by Kate Forster
The taxi driver had laughed and said he had already seen evidence of this and Tassie listened to his stories.
When they arrived in Salisbury, the taxi driver waited for her while she went to her appointment at the office with the brass doors. They were so heavy, she had to wait for someone else to open them so she could slip in behind them and she went up the elevator and to the floor marked on the downstairs board.
When she was finished, and she managed to leave the office, she went home again in the taxi. The bakery was busy and she slipped inside without Rachel seeing her.
Soon she saw Clara arrive with Henry and she saw them head into the tearooms, which were closed for renovations.
Everything was happening, Tassie thought and she felt tears in her eyes. It had been wonderful, all of it, every single second and she would do it all again, exactly as she already had.
Tassie turned on the kettle and looked out the window and saw the bird on the clothesline. One for sorrow – she nodded her respects to the bird. People didn’t give birds enough respect, she had often said to George when he was alive. They were the carriers of the messages of those who had passed and they knew what was coming on the winds of change.
Tassie made her tea and sat at the table and sipped it slowly, enjoying it with a piece of the lavender shortbread that Rachel had made with the last of the summer lavender. When she finished the tea, she swirled it three times and spun the cup and placed it upside down and waited a few minutes.
She took a moment and then turned over the cup and saw the raven. It was time. She couldn’t run from it anymore and a sense of peace came over her tired body.
She went to the front room and found her good onion-skin paper and her favourite pen. Then she went back to the kitchen to write her letter and sealed it in an envelope. She carefully wrote Clara’s name on the front and then propped it up against the cup, turned down on the saucer.
Clara would be the one to find her and while she wished she could have made it easier for Clara, she was selfish in her last moments. She wanted to be with a friend and Clara was that and more.
You have done what you said you would do – teach people, help them, show them they are worth loving, she heard a voice in her head say as she closed her eyes, while sitting at the table.
54
The tearoom renovation was underway. The bakery had stayed open but Henry had hired two men from Chippenham to help gut the rooms and now he and Clara stood in the open space.
‘I have a fireplace coming from a yard in Salisbury,’ said Henry. ‘Lovely Victorian one with a mantel. We can put a gas fire it in; they are very realistic nowadays.’
Clara walked around the space.
‘What about these floors – can we polish them?’
‘We can,’ said Henry, ‘but they need some TLC.’
‘I’m going to pop over and see Tassie,’ said Clara. ‘I’ve haven’t seen her since she came over after Naomi’s ceremony.’
Henry nodded and pulled out his measuring tape and started using it on the walls, so Clara went out into the bakery, which was in between rushes of customers.
‘All okay?’ she asked the new girl who had taken over from Alice who was back at school.
‘All fine, Rachel is in the kitchen,’ she said to Clara.
‘Tell her I am seeing Tassie if she asks,’ she called and went outside. The air was colder, with a crispness to it that signalled autumn was on its way. She was looking forward to some cooler weather in the cottage. The sofa had arrived and they had rugs and even a television, which Pansy was thrilled about and Henry less so.
The oak trees seemed to be quieter now, less rustle of the leaves and some were turning yellow at the tops and the garden was slowing down also. The cottage was painted pink and the garden beds were dug up and edged.
Tassie had given Clara boxes of cockleshells that she had in her little shed. George used to collect them, she said, but didn’t say why he collected them, and Henry had attached them to the garden bed edging.
And they finally had the vegetable patch where she had planted broccoli and carrots and rhubarb. Henry had made little wooden labels and painted the names of them onto the front and Pansy had carefully read the letters out to him as he worked.
Tassie had done wonderfully with her lessons, she thought, as she knocked on Tassie’s door.
She waited for a bit but didn’t hear the sound of Tassie coming to open it. She knocked again but nothing. A gnawing worry grew in her chest and she knocked louder and called Tassie’s name.
Running back across the road, she grabbed Henry.
‘Tassie’s not answering.’
‘She might have gone out,’ said Henry, writing measurements down on a small pad.
‘She doesn’t go anywhere,’ said Clara, glancing back at Tassie’s house, hoping the door would suddenly open and put all her worries to rest.
‘That’s not true, she went to Salisbury yesterday.’ he said.
‘How do you know? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Clara demanded to know.
‘She asked Joe to ask me to come and get some boxes out of her roof cavity and she told me then. She made it sound like it was perfectly in order.’ Henry stopped writing and looked at her. ‘Is she supposed to tell you when she comes and goes?’
Clara stamped her foot in frustration. ‘No, of course not but I don’t like this. She’s old, and alone, and she might have fallen. I think you should break in and check on her.’
‘Or you could use the key that Rachel has,’ said Henry.
‘Rachel has a key? God, why doesn’t anyone tell me anything?’ she said crossly.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Henry, and Clara got the key from Rachel, and they crossed the road together. A magpie stood on Tassie’s fence, his head tilted in interest.
‘Tassie will know what magpies mean when they sit on your fence,’ said Clara as she slipped the key into the lock.
‘It means they’re tired of flying?’ Henry joked as Clara opened the door.
But Clara wasn’t listening. The house was still, not even the loud, old clock on her mantel was ticking. She closed her eyes.
‘She’s gone,’ she said.
‘To Salisbury?’ asked Henry.
Clara shook her head. ‘She’s died. I can’t look. You look.’
Henry called out Tassie’s name and waited and then went to the bedroom. ‘The bed is unslept in,’ he called out to Clara but Clara had gone to the kitchen to wait and that was where Tassie was sitting. Still upright. In her purple cardigan with the little brooch of flowers on the lapel and her pretty blue dress. Her hair was neatly combed and her eyebrows drawn on perfectly but Clara knew she was gone.
‘She’s here,’ she called out, hearing her own voice catch.
‘I told you she was…’ Henry walked into the kitchen and saw Tassie.
‘Oh, love,’ he said and Clara wasn’t sure if she meant Tassie or her. It didn’t matter now.
Oh, love, she thought. Love was everything. It was the meaning of life, it was the way to live life, it was everything and more. Without love we are nothing, thought Clara as she sat next to Tassie at the table and held her cold hand, which had started to stiffen.
‘Can you call the ambulance?’ she said quietly. ‘And then tell Rachel.’
Henry kissed the top of her head, and then Tassie’s and then left her alone in the house with Tassie.
She held her old friend’s hand in hers and stroked the paper-thin skin.
‘I love you, Tassie – you understood me, you saw me and you saved me from my father,’ she said, feeling the deep grief welling inside her.
‘What will I do now you’re gone? Who will tell me about what ladybugs mean and magpies on fences and what to do when you see a three-legged dog?’
Clara held Tassie’s hand tight. She noticed the letter addressed to her against the upturned cup and slipped it into her pocket. That was for later, she thought. She turned over the cup and looked inside. There
was something, she peered closer. A blackbird, no, too big for that, she narrowed her eyes and then she saw it. The raven.
‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret, never to be told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a time of joyous bliss.’ She whispered in her friend’s ear and started to cry.
‘You brought me here and Henry, and you knew there was something special. I don’t know how but you saved us from ourselves and being lost in the past, and helped Pansy and Rachel – oh, Tassie, how I love you.’
And Clara kept crying. She cried like she should have cried for her father and her mother. She cried for her heartbreak and she cried for her losses. And then she cried because she was simply so grateful to Tassie for her love and friendship.
Rachel came bursting into the kitchen and fell sobbing into Henry’s arms who was behind her.
Clara sat, her thumb stroking the back of Tassie’s old hand.
‘The ambulance are on their way,’ said Henry.
‘I will sit with you until they come,’ said Clara to Tassie. Her face was peaceful; maybe she could see a hint of lipstick. She knew then that Tassie had been preparing to die. Tassie might not have been able to summon life and have children of her own but she could summon death the way she could speak to them.
She glanced around the kitchen and saw everything was spick and span and put away. There was a fresh tea towel on the rail next to the sink and the dishcloth was carefully folded and on the rack.
Tassie was house-proud, even in the afterlife, she thought, and she wished she had remembered to ask her what a bird in the house meant after Naomi’s ceremony. Tassie would have known; she knew everything.
She held Tassie’s hand until the medics came and said she was dead, because that’s what they are supposed to do, and they called the doctor, who came and declared her dead, because that’s what doctors are supposed to do, and then Henry called the undertaker in Chippenham to come and get her, because that’s what undertakers do. Clara held her hand the entire time until they put Tassie into the back of the van, and drove her away, because that’s what friends do – they stay till the very bitter, as Tassie used to say.
55
The morning of the third Thursday in August, Tassie McIver’s earthly body faced the flames and her ashes were thrown out into the oak tree clearing by Clara and Rachel, as she had expressed in the letter she had left on the kitchen table.
There was to be no funeral, she had instructed, as she didn’t have time for that and nor did anyone else. People’s lives are busy, she had written in her perfect handwriting, if a little spidery at times.
Instead, the village opened up the church hall and they had a memorial service, which the tearooms catered with mini egg and bacon pies, and butterfly cakes and eclairs and little shortbreads shaped like oak leaves. They served China tea and lemonade, and the hall was filled with former students that Tassie had taught over the years in Merryknowe.
‘We used to think she was a witch but a good witch,’ said one with a nose piercing.
‘She would bring us dinners when Mam was sick,’ said another who now wore a suit and a silk tie.
She heard stories of Tassie’s enormous impact on the students from gaining a love of reading to pushing themselves to want and expect more from their inner lives. Every time another person spoke, Clara felt humbled by her short friendship with Tassie.
After the service and all was cleaned up, Henry and Clara sat at home in silence.
‘I thought I was special you know, but seeing all those people speak today, I realised she was the one who was special,’ Clara said, her head on Henry’s shoulder.
‘We are all special; she just saw it when we or others couldn’t,’ said Henry.
Clara sighed. ‘I don’t feel well. Too much stress I think since this all happened. It’s been relentless.’
‘Do you want to have a lie-down?’ asked Henry. ‘I have to go and get Pansy – can you believe it’s been five weeks since she started school?’
She thought for a moment and then sat up. ‘Five weeks?’
Henry nodded. ‘Yep, coming up for six.’
She stood up. ‘I’ll come with you. I need to go to the shops in Chippenham.’
They drove in Clara’s car and she tried to remember when she had her last period.
So much had happened in the last five weeks, she couldn’t remember anything in a straight line. Joe and Rachel’s engagement, Naomi’s ceremony, the renovations on the tearooms, Pansy starting school, Tassie’s death.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Henry as they drove.
‘Nothing – I don’t know, I just feel weird,’ she said, being evasive. There was no point saying anything until she knew for certain, but what would Henry say if she was pregnant?
They drove into Chippenham.
‘Drove me off here, get Pansy and come back for me?’ she said, pointing to a park on the side of the road. Henry stopped the car and she jumped out.
‘See you soon,’ she said and before he had time to answer, she had walked into the shopping centre.
She went to the chemist and looked at the tests. She wondered if Judy had used one of these. She picked up an early pregnancy test. Their baby would be due soon, and she thought about everything that had changed since she had learned of their affair.
The odd thing was she barely thought about them now and when she did, she felt nothing. Not anger or indifference, it felt like a different person and a different life. She chose a test and paid for it then went hunting for the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, she read the instructions and then did as it asked.
Not exactly a glamorous task, she thought as she waited in the noisy cubicles, with the bright light overhead creating a mood more suited to an interrogation than an insemination.
And there it was. The double line. Oh, Tassie. She shook her head. I think you planned this all along.
Henry was waiting for her when she went outside and Pansy was filled with news about school and artwork she had to show Clara.
‘Can you show me when we get home? I’m not feeling well,’ said Clara, ignoring Henry’s worried looks.
Pansy sat back quietly, mumbling to herself in the back seat but Clara didn’t have the energy to respond.
She always indulged Pansy and her needs but right now, she needed to be alone and gather her thoughts.
Henry tried to make conversation as they drove home but neither Clara nor Pansy engaged, both staring out the window. The trees were turning orange now, noticed Clara and she felt bad for snapping at Pansy.
She turned in the seat to Pansy.
‘I’m sorry, darling, I felt a bit sick. I want to see your art. Can you show me?’
Pansy picked up her painting and handed it to Clara. It was actually very good. Far more sophisticated than what Clara had thought Pansy was capable of doing.
‘Wow, is that our house?’ she asked.
Pansy nodded.
Clara looked at the pink house with the brown roof. There was the gate and the chicken coop with little chickens running around.
Pansy was on the swing and Henry was on the roof. Clara smiled as she peered closely. She saw herself next to the vegetable garden.
‘Is that me?’ she asked pointing at the figure in the big hat that she often wore.
Pansy nodded.
‘And what else is there?’
‘There is Mummy,’ she said and Clara looked closely but she couldn’t see another person in the artwork.
‘I can’t see her? Point to her?’ asked Clara, handing the picture back to Pansy. Pansy put her finger on a thin tree next to what she presumed was the large oak out the back.
‘That’s Mummy,’ she said.
‘Mummy is a tree?’ Clara said, smiling at Henry who raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes, because Tassie told me to put an acorn in and I did and I never told you and soon she will be a big tree,’ said Pansy proudly.
Clara gasped and looked to Henry who was laughing and smiling. ‘Oh, you and Tassie were always up to something.’
‘Yes, Tassie used to tell me things all the time to do that I didn’t tell you,’ boasted Pansy.
‘Oh yes? Like what?’ asked Henry as they turned down the road towards the cottage.
‘Like when we put the shells in the garden. She said you needed them and I had to tell you I wanted them, and then she made me put acorns under your bed.’ Pansy laughed and laughed to herself in the back of the car.
56
The packages were on the front doorstep when they arrived home.
‘What are these?’ asked Henry.
Pansy spied her own name and picked up the box and shook it. ‘I can hear something rattling,’ she cried.
‘It’s probably broken with that shake,’ Henry said to Clara as he picked up a small box with his name printed on the front.
He opened the front door, and Clara picked up the large envelope and walked inside and went to the table.
‘Cup of tea?’ he asked and she nodded.
Pansy was in the living room, the television was on but neither Clara nor Henry had the energy to tell her to turn it off.
She opened the drawer and pulled out a knife and slit open the padded envelope. She pulled out a letter and a notebook, which she put down, because she recognised Tassie’s old-fashioned script.
Dearest Clara,
What a blessing you are to me and to Merryknowe and to Rachel and Henry and Pansy and your chickens. I think everyone who has ever met you benefitted in some way…
Clara gasped and started to cry and handed it to Henry. ‘She wrote me a letter. I can’t read it. Can you?’
Henry sat down and cleared his throat.
‘Dearest Clara,
‘What a blessing you are to me and to Merryknowe and to Rachel and Henry and Pansy and your chickens. I think everyone who has ever met you benefitted in some way from your giving nature and true nurturing soul.
