Still Waters Read Online Free PDF Page B

imagine, darling, that something in your mind remembers that trip to the seaside and muddles it up with . . . oh well, with something like everyone telling you never to play near the Broad alone, that water, any water, can be dangerous . . . that sort of thing. Does that make it clearer?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Tess had said, unhappy not to be able to assure her beloved father that she now understood perfectly what the dream – or nightmare – was all about. ‘I’m not miserable in my dream, it’s nice right up to the end. And Yarmouth beach was white, and steep when you got near the water, and full of people, absolutely full. But the dream-beach is empty. Almost empty.’
    ‘Darling Tess, a beach is a beach! There’s sand, sea, shingle . . . honestly, sweetheart, there’s nothing real about a dream. It’s just like a game of pretend, do you see? Only it’s a game we can’t always control, which is how nightmares happen.’
    The six-year-old Tess had looked into her father’s worried, loving face, and had simply wanted to take the anxiety out of his eyes. After all, she’d been dreaming the dream for a long while now, she could cope with it.
    ‘Oh, is that all it is,’ she had said, with a big sigh of mock relief. ‘Oh well, then, I shan’t worry about it. If I dream it again I’ll just make myself wake up!’
    But she never mentioned the boy, because somehow it was he who made it so extremely real to her. The fact that she had recognised him, disliked him even, seemed to set the dream firmly in reality, as though it was in truth something remembered rather than something imagined.
    ‘You take that side, gal Tess, an’ I’ll take this,’ Janet said, bringing Tess sharply back to the present, to her sunny but dishevelled bedroom and the excitements of the day ahead. ‘We’ll hev it made an’ the room tidy in no time, do you’ll git wrong, an’ Mr Delamere might stop you a-comin’ alonga us.’
    ‘He wouldn’t,’ Tess said stoutly, but she began to tug at the bedclothes, nevertheless. ‘Once he’s given his word he won’t take it back.’
    ‘Well, good,’ Janet said encouragingly. ‘Where’s your bag?’
    ‘Downstairs, by the front door. I’d better put my fawn dress down for washing, though it won’t get done until your mum is back.’
    ‘Your dad might get someone else in,’ Janet said. ‘He wou’n’t do that, though, would he? My mum need the work.’
    ‘Course he wouldn’t; he’s going to manage, he said he could,’ Tess assured her friend. ‘Good, that’s done . . . let’s go down and watch for the carrier!’
    The carrier’s cart was painted brown with a gold line round it and it was pulled by two horses, both huge beasts with polished conker-brown sides and long, flaxen tails. The cart, which was a large one, comfortably held all the Throwers and their personal possessions, though Mr Leggatt, who owned the cart, pulled a doubtful face when he saw the mountain awaiting his attention.
    ‘Will that all goo in, along o’ all them yonkers?’ he said mournfully. Janet whispered to Tess that Mr Leggatt did funerals as well as trips, and left Tess to work out just what she meant for herself.
    ‘Course, it ’ull,’ Mr Thrower said heartily. ‘Come on, lads, get all this here truck aboard.’
    ‘Well, I dunno . . .’ Mr Leggatt began, but was speedily forced to agree that it was possible when the boys had loaded the cart, leaving just about room for the family to squeeze in somehow.
    ‘Up you go, mother,’ Mr Thrower said encouragingly, when the children had managed to stow themselves away amongst the luggage like so many sparrows in a granary. ‘I’ll sit by the driver, but the kids’ll find room for a littl’un in the back.’
    More laughter. Reggie Thrower was a small, whippet-like man with very large hands and feet and though immensely strong, he wasn’t really a match for Bessie Thrower, who was tall, broad and golden-haired, with the bluest eyes you could