Born to Be Trouble

by Sheila Jeffries

  ‘She will, when she’s ready.’

  ‘I do like Art.’ Kate took two bourbon biscuits out of the tin and gave them to Freddie. ‘It’s a pity he’s a hippie. I mean, if he cut his DREADFUL hair and wore a suit, he’d be lovely. But Tessa clearly adores him.’

  ‘She does – but what kind of life is he offering her?’ Freddie said passionately. ‘He doesn’t work, does he? To me they’re like two kids playing at life – doing something we could never have done. There’s no future in it.’

  ‘But we mustn’t intervene,’ Kate said. ‘If only I could get Tessa on her own I could talk some sense into her, but Art is there all the time, almost as if he’s guarding her.’

  ‘Talking sense into Tessa doesn’t work, Kate, does it? We’ve tried to do that all her life, and it makes her worse. Just keep quiet. That’s my attitude.’

  Kate sighed. She looked into Freddie’s steady blue eyes and remembered how his policy of keeping quiet had so often proved to be the healing silence that calmed everyone down. When the girls were small it had been Freddie they ran to for comfort, and he would hold them silently and let them cry. His innate understanding of Tessa’s turbulent moods had formed an unbreakable bond with her. The memories circled in Kate’s mind as she munched her bourbon biscuit. ‘Now who’s that?’ she said as someone tapped on the back door.

  Before she could get up to answer it, the door flew open and Susan Tillerman burst in. ‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ she gasped, and leaned on the table, looking from one to the other with wild, tormented eyes.

  ‘What’s up, Sue?’ Kate asked.

  Susan could hardly speak. ‘It’s the hippie convoy,’ she stuttered. ‘They’re in our field and Ian’s new horses are arriving tomorrow. Those lawless vagrants took the gate off its hinges in the night and just went in and parked their FRIGHTFUL old vans with flowers painted all over them. They’ve got goodness knows how many dogs – and kids running round – turning the field into a quagmire. They’re lighting fires and banging drums. Oh, what am I going to DO?’

  Freddie and Kate looked at each other in alarm. They’d heard about ‘the convoy’, a group of hippies travelling together, setting up camp wherever they could. It had been on the news every night, and in the papers.

  ‘What am I going to DO?’ Susan wailed.

  ‘Number one is to calm down.’ Kate put her arm round Susan’s shoulders. ‘We’ll do whatever we can to help.’

  ‘But Ian and Michael have gone down there to confront them,’ Susan wept. ‘You KNOW what Ian’s like – and he’s taken his gun. He’ll end up killing someone, I know it. Oh, what am I going to do?’

  ‘Have you called the police?’

  ‘Yes – but these hippies just laugh at them, Kate – they can’t make them move. They have to get a seven-day injunction or something, and by the time they’ve got it the camp is well established, and it’s no good even asking them to move. They just laugh and say the land belongs to everyone, and it DOESN’T.’

  ‘Surely someone can talk to them?’

  ‘I tried – I did try, Kate. I told them we’ve got some new horses arriving and we need the field. I told them it was ours, by law. And these long-haired arrogant freaks just sneered at me – and the women were awful. They blatantly went on drumming and letting their kids roll in the mud and and—’ Susan paused to allow her fury to settle. She wasn’t good at anger. Freddie looked at her eyes and remembered her as a child and how he had patiently coaxed those terrified eyes over the station bridge. It had cemented a bond of trust that Susan now seemed to need in her stormy marriage to Ian Tillerman.

  ‘And what?’ Kate asked. ‘What were the kids doing?’

  ‘Peeing in the hedge,’ said Susan, and tears of rage glistened on her powdered cheeks. She looked at Freddie. ‘Would you PLEASE come down there with me – you and Kate – PLEASE?’

  ‘What – now?’

  ‘Yes – now.’

  Kate and Freddie exchanged glances, both with the same alarming thought. What if Tessa was involved? Were she and Art part of that notorious convoy? It was unthinkable.

  Freddie battled with his silent thoughts. Live and let live, he believed. He wasn’t going to engage in a confrontation. And anyway, he didn’t like Ian Tillerman. Ian Tillerman was an arrogant toff in Freddie’s opinion, a man with more money than sense, and it was time he was taught a lesson. ‘Sorry,’ he said, looking directly at Susan, ‘I’m not going to get involved. And that’s the end of it.’ He got up, pushed his chair in, and walked quietly away.

  ‘I’ll come down with you, Sue,’ Kate said kindly. ‘Maybe we can pour oil on troubled water.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Susan glared at Freddie’s back as he disappeared into his workshop. ‘I just need some moral support.’

  ‘I’ll support you, dear.’ Kate had the sparks of battle in her eyes. ‘I’m not afraid of a few hippies. I’ll tell them to go to Putney on a pig.’

  Tessa hung her muddy jeans out of the window on the sunny side of the bus and went into the bedroom. She was glad she’d made the bed that morning, covering it with the ethnic blanket Lou had given her, and some cushions she’d made herself in the colours of the Cornish sea – turquoise and purple, with creamy white fringes and touches of gold. She picked one up and buried her face in it, breathing the fragrance of gorse and bracken from the fabric. The familiar old bed welcomed her as she lay down and pulled the blanket over her bare legs. A time to sleep. A golden hour of solitude and rest.

  Tessa hadn’t intended to sleep. She’d wanted to explore the field on her own while Art had gone to ‘catch up with some old mates’. He’d promised to come back with a meal. Fish and chips bundled in newspaper and kept warm under his denim jacket on the walk home. But the exhaustion of the long trip from Cornwall, and the emotional turmoil of seeing her parents again had drained Tessa.

  She stretched out, with the noontime sun streaming through the back window of the bus onto her bare toes. A tin lid full of white shell sand from Porthmeor Beach was on the shelf by her side of the bed, along with a black elvan pebble. Tessa picked it up and was comforted by its smooth, cool surface and the way it evoked the eternal symphony of the surf.

  Seeing her father again had rekindled a part of her that she’d put on hold. A need to immerse herself in the deep sparkle of his eyes, always more blue than she remembered, brimming with secrets untold, with knowing that didn’t come from books. Those eyes were a coming home for Tessa, a coming home to her true self. The astonishment on Freddie’s face as she showed him the inside of the bus had been refreshing. His look of wonder at seeing the beautifully fitted cupboards Art had made, the Queenie stove and its chimney which he’d bought from a Romany Gypsy, the extraordinary and comical tap which had to be pumped up and down to produce water from the tank. Freddie was genuinely impressed, and Tessa sensed that he secretly envied their apparently carefree lifestyle.

  The feeling emanating from her mother had been quite different. Kate made obvious efforts to be positive, admiring the tie-dyed curtains and the cork-topped glass jar full of seashells. ‘I could give you some decent saucepans, dear,’ she said, eyeing the battered black objects stacked in the tiny kitchen, ‘and – excuse me asking, but how do you MANAGE without a bathroom – I mean – a toilet?’ Tessa sensed her mother’s disgust when she opened a locker and showed her their toilet bag which consisted of a trowel and an ageing roll of Izal with the words Medicated with Izal Germicide printed in green across every sheet.

  It had been a relief to escape in the bus with Art, and find her own field on the edge of Monterose, a safe place to camp. Home for the winter, Tessa hoped, home to the woods and fields she loved. She dreamed of finding Selwyn again. Selwyn was a horse, a dappled grey part-Arabian mare Tessa loved, a problem horse who responded only to Tessa and shunned everyone else. Tessa felt Selwyn had been her first-time friend and teacher. Selwyn was not far away. She’d be in one of Lexi’s fields further up the lane.

  Tessa drifted into a deep
sleep, a refuge from the cornucopia of feelings and the creeping shadow of anxiety which had somehow arrived in Somerset with her. In her sleep she vaguely heard the unusual sound of police sirens howling through the quiet lanes. She awoke feeling warm and dreamy, wanting just to lie there and stare out of the window at the sprays of scarlet rosehips bobbing against the sky, listening to a robin singing his poignant little solo, a sound of winter.

  The sea was our bathroom, she thought, feeling suddenly grubby and hot. Every day in Cornwall her time in the foaming surf had left her squeaky clean and energised. During their brief camp on Dartmoor she and Art had stripped off and bathed in a fast flowing river, a deliciously sensual time of love-making and playing under a waterfall with magical pips of sunlight darting through the trees. The chill of the water on her skin had intensified the throbbing heat of Art inside her and Tessa had felt like a scarlet flower opening up to a bee in the hot sun.

  Moments later it had been spoilt by the ringing voice of a woman walking her dog. ‘Don’t you hippies have ANY sense of decency? I’ll report you to the town council.’ The passion had cooled, but Tessa and Art had stumbled into the bus, laughing helplessly, and the laughing had been as wild and energising as the love-making. Pure happiness. Pure unadulterated joy. That was Tessa’s life with Art. He was her first and only lover, the love of her life. Nothing else mattered. Until now.

  Mum would let me have a bath, she thought, and indulged in remembering how it felt to sink into steaming scented water and lie there until your toes went wrinkly.

  Her dreamy thoughts were interrupted by the squelch of heavy boots on the grass. A fist the size of a sledgehammer thundered on the door of the bus. Tessa was terrified. She rolled off the bed, crawled underneath it, and lay there with her heart beating hard and fast against the floor.

  The furious knocking came again. A voice shouted. ‘Get the hell out of this field you evil, feckless hippies. Monterose doesn’t want you here.’

  And it was a voice she knew only too well.

  She wriggled along the floor to the ‘pencil hole’. It was a small round hole in the metal bodywork of the bus, and on stormy nights the wind whistled through it. If it was cold, Art stuck a pencil in it, and on the outside Tessa had cleverly camouflaged the hole as the centre of a marigold.

  She slid the pencil out, and put her eye to the hole. She could see Ian Tillerman’s leather riding boots standing in the grass, and the gleaming twin barrels of his rifle pointing at the ground. From his belt hung three dead rabbits. The sight of them sickened Tessa. Her fear turned quickly to rage.

  Brushing the dust from her bare thighs she stood up and flung the door of the bus open. She was wearing an embroidered smock with tiny round mirrors that winked in the sunlight. Her chestnut hair, full of beads and ribbons, flared back from her face. Her eyes glittered with fury. ‘I’ll have you know this field is MY LAND, Ian Tillerman,’ she yelled. ‘And how dare you come here banging on my door with – with those dead rabbits. Shame on you. You’re disgusting. Get off my land. NOW.’

  Ian Tillerman frowned. His confident eyes swept up and down Tessa’s long suntanned legs and then back to her face. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘Surely it’s not – Tessa – is it? Kate’s daughter?’ The outer edge of his eyebrows flipped upwards like the wings of a buzzard as he scrutinised her appearance. ‘What on earth are you doing with the hippies, girl?’

  Tessa stepped down from the bus, feeling herself quaking deep inside her solar plexus. ‘I’m being ME.’ She turned on the full power of her eyes, knowing they were turquoise and gold and charged with the kind of radiance that a being like Ian Tillerman couldn’t face. The love that Art had given her burned in her mind like a healing flame. It empowered her to draw back from the jagged edge of yelling, and into the ice fields of being polite to someone you hated.

  ‘This is my land, this field. I have a right to be here, and I would like you to leave.’ Tessa walked up to Ian Tillerman. She could smell the salty fur of the dead rabbits. ‘And NO SHOOTING is allowed on my land. So go please, and take your silly gun with you.’

  Ian Tillerman smirked. It was the retreating smirk of darkness hesitating in front of light. ‘You, young lady, are asking for trouble, turning up in Monterose with the hippies. I’m surprised your parents allow it. They’re hardworking, honest folk.’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Oh, but it is. I live here too – Tessa – and there’s a right of way across this field, and shooting rights. You can’t keep people out – and – good heavens, girl – look at you! – I wouldn’t let my children behave like that.’

  Tessa snorted. ‘Fiona and – Michael. I’m sure they are paragons of virtue.’

  ‘They’re good kids,’ Ian Tillerman said, ‘which is more than you were, I seem to remember. And don’t you dare come near my family looking – like – like THAT.’

  Tessa could hardly breathe with the effort of containing her rage. She sensed something similar going on in Ian Tillerman’s mind, the embers of his anger blocked with steel bars. Beyond them lurked the secret shame of a man who actually wanted to grab her and throw her down in the wet grass. ‘Will you please go,’ she said imperiously. ‘You’re trespassing.’

  ‘And you’re asking for trouble, girl. My field has just been invaded by the hippie convoy, and the police have been called to evict them. If you leave the gate open like that, they’ll be in here – all of them, and you’ll never get them out. Have some sense – Tessa.’ He wagged a leathery finger, let his eyes rake over her again, turned on his heel and stalked out of the gate.

  Tessa felt the quaking rippling down her legs and through the bones of her arms. She stood, hugging herself, listening to his boots parading down the lane, and the wind in the elm trees whispering after him. Their leaves hadn’t yet turned. The elms were always last to go gold, not turning until her November birthday when they shed glorious blizzards of saffron yellow. But now there were dead branches, with dead leaves, a dead, silvery brown that changed the whispering voice of each tree to a song that was hoarse and sad.

  Something’s wrong, she thought, and with the thought came pulses of grief and longing. Grief for Jonti, her little dog, now buried at home in the garden, grief for her Granny Annie who had died that summer, a longing for her carefree life camping on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, a heaviness of coming home to her family and her village, a need to have it all in harmony, when it wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sensing the Shadows

  Kate marched across the Tillermans’ field towards the collection of battered camper vans. The lower half of her looked ridiculous in a bottle green pleated skirt, a flowery pinny, and a pair of Ian Tillerman’s wellies several sizes too big. The top half looked majestic, her bust lifted high under the red cardigan, her black hair rippling in the sun, her eyes on fire, her jaw set so that her profile resembled a figurehead on a ship. Unstoppable. Strong through wind and weather.

  A few dogs trotted beside her, their tails apologetic, their eyes dubious. Susan stumbled a few yards behind, protesting in undertones. ‘Kate, don’t! Don’t get involved. KATE!’

  Kate sailed on, undeterred, heading for a group of hippies who were sitting around throwing sticks into a fire. The wind flared and crackled in the flames, tearing smoke towards the woods, with crimson sparks spiralling through the dry leaves of the hedgerow elms. Thank goodness, she was thinking, thank goodness Art and Tessa’s bus isn’t in here. She’d said nothing to Susan about Tessa being a hippie. They’d find out soon enough, she figured, if the bus was parked locally.

  She felt drawn to a woman who was sitting on the steps of an old horsebox bouncing a baby on her lap. The baby was squeaking with delight and the mother laughing. Kate felt a twinge of envy. She had adored her babies, Lucy and Tessa, and would have had another one if the doctor hadn’t told her it would kill her.

  The mother looked up with challenging eyes. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘Chairman of the Parish
Council?’

  ‘No, dear – I don’t sit on committees,’ Kate said pleasantly. ‘What a lovely baby! A boy is it?’

  ‘Yes – a boy. His name’s Willow.’ A ghost of a smile twitched on the woman’s lips, and the baby turned startling blue eyes on Kate and chuckled.

  ‘Can I hold him?’ Kate asked.

  ‘No way! I don’t know who you are, do I? Let me guess – a social worker?’

  ‘No, dear, I’m just an ordinary mum, Kate. I live in Monterose, and it’s a lovely town – everyone is so kind.’

  ‘Good for you.’ The tone was sarcastic, but Kate detected a loneliness in the woman’s eyes.

  ‘Willow’s granny must be so proud,’ Kate said.

  ‘She hasn’t seen him. Doesn’t know he exists. Anyway – what’s it matter to you?’

  Kate felt the hostility building. She was aware of a silent group of hippies gathering around her, watching, waiting to protect the woman and her baby. She sensed Susan hovering behind her with those frightened eyes, and wished she would go away. Her presence wasn’t helping Kate’s carefully constructed plan. ‘Well, dear, I just like to keep everyone happy,’ she said. ‘I don’t do much. I make butter and cheese, and lots of delicious jam and chutney. I could bring you down some if you like – what did you say your name was?’

  ‘Rowan.’

  Susan was tweaking Kate’s sleeve in a ‘don’t get involved’ sort of energy. She was radiating negativity.

  ‘And who’s your friend?’ Rowan asked suspiciously. ‘Parish Council? It’s written all over her!’

  Susan tensed with anger. ‘I HAPPEN to be the owner of this land,’ she announced in a ringing voice.

  Rowan smirked, and there was laughter from the group of hippies who had gathered around them. Kate saw her delicate plan collapsing like a snagged cobweb. ‘Let me handle this, Sue,’ she pleaded, but it was too late. Rowan clicked her fingers, her eyes alight now as she looked across at her friends. A man with a plaited beard, and a pair of drums hanging around his neck on a beaded belt, began to beat a rhythm with the palms of his hands, and the chanting started: