‘I suppose the main thing is that you feel OK about it all,’ I said, thinking about the fact that he had remembered that conversation since Spain. I’d spent so much of my life being ignored, it came as a shock to realise that not only had Joe been listening, but he’d actually valued what I’d had to say.
A noise from the hallway caught my attention, so I stood and crept to the kitchen door. Seated on the stairs were Lucy and Sarah, their little faces peering between the banisters.
‘And what are you two doing out of bed?’ I asked softly.
Lucy looked up at Sarah and said, ‘Well, go on, tell her.’
‘We want to see Joe,’ Sarah said, on cue.
‘Hmm, all right, but not for long,’ I told them. ‘Tomorrow’s still a school day.’ I scooped Sarah up from the bottom stair and we followed Lucy into the kitchen. By the time we got there, she was already nattering away at Joe about how she’d helped me prepare his room.
Sarah’s interest turned out to be in Joe’s story-telling capabilities, which she remembered, apparently, from Spain. But it was much too late for story-telling, and Joe was tired as well, and so, promising them stories at the weekend, I ushered them back upstairs to their bedrooms.
By ten thirty, Joe had retired to his room as well, and if I’m honest, I was both disappointed and relieved by this – disappointed, because I’d been enjoying having some company, and relieved, because it made his presence in the house feel like that of a proper lodger. I’d been doing a pretty good job of convincing myself that this was all that was happening here, and so was happy he was adhering to the script.
On Friday and Saturday Joe worked, meaning that the routine of that first night remained unchanged. He’d come home late from work, eat his dinner and then go to his room to read, while in the mornings he’d simply grab a cup of coffee before bolting out of the front door.
On Sunday, though, Ben joined us, and this forced us together for the day. We shyly prepared and ate lunch together, and in the afternoon Joe drove us out to West Blean Woods for a walk. Not being able to drive, and with Ant no longer living with us, I hadn’t been anywhere for months. So it felt wonderful to get away from Chislet, and as the kids buzzed around us like wasps, we wandered along the footpaths and chatted, talking about Joe’s work and my past career as a nurse; about his father’s house up in Whitby and a dog he’d had as a kid.
Out of the blue, Joe commented how strange it was that he and Ant had ended up swapping houses.
‘I suppose it is strange,’ I told him. ‘I mean, no matter how you look at it, it clearly is. But it actually feels perfectly reasonable.’
‘Really?’ Joe said, whacking some bushes we were passing with a stick. ‘Explain.’
I thought for a moment, trying to work out what I meant, because I wasn’t that sure myself. ‘I suppose I just mean that it feels nice to have someone in the house,’ I said. ‘I’m sleeping better, for some reason, knowing you’re under the same roof.’
‘You miss having Ant around, I suppose,’ Joe said.
‘No, no, it’s not that,’ I told him honestly. ‘Things actually felt pretty stressful whenever Ant was in the house. His moods were so unpredictable . . . But with you, things just feel, I don’t know . . . easy, I suppose. You’re the perfect lodger, really, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, I’m just such a great guy,’ Joe said sarcastically. ‘Perfect everything, me.’
‘Well, you may joke,’ I told him, ‘but I actually think that’s quite true.’
‘Right,’ Joe said. ‘Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.’ And then, as if the awkwardness of the moment, the sheer embarrassment of receiving a compliment, was too much for him, he chased off after Ben with his stick.
As I watched them racing through the trees, I thought about the truth of my statement, and felt frustration at the sensation that Joe hadn’t really heard, or at any rate, hadn’t believed me. Because the more I knew him, the more I was realising just what an amazing man he was. He was gentle and funny and kind. He was strong and nurturing and capable. And as far as I could see so far, he had no real faults at all. I wondered if Amy had any understanding of the gem of a man she was letting go.
Half-term came and went. Because the Whitby trip had been cancelled, Ben was now officially spending the week with Amy and Ant, but he kept turning up at ours instead. Amy and Ant were on a cleaning frenzy, by all accounts, and all he wanted to do was escape. Ben reported that Amy was ‘furious’ at how dirty Joe had left the place, something I rather doubted was true.
Dandy/Riley’s preferences were seemingly the opposite – Ant kept dropping him off at ours, but as soon as Dandy could escape, he’d return to theirs, picking his way through the gardens. My suspicion was that he simply enjoyed annoying Ant.
Joe worked all week and continued to turn in pretty early, so I only really saw him at suppertime. But my glass of wine while he ate became a ritual, and our conversations became less stilted by the day.
The weather the following weekend was simply stunning. Though the air temperature was low enough to require big coats and scarves, the sky was an almost Mediterranean blue. A gentle wind chased wispy clouds across the sky.
On Sunday, Joe drove us all to Whitstable for fish and chips, stopping off on the way at a cashpoint. When he climbed back into the car, he handed me four hundred pounds in cash. I told him it was too much, and for a minute or so we fought. But he insisted
