Up With the Larks (6 page)

I dump my stuff, say goodbye and turn to go, wondering if
I can crawl into bed for a good sleep when I get home. I'm
cold, wet and slightly traumatized by mad dogs, vicious cats
and potentially dangerous vans.

'Oh by the way, Tessa, I've got a message for you,'
Margaret calls me back. 'Customer dropped by just half hour
ago and asked me to tell you something.'

'Oh? Who? And what was it?'

'Mrs Grey in the cottages outside You know, the hamlet with
Batman and all the dogs. Mrs Grey is the one with the cat. The nice ginger
one that is, not the other.'

'Oh, you know about the other? Look at my hand!'

But Margaret is not going to waste good pity on the battle
scars of a wimpy new postwoman. 'The house with the yellow
door. That's Mrs Grey.'

'I know the one. She wasn't around when I called so I posted
her stuff through the letterbox.'

'So she said.'

'Was something wrong?'

'She said to tell that posh postie that the next time she
delivers to her, to make sure she comes in the kitchen door
and puts the post on top of the fridge, as she's got another
kitten now and it's been housetrained to pee on newspapers.'

'But – I don't deliver the newspaper.'

'Doesn't matter. The cat pees on anything that's paper
apparently and her letter was soaked when she got home. She
was particularly distressed as it was from her sister in Canada.'

Margaret allows herself a grin. It's amazingly like a smirk,
'So remember that, Posh Postie.'

She is still chuckling as I leave the shop. I know without a
doubt that the nickname will be in all the sorting offices of
the South Cornwall Royal Mail by next morning.

It is approaching Christmas with only two weeks to go and I
am staggering under the weight of cards, parcels and masses
of advertisements. I still hardly know my customers. As a relief
postwoman I'm on a different round every day and it's
confusing. I can't seem to get the hang of remembering all the
hidden lanes, quirky houses and weird letterboxes. I've left
post in plastic envelopes under stones, under tyres in garages,
under logs in a woodpile, on top of cars and under cars, in
makeshift boxes, bags and even a tree house. These are all at
the customers' requests – at their insistence, in fact. I can't
believe how few houses there are on my rounds that have
proper letter slots in their doors or mailboxes outside.

To add to the difficulties, Cornwall has been hit by massive
storms and winds, whipping up the sea and toppling trees not
prepared to go with the flow and bend. With some folk there's
an entirely different set of rules for delivering post when it's
wet. The post under the woodpile is to be transferred to a
shelf in the shed; the plastic envelope under the stone is, when
raining, to be covered with the blue plastic bucket found in
the nearest barn. None of this is written down but passed on
from old postie to new, like ancient folklore and Cornish myths.

The weather is not exactly conducive to standing outside
the front door and chatting to your local post person. Not that
anyone seems inclined to chat with me even on the rare days
when the weather is decent. Even Eleanor Gibland hasn't asked
me in again, nodding only a gruff greeting if she's around
when I arrive and saying, sniffingly, 'And where is Susie today?
Another day off ?'

I'm known now to all and sundry as the Posh Postie, thanks
to Mrs Grey with the cat and the newspaper. I'm not sure how
to take this, whether it's complimentary or derogatory, and I'm
afraid to ask Susie directly. I tried hinting about it, once, and
Susie just said, 'You be different, me bird, can't help that. Not
a local like me or the other folk in the post office. You can't
help looking and talking oddly.'

She gazed at me sorrowfully, not without sympathy, thinking
of my disadvantaged life being born and bred Up Country. I
could tell she was sure the odds were against my staying on,
not just in the new job but also in my new life.

Ben and I have spent months wondering the same thing, as
every day brings us new problems. Cornwall is not turning out
to be the dream move we'd expected. We have been in our
new house in the idyllic village of Treverny now since the
beginning of September. Though the asking price was vastly
higher than we'd anticipated spending, and the house more
dilapidated than any other we'd looked at, we took the plunge
and bought it, moving into South Cornwall for good on a
glorious day at the beginning of September.

Well, it was glorious when we left London, but by the time
we arrived, quite late at night, there was a cold, dreary drizzle
which did nothing to dampen our spirits. The movers had
come a few days before, Ben shooting down to Treverny to
let them in and to put the right beds in the right bedrooms
and generally organize the move. When he finished the
house was ready for our arrival. That is, as ready as we could
make it.

Will and Amy were first through the door. They'd seen the
house of course, but weeks before, and didn't remember much
except that they'd be living by the sea. For a moment they
stopped and stared, looking around at bare walls badly in need
of both plaster and paint, at rough uncarpeted floors, and the
few pieces of furniture we'd brought, looking forlorn and out
of place in this new setting. Being kids and naturally optimistic,
they recovered from the minor shock and ran off shouting to
find their bedrooms.

Ben and I stood in the living room with our arms around
each other, not speaking. 'Well,' I said finally. 'We've done it.
Our new home.'

'Hmm.'

Even I, usually the cheery one, couldn't summon up the
exuberance I'd felt after we'd finally found our new home. Not
then, not at that late hour, with the drizzle turning into rain
which was leaking down the side wall of the living room. Yes,
we'd loved the house – but it was the house of our imagination,
not the one we were standing in. This house was still
the battered place used for years as a holiday cottage and a
not very salubrious one at that. Not only had it not been
modernized for years, but it also felt as if basic loving care
had been withheld for the same length of time.

The work would be massive. And we were running out of
money which was haemorrhaging away with all the many costs
buying and selling entails. So we had decided to move in at
once instead of waiting until some fundamental work could
be done. The plan was to set up the pottery-painting business
and work on the house at the same time, little by little, even
if it meant we would be cooking on camp stoves in the
courtyard. We were keen and enthusiastic, sure it would all
work out.

Now, tired and a bit deflated, I looked around and wondered
if Ben had been right all along when he'd voiced all those
objections at the beginning. The enormity of what we'd done
hit me like that blast of Cornish rain and wind nearly taking
off the car door as we parked outside our new home.

We were all too hyper to sleep so I made tea and got out some
nibbles. Will and Amy, having found their bedrooms, were now too excited to
go into them. 'When can we go to the beach, Mum?' they shouted and 'Dad, are
you going to take us snorkeling tomorrow?'

We hedged, citing the bad weather, but Amy said, 'The rain's
stopped!' Flinging open the front door, she called us to look.

Sure enough, as if by magic, the rain had not only stopped
but the sky was clear, dotted only with stars and a miraculous
full moon which turned the wet grass into thousands of
sparkling diamonds. Jake, who'd been patiently sitting waiting
for nibbles of his own, took advantage of the open door and
leapt outside, barking his head off at the moon and no doubt
waking all our new neighbours. Ben shushed him and got him
in, as Amy said, 'Poor dog, sitting in the car all that long way.'

Without thinking I said, 'We'll go walk him on the beach.
Right now!'

Ben looked at me and rolled his eyes. 'It's late. The kids are
overtired as it is. It's been raining.'

'But it's not now, it's a beautiful night. So quiet and still.'

'Except for Jake,' Will shrieked as he and Amy fell about
laughing.

'See?' I said. 'They're hysterical. A quick walk on the beach
will calm them and Jake too.'

And us,
I thought as we drove the short mile to Penwarren,
the nearest beach – our beach now, a secluded sandy cove
edged within a framework of rock pools and sheltered by cliffs.
We drove the car down the narrow, windy road that leads
straight onto the hard sand where we all tumbled out and began
running up and down, shrieking with the relief of letting out
all the delays, frustrations and stress of the past few months.

As Jake jumped in the water and the kids played games trying
to avoid the small waves that splashed on the shore, Ben and
I watched, our arms around each other. 'You see?' I said smugly.
'You see how
right
this move is? Even the Cornish moon is
shining on us. It's an omen.'

Before I'd even finished speaking a sudden cold gust of
wind came up like a demon from the sea, driving a fierce black
cloud clear across that fickle moon and sending a shower of
icy rain over all of us.

Running back to the car and already soaking wet, Ben
muttered, 'Yeah, an omen. Great.'

Of all the things I'd imagined I might do when we moved to
Cornwall, being a postwoman was certainly not one of them.
I'm finding it all a bit of a struggle. Maybe pre-Christmas, the
very busiest time for post office workers, wasn't the most brilliant
time to start this job. But I had no choice. If this doesn't
work out, I don't know what we'll do, we've tried everything
else. Ben, for the first time ever, voiced what I'd been secretly
thinking and dreading: the possibility that we might be forced
to move back to London. He's as upset as I am about it. Despite
his early reservations, he too is committed to finding a new
happier life here.
Forget all that now,
I tell myself sternly.
You've
got a job now at last, so quit brooding and get on with it.

I concentrate on filling my huge Royal Mail bag with as
much as I can carry. The post office in St Geraint is on the
main street and I usually do one side of the village then come
back to fill up for the other. However, there is
tons
of mail
today. In December all the holiday brochures come out, as well
as the gardening magazines so folk can start thinking about
ordering bulbs. And of course not only are there Christmas
cards but an inordinate amount of parcels all sizes and shapes,
mostly from abroad: Australia, Canada and New Zealand, from
Poland and Ukraine, Italy, France and even a huge one from
China. All those folk not able to be with their loved ones this
Christmas, I think sadly, but wanting there to be something
for them to open on Christmas Day.

I ask Margaret if there is some kind of trolley to carry it
all. She shakes her head, shrugs, and says something to the
effect that there was but she thinks the wheel has come off
and it's been stowed away somewhere. I don't pursue it as the
post office has just opened and there is a queue of people
waiting to buy stamps as this is the last posting day for overseas.
Margaret, like everyone else, is working flat out.

I wonder what to do. It's already nine o'clock. Ordinarily I'd
have finished this part much earlier but nothing is ordinary in
the Royal Mail in these chaotic weeks before Christmas. I'll
just have to fill my bag with as much as I can carry, then double
back to get the rest. A nuisance, and tiring, and time-consuming,
but it'll have to do.

Outside, it's finally a perfect winter's day. Cold, but windless
and cloudless. St Geraint faces an estuary with a border
of sea on one side and river on the other. The sky is brimming
with tiny, fluffy clouds that obscure the sun for just a
moment or two and the sea is that deep winter's blue that
occurs when the sun hangs low in the sky all day.

The light in this place is amazing. The few clouds that breeze
over the sun now and again make extraordinary shadows that
ripple darkly across the aquamarine water then disappear,
leaving the sea dazzling once again. Even on grey days, the
vast expanse of sea and sky give a pale luminous light to
everything that makes me catch my breath whenever I stop
and look.

I'm doing that now, drinking it all in on this incredible
winter's day: the fresh clean smell of salt and marsh, the sharp
clear sky, the flecks of sunlight on water. As I walk along the
main street of the town, which rolls along the seafront like a
lazy sleeping snake, I smile a greeting at the shopkeepers as
they open up. I pass the tiny chemist's, an old-fashioned clothing
shop next to a smart boutique (both popular, which shows the
diversity of the place), and several coffee shops. There's a very
expensive art gallery as well as odd little places that sell local
crafts.

I do a little skip as I walk – surreptitiously of course –
for no other reason than it's not raining. The skip is a mistake.
I trip over an uneven pavement, the heavy weight of my bag
causing me to lose my balance so that I end up sitting
ignominiously on the curb.

Lulu, the gorgeous young girl who works in the Spar, calls
out, 'You OK, Mrs Posh Post Lady?'

'You can call me Tessa,' I say to her, not for the first time,
but she seems to like giving me the full title. Where she heard
my nickname, I have no idea. It seems to be spreading everywhere.
Susie said, when I asked her, 'Word travels, bird.
Glamorous new blonde, straight from Up Country.'

'Oh Susie, give us a break. Look at me. Glamorous? In this
get-up?' I looked down at my shapeless uniform and Doc
Martens boots.

She'd shrugged enigmatically. 'Well, whatever, but may as
well get used to it, bird, word travels quicker than an eel
round here. Folk heard all about you before they even set
eyes on you.'

Posh is the last thing I'm feeling now as I struggle to maintain
some shred of dignity and straighten my post bag. Lulu
says, 'Mrs Posh Post Lady, let me help with bag. Ohhh, it is
greatly heavy. It is magnificently heavy.'

'Sorry?'

'Maag-nee-feee-sont-lee,' she repeats, taking my bag, beaming
at her use of a new word. 'Lulu like big new English words.
Maaag-nee-feee-sont-ly. Wonderful.'

'Lulu's not really your name, is it?' I've been dying to ask
her this for ages.

'Oh, no. It name I am loving. Lulu,' she sighs in delight. 'My
birthday name too hard for English person to speak it without
falling on top of his tongue.'