The Girl by the River

by Sheila Jeffries

  Chapter Twenty

  THE BRIMMING RIVER

  In the morning, the cat followed Tessa down The Warren, running beside her with his tail up. She figured he must belong to someone nearby for he looked well fed and glossy. Tessa didn’t want him to get lost. Once they reached the Lifeboat House, his tail was down and he looked uneasy. She picked him up. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she crooned as the cat rubbed his cheek against hers. ‘Don’t follow me and get frightened. I’ll come back later.’ Reluctantly she put him down and waited to see what he would do. He gave her a quizzical stare, jumped onto the wall of a cottage garden and sat beautifully, his tail coiled around his legs. Tessa walked on with her rucksack, and when she looked back the cat was still there, washing his paws in the morning sun.

  Live in the now, she thought, and headed up The Digey to Porthmeor Beach. The long night of crying had made her ache all over. She wasn’t hungry. On the beach she changed quickly and plunged into the brilliance of the white surf and the jewel-green water, letting it stream through her hair. She emerged into the sunshine feeling cleansed and alive.

  It happened very quickly.

  One minute she was wading out of the sea, shaking the drops from her hair, her face alive with the energising joy of the sea. The next minute a man was standing in front of her, his hands open like a big flower. ‘Tessa?’

  She gasped, and found herself staring into his intense grey eyes. ‘Art!’ she cried. And then it started. That deep warm tingle inside, a new fire in a new place. She felt as if her entire body, mind and soul had burst into song.

  ‘It is you!’ Art said. ‘Can I give you a hug?’

  He was in his swimming trunks, his body looked warm and golden, like fresh bread.

  ‘I’m wet,’ she said.

  ‘Who cares?’

  Tessa moved in to his welcoming hug a bit hesitantly. He felt amazing, the texture of his skin deeply warm against hers which was ice cold from the sea. Her wet hair tumbled over his hairy chest and she pressed her ear against his heartbeat. His hands smoothed her back as if each fingertip had an electrical charge of energy.

  They hugged for an eternal moment, and Tessa sensed a change in the air around them, a shimmering light, a skirt of diamonds swirling over the two of them, a sense that ribbons of the brightest gold were binding them together.

  They pulled away. Looked at each other. Laughed, and hugged again, and this time Art’s hands were lower down her back, the hairs on his arms brushing her waist. The tingle deep in her body was so strong that Tessa could hardly walk as he led her up the beach to where his surfboard was propped against the wall. They sat down on the soft sand.

  ‘It’s like a miracle. Meeting you here,’ Art said. ‘I’ve done nothing but dream about you since we met, Tessa.’

  ‘Me too,’ she admitted.

  ‘You were only fourteen, weren’t you? So – what’s happened to you since? Where are you at?’

  Tessa beamed. ‘I’m finally doing my own thing,’ she said. ‘I’m at art college – or I was – but I’m through with conforming to the norm. I came down here – and I ADORE it. The surf – and the light – it’s – oh, I can’t find words.’

  ‘How about – phantasmagorical?’ Art said, and they both laughed. ‘You’ve got dimples in your cheeks when you laugh, and you look – just beautiful, like a mermaid. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you walking out of the sea.’ His eyes wandered over her suntanned body, her skin glistening with salt crystals as the sea water dried in the sun. ‘So where are you sleeping?’

  ‘Under the stars – and I love it,’ Tessa said. ‘Except last night when someone else got in my sleeping place – but then a fabulous black cat turned up in the middle of the night and made such a fuss of me. He stayed all night with me.’

  ‘A lucky black cat, maybe?’

  ‘You could be right. My granny died yesterday, and she sent him to me. I know she did.’

  ‘Ah – I remember – you’re clairvoyant, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not openly – but yes.’

  ‘Why not openly, Tessa?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘I see the shadow – still there in your lovely eyes,’ Art said, and he took both her hands in his. ‘I’d like to heal it, if you let me. I’d like to truly, truly set you free. I believe we were meant to meet today, Tessa – and what a way to meet – half naked on the beach!’

  She laughed again. ‘I shouldn’t be laughing the day after my granny has died.’

  ‘Why not? She wants you to be happy,’ Art said. ‘I rolled in the sand when my Nan died. She was such a dragon – and now she’s gone, even my parents are unbuttoning their shirts. I never saw my Dad’s chest in my whole life, and the day Nan died he threw his ties away and let it all hang out.’

  Tessa giggled. ‘That’s very funny.’

  ‘As for his feet, I never saw his feet either – until he came down here and actually took his socks off on the beach and there were these ghostly white objects underneath.’

  He talked on, waving his hands expressively, and Tessa listened, fascinated, noticing details of him, the way his eyebrows moved a lot, the way the skin around his eyes crinkled when he laughed. She felt at home with him. Relaxed, as if she could say or do anything, and it would be okay.

  ‘I’m very organised, for a hippy,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an old bus parked up on The Island car park. I’ve kitted out the inside and now I’m painting the bodywork in psychedelic colours.’

  ‘I could help you with the painting,’ Tessa said. ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘Groovy! – How about lunch with me in the Man Friday? I’d like to treat you, Tessa.’

  Dazed with euphoria, Tessa slipped into her jeans and padded up the steps, with Art holding her hand very firmly. A free lunch, a chance to paint swirly colours on a bus, and precious time with Art. My dreams are coming true, she thought happily. It must have been a lucky black cat!

  But Lou and Clare were not impressed. When they saw Tessa painting marigolds on Art’s bus that afternoon, Lou pulled her to one side. ‘You be careful, Tessa – with him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tessa asked, annoyed.

  ‘He’s a lovely guy,’ Lou said, her hand on Tessa’s arm, ‘but he’s a womaniser. He’ll break your heart.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Tessa frowned at Lou.

  ‘Suit yourself – I’m just warning you.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Clare. ‘We KNOW, don’t we, Lou?’

  ‘Know what?’ asked Tessa.

  Clare and Lou looked at each other. ‘Trust me,’ Lou said, ‘we’re just looking out for you, Tessa.’

  ‘Thanks – but Art is the first man I’ve ever trusted. I’m following my heart,’ Tessa said and Lou rolled her eyes, shrugged, and walked off.

  She’s wrong, Tessa thought angrily. Art is my soulmate.

  Sex education had been a bad joke in Tessa’s upbringing. In her last year at the Grammar School, the school had sent a letter out to parents informing them of their intention to introduce segregated ‘sex awareness’ in their senior classes. Two teachers were sent on courses, and the PE teacher, who Tessa hated, was assigned to teach the girls. It was to be a six-week course, starting in January, and that was the month when Tessa had bronchitis and then mumps. She missed all but two of the ‘sex awareness’ classes, and the ones she did attend were no help to her at all. The PE teacher strutted around in front of the class, tight-lipped, with a flipchart, and droned on about ‘the development of the foetus’. Tessa sat at the back, daydreaming and drawing horses in her jotter, and she never found out what the ‘foetus’ actually was. She did frown at a chart of a baby standing on its head inside a woman’s womb, but didn’t make the connection. As for how it had got in there, nothing was said and nobody dared ask. At Hilbegut no one seemed to have heard of sex education, and at Art College everyone else seemed to know about it, so Tessa had pretended she did too.

  Kate had prepared her well for her periods starting, but
again there was no connection. Periods were known as ‘the curse’, just something women had to endure, preferably in silence. Kate kept a stack of sanitary pads in the airing cupboard and always referred to them as ‘ammunition’. Lucy had lent Tessa a dog-eared paperback which was doing the rounds at school, and she’d read bits of it by torchlight under the blankets. She dismissed it as either boring, disgusting or irrelevant. Once, she had dared to ask her mother about sex, and Kate had said haughtily, ‘You don’t do it until you’re married, dear, and then I’ll tell you about it’. The word love was never connected with sex. Love belonged to romance in books, and that was what Tessa hoped for. Romance. Not sex!

  Now that Art had ignited this mysterious flame in her body, Tessa thought about romance a lot. She talked to the cat about it. Every night he was waiting for her, followed her back to her sleeping place, and slept the night with her. She gave him a name – Ferdinand, the name of the prince in her favourite Shakespeare play, The Tempest.

  The weather held, dry and sunny; the days rolled by, blue and gold and balmy. Still she hadn’t told Art where she was sleeping. Solitude was important to Tessa. It was like a place, a place of recovery and survival. Sharing it with a beautiful cat was a bonus. The cat was a good listener, and a comfort.

  Running barefooted on the soft grass paths of The Island was something Tessa loved to do while Art was surfing. The Island was not actually an island but joined to the harbour by a narrow strip of land. At the summit was the small granite chapel of St Nicholas, and the views were panoramic, with the surf beach and Clodgy on one side, and the harbour, the wooded cliffs and the miles of Hayle sands stretching out to Godrevy Lighthouse. In the afternoons the sun made a great sheet of oscillating sparkles on the sea.

  Now that Tessa could leave her rucksack and coat safely in Art’s bus, she exulted in being able to run freely up the grass paths between the rocks. She had a favourite rock where she liked to stand and lift her arms to the sun’s vast flare path of light. She felt as if the sparkles were energising every molecule of her body. She felt close to the angels. But not close enough. There was still some kind of emotional razor wire, a cruel fence separating her from her true self. She was afraid. Afraid of that self.

  Art had lent her a book he loved. A slim, cream and brown paperback, dog-eared from much use. It was WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW (Strange and Prophetic Dreams of the Indian Peoples). ‘It blows my mind,’ he’d said. Parts of it had the same effect on Tessa. She read it avidly, rereading and absorbing it, and in its pages she found truths that were slowly setting her free. Permission to dream. Freedom to run barefoot. Freedom to reconnect with the web of life, the animals, the birds, the secret voices of wind and water.

  But what she needed most wasn’t there. Freedom to love. To love like a child was no longer enough. She wanted to love like a woman. To love Art. She prayed he would wait. She prayed he would help her.

  As a child Tessa had visualised her future life like a shining pathway sweeping into the distance, over mountains, through the winking lights of cities, and rainforests, and oceans. But now, when she dared to look, the pathway ended abruptly. There were iron gates, and three iron grey figures guarding them. Miss O’Grady, the Reverend Reminsy, and Ivor Stape.

  Art’s parents now lived in Truro and he’d told Tessa she could use their address for letters. One morning he handed her a blue envelope with her father’s copperplate writing on it. Inside were letters from both her parents. They wanted her to come home. They wanted her to go back to college. What about what I want? Tessa thought angrily, and for the first time she understood how Lucy had felt. Then some words jumped out of Freddie’s letter. The lime tree seeds had grown! Tessa’s heart leapt with joy.

  She told Art about the woods.

  ‘Aw – man, that’s tragic,’ he said. ‘Those beautiful woods. I really care about issues like that, and you do too – I can tell. Let’s go out on the cliffs and give those thoughts to the universe. Maybe it will have some answers.’

  Tessa was happy to go with him. She knew that something was going to happen between them. She wanted it to be on the springy turf high above the rolling waves. So far, Art hadn’t done anything except kiss her on the cheek, and she’d gone away with the feel of the kiss embossed on her consciousness. What he had done was a lot of quiet focused talking, telling her she was beautiful and creative. Telling her she was a rare and sensitive being. It was a new experience for Tessa, and a nurturing one. And the quieter his voice was, the more his eyes glowed into hers, the more she burned and tingled for him to touch her. When he did, she’d be ready, she’d be on fire.

  She led him to one of the fairy gardens she’d found cloistered in the mighty granite outcrops, where the grass was deep and cushiony with mounds of thrift. There they sat, with a gentle breeze wafting in from the sea, the piping cries of oystercatchers down on the rocks, and the vibrating seed heads of the sea pinks adding energy to the earth. Art looked at her for a long time, his hair frizzy in the light, his soul shining into hers. She loved the slowness, the way he was letting it build, letting their auras fuse together. She loved the hunger in his eyes, and the way he kept it back, like holding a powerful horse on a thin rein, not with cruelty. With love.

  Hardly breathing, she waited for him like a butterfly on a flower. Soft. Brightly coloured. Exquisitely sensitive. And when she felt his lips finding hers, she wanted to scream and writhe with excitement. She opened her mouth and let him in, let him kiss her deeply, let him draw her into a sacred eternal moment when love flowed between them. It felt like the sun’s rays focused through a magnifying glass, making fire while the ice cold waves of the Atlantic rose ever higher, wilder, brighter than snow.

  Art pulled away from her, and they lay with their faces close, their eyes full of wordless light. Tessa ran her hands over his broad, bare shoulders and into his sun-bleached chest hair. She kissed his throat, then took his hand and kissed his fingers, one by one, then found his lips again, found the heat and the magic rippling between them.

  ‘Happy?’ he asked as they pulled away again and gazed at each other.

  ‘Very, very – super happy,’ Tessa murmured.

  ‘Good,’ he whispered. ‘That’s what I want. I don’t want to rush you, Tessa. I’m holding back – you know that, don’t you? I want to be sure that you’re ready for me – all of me. Are you?’

  Tessa hesitated. She searched his eyes. ‘I don’t want to spoil this,’ she said. ‘It’s so romantic.’

  ‘Why would you spoil it?’

  ‘I don’t know – I might – panic.’

  ‘Panic? Why? Is it your first time?’

  ‘No,’ Tessa said, and she felt her body shutting down, the magic leaving. It was like a conflict between the new, loving, alive Tessa, and the old, terrified, imprisoned Tessa. She looked at Art hopelessly.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘Where have you gone, Tessa? A minute ago you were radiant and loving. You’re a natural lover, Tessa. And you want me – I can tell. So what happened? Tell me. I want to understand.’

  She sat rigid, the way she had been for most of her life. Afraid. The sea had opened her up. Now Art was there, warm and alive and concerned. He wasn’t forcing her. I might never get this chance again, in my whole life, she thought. I have to try.

  ‘Please – trust me, Tessa. What is it?’ Art asked. ‘Talk to me.’

  She stared silently at the waves. She saw Jonti’s eager little face circling in front of her in the water, only the water was black, and it was the Mill Pool. Why had she never told anyone?

  ‘I was a bad girl . . .’ she began, and couldn’t help smiling when Art said, ‘Aw – I love bad girls!’

  ‘Seriously,’ Tessa said. ‘I was a cry-baby and a troublemaker. A teacher called Miss O’Grady, who looked like a badly weathered clothes peg, absolutely hated me. She rubbished everything I did, especially my dreams and my visions. She tried to get me expelled, and she sat me in front of the vicar, with my mum there, and they all
had a go at me – for being creative, and for talking about spirit people, and for being hypersensitive. They threatened to send me to a home for bad children, and I believed them. I was so terrified that I actually collapsed – and when I came round, I felt like a seashell.’

  ‘A seashell?’

  ‘Like an empty shell washed up on a beach, with the life torn out of it. From that moment, Art, I was suicidal. That’s when it started. I tried so hard to conform, I was like a robot. Only my Dad understood me, then I met Selwyn, and Lexi, and YOU. You really helped me, that day – as if you’d given me back my dreams . . .’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Art said, gently moving a tendril of her chestnut hair from her cheek. He tucked it behind her ear.

  ‘BUT,’ Tessa said, ‘all of that happened just after I’d been . . . abused by this strange man – I don’t know why I’ve never EVER told anyone. I guess I thought telling them would make me even more of a bad girl – and what he did completely shattered my trust in men – and it’s stayed with me, like a concrete barrier – a dam across a river – so that every time a boy wanted to kiss me, I’d freeze or push him away. But . . . I don’t want to push you away, Art – I don’t.’

  ‘Then let’s break that barrier down, together,’ Art said. ‘Let me hold you, safe, in my arms – darling – and you can tell me everything you want to, and we’ll transmute it together, send it into the light, and let the real, beautiful Tessa emerge.’

  He held her against his heart and she relaxed with a little sigh, and began to talk. ‘When I was seven . . .’

  ‘She’s living with the blimin’ hippies,’ Freddie said, looking at Kate over the top of Tessa’s letter. ‘She’s with some guy living in a blimin’ old bus in some car park – illegally.’

  ‘Let me read it,’ Kate said and Freddie handed her the letter in disgust. He’d read the first paragraph and that was enough. Looking around at their lovely home, it hurt him unbearably to think that his daughter didn’t want to live in it. Instead she’d chosen to shack up with some hippie, the lowest of the low in Freddie’s opinion.