didn't want to kiss her now – not with her like this.
‘I was, Tess. You're right – that night I really did want to kiss you. And it wasn't just a heat-of-the-moment thing. I was about to kiss you on the bridge that night. And when we got back – I could've done so then too.’
‘But you didn't!’
‘Because you gave me no signs of reciprocation.’
Tess stamped with frustration. It was so true. He was absolutely right and her indignation came from Joe's perception. It was maddening. The sides of the hole she'd dug herself were crumbling and she could not work out how to clamber back to normality.
‘Well! I'm bloody glad I didn't. We wouldn't want you three-timing Kate, would we!’
Joe closed his eyes, placing fingers against his temples as if to keep his temper in check, or to protect himself from further onslaught, or to guard against the threat of a headache of blinding proportions.
‘I do not know a Kate, Tess.’
‘You're lying – I've seen the photo!’ Tess was not going to listen to him or think before she spoke.
‘The photo? What photo?’
‘This one, idiot!’ And Tess darted back in to the kitchen, snatched the photo off the dresser and brandished it at Joe. ‘This one – look. K.L. See! K.L. – and the date on the back and smiley loved-up Joe on the front.’
Joe took the photo from her as if he'd never seen it before. He turned it over and over; from the photo on the front to the writing on the back. Then he looked at Tess but she gave him no chance to speak. She was on a mission to have her coup de grâce; a little girl power over Kate and Nathalie, a swipe at Joe for saying she'd given the impression she didn't want to be kissed when she had.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I don't need the photo to know about Kate. Your mother has told me all about her.’
‘My mother?’
‘Yes, Joe. Your mother. You know – the secret one you keep squirrelled away at Swallows. I thought I was seeing ghosts – someone lurking outside the house at weird times. And one day I confronted this little old lady loitering in the garden and what do you know, she used to live here!’
‘You met my mother?’
‘More than met – I visit her now. I've had her here for tea, for a little sit-down. I drove her back to Swallows. I bought her an ice cream. I chat to the other biddies. So yes, I know your mother, Joe, and she told me all about Kate.’
Joe said nothing. But he needn't have said a thing for Tess to know in an instant that something was very wrong. He was no longer looking at the photo, he was looking utterly poleaxed. She saw that this had nothing to do with Kate or Nathalie or Tess – his expression then had been one of wry bemusement. Now something far more fundamental, something darker altogether, striated his face. He turned his back on Tess and walked off, whistling for Wolf who didn't give her even a glance as he trotted after his master for a late-night ramble.
Tess sat by herself for a while trying to figure out what had just happened. She felt no triumph, she just felt panicked. When that subsided, she experienced surges of dread and remorse. What had she done and what could she do? Was there anything she could salvage from the jagged twists of the horribly crossed barbed wires? She tried to tell herself that she'd saved herself future hurt by exposing Joe's duplicity, or even triplicity. But then she pointed out to herself that, in doing so, she'd also forfeited the possibility of ever having that kiss and being able to return one. And what was she to think about his reaction to his mother? She couldn't work that one out at all. By the time she went to bed, though, she deeply regretted her tirade. If only she'd shut up about Kate and Nathalie. If she'd just shut up instead of flying off the handle, then there could have been room for her in Joe's life. Her more involved presence might have furnished him with enough to decide there was no room for the other two. But then she told herself her high self-regard was ludicrous. And so her low self-esteem slid back around her like a constrictor.
I'm just his house-sitter.
And beyond that I'm just a single mum who has run away from a mess of my own making that I fear I'll never be able to clear up.
The look on Joe's face when she told him about his mother.
She might have made a fool of herself venting about the other women. But the look on his face when she told him about his mother. She had been wrong but she had no idea how to make it right.
They met again, in the kitchen, the next morning. Tess shuffled in meekly, fussing quietly around Em. Wolf was spread out in a deep, twitchless sleep, as if he'd been up all night and his battery was dead. Joe was at the stove, cooking a fry-up.
‘Breakfast?’ he asked and Tess tried to analyse his tone of voice. It sounded normal really, friendly even.
‘Um –’ She didn't have an appetite. She didn't have words, either. ‘OK.’
‘The works?’
‘Thank you.’
Five minutes later, a loaded plate was laid before her. She looked up at Joe who was looking down on her, his expressionless face somehow contradicting the gesture of making her breakfast. Actually, he wasn't expressionless, he was closed down, shut off – as if he was giving her breakfast and nothing else.
She looked at the eggs, sunny side up, a little of the browned butter flicked back over the white – Joe's forte. She'd lauded it when he first cooked her one. He'd said, why thank you, ma'am, and it had made her laugh. The morning after, he'd cooked her the same again, and in front of her place setting was a silver salt and pepper set. She'd seasoned her food and held her cutlery with her little finger stuck out at a theatrical angle and that had made Joe laugh. You are a one, he'd said, flicking the tea towel over his shoulder, rolling up his shirt-sleeves to wash up. You are a one, Miss Tess.
He'd been whistling that morning. Never had eggs tasted so lovely. She'd eaten her breakfast listening to him, watching his back as he washed up. The way his shirt caught over his shoulder blades. How it would feel to rest her face between them.
Now look at him – an awful lot to see, nothing coming back. Tess looked down at her plate, thoughts racing to say the right thing.
‘Joe?’ She forced herself to maintain eye contact though she'd rather slip under the table and lie alongside Wolf. ‘I'm very, very sorry.’
She tried to analyse the quick shrug Joe gave her. Reluctantly, she had to admit the answer it gave was that whatever she said, the damage was done.
They ate in silence. Tess cleared the plates. When she turned from the sink, Joe had gone from the kitchen.
She loitered around the house and garden, playing with Em though her mind was elsewhere – a failing that any toddler won't tolerate and will counteract with whingeiness.
‘Sorry, baby girl. Mummy's been naughty. Mummy needs to make things better. Silly, silly Mummy.’
Em called Tess silly and Tess didn't know whether to laugh or weep.
Joe didn't want tea – she'd twice knocked on the study door to offer it.
‘There's a doorstep sandwich for you, on the kitchen table. With pickle,’ she said later. But by the time she came back downstairs from settling Em for her nap, the plate had gone and the study door remained resolutely shut. In the early evening, while running a bath for Em, Tess heard the crunch of tyre on gravel and she hurtled to the window to watch Joe drive away. She darted down to the kitchen. Back through to the hall. Upstairs to her bedroom. No note. Nothing. Just gone.
She was devastated, incapable of doing anything for the rest of the evening apart from sitting downstairs in the drawing room, in a tiny huddle on the capacious sofa, her lolling arm perfectly placed to run Wolf's ears through her fingers, an action conducive to contemplation.
Have I screwed things up?
or