The Girl by the River (20 page)

‘Yes, you do. You stay there.’

Tessa went to the airing cupboard and found a flannel. She soaked it in cold water, squeezed it and took it over to her mother. ‘Poor Mummy, put this on your forehead.’

‘Thank you, dear.’ Kate glanced at Tessa’s pale blue eyes and the anger had gone. In its place was real love and caring – and fear and guilt. She let Tessa press the
flannel over her eyes and felt her slim fingers cooling her throbbing temples. She could smell the heavy fabric plastic on Tessa’s wrist and it reminded her that only a week ago her beautiful
daughter had taken a razorblade and tried to end her life. Her beating heart was loud and frightened as she leaned over her mother. It had the desperate fragility of a bird fluttering against
glass.
Tessa needs me
, Kate thought.
Even when she hates me, she needs me
.

‘I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming,’ Freddie said as he leaned on his car, watching reflections of the sunset in the well-polished roof, coppery
clouds with the ragged shapes of crows and jackdaws passing through.

Doctor Jarvis looked over the top of his glasses. ‘It’s not your fault, Freddie. You’re a working man with a lot on your plate.’

‘Ah – but I shouldn’t have let Kate suffer like that,’ Freddie said and each word hurt like a hot stone in his throat. ‘All these years. She’s too good. Never
complains.’

‘Joan is the same,’ Doctor Jarvis said. ‘She’d kill herself for the family. Wartime women they are. Salt of the earth. Now she’s killing herself for the
grandchildren.’

Freddie felt too angry with himself to speak. The anger drove him into silence, and somewhere on the fringe of it, the doctor’s perceptive eyes were observing him.

‘I’ve given Kate a strong painkiller and a sedative,’ Doctor Jarvis said. ‘It’ll knock her out and she’ll sleep heavily. Let her sleep on in the morning,
Freddie. It’s years of exhaustion and worry over young Tessa – and your mother – she’s not easy, is she? But, knowing Kate, she’ll bounce back – let me know
immediately if that headache gets worse or if she gets a fever.’

When he had gone, Freddie stood looking at the thundery sky. He went to the washing line and unpegged the eight white linen sheets and the sixteen pillowcases. They were heavy, still damp, and
flecked with soot from the railway. Shocked at the weight of them, he hung them over both arms and took them inside. Kate had spent the day handwashing them in the boiler, wringing them through the
squeaking mangle, then hanging them out. Endless bending and lifting, he thought. When he’d held her hand, he’d noticed how sore and red the skin was and how her finger was swollen
around her wedding ring.

He’d never meant it to be like this.

He dumped the sheets on the kitchen table and stood looking at them. Annie had gone home and he could hear the girls’ voices from the living room, above the television.

‘That’s not true!’ Tessa shouted at Lucy.

‘Yes it is. It’s time you grew up.’

‘I don’t want to grow up and end up boring like you.’

‘I’m not boring. And at least I’m not an evil witch like you. And stop shouting. You’ll wake Mummy and make her worse, and then we won’t go on holiday.’

‘I don’t care. I don’t want to go anyway.’

Freddie felt rage towering inside him like a wave about to break into a thousand stinging pellets of spray. He crossed the room in slow, deliberate strides, and turned off the black knob on the
television. The monochrome image of
Dixon of Dock Green
vanished into a small hard white dot.

‘Daddy! I was . . .’ The protest died on Lucy’s lips as she saw her father’s face. It was dark and swollen, and his eyes looked frightened of the fury that glittered in
them. And when he spoke, his voice was ominously quiet.

‘Now I don’t care what you’re doing, you two girls are going to listen to me. I got something to say to you – so you sit there, and you remember this – for the rest
of your life.’ Freddie bit back the words that burned on his tongue. He’d say them to Herbie in the morning. He was aware that Tessa was particularly fragile right now. She was already
crying, silently, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand, and he knew she sensed the depth of his anger.

He went to the oak dresser, and took down a small ceramic owl. The memory it evoked was painful. ‘When I were a boy,’ he began, ‘younger than you – seven, I was, I saw my
old father lose his temper. Your granny had some lovely china – she was proud of it – loved it, she did. Some of it belonged to her family. And she kept it beautiful, all arranged along
this dresser.’ He paused, and let the memory wash over him like a cold merciless wave. ‘Now my father was so angry about something I did at school that he flew into a blind rage, and he
smashed every plate, cup and jug – even the teapot from the dresser. Cleared the shelves he did, chucked it onto the stone floor with such force. It was broken all to hell. Terrible it was.
Upset me, and your granny. That’s what she had to put up with, all her life.’

‘Poor Granny,’ whispered Tessa, and her pale blue eyes watched him with compassion and alarm. Lucy was dry-eyed and her pretty mouth was pursed defensively.

‘And when he’d done it,’ Freddie continued, ‘he was so sorry and ashamed, he sat there and cried. Sobbed his heart out. Wished he’d never done it – a grown
man – a giant of a man he was, sat there crying like a child. And d’you know what your granny did?’

‘What?’ Lucy asked, her eyes wide.

‘She just put her arms round him and calmed him down, and told me to get the dustpan and sweep up the broken china. Told me to put it in the rubbish bin. But I couldn’t. I hid it,
and then I dug clay from the stream, and I made this owl from the broken china.’ He smoothed the owl’s winking eyes with his roughened index finger. ‘These were cup handles, and
the feet were made from the curly handle of a jug. It’s got some of my blood in it too, ’cause I cut me hands doing it. And d’you know what my father said to me?’

‘What?’

‘He turned round to me – I were only seven – and he said, “Don’t you ever be like me, son”. I vowed never to lose my temper like that. And I never
have.’ He paused, finding his eyes drawn again to Tessa. She was staring at something beyond him, something shimmering in the air. ‘But,’ he added with a new spark of anger in his
eyes, ‘when I come in and find you two girls bickering and hurting each other, and your mother lying in bed – ill and exhausted – and the sheets still on the line – I feel
angry like that. Angry with you two. Disappointed. Disgusted.’ His voice broke into fragments. ‘I’ve loved your mother since I were nine years old. She was my dream girl, my
sweetheart, all I ever wanted. She’s precious to me, my Kate, more precious than gold.’

Freddie looked hard at his two daughters. Lucy seemed mature, preoccupied with her exams and her future. She didn’t seem impressed by what he had said. He wondered if she’d even
listened. But Tessa’s eyes were silvery with light as she gazed at him, her creamy skin had a translucent quality, the last rays of the sunset in the fire of her hair. She had listened. She
had cared. Freddie suddenly felt very small, like one person in a crowd, as if Tessa was seeing them all around him.

‘Daddy,’ she said, in a voice that sounded like a clear bell, ‘I can see the stone angel. But she’s not stone. She’s real and she’s enormous. Her wings are
touching the walls, and she’s made of light like the sun and moon.’

BREAKING POINTS

‘I’ll have Tessa,’ Lexi said, and there was an astonished silence. So she laughed and added, ‘Must be mad.’

Freddie frowned. He thought Tessa didn’t like Lexi. He wished Kate was downstairs, ready with the perfect answer, but she was still sleeping, and he had to make a decision. Tessa was
adamant that she didn’t want to go to Weymouth and ‘endure a week cooped up in a caravan with Lucy’, as she put it. He couldn’t leave her with Annie.

Lexi was eyeing him expectantly, awaiting an answer.

‘It’s kind of you,’ Freddie said, trying not to be rude, ‘but . . .’

‘Yes – I know,’ Lexi said, rescuing him. ‘You’re wondering why, aren’t you? Well, Tessa’s been talking to me, and yesterday I watched her with the
horses.’

‘Horses?’ Freddie stiffened with anxiety.

‘She was in the field talking to them,’ Lexi said. ‘She didn’t know I was watching, but something extraordinary happened. I’ve got an Arab mare, Selwyn, and
she’s a really bad-tempered horse – she hates everyone – and no one can catch her, including me. But Tessa sat down on the grass and talked to her, and Selwyn actually walked up
to her and leaned her head against her. A horse doesn’t do that unless they love you. I think Tessa has got a special way with animals.’

‘Ah – she has,’ agreed Freddie.

‘I need someone to help me,’ Lexi said, ‘and I’d teach her to ride in return.’

Freddie was alarmed. He didn’t want Tessa riding horses and getting involved with the Tillermans. But before he could find the words to answer, Tessa ran downstairs, a paintbrush in her
hand. ‘I’d LOVE that,’ she said. ‘Please Daddy – let me go – I promise to be good. I’m crazy about horses.’

‘You’ll have to help me look after them, Tessa,’ Lexi said. ‘Mucking out stables, tack cleaning and grooming.’

‘I don’t care. I’ll do anything,’ Tessa said firmly. ‘And can Jonti come too?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Lexi. She raised her eyebrows at Freddie. ‘Well?’

‘It’s good of you, Lexi,’ Freddie said, ‘but you know how I feel about horses. I don’t want her riding anything wild.’

‘She won’t be,’ Lexi assured him. ‘I am a qualified riding instructor, and we’ve got a quiet old thing she can learn on. I can lend her all the kit.’

Tessa looked at him pleadingly, and Jonti sat on his foot and gazed up at him, his head on one side. Freddie would have liked more time to think it over, but Lexi wasn’t going to wait; he
sensed her impatience already brewing. Lexi lived alone in a magnificent old house at the edge of the woods. Maybe, just maybe, it would be good for Tessa. A voice in his mind was urging him to let
go.

‘Well – it’s only a week,’ he said, ‘if you can put up with her.’

Lexi grinned. ‘I’ve had worse,’ she joked.

Tessa was ecstatic. She wagged her finger at him like Kate would have done, and her eyes shone. ‘You’ve made the right decision, Daddy. It’s the best thing I’ve done in
my whole life!’

‘I’ll bring her up in the car later,’ Freddie said heavily.

‘Come now if you like. I’ve got the Land Rover. Save you a trip,’ said Lexi. ‘You don’t need much, maybe a mac if you’ve got one.’

So Tessa was bundled into Lexi’s Land Rover with a box of books and a few clothes. Jonti jumped in beside her, squirming with enthusiasm. Freddie stood at the garden gate and watched them
go. Ironically, a holiday without Tessa seemed exactly like the gift of peace that Kate needed for her recovery. He had a sense of foreboding too. His girls were growing up. The magic hours of
childhood had gone. Freddie went to the car and opened the boot. In the corner, on a tartan rug, were the two Mickey Mouse tin buckets, and two small red spades, still with a glaze of Weymouth sand
on them. He looked at them sadly, remembering the happy times with Kate in a deckchair, her bare legs soaking up the sun, while he made ever more elaborate sand sculptures with the two suntanned
children. He remembered the light in their eyes, the screams of joy as they splashed in the sea. The donkey rides, the Punch and Judy. He’d loved it all. And he’d felt like Daddy.
Loved, respected and wanted. He didn’t want that to change.

He went inside and crept upstairs. Kate was sleeping peacefully, her skin smooth and rosy again over her cheeks. The pain had gone, leaving only the shadows under her eyes. Her glossy black hair
was spread out over the white pillow, and he noticed a few threads of grey in it. He wanted her to wake up and rescue him from his gloomy thoughts, but he crept out again and shut the door
quietly.

On an impulse, he went into Tessa’s bedroom to see the picture she’d been painting. She’d left it on the table, her paint box still open beside it, the two sable brushes
he’d given her for Christmas lying on a piece of newspaper.

Freddie gazed in awe as he saw the painting she’d done. It was stunning. Life-changing. In a moment of echoing brilliance, it re-awakened everything he’d tried so hard to forget.

Tessa had obviously worked with speed and passion to paint the angel she’d seen. She’d done the three of them, herself, Lucy and him sitting at the kitchen table, but very small and
in remarkably life-like silhouettes, dark against the blazing light of a huge angel, painted in yellow and white, her wings like sun rays, filling the kitchen. She had painted bits of the dresser
and the window in gloomy, mysterious colours, emphasising the incandescence of the angel, the awesome size of it, and the power.

Freddie wasn’t sure if she had finished the painting or not. He felt it was the most startling image of an angel he had ever seen, yet it wasn’t detailed. It made him want to cry
with joy at the sense of recognition. He had seen an angel just like that, and nobody had believed him. In one instant, the experience had thrilled him spiritually, and devastated him emotionally,
like being torn in two. He didn’t want Tessa ever to feel like that.

It was all coming true, he thought, the words of Madame Eltura – but so much faster than she had predicted. Too fast, he feared, to be contained in a sensitive teenage girl. He wondered if
that was why Tessa had tried to take her life – because of the extreme power of her visions, and the pain of constant ridicule and rejection.

She’s my daughter
, he thought as he studied the painting,
but who is she? Who is she as a soul
?

Kate slapped Lucy’s face hard. ‘How DARE you do this. I’m disgusted with you,’ she cried. ‘And who is that boy?’

Lucy stared at her, holding her face and swaying a little as they stood by the caravan in the dusk of evening. The sea was a chalky blue, the sky changing to violet over the winking lights of
Weymouth. Further up the cliff-top campsite, Kate could see Freddie’s silhouette holding the yellow box kite on its string. He’d still wanted to fly it, even without the two girls who
had loved to hold the string, and feel the pull of the salt wind.