‘That's partly because when Pease died in 1881, the Saltburn Improvement Company was disbanded and the town's driving force was gone – so no new features were added and the resort has remained a sort of time capsule, a perfectly preserved Early Victorian seaside town.’
‘Like a living museum.’
‘You should see it in August during the festival – everyone dresses in period costume. Well, not everyone.’
‘Not you.’
‘No, Tess – not me.’
‘I'd like to.’
‘Don fancy dress?’
‘No – see it in the summer!’
‘You should be here over Christmas – there's a tradition of running into the sea.’
‘Oh. Do you do that?’
‘I have been known to.’ He looks at her. She seems concerned. ‘It's not obligatory.’
‘It's just I don't really like beaches all that much.’
Joe continues to look at her; again she is irritating yet intriguing in equal doses. What an odd thing to say – not least on account of her impromptu beeline for Saltburn. ‘Why ever not? And why come here, then?’
‘You said sea views.’ And once again, she's implying that Joe is guilty of misrepresentation.
‘Who doesn't like beaches?’ Joe says because the beach is clearly in view now. The tide is out and the view is stunning: the sand is long, wide and glossy and the North Sea is now licked with silver and scattered with diamonds while the pier marches on its cast-iron trestles almost 700 feet out.
‘Me,’ Tess says. ‘I don't like beaches.’
Two surfers ride the waves, weaving in around each other like shuttles on a loom. Wolf is at the shoreline already, barking at them but apparently loath to get his paws wet. Joe passes a tennis ball from hand to hand. ‘Coming?’
Tess looks at the beach cursorily. ‘I think I'll stick to dry land. I think I'll explore the town.’
Joe shrugs. ‘I'm going to the bank after I've tired out Wolf. I'll see you back at the house. Can you find your way? It's straight up there. Shit – you don't have keys. Here, take mine.’
‘Say you're back before me?’
‘I won't be. You'll know town inside out in the time it'll take me to walk half the beach. Pick up some milk, would you?’
There's a plunge to her gut as she realizes she has brought no money. Rice cakes, a beaker, baby wipes, nappies, a spare hat, two cardboard books and a squeaky toy. But no money.
‘I left my purse at home,’ she calls after Joe who is already tormenting Wolf by feigning to throw the ball. The wind, though, snatches her words away. ‘Joe!’ He turns and cups a hand to his ear. She pulls the empty pockets of her jacket inside out and gives a mortified shrug. He jogs across the beach back to her, Wolf bounding and lurching and leaping at his arm in desperation for the ball which Joe holds aloft like the Olympic flame.
‘I left my purse at home,’ Tess says when he's close. ‘Sorry.’
She looks acutely embarrassed. Joe throws the ball for Wolf and passes Tess a pound coin and says, don't spend it all on sweets. As he heads back for the shore, he recalls how she said she'd left her money at home. He liked that. Hers are undeniably a rather odd pair of hands – this manicurist with the chipped nails from London – but Joe senses they are a safe pair and that in them, his house and all that is in it will be fine. He can go to France on Wednesday without a backward glance. In fact, he might even head off early. Perhaps tomorrow. See if Nathalie is around.
Tess kept the pound coin tightly in her hand though it made pushing the buggy awkward. Though Joe had mentioned the pay, he hadn't told her when she'd be paid, but she expected it would be in arrears. Which meant no income for a month. Which meant she really was going to have to phone her sister at some point soon. But at that moment, she let the practicalities drift out to sea and she turned her undivided attention inland, to the new town before her. Tess had been in London for a decade, gradually becoming inured to the challenges of the big city; learning not to be intimidated by its scale or bothered by her anonymity. However, on her first full day away from London, Tess found the smallness of Saltburn quite startling. The pavements felt narrower. The cars appeared to move slower. It all felt quiet and empty. There was a total absence of the familiar coffee chains and though she had often cursed their proliferation in London, it made Saltburn seem half asleep. Wake up and smell the coffee, she felt like calling out. But actually she felt a little shy and too conspicuous to cast her gaze too far afield, so all she spied in her first glances was a newsagent, a grocers, an off-licence, butcher, baker, gift shop and chemist. There also appeared to be a startling lack of the gaudy homogeneity to which she'd become accustomed in London. As a child, Tess had visited Bekonscot Model Village and now she felt she was walking around a life-size version. On that first morning, Saltburn seemed quaint and odd in equal doses. However, people were undoubtedly friendly as she passed by, giving her a nod or offering her a quick word, counteracting her private misgivings of blimey, is this it? She wouldn't phone her sister, not today. Let today be full of promise.
She'd seen Joe and Wolf still bounding about the beach so she made haste to be the first one home. There, she paused at the gate and drank in the sight of the house which after the arduous slog uphill from town, had a similar effect to downing a long cool drink. Despite the general sharp chill in the air, she'd needed to take off her coat and bundle it into the hood of the buggy. At a standstill, she could feel the race of her heart and she was surprised at her lack of fitness.
Odd how, apart from its size, she'd noted very little about the building on arriving the previous day. Now, she had the time to. Compared to the creamy white bricks of Pease's buildings in town, the house, a large Victorian villa, was constructed with bricks which had a rose tint to them. Even on a cold March day, they appeared to soak in the sun and radiate its warmth. Decorative arches, some in bas-relief, some indented, broke up the expanse of brickwork between the tops of the windows and the roof. The roof was a mauve slate, its uniformity given interest by the tall chimney stacks of different design and the terracotta pointed crenelations along the ridges which might be to deter birds but could be purely ornamental. The white-framed sash windows were edged in cream stone. There were windows everywhere at all angles – no vista would go unseen from this house. When she had the time and the privacy, Tess would certainly look out from inside from every one of them.
Em was on the cusp of dozing off so Tess pushed the buggy on a tour around the garden – or gardens, for the half acre had been compartmentalized. There were polite lawns at the front, flanking the drive, another large expanse at the back demarcated by a blousy shrubbery and rolling herbaceous borders in something of a straggle. A little path mown through longer meadow grass at the back led to two sheds, one sizeable, one ramshackle. There were specific areas for a compost heap and bonfire site, an overgrown raised vegetable patch where only weeds shot out along the heaped rows. Behind a group of conifers was a plot apparently designated as Wolf's toilet. Well, she'd be asking Joe about fencing that bit off; she couldn't risk Em toddling in that direction. If that wasn't too much for a house-sitter to demand. What a place, though, what a space.
Suddenly, she was clinging onto a tree as if she was teetering on the edge of that great Huntcliff Nab, the majestic cliff which towered above the beach and plunged into the North Sea. The ground felt as if it were moving away from her feet like a conveyor belt in overdrive. Her breath was shorter, her heart racing harder than when she'd just slogged up the hill.
Em, Em, what have I done? Setting out to secure the best life for you? Or have I just run away? Where the hell are we? Where on earth have I brought us? What was I thinking? I didn't stop to think. I never stop