Born to Be Trouble

by Sheila Jeffries

  Benita was surprisingly quiet, but awake, her lamp-like eyes watching Tessa constantly from her basket on the front seat. Most cats would have panicked on a journey. It was odd. Tessa began to sense another presence with her in the car, a guiding spirit, someone who was keeping the little cat calm. A blue-eyed lady, closely resembling Violetta – but the eyes – those eyes – angel eyes that had shone into Tessa’s consciousness all through her life.

  Tessa hadn’t planned to stop, but she pulled into a layby just outside Wincanton, turned the engine off and let the sweet perfume of hawthorn blossom and hayfields drift in through the open windows. There was little traffic, and between the swish of the occasional passing car, the songs of skylarks rippled through the blue air.

  What have I done? she thought suddenly. It was Friday. She hadn’t phoned Megan to say she wouldn’t be there. Her job would be at risk if Megan thought she just hadn’t turned up. And what would happen when the standing order for a month’s rent was presented to her bank and there was no money to pay it? Worse was the thought of Paul’s reaction when he found she had run away.

  She’d done it all for Benita. A simple act of love that was sweeping her frail canoe towards the rapids.

  Nothing had worked out as she’d planned. Paul’s callous reaction to a needy little cat had shocked her into impulsive action. She felt like a child again, running away for some passionate reason. ‘I’m going to find Benita,’ she’d said firmly to Paul. ‘You go and make yourself a coffee.’ And she’d picked up the cat basket and hurried downstairs, her own pain and fear secondary to frantic concern for Benita.

  She’d paused in the street, looking up and down the road, and was overjoyed to see the little cat come running to her from under a parked car, with her skimpy tail up and her sweet face bright and trusting. ‘Darling! Thanks goodness.’ Tessa had scooped her up, feeling the cat’s bone-thin body vibrating with her purr. ‘I can’t risk taking you upstairs again.’ Benita touched noses with her, and pushed her head against Tessa’s neck. How could such a poor, neglected creature be giving her so much love? Uncomplicated, unconditional love. It seemed sacred.

  Fearing for her safety, Tessa had put Benita straight into the basket, grabbed the car key from the slot in the wall and driven out of London, shaking deep inside, wanting to cry but feeling herself going into lockdown. She’d intended to take Benita to Starlinda’s place, but the car seemed to have a mind of its own. Someone else was driving. Steely blue eyes. A voice echoing in her mind. Home. Go home. Home.

  Sitting in the layby, Tessa heard the voice again, whispering words to her. Surprising words. ‘Benita is not your cat. She is a messenger. She has come to lead you home. Nothing happens by chance.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Tessa asked, aloud, trying to see the spirit who was talking to her.

  ‘I am who I am,’ was the haughty reply, and suddenly the voice changed to a shout. ‘Get out of the car. Out. Now. Quickly. And the cat – take the cat. Quickly.’

  Tessa grabbed the cat basket and got out. She smelled hot rubber and petrol fumes. Alarmed, she touched the bonnet of the car and found it burning hot. Too late, she realised she had forgotten to top up the water tank and smoke was drifting from under the car. I should open the bonnet, Tessa thought. She hesitated, unsure what to do. The blue eyes frowned at her, a vivid urgent blue, and the voice shouted, ‘Get back – back – away from the car.’

  Benita was yowling inside the basket. Clutching it, Tessa stumbled along the rough tarmac of the layby. An invisible force seemed to be pushing her. ‘My bag,’ she protested, ‘I need my bag! – my money.’

  She put the cat basket down in the grass at the roadside, and turned to run back.

  The explosion lifted her off her feet and flung her face down onto the tarmac. A white-hot flash, then a curdle of blood-red fire engulfed the Morris Minor and everything inside. It burned like dragon fire, crackling horribly, the fractured metal glinting, and triangles of glass skittering across the road. A mushroom of blue-brown smoke, laden with sparks, billowed into the sky.

  Tessa lay in the road, feeling as if all her bones were broken. She heard Benita’s terrified meows. ‘It’s okay, little cat, I’m coming,’ she cried out. A spark landed on her hair and she smelled it burning. ‘Oh God – no!’ She beat it out with her bare hands. A scorching pain from her fingers made her giddy, and just before she passed out, she heard the sound of running feet pounding towards her.

  Kate’s way of cheering herself up was to make Freddie an especially nice lunch. His favourite cottage pie with a sliced apple under the rich beef mince, topped with creamy mashed potatoes, smothered in butter and browned to a crispy gold. She’d pulled, scrubbed and cooked baby carrots from the garden with fresh spring greens. Followed by their own sweet, lush strawberries and clotted cream.

  She wasn’t hungry after her consultation with Dr Jarvis, but Freddie didn’t seem to notice the small portion on her plate. He ate with relish, his eyes gazing out at the garden. ‘Bloomin’ pigeons,’ he said intermittently, watching the portly grey woodpigeons raiding his vegetable garden, despite the squares of foil he’d strung over it, and the scarecrow with its bottle top eyes glaring from under a broken panama hat. ‘’Tis a lovely meal,’ he said, eyeing the strawberries, ‘and all of it free – except the meat. You’re such a good cook.’

  Kate swelled with pride. I can’t tell him, she thought again. Freddie looked well, suntanned and contented, the way it should be. With just the two of them at home they had developed a habit of sunbathing after lunch in two deckchairs, snoozing to the sound of bees and chirruping sparrows. The upset over the elm trees wasn’t going to go away, but in May there was still so much to enjoy. The haze of buttercups over the meadows. The young lambs playing like kittens with over-the-top leaps and chases in the field opposite The Pines.

  While Freddie set out the two deckchairs, Kate made coffee and took it outside on a tray, the Daily Express under her arm. He was watching a blue Bedford van which had pulled up at the gate. ‘Now who on earth is that?’ she asked, setting the tray down on the lawn between the two deckchairs. Kate usually welcomed company, but today she didn’t feel like seeing anyone. ‘People just descend on us,’ she said, and they watched to see who was going to emerge from the van.

  The driver got out and walked around to the passenger door to help someone out. ‘It’s no one we know,’ Kate said, and then her eyes changed. Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my goodness, Freddie. It’s Tessa! And she’s hurt.’ Kate bustled down the path with Freddie padding behind, his eyes full of concern.

  The man brought Tessa to the gate. She was obviously in pain and her face looked bruised and swollen. In her hand was a cat basket and Kate could see a sweet little face peeping out with big golden green eyes.

  ‘Mum!’ Tessa could hardly speak. Sobs lurched through her body and made her crumple forward like an old woman.

  ‘What is it, dear? What happened?’ Kate hugged her daughter close, horrified to see a strand of her beautiful chestnut hair singed, and appalled to feel the power of those deep sobs which seemed to go right back to childhood. She’d thought Tessa was okay, settled at last, enjoying London and her job, building a home and a marriage.

  ‘I’ve – lost – everything. Everything, Mum!’

  The man beside her looked awkward. He met Kate’s enquiring eyes. ‘I’m Jim,’ he said. ‘I brought her home. She wouldn’t go to hospital. Her car caught fire on the 303 outside Wincanton.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘It’s a burnt out shell. Nothing could be done. But at least she’s safe.’

  Kate’s mind raced. What was Tessa doing, on a Friday, driving down? Where was Paul? So many questions. They would have to wait until Tessa was calm enough to talk.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she gasped. ‘It’s my fault. I’ve ruined everything.’

  A wail from the cat basket distracted them, and spawned another bout of crying from Tessa. ‘Mum – this is Benita,’ she wept. ‘She’s a da
rling cat. I rescued her from the street and Paul went crazy. I brought her here – and – I’ve let her down, Mum – I’ve let everyone down – my whole life is collapsing. I can’t go on – I really can’t.’

  ‘Oh, it will all blow over, dear,’ Kate said, reassuringly she hoped.

  ‘No, it won’t, Mum.’ Tessa’s face hardened. She took some deep breaths, trying to fight the inner fury, remembering how Kate had never understood or accepted anger. She managed to calm herself, in a resigned sort of way, as if her mother’s attitude was old territory, not to be revisited. ‘We have to get Benita inside, Mum. She’s been cooped up and she was fine until the car caught fire. Now she’s upset again and it’s all my fault.’

  Leaving Freddie talking to Jim about the car, Kate and Tessa took Benita into the kitchen and shut the door.

  ‘This little cat is my only reason for staying alive,’ Tessa said, unfastening the door of the cat basket. Kate expected the frightened cat to run under the furniture, but Benita didn’t. She took her time emerging, her sensitive face assessing the new space. ‘She’s terribly thin,’ said Tessa. But Benita fluffed her fur and strolled out with her tail up. She made a beeline for Kate.

  Kate melted. She picked Benita up and the cat immediately started to purr, gazing into Kate’s eyes as if she understood everything. She knows, Kate thought, she knows I’m ill. A tear rolled down her pale cheek.

  ‘You’ve brought me an angel.’

  Tessa smiled. ‘Will you have her, Mum? Please?’

  ‘Have her? I’d LOVE to. I – need a kitty angel right now.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Tessa looked full of tears again. ‘I wanted to keep her so much, but I can’t. It seems – I’m not meant to have anything that loves me.’

  ‘Doesn’t Paul love you?’ Kate asked sharply.

  Tessa shrugged, her eyes bleak and silent.

  Something’s very wrong, Kate thought in alarm. But in that moment Tessa was watching, with a touch of envy, as Benita delicately licked the tear from Kate’s pale cheek.

  ‘You don’t look well, Mum,’ Tessa said, suddenly becoming the compassionate adult again.

  I can’t tell her, Kate thought. ‘Oh, I’m all right, dear,’ she said brightly. ‘Just a bit off colour. I expect it’s only a virus going round. But never mind me, I want to hear your news. Whatever happened to the car? And this poor kitty – she’s so thin.’ Kate put Benita on the floor and scraped the remaining mince from the pie dish into a saucer. They watched her tucking in.

  ‘I bought stuff for her,’ Tessa said sadly, ‘food, and flea powder, and a brush and a red velvet collar. It’s all gone up in flames, Mum, and my case of clothes – my Afghan coat, my best jeans – everything. And my bag. It had cash in it, my salary. I drew it out – and it’s gone.’

  ‘What bad luck,’ said Kate kindly.

  Tessa shook her head. ‘No, Mum – it’s my fault. I don’t know what Dad will say. I forgot to put water in the car. I left in a hurry because . . .’

  ‘Because?’

  Tessa stared at her in silence.

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Kate’s cheeks flamed and she looked at Tessa with fierce eyes. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Mum. I need to lie down.’

  ‘You must be in shock.’ Kate steered Tessa to the sofa in the kitchen window. ‘You really ought to go to hospital.’

  ‘NO.’ Tessa sank into the familiar sofa. It still creaked in the same places, and smelled of marmalade and tweed. Kate pulled out her father’s old milking stool and sat close, watching her daughter’s slim body still racked by deep sobs that persisted long after the tears had dried. Kate wondered why, after all these years, Tessa still suffered so much, and why it was so hard to understand. Tessa was never satisfied with the things Kate treasured – a good marriage, a home and family, a simple, wholesome life. What Tessa wanted was somewhere out there beyond love, beyond the reasoning mind. There had always been a cut-off point in their mother/daughter relationship. Usually a straight ‘no’ or ‘I don’t want to talk about it’, or a certain look in Tessa’s pale blue eyes, a closed door Kate could never open.

  ‘My whole life is collapsing,’ Tessa wept, again. ‘What am I going to do, Mum? What am I going to DO?’

  CHAPTER 17

  Let the Heart Remember

  ‘There’s always a reason why things happen,’ Starlinda said in her calm, confident voice.

  Tessa had slept for most of Saturday, relieved to be back in her own bed at The Pines with the fragrance of new mown hay drifting through the open window. She’d woken in the afternoon light, feeling rested in a deeply satisfying way, a special blend of contentment that permeated her entire being, a feeling of coming home. Her first thought was to phone Starlinda and try to make sense of what had happened. Then she wanted a long talk with her dad. Despite everything, a sense of happiness glowed around her. It was May, and she was home. There would be bee orchids up on the ridgeway. Cowslips and cuckooflower down in the water meadows. So many beautiful places to go, on limited time.

  ‘I don’t want to come back to London,’ she told Starlinda, ‘but I must.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you must come back. It’s your karma,’ Starlinda said. ‘Your job, and your marriage are a sustaining base camp for your true work. I think you know that, Tessa. You are needed here. We are starting the mediumship course at the end of next week, and you MUST be there.’

  ‘Yeah – I know. It’s just so difficult with Paul.’

  ‘Paul will apologise. He doesn’t want to lose you, Tessa.’

  ‘But the violence has to stop,’ Tessa said, quietly, keeping an eye on Kate who was carrying Benita round the garden. She didn’t want her mother to hear the conversation she was having with Starlinda.

  ‘Maybe you can’t stop him, Tessa, but you can leave him, before it escalates.’

  ‘I don’t feel strong enough to just leave.’

  ‘You are strong. My God, girl, you are an earth angel! A magnificent being of love and light.’

  ‘It’s hard to remember that.’

  ‘No, darling. It’s easy. Let your heart remember.’

  ‘Keep reminding me,’ Tessa mumbled, watching Kate walk past with a slitty-eyed, purring Benita in her arms.

  ‘Who just walked past the phone?’ asked Starlinda sharply.

  ‘Mum.’

  Starlinda went quiet.

  ‘She’s carrying Benita around,’ Tessa added.

  Silence.

  ‘Are you still there? Starlinda?’

  ‘Yes, darling. I’m tuning into your mum’s energy. It’s remarkably low for such a feisty lady. There’s something she needs to tell you.’

  ‘Right – I’ll ask her.’

  ‘She won’t tell you today. Wild horses wouldn’t drag it out of her. Your mum is a VERY determined lady. She’ll tell you when the time is right. Be ready for change, Tessa. It’s a time of transition for your family.’

  ‘So what do I have to do?’

  ‘You know the answer to that, darling. Stay in the heart. The heart has all the answers to all the questions. Promise me you will listen to your heart.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You will be back in London tomorrow night,’ Starlinda continued. ‘Ring me – and there’s a special place down there in Somerset that you need to visit, today if you can. Is there an ancient Holy Well nearby? I’m sensing it – a long-forgotten sacred spring. I see bubbling rings of water, and a tree laden with blossom. It’s crying out to you – if you listen. Take care, honeychild.’ Starlinda put the phone down.

  Intrigued, Tessa closed her eyes and put her hand on her heart. A shaft of light beamed in as if she had opened the curtains. She gasped in astonishment. Her field. The source of the spring with its bubbling rings of water. A mirror-bright vision. Could the spring have been a Holy Well? She knew instantly that it had.

  Another surprise flared into life. Someone was waiting for her at the source of the
stream. Who? A feeling flickered low down in her stomach. Nervous hope, a candle flickering in a stormy window. She tried to see who it might be. It wasn’t a shadow, it wasn’t solid, but more like a patch of radiance, a light, a shape of someone sitting under the hawthorn tree. An aura without a body. A shining person. Sitting so still, waiting so confidently – for her. And what if she didn’t go? Tessa asked herself. She put both hands on her heart.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ Kate popped out of the kitchen and Tessa glimpsed Benita busily eating from a saucer on the floor. ‘I opened a tin of salmon,’ Kate said. ‘Spoiling her. And I’ve de-flead her. We’ll have her plump and glossy in no time.’

  The spell was broken. Tessa blinked. ‘I’m going to walk up to the field, Mum. I won’t be long.’

  ‘You’ll see such a difference in the landscape,’ Kate said. ‘The elms are gone. It’s terrible. Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No thanks, Mum. You look after Benita. I’ll be fine.’

  Even without the elm trees, Monterose seemed to be a place of lush abundance, surrounded by meadows of buttercups and sorrel. Tessa walked quickly, looking for the patches of dog violets along the verges, remembering the oval-shaped mats of springy little violets in every shade of pink, white and purple. Now they had gone, and so had the clumps of yellow cowslips. Grass and clover, and dead grass lying around, carelessly mown, and the tops of hedges savagely mangled by the flail-cutter.

  I used to be a Rainbow Warrior, Tessa thought. Where were they now, those tribes of hippies and flower children who had passionately tried to raise awareness? Had they given up? Were they all, like Lou and Clare, in squats in London, working only to feed their addictions? Did no one care about Silent Spring? Tessa paused in the lane, remembering the awful sight of her car burning. The exultant scarlet energy of the flames felt personal. Hungry fire stripping her of material wealth, down to the bone. Lying there in the road she’d felt even her bones were burning. And yet the one sound in her memory, above the crackle of the flames, was the song of a skylark high in the blue air, like her, an endangered species with nothing left but the power of a song.