Born to Be Trouble

by Sheila Jeffries

  On this cold gusty day in February, Kate was going over on the ferry by herself to fetch her mother, Sally. She hoped Sally would decide to live with them at The Pines, now that she was getting old and needing care. Freddie hadn’t wanted Kate to go on her own. He worried about her driving the car on and off the ferry boat, a scary task when the weather was rough, the boat rocking wildly and water slopping over the ramp. Kate didn’t care. She felt confident she could do it, in Tessa’s little car, the green Morris Minor.

  The Severn King edged up to the jetty and the big fat ropes were flung across the gap and secured around the plinths. The ramp was lowered and cars disembarked, their engines roaring up the slippery jetty. Kate got back into the Morris Minor and started her up.

  ‘Steady, steady, Mrs!’ the boatman called as she shot up the ramp onto the deck. ‘No need to go like a bull at a gate, dear.’

  Kate grinned and gave him a cheery wave. She parked neatly and got out again to enjoy the wind in her hair. Loaded with cars, the Severn King laboured out into the sweeping brown tide, its engine grunting and spluttering. Kate leaned on the prow as it steamed towards Beachley on the opposite bank, at midstream passing the Severn Queen on her way over. Crossing the water always gave Kate a sense of separation, and this time it was strong. Inexplicably there was a sudden sense that something was wrong with Freddie. He hadn’t wanted her to go. A little voice inside Kate’s mind told her she shouldn’t have left him on his own. Of course, he would be fine, said the voice of reason. But Freddie had never been alone. His mother had always been there, and now she had gone. Annie had been a sweet but sometimes difficult old lady, and she had particularly hated Tessa.

  As the boat drew close to Beachley jetty, Kate debated whether to stay on board and simply go back home again. What could possibly go wrong? She’d left a pie in the fridge, and a trifle for Freddie’s lunch. He only had to feed the chickens, and pay the phone bill. She thought of her mum, Sally, waiting excitedly at Asan Farm, her suitcase packed and ready. They’d agreed to visit the graves of Ethie and Bertie that afternoon, Kate would stay the night and they’d head back to Monterose the following morning. I can’t let Mum down, Kate thought.

  Tessa glared at Helga in disbelief, her heart aching for Chandra who had again flung herself on the floor. ‘I was just getting through to her,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you leave me with her a bit longer – as long as she needs?’

  ‘Oh, Madam Chandra needs all day,’ Helga thundered. ‘She’s had you all to herself for half an hour – and now look at her!’

  ‘I was teaching her a magic trick to help her cope with the injection,’ Tessa said.

  ‘Magic trick? Oh, I don’t think so, dear. We don’t want that kind of mumbo-jumbo. You get back to the job you SHOULD be doing, Tessa, and don’t interfere in future. Leave MADAM to me.’

  Tessa held back the fiery response and maintained a steady, indignant glare straight into Helga’s eyes. It was as much use as glaring at a thunderstorm. The edges of Helga’s lips went white with spittle, her eyes rolled like marbles. ‘Don’t cross me, Tessa. You are a classroom assistant, not a Clinical Psychiatrist,’ she hissed, and what she did next was unbelievable. She reached down and yanked Chandra up by her arm. ‘And YOU,’ she bellowed, ‘get up off that ground. NOW. Before I give you something to cry about.’

  Chandra’s howl of pain went right through Tessa. Fire ripped through her belly, and she lost her temper totally.

  ‘Stop it, you bully,’ she yelled at Helga. ‘You’re hurting her. Can’t you see Chandra is really frightened? She’s a sensitive, anxious little girl and you’re not just hurting her, you’re wounding her, deeply and forever, wounding her, body and soul. Body and soul, Helga.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. I’ve taught more children than you’ve had hot dinners. Go back to your job – or you’ll regret this, my girl.’

  Tessa stood her ground. ‘No, I will not, Helga. I don’t care who you are. I’m not going to stand here and watch you bully a six-year-old anxious little girl. I know what I’m talking about. I was bullied by a teacher. You are misusing your power, Helga. It’s wrong – and you know it’s wrong.’

  There was an obstinate silence. Chandra’s howling paused and she looked from one to the other in bewilderment.

  Helga looked shaken. Her marble-hard eyes momentarily softened, allowing a rare glimpse of who she might once have been. While she reassembled her defences, Tessa had another go. ‘You agreed to let me take Chandra for a walk,’ she said more calmly. ‘Now let me finish the job. I will take her to the nurse, and you can go back and explain to Diane.’ Tessa felt power gathering inside her, power she’d always had, power to use her anger, to fill her turquoise eyes with altruistic fire. ‘I mean it, Helga. Let go of her, please.’

  Helga wilted under the glare of light coming from those eyes. Her shoulders twitched, and she huffed righteously. She let go of Chandra’s arm as if she was chucking litter into a bin. ‘You’ll regret this, my girl. It’ll cost you your job.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Tessa said proudly. ‘Get me sacked if you like. At least I will have rescued a child. Chandra’s a lovely little girl, and she MATTERS.’

  Helga lifted her bust and walked away, her shoes clanking over the tarmac.

  Tessa felt the anger still fluttering inside her like a bird trapped in a window. But she felt calm as well. She cuddled Chandra, and rubbed her hurt arm, and used her special voice while new amazing concepts flooded her mind. I am in control, she thought. I’ve got my mother’s fire and my father’s calm, and together they are powerful.

  The healing moments settled around them like rose petals, like the peace rose.

  And five minutes later, Tessa and Chandra walked hand in hand across the yard to the nurse’s room.

  Freddie sat outside the Post Office until his breathing slowly returned to normal. Warmth and colour crept back into his cheeks and hands, and the shaking gradually stopped. He fished a Fox’s Glacier Mint out of his pocket. It was so old that the paper was welded to the sweet and he spent some time picking it off with his fingernails. He sucked its glassy mintiness thoughtfully. What had happened to him? Had he had some kind of heart attack? Or was it the low blood sugar Herbie had warned him about? Or something more sinister? He wished Kate was at home to reassure him and make him smile again. He wished Lucy wasn’t in Taunton, and Tessa even further away. He wanted his family round him, caring about him, needing him. The joy of feeling his children’s soft little arms around his neck, and the wonder of that light in their eyes was something he sorely missed. The work he was doing was lonely now. Chipping at stone. Smoothing wood. Coaxing engines into life. He missed the camaraderie of his haulage business, the banter, the happy bustle of the station.

  Something had gone wrong in his life. It had lost its essence. He wanted it back.

  But right now he must try to go home.

  Outside the Post Office on a triangle of grass between two streets stood a huge elm tree, hundreds of years old. Freddie got up and walked gingerly over to it. He felt okay. The panic had just been inside the Post Office. He couldn’t go back in there, but he could begin to walk home.

  He put his hands on the bark of the elm, and he could feel that it was springtime. Winter was coming to an end, and the elm tree knew, deep in the heartwood, that its bead-like buds were slowly turning red with life, the calyx getting brittle and thin, ready to split like the skin of a snake and release the soft baby leaves.

  Freddie glanced up the hill at the Old Coach House where Dr Jarvis had his surgery. He knew he should go to the doctor. But he just wanted to get home.

  He picked up a stick which had fallen from the elm tree. It would help to anchor him. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first steps, he thought, and as he began to walk he noticed a bright little face in the grass. Something running alongside. Not following but leading. A dog. A little white dog like Jonti, leading him home through the long afternoon.

  ‘Will you come t
o the office please, Tessa? Now.’

  Tessa’s heart sank when she saw Megan waiting for her at the gate on Monday morning. Had she lost her job? She’d told Helga she didn’t care. But she did. The job with the children was a sustaining factor in her life, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. She’d done everything as well as she could, cutting up paper, mixing powder paint in jars, tying shoe laces, zipping tiny anoraks, reading stories, and sitting on a tiny wooden chair helping a child read, or build bricks, or count buttons. She’d grown to love those children, and she believed they loved her.

  For once Megan sat behind her desk, her eyes serious. Tessa sat in the chair opposite, the nerves already twanging inside her.

  ‘Tessa, I’ve just spent twenty minutes with Helga,’ Megan began. ‘She’s very angry, to put it mildly.’

  Tessa wanted to say that Helga was a bully, but she deemed it wiser to keep quiet. She liked and respected Megan. Surely Megan would be fair – wouldn’t she?

  ‘This is your first job, isn’t it?’ Megan asked, shuffling through some papers on her desk.

  ‘It’s my first real job,’ Tessa said. ‘But I worked part-time with horses when I was still at school.’

  ‘How important is this job to you?’ Megan studied Tessa’s eyes, her hands clasped on the desk, her expression grave.

  ‘Very important.’ Tessa’s heart began to thump nervously. ‘I really love the children – and I get on fine with Diane. It’s not just a job for paying my rent, it’s a job that matters to me.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Megan looked thoughtful. ‘I’m afraid Helga was adamant that you should be dismissed.’

  Tessa felt her skin flushing. The embers of the fire burned inside her, burning down, burning to ashes. Megan was watching, waiting for a reaction. And Freddie’s calm eyes were in her heart, telling her to hold on, stay quiet. What did Megan want? Flames? Tears? Tessa waited.

  ‘I can see it means a lot to you,’ Megan said kindly. ‘We all make mistakes, me included. Would you like to explain how this happened, Tessa, from your point of view?’

  A lifeline, Tessa thought, she’s throwing me a lifeline.

  ‘I was deeply concerned for Chandra’s wellbeing,’ she began. ‘I know only too well how fear can manifest as anger. That little girl is sensitive and extremely anxious. She lies on the floor because it’s her only way of defending herself from the relentless, destructive attacks on her personality from most of the adults who purport to care for her. Love and kindness are a rare oasis in the harsh desert of her life. She’s lost, you see. Lost in a merciless world where everyone hates her, everyone calls her a silly girl – for being frightened. I tried to offer her something different, something healing and magical, and I believe it did help her.’

  Megan’s mouth fell open in astonishment.

  But Tessa hadn’t finished. She couldn’t stop the river of brilliant words that flowed through her. ‘It helped because I tuned into who Chandra really is – a beautiful little soul who finds herself in a hostile, bullying world – a flower who can never bloom because it is crushed under thoughtless feet. She’s like the epitome of Yeats’ poem, Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams. That’s why I’m here, in this job. Okay, I’m cutting up paper and mixing paint and tying shoelaces – but I’m being gentle and kind to these damaged children, and I think that should be the beating heart of this school – don’t you?’

  ‘My God, Tessa!’ Megan looked stunned. ‘Shakespeare would be proud of that speech!’

  Tessa kept her face and her body very still, maintaining the solemn stare. Minute tingles of excitement crawled up her spine.

  ‘And how about being kind and gentle to Helga?’ Megan raised her eyebrows enquiringly.

  ‘She’s a bully.’

  Megan nodded ever so slightly. ‘Honesty is all very well. But tact is needed too. The fact is, Tessa, you were openly argumentative and rude to a senior member of staff. You undermined the work Helga was doing with Chandra, challenged her authority, and took a vulnerable child outside for half an hour, without reference to Diane.’

  Tessa stared at her with passion, trying to stay on the chair. She imagined herself getting up and swanning out. Telling Megan to stuff her job.

  But Megan held up her hand, as if she’d sensed the shift in Tessa’s mood. ‘No – don’t walk out on me, Tessa. It’s not all bad news,’ she said. ‘But I had to tell you how Helga felt. I know Helga is a bit of a dragon, but she’s goodhearted and very experienced. If you have any issues with her again, Tessa, will you please come to me? Don’t get into an argy-bargy with her. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ It came out as a whisper. Tessa’s throat felt like a tight painful knot. If only you knew, she thought, I’m working with a broken heart.

  Megan’s face brightened. ‘However – there is some good news,’ she announced. ‘Chandra’s mum came in this morning and asked me to say thank you to you. She was thrilled that Chandra managed to have her injection without fuss, the first time ever – and she said she came home a different child, smiling from ear to ear.’

  ‘That’s great!’ Tessa said.

  Megan pushed the box of Kleenex over to her. ‘I can see you’re very stressed. I should go and get a coffee and calm yourself down – and keep on the right side of Helga!’

  ‘Thanks.’

  CHAPTER 9

  Violetta

  ‘What if they don’t like me?’ Tessa asked as Paul led her down a leafy avenue in Richmond.

  ‘They can stuff it,’ Paul said. ‘It’s not an exam, Tessa – come on – I love you and that’s all that matters.’

  Through the months of early summer in London, Paul and Tessa had been dating regularly. Walks by the river, concerts at the Royal Festival Hall, picnics in Regent’s Park.

  Tessa felt apprehensive about meeting Paul’s parents. It hadn’t been an issue with Art, but Paul seemed intimidated by his parents, and his sister. Despite his bravado, she sensed he was seeking to impress them – with her. ‘What should I wear?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Be who you are,’ Paul said, then frowned. ‘Maybe not too hippyish.’

  An eternal conflict was bugging Tessa, between wanting to be the ‘people-pleasing Tessa’, and wanting to be rebellious. In the end she chose a cream cheesecloth blouse with an embroidered yoke, flared stone-washed jeans and her flowery boots.

  The house looked imposing, with brick and stone balustrades and tiled steps leading up to a white front door with two pristine urns planted with geraniums.

  ‘Hello, Mum – this is Tessa.’

  Paul’s mother looked like an expensive Fortnum and Mason chocolate. Tessa eyed her flawless beige skirt, cashmere twin set and triple row of pearls. The coffee-cream image ended with a bitter chocolate bob of hair, a pair of pencilled eyebrows, and a leonine stare.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Tessa.’ She held out a manicured claw and Tessa felt repelled by its touch. She looked at the eyes. Hostile and suspicious.

  ‘What should I call you?’ Tessa asked. ‘Penny?’

  ‘Penelope will be fine.’

  Penelope led them inside with a swirl of expensive skirt. The house smelled of scrubbed marble and scorched linen as if Penelope spent her time ironing table napkins. ‘Tea is in the drawing room.’ She ushered them into a room with voluminous chintzy sofas and highly polished sideboards laden with porcelain figurines and silverware. Family photos in silver frames were grouped on a table, mostly formal portraits, and none of them smiling.

  Tessa paused to look at them. ‘Is that you, Paul?’ she asked, pointing to a photo of a wistful-looking boy with neatly combed hair.

  ‘Yeah – that’s me.’

  ‘Aged eight,’ said Penelope. ‘In his first term at prep school.’

  ‘I hated it,’ Paul said.

  ‘No, you didn’t. It was good for you.’ Penelope picked up another photo of a curly-haired girl holding a trophy. ‘And this is Amelia, Paul’s sister, when she won the cup for best all-rounder of the year at her prep scho
ol.’

  Tessa glanced at Paul and saw a look come into his eyes, a look she understood only too well. ‘I had a clever sister – Lucy,’ she said. ‘It was hard to follow in her golden footsteps.’

  ‘But you’re quite clever, Paul tells me,’ Penelope said.

  ‘No.’ Tessa looked candidly into the leonine eyes. ‘It’s not one of my priorities.’

  ‘Oh.’ Penelope looked taken aback. ‘But – you went to a good school, Paul said. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Tessa asked, a touch too loudly.

  ‘She went to Hilbegut,’ Paul boasted.

  ‘Hilbegut!’ Penelope didn’t look impressed. ‘Rather a controversial reputation, I seem to recall. What made your parents send you there?’

  Tessa was beginning to feel cornered. She wanted to ask ‘Does it matter?’ again, but Paul had his arm round her shoulders and his fingers were sending cautionary mini-prods into her arm. It wouldn’t do to fall out with his mother at this early stage of their enforced relationship. Further down the line Tessa clearly foresaw a big bust-up. She sensed how Paul longed to trash the top of the sideboard with one sweep of an angry arm.

  ‘I was there on scholarship,’ she said.

  ‘Oh dear, you poor girl. Were you bullied?’ Penelope asked. ‘I’ve heard that scholarship girls are, usually.’

  ‘No. I had a fantastic art teacher – Mrs Appleby. She changed my life. I was—’

  Paul gave her an extra hard dig. ‘Mother dear, don’t interrogate Tessa when you’ve only just met her!’

  The pale amber eyes cooled. ‘I know how to conduct a conversation, thank you, Paul.’

  Tessa sensed Paul’s light getting dimmer by the minute in the presence of his mother. Distract her, she thought, and looked out of the window. ‘You’ve got a beautiful garden.’