The Girl by the River

by Sheila Jeffries

  He was proud of Tessa, and close to her in a different way. He saw himself as Tessa’s spiritual guardian, believing he alone understood her, feeling he had to protect her hypersensitive soul from the world. It had been hard for him to let Tessa go to Art College. He read her letters eagerly, hoping for the kind of success and confidence Tessa had experienced at Hilbegut. But it soon became obvious that Art College wasn’t easy for her. While Kate felt happy that Tessa at last had a group of friends, Freddie seemed to think the art she was doing was ‘soul-destroying,’ as he put it.

  Kate hoped Freddie would take up his stone carving again when Tessa had gone to college, but he hadn’t touched it. His chisels lay forgotten in a box, and a carving of a lion he’d started was pushed into a corner, half buried under bits and pieces of engines. It even had drips of black oil staining the cream Bath stone he liked to use. Kate also understood Freddie’s deep attunement to the natural world. She saw how he cared about the birds disappearing and the rabbits dying. The book by Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, had touched their hearts. It was on everyone’s lips. In the papers. In the pub. On the television. Everyone in rural Somerset knew about it, and saw its grim predictions coming true. To Freddie it was the wilful destruction of everything he loved and treasured. After the war they’d had high hopes of raising their girls in a beautiful, abundant, healthy world. Silent Spring felt like a betrayal. A different kind of war. A war against nature.

  As Kate walked through the dark woods, those thoughts stacked up in her mind like a card house. Freddie was actually fragile. One wrong move could bring everything collapsing. As a nurse Kate had seen grown men completely destroyed by emotions they had tried to deny. Was that happening to her Freddie?

  ‘How far have I walked?’ she wondered, and stopped. She shone the torch around and saw only snow and tree trunks, dead ferns and arching brambles. Nothing she recognised. She walked on, and noticed the coppiced hazels with tiny new catkins hanging bizarrely in the bitter winter. I’m in the nightingale wood, she thought, above Lexi’s place. I could walk down across her fields and get help.

  She knew she wasn’t far from the great scar which had appeared in the hillside woods. She’d heard they were felling the trees for timber, then planting Christmas trees on a commercial scale. Another thing that had devastated Freddie.

  I’m coming to the Lime Wood, Kate thought, and remembered the long ago picnics in high summer, the sound of bees and the scent of bluebells.

  Jonti was pulling harder at the lead now, his stump of a tail wagging. Kate shone the fading torch beam and found a small oasis of dry ground under the shelter of a massive tree. It was there, at last, that she saw the soles of Freddie’s boots and the snow-covered folds of his overcoat as he lay against the trunk of the Evergreen Oak.

  ‘Before you go, Tessa, there’s something I want to give you.’ Starlinda handed her a small gold-rimmed card. It said ‘STARLINDA – Clairvoyant Medium and Healer. Readings by appointment’. It gave her telephone number and she had handwritten her address on the back. Taped onto it was a tiny piece of crystal which was white at one end and gold at the other. ‘This is citrine,’ Starlinda explained. ‘It’s the golden crystal. It carries the healing energy that this planet needs, and it’s your link with me. If you need me – hold the crystal – pick up the phone and I’ll be there for you, Tessa. You’re one of us.’

  ‘Thanks – but what do you mean exactly?’ Tessa asked, looking curiously at the golden crystal.

  ‘You’re very young, and you’ve got a lot of living to do,’ Starlinda said, ‘but when you’re ready, come back to me and I’ll help you to train for your true work. It’s not by chance that you ended up here today.’

  ‘Train for what?’

  ‘To be a medium and a healer.’

  ‘A medium? I don’t know what that is.’

  ‘A medium talks with spirit people.’

  Tessa gasped. She stared into Starlinda’s eyes. ‘I’ve done that all my life. But I have to do it in secret.’

  ‘Poor girl – you’re in chains, aren’t you?’

  Tessa nodded silently.

  ‘The New Age is dawning. The Age of Aquarius,’ said Starlinda, and her voice was gentle and reassuring. ‘And you will be needed, Tessa. Don’t hold back. I think you know already that you are a healer. There is training – wonderful training you can do with kindred spirits. Keep that card and crystal, even if it takes years, and come back to me when you’re ready.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Tessa whispered, aware that Faye was rolling her eyes and fidgeting.

  ‘Come back tonight if you need to,’ Starlinda said.

  ‘I might.’

  ‘I’m not staying,’ Faye said. ‘I’ve got a project to finish.’

  Starlinda gave them both a hug. ‘Try to remember I AM your mum,’ she said to Faye.

  ‘Why don’t you like your mum?’ Tessa asked as the two of them ran downstairs to the street. ‘She’s lovely.’

  Faye glowered. ‘She’s a pain.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t ask!’ Faye set off along the street. ‘If you want to see London – get on the Bakerloo line to Trafalgar Square,’ she advised. ‘You’ll like that – and you’ve got the National Gallery there too. I’m going the other way. See you tomorrow?’

  They parted, and Tessa made her way nervously to Trafalgar Square, emerging from the unfamiliar tube journey with a new sense of independence and adventure. London was hers to explore. She didn’t care about her college work. Her mind was in a different dimension, still hearing the haunting music as if it was part of her, a part that would never leave. Her father was in there with her, talking to her from a great distance. She imagined him standing beside her in the bright city sunlight, his eyes full of astonishment when he saw Nelson’s Column and the four enormous lions. How strange, she thought, he is here with me – he’s really here – I can see him!

  Chapter Seventeen

  A LIGHT IN THE FOREST

  Kate had never felt so alone and shocked. The stillness of Freddie’s body lying against the tree was like coming to the cliff and looking over the edge of her life, the place where it ended.

  She dropped Jonti’s lead and let him go. His eyes shone green in the torch light as he snuggled into the heavy folds of Freddie’s coat, his breath making steam in the cold air. Panic roared in Kate’s ears, before her nursing training kicked in. Keeping calm was number one. Searching for a sign of life. Listening. Speaking words of comfort and hope.

  She made herself walk forward, terrified that Freddie might have been shot by a careless poacher. Shot and left to die.

  ‘Freddie? Darling – it’s me, Kate,’ she said, and listened.

  A rasping breath, a twitch of his gloved hand on Jonti’s back sent her rushing to his side. She dropped to her knees, and shone the torch on Freddie’s face. His eyes were closed, his lips looked blue, but he was still breathing, rapid and shallow, each gasp tight and difficult. Kate found his wrist and felt the pulse. It was fast.

  Kate acted quickly and calmly. She knew that Freddie was very close to death. ‘Don’t try to talk, dear,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought your medicine. Try to take a sip.’ She held the bottle to his frozen lips, and after a few more gasps, he managed to swallow some of it. Kate kept talking to him. ‘I’m here now, Freddie. I won’t leave you.’ As she said those words, she realised she would have to leave him, to get help. She planned to run down across the snow fields to Lexi’s place. Without swift medical attention, her beloved Freddie would die there in the stone cold shadows where the distant hours of summer were long forgotten.

  Annie’s flask was in the deep pocket of her plastic mac. Kate unscrewed the cup. ‘Listen to me, Freddie. I want you to try and take sips of this hot tea. It will help you – even breathing the steam will help. That’s it! Turn your head a little.’ She held the cup to his lips. Freddie’s eyelids flickered and he looked at her with black, terrified eyes. ‘Don’t worry, dear. It will pass. I won’t let you d
ie. No – don’t try to talk,’ Kate said, and gave him one of her smiles. ‘We’ll soon get you out of here and into a nice warm bed.’

  Her encouragement seemed to give him strength to drink in tiny sips. But what would happen when she left him to get help? She must go quickly. It would take at least an hour, she reckoned, for her to phone an ambulance from Lexi’s place, then for it to come out in the snow. Lexi might drive him to hospital – but how would they get him down there? He needed a stretcher.

  Her desperation rocketed as she talked calmly to Freddie. His eyes stayed terrified, locked into hers in the eerie incandescence of the snow. The storm was easing and welcome glimpses of the moon filtered through the trees.

  ‘I will HAVE to leave you for a few minutes, dear,’ Kate said gently. ‘I’ll go down to Lexi’s place and get some help for you. It’s not far.’

  Freddie struggled to speak. He clung to her like a drowning man. He gave her the lime tree seeds, tied in his hanky. Kate looked at them, puzzled at the urgency in Freddie’s eyes. He gasped out a few words. ‘They cut – my lime tree – down.’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, darling. Now I MUST go for help.’

  ‘Plant – the – seeds,’ Freddie begged, and closed his eyes again, the effort of speaking draining the last dregs of his strength.

  ‘We’ll plant them together, dear, when you’re better,’ Kate said confidently. But she didn’t feel confident. She felt terrified and powerless. She looped the end of Jonti’s lead over Freddie’s hand. ‘Jonti will stay with you. I won’t be long.’ She kissed him tenderly on his cheek. ‘May God take care of you.’

  Quickly she walked away, shining the torch on the snowy ground and fought her way along a narrow winding path towards the edge of Lexi’s fields. She squeezed through the barbed wire, tearing her plastic mac. Moonlight shone over the snow fields, and the tall elm trees along the hedges cast bars of indigo shadow. Kate was scared that Freddie would die, alone in the wood in the cold. She could hardly bear it. Keep hope alive, she told herself. And hurry.

  She ran through the glistening new snow, awkwardly, twisting her ankles on the uneven ground. She could see the rooftops of Lexi’s place, two fields away, and was surprised to see a lot of lights in the yard. What if Lexi was about to go out somewhere and lock the house? Where would the nearest telephone be?

  Breathing hard, Kate tried to run faster, slipping and sliding across the moonlit snow. She couldn’t let Freddie die. What about her girls? They’d be devastated. A family ruined. A family without a rock. ‘Why Freddie?’ she agonised. ‘Why should it be him? Please God – please don’t let this happen to us.’ Her own breathing and the pounding of her heart became painful. Exhausted, Kate fell heavily into the snow, hurting both wrists. She picked herself up, and paused for a moment to get her breath.

  A blinding light shone into her face as the beam of a powerful torch swept the field. Voices called out. Kate stood in the snow, trembling, trying not to cry as she saw a miracle happening. ‘Am I dreaming this?’ she said, aloud. The steady crunch of boots in the snow, the torches, the two men carrying a stretcher! And that white van in Lexi’s yard was an ambulance.

  ‘Kate!’ Lexi came striding towards her, dressed in a sheepskin coat and woolly hat, a torch in her hand.

  ‘Oh thank God! Thank God!’ Kate was overwhelmed. ‘Are they here for Freddie?’

  ‘Yes – we know where he is, Kate – goodness, you’re in a state!’ Lexi said. ‘Were you trying to get help? Is Freddie okay?’

  ‘No – he’s bad,’ Kate said. ‘Please hurry.’

  She heard Jonti barking in the wood. They all hurried up to the place in the fence where Kate had got through.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Kate said. ‘Someone must have found Freddie. Who was it?’

  ‘Tessa,’ said Lexi. ‘She rang me from London.’

  Kate’s eyes rounded. ‘Tessa! But how could she have known that? She’s in London!’

  ‘Well, she did,’ Lexi said. ‘Apparently she rang home and her granny told her Freddie was missing, and that he was ill. Tessa knew exactly where he was. She said he couldn’t breathe and she rang 999 – from London! – and organised an ambulance. Then she rang me and told me to expect them and asked if I would guide them up here – she said he was under the Evergreen Oak. Is he?’

  ‘Yes – that’s where he is – well, what a blessing. But Lexi – how did Tessa know?’

  ‘She’s psychic,’ said Lexi bluntly, ‘and you should be proud of her.’

  ‘Psychic!’ Kate fell silent as she followed Lexi into the wood, tasting the new word in her mind. Psychic. It echoed in the undiscovered realms of her consciousness.

  Tessa stood by the fountain in Trafalgar Square. She’d never seen anything like it in her life. The massive jet of water, peppermint white in the morning sun, fascinated and excited her. She gazed and gazed, and took the last two shots on her precious roll of film in the Brownie Box Camera. Then there were the lions. Awed at the size of them, Tessa had spent a few of her last pennies on a postcard and a stamp. Her dad had never been to London, and he’d love the postcard. It would inspire him, especially if she wrote him a message on it. Bundled in her stiffly dried duffle coat, Tessa sat down on a bench and filled the back of the card with her neat writing. She was annoyed when a man came and sat beside her. He smelled of garlic and aftershave.

  ‘You’re a pretty girl,’ he said, staring at her. ‘Where are you from?’

  Tessa glared at him. ‘Planet earth,’ she said rudely, ‘and I want to be alone.’

  ‘A lovely girl like you shouldn’t be alone. I will show you London. I can pay for a taxi, and a meal.’

  ‘No thanks. I said – I want to be alone.’

  ‘I’ll take good care of you.’

  ‘Will you GO AWAY and stop pestering me.’

  ‘Mmm, you are fiery. I like fiery women.’

  Tessa snatched up her canvas haversack, stuffed her camera, pen and postcard into it, and marched off, stomping in and out of the pigeons. She sat on a different seat on the other side of the square and continued writing Freddie’s postcard, but the feeling of sharing wonder had gone. I hate men, she thought furiously. Aware that he was still prowling, watching her, Tessa scanned the buildings around the square, and her eyes found the National Gallery. She popped the postcard in a letterbox, crossed the road and went up the steps.

  It was warm and quiet in there, with huge leather seats. Entranced by the enormous paintings, she wandered through the galleries and sat down in front of Giovanni Bellini’s Agony in the Garden. It spoke to her soul. The sunset sky, the rocky landscape, the pain of the lonely figure of Jesus kneeling on a rock. It’s my life, Tessa thought, and that angel in the clouds – so far away, so small – it’s like the real me – small and far away, but waiting!

  Tessa had chosen to stay in London on that Saturday morning. She even thought of staying there forever. Dropping out of college.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Faye had said. ‘We haven’t done a term yet. Give it a chance.’

  Starlinda had given Faye her train fare back to Bath, and Faye had accepted it grudgingly, and then hitchhiked. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured Tessa. ‘You do your own thing.’ Starlinda had told Tessa she could come back and stay another night. The idea of a whole day to herself in great big beautiful London was intoxicating. So many places she wanted to see. Big Ben. Westminster Abbey. And the river – always the river. Time alone was precious thinking time. She planned to find a bank and draw out another ten shillings, maybe even a pound, to tide her over.

  But first, she must go in a phone box, armed with a pile of pennies, and find out how her father was. She rang Yeovil Hospital, and was shocked when her mother came to the phone and told her, in a hushed, flat voice, that Freddie was fighting for his life. ‘Everyone is here, round his bed. Lucy’s here, and Uncle George, and the vicar is on his way,’ Kate said. Then the pips went, ending the phone call, using the last of Tessa’s coins.

&
nbsp; Tessa stayed in the phone box, her hand on the receiver, like a stone statue of a woman weeping in a garden. A bitter flame burned through her heart. ‘Everyone is here –’ Kate had said. Except me, Tessa thought, me, the troublemaker. No one cares that I’m not there. But Dad would care. Dad would care.

  A shadow darkened the space inside the phone box, and the man who had pestered her was leering at her, his greasy face pressed to the glass.

  Tessa shoved the door open and confronted him. ‘Will you PISS OFF and leave me alone,’ she screamed, ‘or I’ll call the police.’

  His smell and his laugh followed her as she ran wildly across Trafalgar Square, dodging people, scattering the pigeons, her haversack flying from her shoulder. At the corner, she dashed across the road with the surge of people crossing when the lights were red. She paused by a man selling newspapers. ‘Which way is the river?’ she asked.

  ‘Down that street.’

  She ran blindly down the street and came to the embankment. The gleam of the water between the trees. The incoming tide. The healing power of this great river which seemed to bring the lost energy of Earth’s wild places sweeping boldly into London. Even the sky seemed brighter, more silver, over the river. The wind easterly and far away down river was the embryo of a storm, like a pearl in the womb of the wind.

  My dad is dying, Tessa thought. Where are you, Dad? Don’t die. Don’t leave me. You’re all I have.

  Annie watched from the window as the Reverend Reminsy got out of his car and walked up the path. She hobbled to the front door and opened it.

  ‘Mrs Barcussy – I’m going to Yeovil Hospital now to see Freddie. Would you like a lift? I can take you, and bring you back.’

  ‘But what about the snow?’