Born to Be Trouble

by Sheila Jeffries

  A sliver of light filtered into the shadows. She counted her money. There was enough for a few phone calls, a bus ride, and a meal. But how would she look the morning after another night of sleeping rough in London? Another night of being cold and scared and grubby.

  I have to try, she thought.

  In the noisy, orange-grey twilight of a London park, she took out a comb, and began to remove the beads and ribbons from her hair. Each bead had a meaning. A link with a time, or a colour, or a person who had given it to her. It was painful to be parting with them and she tried not to think too much about the nostalgia. Hardest of all was the amber bead that Art had given her. She left it until last, ending up with a little pile of beads and ribbons, a handful of forgotten rainbows. She put them into the white paper bag Nita had given her, and stuffed it deep down into her rucksack.

  Then she headed across the park to the line of red telephone boxes.

  CHAPTER 6

  Wild Child

  ‘Can you come for an interview on Friday morning? Will ten thirty suit you?’ The voice on the end of the phone sounded warm but cautious. Tessa visualised a square-faced woman with permed hair, shoulder pads, and goatie ankles.

  ‘Yes, I’d love to,’ she replied eagerly. An interview! She had an interview.

  ‘Make sure you have the names and addresses of two referees. Have you got a map of London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good – the nearest tube station is Kilburn High Road.’

  Tessa listened carefully to the directions, writing it down along the white space at the edge of the newspaper.

  ‘I look forward to meeting you. See you on Friday.’

  ‘Yes – and thanks.’

  Tessa replaced the phone and did a silly little dance inside the phone box. She looked at her shocked eyes in the mirror. Her face was pale with shadows under her eyes. Without the beads and ribbons, her hair hung limp and greasy. Her denim jacket looked grubby. What am I going to do? she thought, panicking. I look AWFUL.

  On an impulse she rang Starlinda again, hoping to get invited to stay the night, have a bath, and wash her hair. But as before the phone rang and rang and there was no reply. The problem seemed to be growing out of its space. She couldn’t possibly go to an interview looking and smelling like a vagrant. She couldn’t go dragging a dirty old rucksack bulging with an ethnic blanket and survival stuff.

  She thumbed through her diary. The only other London contact she had was Paul. He’d been part of the hippie commune in St Ives, and at the end of summer he’d opted out and gone home to London to study music. He’d told Tessa he fancied her. She thought about it for a moment and decided, no, she didn’t want to get involved with him. She remembered how his hazel eyes had looked when she’d rejected his attempt to kiss her. There was an edge to Paul’s affable image, an edge that was too close, like the cliff edge on a starry night. A ‘don’t go there’ edge.

  Tessa folded the page with the information on it and tucked it into her purse. She picked up the rest of the newspaper, and a headline caught her eye. HIPPIES IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE. There were photos of the flower children handing out chrysanthemums to tourists, and of long-haired hippies draped over one of the lions. Freedom people! The only people Tessa trusted. It was like finding her tribe. I’ll go there, she thought, and wash my hair in the fountain!

  The sky over London was slate-coloured, the air motionless and thick with the smell of chip shops and traffic fumes. Tessa bought a bag of hot chips, wrapped in newspaper, and returned to the plane tree in the park. She intended to sleep there. The sound and scent of the leaves were comforting, the solidity of the tree trunk and the sense of its roots spreading a cradle under her was reassuring. She rolled herself in Lou’s ethnic blanket, put her head on her rucksack and tried to settle down. Her mind, and her shoulder, were hurting. Grief, rejection, and fear dipped in and out of her exhausted sleep. She clung to the one bright star, her interview. She hoped the sun and the wind would help her to dry her hair in time.

  As if in response to her wish, the morning dawned bright and a cleansing wind blew from the west, clearing flocks of crisp leaves from the plane trees. Tessa’s limbs felt stiff with cold. She debated whether to eat the beautiful orange or save it. She glanced at the shop and was surprised to see Nita emerge, wearing a black coat with the collar turned up, and carrying a tray. Nita crossed the road and came into the park, right up to the plane tree. ‘I keep an eye on you, Tessa,’ she said, and her dark eyes shone. ‘I bring you hot breakfast.’

  ‘That’s UNBELIEVABLE!’ Tessa said. ‘Thank you!’

  Nita took the lid off the bowl on the tray. Sweet-smelling honeyed steam spiralled into the air. ‘I bring you hot porridge with golden syrup. It do you good.’ She handed Tessa a spoon.

  Tessa started to cry. ‘You don’t know how much I needed this.’

  Nita smiled. She sat down and waited while Tessa warmed her hands on the hot china and began to eat.

  The smooth oat porridge felt like swallowing fire. ‘This tastes absolutely divine,’ she said, between mouthfuls.

  ‘I like – help people,’ Nita said. ‘Today is a lucky day for you – something good happen.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I know,’ Nita said. ‘I know things you can’t see.’

  Tessa felt as if Nita had lit a candle in her mind. ‘I know things like that too,’ she said.

  Nita nodded. ‘One day you help someone like I help you – many, many people, Tessa. And it begins – today.’

  Tessa could hardly speak. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Nita said no more, but gave her a loving patchouli-scented hug, took the tray and walked quickly away with it. Tessa felt dumbfounded. She’s like the old woman in The Water Babies, she thought, a spiritual godmother who appears when you most need her and says the words you most need to hear.

  Big Ben was chiming ten o’clock when she reached Trafalgar Square, tired and sore from the long walk. There were pigeons everywhere, and a few tourists with expensive cameras. A group of Hari Krishna people with tambourines were chanting in one corner, and the hippies and flower children were sitting around Nelson’s Column, tucked in a sheltered spot between two of the lions. A man who looked like Art was already up on the lion’s head, greeting the sun with his arms akimbo and hair flying in the wind. Tessa gulped. Every hippie was going to remind her of Art. There was no escape from the inner grief. She’d have to live with it and deal with it.

  The fountains were peppermint white and magnificent, the wind whipping the spray eastwards in the morning light. The water would be freezing cold. But Tessa had been used to plunging into the Atlantic surf every morning in Cornwall. She was ready for this. She was wearing her sea-green bikini under a sweater and jeans. It would raise a few eyebrows in London, but she didn’t care. This had to be done quickly, before some interfering London policeman noticed what she was up to.

  Tingling with excitement she marched across to the group of hippies. Who should she trust? She felt drawn to a group of women who were watching her. They had flowers in their hair, long skirts, big boots and voluminous ethnic cardigans. ‘Hi, sister,’ said one of them with an open friendly smile. Two of them stood up, their eyes wide with astonishment. ‘Tessa!’

  ‘Lou and Clare!’ she cried, excited. ‘What are you doing in London?’

  ‘We’re just passing through – well, no, actually we’re in a squat,’ Lou said. ‘For the winter, or ’til we get chucked out.’

  Tessa gave them each a hug. Lou and Clare had been part of the commune in St Ives, and Lou had given her the ethnic blanket and taught her sacred drumming. Lou still had her drum, hanging over her shoulder on a wide strap woven from vividly coloured threads. She wore a beaded headband around her black hair, and her brown eyes were warm and shrewd. Clare hovered beside her like a butterfly, her eyes vacant. ‘She’s stoned,’ Lou said, and Tessa nodded. Nothing much had changed.

  ‘So what about you?’ Lou asked.

  Tessa didn�
��t want to tell her about Art. Lou and Clare had tried to warn her, and she hadn’t listened. So she said, ‘I need your help – again! I’m going to wash my hair in the fountain – I’ve GOT to – before any policemen notice me, and I need someone to mind my rucksack.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not going in there, Tessa. You’re mad,’ Lou said. ‘It’s freezing cold – and never mind the police, the press are skulking around just waiting for us to do something outrageous.’

  ‘I have to do it quickly, like now,’ Tessa said, dumping her rucksack at Lou’s feet.

  ‘Okay – we’ll look after it.’

  ‘It’s got all my essential stuff in it. I can’t live without it,’ Tessa said, pulling out her towel and draping it over the rucksack. She took off her shoes, socks and jeans, bundling them into a heap.

  ‘Yeah – we know – don’t worry, we’ll mind it for you, Tessa. I don’t believe you’re going in there!’

  ‘I am.’ She held up her green bottle of Silvikrin shampoo. Then she peeled off her sweater and stood there in her sea-green bikini. A cheer went up from the hippies, and there were wolf-whistles. ‘I’ve got to do it quickly,’ Tessa said, suddenly nervous, and annoyed with the men. Her pulse roared in her ears as she turned and ran barefooted to the fountain and got in, gasping at the icy cold water, her feet slipping and sliding.

  She didn’t notice the cameras clicking and the men hurrying over to see the girl in the sea-green bikini who had dared to strip off in Trafalgar Square on an October morning. She just felt the power of the falling white water blasting through her hair, cleansing her, making her fresh and alive again. She didn’t hear the clapping and cheering as she lathered the shampoo through her chestnut hair and let the fountain swoosh it away. Even the wind was gleefully blowing clods of foam away across the square. The water was magic therapy to Tessa. She loved it. Loved rinsing the suds from her wavy tresses of hair until they were squeaky clean, splashing and scrubbing her body until she felt pink and glowing. It was like a daydream. A time when she was blissfully lost in a different dimension, in a world of dizzy-white, rainbow-spattered energy.

  She emerged, radiant, to find a circle of cheering faces, mostly men, an odd mixture of hippies and tourists. Embarrassment and anger quickly eclipsed the joy she’d felt. A man who looked like an immature wolf with spectacles pushed a microphone in her face. ‘What’s your name? What made you do this? Are you a hippie? Are you homeless?’ He fired bewildering questions at her without waiting for an answer, and took photos of her with the complicated camera dangling around his neck.

  ‘Have you considered nude modelling?’ asked another eager reporter with a camera and flash-gun. ‘I could get you work!’

  ‘Where are you from, darlin’?’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Do your parents know what you’re up to?’

  Lou and Clare pushed their way to Tessa, who was now shivering and bewildered. ‘Don’t speak to them!’ Lou said urgently. ‘Don’t tell them your name.’

  Tessa’s eyes widened. ‘Why not? I already did!’

  ‘They’ll crucify you. It’s the press,’ Lou said, thrusting a towel at her. She shoved the reporters aside. ‘Piss off, you vultures. She’s freezing cold. Haven’t you got anything better to do?’

  Lou and Clare stood either side of Tessa. ‘Come with us,’ Lou hissed. ‘Come on – don’t be a naïve idiot. You’ll be all over the papers in the morning. Come on. MOVE!’

  ‘Down the loo,’ said Clare, and Tessa gave in and allowed them to bundle her across Trafalgar Square, her bare feet leaving neat wet footprints. The three girls started to giggle, dashing down the steps to the LADIES with Tessa in her bikini, meeting disapproving coat-clad, leather-booted women coming up. Once down there on the blue and white tiled floor, they were laughing so hysterically that more coat-clad, leather-booted women were peering down from the top of the steps, too frightened to go down there.

  ‘We thought you’d gone to Somerset,’ Lou said, when she could speak again. ‘Where’s Art?’

  Tessa looked at her wordlessly.

  ‘He hasn’t dumped you, has he? I’ll kill him,’ said Lou fiercely.

  Tessa nodded. She couldn’t speak. The grief rose up like a monster from the deep, devouring everything, her courage, her hope, her moments of joy. She leaned against the cold ceramic tiles and sobbed bitterly. ‘I’ve been sleeping rough in London. I was suicidal. I’ve got an interview for a job tomorrow morning and I’m in such a state. What am I going to do?’

  Freddie was daydreaming as he ate his breakfast. He hardly tasted the egg, bacon and fried bread that Kate had put in front of him. He was thinking about the two wild swans he’d seen on the river, and planning a carving of them. It would have to be wood, not stone, because of the long necks. A pair of swans with their elegant necks entwined. Beautiful birds who mated for life. Like him and Kate. He looked at her across the table, sad to see the shadows of tiredness under her eyes. Kate caught his gaze and smiled. Then she craned her head to look out of the window. ‘Uh oh! Here’s Susan. Now what?’

  Susan Tillerman came hurrying up the path, a newspaper under her arm. She burst into the kitchen without knocking. ‘You HAVE to see this, Kate,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I know you don’t take a newspaper so I brought ours. Ian’s already read it.’ She thrust the newspaper in front of Kate.

  Freddie glanced at the headline: WASHING HER HAIR IN THE FOUNTAIN.

  ‘Hippies again!’ Kate said resignedly.

  ‘But Kate – look at the photo,’ Susan said. ‘There’s more inside.’

  Kate looked at the bikini-clad girl with wet hair, climbing out of the fountain in Trafalgar Square. She went pale.

  ‘It’s TESSA,’ Susan said, gloating. ‘I’d know that pout anywhere.’

  ‘Freddie – you’d better see this,’ Kate said in a precarious voice. He moved his chair around and sat beside her, hardly believing the shocking images of his daughter on the front of a national newspaper. Together they read the report which was lavish and untrue, describing Tessa as a sex-bomb and a brazen flower-child. Surly and abusive, they said she’d been. Refused to talk to reporters. Went off giggling with her friends. Should have been arrested. What kind of parents let their daughter behave in this publicly disgraceful way?

  ‘Tessa always was a wild-child,’ said Susan.

  Freddie got to his feet, furious with her. He picked up the newspaper and handed it to her. His voice shook with emotion. ‘I think you’d better go, Susan.’ He steered her towards the door. ‘And take your newspaper with you.’

  ‘No, you keep it.’ Susan threw it back onto the table. ‘You’re going to need it, believe me.’

  ‘Will you please GO HOME,’ Freddie thundered and Susan backed away, her eyes startled. ‘Kate’s not well and she doesn’t need this first thing in the morning.’

  ‘But I thought you should know,’ protested Susan. ‘I felt it was my duty to tell you.’

  ‘Right, well, you’ve told us. Now will you go, please?’ Freddie opened the door and stood by it firmly.

  ‘And – don’t spread it all over Monterose, Sue – please,’ Kate said.

  ‘Of course I won’t. I’m not a gossip! But it’s already the talk of the town, you’ll find.’

  When she had gone, Freddie and Kate sat looking at each other, with the offending newspaper still on the table.

  ‘It’s typical Tessa,’ Kate said. ‘And I’m sure she didn’t intend it to get in the papers. But they’re so cruel, these reporters. So cruel. How can they say such nasty things about a girl they don’t even know?’

  Freddie saw the stress on Kate’s face. She didn’t deserve this. ‘Mother would turn in her grave,’ he said, grim-faced.

  ‘Tessa’s brought shame on our family,’ Kate said. ‘We’ll never live it down. Never. We’ll have to move house. Go and live in Gloucestershire with my mum.’

  ‘What? Leave The Pines?’ Freddie was horrified. ‘No. No, Kate – ’tis our home. We were born a
nd bred here. Why should we let this drive us out?’ The phone rang as he was speaking. ‘If that’s Tessa, you let me talk to her. I shall have some harsh words to say. She’s made her bed – she can lie on it.’

  Kate answered the phone in an unusually subdued voice.

  ‘Mrs Barcussy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Robin Tell, the reporter for the local Gazette. I’d like to talk to you about your daughter, Tessa. Could I come and see you?’

  Kate covered the mouthpiece with her hand and whispered to Freddie. ‘It’s Robin Tell from the Gazette – about Tessa!’

  Freddie shook his head. He took the phone from Kate. ‘Hello, this is Mr Barcussy. We are not gonna talk to you, or any other newspaper.’

  He was going to put the phone down but Robin Tell’s voice came through urgently. ‘You must agree to talk to me, for your daughter’s sake. If you don’t, then we can only take our information from what is in the national press, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’

  ‘Well – no.’

  ‘Especially as your daughter, I understand, went to Hilbegut School.’

  ‘’Tis nothing to do with Hilbegut School.’

  ‘And there are other incidents in her past, aren’t there?’

  Freddie felt suddenly threatened, as if the whole of Tessa’s turbulent childhood was about to erupt into a scandal. He struggled to be polite. ‘You come here at ten o’clock,’ he said curtly, ‘and we’ll talk. Goodbye now.’ He put the phone down, and looked at Kate. ‘They’ve got us over a barrel,’ he said bitterly. ‘If we don’t talk, they’ll print what’s in that – that blimin’ rag.’