The Girl by the River (18 page)

Freddie felt the rage reach his eyes, sparking with unaccustomed pain that spread into the roots of his hair. He stood up, ready to confront this brazen layabout who had dared to walk up his
garden path. ‘What do ’e want?’ he asked brusquely.

Immediately he was disarmed by the gentleness in Art’s eyes, and the quiet voice. ‘Are you Mr Barcussy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tessa’s father?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I did knock on the door,’ Art said, ‘but no one answered so I figured you must be in here.’ His eyes roamed appraisingly over the stone carvings at the other end of the
workshop. ‘Are these yours? Awesome, man.’

Freddie looked at him silently. He waited. The sound of Kate feeding the chickens in the back garden bubbled through the workshop door, and the wind rustled in the elm trees.

‘So – how come you know Tessa?’ Freddie asked, sensing he wasn’t going to like what he heard.

‘I found her – up on the ridgeway – earlier today. I – look, I think you’d better sit down,’ Art said, and he took Freddie’s arm and guided him kindly
to the wooden seat outside the workshop. Freddie didn’t want this layabout sitting on his bench, but he went along with it, for the sake of peace.

‘Tessa was lying there, all alone,’ Art said, looking at Freddie with intense grey eyes. ‘She tried to kill herself – cut her wrist with a razorblade.’

Freddie just stared at him, too shocked to speak. Art put his hand in one of the fabric pockets and produced the razorblade wrapped in a strip of newspaper. It had blood on it. Tessa’s
blood. And the razorblade was one of his, from the bathroom cupboard. He’d counted them that morning, and thought it odd that one had gone missing. Waves of nausea washed over Freddie. He
held onto the bench tightly with his big hands, the wind chilling his sweating brow. ‘Could you . . . fetch my wife please?’ he asked. ‘She’s in the back garden feeding the
chickens.’

Dazed, Freddie waited, breathing deeply, fighting the unmanly nausea. Pictures of Tessa swirled through his mind. He loosened his collar, feeling his chest caving in. Was she dead? Had his
beautiful daughter bled to death, alone on the ridgeway? Whatever had happened, Freddie needed Kate there with him. The moments throbbed while he waited and, at last, through a white mist of shock,
he saw her coming down the garden, sturdy and bright, her eyes finding him as she walked beside Art.

He hadn’t told her!

Kate sat down next to him. ‘Are you not well, dear?’ she asked lovingly, and Freddie wanted her to hold him as if he was a little child. But he had to be strong.

‘It’s Tessa,’ he said heavily, and looked at Art who had sat down cross-legged on the ground, facing them. ‘Tell Kate . . . what you told me, will you?’

‘What’s she done now?’ Kate asked.

‘I found her up on the ridgeway,’ said Art, ‘and she’d cut her wrist – badly. She was unconscious, and so I took my scarf off and made a tourniquet above her elbow.
There was no one around, and no chance of reaching a telephone – so I carried her to the road and flagged down the first car that came along. He was great – took her straight to Yeovil
Hospital and I sat in the back with her and kept her arm up in the air – and talked to her. I didn’t know if she could hear me, but I figured it might help her, poor kid.’

Kate looked horrified. ‘Is she – did they bring her round?’

‘She’s all right now,’ Art said, wiping a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘No one knew who she was, so I stayed with her until she came round – then
we had a talk. She’s – really, really – a special girl. I was – gutted, man – to see her like that.’

There was a silence, like the silence that follows a broken window, the settling into stillness, the winking shards of glass reflecting the sky.

‘Well – thank God she’s all right,’ Kate said, and then she did something Freddie would never have thought of doing. She reached out both her hands to Art and gazed into
his face. ‘Thank you. And I don’t even know your name, dear . . .’

‘Art. Short for Arthur.’

‘And how did you get here from Yeovil?’ Kate asked.

‘I got the bus.’

‘So – where do you live, Art?’

Art hesitated. ‘I’m living free. Wandering. Searching, I guess. My folks have got a place in Truro – but we don’t see eye to eye. They’re stinking rich, and totally
lost in materialism. Man . . . the whole of mankind lies sleeping in materialism, don’t you think? I broke free of it.’

The shards of glass twinkled ever brighter.

Kate put a restraining hand on Freddie’s knee, sensing the angry response that was pending. ‘We must go to Yeovil as soon as we can,’ she said, and looked caringly at Art.
‘We’re really grateful for what you’ve done. You saved Tessa’s life.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Is there anything we can do for you in return?’ Kate asked. ‘Could we give you something?’

‘Nah – thanks – I don’t need stuff.’ Art stood up. ‘I was glad to help Tessa. She’s a great girl.’

‘She is,’ agreed Kate, ‘and we’ll go straight over to Yeovil and see her, fetch her home if she’s well enough.’

Art frowned. ‘Tread softly,’ he said. ‘Don’t tread on her dreams.’

At that moment, Tessa felt depressed and frightened. She kept her head turned away from her bandaged arm and the drip feeding a mysterious clear liquid into her. The curtains
were drawn around her bed, but she could hear, and sense the loitering shadows of illness that hung over the ward. Coughs and moans, and subdued conversations. The busy footsteps passing to and fro
alarmed her. The feet sounded huge, like doctor’s feet, and she kept thinking someone was going to come through the curtains and enforce some medical procedure on her.

She’d come back, but already the world she was in seemed alien and too difficult. It was like being born all over again. Shocking. Only this time she couldn’t cry. She had to
pretend.

Tessa had told Art she didn’t want to see her parents. She couldn’t cope with them right now.

‘I understand,’ Art had said. ‘I cut loose from my folks. I don’t hate them. But I had to take charge of my life – take it back from being manipulated. It’s
my life, and now I’m living it and loving it. I’m free – totally. I live in the woods, parked up in a camper van, but I only sleep in it when it’s raining. On clear nights I
sleep under the moon and stars and listen to the nightingales, and the wind in the trees. I believe that’s how we were meant to be – not wearing a collar and tie and sitting in a glass
box all day.’

Tessa stared at him, her eyes wide open and round as she listened to his story. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before,’ she said.

‘People hate my long hair,’ Art said, running suntanned fingers through his flowing mane, ‘but I tell them Jesus had long hair.’

When he had gone, Tessa lay there thinking about him. Art hadn’t asked her any questions or pushed her to explain why she’d tried to kill herself. He’d told her why he’d
saved her life.

‘Because you’re beautiful,’ he’d said, and he was looking at her eyes, not her body. ‘You’re a child of the forest. I’ll bet you’re into poetry
and philosophy. I can see that, Tessa. You’ve been born for the Age of Aquarius. Hang in there, girl. I’ll see you around.’ Art stood up. He lifted Tessa’s right hand from
the starched sheet, kissed it tenderly, gave her an intense stare, and left.

The kiss made Tessa buzz all over. A new feeling fizzed across her creamy skin, warm and electric, like fresh toast.
I’m a woman
, she thought,
a strong woman
. The back of her
hand tingled as if the kiss was embossed there, like a tattoo, there forever.

She slept deeply, and awoke to find her parents sitting beside the bed on two iron chairs, their eyes haunted with questions. She glanced at her father’s anxious expression, then at her
mother’s hot eyes and cheeks.

‘What happened, dear?’ Kate asked.

Tessa looked at her silently.

‘Why?’ Kate asked. ‘Why, Tessa?’

Tessa turned her head away and gazed at the tiny bead-bright bubbles around the glass jug of water on the bedside table.

‘I brought you a rose.’ Freddie handed her a peace rose in a twist of damp newspaper.

‘Thanks.’ Tessa buried her face in the cream, pink-rimmed petals, breathing the soothing peachiness of them, tasting the garden. She pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her
mouth, a trick Lexi had taught her to stop herself crying.

‘You must tell us why,’ Kate said, and her voice broke. ‘We’re so HURT. I’m your mother, Tessa. I gave birth to you, gave you your life. Doesn’t that mean
anything?’

Tessa closed her eyes. She wanted to say, ‘No comment’, like people did on television.

‘Tessa! No, don’t shut us out, dear. I won’t have it,’ Kate said. She stroked Tessa’s pale brow, moving a strand of hair tenderly away from her face. Tessa braced
herself, and tolerated it, when what she wanted to do was shake her chestnut locks right over her face like a curtain.

‘She’s not ready to talk, Kate,’ Freddie said.

‘Well I am,’ Kate said, and the spots of colour burned hotter on her cheeks. ‘You’re a lucky, lucky girl, Tessa. You have a lovely home and everything you could possibly
want. Your daddy has worked day and night to keep us in such luxury. We’ve bent over backwards to help you, Tessa – we’ve done everything we possibly can, and more.’

Tessa felt her mouth closing tighter and tighter. Her head felt like a balloon about to burst.

‘Why take your LIFE?’ Kate ranted. ‘It’s so selfish, Tessa. Don’t you see that? Oh – I’m so ASHAMED. Why must you hurt us so?’

‘You don’t like me.’ Tessa met her mother’s eyes.

‘Of course we do. Don’t talk so silly.’

‘You don’t. You’ve never liked me.’

‘Well, you don’t make yourself easy to like, Tessa. Why can’t you be more like Lucy?’

Salt in the wound! Tessa couldn’t bear to hear another word. She screamed at Kate. ‘I knew you’d say that. It’s all you ever say to me. You’ve made me hate Lucy and
her smug face, Mummy. I’m not like Lucy. I’m like ME. And for once in your life, can’t you understand that?’

The ward sister opened the curtains and intervened.

‘Tessa,’ she said kindly, ‘you were doing so well. Please try to calm down.’ She put a cool hand on Tessa’s hot brow and stroked her hair back. She looked at Kate.
‘I think you should go now. Your daughter needs to rest. And we can’t have the other patients disturbed, can we?’

Freddie stood up and put his arm round Kate. ‘You go and talk to the sister,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a quiet word with Tessa.’ Kate looked devastated. She wasn’t
used to failure. But life with Tessa had been one long, exhausting rollercoaster.

‘I will not be calmed down,’ Tessa screamed, her pale blue eyes brimming with angry tears. ‘Why can’t you try to understand me, Mummy? You just hate me, and blame me. You
do. You DO.’

‘If you don’t calm down, I will give you a sedative – an injection,’ said the sister, and Tessa sank back against the pillows in utter despair. She was glad when her
mother walked away with the ward sister, and Freddie just sat close, his eyes holding her in one of his vast silences.

‘Did Art tell you I was here?’ Tessa asked.

‘Ah – yes, he did,’ Freddie said, and Tessa respected him for not criticising Art, even though he must have thought him ‘a blimin’ hippie’.
‘’Twere kind of him. We gave him a bunch of carrots and a few eggs.’

Tessa looked at the peace rose now falling apart in her hand. Art had said she was beautiful. Only one other person had ever said that in her whole life, and that was Ivor Stape.

WHEN THE EARTH IS SICK

Tessa picked up the dead song thrush from the grass verge outside The Pines. She stood looking at its creamy, speckled breast, stroking its downy softness, and tears poured
down her face. The morning sun seemed cruel in the way it lit the dead bird so brightly, gleaming on its beak, the blue-grey, closed eyelids, and the texture of its tightly curled feet.

She carried it tenderly, slowly, up the garden path. She wanted her father to be there, to do a silent, sharing lament with her. He would know why the bird had died, he would help her dig a
little grave under the lilacs. But Freddie wasn’t there. He was out in the lorry, working as usual. Tessa felt she couldn’t bear to show the dead song thrush to anyone else, even her
mother. She didn’t want them to look at it, act as if it didn’t matter, and say it was only a bird. Brisk dismissal of her deepest beliefs and feelings was pushing Tessa over the edge,
and she didn’t want to invite criticism. Best avoid it, she thought, best to just hide her true self, and try to conform.

Art had said new exciting things to her. He told her it wasn’t long before she was fifteen and then she could leave school and be free, like him. She could run away and live in peace. He
pointed out that she’d managed to survive fourteen years of her present life, and it was a journey. The last few miles were always the hardest. ‘But hang in there,’ he’d
said. ‘Freedom is worth waiting for. Come and find me,’ he’d said, ‘and I’ll help you.’

Art would care about the song thrush, Tessa thought, as she buried it and picked a sprig of scented lilac to lay on the grave. She sat there for a while, on the grass, looking at her new
circular skirt. Kate had bought them one each from Marks and Spencer in Yeovil. Lucy’s had pink roses, and Tessa’s had blue. Lucy couldn’t wait to go dancing in hers, loving the
way it twirled out and showed off her legs. But Tessa felt guilty as she smoothed her pretty new skirt. Why should she have a lovely, clean, ridiculous skirt when song thrushes were dying?

She went inside and found her mother making pastry in the kitchen.

‘You look nice, dear,’ Kate said.

Tessa sat down at the table and watched her dusting the pastry with flour, rolling it and turning it. She didn’t say, ‘I don’t want to look nice,’ and she didn’t
mention the dead song thrush. And nobody talked about her suicide attempt. It was forbidden territory. Hushed up. Hidden in a box marked FAMILY SHAME. The wound on her wrist was still covered with
a plaster and nobody asked about it.

‘Only two more days before we go on holiday,’ Kate said cheerfully. ‘Won’t it be lovely?’