The Girl by the River

by Sheila Jeffries

  ‘What?’

  ‘He turned round to me – I were only seven – and he said, “Don’t you ever be like me, son”. I vowed never to lose my temper like that. And I never have.’ He paused, finding his eyes drawn again to Tessa. She was staring at something beyond him, something shimmering in the air. ‘But,’ he added with a new spark of anger in his eyes, ‘when I come in and find you two girls bickering and hurting each other, and your mother lying in bed – ill and exhausted – and the sheets still on the line – I feel angry like that. Angry with you two. Disappointed. Disgusted.’ His voice broke into fragments. ‘I’ve loved your mother since I were nine years old. She was my dream girl, my sweetheart, all I ever wanted. She’s precious to me, my Kate, more precious than gold.’

  Freddie looked hard at his two daughters. Lucy seemed mature, preoccupied with her exams and her future. She didn’t seem impressed by what he had said. He wondered if she’d even listened. But Tessa’s eyes were silvery with light as she gazed at him, her creamy skin had a translucent quality, the last rays of the sunset in the fire of her hair. She had listened. She had cared. Freddie suddenly felt very small, like one person in a crowd, as if Tessa was seeing them all around him.

  ‘Daddy,’ she said, in a voice that sounded like a clear bell, ‘I can see the stone angel. But she’s not stone. She’s real and she’s enormous. Her wings are touching the walls, and she’s made of light like the sun and moon.’

  Chapter Twelve

  BREAKING POINTS

  ‘I’ll have Tessa,’ Lexi said, and there was an astonished silence. So she laughed and added, ‘Must be mad.’

  Freddie frowned. He thought Tessa didn’t like Lexi. He wished Kate was downstairs, ready with the perfect answer, but she was still sleeping, and he had to make a decision. Tessa was adamant that she didn’t want to go to Weymouth and ‘endure a week cooped up in a caravan with Lucy’, as she put it. He couldn’t leave her with Annie.

  Lexi was eyeing him expectantly, awaiting an answer.

  ‘It’s kind of you,’ Freddie said, trying not to be rude, ‘but . . .’

  ‘Yes – I know,’ Lexi said, rescuing him. ‘You’re wondering why, aren’t you? Well, Tessa’s been talking to me, and yesterday I watched her with the horses.’

  ‘Horses?’ Freddie stiffened with anxiety.

  ‘She was in the field talking to them,’ Lexi said. ‘She didn’t know I was watching, but something extraordinary happened. I’ve got an Arab mare, Selwyn, and she’s a really bad-tempered horse – she hates everyone – and no one can catch her, including me. But Tessa sat down on the grass and talked to her, and Selwyn actually walked up to her and leaned her head against her. A horse doesn’t do that unless they love you. I think Tessa has got a special way with animals.’

  ‘Ah – she has,’ agreed Freddie.

  ‘I need someone to help me,’ Lexi said, ‘and I’d teach her to ride in return.’

  Freddie was alarmed. He didn’t want Tessa riding horses and getting involved with the Tillermans. But before he could find the words to answer, Tessa ran downstairs, a paintbrush in her hand. ‘I’d LOVE that,’ she said. ‘Please Daddy – let me go – I promise to be good. I’m crazy about horses.’

  ‘You’ll have to help me look after them, Tessa,’ Lexi said. ‘Mucking out stables, tack cleaning and grooming.’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ll do anything,’ Tessa said firmly. ‘And can Jonti come too?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Lexi. She raised her eyebrows at Freddie. ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s good of you, Lexi,’ Freddie said, ‘but you know how I feel about horses. I don’t want her riding anything wild.’

  ‘She won’t be,’ Lexi assured him. ‘I am a qualified riding instructor, and we’ve got a quiet old thing she can learn on. I can lend her all the kit.’

  Tessa looked at him pleadingly, and Jonti sat on his foot and gazed up at him, his head on one side. Freddie would have liked more time to think it over, but Lexi wasn’t going to wait; he sensed her impatience already brewing. Lexi lived alone in a magnificent old house at the edge of the woods. Maybe, just maybe, it would be good for Tessa. A voice in his mind was urging him to let go.

  ‘Well – it’s only a week,’ he said, ‘if you can put up with her.’

  Lexi grinned. ‘I’ve had worse,’ she joked.

  Tessa was ecstatic. She wagged her finger at him like Kate would have done, and her eyes shone. ‘You’ve made the right decision, Daddy. It’s the best thing I’ve done in my whole life!’

  ‘I’ll bring her up in the car later,’ Freddie said heavily.

  ‘Come now if you like. I’ve got the Land Rover. Save you a trip,’ said Lexi. ‘You don’t need much, maybe a mac if you’ve got one.’

  So Tessa was bundled into Lexi’s Land Rover with a box of books and a few clothes. Jonti jumped in beside her, squirming with enthusiasm. Freddie stood at the garden gate and watched them go. Ironically, a holiday without Tessa seemed exactly like the gift of peace that Kate needed for her recovery. He had a sense of foreboding too. His girls were growing up. The magic hours of childhood had gone. Freddie went to the car and opened the boot. In the corner, on a tartan rug, were the two Mickey Mouse tin buckets, and two small red spades, still with a glaze of Weymouth sand on them. He looked at them sadly, remembering the happy times with Kate in a deckchair, her bare legs soaking up the sun, while he made ever more elaborate sand sculptures with the two suntanned children. He remembered the light in their eyes, the screams of joy as they splashed in the sea. The donkey rides, the Punch and Judy. He’d loved it all. And he’d felt like Daddy. Loved, respected and wanted. He didn’t want that to change.

  He went inside and crept upstairs. Kate was sleeping peacefully, her skin smooth and rosy again over her cheeks. The pain had gone, leaving only the shadows under her eyes. Her glossy black hair was spread out over the white pillow, and he noticed a few threads of grey in it. He wanted her to wake up and rescue him from his gloomy thoughts, but he crept out again and shut the door quietly.

  On an impulse, he went into Tessa’s bedroom to see the picture she’d been painting. She’d left it on the table, her paint box still open beside it, the two sable brushes he’d given her for Christmas lying on a piece of newspaper.

  Freddie gazed in awe as he saw the painting she’d done. It was stunning. Life-changing. In a moment of echoing brilliance, it re-awakened everything he’d tried so hard to forget.

  Tessa had obviously worked with speed and passion to paint the angel she’d seen. She’d done the three of them, herself, Lucy and him sitting at the kitchen table, but very small and in remarkably life-like silhouettes, dark against the blazing light of a huge angel, painted in yellow and white, her wings like sun rays, filling the kitchen. She had painted bits of the dresser and the window in gloomy, mysterious colours, emphasising the incandescence of the angel, the awesome size of it, and the power.

  Freddie wasn’t sure if she had finished the painting or not. He felt it was the most startling image of an angel he had ever seen, yet it wasn’t detailed. It made him want to cry with joy at the sense of recognition. He had seen an angel just like that, and nobody had believed him. In one instant, the experience had thrilled him spiritually, and devastated him emotionally, like being torn in two. He didn’t want Tessa ever to feel like that.

  It was all coming true, he thought, the words of Madame Eltura – but so much faster than she had predicted. Too fast, he feared, to be contained in a sensitive teenage girl. He wondered if that was why Tessa had tried to take her life – because of the extreme power of her visions, and the pain of constant ridicule and rejection.

  She’s my daughter, he thought as he studied the painting, but who is she? Who is she as a soul?

  Kate slapped Lucy’s face hard. ‘How DARE you do this. I’m disgusted with you,’ she cried. ‘And who is that boy?’

  Lucy stared at her, holding her face and swaying a little as they stood by the caravan in the dusk of evening
. The sea was a chalky blue, the sky changing to violet over the winking lights of Weymouth. Further up the cliff-top campsite, Kate could see Freddie’s silhouette holding the yellow box kite on its string. He’d still wanted to fly it, even without the two girls who had loved to hold the string, and feel the pull of the salt wind.

  ‘Thank goodness your father’s not here,’ Kate said. She was trembling with fury, and with the shock of slapping her treasured daughter. ‘I could SMELL you coming up the path,’ she ranted. ‘How dare you get drunk, Lucy! Where did you get it from? I hope you haven’t spent the money Daddy gave you on . . . on booze.’

  ‘I wasn’t doing any harm, Mum. They were friends from school. They only gave me a bit of cider. Everyone was drinking it – and Jill’s mum’s potato wine.’ Lucy’s eyes blazed at Kate. ‘We were only having fun. You didn’t have to slap me like that. It’s not fair.’

  ‘You should have known better, Lucy. You don’t just do something because someone else is doing it.’

  ‘Why not? I was joining in and I enjoyed it,’ said Lucy defiantly. Her eyes rolled and she swung round and was sick into the grass.

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Lucy!’ Kate pushed her into the green canvas toilet tent. ‘Go in there.’

  She got a bucket of water from the tank and sloshed it over the grass, feeling sick herself now. She glanced up at Freddie’s silhouette and he was winding the kite in. Soon he would come padding down to the caravan, his face red from the sea air, his eyes peaceful.

  ‘Don’t tell Daddy. Please, Mum.’ Lucy staggered out of the tent, her eyes desperate, her hair straggled over her face. ‘You’ve ruined our holiday,’ Kate said, ‘and Daddy will be terribly upset. You’d better tell me who that boy was, Lucy. You won’t be seeing HIM again, my girl.’

  ‘That’s not fair. He’s a nice boy, Mum. You haven’t even met him.’ Lucy began to cry with rage. ‘He’s Jill’s brother, and he gave me a lift back on his Vespa.’

  ‘You’ve no business getting on the back of one of those scooters,’ Kate ranted. ‘You saw them all riding along the sea front, causing trouble everywhere. Fighting. They’re no good – the scum of the earth – and your father hates them.’

  ‘But you don’t KNOW them, Mum. That’s not fair. Why can’t I have some fun? I’m seventeen, not ten.’ Lucy pushed her hair back from her face, and her eyes seethed with resentment. ‘And they invited me to go midnight swimming with them – and I’m going. You can’t stop me.’

  ‘Lucy!’ Kate was hurt and appalled. She’d only just recovered from the upset with Tessa. Now her precious Lucy had turned on her. She couldn’t understand it. Lucy had been a model daughter all her life. What had gone wrong? ‘I would never have spoken to my mother like that,’ she said, and her voice seemed disempowered, like something vanishing down a hole in the ground. ‘You get undressed and get into bed,’ she said through tightening lips. ‘I’ve nothing more to say to you.’

  She guided Lucy into the caravan and watched her lie down on the narrow bunk, fully dressed, and bury her head in the pillow. Kate covered her with a blanket, and shut the door on her. Dazed and upset, she sat on the caravan steps and waited for Freddie to come down from the cliff.

  In her final three years at primary school, Tessa had been steel hard and silent. ‘Communicates very little,’ her reports said. Miss O’Grady had marked her work and tolerated her, but the hatred was mutual. Her threat had lodged in Tessa’s mind. ‘You’ll be sent away to a home for bad children.’ Tessa had spent time imagining such a place. It would be grey, inside and outside, like Miss O’Grady. Grey bars at the windows, grey porridge for breakfast, a garden of sticks and stones. It would be far away under a grey raincloud. The stress of trying to behave like Lucy made Tessa nervous and withdrawn. Her only happy times were when she was ill. Kate nursed her through measles, mumps and whooping cough, chickenpox and endless chesty colds. The last long summer term when she was well enough for full attendance was unbearable for Tessa. Yet she’d pushed herself through the eleven plus, passed it and gone to the grammar school where she was once again in the shadow of Lucy’s perfection.

  She’d remained a loner and a misfit, longing for a friend, forever feeling she wanted school to end and life to begin. When the Arab mare, Selwyn, had walked up to her and offered her silent love, Tessa had been overwhelmed. It was a key moment of change in her life. Minutes later, she had met Lexi.

  Selwyn had walked away, cropping grass, and Lexi sat down on the turf beside Tessa. For the first time ever, they had eye contact, and Tessa discovered that Lexi didn’t look so much like an ostrich when she was sitting close and being quiet. Lexi’s eyes were honey bright and warm. Tessa looked right into them and saw something surprising. Loneliness. Lexi thinks no one loves her, she thought, and looked carefully at her aura, seeing emerald greens and orange around most of her lean body. But over the heart was a shadow. Tessa wanted to tell her that, but she kept quiet. Reading auras was a skill she was developing in secret. Increasingly, she felt like two people; the outside Tessa and the inside Tessa. And she believed Lexi’s shrewd eyes were seeing the inside Tessa.

  Lexi hadn’t asked the usual questions like, ‘How are you getting on at school?’ and ‘How’s your mother?’ She’d told Tessa about Selwyn. ‘She’s three-quarters Arab, if you can work that out – and she’s eight years old. I’ve had her since she was a youngster, and she used to be a show-jumper. Jumped like a stag. I won lots of cups with her – she even beat some of the top horses, even though she’s smaller than most of them. But then, one day, she just turned.’ Lexi looked sad. She twiddled a piece of grass in her weathered hands.

  ‘Turned? What do you mean?’ Tessa asked.

  ‘She wouldn’t jump any more. Just refused. And she went so bad-tempered – she wouldn’t even let anyone groom her. We tried to give her a rest and train her up again, but she wasn’t having it. I’m fond of her, but I don’t know why I keep her really – I suppose I’m protecting her. No one else would put up with her. She seems to hate everyone now.’

  They both looked at Selwyn, who had turned her back on Lexi and wandered away, eating, her silver coat shining in the sun.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ said Tessa. ‘I love her.’

  She didn’t tell Lexi that those words, ‘She seems to hate everyone now,’ had resonated deep in her heart. Yet she felt Lexi understood. They stared at one another in silent empathy.

  The upset at home had sent Tessa spinning into another emotional turmoil. She felt trapped by the family she loved. Her mother’s headache had been frightening. Is it my fault? Tessa had thought. Is she going to die? Then it loomed again, the thought that sprang up like a billboard in front of her: Everyone hates me. She always added, except Daddy, and now she added, except Art, and except Selwyn. And Lexi hasn’t had time to hate me yet.

  So there is hope, she thought, as she clung to Jonti in the front of Lexi’s Land Rover. I’m getting a new life. For a week.

  Lexi carried Tessa’s box of books towards the stairs, through a hall with a dusty parquet floor and walls covered in coloured rosettes and photographs of horses. ‘You won’t mind sleeping in the attic room, I hope.’

  Tessa followed her up a second staircase which had bare boards and flaking cream paint on the walls. At the top was a bedroom with an iron bedstead, a basket chair, and a big table. Tessa was only interested in the view from the tall sash window. Fields and elm trees, and great silver skies.

  ‘Can I open it?’ she asked.

  ‘Like this.’ Lexi slid it upwards with her wiry arms. ‘But at night, you’ll get all sorts of moths coming in. And you can hear the nightingales.’

  ‘And I can see Selwyn out in the field,’ Tessa said. ‘I shall watch her in the moonlight, and send her secret messages.’

  ‘It’s eleven o’clock. Lucy should be up by now,’ Freddie said. ‘If we’re going to Abbotsbury, we should go soon.’

  ‘I’ll see if she’s awake,’ Kate said. She got up from the rug where
they’d had breakfast overlooking the sparkling bay. Freddie lit a fag and tried to think calmly about what he was going to say to Lucy. Kate had told him, but he guessed she’d been playing it down, looking on the bright side as usual, protecting, always protecting her daughter.

  The next minute, Kate was beside him, her eyes flickering with panic. ‘Lucy’s gone. Her bunk is empty. She’s gone, Freddie! Where is she?’

  ‘Check the toilet tent.’ Freddie stood up. ‘And look all round the caravan, and the bushes. She might have gone for a walk.’

  ‘She was drunk!’ Kate said. ‘I thought she was out for the count.’

  They searched the area around the caravan. It was the highest one in a line of five on the cliff overlooking Bowlys Cove, and no one else seemed to be around. There was no sign of Lucy at all. Freddie went to the edge of the cliff and looked down through clumps of sea pink and yellow kidney vetch. Nothing. But the thought of Lucy falling over that cliff filled him with a roaring, pulsing terror.

  ‘I’ll go down and take a look – she could have gone to the shop,’ he said shortly, not wanting to alarm Kate. ‘You stay here.’

  He bounded down the cliff path towards the shop on the beach. He passed the seesaw where Tessa and Lucy had loved to play, and remembered them screaming with joy, one each end of the wooden seesaw. It had iron springs under each end which gave them a fierce bounce. He saw them licking pink ice-cream cones, sitting on the sea wall swinging their brown legs. His children were gone. It dawned like a dark sun in his heart, just as it had when he’d been flying the box kite on his own. Freddie hadn’t had a carefree childhood. His childhood had arrived with Lucy and Tessa. He never wanted them to grow up.