic touch?’
She looked desperately uncomfortable and it took her a while to respond.
‘Because I'm a bit broke.’
‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I'm so sorry – I completely forgot. I must owe you two months?’
‘I didn't mean—’
‘No,’ Joe protested, ‘that's crap of me. Hang on.’ He left. And then he returned. He sat down and opened his cheque-book.
‘Miss Tess,’ he wrote. Then he paused. ‘Tess – I don't know your surname.’
Tess felt enormously tired all of a sudden. Too tired to tell him her surname, let alone request cash instead of a cheque.
‘Are you OK, pet?’
‘I don't know. I feel odd. I think I'd better lie down. Stilton does this to me sometimes.’
It wasn't true, but Stilton did make Tamsin come over all funny and just then, to appropriate her close friend's condition provided Tess with a much-needed connection to her past. She touched Joe's shoulder as she left the table. He made to take her hand but she was already beyond reach.
He could only make out the top of her head from the depths of his duvet when he went to bed much later. It seemed to him that she was fast asleep.
She woke and wondered if there was any way she could avoid the goodbye, short of running away. But there was a baby to feed and a convalescing dog to attend to. And there was so much to say, if only, if only, she could muster the courage. She had to get up and get the day moving because what else could she do.
In the kitchen, on the table, was the cheque. It was made payable to Miss Tess and the biro had been left on top of it. It was for two months wages’ with something on top. She didn't want to accept it at all, really. She wanted to dispense with this particular dynamic with Joe. Boss and house-sitter – where could that leave love? Two months’ pay – with extras. Were those last week? But she needed the money, God knows she needed it. However, the same old problem remained: relinquishing a cheque to her fetid bank account. It was like a bog. A cheque would be sucked down until the surface closed over and it looked no different from before. However, asking her sister for a postal order was one thing. Asking Joe for cash again was another. It didn't make her feel cheap; it just made her feel poor. And that decimated her self-esteem.
‘Morning,’ he said, suddenly behind her, a gentle smack to her bottom. He noticed she was holding the cheque.
‘Everything OK?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘I don't believe you.’ He crossed his arms and looked at her askance. ‘I know you, Tess,’ he said.
And Tess thought, but Joe, there's stuff about me you don't know. Secrets I don't want to share.
‘I'm fine – honestly – it's just the last throes of that bloody Stilton.’
Joe thought to himself, but I know you, Tess – we've shared Stilton on previous occasions with no adverse reactions.
She was hiding something and he wasn't sure he liked it.
‘I'd better make tracks, really,’ he said.
She nodded whilst fixating on a recount of the eyelets in his shoes.
He lifted her chin with his thumb. ‘Bye.’
He kissed her and oh how she kissed him back.
‘Bye,’ she said eventually, when it really was time for them to pull apart.
Lisa and her husband were
