‘No.’ Freddie’s eyes twinkled. ‘’Tis for her birthday.’
‘In three weeks’ time. I can’t wait to see her face,’ Kate said. ‘I shall tie a big bow of red ribbon round it, and put her card inside. And will you be teaching her to drive?’
‘Ah – I will,’ Freddie said, and the twinkle in his eyes misted over. ‘And I’d have done the same for Lucy if she hadn’t gone off with that blimin’ Tim.’
Kate put her arms around him and studied his face with that searching, kindly gaze he loved so much. It was the look that had first drawn him to her, for no one else in his life had looked at him so caringly, before or since. Kate had power. She could make him feel like a millionaire with one glance, and she could heal him with another one. ‘Lucy will come round,’ she said now. ‘I’m so sure she will. Let’s not give up on her. Remember how good she was.’
‘Ah.’ Freddie stared at a heron flying majestically across the sky. He watched it go down, slow and graceful, into the water meadows.
‘Can we go for a drive in it?’ Kate asked.
‘What – now?’
‘Well – I’d like to just drop by and see Tessa,’ Kate said, ‘and take her some eggs. The chickens have laid so many. I know I gave her a basket of stuff a few days ago – Saturday it was – and I’ve made another fruitcake. They’d love a wedge of that.’
Freddie looked at her shrewdly. ‘Is that the only reason?’
‘No,’ admitted Kate. ‘I’m a bit anxious about them being in the field, especially if that other woman is parked in there. It said on the news that the convoy had been evicted from Ian and Sue’s place – and they’re heading for Glastonbury now.’
‘Best place for ’em, too,’ Freddie said. ‘You know what I think of hippies.’
‘Yes, dear, I do know.’
Kate packed the eggs and cake into a cardboard box. She looked in the larder and added a tin of corned beef, a tin of spam and a jar of home bottled Victoria plums. She’d missed spoiling her girls. Tessa had been away for six long months, at college and then in Cornwall. Kate had lain awake night after night worrying about her being alone, sleeping rough in St Ives with no money, and no address or phone number. When Tessa had sent a postcard telling her she’d met Art, Kate had felt better. She didn’t like the way Art chose to look, but he was kind. He had rescued Tessa from her suicide attempt, but Kate hadn’t foreseen that Tessa would fall in love with him so young and so passionately. When the two of them had turned up in the bus, Kate was overjoyed at the change in her daughter. Tessa had always been hypersensitive and difficult. Now, with Art, she was radiant and confident, sparkling in fact. Kate had tried hard to open her heart to Art, and to help Freddie to accept him. Then she’d seen him with Rowan and it had all collapsed into fury. Maternal fury, which was a magnificent version of normal anger. Kate had kept it to herself for once. She didn’t want to make things worse and drive Tessa away. Wait and see what happens was Freddie’s attitude. Don’t wade in and confront the guy.
She put the box of goodies in the boot of the Morris Minor and got in next to Freddie. Immediately she had a funny feeling as if the person who had owned and driven it was watching them both. Don’t be so silly, she thought, and sat back to enjoy the ride. The streets of Monterose flew past like the city of leaves, the roads and pavements piled with drifts of them and the speed of the car sent them skittering down the middle of the road. ‘I love the autumn,’ Kate said. ‘I wish I was out picking blackberries.’
Her mood changed when they pulled into the empty field.
Freddie’s eyes glistened with disappointment. ‘Gone,’ he said, and the word hung in the air like a hawk.
Kate felt devastated. After all her effort, Tessa had moved on without a word. ‘She could have said goodbye – told us where she was going – couldn’t she?’ Her voice lost its cheerful resonance.
‘I don’t like to see you hurt,’ Freddie said, and they sat in the car in silence, staring at the place where Art’s bus had been parked.
‘We should be used to it by now,’ Kate said, ‘but I never will be – never.’
Another bitter silence swirled around them.
Kate got out of the car. ‘I’ll just have a look round – in case they left a note. Maybe they’ve gone to Glastonbury with the convoy.’
It was Freddie who made the grim discovery. Sticking out of the long grass was the handle of a basket. He got out to look at it. Kate’s willow basket. Her best one. On its side in the mud. Around it was a mess of half-eaten apples, lovely apples from their garden tree, now rotting and crawling with flies. A Pyrex pie dish lying in the grass with a ring of crumbs left inside. Freddie stooped and picked up a feather. It was black and white with a sheen of blue. A magpie, he thought, and a sense of foreboding coloured his mind in the same metallic blue. Why had the birds been allowed to plunder the gift Kate had prepared so lovingly?
Freddie stood still as the air unfolded a veil of chiffon light in front of him. Blue eyes, like his own, shimmered within it, and an old familiar voice boomed in his mind. ‘I told you, didn’t I? Tessa’s gonna get hurt.’
‘Mother!’ he gasped, and Annie appeared, her silver hair shining like a halo, her cheeks apple-red, her apron snowy-white. In seconds she was gone, snuffed out like a candle flame. A whiff of perfume hung in the air. Rich red cottage roses. The coke oven. The aroma of fresh bread.
Kate had walked along the hedge, searching for clues. She came towards him, her hands empty, her eyes anxious. ‘What is it, dear?’ she asked, and Freddie suddenly wanted to cry, to cry like Tessa, in big sobs. Not for himself. He’d been used to pain. But for Kate. The distant hours of happiness, her joy at having two little girls, were aeons away. Now it lurched from one disaster to the next. He felt helpless. He didn’t want her to see the basket, but she did.
‘Birds,’ he managed to say. ‘Crows and magpies. Had the lot.’
‘Why? Why, Freddie?’ Kate looked shocked. She picked up the basket, shook the crumbs out of it, retrieved the dish and put it inside. Her hands were shaking. ‘Tessa wouldn’t have just left it there in the grass. That was such a nice pie.’
‘Ah – something’s happened,’ Freddie said.
‘We must find her,’ Kate said in a panicky voice. ‘Let’s get in the car and go to Glastonbury.’
Freddie knew he shouldn’t let Kate go on her own. But he felt powerless, as if his feet were rooted into the earth. ‘I told you. No. I’m not getting involved with those hippies. You go.’ He handed her the car keys. ‘Go on, you can go. I’ll walk home in a minute. I need time to think.’
He knew from the way Kate’s eyes darkened that she was furious with him. Her cheeks were crimson, her lips pursed, maybe she wanted to scream at him, but she never would. She was hardwired to dignity and good behaviour.
‘All right, dear. If that’s what you want.’ She took the keys and Freddie watched her drive off in the unfamiliar car. Slowly he padded up to the source of the spring. He parted the tendrils of old man’s beard and elderberry branches and sat down on the mossy oak log.
It was something he’d always known – that if he sat perfectly still, and listened, and waited, wisdom would come to him. Sometimes it came as a bird or an animal. Sometimes a voice on the wind, or a shift in the light.
The moon and the tides had always fascinated Tessa. Gentle childhood tides on Weymouth beach that left the sand in wavy ridges. The excitement of running to the water’s edge on little feet, water-baby feet, hers and Lucy’s. Sisters. Always together. Then the amazement of Cornish tides in St Ives, crystalline waters on white shell sand, ebbing for vast distances, crisp with light, revealing pools of myriad colours, underwater gardens, dazzling reflections to explore in the endless sunshine. Clean curly seashells in ivory and gold, pink and ultramarine blue. All disappearing under the majestic roar of the incoming tide creaming across the sands, the flash of green through a towering wave, the dance of lemon sunlight interlaced in the foam.
She was re
membering.
And now she was watching a new tide, dark and vigorous, oily and heavy, relentless. The tide from the North Sea. The tide in London, surging up the River Thames, casually reflecting the coloured lights of the city, stitching them in silks of scarlet, emerald and amber. A line from Coleridge, The water like a witch’s oil.
Tessa was watching. Not thinking. Watching, as if she watched her own hand painting a picture, painting bright shoals of goldfish on the swirling ebony water.
Not thinking. Remembering. Aunt Ethie drowning, streaming up river on the Severn tide, her face to the sky, her face twisted with anger, her mouth shaped by regret, her dying eyes suddenly loving and at peace.
Aunt Ethie’s favourite book was in Tessa’s rucksack. She could feel the brick shape of it against her back as she leaned on the cold grey metal of Hungerford Bridge. Metal that rang and thundered under the wheels of trains. Passing over. Over her head, her aching tired head. The gold-rimmed pages of Charles Kingsley’s story would go down with her, this time, its words splayed out like the wings of a dying swan.
And yet there was something in that book – a story within a story that burned a candle in Tessa’s mind. Her mind was not thinking. Just following candles.
A woman was in the book – a spirit woman who appeared in a number of disguises. An old woman in a red shawl. A water fairy. A horrible teacher and a loving teacher. And finally – Mother Carey who sat on the ‘Allalonestone’ and loved all the creatures of the ocean, especially the wicked and the lost.
Who was she?
Clinging to the bridge, Tessa listened. In case there was a voice for her. A voice that would care. A loving spirit, like Mother Carey, who did not judge.
As dawn came over London, Hungerford Bridge resounded and vibrated with thousands of footsteps pounding their way into the city. Tessa could feel the surge of their focused energy. She sensed their forgotten dreams trailing like georgette scarves, so thin, so transparent and vulnerable, snatched away by the North Sea tide. Hungerford Bridge. She toyed with the name. A derivative of hungry and ford, as in crossing the river. Transformation.
In the midst of the rush hour, there was a clock. It had chimes like her mother’s clock, but huge and sonorous. Big Ben, she thought, and counted seven gong-like chimes. She wound her watch up and set the hands to seven o’clock. Why am I winding my watch up when I’m going to die? she thought. I’ll drown, like Aunt Ethie, and then they’ll throw rose petals into the river and remember that sometimes, just sometimes, I was good.
She waited, hoping for just one rose petal on the water, in the pink light of dawn that dimmed the candle flame she’d been following. She listened. In the heart of Aunt Ethie’s book was a voice, the seed of a voice, so quiet that it planted a word into her mind. DIARY.
Lou’s ethnic blanket was wrapped around her. She let go of its homely fuzziness and took her diary from her top pocket. It was dog-eared and stuffed with information. As she turned the pages, a card fell out, into her hand. Taped to the back with yellowing sellotape was a tiny sliver of citrine crystal. She touched it, and remembered. The eyes. The voice. Starlinda, Faye’s mother, a clairvoyant medium and healer, had given her the card. ‘If you ever feel like killing yourself again – ring me,’ Starlinda had said.
Tessa was cold and her clothes were damp. She’d spent the night wedged into a corner of the great bridge over the River Thames. Her rucksack, still strapped to her back, had been her one solid, comforting link. No one had noticed her there – a young girl with chestnut hair, bundled in a blanket, even though her shoes were visible. The tall legs in neatly pressed trousers walked on by, and so did the women’s legs in high boots and miniskirts. Not a single face had turned to look at her with searching kindness. And no one looked at her now as she unfolded her stiff limbs. I stink, she thought, but who cares?
She trudged back towards Waterloo and found a vacant phone box. It stank of urine and tobacco, and it had an alarming small mirror where she confronted her own face. Ugly and tired. Worthless. Her eyes like two cracks of aquamarine light, almost hidden in swollen cheeks after another night of misery and adrenalin.
With a pile of pennies and sixpences ready, she dialled Starlinda’s number. No answer. She imagined the cream telephone ringing and ringing in an empty flat. Tessa tried three times but no one answered. Starlinda lived in Belgravia. Could she walk to Belgravia from Waterloo with her heavy rucksack? She was starving and tired. Why bother? Why not go back to the bridge and just do it? Put an end to it. She stared at the inside of the phone kiosk and a small notice caught her eye. SUICIDAL? Talk to us – we can help you – any hour, day or night. Ring Mansion House 9000, for free.
A spark danced in her mind. She dialled the number. A voice answered immediately. ‘Samaritans. Can I help you?’
Tessa froze.
‘My name’s Dorothy. Please talk to me.’
Still she froze.
‘Is something troubling you? Are you there?’
Her throat felt padlocked, but she hung onto the phone.
‘Would you like to tell me your name?’
‘Tessa.’
CHAPTER 5
Catharsis
Tessa walked into the crypt of St Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, the founder centre of The Samaritans. ‘I came to see Dorothy,’ she said to the reassuringly ordinary young man who greeted her. He wore a faded black t-shirt, and flared jeans, and there was light in his eyes. ‘I’m Tessa,’ she said. ‘I spoke to Dorothy on the phone earlier.’
‘Right – okay, Tessa, come this way.’ He led her down a corridor under the stone vaults of the ancient crypt which was cosily lit with soft lamps in each recess. ‘Would you like a coffee?’
‘Yes please – with sugar.’
‘Okay – I’ll bring it down straight away, so you won’t be disturbed at all,’ he said, and showed her into a tiny room. It had two friendly old armchairs with orange cushions, a small table, an ashtray and a box of tissues.
Tessa heaved the rucksack from her back and sat down. She glanced at Dorothy who was sitting in the other chair, and saw only her eyes. They were serious. Tessa sank into a chair, and looked at the floor, occasionally noticing Dorothy’s swollen ankles bulging over a pair of flat black slip-on shoes, and one of them had a squashed sultana stuck to the sole. Then she stared into her coffee mug, wrapping her frozen hands around it. Coffee had never tasted so good and so hot.
‘You take your time,’ Dorothy said. She didn’t push Tessa to talk, but sipped her own coffee thoughtfully. On the phone she had said, ‘We don’t give advice. We just listen.’ And Tessa sensed her doing exactly that – listening, waiting, expecting nothing. At the same time she felt Dorothy wasn’t going to give up on her. She was tenaciously patient – like a horse.
‘It’s complicated,’ Tessa began. ‘I was okay until three days ago. I was fine. I was happy. Happier than I’ve ever been in my life – and then’ Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She felt trapped in an earthquake of emotion where sentences were either splintered or boulder-shaped and threatening to crush the life out of her. ‘My boyfriend, Art – oh, boyfriend is the wrong word – he was – IS the love of my life. We were soulmates, and lovers.’ She glanced at Dorothy to see if she was shocked, and found the same attentive horse-like concern. ‘And then he – he totally abandoned me. I didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t have a row. We loved each other – I thought it was forever. I was so happy. Then he – he betrayed me. I don’t understand – why? Why me? WHY?’ Tessa sobbed uncontrollably, on and on, hearing her heartache echoing through the stone crypt under St Stephen’s Church. The rest of the story tumbled out in jagged fragments.
Dorothy hardly moved, but she listened, her head tilted in a kindly way. She murmured innocuous little phrases like, ‘Oh dear,’ and ‘You poor girl,’ and ‘It’s so unfair.’
‘I’ve always been a bad girl,’ Tessa wept, ‘always in trouble and I never intended it to be that way. No one understood me – except Dad, and he was
out working most of the time. Mum couldn’t cope with me, and my granny hated me. She kept saying I was evil and a curse on the family – even if I was nice to her she pushed me away. And my sister, Lucy, was angelically good. People kept on at me to be like Lucy, smile like Lucy, think like Lucy.’ Tessa’s voice rang with pain. ‘And I COULDN’T.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ murmured Dorothy.
‘It went on all my life and I was sick, sick, SICK of it. Lucy and I played together, but we’re so different – we’re like strangers now. I couldn’t talk to anyone like I’m talking to you,’ Tessa wept, ‘not even Dad. He’s a sculptor and a creative person and I’m so proud of him. But no one wanted ME to be creative. It just got me into trouble and—’ She paused, reaching a barbed-wire fence, stretched tightly across her life so long ago.
Dorothy waited, totally engrossed in her task of sacred listening.
‘You’re awesome,’ Tessa said, suddenly noticing her. ‘Aren’t you tired of me moaning?’
‘No, dear. I’m fine. You were saying? About being creative?’
‘Well—’ Tessa hesitated. ‘There’s something I’m not supposed to talk about.’
‘You can talk about it here. You need to, don’t you?’
Tessa nodded. Her skull felt like an eggshell being cracked open.
‘A woman I know told me once that I was clairvoyant. She said it was a wonderful gift and I should use it. And when I was little, I did. I used it all the time. I saw spirit people, like my grandfather, and I had spirit friends, real friends, who I talked to, and in school when we were studying poetry, I saw the poet. Once I got expelled when I told the teacher I could see Alfred Lord Tennyson in the classroom. She hated me, hated everything I did – and mostly she hated my eyes! “Don’t look at me with THOSE EYES,” she’d say. I used to think she looked like a badly weathered clothes peg – all grey and full of splinters. I mean – what’s wrong with my eyes, for goodness’ sake?’
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