Still Waters (3 page)

Tess looked away from the tempting water, down at her own small person. She was wearing a candy-striped dress, white on pink, and frilly pink knickers. She couldn’t see the knickers of course, but they went with the dress; Mummy would never have dreamed of putting her into the candy-striped dress without the matching knickers. And because it was a mild and windy day her short, fat legs were bare though she had white ankle socks on, and new bright-red strap shoes. Sitting on the sand, she admired them for a moment, then looked hopefully back at the water. It was no shallower, indeed it seemed to be deeper. Such cool, splashy, beautiful water! Tessie wants to paddle, her small self said suddenly. Mustn’t paddle here, too dangerous, but further down, where the low-water lies . . .

She got to her feet and began to trundle down towards the sea. There should have been a low-water for paddling, but when she reached the edge of the waves she realised that the huge, shallow pools hadn’t yet formed so the tide must be coming in, not going out. She had heard the remark enough times to understand its meaning vaguely. It meant she would probably not get a paddle today, because presently the waves would creep higher still up the shore, and she would have to retreat to the dry sand and the dunes above the beach.

Small Tess stood for a moment where the low-waters should have been, and pondered. She would not paddle here. If she tried, the sea would undoubtedly knock her down and probably hit her with its stones, too. But if she went up the beach again, alongside the breakwater, right up to the very top, then surely she might find a pool?

She turned round and faced up the beach once more. She trudged up the shingle bank, uncomfortably aware that her new shoes were chock-full of sand and tiny pebbles and that her feet were uncomfortably hot, so when she reached the top of the bank it seemed only sensible to sit down on the pebbles and remove her shoes and socks. She put the socks in the shoes, feeling proud of her achievement in doing this, and stood up again, shoes in hand. Oh, the lovely feeling of the sand between her toes, the glorious coolness of bare, bare feet!

She reached the breakwater, with its dangerously deep, current-induced pool. She kept clear, but walked close enough to look into the water. At this level the water was really very deep, and it was dark and mysterious, too, the groin sewn thickly with marvellous seaweed, barnacles, limpets, and the long blue shells of mussels. She stopped and slid to a halt, sitting down so suddenly that the hard sand met her pink-clad bottom rather sharply; she chuckled, then resumed her scrutiny of the watery depths before her. All that seaweed, differently coloured, differently textured, some fat and dark, some pale and fine as hair, all moving gently and in perfect unison as, on the shoreline, the waves advanced and retreated.

And it wasn’t only weed in the water, there was . . .

A voice, a cry no louder than that of a seabird, caught her attention. She turned her head and stared the way she had come earlier. She screwed up her eyes the better to see, then scowled. It was that boy! Oh, he was horrible, she really hated him, he would come running up, scatter sand all over her, tell her off, perhaps he might even smack her as Mummy wasn’t there to see . . . she really hated him!

She got to her feet and as she did so the shoes and socks seemed to leap from her hand and duck-dived neatly into the deep water. Immediately she forgot all about the hated boy and moaned aloud. Her new shoes! They would be so cross, they had left her in the garden, snoozing in the hammock, they didn’t know she had learned how to jump out of it without hurting herself . . . she had meant to be back before anyone returned . . . They would be so cross!

The boy shouted from behind her, his voice high, breathless.

‘Hey, get away from there! The water’s deep, get away . . .’

She ignored him, squatting above the water, staring down at her shoes which were moving up and down, up and down, the socks trailing from them, as though they had a life of their own. The boy could be useful – he could fish them out for her, if she kept her eyes on them and was able to tell him exactly where they were! But even as she watched the shoes she saw, out the corner of her eye, that there was something else in the long, deep pool. Something different. Not a little crab, nor a shrimp, something very much bigger, something strangely sinister . . .

She was staring at it, forgetting the shoes, when the boy grabbed her. He lifted her off her feet and turned her into his shirt front. She could feel, against her face, his heart hammering away, and she could smell the horrible flat black Pontefract cakes he was always eating. He said they were too strong for babies, only
men
could eat them – as if she were a baby! As if he were a man, come to that! She wriggled in his arms, trying to escape, trying to explain about the shoes, trying to point . . .

He said in an oddly muffled voice, ‘Don’t look. You mustn’t look, it’s – it’s awful naughty to peep. Come with me now, there’s a good girl.’

‘But I dropped my shoes in the water – my new shoes,’ Tess wailed, and gave one last, determined wiggle. The boy teetered and half turned and Tess looked down into the water. She strained to see her shoes, but saw, instead . . .

Moving, moving, with the water. Something terrible, something horrible . . .

The small Tess clutched the boy hard, hard. The scene in front of her began to sway and dissolve and waver before her eyes. And she screamed, and screamed, and
screamed
. . .

Tess woke. Pale early sunshine flooded into her bedroom, dappling the wall by her nose with a moving picture of leaf-shadow, but she was too hot and bothered to notice. She sat up, a hand to her thundering heart. It was that beastly dream again, always pouncing on her when she least wanted or expected it – and it wasn’t as though she could ever remember the bloomin’ ending of it, either. At first, it was always such fun; transported back to being a very small girl again, probably aged around two or three, finding herself on a beautiful beach, and then . . .

The word ‘beach’ however, pushed the dream right into the very back of her mind. Tess felt a broad, contented smile spread across her face. Today was Saturday, it was the school holidays, and Daddy had said she might go with the Throwers to Sea Palling, where they would stay for a whole glorious week in Mrs Sutcliffe’s beach-bungalow.

‘We’ll go shrimpin’, come low-tide, so bring you a flour-bag on a split cane,’ Ned Thrower had instructed her. Ned was twelve, four years older than she and Janet, who were both eight and had been friends for as long as Tess could remember. But she and Janet liked Ned all right, thinking him more fun than the twins, who were always together and had no time for kids two years younger than they. ‘An’ bring a spade an’ a bucket,’ Ned had continued. ‘Acos you’ll need ’em, one way and t’other.’

Tess had promised to do so and now she scrambled out of bed and padded, in her striped pyjamas, on to the small, square landing. Her father slept in the room opposite her own. Tess bent and listened outside her father’s door. No sound. He was, she guessed, still asleep, for she had known from the angle at which the sunshine fell on her wall that it was still very early. But today was Sea Palling day, so no time should be wasted. She had packed last night, helped – and hindered – by Janet, who was terrified that her friend might bring best clothes and ruin them, so all she had to do was wash, dress, and get some breakfast inside her. Then she could run down the lane to where the Throwers’ tumbledown cottage crouched on the staithe, and make sure that Janet, too, was ready for the great adventure.

She went back into her room and poured water from the ewer into the basin with the poppies around the rim. The water gushed cold, but who cared? She was off on holiday with her best friend and that best friend’s family . . . she simply couldn’t wait!

Ten minutes later, Tess let herself out of the creaking back door, ran round the house, out of the front gate and along the lane. She adored the Throwers, from tall Bert, who was eighteen, to the baby, Podge, who was going on three, and Mr and Mrs Thrower were grand. Mr Thrower was a reed-cutter, and could be seen on icy winter mornings in his flat-bottomed boat, sculling out on to the Broad with Bert to harvest the reeds which, he was fond of telling anyone who would listen, was the only crop he knew which needed no husbanding yet repaid the harvester well.

Of course Mr Thrower did other things to make ends meet; in summer he harvested the marsh hay from the lowlying water meadows, he trudged from farm to farm doing labouring work, and he had fish traps in the Broad and snares in the woods. What was more the Thrower cottage had a very large garden which always bristled with vegetables, as well as with apple trees and fruit bushes, a rhubarb patch and a veritable forest of raspberry canes. As she ran up the path and skirted the cottage to go round the back, Tess thought of the way the boys and Janet helped with the garden. Indeed, they had been working feverishly of late to make sure that it could survive without them for the week’s holiday . . . only two evenings ago she and Janet had hoed patiently between the vegetable rows and then laid cut reeds down, to keep the soil moist in the unlikely event of a rain-free week.

Tess reached the back of the cottage and saw various Throwers engaged in various pursuits. Two boys were filling a soft cloth bag with peas, another was helping Mr Thrower, who was pulling his boat ashore, and Ned was digging potatoes and dropping them into a sack. No one took the slightest notice of Tess as she ran round to the back door, which was open, and tumbled into the huge, earth-floored room which was kitchen and living-room for a dozen lively, quarrelsome Throwers. Podge was sitting on the rag rug in a pair of trousers which were much too big for him, eating a round of bread and jam, whilst Mrs Thrower fried something in a big black pan.

‘Tess, Tess!’ Podge squeaked. ‘We’re goin’ to the seaside!’

Mrs Thrower turned and grinned. ‘Marnin’, lovie. Hev you had breakfuss?’

‘No, not yet, but it’s all right,’ Tess said quickly. ‘I’ll have brekker at home, with Daddy, when he gets up.’

‘Let’s save your dad the trouble, hey, since I’m a-cookin’,’ Mrs Thrower said amiably. ‘There’s fried eggs, my last year’s pig-bacon, and a mess o’ spuds. Here, mek yourself useful; wet the tea, my woman.’

Tess was gratified, for at home her father made alarmed noises when she suggested helping in the kitchen, though the size and blackness of the Thrower kettle, sitting on the side of the rickety range, was a trifle daunting. Nevertheless she moved the teapot as near as she could, stood on tiptoe and began to pour. It comforted her that Mrs Thrower made no move to help her, though doubtless she was keeping an eye.

Tess filled the pot, replaced the lid, then turned to the older woman. ‘Done it! Where’s the milk?’

‘There’s some in a jug, in the bucket o’ water under the table,’ Mrs Thrower said, beginning to dish up. ‘Just enough for all, I reckon.’ She raised her voice. ‘Come an’ get it.’

Throwers began to materialise inside the kitchen, queuing to wash their hands at the old stone sink which was so low you had to bend to it. Some clattered down the stairs, others came in from the garden. Janet, emerging from the front room with her arms full of clothing, beamed at Tess.

‘Tess! I’m puttin’ my clo’es in this here sack . . . Gi’s a hand!’

Tess began to help whilst, behind her, the family settled themselves at the big wooden table and watched closely as their mother served the food on to cracked pottery plates. Mrs Thrower was always fair; Mr Thrower and Bert got the most, and helpings gradually diminished down to Podge, who ate his small portion from a chipped fruit dish.

Tess finished shovelling clothing into the sack and she and Janet joined the rest of the family at the table. Because the two of them were the same age, they got identical helpings; Mrs Thrower would never have under-or over-fed a guest simply because she was a guest. Besides, Tess spent so much time with Janet that Mrs Thrower had more than once remarked she was family, or as good as.

As she began to tuck into the fry-up, Tess reflected that she admired Janet’s mum more than anyone else she knew; she worked incredibly hard yet she was always cheerful and always had time for her family. Mrs Thrower made willow baskets from the osiers which overhung the Broad, and she cleaned for the only two big houses within cycling distance – the Sutcliffes, who lived at Horning and had lent the seaside bungalow, and the Hunts, who lived rather nearer, at Neatishead. She cleaned for the Delameres, too, but they scarcely counted since their house was small and compact. It didn’t take her above a couple of hours a couple of times a week to ‘whisk round’ as she called it.

And cleaning wasn’t all Mrs Thrower did; in her search for paid employment she cycled long distances, doing any work available from cooking and serving meals when the farmer’s wife was away, to minding beasts grazing on the common, and people from miles around agreed that no one worked harder than Mrs Thrower. In addition she preserved and bottled quantities of the fruit and vegetables raised by her husband and made jelly from the blackberries which grew in abundance around the Broad. Most of these delicacies she sold to a grocer in North Walsham, though the Delameres often enjoyed Thrower jams and bottled raspberries in wintertime, and Tess knew that the Hunts and the Sutcliffes bought her produce, too.

‘More spuds, gal Tess?’ Mrs Thrower’s voice broke in upon Tess’s reflections and Tess, blushing, realised that she had cleared her plate in record time.

‘No thanks, Mrs Thrower, that was delicious. Umm . . . if you don’t mind, I think I ought to get back, I expect Daddy’s up and . . .’

‘You’ll be wantin’ your brekker,’ Mr Thrower said, grinning at her. ‘What a gal you are for your grub, my woman! Well, if you can get outside another meal like that, I’ll tek my cap off to you!’

That made them all laugh, because Mr Thrower never removed his flat cap, not in company, at any rate. Tess suspected that he wore it in bed, though she had never been cheeky enough to ask. Certainly, his face was burned red-brown by wind and weather and when he pushed his cap to the back of his head – as he did occasionally, when puzzled – his forehead was white as driven snow.