The Girl by the River (25 page)

The reply came to her from a great distance, like a voice ringing across a valley in the mountains. ‘I am, dear. I am Granny Barcussy, and I’m with you all the way, Tessa. I’m
your spirit Granny, your forever Granny.’

Then she had vanished into the light like a thistle seed on the wind, leaving Tessa standing perfectly still in the morning sun, the posy in her hand.

‘You can go in now, and see Lucy,’ Kate said, coming into the waiting room with Lucy’s clothes rolled up in a bundle under her arm. ‘Daddy is sitting in the car with a
face like thunder.’

‘Why is he so angry?’ Tessa asked.

‘Oh, he’ll get over it. Don’t you worry about it,’ Kate said. ‘You go and see Lucy – she’s in a room by herself. Second door on the left.’

‘You’ve been crying, Mum.’

‘Yes, I did have a little cry,’ Kate admitted. ‘But it will all blow over. You just think about that scholarship. We’re so proud of you.’

‘That’s a change!’ Tessa said, and immediately regretted it when she saw the hurt in Kate’s eyes.

Tessa hadn’t been told what was wrong with Lucy. She shook her hair back, took the posy, and walked in to see her, a bit apprehensively.

Lucy was lying propped against a stack of pillows, wearing the frilly nylon nightie Kate had taken in for her. The blonde beehive had collapsed into a wiry mess, and for once Lucy wore no
make-up. Her skin looked mottled and unhealthy. She looked at Tessa with hard eyes. ‘Hiya.’

‘Hiya. I brought you these from the garden.’ Tessa put the posy into Lucy’s hands, but she hardly glanced at it.

‘Thanks,’ she said and let the posy fall onto the sheet, the flowers pointing away from her.

‘So how are you?’ Tessa asked.

Lucy turned her head away and stared at the wall. ‘Who cares?’

‘I do.’

‘That’s news to me,’ said Lucy bitterly.

‘What’s actually wrong with you? Nobody’s told me why you’re in here, Lucy.’

‘Oh, they wouldn’t have, would they?’ Lucy turned and looked at her with haunted eyes. ‘Well, I’ll tell you, and it’s not pleasant, little sister. Maybe
it’ll help you grow up. I had sex with Tim – yes, sex – S-E-X, little sister. And I got pregnant. I’m in here because I had a miscarriage.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Tessa, shocked.

‘My baby came too early, and the pain was awful – the worst pain I’ve ever had. Gran found me screaming on the bed – while you lot were swanning round that posh school
– I begged her not to ring the doctor, but she did, and he went and told Mum and Dad, and now my life is RUINED. Dad won’t even speak to me.’

Tessa sat down on the bed. She felt Lucy’s desperation. But she couldn’t think of the right words.

‘The baby’s dead,’ Lucy said in a rasping voice, and she lifted her hands in a gesture of hopelessness, and let them fall, limp, on the sheet. ‘Everyone thinks I wanted
to get rid of it. Mum cried and cried. She said it was her grandchild and she said I’d broken Dad’s heart. No one cares how I feel. It’s always been good old Lucy. Well, good old
Lucy has HAD ENOUGH.’

‘I care how you feel,’ Tessa said.

‘Don’t make me LAUGH.’ Lucy’s eyes blazed with bitterness. ‘You’ve done nothing but make trouble since the day you were born. And what do you get for it? A
scholarship at a posh school! I’ve done everything right, all my life, being little miss perfect. And just because I wanted to grow up and have some fun for once, what do I get? A load of
blame – and a . . . a dead baby.’

The ripples of anger shook Tessa’s heart and soul. She felt powerless. She saw the cracks radiating out through the bedrock of her family. Her father’s ‘Rock of Ages’
splintered.

‘But I do love you, Lucy,’ she said.

‘Love? YOU? You don’t know what love is,’ Lucy shouted. ‘Wait ’til you get a boyfriend – if you ever do . . .’

‘But love isn’t just to do with boyfriends.’ Tessa picked up the posy and tried to give it to Lucy again. ‘I put lots of love into picking these flowers for
you.’

‘It’s too late for flowers.’ Lucy sat forward and fired words at her like missiles. ‘Bloody well go away, go and turn into a bloody snob at your posh school. I wish I
didn’t have a sister like you. Go on. Go, and take your stupid flowers with you.’ She flung the posy at Tessa’s face, and the petals of the pink rose scattered over the bed.

Devastated, Tessa jumped to her feet, and stormed out of the room. She glanced at a clock on the wall of the corridor. Was there time? She checked the car park and saw the black Wolseley still
there, waiting for her. She turned and ran through the hospital to the back entrance. She ran across the gravel, over the lawn and down the bank, then on, down the hill towards the station.

‘What have we done wrong?’ Kate kept saying, over and over again. Freddie held her against his heart, silently. They sat on the stairs, close to the phone, with
Jonti on Kate’s lap. ‘One in hospital with a miscarriage, and the other one gone missing. What have we done wrong, Freddie? We’ve bent over backwards for those girls.’

Freddie just cuddled her, and let her talk. Outside the hall window he could see swallows gathering on the wires, and the gleam of red that was the roof of his new lorry. The warm smell of cows
and apples drifted in from the farms.

‘We should be happy,’ Kate said. ‘We’ve got so much – and now this scholarship. Such a wonderful chance for Tessa. I hope she hasn’t just thrown it
away.’

‘Ah . . . well . . . there’s times when I wish they’d never been born,’ Freddie said.

‘No, Freddie, you don’t mean that.’

‘I do. You are my world, Kate. You’re all I ever wanted. I married you, not Lucy and Tessa. They’ll leave home anyway, one day, and it’ll just be the two of us –
again.’

‘But not like this!’ Kate said. ‘We’ve invested our lives in those two girls. When you have your children and they’re so little and sweet, you never imagine them
hating each other – and causing so much worry. I don’t want them to leave home under a cloud.’

‘Well – they haven’t left home yet. Tessa will come back. I know it, Kate, and we can make it happen.’

Kate stared into Freddie’s eyes, noticing the flecks of deep violet and turquoise that now gave colour to his sadness. Beyond the sadness was knowledge, mysterious knowledge that
hadn’t come from books. She waited for it to emerge, and it did.

‘’Tis no good sitting here moaning,’ he said. ‘We know where Lucy is, so we ought to concentrate on Tessa. And I believe that if you go into a person’s mind –
or soul, whatever you want to call it – if you go in there as if it were a garden, you can speak to them, but not with words, with silence.’

Kate frowned. ‘That sounds like prayer to me.’

‘Call it what you like. Call it magic, call it telepathy if you like, but it works, Kate. I’ve done it many times in my life, secret times. But you have to promise not to talk, and
that’s hard for you, isn’t it?’ His eyes twinkled with sudden life.

‘Right. I’ll be quiet. You’re in charge,’ Kate said and pursed her lips.

Freddie held her head against his heart, and closed his eyes. His bond with Tessa was strong. Unbreakable. He visualised it as a garden of light. He asked for help from the spirits, and first to
appear was Granny Barcussy. She showed him a pink rose, with its petals scattered. ‘Each petal is a teardrop,’ she said, ‘and a lesson in letting go.’

Even when she disappeared, Freddie stayed in the garden of light, listening and watching. He was aware of gold around him, gold that flowed like fabric. It drifted, then became still, and he saw
a man in a saffron robe, a man he’d seen in Tessa’s paintings. The man had humour and wisdom in his dark eyes. Freddie listened attentively. ‘You have only to remember the way you
communicated with Tessa, long before she could talk,’ the man spoke softly, almost in a whisper. ‘Send the love. Send the welcome. And she will come home.’

Jonti startled them both out of the trance. He barked, leapt off Kate’s lap and ran to the door, his tail wagging the whole of his small body. Freddie and Kate looked at each other with
hope in their eyes. ‘Let him out.’ Kate got up from the stairs and opened the front door. Jonti shot out, his paws hardly touching the ground. He flew down the road under the elm trees,
his ears flying back, his mouth smiling as he ran to welcome the girl he loved.

Tessa came in looking tired, with Jonti in her arms. ‘He’s soaking wet,’ she said. ‘He was coming through the puddles like a speedboat.’ She took Jonti’s
towel from its hook, stood the happy little dog on the kitchen table, dried him thoroughly, and gave him a Bonio biscuit.

‘You’re soaking wet as well,’ Kate said, touching Tessa’s hair which hung in curls over her shoulders.

Freddie looked at Tessa’s eyes. ‘We’re – glad you came home,’ he said, his voice shaking with emotion.

Tessa seemed overwhelmed. Her face sparkled with raindrops, and Freddie sensed her defensiveness softening in response to his welcome. He sensed a momentous change in Tessa’s mindset.
‘Where were you?’ he asked nervously.

‘Did something happen with Lucy?’ Kate asked.

Tessa shrugged. ‘Lucy – oh, it doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry – I kind of panicked. I went to the station and bought a ticket to
Taunton.’

‘Taunton! Whatever did you want to go there for?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tessa said, ‘because the train was late, twenty minutes, Charlie said. I stood on the platform looking up at Lexi’s fields, and I saw Selwyn.
She raised her head and looked at me, and I’m sure she knew it was me, even from a distance. She stood there tossing her mane and whinnying. She sort of . . . rescued me, like I rescued her.
So I abandoned the train idea and went up to Lexi’s place. We brought Selwyn in because she hates the rain, and I rubbed her down and gave her a bran mash.’

Kate beamed. ‘That’s my girl!’ she said. ‘Horses are great teachers.’

‘So is Mrs Appleby,’ Tessa said. ‘I’ve been thinking, and I really do want to go there – so – thanks – thanks, Mum and Dad for – for believing in
me. I won’t let you down.’

Freddie gave Kate a secret smile. They both knew it was the first time in Tessa’s life that she had spontaneously said thank you.

‘It won’t be easy,’ Freddie warned.

‘I know that, Dad. But I’m a warrior!’

‘I’m in love with her, Mum,’ Tessa said as the two of them stood close to Selwyn in Lexi’s yard. She was brushing Selwyn’s dappled grey coat in
long firm strokes, and the horse was clearly enjoying it. But if Kate tried to touch her, Selwyn made a face, laying her ears back, and tossing her silver mane.

‘I’ve never not been able to make friends with a horse,’ Kate said, disappointed. ‘I’m sure if I spent time with her she’d learn to trust me.’

‘She might, Mum – or she might not,’ Tessa said. ‘Lexi’s tried everything with her; she’s been really kind, but Selwyn is afraid to give her trust in case it
means she has to be ridden again. I talk to Selwyn a lot, and I’ve promised never to ride her, even if I want to – which I do.’

‘You’ve done a wonderful thing for her,’ Kate said. ‘Lexi is so pleased. But – don’t break your heart over her, dear. What if Lexi has to sell her?’

‘She won’t,’ Tessa said fiercely.

‘But . . .’ The words died on Kate’s lips when she saw the passion in her daughter’s eyes.

‘She definitely won’t,’ repeated Tessa, and she went on brushing Selwyn, lifting the fronds of her cream mane to groom underneath. She could feel the mare’s anxiety about
Kate being there.

Tessa was to start at Hilbegut School the following day, and Kate had insisted on walking up to Lexi’s place with her. Tessa wanted to be alone, but she knew her mother was upset about
Lucy so she tried to compensate by being a normal kind of daughter.

‘I was in love with a horse once,’ Kate said.

‘Daisy?’

‘Yes, Daisy – but she wasn’t difficult like Selwyn. She was easy to love.’

‘Selwyn isn’t difficult, and you shouldn’t say that when she’s listening,’ Tessa said. ‘She picks it up, Mum. She’s hypersensitive, like me. She
didn’t start out being difficult. She was a willing and brilliant showjumper. Then she hurt her back.’

‘I know,’ Kate said, ‘but it’s you I’m concerned about, dear. I want you to REALLY fall in love one day.’ Her eyes brightened with the thought.
‘You’re still young, but I hope with all my heart that you’ll fall in love with one of those handsome boys at Hilbegut. A nice boy, from a good family.’

‘Mum!’

‘But it’s important,’ Kate said sadly. ‘Look at Lucy.’

‘I’ve been looking at Lucy all my life, Mum. And she told me what happened – about the baby.’

‘Our grandchild,’ Kate said bitterly, and to Tessa’s alarm she began to sob uncontrollably.

‘Mum! I’ve never seen you cry like this.’ Tessa put Selwyn’s brush down. She steered Kate towards the hay barn and sat her down on some bales of hay. Jonti sat between
them, whining and looking up at Kate. Tessa put her arms around Kate, feeling the hard knots of tension across her shoulders. Suddenly she felt like the adult, comforting a child, and she felt the
helplessness of not knowing what to say. She looked up at the shining figure of her grandfather, Bertie, standing close. He put a finger to his lips and shook his head. Silence, he was telling her.
Loving silence is best.

So Tessa kept quiet, her cheek against Kate’s hair. She noticed the threads of grey glinting in the sun, and the gleam of a few teardrops that had fallen onto Kate’s neat brown
shoes. She felt the sobs, like earthquakes, shaking her mother’s solid body. She let her cry all of her tears.

Kate sat up, drying her face with a small embroidered hanky. ‘Don’t tell your Daddy,’ she said, looking into Tessa’s eyes. ‘He’s upset enough, without me
adding to it.’

‘I won’t,’ Tessa said, and she looked up again at Bertie, surprised to see a tiny baby in his arms. The baby was sleeping peacefully, wrapped in a white crocheted shawl that
Tessa had seen before, somewhere. Lucy’s baby. Lucy’s child. She longed to tell Kate. But Bertie shook his head. They both knew what the reaction would be.

‘I did so want to be a Granny,’ Kate said, ‘even – if it was illegitimate, I’d still love it.’

The spirits of Bertie and the precious baby melted into the shimmering air as if curtains of gauze and silk had swung over them.