not very good at – stuff,’ Joe says. ‘Call me squeamish.’
‘Well, Wolf needs you to be good at – stuff,’ the vet says. ‘It's straightforward enough.’
Joe doesn't look convinced.
‘Perhaps Tess could take charge,’ the vet says. ‘She's a capable young woman, that one.’
Joe thinks about this and the vet regards him for a moment, a little quizzically. ‘Do you know how she brought him here? Have you heard? Did she tell you?’
Joe looks confused.
‘Thought not,’ the vet says. ‘Well, I'll tell you. I was actually out in Saltburn on an emergency. She phoned the surgery and asked where we were exactly. The nurse said, Marske and Tess said, where's that – she thought we were in Saltburn. She was given road directions but she said she couldn't come by car so the nurse said, grab a cab, they'll know where we are. So I'm driving out of Saltburn and I came across this sight – some poor girl pushing a galumphing great hound in a kid's buggy while she somehow carried a small child at the same time. She must have done nearly a mile like that. Needless to say, I picked them up. She was frantic.’
‘She could have killed him,’ Joe says, ‘lifting him, transporting him like that – surely?’
‘She probably saved his life, actually. She had him swaddled tightly in a towel. It stemmed the bleeding. It was good for shock. She was killing herself to bring him to us.’
Joe thinks about Tess's car, how it had sputtered into his drive on that first day. About the boxes that were to be left in the boot. He remembers her saying it was low on fuel. He remembers her saying she'd driven his mother back to Swallows. He thought back to how they'd taken his car to the Transporter Bridge. Tussling with the child seat, narking at each other, laughing.
Joe pulls into the drive, turning a slow, careful arc in contrast to his usual gravelly spin. He's seen Tess dart from the drawing-room window, reappearing at the window by Wolf's new quarters. Now she's gone again. He opens the car door and by the time he's eased Wolf carefully onto the ground, the front door has been opened and Tess is standing there, her hands to her mouth. Joe lets Wolf set the pace and he finds himself tottering a little in sympathy. He thinks Wolf is like a very doddery old gent today. Usually, as soon as the car door opens, Wolf has bolted out to careen around his estate as though he's been incarcerated. Not today. Joe looks over to Tess. She takes her hands away from her mouth, crouches a little and opens her arms, like he's seen her do to Emmeline. He can see that she's too choked to speak and that Wolf can't wag in reply because he no longer has a tail, he has a stump swathed by a bright green bandage. All he can do is keep going, wearing the vast white plastic lampshade around his neck like a ludicrous bonnet. He has a bright blue bandage around his foreleg and as he hobbles closer, Tess can see shaved areas and stitches here and there.
They are by her now. She's on her knees, trying to cup Wolf's face in her hands though she has to delve right inside the lampshade to do so.
She looks from Wolf to Joe and back again.
‘You know something,’ she says and Joe is listening though he knows she's speaking to the dog, ‘you look a whole lot better than you did last week, little guy. You look like Wolf again – just in some crazy fancy dress costume. Welcome home, daft dog. Welcome home.’
Tess sat up in bed, in the dark, with the curtains open so she could sense the black nothingness of a countryside night uncorrupted by streetlamps or sirens. She pulled her knees up and linked her arms around them under the quilt, laid her cheek against them – it really felt as though she was giving herself a hug. To smile in the dark felt somehow safe; as if she wouldn't be tempting fate if she couldn't be seen. She pondered the reasons for her contentment; it wasn't as if specific things had been said or any overt gestures given – it hadn't been a special evening, if special is defined by specifics. On the contrary it was the lack of specifics – it was instead the things in general that made it so affirming. No declarations of intent, no mulling over what had passed, no discussion of the issues that had arisen – yet no active avoidance of them either. It was just an evening during which they had both been at their ease.
She went over to the window, pressing her face against the glass, looking out into the night garden. They probably could have gone over the whole Kate business and likewise, they could have talked through the issue of Mary. But these things seemed somehow trivial compared to the bigger picture of enjoying the here and now, of feeling comfortable in trading chit-chat and falling into step alongside each other again.
Do you think it needs pepper? No, not really. I think I added pepper too early in the cooking – did you know it loses its potency? No, I didn't. Oh yes – it does, that's why you should always add pepper right at the end. I heard that a squeeze of lemon juice added at the end really brings out the flavours without adding its own. That's news to me – I'll try it. I wonder if Calpol works for dogs. What's Calpol? It's children's paracetamol – it's strawberry flavour. You know, Tess – the vet's given him pretty heavy-duty meds. I know – but they look horrible whereas Calpol is pink and sweet and soothing. Poor old Wolf. Yes, poor old thing. He seems OK in himself, don't you think? All things considering, yes. And he loved the liver. He did, didn't he? He won't want to go back to Pedigree Chum! It'll cost you a fortune, Joe. So you're sure you don't mind being head nurse then Tess? Not at all – though I wouldn't have you down as squeamish. I can't even deal with splinters. Actually, I've become much more capable with all that stuff since becoming a mother, I used to be an utter wuss before that. Are you saying I'm an utter wuss? Yes, Joe, I am – can you pass the water, please?
Replaying the minutiae again a couple of times, Tess thought how the ease of their communication was as important as the topics themselves. And they weren't topics, really, not in the sense that they were deliberately chosen for interesting discussion. Joe and Tess were two people who, when together, could just talk. Banter, blether, chinwag, natter – when they were together, there was no shortage of what to say. She opened the window. It was chilly and there she was, in the draught in a vest and knickers at God knows what time. But it was invigorating and grounding and the physicality seemed to imprint this specific night on her soul. She thought, here I am. I'm still here, at the Resolution. I'm here on the night of the day that Wolf and Joe came home. She breathed in the air, it was sharp and bracing. She ran her hands lightly over her arms, liking the sensation of goosebumps against her fingertips, enjoying the feel of her touch on her own skin. Could she remember her sister stroking her arms when she was little? Or did she just make up that memory? She wasn't sure, knowing full well how it is easier to invent a past than acknowledge memories that aren't particularly happy. And, for a moment, Tess regretted that it was hardly the kind of thing she'd ever ask Claire now. But she bolstered herself with thoughts of Em, sound asleep in her very own room just yards away. And she smiled when she remembered those very first months utterly alone with the baby, feeling that the world could collapse around them and they'd be OK, in fact they probably wouldn't even notice. Week after week in a cocoon of insane exhaustion softly lined with utter awe, when the baby would be in her arms and she would stroke and stroke and stroke.
The pull to Em was intense and Tess left her room to check on her daughter. She didn't touch, she just gazed, thinking to herself, oh God, I love her so much I could roar. And then she thought, I'd better not, I'll wake the household. And then she thought, I must nip down and check on Wolf. It was gone one in the morning. She last checked on him a good two hours ago, just before she went to bed. And as she descended the stairs, she thought to herself, I've just spent two hours really happy.
The first creak on the stairs glided into whatever it was Joe was dreaming about so he didn't notice. The second creak broke his sleep wave. The third woke him up. At the fourth he thought, what's she doing? And because all was then quiet, he deduced she was now downstairs on solid flagstones, rather than upstairs on the uneven corridor. She's checking on Wolf, he thought. He looked at his clock. It seemed to him that he'd been deeply asleep for far longer than