The Girl by the River (29 page)

Tessa looked at the cream telephone. ‘Thank you – I do.’

‘Do you want me to leave the room?’ Starlinda asked.

‘No,’ Tessa shook her head. She lifted the receiver and dialled her home number with her finger in the round chrome dial. She heard it ring once, and Annie answered immediately and
breathlessly.

‘Hello, Granny, it’s me, Tessa. You don’t need to shout – I can hear you.’

‘Oh, it’s Tessa!’ Annie shouted as if she was yelling across a farmyard. ‘What are you ringing up for?’

‘Can I speak to Dad, please?’

‘No, you can’t. He’s not here. And nor is your mother.’

‘Where are they?’ Tessa asked in surprise.

Annie started to wail and sob. She couldn’t speak.

‘Calm down, Granny, it’s okay,’ Tessa said, concerned.

‘It isn’t,’ Annie wept. ‘Your father’s ill, Tessa, and he’s gone missing in this terrible, terrible blizzard. No one knows where he’s gone. Your
mother’s gone out too, looking for him, hours she’s been gone – and Lucy can’t get home because of the snow – she’s stuck in Taunton. I’m worried SICK,
Tessa. I wish you weren’t up at that art college.’

‘I’m actually in London,’ Tessa said.

‘LONDON! That’s a dreadful place. There are thieves and gangs of hooligans.’

‘I’m quite all right, Granny. I’m staying in a beautiful flat with my friend’s mother.’

Annie didn’t reply and Tessa could hear her breathing in panicky gasps. ‘Don’t hang up, Granny. Stay on the phone. Let me think a minute,’ she said calmly, and closed her
eyes. She was aware of Starlinda somehow helping her without doing anything. She imagined her father’s steady blue eyes. ‘Where are you?’ she asked, and it came to her in a flash.
‘I know where Dad is, Granny,’ she said. ‘I can see him clearly, and he’s under the Evergreen Oak tree, the one on the way to the Lime Wood – and he can’t
breathe. He needs an ambulance, Granny.’

She heard Annie give a little cry.

‘Put the phone down now, Granny. I’ll organise it all from here,’ Tessa said calmly. ‘I’ll ring for an ambulance and tell them exactly where he is.’

‘But how . . .’

‘Do as I say. Put the phone down.’

She heard another wail, and a click.

She looked at Starlinda. ‘There’s a crisis at home. Can I make another call, please?’

‘Yes – of course – whatever you need to do, Tessa.’ Starlinda was looking at her with admiration and sympathy. ‘I knew it,’ she said, ‘you’re one
of us.’

Kate made her way through the woods with Jonti tugging her along, the snowflakes buttercup yellow in the beam from the torch. The snow gusted between the trees, glazing the
moss, covering the dead rabbits with shrouds of crystal. Overhead the bare branches roared and creaked, bending to snapping point in the wind. Being in the woods was alarming, with twigs and small
branches falling around her, and Kate began to feel afraid, not only for herself but for Freddie. Without Jonti’s gallant little figure bobbing ahead of her, she would have turned back. The
voice of reason kept telling her it was madness to walk through a lonely wood in the dark and the snow.

She pressed on, thinking about Freddie. He’d been so gloomy recently. He’d lost that spark of life, that twinkle in his eyes. Kate couldn’t remember when she’d last seen
it there, or when it had gone. Two years ago, she thought. In Weymouth. It had gone with Lucy’s letter. Freddie had adored Lucy. She’d been a shining presence in his life, and
he’d taken her words to heart. No matter how often Kate told him Lucy was just young and needed to find her own way in the world, Freddie had remained stone-faced and unforgiving. She felt he
was grieving for Lucy, as if she’d died.

He was proud of Tessa, and close to her in a different way. He saw himself as Tessa’s spiritual guardian, believing he alone understood her, feeling he had to protect her hypersensitive
soul from the world. It had been hard for him to let Tessa go to Art College. He read her letters eagerly, hoping for the kind of success and confidence Tessa had experienced at Hilbegut. But it
soon became obvious that Art College wasn’t easy for her. While Kate felt happy that Tessa at last had a group of friends, Freddie seemed to think the art she was doing was
‘soul-destroying,’ as he put it.

Kate hoped Freddie would take up his stone carving again when Tessa had gone to college, but he hadn’t touched it. His chisels lay forgotten in a box, and a carving of a lion he’d
started was pushed into a corner, half buried under bits and pieces of engines. It even had drips of black oil staining the cream Bath stone he liked to use. Kate also understood Freddie’s
deep attunement to the natural world. She saw how he cared about the birds disappearing and the rabbits dying. The book by Rachel Carson,
Silent Spring
, had touched their hearts. It was on
everyone’s lips. In the papers. In the pub. On the television. Everyone in rural Somerset knew about it, and saw its grim predictions coming true. To Freddie it was the wilful destruction of
everything he loved and treasured. After the war they’d had high hopes of raising their girls in a beautiful, abundant, healthy world.
Silent Spring
felt like a betrayal. A different
kind of war. A war against nature.

As Kate walked through the dark woods, those thoughts stacked up in her mind like a card house. Freddie was actually fragile. One wrong move could bring everything collapsing. As a nurse Kate
had seen grown men completely destroyed by emotions they had tried to deny. Was that happening to her Freddie?

‘How far have I walked?’ she wondered, and stopped. She shone the torch around and saw only snow and tree trunks, dead ferns and arching brambles. Nothing she recognised. She walked
on, and noticed the coppiced hazels with tiny new catkins hanging bizarrely in the bitter winter.
I’m in the nightingale wood
, she thought,
above Lexi’s place. I could walk
down across her fields and get help
.

She knew she wasn’t far from the great scar which had appeared in the hillside woods. She’d heard they were felling the trees for timber, then planting Christmas trees on a
commercial scale. Another thing that had devastated Freddie.

I’m coming to the Lime Wood
, Kate thought, and remembered the long ago picnics in high summer, the sound of bees and the scent of bluebells.

Jonti was pulling harder at the lead now, his stump of a tail wagging. Kate shone the fading torch beam and found a small oasis of dry ground under the shelter of a massive tree. It was there,
at last, that she saw the soles of Freddie’s boots and the snow-covered folds of his overcoat as he lay against the trunk of the Evergreen Oak.

‘Before you go, Tessa, there’s something I want to give you.’ Starlinda handed her a small gold-rimmed card. It said ‘
STARLINDA – Clairvoyant
Medium and Healer. Readings by appointment
’. It gave her telephone number and she had handwritten her address on the back. Taped onto it was a tiny piece of crystal which was white at one
end and gold at the other. ‘This is citrine,’ Starlinda explained. ‘It’s the golden crystal. It carries the healing energy that this planet needs, and it’s your link
with me. If you need me – hold the crystal – pick up the phone and I’ll be there for you, Tessa. You’re one of us.’

‘Thanks – but what do you mean exactly?’ Tessa asked, looking curiously at the golden crystal.

‘You’re very young, and you’ve got a lot of living to do,’ Starlinda said, ‘but when you’re ready, come back to me and I’ll help you to train for your
true work. It’s not by chance that you ended up here today.’

‘Train for what?’

‘To be a medium and a healer.’

‘A medium? I don’t know what that is.’

‘A medium talks with spirit people.’

Tessa gasped. She stared into Starlinda’s eyes. ‘I’ve done that all my life. But I have to do it in secret.’

‘Poor girl – you’re in chains, aren’t you?’

Tessa nodded silently.

‘The New Age is dawning. The Age of Aquarius,’ said Starlinda, and her voice was gentle and reassuring. ‘And you will be needed, Tessa. Don’t hold back. I think you know
already that you are a healer. There is training – wonderful training you can do with kindred spirits. Keep that card and crystal, even if it takes years, and come back to me when
you’re ready.’

‘Thanks,’ Tessa whispered, aware that Faye was rolling her eyes and fidgeting.

‘Come back tonight if you need to,’ Starlinda said.

‘I might.’

‘I’m not staying,’ Faye said. ‘I’ve got a project to finish.’

Starlinda gave them both a hug. ‘Try to remember I AM your mum,’ she said to Faye.

‘Why don’t you like your mum?’ Tessa asked as the two of them ran downstairs to the street. ‘She’s lovely.’

Faye glowered. ‘She’s a pain.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t ask!’ Faye set off along the street. ‘If you want to see London – get on the Bakerloo line to Trafalgar Square,’ she advised. ‘You’ll like
that – and you’ve got the National Gallery there too. I’m going the other way. See you tomorrow?’

They parted, and Tessa made her way nervously to Trafalgar Square, emerging from the unfamiliar tube journey with a new sense of independence and adventure. London was hers to explore. She
didn’t care about her college work. Her mind was in a different dimension, still hearing the haunting music as if it was part of her, a part that would never leave. Her father was in there
with her, talking to her from a great distance. She imagined him standing beside her in the bright city sunlight, his eyes full of astonishment when he saw Nelson’s Column and the four
enormous lions.
How strange
, she thought,
he is here with me – he’s really here – I can see him
!

A LIGHT IN THE FOREST

Kate had never felt so alone and shocked. The stillness of Freddie’s body lying against the tree was like coming to the cliff and looking over the edge of her life, the
place where it ended.

She dropped Jonti’s lead and let him go. His eyes shone green in the torch light as he snuggled into the heavy folds of Freddie’s coat, his breath making steam in the cold air. Panic
roared in Kate’s ears, before her nursing training kicked in. Keeping calm was number one. Searching for a sign of life. Listening. Speaking words of comfort and hope.

She made herself walk forward, terrified that Freddie might have been shot by a careless poacher. Shot and left to die.

‘Freddie? Darling – it’s me, Kate,’ she said, and listened.

A rasping breath, a twitch of his gloved hand on Jonti’s back sent her rushing to his side. She dropped to her knees, and shone the torch on Freddie’s face. His eyes were closed, his
lips looked blue, but he was still breathing, rapid and shallow, each gasp tight and difficult. Kate found his wrist and felt the pulse. It was fast.

Kate acted quickly and calmly. She knew that Freddie was very close to death. ‘Don’t try to talk, dear,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought your medicine. Try to take a
sip.’ She held the bottle to his frozen lips, and after a few more gasps, he managed to swallow some of it. Kate kept talking to him. ‘I’m here now, Freddie. I won’t leave
you.’ As she said those words, she realised she would have to leave him, to get help. She planned to run down across the snow fields to Lexi’s place. Without swift medical attention,
her beloved Freddie would die there in the stone cold shadows where the distant hours of summer were long forgotten.

Annie’s flask was in the deep pocket of her plastic mac. Kate unscrewed the cup. ‘Listen to me, Freddie. I want you to try and take sips of this hot tea. It will help you –
even breathing the steam will help. That’s it! Turn your head a little.’ She held the cup to his lips. Freddie’s eyelids flickered and he looked at her with black, terrified eyes.
‘Don’t worry, dear. It will pass. I won’t let you die. No – don’t try to talk,’ Kate said, and gave him one of her smiles. ‘We’ll soon get you out of
here and into a nice warm bed.’

Her encouragement seemed to give him strength to drink in tiny sips. But what would happen when she left him to get help? She must go quickly. It would take at least an hour, she reckoned, for
her to phone an ambulance from Lexi’s place, then for it to come out in the snow. Lexi might drive him to hospital – but how would they get him down there? He needed a stretcher.

Her desperation rocketed as she talked calmly to Freddie. His eyes stayed terrified, locked into hers in the eerie incandescence of the snow. The storm was easing and welcome glimpses of the
moon filtered through the trees.

‘I will HAVE to leave you for a few minutes, dear,’ Kate said gently. ‘I’ll go down to Lexi’s place and get some help for you. It’s not far.’

Freddie struggled to speak. He clung to her like a drowning man. He gave her the lime tree seeds, tied in his hanky. Kate looked at them, puzzled at the urgency in Freddie’s eyes. He
gasped out a few words. ‘They cut – my lime tree – down.’

‘Don’t upset yourself, darling. Now I MUST go for help.’

‘Plant – the – seeds,’ Freddie begged, and closed his eyes again, the effort of speaking draining the last dregs of his strength.

‘We’ll plant them together, dear, when you’re better,’ Kate said confidently. But she didn’t feel confident. She felt terrified and powerless. She looped the end of
Jonti’s lead over Freddie’s hand. ‘Jonti will stay with you. I won’t be long.’ She kissed him tenderly on his cheek. ‘May God take care of you.’

Quickly she walked away, shining the torch on the snowy ground and fought her way along a narrow winding path towards the edge of Lexi’s fields. She squeezed through the barbed wire,
tearing her plastic mac. Moonlight shone over the snow fields, and the tall elm trees along the hedges cast bars of indigo shadow. Kate was scared that Freddie would die, alone in the wood in the
cold. She could hardly bear it. Keep hope alive, she told herself. And hurry.

She ran through the glistening new snow, awkwardly, twisting her ankles on the uneven ground. She could see the rooftops of Lexi’s place, two fields away, and was surprised to see a lot of
lights in the yard. What if Lexi was about to go out somewhere and lock the house? Where would the nearest telephone be?