The Girl by the River

by Sheila Jeffries

  ‘Yeah. Pity he won’t miss me.’

  ‘What d’you mean, Lucy?’ Kate look bewildered. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m moving out, Mum.’

  Kate felt the shock hit her, right in the middle of her sturdy little body. She saw Lucy’s eyes harden as Freddie came and stood beside her in silence.

  ‘And no, I didn’t make a casserole,’ added Lucy. ‘And I haven’t lit the fire either. No time for that. Good old Lucy has had enough. I’m moving out. Excuse me, I’ve got stuff to pack.’ She twisted past her parents, carried the clothes to the van and flung them in.

  ‘But – Lucy – Lucy – NO!’ cried Kate, doubling up with grief. ‘Don’t do this – please . . .’

  She marched after Lucy and grabbed her arm. ‘Please listen to me, Lucy. I’m your MOTHER. Lucy – you have a responsibility to your family – all we’ve done for you.’

  Lucy shook her off. ‘Don’t manhandle me.’

  Kate followed her through the kitchen and up the stairs. ‘I’m not having it, Lucy. Why do it like this? Why try and sneak out when we were taking Tessa to college? Why couldn’t we have talked it over? We still can. It’s not too late, dear. Won’t you change your mind?’

  ‘No,’ Lucy sighed, and Kate thought she saw a glimmer of compassion pass through her eyes. She looked down at Lucy’s bed, now stripped to the green and white striped mattress, the pink paisley eiderdown and the frilly nylon pillowcases gone. The bedside lamp, the grey and cream radio, the two ageing teddies – gone. A box of shoes stood by the door, each pair with a special memory of a party or a birthday. On top were the strappy silver dancing shoes they had given her for Christmas.

  It was the poignancy of seeing those elegant little shoes that broke Kate. She sat on the edge of the bare mattress, with the silent sting of powerless tears on her cheeks. Lucy rolled her eyes. Heartlessly, she picked up the box of shoes and marched out with it.

  Kate could hardly breathe. She had chosen the shoes with such care and love. They were expensive, more than they’d planned to spend, so Kate had secretly added some money she’d made from selling her homemade butter. She knew how much Lucy wanted them. On Christmas morning, when she’d opened the parcel, there had been stars in her eyes. Stars they hadn’t seen for so long. Freddie’s eyes had twinkled in response. But it seemed the stars were now only temporary visitors, just passing through. Stars that popped in the sky and vanished like bubbles.

  When she says goodbye, I should hug her, and wish her luck, Kate reasoned with herself, but even as the thought came, she heard the rattle of the van’s engine. She went to the window and saw Freddie standing by the passenger door. He was saying something to Lucy, and Lucy wasn’t listening. Her face was pale and hard as china.

  Kate flung the window open and leaned out. ‘LUCY! Don’t go without saying goodbye.’

  Tim was at the wheel. He glanced up at her, smirked, revved the engine, and took off into the twilight with black smoke spiralling from the exhaust. Hatred came and squatted in Kate’s heart, alongside the burning grief. She stood in the window, feeling the blue shadows of frost creeping across her skin like a paralysing tide. I must be a terrible mother, she thought, and the memory of three-year-old Lucy danced, vivid and radiant, in her mind. I’m no use to anyone now, she thought, and the house felt suddenly empty and deathly cold.

  She sat in Lucy’s abandoned bedroom, staring at the bare walls, the yellowing curls of sellotape where posters had been. She listened to the sounds of Freddie lighting the fire, snapping sticks and crumpling paper. Kate crept downstairs. She didn’t want the intensity of her grief to disturb Freddie. She must be strong.

  His face was flushed in the firelight. His eyes looked at her, instantly reading her distress, and Kate couldn’t stop herself sharing it.

  ‘She didn’t say goodbye.’

  ‘Ah – she wanted to,’ Freddie said, ‘but Tim wouldn’t wait. In such a blimin’ hurry he was! He’s got a hold over our Lucy. He’s only got to say jump and she jumps. I told her: “You’re gonna regret this,” I said, “you’re gonna wish you’d listened to me.” But no, she knew better! Gone off to live in Taunton in some flat he’s got.’ Freddie shoved the bellows into the base of the fire and made it crackle and flare with light. ‘Don’t you upset yourself, Kate. She’ll come crawling back one of these days, you’ll see.’

  Kate sat down with him on the hearth rug and warmed her hands. Together they stared into the comforting flames.

  ‘We can only stand by, and pick up the pieces,’ said Kate.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE DAWNING

  ‘Tessa will be terribly upset,’ Kate said, crying as she tenderly wrapped Jonti’s stiff body in a cloth and placed him inside the plywood coffin Freddie had made. Together they laid the little dog to rest under the lilac tree in the ‘Anderson Hollow’. ‘He’s been such a wonderful dog,’ she wept, ‘and we never knew where he came from.’

  Jonti had died in Kate’s arms, a few hours after the vet said his heart was failing. Minutes before he died, the little dog had stared at Kate, licked her hand, and was gone, peacefully. She’d felt he wanted her to fetch Tessa. But Tessa was at college in the middle of her end of year exams.

  ‘We shouldn’t tell her,’ Kate said, ‘until she’s finished the exams.’

  Freddie disagreed. ‘We should,’ he said, ‘and it’s no good writing a letter. She’ll be home at the end of the week. You should telephone. Tell her what happened.’

  He stood beside her as she made the phone call to the students’ hostel that evening. Tessa came to the phone. ‘Hello Mum!’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of sad news, dear,’ Kate said. ‘It’s Jonti. I’m afraid he’s died, he—’

  ‘No he hasn’t,’ Tessa said at once. ‘He’s with Grandad.’

  Kate was speechless. My daughter is mad, she thought, not for the first time. She handed the phone to Freddie. ‘You talk to her.’

  Predictably, Freddie didn’t talk. He listened for a long time and Kate sat at the table by the window, with Jonti’s collar in her hand. She watched Freddie’s face and saw sparkles of excitement coming in. Then, suddenly, they vanished, and disappointment rumbled in his voice as he said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Very sorry. Well – you come when you can.’

  He put the phone down and looked at Kate, helplessly. ‘She’s not coming home.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She . . .’ Freddie opened his big hands as if trying to find words in the air, ‘she’s going to Cornwall.’

  ‘Cornwall! What – with friends?’

  ‘No. On her own.’

  ‘On her OWN! She can’t do that,’ cried Kate. ‘We must stop her, Freddie. Ring her back and stop her.’

  ‘We can’t stop her.’ Freddie pulled out a chair and sat down close to Kate, his hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t you upset yourself, love.’

  ‘But we MUST stop her. Where’s she going to sleep? How can she afford to eat? She’ll be in a strange town, hundreds of miles from home, with no money and no friends.’ Kate seemed to be winding herself into a frenzy, her eyes dark with panic. ‘We can’t stand by and let her do that. And for another thing, she’s got a responsibility to her family. She can’t just go off when she thinks she will, Freddie. Doesn’t she care about us? Doesn’t she care about Jonti? It’s so ungrateful – and after we’ve decorated her bedroom – it looks so lovely – it was going to be a surprise.’ Kate put her head in her hands.

  ‘Now you listen to me.’ Freddie held her close and waited until she’d taken some deep breaths and was looking at him again. ‘Tessa is a young woman now, and whether we like it or not, we’ve gotta let her go, Kate. Let her make mistakes. How else is she going to learn?’

  ‘It’s so ungrateful,’ repeated Kate.

  ‘No – you’ve gotta forget that,’ Freddie said firmly. ‘Tessa’s all right. She does love us, and she’ll come home when she’s ready. But if we make a fuss she’ll turn against us, like –
well, like Lucy. And as for Jonti – she said you were upset, Kate, at what she said.’

  ‘I was. I thought we’d left all that nonsense behind, years ago – she’s been so much better lately. Now she’s talking about her grandad, who died before she was born. Didn’t we drum it into her that she was never to say things like that?’

  ‘Kate! Kate, listen to me.’ Freddie suddenly had strength in his voice, and in his eyes. She looked at him, astonished, as the passion of what he believed shone through his whole being. ‘You can’t change who Tessa was born to be, any more than you can change the wind and the tide, the sun and the moon. Tessa has got a rare gift, Kate, and we have to let her use it. To forbid and deny it is a sin – a sin against everything we live for – a sin against Tessa’s soul. No – you hear me out,’ he looked into her troubled eyes and his intense, crystal-blue gaze quietened her panic. ‘Believe me, I know. I had the same gift, Kate, and it was beaten out of me, that ability to see spirit people and angels. It’s haunted me all my life. I’d give anything to have my life over again, and do you know what? I’d use it. I’d be honest about it, and not let people knock it out of me. As Mr Perrow said – it’s a GIFT and not a curse. Nothing would make me prouder than to see Tessa have the courage to use her gift – and I believe that’s what she needs to do. She can’t use her gift here, with us and my mother, and Lucy, constantly condemning her for it. No wonder she wants to go off on her own.’

  Kate looked devastated. ‘We’ve failed her,’ she said sadly. ‘Well – I have anyway.’

  Freddie looked at her wisely. ‘You can parent the body, but you can’t parent the soul.’

  Tessa had never seen her home town from the railway. Her face was pressed to the window as The Cornishman belted through the hills. She glimpsed the pink cliffs of the alabaster quarry, the fields of ripe corn and the nightingale wood which now had an ugly scar of cleared hillside where acres of young Christmas trees grew in regimented lines. The train flew over the viaduct and the river valley with its sheep pastures, through the wild flower meadows which Tessa had renamed ‘the killing fields’, now barren squares of rye grass. The train was flying through sadness, through the song that had so touched her heart – Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Tessa didn’t feel she could bear to go home. Not this summer.

  For three years, she’d spent her holidays working at Lexi’s place, and Lexi had paid her £3 a week. She’d saved it all for this one trip. It was her ‘ticket to freedom’ fund.

  Monterose was gone in a flash, a muddle of rooftops, a church tower, a few farms, a green bus waiting at the station. It seemed unreal, like a fast rewind of her life. It added one more load to the huge emotional baggage. The exhaustion of exams, the working all night to set up her end of year exhibition, the worrying, then the bittersweet parting, the saying goodbye to the best friends she’d ever had. She felt like an arrow being fired from a bow, flying out there, alone, to an unknown target.

  The train dived through the tunnel and headed out across the Levels towards Taunton. Tessa didn’t want to talk to anyone. She made a cushion from her rolled-up duffle coat, closed her eyes and slept, her hand curled around her rucksack. She didn’t know, and didn’t much care where she was going to sleep that night.

  When she awoke, the train was pulling out of Redruth, through a strange new landscape of small fields with high stone walls, and heather-covered hillsides with massive granite boulders and the tall chimneys of tin mines. She disembarked at St Erth, and caught the local train to St Ives, staring excitedly out of the window as it rattled across the saltmarshes and past the vast empty beaches of Hayle. For the first time, she saw the rolling white surf, and her heart lifted.

  Yet when she got out at St Ives, the sea was like a lagoon. It was an unbelievable colour, a translucent jade with patches of deep purple. Minutes later, Tessa was standing on Porthminster Beach. She dropped her duffle coat onto the sand, took off her shoes and ran down to the shore in the hot sunshine. The water was crystal clear, the waves lapping at her ankles like curls of golden glass. So different from Weymouth. A world away . . .

  Godrevy Lighthouse shone like a helmeted warrior guarding the pristine bay, and to her right were wooded cliffs. A place to sleep, she thought. To her left was the harbour, a crescent of cottages and boats, and a green hill, like Glastonbury Tor, with a small grey chapel at the summit.

  Tessa felt like a dragonfly emerging from its chrysalis after years of being a grub in the mud. She peeled off her clothes and changed into her new sea-green bikini. I have waited all my life for this moment, she thought, wading into the clear water.

  She swam on and on, over golden nets of sunlight that danced on the sand below. She dived and let her hair splay out like seaweed. She floated with the sun on her face. Then she sat on the hot sand and gazed out at the distant surf breaking over Godrevy Lighthouse, and wondered how she could reach it. The sea was new and mysterious. She needed to watch and learn its ways.

  From the beach shop, she bought a plastic lilo, a pastie, and a Kit-Kat, and persuaded them to fill her water bottle. Then she explored a narrow cobbled street called The Warren and discovered the Lifeboat House and the harbour, fascinated by the seagulls and the coloured boats. On the far side of the harbour was a bank of soft sand leading up to some cottages, a perfect place to sleep, she thought, and went to inspect it. There was a hand-painted notice, saying NO HIPPIES. Well, I’m not a hippie, she thought. Not yet.

  She’d noticed a few hippies around the station, and under the shelter of the railway bridge that spanned the coastal path. One man had been sitting there as if guarding the collection of bundles and clothes spread along the wall. Tessa had glanced sideways at him and he’d been sawing the legs off his jeans with a bread knife. She didn’t feel like joining his ‘hearth’. It felt hostile.

  The sunset glowed above the rooftops of the town, turning the gliding bodies of seagulls to orange. The church clock struck nine, each chime resonating across the water. Tessa sat in the soft sand corner until the stars came out, her back against the warm stones of the wall. With a sudden ache, she thought of Jonti, and longed to have his friendly body there with her, his fierce little face ready to bark and defend her. She remembered him at Weymouth, how he had loved to swim with them on a hot day, and how he would always circle in front of her, turning her back if she swam out too far.

  It didn’t look like rain, and she was satisfied to have found a cosy corner where she could sleep under the stars. So she blew up the plastic lilo. It took forever, breath after breath, and she cried a little, thinking absurdly of her bed at home and her mother tucking her in. Don’t be stupid, she thought, and blew even harder. She lay down on the wobbly lilo, and covered herself with her duffle coat.

  ‘You can’t sleep here. Clear off!’ a loud voice shouted, and a man with an angry black fringe stood over her. ‘I’ve lived here all me life and I won’t have no bloody hippies dossing on me doorstep.’

  Tessa sat up. ‘I’m not a hippie – and I’m not doing any harm. I’m an art student.’

  ‘I don’t care if you’re the Queen of Sheba. Buzz off. Go on, go, or I’ll throw a bucket of water over you. And if that don’t work, I’ll take a knife to that silly plastic lilo.’ His voice got louder and louder and people strolling along the harbourside stopped to watch.

  ‘This is a public beach,’ said Tessa bravely, but she was shaking inside. Loud voices upset her at the best of times.

  ‘Don’t you get brazen with me,’ he bellowed. ‘Go on – take your rubbish and go.’ He scooped a handful of sand and flung it over her. It stung her face and eyes, and spattered into her hair. ‘D’you want another one?’ he growled, putting his face close to her. He smelled of oil and fish.

  ‘All right, all right. I’m GOING.’ Tessa jumped to her feet, furious and scared. She brandished a shoe. ‘Leave me alone and give me a chance to pack up my stuff, or I’ll throw sand right back at you.’

  ‘Ooh!’ he jeered, but stood back, his stocky arms
dangling at his sides. ‘If you’re not gone in five minutes, I’ll have everyone in these cottages chasing you off. Bloody hippie.’

  Trembling with fury, Tessa set her face and gathered up her belongings. She walked off into the twilight, dragging her duffle coat and the plastic lilo.

  Freddie carried the sale board down the garden path of The Pines and hammered it into the hard red earth close to the wall. The sound rang mockingly across the rooftops of Monterose and echoed from the distant hills. When it was firm, he stood in the road looking at it from all angles, then snipped away some rosehips and tendrils of honeysuckle which were trying to obscure the black and white notice he had painted. FOR SALE, it said, and he’d added LOVELY FAMILY HOME. Then he padded back into his workshop and waited for the storm to break. Kate would be back soon, on her bike, and she’d see the notice, and so would Annie when she stood at her window.

  Half-heartedly, he picked up his chisel and chopped away at a block of walnut wood. The local Catholic Church had commissioned him to carve a statue of St Joseph. A hundred pounds, he’d told them. It sounded a lot, but it was a pittance, he felt, for three months’ work. It wasn’t going to rescue them from the mounting debts which dated back to his illness. His Rover 90 had been traded in for a battered Morris Traveller, and his lorry stood idle. Without the work from the stone quarry, and with many more lorries on the road, his haulage business wasn’t viable.

  From the workshop window, Freddie watched Kate arrive and get off her bike. She had those baggy trousers on again. He wondered why. She stood looking up at the sale board in a confrontational stance, hands on hips, leaving her bike where it had fallen. Her eyes were gleaming the way they did when she intended to get her own way. She reached up and tried to shake the post. It didn’t budge. Then, to Freddie’s alarm, Kate vaulted neatly onto the wall, stood up and tried to prise his carefully painted notice away from its post.

  Before he could intervene, she abandoned that idea and jumped down from the wall, making her breasts bounce as she landed. Bemused, Freddie watched her march into the shed. He heard rummaging sounds and she emerged with a hessian potato sack. She shook it, smoothed it, and vaulted onto the wall again. She stretched the sack over his sale board, brushed the dust from her hands, and did a little wiggle of satisfaction at her moment of glory. With her nose in the air, she wheeled her bike up the path and disappeared inside.