The Girl by the River

by Sheila Jeffries

  The Reverend Reminsy reminded Freddie of a heron inspecting an estuary – a yellowy-grey pointed face with black eyes that didn’t allow any glimpses of who was actually in there behind the ecclesiastical smile. Irritated, he stood back and let Sally butter him up. He half expected her to curtsy. Instead, she took the vicar’s hands and gazed into his face. ‘How kind of you to come,’ she gushed.

  ‘I was told you’d had some kind of crisis,’ the Reverend Reminsy said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Everything’s all right now,’ Sally said joyfully. ‘Our Kate is in good hands. She’s having a blood transfusion – and we have a beautiful little granddaughter – another one.’

  ‘Oh, what a blessing.’ The Reverend Reminsy grinned like a wizard. ‘Congratulations, Freddie. You’ll be having her christened, of course.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Freddie, not wanting to agree or disagree. He’d have to go along with traditions, he thought, for the sake of peace. And if he saw an angel in the church, he’d have to keep quiet about it. Long ago in his childhood his parents had drummed that into him as if they were padlocking his soul. ‘Even if you do see spirit people,’ his father had thundered, ‘you don’t talk about it. I forbid you to mention it, ever again, to anyone. Especially not Doctor Stewart.’ And Annie, his mother, had added, ‘Nor the vicar.’

  At the funeral of his father, Levi, Freddie had been a rebellious lad of fourteen. He’d sat on the steps at the back of the church and refused to sing, and as he stared at the coffin and the backs of people’s heads, he’d seen an angel. She had filled the church with an immense cone of light stretching from floor to ceiling, her luminous robe covering the entire congregation, her light gilding the black hats and the stiff shoulders. Her radiance fizzed and sparkled as if it shone on a rainstorm, turning each drop into a twinkling star.

  Freddie had sat transfixed, letting the reassuring, joyful light fill his miserable being until he felt on fire and empowered. He’d wanted to crack the hard shells of protocol that encased the assembled family and he wanted to assert himself now that his father was gone. He’d picked his moment, waited until the last verse of Rock of Ages had died away. Then he’d stood up and told them he’d seen an angel.

  When the dust had settled, his brother, George, had frogmarched him outside and slammed him against the stone wall. ‘Don’t you bring shame on the Barcussy family,’ he’d hissed furiously. ‘I’m the head of this family now, and you’ll do as you’re told – boy.’

  It still hurt thinking about it. A bitter lesson, but the radiance of the angel hadn’t faded. It stayed in his heart, strong and bright, sustaining his spirit through the dark years of the war when he and Kate had worked so hard, and had so little. Another of his prophetic visions had come true in the war years. He’d been called up to use his skills as a mechanic, working on Spitfires at Yeovilton. Long ago, as a schoolboy, he’d seen himself standing on the airfield in a blue overall, a spanner in his hand as he watched the brave little planes taking off into the dawn. He’d felt proud, and glad not to be fighting, glad to go home to Kate at the end of the long day.

  ‘Have you given the baby a name?’ The Reverend Reminsy’s question brought Freddie back into the gloomy foyer of the hospital.

  ‘Tessa,’ he said, and added, ‘Tessa Francis, after my old granny. She was Francis.’

  ‘Oh yes, and a real character she was, old Mrs Barcussy. I remember her well.’ The Reverend Reminsy stood looking up at Freddie with an unnerving expectancy in his eyes. Something close to mockery, Freddie thought, and he felt the vicar was deviously trying to make him talk about his very private ability to see spirit people.

  ‘I gotta go.’ Freddie put on his tweed cap and resisted the temptation to outstare those keen little eyes. But in his heart he wanted to tell this holy man about the sparrowhawk, about Ethie. He wanted to ask if curses were real, and if they were, what did God think he was doing? The question burned on his tongue.

  ‘You go on to work, Freddie. I’ll talk to the Reverend Reminsy. Then I’ll fetch Lucy and . . .’ Sally’s words were cut short as the roar of an engine rattled the doors of the hospital.

  Freddie stiffened. There weren’t many lorries in Monterose. Most of the tradesmen still had horses and carts. Freddie’s Scammell lorry was his pride and joy, and he knew the particular sound of that engine. Who had started it, out there in the hospital car park? Frowning, he crossed the foyer in long strides, only to see his precious lorry lurching out of the car park, a strange young man at the wheel, the whites of his eyes gleaming as he revved the engine, his eager hands wrenching the steering wheel.

  ‘Oy!’ Freddie ran forward, the money jingling in his pockets. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’

  The way the young man grinned at him ignited a hot rage in Freddie. It burned from the depth of his being, up into his arms, into his throat and over his cheeks. ‘Bring that BACK!’ he roared. ‘That’s my lorry. I worked my back off to get that.’

  Devastated, Freddie ran after it, never close enough to touch it, but choked by exhaust smoke and dust as his lorry hurtled through the wide gates and down the road, away from Monterose. He ran until his lungs were on fire and he was crying with fury. Gasping, he collapsed against a farm gate, his breathing louder than the fading sound of his lorry disappearing into the distance.

  The cows crowded up to the gate to look at him with motherly eyes. ‘My lorry’s gone. Stolen,’ he informed them, ‘and I had to stand there and watch him take it.’ He felt the cows soaking up his anger, their dark eyes calming, caring, offering him silence and stillness. ‘What am I gonna do?’ he sobbed, and immediately the words came through to him.

  ‘You get a hold of yourself, lad, and get it back.’ His father’s voice was very close, but Freddie was too shattered to see him. ‘Don’t ever be like me,’ Levi said, and momentarily Freddie felt the warmth of a hand on his shoulder. He took some deep breaths, trying to calm his shaking body, and remembered his father’s destructive rages which had wrecked his childhood. He remembered the owl he had made from the smashed pieces of china, and how good it felt to make something beautiful out of a disaster.

  Calmer, he stood in the lane, listening, making a plan of action. He had to figure out who had taken his lorry, and he had to work out how far it would go on the fuel left in the tank. He was too upset to go back to the hospital. He found himself walking towards the stonemason’s yard. Herbie would be there, and Herbie would help him.

  Without his lorry, he had nothing. No way of earning to keep his growing family. The bright eyes of baby Tessa sparkled in his mind. Ethie’s eyes. Had she come back through this tiny new being? Had she sent the sparrowhawk? Was it a curse? A curse encrypted long ago from the white hot metal of jealousy, a curse carried across time by an embittered, angry woman, Kate’s sister, Ethie, drowned in the Severn River. She was dead. But it wasn’t over.

  Freddie had hypersensitive hearing. Years of listening to the deeper sounds of the countryside had given him a unique ability to detect secret dramas in the natural world. He could stand close to a hedge and hear the crack of an eggshell as a baby bird hatched. The language of the wind in the trees was clear to him; each tree had a different voice, and there were conversations between them, the ripple of poplar and the roar of oak, the whisper of beech and the singing of pine. In spring, he could even put his ear against a tree and hear the sap whistling up inside the heartwood.

  So now, instead of heading down the road to Herbie, Freddie found himself listening again. He was sure he could hear his lorry, far away, parked, with the engine throbbing. And voices around it, arguing. A fast high-pitched, scolding voice that was firing questions, and between the questions was a monosyllabic grunt in reply.

  Freddie turned around and followed the tyre marks, glad that the wheels had been muddy from his recent trip to the alabaster quarry. With the road covered in mud and horse manure, it wasn’t difficult to follow the curve of his lorry’s tracks, down a narrow lane that led through wood
land and on towards the Levels and the river. He knew the lane well and strode down it, still shaking inside, spooked by what he might find round the next bend, the sound of the lorry’s engine growing louder and closer with the quiet thud of his footsteps.

  At the bottom of the hill two scraggy dogs charged at him barking. Dogs didn’t faze Freddie. He saw their fear and how it turned up as fierce barking. ‘Now you quieten down,’ he said in his quietest voice. ‘What’s all that fuss about? Eh?’ He’d discovered long ago that if you asked a dog a question it would usually stop barking and sidle up to you, its tail flipping apologetically. And it worked with these two. Once they’d smelled his hand and accepted a gentle stroke, they trotted dutifully beside him. As the lane narrowed into a sharp bend, Freddie felt like a dog himself, his hackles rising, knowing that whoever was round there had heard his voice and fallen silent, awaiting his approach. A smell of wood smoke and soup hung in the air.

  His lorry was there, awkwardly parked with its nose in the hedge, the driver’s door flung open, and no one inside. ‘Now you calm down.’ Again the voice whispered to him, and strength steadied his mind. In slow deliberate strides, Freddie reached inside the cab and turned the engine off. He took the can of distilled water from the back, opened the bonnet and sensed the state of the engine. It was too hot to touch, and it had a sooty smell, like a steam train. With his hanky wrapped around his hand, he unscrewed the water tank and poured some in, the hiss of steam clouding his glasses. The glug of the water going in was oddly comforting as the thirsty engine creaked gratefully.

  Only then did he turn to face the two pairs of eyes watching him. The young man, now staring sulkily at his boots, was sitting on the steps of a brightly painted gypsy wagon parked on a wide grassy layby, the skewbald horse tethered and munching at the grass and bramble leaves.

  Standing over him was a tiny, birdlike woman with a frown clenched into her brow, two spots of crimson on her cheeks. ‘Say you’re sorry to the gentleman!’ She aimed a slap at the young man’s hunched shoulders, knocking him sideways, her wine-red shawl flying.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, and she gave him another clout, this time on his ear.

  ‘Sorry what?’ she demanded.

  ‘Sorry – sir.’

  Freddie stayed silent, standing guard in front of his lorry. He tried to see the eyes of the young man who had dared to steal it, but they were downcast.

  ‘He’s only a lad. Fourteen he is, and just lost his father.’ The gypsy woman’s eyes glittered with a feeling Freddie knew only too well. Grief. How it felt to lose your father at fourteen, as he had done. ‘And his mother,’ she went on. ‘Died giving birth in the pea fields when he was only eight. But ’tis no excuse.’ She raised her bony hand and the boy cringed. ‘You get back down the farm, get on with the hedge-laying – that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Not stealing lorries.’

  Freddie’s silent appraisal seemed to spook her. She hobbled up to him, a curious fire in her eyes as they searched his face for understanding. He gazed back, reminded of his granny. Words floated through his consciousness, but none of them would do so he maintained the silence. He thought it might coax the truth out of the boy and his feisty granny. But he was unprepared for what happened next.

  A change came over the gypsy woman. The deep frown disappeared, eclipsed by a beguiling look of genuine surprise. ‘Don’t you worry – your lorry’s safe now, and there’s no harm done,’ she said, and she took one of Freddie’s large roughened hands between hers.

  Startled, he let her unfold his palm, her touch like hazel twigs, a bright glow in the air between them. She studied his palm as if it were a map.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to give you, sir, only a box of clothes pegs,’ she said, pointing to a basket piled high with freshly made pegs whittled from the insides of sticks. ‘But I’ll tell your future for you – for free – as compensation.’ She looked directly into his eyes, seeing him hesitate. ‘And believe me, sir, you need to hear it. No one else will ever tell you what I can see. I’m a Romany Gypsy, sir, and proud of it, and my gift has been handed down through five generations. Seers, that’s what we are.’ She leaned closer, her voice husky. ‘And I’m telling you now, sir, whether you’re listening or not – you’re one of us. You’ve got the gift of prophecy and you don’t use it. You know you’ve got it – and it’s been beaten out of you. You need to use it, because you’ve got trouble in your life, and today is only the beginning.’

  Freddie felt a ripple of shock through his whole body. He stared at the gypsy woman’s face and saw she was deadly serious. Immediately, the eyes of baby Tessa bobbed into his consciousness, not young eyes, but old eyes that harboured a sinister darkness under the bright gaze of a newborn. He felt himself crumpling inside, all his defences crashing as he meekly followed the gypsy woman into the painted caravan, eyeing the garish red and yellow promises splashed over its flaking surface: ‘Madame Eltura, the one and only true fortune-teller’.

  He still hadn’t spoken, and the multiple shocks of the day were gathering in his bones, making him tremble.

  ‘Sit down there.’ She drew him inside and he manoeuvred himself onto a tiny, rickety chair, his long legs hunched awkwardly. Threadbare purple curtains festooned the cubicle, with gold and silver stars stitched into them in tarnished sequins. A cloth of heavy black velvet hung over a round table, and in the middle was a crystal ball.

  What am I doing here? Freddie thought, alarmed, and his father’s angry words came bounding back at him like long ago dogs barking through the halls of his life. ‘I don’t want no fortune-telling or mumbo jumbo in this family!’ Levi had thundered.

  ‘Don’t touch that!’

  Freddie’s finger sprang back from the crystal ball. He’d wanted to touch the cold gleam of its mirrored surface.

  ‘Is that – real rock crystal?’ he asked, speaking for the first time since his arrival.

  ‘Pure as the sun and moon, good sir.’ Madame Eltura wrapped her twig-like hands around the orb of crystal and closed her eyes. Freddie thought fleetingly of Kate. If Kate had been there she would have giggled. He thought how cold and cheerless his life would be without her bright spirit of fun.

  The eyes flickered open again and fixed him with a gimlet glare. ‘Now don’t interrupt me, sir. It’s a trance, you see. But listen, listen for your life – and remember – forever.’

  She started to talk in a different voice, a voice beautiful and spellbinding. Freddie sat, mesmerised, his eyes widening, his heart pounding with the revelations that poured from her woody old lips. How could she know these things? Yet he believed her. Deep in his eternal soul, he knew beyond any shadow of doubt. She was right. It was true. It would be true.

  And he, Freddie Barcussy, would have to deal with it.

  Stunned, he waited until she had finished. Then he asked, ‘Have you got a piece of paper?’ She gave him a page, torn from a red memo notebook. ‘I’m not leaving until I’ve written this down,’ Freddie said. He took a stub of pencil from his pocket and quickly covered the paper, both sides, with his copperplate script. Then he folded it into four, tucked it into his breast pocket, and extracted his legs from the cramped space.

  Without another word, he started his lorry, backed it out of the hedge, and drove home. He strode through the kitchen, past the surprised faces of Dykie and Lucy. ‘I got a job to do upstairs. Won’t be long,’ he said.

  ‘You look shaken, Freddie,’ Dykie called. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Freddie took an envelope from his bureau and put the folded piece of paper inside. Then he found a stick of red sealing wax and a box of matches, took it into the bathroom and locked the door. He sat down on the edge of the bath, drew out the piece of paper, and read the gypsy’s prophetic words one more time.

  His heart was heavy as he replaced it in the blue Basildon Bond envelope, lit a match and dropped a blob of melted red sealing was over the flap. He let it cool and wrote his name and the date.

  He took it back i
nto the bedroom, and sat on the edge of Kate’s side of the bed, tapping the envelope and making a silent vow. Never, never, would he disclose its chilling words, to Kate, or anyone in his family. He alone would carry in his heart the power of the gypsy’s prophecy – unless – unless . . . Freddie opened a concealed drawer in his bureau and picked out a small brass key. He unhooked a picture from the wall. It was a watercolour he’d done of Monterose Church. Behind the picture was a little wooden door with a brass keyhole. He unlocked it and put the sealed envelope in the hidden cubbyhole, rested his hand on it in a moment of silent prayer, and locked it in.

  Never to be opened, he vowed.

  Chapter Three

  TESSA

  ‘I wish I could open the window and throw you out!’ Kate gently lowered the screaming baby into the green painted cot. She turned her back and stood at the window, her hands over her ears to block the extra sound baby Tessa was creating by kicking her tiny red feet, making the shabby old cot rattle like a tambourine. ‘Never in my life have I been so exasperated,’ Kate said, talking to herself, ‘and so TIRED.’

  Lucy sidled up to her, wide-eyed. ‘Don’t cry, Mummy,’ she said, wrapping her arms around Kate’s legs. ‘Tessa’s a BAD baby. I told Daddy.’

  ‘You’re so sweet, Lucy. Bless you.’ Kate picked the child up, glad of her angelic three-year-old’s hug and her placid temperament. She carried Lucy out of the room, and shut the door on the screaming baby. That’s what they’d all told her to do. Put her safely in the cot, walk out and shut the door. Leave her to scream. She’ll soon learn, everyone said. But it didn’t work with Tessa. Nothing worked with Tessa. She would cry for hours, the crying building into howls of fury. No matter how much Kate tried to rock her and sing to her, no matter how often she was fed and changed, Tessa would ball her fists and fling her blankets off. It was impossible to keep her warm in the cold bedroom. Lucy was so upset by Tessa’s behaviour that they had moved her bed into the spare bedroom.