The Girl by the River (35 page)

‘My lot kidnapped my SOUL,’ Tessa said, ignoring the sadness of being disloyal, ‘and they didn’t use it as an ego trip. They dumped it, like rubbish.’

‘That’s criminal,’ Paul said, looking at her intently, his hands hovering as if he wanted to touch her.

‘Well – my dad didn’t,’ Tessa added. ‘Dad is really cool.’

Paul reached out and slipped his hand round the back of her neck, under her hair. Something came alive deep down in her body. His hand felt rough and strong on her skin. His eyes lost the steady
gaze that had attracted her to him, and became hard and needy. He pulled her closer. She twisted away and glared at him. ‘Oh no you don’t.’

He jumped back. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you want to be touched?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tessa said, feeling the old defences clamping around her. She drew wild patterns in the sand with her finger, spirals and sunrays.

‘That’s a pity,’ Paul said, ‘’cause I really fancy you. But – no hassle – if you don’t want me. There’s plenty more fish in the
sea.’

Tessa studied his eyes. She liked him, as a person, but now she saw a glint of rejection, screening a wild wolf within him. She felt afraid of him. She stood up and brushed the sand from her
thighs. ‘Surf’s up,’ she said.

‘Yeah – I’m going in.’ Paul looked disappointed. ‘See ya later, eh?’

‘Maybe.’

Tessa walked off on her own. She swung her rucksack onto her back and headed along Porthmeor Beach to The Island. A strange, disturbing feeling drove her to walk faster than usual as she left
the beach and climbed up between the rocks to the grassy summit where St Nicholas Chapel guarded the bay. She sat down on a wooden bench, facing the sea, watching the cormorants on the rocks, their
sepia wings spread out against the light. Her father would love them. She had a sudden longing for him, an ache of homesickness. In that moment, she was home again, at The Pines, and some great
event was imminent. She was standing in her granny’s garden, breathing the heady fragrance of pinks and pansies. She saw Annie, vividly, standing on the path, looking at her. The troubled
frown she’d so often had was gone. Annie’s brow was smooth, and a radiant smile lit her face. She held out her arms to Tessa, something she’d never done, and her aura swirled with
pastel colours, like pearl.

Tessa watched the brilliance of her vision. Annie looked so peaceful, and she’d never been peaceful. Her cheeks were rosy and tiny flowers shimmered around her as if drawn into her aura.
‘I’m on my way,’ she said, ‘on my way home.’

The vision faded and vanished. Tessa ran down the path from The Island, dodging people who were walking up there, her rucksack swinging on her back. She ran to the telephone box by the harbour
and dialled 100.

‘Operator. Can I help you?’

‘I want to make a reverse charge call, please,’ Tessa said and waited, wondering if the operator could hear the pounding of her heart. She gave her home number, and the number of the
phone box. She heard her mother answer, and the operator say, ‘Will you accept a reverse charge call from a pay phone in St Ives?’ and her mother’s voice saying,
‘Yes.’

‘Hello Mum. It’s Tessa.’

‘Hello dear! Are you all right, my love?’

Tessa struggled with the need to cry. It was the kindness in Kate’s voice that triggered it.

‘Tessa?’

‘Mum – it’s Granny – isn’t it?’

There was a shocked silence.

‘I saw her,’ Tessa said. ‘She looked – beautiful, Mum – like an angel. She – she’s gone over, hasn’t she?’

‘Oh Tessa!’ Kate burst into tears, and Tessa just hung on and waited. Finally, Kate managed to speak. ‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so sorry, dear. Your granny died about an hour ago. Peacefully in her own bed.’

It was mid-afternoon, but Tessa headed back to her grassy hollow at the top of Porthminster Beach. She needed solitude, time to think about whether she should go home or not. Kate had begged her
to go, for the funeral. ‘You must be there. Lucy’s coming, and Uncle George – all the family must be there.’ Tessa wasn’t interested in a funeral. She wanted to stay
in St Ives, maybe forever. It was hard, but she decided to stand firm and not go home. Kate pleaded for an address where she could send letters, and of course there wasn’t one. She’d
made Tessa promise to ring her every day on a reversed charge call, but in her heart Tessa didn’t even want to do that. Getting sucked into what she saw as ‘old family stuff’
would chip away at her precious newfound freedom. Living in the now, as Paul said. Not getting dragged to and fro by the past and the future.

She spent the rest of the day swimming in the tranquil waters of Porthminster, and wandering along the wooded cliff path which followed the railway. But part of her longed to be out at Clodgy
watching the sunset.

As twilight glazed the sky with violet, Tessa retraced her steps along the wooded path to her sleeping place, planning her supper which was to be a bread roll, a triangle of Dairylea cheese and
an orange.

But as she approached her grassy hollow, she was shocked to see someone else in there. Two hippies, a couple, settling down for the night, spreading their blankets and camping clutter all over
the place. Tessa’s first reaction was territorial fury. It was HER place. HER home. HER bed. And a bed was sacred – wasn’t it?

She stopped some distance away, reasoning with herself. If she stomped in there and asked them to leave, they wouldn’t care about her feelings. Rights to sleeping places didn’t
exist. She didn’t want a confrontation, especially today when she was feeling vulnerable and tired. Now she felt violated. Angry. Lost. The list could go on and on.

It was getting dark. She saw the last train pull in to the station, and people disembarking, talking and laughing, carrying luggage. ‘There’s our hotel, darling!’ she heard a
man say, and for a moment a burning jealousy clawed at Tessa’s heart. She wanted a man to call HER darling. She wanted a soft, clean bed, and a bathrobe and a hot chocolate.

She considered waking over to Clodgy and sleeping with the commune. It was a long way in the dark, and she still wanted to be on her own. In the end, she trudged miserably up the cliff path
again and found a little alcove in some rocks. Too exhausted to inflate the airbed, she flung her duffle coat down and lay on it, using her rucksack as a pillow, and covering herself with
Lou’s ethnic blanket. The ground was rocky and uncomfortable. Only then did she allow the tears to flow. She cried herself to sleep and woke up at midnight with the sobs still in her body,
and a hollow feeling in her stomach that was almost a pain.

The sky was cloudy and it was pitch dark except for the light flashing from Godrevy Lighthouse. She lay listening nervously. There were footsteps, tiny footsteps – paws! – some kind
of animal hunting through the woods. A shadow darker than the dark. It crept towards her, its feet moving faster, pattering on the dry earth. The shadow came right up to her – and kissed her
face – she smelled fishy breath and felt its whiskers brush her cheek.

And then it purred.

A cat! A cat had found her. A warm, silky cat who was purring and making her smile. A cat who cuddled up to her, right under her chin, stretched his velvet paws over Lou’s blanket and
settled down, his eyes luminous as he stared at Tessa in the dark. She touched his gloriously thick fur in utter joy. ‘Darling!’ she said. ‘You darling.’ She switched on her
torch for a quick look at him, and he was all black, his fur glistening in the torchlight. ‘I LOVE you,’ she said, smoothing him.

She couldn’t have been happier when the cat crept under Lou’s blanket and made it clear he intended to stay with her. And then she remembered she’d been dreaming about her
granny, and Annie had had a black cat in her arms.

A gift of love – from spirit.

THE BRIMMING RIVER

In the morning, the cat followed Tessa down The Warren, running beside her with his tail up. She figured he must belong to someone nearby for he looked well fed and glossy.
Tessa didn’t want him to get lost. Once they reached the Lifeboat House, his tail was down and he looked uneasy. She picked him up. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she crooned as the cat
rubbed his cheek against hers. ‘Don’t follow me and get frightened. I’ll come back later.’ Reluctantly she put him down and waited to see what he would do. He gave her a
quizzical stare, jumped onto the wall of a cottage garden and sat beautifully, his tail coiled around his legs. Tessa walked on with her rucksack, and when she looked back the cat was still there,
washing his paws in the morning sun.

Live in the now
, she thought, and headed up The Digey to Porthmeor Beach. The long night of crying had made her ache all over. She wasn’t hungry. On the beach she changed quickly
and plunged into the brilliance of the white surf and the jewel-green water, letting it stream through her hair. She emerged into the sunshine feeling cleansed and alive.

It happened very quickly.

One minute she was wading out of the sea, shaking the drops from her hair, her face alive with the energising joy of the sea. The next minute a man was standing in front of her, his hands open
like a big flower. ‘Tessa?’

She gasped, and found herself staring into his intense grey eyes. ‘Art!’ she cried. And then it started. That deep warm tingle inside, a new fire in a new place. She felt as if her
entire body, mind and soul had burst into song.

‘It is you!’ Art said. ‘Can I give you a hug?’

He was in his swimming trunks, his body looked warm and golden, like fresh bread.

‘I’m wet,’ she said.

‘Who cares?’

Tessa moved in to his welcoming hug a bit hesitantly. He felt amazing, the texture of his skin deeply warm against hers which was ice cold from the sea. Her wet hair tumbled over his hairy chest
and she pressed her ear against his heartbeat. His hands smoothed her back as if each fingertip had an electrical charge of energy.

They hugged for an eternal moment, and Tessa sensed a change in the air around them, a shimmering light, a skirt of diamonds swirling over the two of them, a sense that ribbons of the brightest
gold were binding them together.

They pulled away. Looked at each other. Laughed, and hugged again, and this time Art’s hands were lower down her back, the hairs on his arms brushing her waist. The tingle deep in her body
was so strong that Tessa could hardly walk as he led her up the beach to where his surfboard was propped against the wall. They sat down on the soft sand.

‘It’s like a miracle. Meeting you here,’ Art said. ‘I’ve done nothing but dream about you since we met, Tessa.’

‘Me too,’ she admitted.

‘You were only fourteen, weren’t you? So – what’s happened to you since? Where are you at?’

Tessa beamed. ‘I’m finally doing my own thing,’ she said. ‘I’m at art college – or I was – but I’m through with conforming to the norm. I came
down here – and I ADORE it. The surf – and the light – it’s – oh, I can’t find words.’

‘How about – phantasmagorical?’ Art said, and they both laughed. ‘You’ve got dimples in your cheeks when you laugh, and you look – just beautiful, like a
mermaid. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you walking out of the sea.’ His eyes wandered over her suntanned body, her skin glistening with salt crystals as the sea water dried in the
sun. ‘So where are you sleeping?’

‘Under the stars – and I love it,’ Tessa said. ‘Except last night when someone else got in my sleeping place – but then a fabulous black cat turned up in the middle
of the night and made such a fuss of me. He stayed all night with me.’

‘A lucky black cat, maybe?’

‘You could be right. My granny died yesterday, and she sent him to me. I know she did.’

‘Ah – I remember – you’re clairvoyant, aren’t you?’

‘Not openly – but yes.’

‘Why not openly, Tessa?’

She hesitated.

‘I see the shadow – still there in your lovely eyes,’ Art said, and he took both her hands in his. ‘I’d like to heal it, if you let me. I’d like to truly,
truly set you free. I believe we were meant to meet today, Tessa – and what a way to meet – half naked on the beach!’

She laughed again. ‘I shouldn’t be laughing the day after my granny has died.’

‘Why not? She wants you to be happy,’ Art said. ‘I rolled in the sand when my Nan died. She was such a dragon – and now she’s gone, even my parents are unbuttoning
their shirts. I never saw my Dad’s chest in my whole life, and the day Nan died he threw his ties away and let it all hang out.’

Tessa giggled. ‘That’s very funny.’

‘As for his feet, I never saw his feet either – until he came down here and actually took his socks off on the beach and there were these ghostly white objects underneath.’

He talked on, waving his hands expressively, and Tessa listened, fascinated, noticing details of him, the way his eyebrows moved a lot, the way the skin around his eyes crinkled when he laughed.
She felt at home with him. Relaxed, as if she could say or do anything, and it would be okay.

‘I’m very organised, for a hippy,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an old bus parked up on The Island car park. I’ve kitted out the inside and now I’m painting the
bodywork in psychedelic colours.’

‘I could help you with the painting,’ Tessa said. ‘I’d love to.’

‘Groovy! – How about lunch with me in the
Man Friday
? I’d like to treat you, Tessa.’

Dazed with euphoria, Tessa slipped into her jeans and padded up the steps, with Art holding her hand very firmly. A free lunch, a chance to paint swirly colours on a bus, and precious time with
Art.
My dreams are coming true
, she thought happily.
It must have been a lucky black cat
!

But Lou and Clare were not impressed. When they saw Tessa painting marigolds on Art’s bus that afternoon, Lou pulled her to one side. ‘You be careful, Tessa – with
him.’

‘What do you mean?’ Tessa asked, annoyed.

‘He’s a lovely guy,’ Lou said, her hand on Tessa’s arm, ‘but he’s a womaniser. He’ll break your heart.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ Tessa frowned at Lou.