Freya North - Secrets

Twenty would have suited him but he agreed to ten.

Tess had driven in daylight but her urgency to arrive at the destination had precluded any appreciation, or awareness even, of the new landscape. The drive had been arduous, it had all felt interminably uphill from London; even through the monotonous flatlands of the Fens and the plains around York, she'd still sensed she was climbing north. She had never driven such a distance and her eyes had continually darted to the fuel gauge. She needed the journey to be done on what she had in the tank. But having never been further north than Milton Keynes, she didn't know how to judge it. It had added stress to the journey, but not enough to warrant thoughts of retreat. ‘Space, Em,’ Tess had said, over and again. ‘Proper space.’

And this is the sentiment she is repeating today as she walks down the drive with Joe. Em in her buggy. Wolf loping circuitously alongside.

‘It wasn't the pollution or the second-hand aspect of London air and water,’ Tess tells him, ‘I just felt hemmed in. There are places – in the city – where the buildings are so tall and packed they appear to converge and steal a part of the sky.’

‘Living place plotted and pieced by subdividing space into a size that is simply sufficient,’ Joe says and it is so perfectly phrased that Tess stops to consider it. ‘Paving stones butting right up against tree-trunks.’ He's walking on. She catches up so she can listen. ‘People living on top of you, underneath you, crowding into you on buses, pushed up against you on tubes, encroaching on your personal space but avoiding eye contact at all costs.’

‘But how do you know this?’

‘I lived there too. When I was studying. A century ago,’ he laughs. ‘I lived in Peckham.’

‘From here to Peckham? What is there to study in Peckham?’

‘Peckham – because it was a cheap place to live,’ he says. ‘I studied Design. And then I studied Engineering. Not because I wanted to be an eternal student. But because I knew what I wanted to do.’

‘Are you doing it still?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it that you do?’

‘I build bridges,’ he says.

‘As a metaphor? Are you a counsellor? Marriage guidance – that kind of thing?’

Joe laughs and she looks cross that he should. ‘No – real bridges, the type that go from A to B. Bridges that span valleys and rivers and cross divides. Bridges that enable one to traverse air and water; bridges that take you closer to the sky or allow you to skim the sea. Bridges that join and unify places otherwise kept apart, that pacify areas previously hostile.’

Tess is struck, again, by his turn of phrase. She recalls that photo on the Welsh dresser. Perhaps it was San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge? She's embarrassed to ask. She knows nothing about bridges. In fact, she's probably always taken bridges for granted, having grown up in the shadow of Brunel's mighty Clifton Suspension Bridge. She decides she likes Joe's passion for his job, how it obviously enhances his life. She feels gently envious. She had similar passion once that she'd ploughed into a Small Business Loan, but that verve and the funds are long gone. Nothing remains. Nothing of anything apart from those bloody boxes in the back of the car and the weight of it all on her shoulders. She glances at her nails now and alters her grip on the buggy so she doesn't have to see them. The whites of her knuckles will have to do instead.

‘It's nice here,’ she says, priming her gaze outwards to blank out thoughts of London that have suddenly slid around her like a coarse scarf pulled too tight. They are walking downhill steeply; the street is residential but quiet, with grand Victorian buildings to their left, while lush and wooded land delves down sharply into a valley to the right, the land climbing up to the cliffs beyond. A little way ahead lies the North Sea, a motionless grey slab from this distance; on the horizon a tanker looking like a toy. Tess slows her pace, giving little tugs at the buggy. On the right, just before the woods roll downwards, a war memorial, a bandstand, a playground with a view. And an intriguing sign for Italian Gardens.

‘There's a miniature railway,’ Joe is saying. ‘It runs from the gardens to the sea.’ And then he tells her, just wait until the summer.

‘Hear that, Em,’ Tess leans forward awkwardly over the buggy, ‘a train to the sea.’ And to herself she says, hear that – he'd like me to house-sit until the summer.

She really likes his accent and she really likes what he's said.

‘You can also take a lift down to the pier.’

‘A lift?’

‘A water-balanced cliff lift. Eccentric Victorian ingenuity. You'll see.’

‘Did you grow up here, then?’

‘I did.’

‘And apart from your student days in London, you've lived here, you'll never leave.’ It is not a question. She says it as a statement, as if she wants it to be true.

‘Yup. I'm tied to the place all right,’ Joe says.

‘You make it sound a burden. I'd love to own a house half as beautiful and half the size as yours. Do you have family here too?’

But Joe has already bristled inwardly. Why is he doing this? Why is he walking with her? Why didn't he just give her the map and the info pack he'd prepared for house-sitters? In fact, why didn't he give it to her last night? Or leave it on the stairs when he realized she'd gone to bed. Why does she want to know about his family? Enough! A more informal set-up than he's used to in his house is one thing – but personal history is another. It has nothing to do with what's in the fridge or the hot-water system or the fact that the boot-room door to the garden needs a shove to open and a tug to shut.

Anyway, missy, what about you? he's tempted to say. You and your child up here on a day's notice? He lobs a stick into the copse and Wolf streaks off to fetch it. House-sitters shouldn't ask so many questions, Joe wants to say though he can't deny he has some of his own. It's not part of the job, he wants to point out. He ought to have stayed home this morning, he ought to have made it plain that the only time his life should be of any concern to her will be clearly written on the calendar. She can consult it to know when he is due back and when he is off again so she can organize milk and bread and other basics. But he doesn't say any of this – he knows it sounds too harsh. However, that just makes him wonder if he's soft to think so.

What had possessed him not to ask for references? Most people wanting the job had presented them to him before even looking around. Pages of testimonials praising their hygiene and trustworthiness and responsibility and experience. He glances over his shoulder; she's lagging behind again, pointing things out to the baby though the baby appears to be asleep. It's difficult to tell, under the swaddling of hat, scarf, blanket, mittens and foot-cosy all made from spongy cerise fleece.

‘Look! Plane!’

She says it out loud, automatically, as if she is conditioned to conversing only with her child. As if she has been unused to adult company and conversation, down there, wherever it was that she'd come from in such a hurry. Joe looks up at the plane and his antagonism wanes a little. She does seem genuinely enamoured of the house and the remit of the job. She has mopped up dog sick and she does make a good cup of tea. How is she to know about which of his raw nerves not to touch?

Joe decides the best option, for both their sakes, is to keep the conversation anodyne. He sees he has the very opportunity, spread out in all its faded Victorian splendour in front of them. This woman doesn't know Saltburn-by-the-Sea but he does. In a few days he'll be out of the country. He does need to go through his dates with Tess but OK, it can wait until Emmeline's nap. He also needs to go the bank and Wolf is straining for a good blast on the beach. En route however, there is plenty to politely point out – landmarks for Tess, an opportunity for Joe to de-personalize the conversation.