‘It’s like Silent Spring,’ Kate said, referring to the book by Rachel Carson they’d both read in the fifties. A grim prediction of what would happen if the widespread use of herbicides and pesticides continued. ‘We’ve lost so many birds and butterflies already – and those lovely meadows full of clover and cowslips – and moon daisies. It’s very sad. But there’s nothing we can do.’
‘Tessa was passionate about it. Wasn’t she?’ Freddie said. ‘‘Til she ended up in London.’
‘She still is, I’m sure,’ Kate told him, ‘and she’ll come home one day, I know she will.’
‘Good job she’s not here today. She’d break her heart.’ He jumped when the first giant carcass of an elm tree cracked and hit the ground with a thump, scattering splinters across the lane. It left a new kind of silence, a vacancy in the sky. Freddie felt it in his heart and through his veins. They watched the blue-painted crane lift the tree trunk and dump it on the back of one of the lorries.
Kate looked up at him, and he realised suddenly how pale her cheeks were. Her skin was the colour of the dead wood. Why had he never noticed it until now? ‘You don’t look too good,’ he said, expecting the usual response – laughter and a bright, dismissive smile, a reassuring affirmation that all was well. He was alarmed when Kate’s head went down and she stared at the ground. ‘There’s nothing wrong – is there?’ he asked.
Kate shook her head, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m tired. I don’t know why I’m so tired, but I am.’
Freddie chilled. He felt as if the splinters of the fallen elm were like poison arrows. Kate’s illness had come slowly, like the death of the elm trees. Suddenly the loss of thousands of elm trees was nothing compared to Kate’s life. His Kate. She’d been rosy-cheeked and vibrant. Her plump figure had been homely, the way he liked it. Freddie pulled at the soft fabric of her dress. It was loose.
‘You’re losing weight,’ he said, and added tactlessly, ‘your clothes are hanging on you.’
‘Oh, I’ll be all right. It’s just old age, dear,’ Kate joked. ‘I must get the sewing machine out and take some tucks in my dresses.’
‘You should see the doctor.’
‘I don’t want to make a fuss. I’ll be fine.’
‘But will you see him? Please, I think you should.’
‘I might – or I might not.’
A second tree crashed to the ground. A smell of rotting timber and crushed grass drifted through the garden of The Pines. Kate looked at the line of washing strung across the lawn. ‘Our sheets will smell of sawdust,’ she said brightly. ‘I must go and get them in.’
By the end of the afternoon, fifteen trees bordering the garden and the lane had been felled and stacked onto lorries. When they had gone, a few crows and jackdaws flew down to pick over the bruised ground, and a breeze whisked sawdust along the tarmac in drifts. The sky looked silver-white and shocked, and the earth trembled. Freddie could feel it in his bones, even inside the house. We live on a dying planet, he thought, imagining the earth blanched and barren like the moon. Even in bed he still felt the shock rippling up walls and through floorboards.
Next morning when he was shaving in the bathroom, he heard a new sound, a tearing, crunching sound, and the throb of a tractor’s engine. He opened the window and looked out. A new red Massey Ferguson tractor was powering slowly up the lane towards The Pines, with the long arm of a flail-cutter viciously chopping the hedge. It was cutting the new tender shoots of ash, maple and bramble, sending shreds of twig flying. Freddie could smell the sap. Horrified, he watched it shearing the blossom from a hawthorn tree, the petals scattering like snow. A pair of blackbirds flew up with shrill cries of distress.
Freddie had vowed, long ago, never to lose his temper. But now, something snapped in his mind. With his face half covered in shaving foam, he dropped his razor into the basin, and ran downstairs two steps at a time. He thundered through the kitchen where Kate was frying bacon, out of the back door and down the garden path with his pulse roaring in his ears.
Crying with fury, he ran towards the tractor, waving his arms. ‘Stop. STOP!’
Tessa and Paul had set up home in a rented attic flat near the river. Paul had chosen it as a place where he could practise his violin without disturbing anyone. The lounge window looked out into the branches of a plane tree, which Tessa liked, and there was a bathroom and two bedrooms, one just big enough for the double divan bed, a wedding gift from Marcus and Penelope. The other bedroom was small and Paul had quickly claimed it for his music study. They’d agreed on Tessa being the breadwinner until he had finished his three years at music school. ‘Then I’ll be able to get a decent, highly paid job,’ Paul promised, ‘and we can think about buying a house with a garden, and then having a family. I fancy two boys and a little girl.’
‘I don’t want children,’ Tessa said.
Paul looked horrified. ‘Why not?’
‘I’m terrified of childbirth,’ she admitted. ‘I could never get through it.’
‘Is that all?’ Paul said coldly. ‘Well, Tessa, you’ll have to grin and bear it, the way other women do.’
Tessa reacted furiously. ‘No, I will not. It’s MY body, and you can’t dictate how many children we shall have.’
‘I’m not dictating. It’s every man’s right. I married you, and I expect you to have my children.’
‘Then you’d better change your expectations,’ Tessa said. ‘How can you be so insensitive, Paul?’
‘It’s not ME being insensitive, it’s YOU being stupid. Women have children. Full stop. Get used to it, girl.’
‘I don’t HAVE to have children. Especially not yours if you’re going to be dictatorial.’ The words were out of her mouth before she could stop. Paul went white. He’d promised never to hit her again after the incident on the train, but Tessa knew it was only a matter of time before it happened again.
‘I didn’t start this war,’ he said.
‘Neither did I, Paul. Why can’t you be kind instead of bullying me?’
‘I am not bullying. I’m asserting my rights as a husband.’
‘What about my rights as a wife?’
‘I haven’t got TIME to argue.’ Paul slammed out and disappeared into his music study with an arrogant twist of his shoulders. Tessa sighed. Keep off the subject of children, she thought, adding it to a list of things she and Paul couldn’t talk about. Being married was more difficult than she’d thought. It wasn’t all bad. Mostly they enjoyed weekends in London, walking by the river, or rowing on the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Paul seemed happy with his life, except on the days when he clashed with his rather volatile music teacher.
But Tessa longed for the green hills and woods where she had grown up. She sometimes thought sadly about her field and how happy she had felt to have her own plot of land. She’d had a vision of what it could become. The source of the stream would be landscaped into an idyllic water garden with a curved stone seat, a place where she would meditate, plant cowslips and cuckooflower, a place for nightingale picnics and creative dreaming. She felt guilty about the way she had abandoned it. Because of Art. Their time together in the precious field had been brief, three wonderful days, and in three days they had planned its future as a sanctuary for wildlife, a bluebell wood, a glade for butterflies, a pond. The dream was part of her grief.
‘You should sell it,’ Paul said, one day when they were short of money.
‘Certainly not.’ Tessa was horrified. ‘You can’t make me sell it.’
‘I can,’ Paul said, ‘if we get into debt. It will be counted as a joint asset. Ask Dad.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Tessa said furiously. She added the field to the list of things they didn’t talk about for the sake of peace. She tried to live more frugally, but it wasn’t easy in London. There was little money left over at the end of a month, and Tessa felt she was struggling to pay the bills while Paul blithely spent his student grant on what he called ‘music related expenses’, travel expenses, and fag
s. Sometimes he even bought cigars, which Tessa hated for the way they filled the flat with smoke.
She’d passed her driving test back in the summer and had bravely driven the Morris Minor up to London. At first she and Paul enjoyed having a car, using it for weekend outings to Box Hill, or the Sussex coast, always at Tessa’s expense. If she asked Paul for a contribution, he would adopt a cold, judgemental expression and say, ‘You chose to have a car. You maintain it.’ And if she complained that money was tight, he would wave his musical fingers at the car and say, ‘Sell that heap of tin you keep parked there at huge expense. It’s a vanity thing. Get real.’
‘You’re doing brilliantly, Tessa,’ Starlinda said in her calm voice. ‘You’ve come a long way since that first meditation.’
Tessa beamed. ‘I feel happy, and on fire,’ she said. ‘It’s a luxury to be my true self, after a lifetime of pretence.’ She leaned back against one of the sumptuous cushions in Starlinda’s sanctuary. ‘It’s kind of you to teach me.’
‘It’s my joy, darling,’ Starlinda said quietly. ‘Someone did it for me, taught me meditation, and it was the greatest gift I have ever been given. So I’m just passing it on, and you will do the same one day, when you’ve got your own healing centre.’
‘It doesn’t look possible at the moment,’ Tessa said.
‘Hold the dream,’ Starlinda said, and her eyes shone like blue fire. ‘Hold the dream, no matter what. Let no one take it from you.’
Tessa went home with a smile on her face and in her heart, as she always did after an evening of spiritual enlightenment in the ambience of Starlinda’s sanctuary. Usually she felt so good that she’d go home and be much nicer to Paul. She even changed her attitude to housework. ‘Nurturing my living space,’ Starlinda called it. ‘Places respond to care as well as people.’ Tessa began to find joy in keeping their modest flat sparkling and harmonious. She made cushions from remnants of velvet and silk. She put plants and crystals on the window sills, and burned incense cones of sandalwood and pine. Paul didn’t say much, but she felt he appreciated her homemaking skills, especially when Penelope was impressed.
For the first time in her life, Tessa felt successful at being ‘normal’. There was a degree of contentment at having made a lovely home out of a boring box of a flat.
On that particular Thursday, she chose to walk home along the river and through the busy streets. A fresh wind was blowing through London, upriver from the North Sea. Tessa loved to feel the wind on her face, even if it had spatters of rain in it. She felt it was cleansing London, making the leaves ripple and the gulls scream as they flew over the swirling river. It brought a touch of the wild into town.
She was enjoying the walk home when something happened, in a moment, that was to change everything.
Two streets away from home, Tessa noticed a cat crouched in the doorway of a derelict chapel. A cat with soft, dark tortoiseshell fur and a sweet little face.
‘Hello!’ Tessa stopped to stroke her, concerned for the cat’s wellbeing in the busy street. ‘I’ve never seen you before. Are you okay?’ she asked, and the cat looked up at her, wildly, with eyes that didn’t sparkle. In answer to Tessa’s question, she meowed piteously, clearly asking for help. ‘Can I pick you up?’ Tessa slid both hands around the cat’s tummy and lifted her up gingerly, shocked to find she weighed almost nothing. She was a bag of bones and fur. She clung to Tessa as if she’d found an angel.
‘You’re starving, and lost. Does no one want you?’ Tessa asked, and felt the cat’s whiskers tickle her face. The cat sniffed her cheek and rubbed her head against her, purring, her claws fastened into the collar of Tessa’s coat. ‘I’m taking you home.’
It was obvious the cat didn’t want to let go of her. Tessa carried her down the road and into a newsagent’s shop. ‘Do you know who this cat belongs to?’
‘No.’ The shopkeeper didn’t seem interested. ‘It’s a stray.’
‘Have you seen her before?’
‘Never.’
‘Then – will you sell me a tin of cat food – and a bag of cat litter? – and a tin of tuna in case she doesn’t like Kitekat.’
Tessa took the cat home, awkwardly with her bag of shopping over one arm. She unlocked the front entrance door, and the cat clung to her tightly, looking everywhere with big eyes as they negotiated the stairs.
Paul was out. He’d left her a scribbled note about an audition at Covent Garden, and he’d underlined Covent Garden three times and put a row of exclamation marks. He’d signed it, ‘cross-fingers for me – Paul’.
‘I’m not going to abandon you.’ Tessa carried the cat into the kitchen and stood holding her. It was so long since she had cuddled an animal, and the feel of her soft fur was touching a deep need in Tessa. The cat’s delicate, needle-like claws clinging to her coat, the way her ears were pink inside, and her tiny nose pink and inquisitive. The rapid heartbeat and the purring. The love that emanated from this weightless bundle of life. ‘I must give you a name,’ Tessa said, in her special, crooning, animal voice, and the cat listened attentively. ‘I’ll call you Benita. It means gift. Because that’s what you are – a gift to this earth.’
She put Benita down on the kitchen floor, noticing her legs were wobbly and weak, probably from hunger. Hungry, scary hours of being lost and homeless in London. Being unwanted. Tessa felt an instant, emotional bond with Benita.
She got the tin opener and opened the can of tuna while Benita meowed and wove herself around Tessa’s ankles. She gave her a dollop of tuna and a dollop of Kitekat on a saucer, and watched, satisfied to see the pathetically thin creature eating. When she’d finished, Benita made a beeline for the sofa and sat there washing. Being in a strange place didn’t seem to bother her.
Tessa made herself toast and coffee, kicked off her shoes, and sat down next to Benita. It wasn’t long before the little cat crept onto her lap, and when Paul came home late he found the two of them asleep in the lamplight. ‘A cat!’ he exclaimed, and Tessa woke up immediately. Benita opened her eyes just a slit, checked out Paul, and shut them again, purring softly in her sleep.
‘This is Benita,’ Tessa said. ‘I found her in the doorway of that derelict chapel. She’s terribly thin and can hardly walk.’
Paul sat down beside her. He stroked Benita gingerly. ‘She doesn’t smell very nice.’
‘Neither would you if you were homeless and starving.’
‘And she’s probably got fleas, Tessa.’
‘I can deal with those.’
‘She’s really sweet,’ Paul said. ‘But we can’t keep her, Tessa. You do know that, surely?’
‘Why not? She won’t do any harm.’
‘It’s in our rent agreement. No pets. You signed it!’
‘But she needs a home, Paul. And she needs to go to the vet. I’ll take care of her. You won’t have to do anything.’
Paul was getting increasingly tense. That taut, judgemental pallor was creeping over his cheeks. ‘What part of this do you not understand, Tessa? We can’t keep a cat here, no matter how sweet. She will have to go.’
‘I love her, and I’m keeping her.’
‘Don’t be so pig-awkward. You can take her to the RSPCA, can’t you? Do the humane thing.’
‘No, Paul. Benita is a gift. I believe she was sent – to me. I’ve committed to her, and she’s staying.’
‘She is not. If she’s not gone when I come home tomorrow, I’ll take her to the RSPCA myself.’
‘No, you will not. How would you like to be taken to the RSPCA? Have a heart, Paul. Benita has only just found me. She needs to stay with me. With ME, not be put in some soulless wire cage.’
‘We signed an agreement.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘No, you wouldn’t, would you. Awkward bitch.’
‘It’s no good attacking me, Paul. Why should I be called names for LOVING a little lost cat?’
Paul rolled his eyes. ‘Spare me the emotional blackmail,’ he groaned. ‘And by the way, IF
you’re interested, I won’t be playing in the Covent Garden Opera orchestra – I made a mess of the audition. They didn’t even say, “Come back next year”. They were totally po-faced and off-putting. I feel like giving up. I worked SO HARD on that Paganini. Are you even listening, Tessa? Oh, sorry, I forgot, it’s the cat who matters, not me.’
‘You’re right,’ Tessa said quietly, with power in her eyes. ‘This little cat is homeless, hungry and unloved, and you are none of those things, Paul.’
‘Do you have to be so sanctimonious?’
Tessa looked down at Benita who was still purring and enjoying being stroked and loved. Paul had a way of winding her up. She remembered what Starlinda had said. ‘Hold the dream. Let no one take it from you.’ Had she said that because she knew that Paul was becoming more and more controlling?
He leaned close to her so that she saw the glint of menace in his eyes. ‘YOU.’ He jabbed a finger close to her face. ‘Make sure that cat is gone by the time I get home tomorrow.’
Tessa felt tears gathering in her throat. She didn’t want to give Paul the satisfaction of seeing her cry, so she fought them back, concentrating on the love and light she was sending into Benita’s painfully thin back. What am I going to do? she thought, remembering tomorrow was Friday and she had to go to work. At the same time, she knew in her heart exactly what she was going to do.
Kate listened in alarm to the shouting going on in the lane outside. She quickly turned the cooker off and put a lid over the pan of sizzling bacon. She’d wanted to giggle when Freddie had shot through the kitchen with blobs of shaving soap flying from his face. But now she could hear the pain in his voice, against the sound of a tractor idling in the lane. I must go out, she thought, and pour oil on troubled waters. Or was it best to leave the men to have their argy-bargy? She chose to go out to stand staunchly beside Freddie.
She hurried down the path, and was alarmed to see Freddie in such a state. She’d never seen him so angry. He was standing in front of the tractor, banging his big fist on the bonnet and shouting up at the driver who was rolling his eyes and pushing an unruly mop of black hair away from his brow.
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