Up With the Larks (21 page)

Morgan looks grave. 'We'll have to find somewhere, Glenda.
The children are starving.'

All four stare at the lasagne, sitting untouched at the kitchen
table. While I get four more plates and hastily throw together
more salad and cut more bread, Ben introduces Seth and
Philippa, who have only just arrived. Seth asks Glenda where
they are staying.

'A holiday home, owned by one of my colleagues in the law
firm,' Morgan booms. 'He wasn't using it this weekend.'

'It's very near here,' Glenda gushes. 'We can all get together
every day!'

Seth looks shocked. He's taken an instant dislike to them
already. Philippa, on the other hand, is leaning over the salad
exposing masses of suntanned cleavage to Morgan, asking him
about his firm in London. She's looking deeply into his eyes,
slightly smiling. She's flirting with him, I think, and then my
second thought is: why? Morgan is deeply unattractive.

I soon realize why. Philippa – tall, willowy, bosomy and
beautiful – is a flirt. As far as I can make out during the
time she is with us, this seems to be her profession: flirting.
She doesn't seem to have a job and is vague when we ask
her about work. God knows where Seth found her.

But I'm grateful to her, for not long after lunch, Glenda
suddenly packs up the family and says they must go, much to
Morgan's surprise. 'Why Glenda darling, I thought we'd take
all these nice people out to dinner somewhere tonight,' he
murmurs, as Philippa stares seductively into his eyes and smiles
as if he's just offered her a luxury weekend in Dubai.

Seth looks starry-eyed at her despite the fact that she doesn't
seem to mind Morgan's hand on her knee. My old friend is a
complete fool about the women in his life, I realize.

Glenda says frostily, 'You already said, Morgan darling, that
all the pubs will be packed. I'll cook tonight for the four of
us in the cottage. Can't you see Ben and Tessa want to stay
home with their friends?'

They make a move to go, Morgan albeit with great reluctance.
From outside in the garden come the sounds of their children bickering with
ours.

As they leave, Morgan says, 'Well, what about tomorrow?
Shall we all meet in that great pub in Morranport?'

Glenda, watching Philippa smiling sexily at her husband and
telling him how much she looks forward to seeing him again,
says firmly, 'Morgan, Ben and Tessa have company this
weekend. We'll see them another time, when they're on their
own.'

I can almost like Philippa after saving us from that dreaded
pair, but she ruins it by moving in on Ben as soon as Morgan
is gone. Full-beamed headlight eyes on his, sitting far too close
to him on the sofa, hanging on his every word – the works.
And then doing the same thing when Eddie comes round, to
tell me something about the shift I'm working for him next
week. Poor Eddie – how is he to know that she can't help it,
that she does the same thing to every man who comes into
her orbit? He stays for ages, unable to tear himself away.

When Seth and Philippa leave the next day, after Philippa
has embarrassed us to death by trying her seductress bit with
both the landlord of the local pub and the father of one of
Amy's friends, Seth calls out from the open car window as he
drives away, 'I'm a lucky man, aren't I?'

We're too speechless to answer.

The holiday weekend, as well as the week before and after,
is murder on the roads. Or to be precise, it makes me want to
commit murder. It's not so bad first thing in the morning when
there are few cars out and about but later, as I'm finishing my
rounds, I always come across at least one of the types of drivers
that incite me to rage.

It's the man or the woman – and both are equally at fault
– who drives down narrow, rural lanes without having learned to reverse.
Or, even more maddeningly but occurring more frequently with each holiday,
there are the drivers who don't want to get their shiny new cars scratched
by a bramble on the side of the road.
Heaven forbid that should happen,
I mutter now as I drive down a steep, narrow hill, round a sharp bend and
come face to face with a brand new shiny Saab and a po- faced man in his fifties
glaring at me through his windscreen.

Glaring at
me?
What nerve, I think as I glare right back at
him. He was the one going like a bat out of hell around that
corner, not me. A po-faced woman is sitting next to him,
looking as if she has something sour in her mouth. She's glaring
at me too. What's with these people?

I try soothing tactics first. It works with animals, doesn't it?
I answer the glares with a charming (what hard work it all is
sometimes) smile. I make non-aggressive hand gestures indicating
that if they'd reverse back a couple of metres, there is
a perfectly adequate space at an entrance to a field where not
only their car but two Saabs and a tank could wait while I
passed by.

The man responds with his own hand gestures. His right
hand waves imperiously, telling me to reverse back up this
steep, curving hill at once. My smile is wearing thin but I keep
it pasted on as I shake my head, shrug my shoulders and do
an elaborate pantomime of his car reversing back just a wee
tad and finding the passing place. His frown deepens and he
does that rude get-out-of-the-way gesture again and what really
gets my goat is that the woman does the same thing.

We are at an impasse. I stop smiling, turn my head away
from these two sour people and look out the window. I hear
a blackbird singing from the beech trees at the side of the road
and, above that, the cry of a buzzard. There are primroses and
wild violets in the hedgerow. I don't want these two out-of-towners
to spoil my day but I seriously don't want to back up.

Usually, I just give in and go into reverse but this time I
really don't see why I should have to. I would have to reverse
for a mile uphill, around sharp bends just because this idiot
won't reverse three metres on a straight stretch of road. I'm
not even sure that the clutch on the van will take it either; it's
been rather dodgy lately when I've shifted from first to second
and I want to have it looked at.

So I take a deep breath of the warm sea-scented, honeysuckle-
fragrant air, open the van door and walk over to the
driver of the Saab. He recoils as I appear at his open window.
I know I don't look my glamorous best – these Bridget Jones
big pants shorts, the unflattering short sleeved shirt, and the
pencil that I realize later is sticking through the bun at the top
of my head – but hey, I'm an official Royal Mail postwoman,
not something slimy that's crawled out from behind a damp,
mossy stone.

I say sweetly, 'I'm afraid it's a bit difficult for me to back
up, sir. It's a good mile uphill on a treacherous road. But if
you reverse a very short distance, there is a sizeable passing
spot there on your right. You must have passed it.'

The man now looks perplexed, as does the woman. I can
hear them thinking:
She speaks properly, not like a Cornish postwoman
should speak. What should we make of this? Is she having us
on? Is she an impostor?

I resist an impulse to grin. I love knocking people's prejudices,
confusing them about where I fit in, confounding folk
who need to slot others into their given places before risking
social contact with them.

The man hesitates and then, unfortunately, loses his cool.
If he had any to start with. 'I would think,' he says with a
sneer, 'that as a postwoman, you'd be able to bloody reverse.'
His voice dribbles nastily with rage and sarcasm. The woman
is bobbing her head in agreement, her lips pursed as if she
would spit at me if I weren't out of reach.

I bite off the retort I'd like to make and say instead, in my
most polite postie voice, 'Oh, I can reverse quite well, actually.
It's just that I think a gentleman wouldn't mind moving his car
a tiny fraction on a straight road so that a woman would not
have to go through the trouble of reversing a mile back up a
steep hill.'

We stare at each other. Eye-to-eye combat, no holds barred.
His are hard and snake-like. Mine have the power of wide -eyed innocence.

The woman breaks the spell, 'Oh Terence, reverse and get
this done with. The postwoman isn't going to budge.' She says
postwoman like Marie Antoinette must have said the word
peasant. She goes on, 'We can write a letter to the local post
office when we get back to London, making a complaint.'

It takes him about five seconds. He's a whiz of a driver,
obviously in the category that doesn't want to get his car
scratched rather than the 'can't reverse' group. I wave a cheery
thank you as I drive the van past their car. He and the woman
are resolutely looking straight ahead.

I would bet a hundred pounds that they don't bother writing
that letter. They're the kind of people who throw threats
around like confetti, hoping to bestow a tremor of trepidation
into the lower orders or anyone else they think is getting in
their way.

As I drive another few miles further along the narrow
road, I'm confronted by another obstacle. This time it's a
small flock of sheep being driven to pasture by a farming
couple and their teenage son. They're going the same way
as I am so the farmer flags me down and says, 'We be going
a fair way, mebbe 'tis best to reverse and go down the short
cut way.'

I know which road he means and nod. His wife comes up
and says she'll take their post; she can tuck it into her jacket
pocket and save me a trip to the farm. Then she says, 'Tessa,
did you pass that emmett in the big black car? He be speedin'
like a bull after a heifer on heat.'

'Yeah, I passed him. He refused to back up when we met
face to face.'

'We could of killed him. Instead of stopping, or going slowly
through the sheep, he starts honkin' his bleedin' horn. Scared
the bejezus out of them, scattered them everywhere. Only just
got 'em back together again.'

I reverse the short distance back to another road even tinier
than the one I was on, with grass growing sparsely in the middle, wondering
why people who are impatient with animals, who refused to reverse down narrow
lanes, and who obviously look down on local farmers and postwomen, ever bother
to come here. It still remains a mystery to me.

My hens lay their first egg this month and I'm so excited I
drop it as I take it from the nesting boxes. But never mind,
I'm relieved that they've at least started. We bought them as
point of lay and I thought we'd leap up the first morning with
six fresh eggs waiting for us though of course they needed to
adjust to their new surroundings.

As the days go by, the number of eggs increases until quite
soon we are getting our six eggs a day. I love collecting them,
love the feel of putting my hand into the warm straw and
feathery nest boxes, the thrill of finding an egg tucked away
in the dark.

'I hope you're not eating them all,' Annie hoots at me down
the phone. 'You'll get egg bound.'

'Wait'll you taste them. You've never tasted eggs like this,
believe me.'

'I can't eat eggs, remember?'

I'd forgotten she was allergic to them, but at least the hens
won't squawk at her when next she comes to visit. They are
quite tame now and in fact they crowd around when I appear,
looking for feed. As well as the feed we buy, I've taken to
boiling all my vegetable scraps for them: potato peelings,
broccoli stalks, carrot heads. With four of us, there is a fair amount
and the hens love this addition to their other food of grains.

I get a shock one hot day when the hens, crowding around
me as they always do, start pecking at my feet. One or two are
quite vicious about it and I yelp and run out of their run in
a bit of a tizzy.

'What's the matter with them?' I ask Ben when this happens
three days in a row. 'They're usually so sweet and tame, and
now they're attacking me like demented seagulls after ice cream
cones.'

He doesn't know either. I'm starting to go off my beloved
hens.

It takes Amy to say, a few days later, 'Mum, it's only since
you painted your toenails bright red that they started
pecking you, when you go out in your flip-flops. They
probably think your toes are strawberries or yummy raspberries
or something.'

Can this be true? As a true scientist and pragmatist,
I experiment. I go in with wellies, no pecking. I go in with
sandals, they go for me. I get some nail polish remover, rub
my toenails pale again, put on flip-flips and stomp into the
hen run. The hens crowd around eagerly for a hand out, but
they leave my toes alone.

Well, well, well. From now on, I wear shoes or wellies when
I go in to feed the hens or collect the eggs. I'm not about to give
up my red toenails for even the most tasty eggs in chickendom.

The rest of May passes in a blur of sunshine and those
idyllic days we dreamed of when we first decided to move to
Cornwall. I'm grateful that my job gives me free afternoons
so that when Amy and Will are on their spring break from
school, I can pile them, Jake and a few egg salad sandwiches
into Minger and drive the couple of miles to the beach where
we take long walks, build sandcastles and paddle about in the
still icy water. Jake loves these outings and tries to catch seagulls
and even little fishes in the rock pools. Most public beaches
don't allow dogs on them between Easter and autumn but this
is still a relatively unknown cove and Jake is able to go with
us at least until the summer months.

Ben joins us too, on some of these picnics, when his work
permits. There's something to be said for a number of part-time jobs, he's
decided – he has loads of flexibility and can use it to spend more time
with the family.

We're already losing our winter paleness, looking lightly
tanned and healthy. And it's only May, I think with joy in my
heart. Only the beginning of our first summer in our new
home. I cross my fingers, wish on stars and scrabble about on
the shore for the tiny cowries, the shells that are supposed to
bring good luck, the sea's equivalent of a four-leafed clover.
When I find one I take it home carefully and keep it in a tiny,
special box. I feel so lucky, so fortunate to be here, and I want
our luck to last. I want this glorious Cornish summer to go
on and on for ever.