Freya North 3-Book Collection: Secrets, Chances, Rumours

‘Sounds good,’ he said. He wasn't to know that suddenly she was in a knot as to whether there was enough in her purse – which she'd been keeping out of sight under her bed – to cover much stuff at all. ‘See you tomorrow, Tess.’

She wanted to keep him longer on the phone, to run away from her nagging thoughts to yak instead about the minutiae of her day. She could tell him how she'd enjoyed the Joseph Heller but not the Doris Lessing, that the downstairs loo was now a sunny yellow, that she'd worked out how to record from the television and had saved him a programme called Megastructures about a huge bridge somewhere, oh, where! oh, what was the bloody thing called! It's in Japan! She didn't want him to go just yet because then it would just be her in the house and another evening stretched ahead and made tomorrow seem a very long way off.

‘Bye then.’

‘Bye.’

She placed the handset back in the cradle thoughtfully and looked at the pens, all in a scatter, and couldn't remember which were for keeping. So she had to test them all out again. She saw that she'd doodled the word ‘Joe’ a number of times. She told herself it had been absent-minded scribbling, that if it had been Tamsin she'd just spoken to, she'd've written her name a number of times in a variety of colours and squiggles instead. But she certainly didn't want Joe seeing this. She'd be screwing it up and chucking it away.

Don't screw it up.

Don't chuck it away.

Well, the paper, yes. But not the thoughts released by his name.

She told herself to stop it at once. But then she reasoned that it was so quiet tonight – Wolf hadn't even piped up when the phone went and the pipes hadn't made a sound all evening. There was nothing on the box. Her eyes were too tired to start a new book. There was nothing to do but think about tomorrow. She was all on her own and that meant she didn't need to tell a soul what she was thinking. Deluded? So what! The little buzz was – nice.

Later, as she lay in bed still thinking about tomorrow, it crossed her mind whether to invite Mary to tea over the next few days. But she wouldn't – not just because Joe had never mentioned her so Tess oughtn't to interfere. She'd be doing nothing of the sort because actually she was looking forward to having Joe all to herself.

All morning, Em had been saying ‘wol’ over and over and Wolf had been careening around in circles, taking sudden bites at the base of his tail. Tess couldn't work out what Em was saying or why Wolf was doing this. She looked through his coat but could see only healthy skin, pink in places, grey in places. He continued to turn on his imaginary sixpence while Em implored wol at regular intervals.

‘Do you mean Wol-f?’ Tess pointed to the dog but Em continued to say wol.

‘Good God – Wolf, would you quit? You two need fresh air. Come on.’

For a girl born and bred in a city, Tess was not quite sure from where her belief in fresh air being the answer to all ills had stemmed. She'd never been particularly sporty, nor had long walks or the great outdoors shaped her childhood. Her memories of that time were of her parents’ emotional and physical inertia: her mother motionless, staring out of windows as if she could see no way out. Her father seemingly absorbed into the fabric of the armchair, Racing Post on his lap, racing on the television, telephone at his side. ‘It's a flutter – some men spend all Saturday at the bookies,’ he'd snap, implying they should be grateful for his company. How Tess had craved the house to herself back then. And now she has one.

She'd grown to enjoy living at the top of a hill and the physical exertion it demanded. She'd looked at herself in the bath the previous evening and had noticed how her legs were shapelier than she remembered. And she'd stood naked in front of the mirror and had liked what she'd seen. She'd felt the firmness of her limbs as she lay in bed, giving her thighs a squeeze, tensing and releasing her calf muscles, running her hands along her upper arms to feel the pleasing dip and rise of muscle definition. Sea air and steep hills were doing wonders for her health and physique, she decided. Negotiating West End crowds and having to share the recycled air on the underground never had.

‘Wolf, come. Now, you silly dog. Stop spinning. Let's get some fresh air.’

‘Wol!’

Down the drive, across the road, steeply down the divvety path to the Gardens. Daffodils that should be dead by now, a cheeky bluebell out way too early, a profusion of crocuses, bright primroses flirting at all who passed by. Occasionally, the fertile soil beneath certain trees encouraging ancient plants like wood anemone, dog mercury and toothwort. The buggy dinked and lurched over the uneven ground sending tremors up Tess's arms, but Em was too busy saying ‘wol’ to be bothered. Wolf was off foraging; Tess loved how convinced he seemed of his treasure trail despite always bounding back to her empty-mouthed save his huge lolling tongue.

Through the natural tangle of the woods, they came to a vantage point where they could look down onto the sudden and fantastically incongruous splendour of the fastidiously planted Italianate beds, all swirls and ogees and complex symmetry. The planting was rapidly covering the soil now and Tess thought how it would not be long until the flower buds, currently a scatter of multi-coloured beads, would be pulled by summer into full bloom. What are you? Tess wondered, what colours will you be? She'd like to know more about plants, she thought. Maybe Joe has a book about local flora. Did he really, really mean it when he said the position at the house was long-term? With so much that had never been definite in her life, it was stranger still how comforting was the notion of her stay here being potentially indefinite.

She looked at all the empty benches, imagining them occupied in warmer times ahead. Not by the kids from the jewel streets – Amber, Pearl, Diamond, Emerald, Ruby, Garnet, Coral – who loitered and larked around the station but, Tess imagined, by visitors or the retired folk of town like Mary. People with the time to sit, who liked to look at flowers and feel the day on their faces. And for me, she thought. All year round, there'd be room enough in the gardens and the woods for her little entourage too.

They continued to walk down the steep bank; rather Tess walked, Em was transported and Wolf galloped a circuitous route. Em's arm suddenly shot out, a fat little index finger pointing with great conviction as she gave a triumphant ‘wol!’. Tess looked. And then she grinned as she crouched by the buggy kissing Em's hands and burying her nose in her tiny palms.

‘Clever, clever Em,’ she said. ‘Mummy's clever, clever girl.’ She gazed through the gates at the Woodland Centre. Closed it may have been, but on the side of the wall a large colourful cartoon owl with binoculars around his neck solicited them with his friendly wave. She'd never noticed him before, which was not to say that her daughter hadn't.

‘Wol,’ said Tess and Em agreed. ‘Can you say Owl?’ Tess asked. Em nodded earnestly and said ‘wol’ again. ‘Wol it is,’ Tess said softly, ‘wol it is.’ They stood, looking through the gates, waving at the wall and the wol.

When they finally continued their walk through the gardens, crossing the Poohsticks bridge and following the miniature railway and Skelton Beck down to the coast and the coffee shop looking out to sea, Tess felt a surge of immense contentment and wellbeing. Fresh air was only partly the reason. Another was having just bumped into Lisa and her toddler again, and a further open invitation to the singalong, or the mums’ coffee morning or the playground. Lisa marvelled at Tess's news of Wol. And actually, what struck Tess was that for Em too this place now had its own significance; its own unique gifts, albeit in the shape of a cartoon owl. There might be times when she kidded herself but Tess couldn't kid Em. Over and above her mother saying, this is a jolly nice place, Em! let's live here! Em had somehow found something in it all for herself that she liked too.

When Joe pulled into the drive, the first thing he saw was the increased size of the bonfire pile and he thought to himself, Christ, what has she thrown out now? And then he thought, Christ, what's she done inside the house this time? And then he realized, bugger, I forgot the mould-resistant paint I promised her. He sat, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel and, though the journey had been tiring and he wanted nothing more than to unpack, do a few emails and then unwind with a large glass of wine decadently early, he couldn't bring himself to switch off the engine. Instead, he put the car into reverse, turned fast and drove away.

They didn't see him but he saw them. An unassuming girl in jeans, trainers, a sludge-coloured shapeless top, her hair haphazardly tied away from her face; a rangy mangy dog lagging behind her, a buggy which she pushed ahead. Every few footsteps, the girl slowed down, looked over her shoulder and implored the dog to catch up. All the while, her lips moving, chatting to the dog, to the child, about goodness knows what. It struck Joe how Tess looked so much younger and plainer than he knew her to be. He'd seen her prettiness and wondered why she would downplay it. She could make a bit more of herself easily enough. Have a haircut. Choose a nice sweater. Ditch the trainers. Buy a new pair of jeans. Yet there was something that was just right because of its unwavering naturalness. Another glimpse in the rear-view mirror revealed Tess standing in the middle of the road urging Wolf over, like a lollipop lady ushering a recalcitrant schoolboy. What you see is what you get with Tess, Joe thought. Unlike Rachel who, without make-up, looked totally different. Or Nathalie, who in plain underwear just might not hold the same allure. He thought it was probably a better thing to hide under nondescript clothes, than to brandish a fraudulent appearance with a palette of make-up or drawers of dazzling lingerie. And then he thought, for Christ's sake, just get the bloody paint.

At the bottom of the drive, Tess told herself not to be disappointed if Joe's car wasn't there. But it wasn't and she was.

An hour later, she heard the car before Wolf because he was still preoccupied with the gremlins in his tail. And Em wasn't aware that she should be listening out for anything, so she continued an intricate game with the tube from the toilet roll and a ping-pong ball. Tess, though, didn't have anything she ought to be doing so she'd been loitering at the edges of windows. The car door opened and shut. Front door or back door – she wavered. She thought she should be seen to be doing something, not just standing there waiting. She took a step towards the back door. Stopped. Walked towards the hallway. Stopped. Picked up Em then put her down again. Wouldn't he be in by now?

She looked through the window in the hall, standing well back and swaying to increase her field of vision but remain unseen. Joe was not in the driveway. She went into the kitchen and sneaked a look out to the side of the garden. And there he was, circumnavigating the bonfire heap. He picked something up. Oh God, not that dreadful old stringless tennis racquet. Tess laughed abruptly and found herself rapping on the windowpane. He looked up and located her, saw her wagging her finger at him. He gave an imaginary backhand and forehand with the racquet before shrugging and returning it to the heap.

Tess thought, I really ought to wipe this grin off my face.

‘Paint.’

‘I'll start immediately, Mr Saunders.’

But she knows he doesn't mean it as a command; he's holding out two tins so she says thank you and takes them off him and through to the boot room.

‘No problem,’ he says, following her and he doesn't say, actually, it was a bloody problem finding the sodding stuff.

She feels a little hyper, nervy; she wants to show him what she's done – the utility room, the downstairs loo, the start she's made on the den as he calls it though she's taken to calling it the snug. She wants to ask him about Wolf's tail. She wants to tell him all about ‘wol’. She wants to say, shall we have a cup of tea? and then make it good and strong, served in her own cups and saucers. She wants to say, it's nice to see you, Joe. She wants to say, I'm going to cook us up a treat this evening.

‘I'm putting a wash on – do you have any darks?’

And though Joe would rather have been asked if he wanted a cuppa, in a peculiarly domestic way the emotion behind her offer feels much the same.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘I'll just unpack, then.’

And as he goes upstairs to his room to sort out his darks for the wash, Tess calls after him.

‘Cup of tea?’

And he smiles, which she can't see. She can only hear his pause. But then he says, lovely. And she exhales a sigh of relief that she hopes he hasn't heard.

She knows she feels disproportionately happy. But so what, she says to herself. So what.

She'd overcooked the fish and was furious with herself. If she hadn't apologized over and over and if she'd taken her eyes off his every mouthful, he would have enjoyed the dish more.

‘Anything's better than room-service,’ he said lightly. ‘That came out wrong,’ he added, not wanting to incite her stroppy side. Not tonight.

Tess acquiesced. ‘Was your trip good, then?’

‘Busy,’ Joe said. ‘France, Belgium, London since I last saw you.’

‘Do you like London?’

‘Love it.’

‘Friends there?’

‘A few – clients and colleagues, mostly, but they're a good bunch.’