from this. Windows at angles, rooms at tangents to the main walls; it felt fortified, there were no blind spots, the house had been configured so that every inch of its grounds could be viewed.
To either side of the French windows, a column of thick maroon velvet hung, faded along the folds to suggest the curtains were rarely drawn. In front of them, at odds with the entire room yet dominating the space and proclaiming Joe's authority, was a vast, stark white draughtsman's table; its top angled up, a high-tech stool in position.
I'm here for a scrap of paper.
But that did not preclude finding it being a lengthy process. She glanced at the clock. Em would be waking soon – Joe, perhaps landing. Tess imagined him fastening his seatbelt thinking, Christ, who the hell is this woman I've left in charge of my house – she's probably rummaging around my study this very moment.
One of the brass handles on the desk drawers was sticking out, as if suspended in time waiting for someone to pull it. She folded it gently down. She brushed her hand over the surface of the leather inlay and took her face to it to inhale. Ink and dust and history. She smiled, recognizing some of the documents and papers that had been in a scatter on the kitchen table now in a neater pile here, on top of a less ordered pile that was itself balanced on a jumble of others. She didn't give the laptop more than a glance; it was closed, and jarringly sleek and silvery for the desk. She thought of her Hotmail account and then thought better of it. She looked at all the framed certificates and found out Joe's middle name was Randal and his surname was Saunders. She imagined he was teased about this when he was younger. There couldn't have been many Randals in Saltburn in his school days. Nor now, probably. It seemed he was top at everything he'd done. Cross-country running included. There was a beautifully calligraphed, extravagantly embossed certificate in French. Tess's knowledge of the language was limited. Some fancy accolade for M. Joseph R. Saunders. Perhaps it was the freedom of a city for which he'd built a bridge.
Building bridges is what he did and the meticulous sketches on the draughtsman's desk attested to this. Tess perched herself on the stool and peered at them. A myriad of details, they resembled completed studies of architectural fragments, replete with angles and figures and arrows and symbols. Unable to interpret the details, Tess felt a little small, intimidated by the apparent complexity and Joe's obvious expertise. How ever do these two-dimensional clippings materialize into vast structures which carry, cover and join? She swivelled the stool and thought about this. As the stool stilled, she caught sight of a wastepaper basket under the old desk. Bingo. She retrieved a handful of scrap paper and sat at the desk to write her shopping list.
Washing powder (E)
Disinfectant
Nice cheese (me)
Marmite
Organic pasta (E)
Ditto rusks (E)
Biscuits (me)
Fruit & Veg
That would do for now. She did wonder whether to replace any of the out-of-date items she'd thrown away. But then she decided if a man hadn't had the desire for preserved apricots or brown pellet things during the last two years, he probably wouldn't crave them anytime soon. She glanced at the back of the paper – or what would have been the front when it had served Joe. A column of names. Her own included. It was a list of those applying for the job. The first name had a question mark and O.C.D?! written alongside. Mrs Mackey had been rewritten as Mrs Mucky and had a large X by her name. John Forder had mass murderer and a doodle of a dagger dripping blood by his. Mr and Mrs Potts had ANCIENT!! in capital letters by theirs. Mrs Dunn, however, had a tick and an arrow to a telephone number. Then another arrow to a sizeable cross with the word busybody! Then Tess saw her name. Next to it was no tick, no cross, no arrows, just a single word. Barking. No exclamation mark to lighten it. She thought back to the phone call, where she'd used her phoney American accent before exchanging it for a whisper. She remembered accepting the job before it had been offered. Barking, she had to concede, was an acceptable definition. But she would have liked a doodle by her name all the same. She wondered how Joe would rethink this categorization having had a couple of days of her. She slumped a little as if she could physically feel how she'd let herself down. Stroppy Cow, she wrote alongside Barking.
Then she wondered, would Joe declare her a busybody for fumigating his kitchen? Would he think she had OCD for planning to enforce structure in his store cupboards? Perhaps such enterprise would earn her a great big tick, maybe even a doodle. It had been a long, long time since anyone had bestowed a seal of approval on her. Even the paltry tips at the salon had fallen short of being anything but a formality. She looked at her nails and added Emery board (me) to the list. She'd left her manicure set on the sofa in London. A feeble gesture, but a gesture all the same. It was a professional kit and had been expensive. She hoped her landlord, nasty man, might know so. Would he have called by now? Three days, she reminded herself, that's all it's been.
Wolf seemed unable to stand upright, let alone go for another walk, so Tess gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him out into the garden where she chided him for doing his business and then felt bad because he looked so confused. It made her think she should leave him be and instead train Em not to venture to that particular area. After all, wasn't the garden large enough to accommodate all of them? She'd poop-scoop, that's what she'd do. She'd timetable it in, every day.
‘Come on, Em. Wolf – you can stay here.’
She took the buggy though Em toddled alongside for part of the way. This time, they stuck to the pavement on the opposite side to the valley gardens, passing by the magnificent Victorian buildings, trying to sneak a look through the beautifully proportioned windows.
‘See sigh!’ the baby's pudgy hand waved excitedly.
‘Not today, baby,’ Tess said, skimming wary eyes along the beach. There was a pebbly area where the river-mouth met the beach, everywhere else the sand was a perfect blond. Today the wind whipped the surface sending sand whispering over the beach like smoke.
‘See sigh,’ Em repeated as if indignant that enunciating the words hadn't led to the reward of the real thing. They were standing at the railings again, from where they'd watched Joe and Wolf cavorting the day before yesterday.
‘Sorry,’ said Tess, ‘Mummy doesn't like the beach.’ Then she looked around her and said, but Mummy does like the pier.
Tess pushed the buggy along the lower promenade, passing the old beach chalets in red and white all battened down against the spring squalls; on past a closed café, an open surf shop. She walked around the small amusement centre at the entrance to the pier, went through the ornamental gateway and walked out onto the boardwalk. The tide was out leaving the sand with a mirrored surface on which a string of horses was being ridden. They were passing right under the trestles and Tess and Em looked down on them from one side of the pier to the other, like large living Poohsticks. For all its impressive length, the pier was plain, austere almost, with none of the lurid jollity of Brighton or the tasteful and innovative renovation of Southwold. But when Tess looked around her, up and down the coast, inland, out to sea, to the sky, she thought how the point of this pier was perfectly realized – to serve the views.
Along the length were occasional benches, sat upon by elderly couples in a huddle to watch time pass while allowing the bracing sea air to do them the power of good. They cooed over Em who smiled on cue. Tess looked down to the shore line as she continued to walk along the pier; the spray from the wave crests was being blasted back to sea – nature breaking the rules. At the end of the pier, a snuggle of men fishing. Tess ventured up to them, gingerly – it was windy and the pier was high. Their buckets were empty but that didn't seem to be the point, rather eating sandwiches and sharing their flasks of tea did. Plenty more fish in the sea, one man called after Tess. She laughed though she said to herself, yeah right. Been there. Done that. Got the baby.
Tess shivered. She wanted to scrub out the kitchen before having to prepare supper. She picked up her pace which allowed for only a cursory