The Girl by the River (3 page)

Freddie nodded. Miserably, with his heart thumping, he followed the trolley inside, and Dykie took his hand as if he was a child. ‘There’s nothing we can do now, Freddie. Except
pray.’

They stood watching the doors close on Kate’s dark head as she was wheeled away. NO ADMITTANCE was stamped in red letters on the doors. It looked very final.

‘You’re shaking, Freddie,’ said Dyke looking up at him like an enquiring robin. ‘You should sit down.’

‘Ah. Sit here and wait, I suppose.’ Freddie sat obediently on one of the hard metal chairs against a wall. A bleak and cheerless place. He found hospitals intimidating.

‘I’ll wait with you,’ said Dyke.

‘Thanks.’ Freddie stared around at the peeling paint on the walls, the exposed pipes and brown linoleum floor. He looked at the stains of Kate’s blood on his shirt; he could
smell it and it terrified him. Kate’s life draining away. Wrong. It was wrong. It shouldn’t be happening. And was it his fault? Their love-making had been beautiful, a warm and blessed
secret that meant the world to Freddie. ‘Kate was my only love,’ he said to Dykie. ‘I never looked at another woman. I loved Kate since I were nine years old. Loved her. And she
wanted this baby so much – we wanted a boy, but she’d love anything, Kate would. If she gave birth to a blimin’ frog, she’d love it – that’s the way she is.
Heart of gold.’

‘Don’t torment yourself, Freddie,’ said Dykie kindly, but Freddie needed to talk. He felt nauseous and giddy with shock, and the talking distracted him from the question of
whether he was going to pass out, fall on the floor and disgrace himself as he’d done many times in his childhood. He didn’t tell Dykie that. He was the man. Had to be strong.

‘Last time I came in here was four years ago, before Lucy was born,’ he said. ‘And my mother came. We came here to a presentation ceremony, and Kate had the “Nurse of the
Year” award. We were so proud of her. But she laughed it off. Fancy me getting that, she said, I haven’t done anything special. Always laughing, she is. Always laughing. The house rings
with it.’

‘And she will be again,’ Dykie assured him. ‘We got her here just in time, thanks to your wonderful lorry.’

Freddie wasn’t convinced. He found himself once more on the descent into gloomy thinking. He looked into Dykie’s birdlike eyes. ‘Tell me honestly, will you – could she
die?’ he asked.

Dykie wagged a skinny finger at him. ‘Now what would Kate say if she heard you saying that?’

The corners of Freddie’s mouth twitched as the possibility of a smile drifted through his being. ‘She’d call me a – a prophet of doom. Don’t be a prophet of doom,
dear, she’d say.’ A negative thought rushed in, wiping the smile before it happened.
That’s what I’ve become
, he thought gloomily,
a prophet of doom
.

And hard upon that thought came another one.
That baby
, he thought,
she’s brought bad luck
.

MADAME ELTURA

Sally’s cheeks were crimson with worry and frustration as she marched into the hospital with baby Tessa screaming in her arms.

‘Any news?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘No. Nothing. They took her through there,’ said Freddie, raising his voice above the screaming baby.

Sally handed Tessa to Dykie. ‘She’s never stopped crying all the way up here,’ she said, ‘and I found the pram but I couldn’t drag it out from under all that wood.
I did try. But in the end I put her in my bicycle basket, tied her in with string and rode up here, pedalled up that hill with her bawling. Turned a few heads, it did. It’s a cold day but
I’m hot as ten fires.’

‘Poor little mite’s hungry,’ said Dykie. ‘She ought to be with her mother.’

Sally struggled out of her heavy bottle-green serge coat and hung it over a chair.

‘You’re breathless,’ Freddie observed. ‘Come on, you sit quiet and get your breath back.’

Sally looked at him gratefully. Sensing she was on the edge of tears, Freddie looked into her worried eyes, and thought about what he was going to say. Words came through to him in a bright
stream, words that didn’t come from him but from a shining spirit person who had befriended him long ago when he was a child. ‘Kate’s going to be all right. She’s a strong
woman, full of life, and she won’t let go. She loves being a mother. It’s important to her. She’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

Watching the calming effect of his words settling around Sally like a soft cloak, Freddie felt empowered. ‘Let me hold the baby,’ he said to Dykie. ‘You go and find someone
– tell them we’ve got her and she should be with her mother.’

‘I should think the whole hospital knows she’s here.’ Dykie eased the howling infant into Freddie’s arms, and something magical happened. He looked down at the
baby’s tiny scrunched-up face and saw it smooth itself out like a flower in the sun. In wondrous silence, baby Tessa gazed up at him, her clear inquisitive gaze piercing his heart. Freddie
talked to her in the language of silence, and he listened to the flow of her thoughts.

‘She’s going to be a daddy’s girl!’ said Sally.

‘You just got yourself a job, Freddie,’ Dykie said.

Freddie hardly heard them. Tessa’s stare completely absorbed and unnerved him. She WAS like Ethie, but he could also see Kate in her, and his mother, and – a startling thought
–
She’s like me
.

Freddie walked to the window and showed Tessa the sky over Monterose. Silver and ivory clouds bubbled over the distant hills, and thousands of elm trees dotted the landscape like splashes of
chromium yellow, and along the hedges the hawthorns hung heavy with scarlet berries. Far out across the Levels, the starlings made immense towers of black specks, swerving and shifting. ‘A
million birds with one mind,’ Freddie told Tessa and saw a spark of recognition in her pale blue eyes as if she knew everything about the world she had entered. Her unwavering gaze stripped
away the layers of knowledge he’d worked so hard to accumulate, stripped his soul bare. In an instant, the clever hardworking mechanic had fallen away like a black shell, and the creative
artist with the gift of prophecy stood there in the sun, hand in hand with this new little being who had burst through the gates of pain and arrived, with nothing.

The squeak of shoes and a whoosh of Dettol-scented air brought him back to reality. The door marked NO ADMITTANCE was open, and two white-coated doctors stood there with grim expressions.

‘Mr Barcussy?’

‘That’s me.’ Freddie’s heart began to thump again, he could feel it pulsing against the layers of thick crocheted shawl wrapped around baby Tessa.

‘And I’m Kate’s mother,’ Sally stood up, her eyes on fire with anxiety, ‘and Miss Dykes – Dykie – is the midwife.’

‘Come this way.’

Again, the nausea and the fear whirled through Freddie’s head as his feet followed the two doctors into a small room with dark oak chairs and a desk topped in olive green leather. On the
walls were yellowing charts of people’s insides, horribly fascinating but not exactly calming. A skeleton dangled in the corner, chillingly cheerful, with a tobacco-factory grin. Freddie
turned his back on it, not wanting the baby to see it.

‘Your wife has lost a lot of blood, Mr Barcussy. We’ve managed to stop the haemorrhage. But she’s very weak. We need your permission to give her a blood transfusion.’

‘And what’s that?’ asked Freddie. His skin felt cold and sweaty. He wished he hadn’t asked. He didn’t want to know about Kate having someone else’s blood in
her veins. ‘Anything,’ he said, interrupting, ‘I’ll sign anything to get her better.’

‘It will help her recover very quickly – otherwise it’s touch and go, and six weeks of complete rest. I imagine that’s not an option?’

‘I want – what’s best for Kate,’ Freddie said, and he signed the papers with a cold, sweaty hand. ‘And where is she? I’d like to see her please.’

‘And the baby,’ said Sally. ‘She’s newly born – and hungry.’

The corridor was long and squeaky, full of ominous doors. They walked in silence and above his heavy footsteps Freddie heard the sudden roar of rain on the roof and the harsh cry of a heron as
it passed overhead on its way to the river.

‘Wait here while we set up the blood transfusion. It’s ready to go. Then you can come in, and we’ll see if the baby will feed.’

Again, the three of them waited, this time standing up, in a corridor where nurses bustled to and fro with trays and trolleys. Beyond the double doors marked MATERNITY there were babies crying.
It set Tessa off, crying again.

‘Give her to me,’ said Freddie and, with tender pride, he scooped Tessa into his arms. He could calm her down, and show Kate he had bonded with their new daughter. Freddie wanted to
be the one to put Tessa back where she belonged, in her mother’s arms.

The ward sister had an intimidating starched hat and an even more starchy expression. She eyed Freddie up and down, her eyes pausing on his boots which were covered in oil and stone dust.
‘We don’t usually allow MEN in the maternity ward,’ she said. ‘Shall I take the baby?’

‘I’m coming in.’ The steel in Freddie’s blue eyes made her step aside.

‘Just ten minutes then. And strictly with the curtains round.’

Still carrying his daughter, Freddie followed the starched hat into a long ward full of women. The knitting needles stopped and twenty pairs of eyes stared at him. He ducked through the cream
curtains, and there was Kate, not lying half dead as he’d expected, but sitting up, dazzling them all with the love that shone from her bright brown eyes.

‘That’s the best thing I’ve seen today!’ she declared. ‘My wonderful Freddie.’

Speechless, he leaned over and kissed her tenderly, his eyes searching hers. Then he tucked baby Tessa into her arm. ‘My baby,’ she breathed. She unbuttoned her nightie and exposed a
breast that was full and throbbing.

‘We don’t usually let men . . .’ began the starched hat but one quiet power stare from Freddie silenced her.

Tessa began to suck noisily, her eyes gazing steadily at Kate. ‘Bless ’er little heart,’ said Sally. ‘Thank goodness!’

Freddie propped himself on the bed, his arm round Kate, his mind already creating a stone carving. A mother and child. In alabaster. He’d use the beautiful pink alabaster boulder
he’d found in the quarry, and he saw himself carving it out in the sunshine, with chisels and sandpaper, and running water to make it smooth as marble. It would express his gratitude and awe
at the way Kate looked so ripe and peaceful, and the baby utterly contented. Beyond the wonder of it was the statement his carving would make about priorities and wordless love.

Freddie bristled when he saw the vicar’s long black robe and pristine shoes coming through the hospital entrance just as he was leaving with Sally and Dykie. So far,
he’d managed to keep his mouth shut and not get into confrontational arguments with vicars. He found this one, the Reverend Reminsy, particularly patronising, and right now he felt vulnerable
and nervous after the stressful morning. He wanted his family together under one roof, private and safe.

The Reverend Reminsy reminded Freddie of a heron inspecting an estuary – a yellowy-grey pointed face with black eyes that didn’t allow any glimpses of who was actually in there
behind the ecclesiastical smile. Irritated, he stood back and let Sally butter him up. He half expected her to curtsy. Instead, she took the vicar’s hands and gazed into his face. ‘How
kind of you to come,’ she gushed.

‘I was told you’d had some kind of crisis,’ the Reverend Reminsy said. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Everything’s all right now,’ Sally said joyfully. ‘Our Kate is in good hands. She’s having a blood transfusion – and we have a beautiful little granddaughter
– another one.’

‘Oh, what a blessing.’ The Reverend Reminsy grinned like a wizard. ‘Congratulations, Freddie. You’ll be having her christened, of course.’

‘Ah,’ said Freddie, not wanting to agree or disagree. He’d have to go along with traditions, he thought, for the sake of peace. And if he saw an angel in the church, he’d
have to keep quiet about it. Long ago in his childhood his parents had drummed that into him as if they were padlocking his soul. ‘Even if you do see spirit people,’ his father had
thundered, ‘you don’t talk about it. I forbid you to mention it, ever again, to anyone. Especially not Doctor Stewart.’ And Annie, his mother, had added, ‘Nor the
vicar.’

At the funeral of his father, Levi, Freddie had been a rebellious lad of fourteen. He’d sat on the steps at the back of the church and refused to sing, and as he stared at the coffin and
the backs of people’s heads, he’d seen an angel. She had filled the church with an immense cone of light stretching from floor to ceiling, her luminous robe covering the entire
congregation, her light gilding the black hats and the stiff shoulders. Her radiance fizzed and sparkled as if it shone on a rainstorm, turning each drop into a twinkling star.

Freddie had sat transfixed, letting the reassuring, joyful light fill his miserable being until he felt on fire and empowered. He’d wanted to crack the hard shells of protocol that encased
the assembled family and he wanted to assert himself now that his father was gone. He’d picked his moment, waited until the last verse of
Rock of Ages
had died away. Then he’d
stood up and told them he’d seen an angel.

When the dust had settled, his brother, George, had frogmarched him outside and slammed him against the stone wall. ‘Don’t you bring shame on the Barcussy family,’ he’d
hissed furiously. ‘I’m the head of this family now, and you’ll do as you’re told – boy.’

It still hurt thinking about it. A bitter lesson, but the radiance of the angel hadn’t faded. It stayed in his heart, strong and bright, sustaining his spirit through the dark years of the
war when he and Kate had worked so hard, and had so little. Another of his prophetic visions had come true in the war years. He’d been called up to use his skills as a mechanic, working on
Spitfires at Yeovilton. Long ago, as a schoolboy, he’d seen himself standing on the airfield in a blue overall, a spanner in his hand as he watched the brave little planes taking off into the
dawn. He’d felt proud, and glad not to be fighting, glad to go home to Kate at the end of the long day.