The Girl by the River (24 page)

She turned and saw her parents standing behind her, with Mr Perrow. Their eyes were shining with excitement, and pride.
I can’t let them down
, Tessa thought. She felt energised by
the talk with Mrs Appleby. She felt a bond with her.
I could do this – I could do art and English. If I can survive in this place. For now
.

They stood outside under the horse chestnut tree, talking about A levels and Art Colleges. Tessa glanced at her father. His eyes were sparkling, and he was fully engaged with the conversation.
For once, he hadn’t noticed the sparrowhawk, but Tessa watched it hovering, high in the blue air above Hilbegut. She gasped as it swooped above them. The underside of its blade-like wings
were a rich cream, its hooked beak glinted and its eyes gleamed like tiny mirrors. And now, the high-pitched scream of a young swallow, snatched from the sky, and carried west.
I am that
swallow
, Tessa thought.

TURNING POINTS

‘I’d like a chat with Tessa on her own,’ Mr Perrow said, ‘before we finalise our agreement and give you the formal offer of a two years’
scholarship. Is that all right with you, Tessa? You can have someone with you if you wish.’

‘I’ll come on my own,’ Tessa said, looking firmly at her parents and trying to ignore the flicker of fear that passed through Kate’s eyes. She read its warning message.
It said something like, ‘Don’t tell him the whole truth.’

She followed Mr Perrow into his study. Instead of sitting behind his desk, he led her to two bucket chairs, and sat down beside her. ‘Have you got any questions you’d like to ask
me?’ he said.

‘Yes – do I have to wear my hair in plaits if I come to this school?’ Tessa asked.

‘No – it’s your hair,’ he said, ‘and you’re a young lady now, not a child.’

‘And do I HAVE to do games?’

‘No. It’s there if you want to do it.’

‘And do I HAVE to pretend to be like everyone else?’

‘Definitely not. We want YOU here, Tessa, not a sheep.’

That made her smile. She fiddled with the soft ends of her chestnut plaits and wondered whether she dared unplait it right now in the headmaster’s office. Her mother would say,
‘That’s VERY bad manners’. She decided to wait until she was in the car, and then undo the hated braids.

Mr Perrow’s eyes were searching hers. ‘Is there anything else I need to know about you, Tessa? Perhaps something your parents wouldn’t have told me?’

Tessa hesitated. ‘There are lots of things like that.’

‘It doesn’t have to be a good thing. It can be a bad thing you want to be honest about,’ said Mr Perrow. ‘Trying to be perfect can destroy us! It’s better if we can
be open about who we really are. If there is anything, Tessa, anything at all you think I should know, then please tell me now.’

‘I need to think about it,’ Tessa said.

‘Take your time.’

Her thoughts jostled for attention. She would be fifteen in November, so there was still the option of leaving school and ‘being free’. Art had sent her a postcard that she
treasured. It was a picture of a suntanned man crouching on a surfboard, his hair flying as he rode on the avalanche of foam from an enormous wave. Behind him the ocean sparkled and more indigo
blue waves were towering and breaking. It had been sent from St Ives in Cornwall, and Tessa knew it had a railway station. She could go, on The Cornishman. But first she’d have to earn some
money, and deceive her parents, or break their hearts like Lucy had done. Or both!

So what was there to lose by telling the truth to this wise old man who had followed his dreams and created a school? A school which had teachers like Mrs Appleby. She took a deep breath and
tried to make her voice adult and mechanical. ‘I tried to kill myself . . . a few months ago.’

She waited for his reaction with a thumping heart, thinking her mother would never forgive her for wrecking this chance of a scholarship. Her father would retreat into his silent land where pain
and disappointment made stony places where no plant could flourish. She wished she hadn’t said it.

But Mr Perrow only raised his eyebrows. He leaned forward, his calm eyes inviting her to talk.

‘Mum tried to hush it up,’ Tessa said. ‘I’m not allowed to talk about it to anyone. Even my sister doesn’t know. Nobody knows why I did it.’

‘Do you want me to know?’

‘I did want people to know, but it doesn’t matter now. My life is better, since I met Selwyn and Lexi.’ Tessa looked at Mr Perrow steadily. ‘I’m a loner. I never
had any friends, and my family think I’m a troublemaker. But I don’t actually want to make trouble. I’m hypersensitive. I can hear and see things which other people
don’t.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘Unacceptable things. Spirit people, for example.’

Mr Perrow narrowed his eyes. He fidgeted and raked his bone-thin fingers over his remaining strands of grey hair, plastered to his weather-beaten scalp with Brylcreem. ‘Do you see any
spirit people in this room?’ he enquired.

Tessa felt her face relax into a smile of relief. ‘Can I tell you?’ she asked. ‘No one ever lets me do that!’

‘Yes – please tell me.’ He sat forward, clutching the arms of the chair.

‘There’s a lady in a green dress,’ Tessa said at once. ‘She’s lovely. The dress is bright green, and she has an emerald ring on her finger, and a necklace of tiny
white seashells. And – she’s got a white fluffy cat in her arms. It’s a male cat and he’s purring, a lot, and he’s purring for you, not for her, because he’s
your cat.’

Mr Perrow looked suddenly vulnerable. His hands trembled and he pressed them together hard. He stared at Tessa with startled eyes. ‘My wife!’ he whispered. ‘You saw my wife
– green was her favourite colour – you couldn’t possibly have known that! And the cat! He was indeed my cat. I adored him. Largo, he was called, after a piece of music. I’m
astonished, Tessa – astonished – and grateful. What a gift – what a marvellous gift you have. It’s going to help countless people – one day.’

Tessa beamed. She watched Mr Perrow reconstructing his headmaster image, the wonder on his face dissected by a frown. She knew what was coming.
Goodbye smile
, she thought.

‘BUT,’ he began, ‘you’re too young to own such a gift – and, listen to me, young lady, it is a GIFT and not a curse as you’ve been led to believe.
That’s why, Tessa, you MUST accept this scholarship. We will help you to build a strong career – a safe platform to support you until you can do your true work. No – don’t
switch off – keep that light in your eyes, always. The world needs it.’

Tessa heard the passion in his voice. She tried to respond. She tried to snatch back the smile, like the sparrowhawk catching the swallow. But the life of the smile was gone, diving into the
dark.

‘I’m like a bird in a tunnel,’ she said. ‘A bird that must walk forever, believing that when it reaches the exit, it will be too old to fly.’

Back at The Pines, Annie dragged herself up the stairs, a tray of cocoa and lardy cake balanced awkwardly on the arm that wasn’t clinging to the banister. She put the
tray down on the lid of the blanket box and listened to the crying coming from Lucy’s bedroom. It didn’t sound normal to Annie. She’d watched Lucy come stumbling home, bent double
with pain, her face red and smudgy, her short blonde hair backcombed and sprayed into what Annie thought was a ridiculous beehive.

She tapped on Lucy’s door, and the crying stopped. ‘Go away. I hate you all,’ Lucy yelled, and her voice was cracked and growly.

‘It’s Granny, Lucy, and I’m not going away. I brought you lardy cake and cocoa.’

‘I don’t want FOOD. I’m slimming. Go away.’

‘I’m coming in.’ Annie pushed Lucy’s door open, and went in. She stood there, solidly, in her slippers, the tray in her hand.

Lucy was lying on the bed with her face to the wall. A tangle of clothes and shoes protruded from under the bed, and there were posters on the wall of Elvis and The Beatles. Lucy’s red
Dansette record player was on the floor with a stack of 78s on the spindle, ready to play. A black leather jacket with studs hung over the pink chair in front of Lucy’s kidney-shaped,
glass-topped dressing table with its pink net skirt.

Annie looked at the jacket disapprovingly. ‘Whose is that?’

‘No one’s. It’s none of your business.’

Annie eased the tray onto Lucy’s bedside table, among the bottles of nail varnish. She put the lid on a jar of Pond’s Cold Cream which was lying open. She sat down on the bed, and
stirred the cocoa with a teaspoon, loudly. ‘This cocoa’s lovely and hot. Why don’t you have a sip? Wrap your hands round it. ’Tis comforting.’

Lucy gave an extravagant sigh and turned over. ‘Don’t you ever give up?’ she quipped.

‘No,’ Annie said. ‘Never. Not on you, Lucy. I’ve given up on that sister of yours. But not on you. Here you are. Drink up.’

Lucy wrapped her fingers around the mug of cocoa. It was her favourite mug, with The Beatles on it, and it was deep – deep enough for her to breathe the chocolatey steam and feel the
warmth in the palms of her hands. She sipped it in silence, her eyes staring blankly out of the window.

‘I was a girl, once,’ said Annie, ‘and I brought up two daughters. I know more than you think I do, about girls growing up.’

Lucy looked at her then. ‘Oh Gran,’ she muttered, and put down the cocoa mug. ‘You’re so kind. Coming upstairs with your bad leg. Where is everyone?’

‘Kate and Freddie went out in the car, all dressed up. They were fetching Tessa from school and taking her out somewhere. That’s all I know.’

‘They didn’t bother inviting ME, did they?’

‘Well – you don’t usually want to go these days, do you?’ Annie said, and the words died on her lips as she studied Lucy’s blotchy complexion and desperate
eyes.

‘Oh no – it’s happening again,’ cried Lucy, suddenly doubling up with pain. She rolled onto her side and curled up, clutching her stomach. ‘It’s cramp.
Terrible cramp. It keeps happening, Gran. What’s wrong with me? I’m so frightened.’

Annie gave her a hug. Lucy was hot and tense, her shoulders hard, her breathing panicky and fast. She clung to Annie like a terrified cat.

‘What kind of pain is it? Whereabouts in your tummy?’

‘It’s like – waves of cramp – low down and round my back as well. It comes and goes – and it’s worse every time.’

‘Is it your period?’

‘No . . .’ Lucy wept. ‘I can’t tell you, Gran. I can’t.’

‘Shall I call Doctor Jarvis?’

‘No. And don’t tell Mum either. Please, Gran. Please.’

Annie looked at her shrewdly. ‘Has it gone now? The pain?’

‘It’s easing.’ Lucy looked shaken. She lay back against the pillows, her hands over her tummy. ‘Please, God, don’t let it come again.’

‘Will you let me feel your tummy?’ Annie asked, and Lucy nodded. Annie heaved herself to her feet. She put both hands gently on the baggy black top Lucy was wearing, and felt her
tense body, running her hands over it, over the womb. She left them there for a few long minutes, trying to sense what was wrong. She remembered that years ago she had used her hands to give secret
healing. She’d never talked about it, but Freddie knew. It was a gift from long ago, her most precious secret. She kept it hidden like a jewel. Strictly private. But she trusted it.
I’m never wrong
, she thought as she felt a spark of life, another life, in Lucy’s womb. A dying spark, like one from a bonfire, floating into the sky like an orange star, then
vanishing into nothingness.

‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’ she said.

Lucy nodded, smearing tears from her cheeks with the corner of the sheet. ‘Please, please, Gran – don’t tell Mum and Dad. Please.’

‘I won’t,’ Annie promised. ‘But you should, Lucy. Are you bleeding?’

Lucy put her hand down, and found the blood, unexpectedly reddening her clothes. She looked at Annie in horror. ‘What’s happening? I can’t be pregnant and have a period, can
I?’

‘You’re losing it, dear. It happened to me a few times. Terrible it was. This baby isn’t meant to be born,’ Annie said. She tried to speak gently. She loved Lucy, but she
was shocked at her behaviour. ‘You must let me ring the doctor, Lucy.’

‘No, Gran. No. He’ll tell Mum and Dad.’

‘You’ve gotta forget about that, Lucy. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to ring Doctor Jarvis. And you’d better tell him everything – if you did something to
bring this on. Did you?’ Annie looked suspiciously at a glass bottle sticking out of the pocket of the black leather jacket. She pulled it out. ‘Gin! You’ve been on the gin. Is
that what he gave you?’

‘A girl I know told me gin would get rid of it,’ Lucy said.

Annie tutted. She hobbled out of the room and down the stairs, leaving Lucy screaming and crying. ‘No, Gran – please don’t. Please! It’ll ruin my bloody life.’

‘Swearing at me now. My own grandchild!’ Annie muttered. She scowled at the telephone on its high pedestal, took a deep breath and picked it up. The receiver shook in her hand as she
waited for the operator.

‘Number please.’

Annie shouted into the mysterious black hole. ‘I gotta talk to Doctor Jarvis. I don’t know his number.’

Tessa sat on a canvas chair in the hospital waiting room, looking at the flowers in her hand. She’d picked them for Lucy, thoughtfully choosing the ones she hoped her
sister would like. A pink rose, some white chrysanthemums, marigolds and blue Michaelmas daisies. She’d made a posy with a ring of scented herbs around the flowers. Mint, lemon balm and
lavender. Then she’d decorated a strip of drawing paper, cut a scalloped edge, and wrapped it around them. She’d put a wish into every flower. A wish for Lucy. While Tessa was making
the posy in the garden, a tiny, birdlike woman had been there, advising her which flower to pick. ‘The lemon balm and lavender will calm the mind,’ she’d said. ‘The mint
will bring clarity. The marigolds have healing power and their petals can be used to make ointment. The rose is for healing the heart.’

Tessa had glanced at the woman’s lively face and thought she recognised her from an old photograph Freddie had in a silver frame. ‘Are you Granny Barcussy?’ she asked.