Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  They left Tessa to unpack and catch her breath. She sat on the bed, kicking off her shoes and inspecting the room. It was twice the size of her bedroom at home and it had a double bed covered with a fringed cotton bedspread, smelling of dye, decorated with intricate geometric patterns. One enormous canvas – splashes of yellow and grey superimposed with crude black outlines of what might be hands or spiders – dominated the wall facing her, uneasy against the floral wallpaper. A spherical paper lampshade covered the overhead light. A mirror in the shape of a splash of water hung above the mahogany chest of drawers. A rainbow rug on the floor next to the bed, mocked the sober beige carpet.

  It was too good to be true. Four days ago she had been a schoolgirl in the middle of her examinations but here she was, sexually experienced, with a job, a room of her own and the promise of wild adventures with this fascinating family. She would mingle with artists, free-lovers, atheists, musicians, drinkers and drug takers. Her life, which had stalled eight years ago, could resume in earnest.

  When she left home she had packed clothes that she guessed Tony Rundle would like his girl to wear. One glance around her new home told her that she would have to rethink her wardrobe. Jeans, shirts, tee shirts – that was the sort of thing she would need. Nothing too girl-y. Plenty of black and white. And she’d have to do something more interesting with her hair.

  ‘Could you keep an eye on the kids, Tess?’ Liza asked when she came downstairs, ‘I’ve got to sort out the packing.’

  Valmai and Connor were undisciplined and demanding. Their mother let them have chunks of cheese or bowls of cereal or biscuits whenever they asked. ‘We eat when we’re hungry, so why shouldn’t they?’ she said. It wasn’t simply a matter of keeping an eye on the children while they got on with their games. They insisted that she join in, playing up if her attention wandered. They’d been allowed to run wild and were incapable of concentrating on anything for more than two minutes. Exhausted, she racked her brains for games that she and Lewis had played when they were that age but they didn’t want to play hide-and-seek or shop, preferring to strip their clothes off and roll around the lawn.

  When the children eventually ran out of steam, she and Liza cajoled them into bed. ‘I’ll get an early night, if you don’t mind,’ Tessa said, longing for the solitude of her room.

  ‘Good idea. The kids will be rarin’ to go again by seven.’

  Tessa brushed her teeth. She’d stick it out until after the trip to Cornwall but when they came back, if the children were completely unbearable, she would look for something else.

  She was crossing the landing when the door opposite hers opened and a man emerged.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Do I know you?’

  He was slight and blonde, his skin pale, as though he never went out in the sun, and to her, were it not for his paint-spattered shirt, he looked nothing at all like an artist. ‘No. I’m Tessa. I’m… I don’t really know what I am.’

  ‘Not many of us do, Tessa. Some days I think I’m a painter but, who knows, I might be fooling myself. Anyway, whatever you are, I’m pleased to meet you.’

  Chapter 14

  Tessa made a list of everything she needed and at four o’clock the following afternoon, when Liza took the children to visit a friend, she was outside the newsagent’s waiting for Lewis. Hidden by the post box, she watched as he balanced his bicycle against the shop wall and went in to collect his papers. Tessa had taken her brother’s unconditional support for granted but seeing him, carrying on calmly as though nothing had happened, made her less certain.

  ‘Lewis,’ she called when he came out of the shop with his bag.

  ‘Tess. Where’ve you been? Dad’s doing his nut. And Mum’s going round like a sleepwalker.’

  ‘What about you? Obviously my disappearance hasn’t affected you at all.’

  ‘Oh yeah. I’m having the time of my life.’ He hesitated. ‘Where are you staying? With Rundle?’

  ‘God, no. He’s such a moron.’ She hunched up her shoulders. ‘Guess what? I’ve got a job. With a way-out family. He’s an artist—’

  ‘And what are you doing for him? Nude modelling?’

  Tessa frowned. ‘Don’t be horrid, Lew. If you must know, I’m helping look after their kids.’

  He shook his head. ‘You might at least have phoned to let us know you were okay. Mum hasn’t eaten anything since you left.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing now, isn’t it? Telling you I’m fine. Actually I’m going to Cornwall with them tomorrow. For the whole summer. It’s going to be fantastic.’

  ‘Oh.’ He pulled at his ear lobe.

  She took the list from her pocket. ‘Could you do me the hugest favour? Could you sneak these things out of my room tonight? Leave them behind the bush in the front garden? I’ll nip back first thing in the morning to collect them.’

  ‘That’s so cowardly. Why don’t you come home, tell Mum and Dad what you’re doing, and collect the things yourself? That’s what a grown-up would do.’

  Her brother’s cheeks flushed and Tessa knew that he was near to tears. She put her arm through his. ‘You know I’d only end up having another row with them and they’d get even more upset. It’s best if I keep out of their way for a while.’ She stroked his arm. ‘I promise I’ll write home every week. Let them know where I am and what I’m doing.’

  He shrugged off her arm and took a pace back. ‘Come home, Tessa. Not for Mum and Dad, but for me. I don’t like it without you.’

  Tessa loved Lewis, she really did, but it wasn’t as if his life depended on her returning whereas hers definitely depended on leaving. There would be occasions in the future when he really needed her and then, obviously, she would come but, at the moment, he was miffed that she’d had the courage to make the break.

  She hugged him and thrust the list into his hand. ‘Please, Lewis. You’ll be fine.’

  The previous evening, when Lewis had turned into Wellington Drive, he’d been taken aback to see Kirsty sitting on the wall as usual. His surprise was followed by bewilderment when she made no reference to what had happened between them on Saturday. They chatted about Wimbledon and end of term exams, and he began to doubt whether he had ever kissed her at all.

  This evening she jumped down from her perch and came to meet him. ‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘And you look a bit … fed up. D’you want to talk about it?’

  ‘About what?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘About whatever you like.’

  ‘I’m not sure—’

  ‘Lewis!’ she laughed, ‘You’re hopeless.’

  ‘Am I?’ Suddenly he felt light-hearted.

  ‘Why are you playing so hard to get? At this rate we’re never going to get anywhere.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, a gentle lingering kiss on his lips. ‘There. And in case you’re wondering, I’m not doing anything next Saturday evening.’

  He zigzagged through the park on his bike, taking his time, reluctant to return to the gloom that hung around Salisbury Road. He felt so, so alive and it occurred to him that, in the three days since Tessa had left, everything had changed. Up until then he’d seen her as his shelter; his protector. Maybe he’d got it wrong. Had she, in fact, been holding him back? Look how easy it had been for him to re-connect with Mrs Channing. Tessa had always made out that the old lady must hate them but she’d seemed delighted to see him. And, oddly enough, it was the sadness in his face, sadness that Tessa was leaving, that had pushed Kirsty into kissing him. Perhaps everything would be better if she did go away – for a while, anyway.

  When his parents went to bed, Lewis left it an hour before creeping along the landing to Tessa’s room. It didn’t take long to locate the items on her list – he’d put most of them away only a few days earlier – and he stuffed them in the canvas duffle bag that he used when he went to Scout camp. The next bit was trickier. He took a cushion from the living room and, clamping it over the latch, he muffled the metal on metal noise as he slid the chain off and o
pened the front door.

  Safe outside, he pushed the duffle bag under the hydrangea bush, as Tessa had instructed. It was a still, clear night and he sat on the garden wall, its smooth bricks warm after a day of unbroken sunshine. The neighbouring houses were mostly in darkness, a low light showing here and there, and he remembered how, when he was five or six and terrified of the wolves that lived under his bed, his mother used to leave his bedroom door open and the landing light on.

  He found an old exercise book in a kitchen drawer and settled down to write to Tessa. When she’d turned up at the shop, she’d been so full of herself that he’d not had a chance to tell her about Cranwell Lodge and, determined to let her know that she wasn’t the only one who had adventures, he described his visit and Mrs Channing’s insistence that he return soon. But he was embarking on an even more momentous adventure and he doodled on the corner of the paper, debating whether to write about Kirsty Ross and the two kisses, in the end deciding to wait until he understood it better himself.

  Dawn was breaking when he went back outside, untied the cord of the duffle bag and slipped the letter on top of Tessa’s clothes.

  Tessa had been concerned that she would oversleep and fail to collect her things before her father was up and about. But she needn’t have worried. Valmai and Connor arrived on her bed at six o’clock. She’d already okay-ed it with Liza to absent herself for a couple of hours and, once she’d given the children bowls of cereal and told them to wake their mother if they needed anything, she returned to Salisbury Road.

  Standing on the concrete path, she looked up at the house that she’d left what seemed like a hundred years ago. The curtains were closed and the fanlight of the room above the front door – her parents’ bedroom – was ajar. She pictured them, side by side in the double bed, six inches separating them, no more than fifteen feet away from her. She focussed her thoughts on where she guessed her mother’s head lay. Mum, all you have to do is come to the window now and ask me to come back. She waited, giving fate two minutes to intervene; two minutes to alter the course of her life. The curtains remained shut.

  Two bottles of milk stood on the doorstep, waiting for her mother to take them in when she came down to make breakfast. They wouldn’t need as much milk now. Tomorrow or the day after, her mother would write a note – ‘One and a half pints a day in future, please.’ – in her neat, childlike handwriting then roll it into a tube and push it into an empty milk bottle.

  The duffle bag was exactly where she’d asked Lewis to leave it. It was already ten-to-seven and, up there, her father would be snuffling and yawning, starting to wake up. She dragged the bag out and, as she walked away, it occurred to her that it might not take so very long for her mother, her father and Lewis to regroup and form a harmonious trio.

  Tess discovered that she wasn’t the first ‘nanny’ whom Liza had employed and that her two predecessors had lasted four days and two weeks respectively. It was easy to see why. The Costello children were opportunistic creatures, ready to take advantage of her the minute her guard was down. In Valmai, she detected many of her own traits – boldness, imagination and impatience – and to see sister and brother, caught up in their world of schemes and secrets, stirred memories. It also flagged up warnings so she formulated a simple but rigid system of penalties (no sweets or bedtime stories) and rewards (lots of sweets and bedtime stories). ‘Do whatever it takes,’ Liza said, clearly desperate not to lose her.

  The holiday house was on the outskirts of St Ives, overlooking Porthmeor beach and the Island, beyond. Tessa had never seen anything as splendid as the curling breakers chasing out of the turquoise sea, pounding the near-white sand. Every night the muffled crash of the waves lulled her to sleep.

  The Costelloes’ friends were easy-going, and a stream of intriguing people – painters, musicians, writers – came and went. Often she found herself picking her way around sleeping bags, their occupants having turned up unannounced and made themselves comfortable in any available corner.

  Jay Costello, though quiet and undemonstrative, was clearly the leader of the enclave. He rarely joined in the rowdy discussions about what they should eat or where they should go but Tessa noticed that, when the hubbub subsided, everyone looked to him for the final decision. Sometimes, when she was gathering shells with the children or drying their wriggling brown bodies after they had been swimming, she found that he was watching her and she would look up, holding his gaze, enjoying feeling her heart race.

  She got on well with Liza who was chatty and disorganised but Tessa was convinced she wasn’t as scatterbrained as she would have people think. Nobody expected much of Liza, which meant that she was free to spend time sunbathing or reading, and being legendary for her bad cooking she escaped kitchen duty. Very smart indeed.

  ‘How’s the painting going?’ Tessa asked, knowing that Liza’s satchel of paints and pastels lay untouched on the bedroom floor.

  Liza put a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t snitch on me, Tess. I’m having such a lovely time.’ She fumbled in her bag and handed Tessa two pound notes. ‘Here. I forgot to give you this week’s pay.’

  The days sped by and, determined never to forget her first summer of freedom, Tessa bought a notebook, bound in dark blue linen patterned with butterflies, and began keeping a journal. Intending it to be more impressionistic than a conventional diary, she scribbled descriptions of the people who stayed at the house or whom she met on the beach, reporting conversations and thoughts and any other snippets that caught her fancy. Sometimes, when she found an unusual wildflower or interesting shell, she sketched it in the margin of the book. One evening, the children finally asleep, she was sitting on the bench in the garden, writing her entry for the day, when Jay Costello came out of the house carrying a mug of coffee.

  ‘What is Tessa Swinburne up to, I wonder?’ He spoke into the cool evening air as if he hadn’t noticed that she was there.

  ‘Nothing.’ She closed the book and laid her hand on the cover. ‘Thinking. Writing.’

  ‘Aaahhh. So our Tessa is a writer. I guess there’s more to her than meets the eye.’ He raised his eyebrows and smiled making her feel breathless and unsettled. ‘Am I interrupting?’

  ‘No.’ She shuffled along the bench and he sat beside her, his thigh almost touching hers.

  ‘Fancy a slurp of coffee?’

  He offered her the mug. It was the first time that she had ever shared a cup with anyone – not counting Lewis of course – and it struck her that, sitting alongside a charming man, sipping from the same mug, was more sensual, more satisfying, than anything she’d done with Tony Rundle.

  It was three weeks before she remembered her promise to Lewis and, to make up for her failure, she wrote two postcards, sending them on the same day but from different postboxes, as though that would put things right.

  Lewis couldn’t disclose the part he’d played in Tessa’s leaving but somehow he had to let his parents know that she was okay. He pretended that she’d phoned when they were in the garden. ‘She says she’s fine. She’s got a job with a nice family. Looking after their children. They were just leaving to go on holiday and she was in a rush. Oh, and she promises to keep in touch.’ He was tempted to add she sends her love and wants you to know that she’s sorry but he’d already told enough fibs.

  Lewis’s anger increased with every postal delivery. He’d fulfilled his side of their bargain now all Tessa had to do was write – such a tiny effort to make in return for deserting him. She had been so quick to give her word and he wondered whether she even remembered doing it; ever intended keeping it.

  Then two picture postcards arrived on the same day.

  Dear Mum, Dad and Lewis,

  I’m fine and enjoying my new job. St Ives is interesting

  and we’ve had good weather so far.

  Love, Tessa x

  *

  Dear All,

  The family I’m working for are thinking of visiting

  Ireland. They want me to go t
oo. It sounds fun.

  I’ll keep in touch. x T

  After keeping them on pins for weeks, she’d come up with a few banal words that conveyed nothing. It upset Lewis to see his mother, reading and re-reading the cards, scanning the bright pictures, searching for a hidden message, a promise that wasn’t there.

  Lewis turned to Kirsty for the companionship that Tessa had provided. She often went with him on his evening paper round and sometimes she was outside her house at seven, bleary eyed, to catch him as he delivered the morning paper. At weekends they played tennis or meandered along the canal tow path. Now and then, but not often because neither of them liked being indoors if the weather was good, they went to the cinema. There were times when they talked and others when they were silent together. They didn’t argue. Kirsty never tried to make him do anything he didn’t want to do. By the time term ended, she’d accepted his invitation to become his girlfriend.

  Kirsty introduced him to her parents. It was all very relaxed and soon he was a regular visitor. Mrs Ross evidently enjoyed having a house full of people and, if he called when Kirsty was out, she invited him to wait, offering him a cup of tea or a cold drink, chatting to him as she pottered on with whatever she was doing. Mr Ross was equally hospitable and, once in a while, asked for Lewis’s help when a chore he was engaged in – lopping a tree or moving furniture – called for a second pair of hands. Lewis soon felt more comfortable in their house than in his own home.

  He told Kirsty the whole story – Gordon, his mother, Tessa, everything.