The Girl by the River

by Sheila Jeffries

  ‘Don’t cry, Granny.’ Tessa dived under the table and put her bare wet arms round Annie’s shoulders. Annie only saw the splodges Tessa’s wet feet were leaving on the floor. She saw her wet navy blue knickers and the splashes of mud over her legs and socks. In her fury, Annie didn’t see the compassion and the love the child was offering her.

  ‘You bad, wicked girl.’ Annie pushed Tessa away. ‘Look at the state of you. Filthy dirty. I don’t want you near me.’ She glared out at Kate. ‘I told her not to go outside, and she did. She should be made to do her own washing – look at the state of her – and – and she was DANCING in the front garden in the pouring rain where the whole neighbourhood could see her. Out there in her knickers. Aren’t you ashamed of her, Kate? Oh – that’s right – CRY!’ she added as two silent tears ran down Tessa’s face. ‘I’ll give you something to cry about. Wicked child.’

  Kate saw the light drain from Tessa’s eyes. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s not fair. I won’t have her treated like that, Annie. Tessa was trying to be kind to you. Fancy pushing her away like that. I’m not having it.’

  Annie snorted. ‘Well, are you going to help me out of here?’ she demanded. ‘I’m an old woman and I can’t get up.’

  Kate wanted to tell Annie that as far as she was concerned, she could stay there. But I’m here to love, she thought. I’m here to keep the peace, keep everyone happy. So she reached under the table, gave Annie her hand, and spoke to her kindly. ‘You’ll feel better in a minute. Don’t upset yourself.’

  She pulled the trembling Annie to her feet and looked at her caringly. ‘Come on, it’s all right now. We’re home and everything’s all right.’

  Disarmed by the kindness, Annie allowed Kate to guide her to her favourite chair and tuck a blanket round her. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘It was the thunder. I tried to keep the children safe – I tried – but that Tessa . . .’

  ‘Now you just sit here quietly,’ Kate said. ‘Freddie’s on his way in. Everything’s all right, Annie. I’m going to sort out this wet child, and then we’ll have tea and toast. AND – we’ve got a surprise.’

  ‘I don’t like surprises,’ Annie warned. ‘A surprise can be a shock for an old woman like me. Bad for my heart.’

  ‘Leave it to me, Kate,’ Freddie said later. ‘I’ll tell Mother – she’ll take it better from me. You go and put the girls to bed.’

  He walked Annie back to her own cottage next door, thinking it best to have this particular conversation away from the girls. He knew Annie was upset, but he needed to tell her what he’d done. She’d take it hard, but he’d talk her round.

  Freddie sat down in his father’s old chair, his fingers smoothing the brass studs that held it together. Half of him was listening to Annie ranting on about thunderstorms and the other half was still in a happy haze from the secret hour he’d spent with Kate. Her reaction to his surprise had been everything he’d dreamed of, the way she’d flung her arms around him and danced around with such enthusiasm. Danced! Yes, she made him dance, and he’d loved it. His face still ached from smiling. He couldn’t wait to take her to bed that night, the memory of the passionate kiss they’d shared and the way he’d felt so wanted and so appreciated. Telling his mother seemed like an ordinary duty, nothing he couldn’t handle.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you, Mother,’ he began, and Annie stiffened. What she’d dreaded was about to happen.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  Freddie looked at her with his level, steady gaze. ‘I bought a house.’

  Annie’s voice dwindled to a whisper. ‘A house?’ she said, as if a house was a disease worse than the plague.

  Freddie took a paper from his inside pocket, unfolded it and handed it to her. ‘There. You take a look. It’s a beauty. Brand new, with an acre of garden. Half a mile out of town on the road to Hilbegut. Built with red brick.’

  ‘Bricks?’ Annie gasped. ‘I don’t like those things. Vulgar.’

  Freddie winced. He was glad Kate wasn’t there. He waited, watching the expression on his mother’s face as the news sank in. An unhealthy lilac tinge crept up her cheeks, her eyes narrowed and her lips set in a purple line. He was reminded of the times he had coaxed her out of the panic attacks when he was seven years old, walking backwards in front of her, his small hands hurting with the tightness of her grip, his feet blistered raw from wearing wooden clogs, his only footwear. She’d been dependent on him.

  ‘You BOUGHT it, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much money? How much?’

  ‘Seven hundred pounds.’

  ‘Seven hundred pounds! I’ve never seen that much money in my life. Where did you get it?’

  ‘I’ve been saving, Mother, all through the wartime, and every single haulage job with the lorry. Ever since our wedding. I want to give Kate the home she deserves.’

  ‘She’s got a perfectly good home here, and so have you.’

  Freddie was silent. He waited. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation with his mother.

  ‘So – what are you going to do with this brick-built house?’ Annie asked. She picked up her ebony walking stick which lay beside the chair, and put it on the floor, leaning on it as if to anchor herself. The stick began to shake harder and harder.

  ‘Kate and I are going to live in it. With Lucy and Tessa,’ Freddie said as gently as he could.

  Bitterness cut into Annie’s eyes. She nodded. ‘I thought that was coming.’ Her voice shook. ‘What about me?’

  ‘What about you? You’re all right here, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m your MOTHER,’ she spat. ‘You can’t LEAVE me. I’m old now.’

  Freddie leaned forward and took both her hands in his. ‘I know, I know ’tis hard. But we’re not abandoning you. We’ll look out for you, and bring the children.’

  Annie snatched her hands away and screamed at him in a high, thin voice, her mouth foaming, her eyes erupting with tears. ‘Don’t do this,’ she begged, ‘don’t leave me, Freddie. Don’t leave me here to die on my own.’

  Freddie was shocked. He never remembered his mother crying, even when his father had died. She’d been stoical and silent, frightened, but never like this. She was working herself into a frenzy.

  ‘I’ll never let you go. Never,’ she cried. ‘You leave this place over my dead body.’

  Chapter Six

  IN SEARCH OF FOREVER

  ‘And out again I curve and flow

  to join the brimming river.

  For men may come and men may go,

  but I go on forever.’

  ‘The Brook’

  by Alfred Lord Tennyson

  ‘Do you like that poem?’

  The teacher’s question was followed by an elastic silence, tension stretched into snapping point.

  ‘Tessa?’

  Seven-year-old Tessa froze, her anxious eyes locked with the demanding stare of her teacher. Miss O’Grady had a knack of dropping one of these questions into the middle of her daydream where it sat like a granite pebble, an obstacle that sparkled mockingly. There had to be a word, Tessa thought desperately, a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ to deflect the question, but she didn’t trust words. Words got you into trouble when you spoke them. But words could suck you into multi-coloured dream worlds, and that’s where Tessa was when Miss O’Grady asked her the question.

  Tessa had been pondering the word ‘forever’, and the concept of a stream flowing into eternity. Forever was where you went when you died, she thought. It was where her grandad had gone. Gone, into the ‘silent land’, the forever place where no one would ask you questions. In her mind Tessa had gone to the banks of the millstream, taken off her Clarks sandals and her school socks, and waded into the silver water. She’d always wondered where the stream was going in such a hurry. Now she knew. The stream was going to ‘forever’. And if she followed it, she could go there too. She could see Grandad, and live in peace in this ‘forever’ place.

  Why wai
t? Tessa thought, and the idea looped around her like a hug of joy. She leapt to her feet, overturned her chair, and ran to the classroom door. She clutched the round brass doorknob and turned it with both hands.

  ‘Tessa!’

  She heard the creak of Miss O’Grady’s chair, the clop of sensible black lace-up shoes, the thud of a book falling to the floor. She struggled with the doorknob, wrenching at it until it turned. The heavy door swung open, and Tessa fled down the polished corridor, her new Clarks sandals clap-clapping like Kate’s butter pats.

  ‘You NAUGHTY GIRL.’ The words bounded after her like a farm dog, but Tessa didn’t care. She was out. Out, out, OUT under the vast blue-silver skies, under the whispers of mighty elm trees, over the pitted asphalt of the playground, through the clang of the wrought-iron gate. She seized a stick and ran it along the iron railings, playing a tune of freedom, a wild tune, an escaping tune.

  With her chestnut plaits flying, she headed over the water meadows towards the millstream. She would follow it on its babbling journey until it joined ‘the brimming river’. Tessa let those enticing words into her mouth, turning them over, sucking the sugar from them. The brimming river. The brimming river. She so wanted to see it, swim in it like a duck, drink its crystal water and follow it – to forever.

  Kate took the two halves of her freshly baked Victoria sponge to the kitchen table. She spread the lower half with homemade raspberry jam, and the top half with rich, creamy butter icing, then carefully sandwiched them together, and put the cake on a paper doily. Singing happily, she set the table with the best willow-patterned china and silver cutlery. She peeped under the crisp navy and white tea cloths to check the cucumber sandwiches made from a wondrous new product – sliced bread. She checked the egg mayonnaise ones, and the ham. They looked fresh and moist. Gingerly she plugged in her new electric kettle, and spooned tealeaves into her favourite teapot which looked like a cottage.

  It was going to be fine, she told herself firmly. Kate was proud of her lovely red brick house with its big garden and the three tall pine trees. It had elm trees too, all along the hedge bordering the lane. Freddie had made a long path with blue-lias flagstones, bordered by his vegetable garden and a magnificent lawn. His stone carvings stood proudly around the edges, and he’d made a swing for the children from two old telegraph poles, a thick rope and a seat made from the lid of an oak chest he’d found in the hedge.

  The garden had magical places too, for it had once been a much loved cottage garden before the cottage had been demolished and the new brick house built in its place. There was a hollow where the Anderson shelter had been, now overgrown with lilac and buddleia, a place of secrets where Lucy and Tessa loved to play.

  That morning, Kate had sent them to school in clean cotton dresses, with new ribbons in their hair, white ankle socks and stiff new Clarks sandals. ‘Keep nice and clean today,’ she’d said. ‘We’re having a tea party when you come home from school. Auntie Susan and her two children, and Auntie Lexi will be here, and Granny. Mind you be good – on BEST behaviour. Then you can have a slice of my Victoria sponge.’ Two pairs of eyes had shone back at her, reflecting her smile. But, as always, Tessa had pouted. ‘I don’t like Auntie Lexi.’

  ‘Well – grin and bear it, dear,’ Kate said, briskly. She tightened the blue satin bow on one of Tessa’s gleaming chestnut plaits. The anxiety in the child’s eyes annoyed her. ‘Try and be more like Lucy,’ she advised. ‘Lucy gets on with everybody, and she smiles.’ But Tessa gave her a mutinous, chilling glare. Kate bit back the angry response that danced in her throat. She’d already had one confrontation with Tessa that morning, over the new sandals. Tessa refused to wear them and it had ended in tears and a slap. The mark of Kate’s furious hand was still there like an accusing red flame on Tessa’s firm little thigh.

  Watching the two girls set off for school on the summer morning, Kate had breathed a sigh of relief. Impressing Susan and Lexi was important to her, mostly because they had horses. Lexi was a riding instructor, and Freddie called her ‘Ian Tillerman’s leather-bottomed sister’. Susan’s children, Fiona and Michael, were already riding and winning rosettes on two feisty little ponies. Kate wanted Lexi to be so captivated by her well behaved, courageous daughters that she would offer to teach them to ride. It was the one thing she and Freddie disagreed about.

  ‘I know you love horses,’ he’d said. ‘You grew up with them, Kate. But I’ve always been wary of them, see? I don’t want you going riding racehorses like you used to, with that – that Ian Tillerman. He is a TOFF.’

  ‘Yes – he is,’ Kate agreed, ‘but he can’t help it. And not all horsey people are toffs.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want our girls turning into two leather-bottomed toffs,’ declared Freddie, ‘and it’s not only that – riding is a dangerous sport.’

  ‘Ooh, I love a bit of danger!’ Kate said, her eyes lighting up at the memory of galloping with the wind in her hair. ‘It’s character forming.’

  Freddie looked at her sadly. ‘Our two little girls are precious to me, Kate, really precious, and I’m happy just to see them run to me at the end of the day, with their eyes shining like stars. I don’t want no sadness or struggle for them, like I had. Let them simply live and be happy. Don’t drive them.’ He put his cap on, and kissed Kate tenderly on the lips. ‘I gotta go to work now, dear. And you remember that, will you? Don’t drive them.’

  In her deepest heart, Kate knew that Freddie was right. But she felt driven by her own sense of adventure. She missed the farm life and the loving animals she’d grown up with. Freddie’s life seemed dominated by engines which he talked to as if they were dogs. He worked for hours into the night on some oily lump of black metal, whistling and singing out in his workshop. Increasingly, people were asking him to fix anything mechanical from lawnmowers to lorries. Freddie was even talking about buying a garage and setting up in business. He’d succeed, Kate was sure, but she dreaded it. She didn’t want her children to grow up in a smelly, oily garage in the middle of town.

  To get what she wanted for her girls, she would have to be manipulative, Kate thought, relishing the challenge. And today’s tea party was a step in the right direction.

  A dramatic clatter of hooves sent Kate rushing to the front door. She gazed up the lane as a smart, high-stepping hackney pony sped into view, with Lexi, red-cheeked and rake thin, sitting high on the seat of a carriage, holding tightly to the long reins, the muscles glinting in her leathery arms. Thrilled with the energy and the polished black coat of the pony, Kate stood at the garden gate, waving. Susan sat on the back seat with Fiona and Michael on each side of her.

  ‘Whoa!’ Lexi brought the pony to a halt, its bridle jingling. ‘Whoa, Tarquin.’

  ‘Ooh, how lovely! What an arrival!’ Kate felt the heat from the pony. She sensed the pain in his neck from being too tightly arched, and she immediately gave the hyped-up creature a hug, rubbing his ears and mane as the reins eased. ‘There. Good boy, Tarquin. You HAVE done well,’ she soothed, ‘and you’ve come to see Kate. Well, I might find you a carrot.’ She nipped into the garden and pulled one of the carrots Freddie had grown.

  ‘Good grief!’ Lexi exclaimed. ‘What an extraordinary carrot.’

  ‘Some of them are two foot long,’ Kate said, brushing off the red Somerset clay and feeding the orange carrot into the pony’s velvet lips. The sound of crunching teeth echoed down the lane.

  ‘By the way, we are here too, Kate,’ Lexi said, swinging her lean brown-booted legs down from the carriage.

  ‘I know you are, and a warm welcome,’ Kate beamed at Lexi and Susan. Both wore Aertex polo shirts open at the neck, breeches and boots, and silk headscarves with horses on them, tied under their chins.

  Michael, six, and Fiona, five, looked confident and disciplined. They sat still in the carriage and waited for Lexi to tell them to get down. Susan looked intimidated as always, Kate thought, feeling sorry for her. She’d been a good nurse and had enjoyed the camaraderie of working in
the hospital. She and Kate had laughed and cried together through the wartime. But now Susan had gone back into her shell, especially since marrying into Ian’s managerial family. She seemed totally overshadowed by Lexi, as she had been by her mother.

  ‘What’s for tea, Kate?’ Lexi asked. ‘I’m starving.’ She deftly unhitched the pony from the carriage. ‘Bring him into the garden, Sue,’ she commanded. ‘Tie him up to that ring in the workshop wall. Freddie won’t mind, will he Kate? Then we can have tea in peace. Where are the children? Don’t let them go running round behind Tarquin. He kicks, especially if he doesn’t know someone.’

  ‘They’ll be back from school any minute.’ Kate glanced down the lane, thinking Lucy and Tessa were later than usual.

  ‘I hope they’re well-behaved children,’ Lexi said in her ringing voice. ‘I can’t stand brats.’

  ‘Don’t worry, they know what’s expected of them,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve met them before, haven’t you?’

  ‘Course we have,’ said Lexi. ‘Now Lucy, I could pick her up and take her home. She’s a charming little thing – but the other one, Tessa, she’s a different kettle of fish. I’ve never seen her smile, and she won’t answer when you talk to her. Always in a bad mood.’

  Kate felt a tiny bubble of anger rising, but she smiled disarmingly at Lexi’s challenging eyes. ‘Wait ’til she sees my Victoria sponge,’ she beamed. ‘It’s their favourite tea.’

  ‘We found Tessa surly and difficult.’ Lexi was in for the kill. She stared demandingly at Susan. ‘Didn’t we, Sue?’

  Susan looked appealingly at Kate as if she was a guiding light. ‘Maybe – a bit,’ she mumbled and looked at the floor. Disagreeing with Lexi was a risk she wasn’t going to take.

  ‘Children come in all shapes and sizes,’ Kate said brightly. ‘I try and treat our two the same. What one has, the other has – and Freddie adores them. I wouldn’t change them for the world. Is this Tarquin’s hay net?’ she asked, unhooking the sweet-smelling bundle from the back of the carriage. She put her arm round the pony’s sleek neck. ‘Come on, you come with Kate and we’ll find you a drink of water, and tie you up in the shade. Ooh, you are beautiful.’