The Girl by the River (22 page)

Jonti wagged his tail when he heard the word ‘dog’, and gave a little bark. ‘He thinks it’s funny, don’t you, Jonti?’ Tessa said, her eyes streaming from the
onions. She smiled at Lexi. ‘Mum and Dad never let me do this. Light a fire and cook sausages. It’s fun.’

‘It’s survival skills,’ Lexi said. ‘Who knows when we might need them?’

Nothing had ever smelled or tasted so delicious as the onions and sausages furiously fried in butter and stuffed generously into a bread roll, the burnt edges of onion glistening in the evening
light. Tessa felt alive and contented as she sat on the rug with Lexi, munching, and watching the orange flames criss-crossing, the smoke blowing away from the woods. It felt right and good.

Lexi had surprised Tessa in a number of ways. Firstly, Tessa had seen her without the fierce make-up she sometimes wore, and was reassured to see that Lexi had freckles and a few blotches on her
skin. She saw that her eyes had sadness and honesty. She found that Lexi didn’t smile a lot, and didn’t ask questions. It had seemed to Tessa that all the women in her life were
hell-bent on interrogating and manipulating her. Only her father was a safe haven, and he was so often not around when she most needed him.

She felt grateful that Lexi hadn’t mentioned her suicide attempt. Gratitude was a new feeling for her, and Tessa wasn’t sure how to express it, so she kept quiet.

Lexi had brought some cocoa powder in an old paper bag, and they made two mugs of it from the whistling kettle, and sat sipping it, watching the sun go down over the distant Quantock Hills.
Jonti was given a sausage to himself, and lay on the grass growling at it because it was hot. ‘Best put him on his lead now, Tessa – do you think? – otherwise he’ll be off
after rabbits.’ She showed Tessa how to damp down the fire and replace the square of turf. ‘We can leave the stones here – use them another time,’ she said. ‘I’d
love to do this again.’

‘So would I,’ Tessa said, and she thought of Lucy and her parents walking along the promenade in Weymouth.

Lexi sat in silence, her back against an ash tree, her eyes watching the darkening landscape. Tessa found her own tree, an oak, and sat against it. The purpose, and the magic, of this picnic was
to listen to the nightingales who came every year to breed and sing in the woods that stretched along the south side of the Polden Hills. As twilight deepened, the blackbirds stopped singing and
sounded their alarm call, warning each other about the owls now flying silently through the shadows. The stars came out and the wind sighed in the leaves of the woodland canopy.

The whole world seemed hushed, like a symphony of whispers. Tessa felt the power of the dark trees behind her, the ancient wisdom of them, the sense of benediction they breathed upon the earth.
The first notes of a sole nightingale, unbelievably loud and pure, burst into the purple twilight, floating on the wind like a diamond point of light upon the sea. Lexi’s eyes shone and she
smiled at Tessa.

They listened as a second nightingale, then another and another joined the warbling, flute-like chorus until it became a golden sheet of music rippling above the voice of the wind. Tessa felt
magic pouring through her, as if she sat in an open doorway and became translucent, letting the stream of sound infuse her with sparkles. She gazed at the dome of the night sky and saw that it was
a dark, concentric rainbow beginning on the far edges of the world, with a flush of pink and orange, then palest yellows and aquamarine leading higher into indigo and violet.
No book will ever
tell you that
, she thought, remembering something Freddie had said to her: ‘You can read every book in every library on earth, and still not know the wonders you can see for
yourself.’

She touched the slim scar on her left wrist, and Jonti whined and climbed onto her lap.
I’m glad I came back
, Tessa thought,
I would have missed this beautiful, magical night. I
will wear it around my shoulders for the rest of my life, like a cloak of stars
.

As she imagined the cloak of stars, she could feel its velvet swirling around her, and a startling thought flew into her mind.
Perhaps I’m a witch
.

HILBEGUT

Kate put on her black jacket with the shoulder pads, and swept her hair back into a sleek bun. She went into Tessa’s bedroom, picked up her portfolio, checked that the
paintings were inside, and carefully closed it, tying the tapes into neat bows.

Annie looked at her suspiciously as she wheeled her bike out of the shed. ‘Where are you off to now?’

‘A little bit of private business,’ Kate said. ‘You hang on to Jonti. I don’t want him running along the roads with me. Shut him in the kitchen, will you
please?’

‘I hope this isn’t another of your crazy ideas,’ Annie said, clipping Jonti onto his lead.

‘No – it’s one of my GOOD ideas.’ Kate had a twinkle in her eyes. ‘I’ll be an hour or so.’

‘Does Freddie know what you’re up to?’

‘Not yet.’

‘And what am I supposed to do with this . . . contraption?’ Annie pointed at the green and cream washing machine which was shuddering in the scullery, its lid rattling as it swooshed
the sheets to and fro.

‘Switch it off in twenty minutes – that switch on the wall. I’ll drain it when I get back. Don’t put any more Omo in it. You don’t need to touch it.’

‘I never had a MACHINE to do my washing,’ Annie said. ‘Look at all this foam bursting out of the lid!’

‘It will be all right,’ Kate said, and she pushed her bike down the path and rode off on it, leaving Annie scowling at the new washing machine.

Kate sailed down the hill, and out towards Hilbegut in the September sunlight. She followed the road through the river valley, then under the railway and up over the hills, pedalling vigorously,
with Tessa’s portfolio propped precariously in the front basket.

Hilbegut Court had been part of Kate’s childhood. She’d lived next door at Hilbegut Farm, and had often been sent to carry a billy can of fresh milk to the squire. When he’d
died, Hilbegut Court had been left derelict for years, until an eccentric academic had bought it and founded an expensive private school. His enterprise had fascinated Kate and she’d followed
the frequent reports in the local papers, and listened to the gossip.

‘You can’t get Tessa in there,’ Freddie had said. ‘That’s for toffs – and it’s the most expensive school in Britain, they say. You should see the
Daimlers and Jags going in there – and Rolls Royces.’

Undeterred, Kate swept through the grand gates on her bike, and down the sun-dappled drive of copper beeches, thrilled to see the magnificent trees she had loved as a child. It was early
September and the trees were shedding their heavy crop of beechnuts, carpeting the ground with their bristly cases. The wheels of her bike crackled over them, and she remembered Freddie’s
story about how he was always hungry in his childhood and used to fill his pockets with beechnuts to sustain him on his long walk to school. Kate was proud of what Freddie had achieved. A new lorry
now stood in the road outside The Pines, next to the black Wolseley, and his haulage business was thriving.

A few heads turned to watch Kate pedalling down the drive, her eyes alight with anticipation. She was excited by the sight of scholarly-looking boys in the grey tweed uniform, shoes polished,
faces clean and earnest. Exactly the sort of boy she hoped Tessa would meet. She imagined the white wedding, the grey top hats. At least one of her daughters was going to do it right, Kate thought,
satisfied.

She propped her bike against the wall, tucked Tessa’s portfolio under her arm, and bustled up the steps. The entrance doors were open, so she straightened her spine and walked into what
had been the great hall. It was now divided into offices and classrooms, tastefully built with timber panelling. She eyed the door marked
Headmaster
, but before she could knock, a secretary
sprang out from the next-door room, a petite woman with fierce eyes, a beehive of silver hair, and well-powdered high cheekbones.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked stonily.

Kate thought,
Ah – the guard dog
. She’d heard about this iconic secretary who protected the exhausted headmaster from predatory parents.

‘Good morning,’ Kate said pleasantly. ‘I’m Mrs Barcussy from The Pines at Monterose. I’d like to speak to the headmaster, please.’

‘Have you made an appointment?’

‘No. But I’m sure he will want to hear what I have to say.’ Kate took a step towards the hallowed door.

‘Nobody sees the headmaster without an appointment. And the waiting list for appointments is long.’

‘I’m sure he will want to see me,’ Kate said confidently. ‘I have a VERY talented daughter, and I know how much he cares about helping talented young people.’

‘This is a boys’ public school, Mrs Barcussy.’

‘But I read in the
Gazette
that the school is now taking girls, especially those with a rare talent, like my daughter, Tessa. Believe me, when he sees her work, he will want her in
this school.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Barcussy, but the headmaster is extremely busy. He cannot see you now.’

‘Then I’ll wait.’ Kate sat down on a chair that looked like a throne. She beamed at the secretary’s appalled face, and said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘He’s
bound to come out of that door sometime, isn’t he?’

The two women eyeballed one another.

‘I don’t mind waiting,’ Kate said. ‘Isn’t this a lovely chair? It’s nice to sit down. I’ve just ridden six miles on my bicycle, and the countryside is
so beautiful in September, don’t you think?’

Eclipsed by Kate’s radiant confidence, the secretary looked annoyed. ‘I will see if he’s got five minutes,’ she hissed, and opened the hallowed door just wide enough to
allow the silver beehive hairdo to pop though. ‘Excuse me, Mr Perrow, but I have a very persistent lady here.’

Freddie arrived home at lunchtime to find Annie shovelling foam out of the scullery. She was piling it into a bowl and tipping it onto the lawn where it made a three-foot high
meringue, hissing with popping bubbles. Jonti was crouching in the grass growling at it.

‘Look at this!’ Annie said, her face pink from exertion. ‘Kate went off on her bike again, and left me with that out-of-control contraption.’

Freddie raised an eyebrow. He wished Kate was there to laugh about it.

‘She said to switch it off, but I couldn’t reach the switch for the foam. It was coming at me,’ Annie said.

Freddie strode into the scullery, turned off the switch and there was peace. ‘It’ll burn the motor out if you let it run too long,’ he said. ‘Did Kate say where she was
going?’

‘No – but she had a look in her eye.’

‘Hmm.’ Freddie sat down at the table. ‘You go and have a rest, Mother, I’ve got some paperwork to do.’

When Annie had gone, he turfed the money out of his pockets and sorted it into piles on the table. Pound notes, ten shilling notes, and some silver, mixed up with crumpled receipts, Fox’s
Glacier Mints and bits of string. He counted it, clipped it together and put it in the wooden box they kept on top of the dresser. He was replacing it when Kate came up the path, wheeling her bike.
She looked jubilant, and when she saw him in the window, she quickly unpinned her hair and shook it back from her face.

‘Now, what do you think I’ve done?’ She gave him a hug, then took off her jacket and hung it over a chair.

‘You’re hot,’ he said.

‘I’m boiling,’ Kate said. ‘I rode all the way to Hilbegut and back.’

‘What for? A ride?’

‘No.’ Kate’s eyes were sparkling. ‘Guess what I’ve done, Freddie?’

‘What?’

‘I . . . have got Tessa the chance of a scholarship at Hilbegut School!’

Freddie was shocked. His first thought was to say, ‘Oh no,’ but he managed to keep quiet. Seeing Kate happy was a rare treat after the summer of conflict they’d had with Lucy.
They’d stayed awake at night talking about it, and worrying. ‘We can only stand by and pick up the pieces,’ Kate said repeatedly, as Lucy’s social life got wilder and
wilder. Freddie hated her boyfriend, Tim, and his lifestyle, his hair, his insolent grin, his arrogance and his noisy scooter.

Freddie found it hard to maintain stability. It felt as if he and Kate were being torn apart by their differing views. Kate had been to a private boarding school and she wanted Lucy and Tessa to
‘marry money’. It cut deep into Freddie’s confidence. He began to feel that love was not enough now – he needed attitude as well. The idea of Tessa, of all people, going to
Hilbegut School appalled and frightened him. He felt unable to bridge the widening gap. His children, and his self-esteem, were being splintered away from him.

‘Don’t look so worried, dear,’ Kate said, flopping into a chair. ‘I’d love a glass of water. I couldn’t spit sixpence!’

‘I hope you didn’t say that at Hilbegut School.’

Freddie got her one. He looked into her eyes in silence, seeing the dancing light in them, something he had loved, yet now it looked dangerous. It looked like a glittering curtain screening
something low and undesirable. He wanted to rip it aside.

‘I met Mr Perrow,’ Kate gushed, ‘and he’s such a powerful man – but so understanding. They call him Robin Hood in Hilbegut. He makes the rich pay for the poor. He
takes a rich man’s son and uses the fees to give scholarships to talented children like Tessa. As soon as he saw her artwork, he was interested.’

‘You showed him Tessa’s paintings?’ Freddie was even more shocked. ‘I don’t think she’s going to be happy about that. Those pictures are private to
her.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ Kate said, ‘it got her IN!’

‘Even the one . . . with the angel – did you show him that?’

‘He picked it out,’ said Kate. ‘You should have seen his face, Freddie. He stared at it with such an intent, intelligent look in his eyes. Then he stared at me with a piercing
gaze, and he said, ‘This girl is a visionary – she needs to be here – we have an extraordinarily good art teacher who will know exactly how to nurture Tessa’s talent.’
He said they could get her into the best art college in the country!’