Up With the Larks (7 page)

Lulu has not been here long and is staying with married
cousins from her own country. She didn't know a word of
English when she came over but she's picked it up fast.

I take the post bag from her. Lulu says, 'Oh, this be heavy.
You be needing one of they I think.'

Oh Lord, she's learning English in a Cornish dialect.
'Needing one of what, Lulu?'

She grabs one of the small supermarket trolleys from the
door of the Spar. 'Take! For borrowing. You bring back
later, OK?'

It's a brilliant idea. I grab the trolley, throw my bag in, and
I'm away. Pushing my supermarket trolley laden with post, I
find I am smiling at people and they at me. The sun is actually
shining today and it's amazing what a bit of dry weather
does for this job. I'm feeling positively jaunty as I saunter up
the road pushing my Christmas load. Leaving the trolley at the
bottom of the steps up to one of the biggest houses in the
village, I grab my post bag and lug it up to the front door.
This road leading out of St Geraint has been nicknamed
Millionaire's Row by the locals. The houses are huge and
opulent, all facing the sea but with massive lawns and gardens
on the slopes in front so that they cannot be seen by the
likes of us commoners. The locals have nothing against millionaires,
it's just that many of these houses are empty, holiday
homes for the extremely wealthy, sometimes used no more
than one or two weekends a year. Not long ago a helicopter
circled one of them at the very edge of the sea, set in a secluded,
private woodland. The place had just come onto the market.
There was one passenger in the private helicopter. He took a
quick aerial view and bought the property. There were rumours
that he was a pop star or even royalty, for we have that here
too, but it turned out he was yet another businessman looking
for a second home to buy with his Christmas bonus.

It saddens me as much as it does the locals, for it's not just
happening on Millionaire's Row. So many villages, especially
near the sea, are filled with cottages of every size, modest as
well as massive, that are empty all winter and only come alive
in the summer months. I talk about this with Susie who is
quite bitter, as are many other Cornish people. Susie's own two
nieces, one a teacher and the other a dental assistant, can't
afford to buy even a modest home in the county where they
grew up. They're looking elsewhere for jobs, Susie tells me.
Two more bright and talented young people leaving Cornwall.
I don't say much when people discuss this, for I'm fully aware
that I'm not local either.

'But you live here,' Susie said once, when she saw I had
withdrawn from a conversation the other posties were having
about the second-home owners. 'That's different, Tessa.
You've moved here permanently.' Her words give me comfort.
Maybe one day I'll be accepted by the Cornish, that they'll
realize our real life is here now, not Up Country. We're not
pretending to be part of this community – we really are, really
want to be.

As I trudge up the steep steps of the houses on Millionaire's
Row lugging my heavy bag, I think,
I'm too unfit for this
. At the
farthest house on top of a particularly high slope, I'm exhausted
by the time I climb to the top of the elegant, stone steps. It's
a magnificent house on the hill with a stunning view, but the
steps go on and on; they're a killer and too awkward to attempt
with a trolley. The house has a letterbox on the road, a very
large, smart one, and my first few days on this round were
made so much easier by that postbox. But yesterday Margaret
got a phone call from the owner, who is in Cornwall till after
Christmas this year, saying that while she is in residence she
wants her post delivered to the house.

So here I am at the top of the steps, panting and red faced
after the exertion of the uphill slog carrying a heavy bag.
The house looks unlived in and there is no letter slot in the
door, nowhere to put the post. Though it is a dry day, there
is a strong breeze and the weather changes from minute to
minute around here. I can't risk leaving it somewhere to get
wet or blown away. There is nothing for it but to ring the
bell.

It's a good five minutes before someone comes to the door.
I have rung a second time and am now about to leave the post
under a terracotta pot with a miniature palm tree in it. If it
rains, it can't be helped. There is a perfectly good letterbox at
the bottom of all those steps.

The door swings open. A woman who can't be more than
forty, dressed in designer clothes most of us can only dream
about, is standing there looking irritated. 'Yes?'

I am a little taken aback. I'd expected someone elderly or
infirm, someone unable to go down and up those endless steps
for their mail every day, but this woman looks fitter than I do.

'Your post,' I say in my friendliest voice. After all, it's nearly
Christmas and this is Millionaire's Row.

She takes it from me, gives it a cursory glance and says,
'Not worth the paper it's written on.'

Then she shuts the door in my face and that's that.
At least
she didn't slam it
, I think as I practically fly down those hellish
steps in a fury.
What's wrong with a quick thank you?
I'm shouting
in my head
And what's wrong with your letterbox? Do you think that
we posties are your servants? And shame on you if that's how you treat
your servants anyway.

At the bottom of the steps, reunited with my trolley, I take
deep breaths and pause, standing in front of the low, wooden
fence that separates the road from the beach. The water is
striped with bands of indigo blue, turquoise, grey and black.
The sun is dancing in and out of the clouds, creating a rainbow
of colour on the water. Jutting out around the estuary on the
left is woodland and I notice the trees, stripped of their leaves,
are a rich, silvery brown. I can see fields too, rolling ones, still
green and lush. There's a cove in front of the woodland with
small boats moored and further out I can see the shapes of
tankers, cruise ships and the ferry that crosses the river several
times a day, taking passengers to other towns. On my right is
the harbour, small, nestling and peaceful and in front, the sandy
beach. A heron is standing at the water's edge between shore
and woodland. As I watch, a cormorant skims over the sea.

I lean against my trolley and my mind calms. I have this
every day of the year, I think, and that other woman for only
two or three weeks. No one else sees her house for the other
eleven months except the cleaner and gardener who come once
a week. But me – I live here. I work here, as Susie has reassured
me. My load suddenly feels lighter, the job easier.

I work here.
How positive that sounds, and how Ben and I
despaired of ever hearing ourselves say that.

Thank goodness it was different for the children. Will and
Amy have made the transition from urban kids to rural ones
with the ease and resilience of the young. They love their new
school, made friends quickly and easily, and the village is a
delight, especially their own playground right opposite our
house where they and their friends congregate after school to
play. It hasn't been so easy for us.

We knew from the first day that things weren't going to be
as rosy as we'd hoped, when we realized that the kitchen was
in too sorry a state to patch up and would have to be completely
redone. The cost was way above any of our estimates, so we
had to plunge straight into our new business venture, the paint-your-own-pottery
scheme, before we had intended.

It was obvious within weeks that the business wasn't going
to work, that it was a daft idea for Cornwall. It was the children
of the affluent middle classes, usually living in cities, who were
clamouring for this kind of entertainment and artistic
endeavour and a disaster for Cornwall, one of the poorest
counties in England in that wages are lower here than anywhere
else. We learned soon enough that Cornish parents were in
general too strapped for cash to spend on such an extravagance
as painting your own pottery. Especially as, ironically, there are
probably more genuine potters in the county per head of
population than anywhere else in England. And who needs to
find entertainment for their kids when there's the sea and the
countryside?

Despite all our intricate business plans, we'd not thought of
these basic considerations. There was nothing for it but to
drop our initial plan at once, before we plunged deeper into
debt. Taking stock of our finances one evening, we were
appalled to see how quickly our savings were draining away.
We needed an income badly. The house was, as houses do,
costing far more than we'd allotted for it to renovate, not to
mention to buy in the first place. Then a plumber doing routine
fixtures found the whole system corroded and needing
replacement. Something similar happened when the electrician
arrived for some minor work and we had to shut the power
off at once as the wires hidden behind walls had been gnawed
at by generations of mice. It was a wonder we hadn't been
burned in our beds.

And so we started pouring over the local newspapers, looking
at job adverts. At first we were optimistic because we were
willing to take on anything reasonable. But then, after applying
for quite a few – receptionist, secretary, taxi driver and supermarket
assistant manager were just a handful – we discovered
that each job had dozens of applicants (unemployment is high
in Cornwall and jobs scarce) and we were overqualified for
nearly every job we applied for.

After this unexpected blow, we sat down again to try to
think of something – anything – we could do to bring in an
income. Luckily, Ben had a qualification we hadn't yet tried to
make money from, something that we'd hoped to use in the
future. Now, however, was the time. We were desperate.

Unlike me, Ben had completed the aromatherapy course
that began the day we met and he had a valid massage diploma.
He could offer his services not to the locals, most of whom
could not afford them, but to the hotels that catered for the
better-off visitors to the area.

The prime hotel nearby is the world famous Roswinnick,
overlooking the estuary and sea in a prime spot in St Geraint.
For several years now, the very rich and often the very famous
find their way here for a weekend or week. Rock stars mix
with royalty and wealthy Russian businessmen nod to their
British counterparts in the exquisite dining room over the
breakfast tables. They would be the perfect kind of customer,
prepared to spend an enormous chunk of money to relax, destress
and detox while enjoying stunning views and luxurious
surroundings. So after an interview with the hotel manager
(and a freebie massage for him), aromatherapy massage was
added to the hotel's list of available services and Ben got his
first call a week or so later.

I met him at the door when he came home, practically
knocking him over in my eagerness to hear how the first
session went. 'I hope it was a rich Eastern European princess
who was so thrilled by your exquisite application of healing
oils and massage that she gave you a huge tip well above
your hourly rate,' I babbled as I dragged him inside to tell
me all.

'Hardly,' He shook his head. 'She was an overweight, middleaged
sex worker from Manchester who'd won a packet on the
lottery.'

I stared at him. 'You're joking, aren't you?'

'No.'

'Be serious. No one would admit to being a prostitute, lottery
winner or not.'

'She never said she was a prostitute. Just said a sex worker.'

'She
told
you? She actually said it? I can't believe I'm hearing
this.'

Ben began to grin. 'I couldn't believe what I'd heard either.
I was half way through her treatment, getting on fine, I thought.
She seemed to be relaxing though she didn't stop talking. That's
how I knew about her lottery win.'

'And her line of work?'

'No, that came later. Suddenly she sat up and said, "Let's
get to the nitty gritty now. Show me what you can do."'

'
What
?' I stared at him.

His grin was getting wider. He was certainly enjoying the
telling. 'It turned out she thought aromatherapy massage was
a euphemism for, well, the sex trade. Seems she advertises
herself as a masseuse as well, back home.'

'So she wanted you to perform on her now that she could
afford to be the client? I hope you walked right out.'

Ben laughed. 'She only wanted to learn some new tricks,
she said. For when she's spent all her lottery money and has
to go back to work. She's blowing it on travelling and has
always wanted to go to Cornwall, so she started here first.'

'But if she's on holiday, why . . . ?' I trailed off, speechless
for once.

'Why bring her work into it? I asked her that too. She said
that while she was here, she thought she'd see what her Cornish
colleagues are up to.'

I began to giggle. 'Was she disappointed when you explained
what aromatherapy massage was?'

'She felt sorry for me. Said I probably made far less money
than she did, and would I like
her
to teach
me
some good tricks
to increase my trade.'

By this time we were both giggling so hard that Will and
Amy had stopped playing in the courtyard and come inside to
see what the hilarity was all about. 'Not for your ears, you two,'
I said and shooed them back outside.

'How did you refuse her offer?' I narrowed my eyes at him,
mock stern. 'You did, I hope.'

'I was very polite. So was she, actually. I finished the
aromatherapy session and we ended up best of friends, though
I'm sure she thought I was a sad no-hoper for not wanting to
expand my business into the sex trade.'

Ben had no more clients quite like that again but he did have
another unsettling experience at the Roswinnick. A few weeks
later, he walked into a guest's hotel room and there, waiting for
a massage, was an actor Ben had once worked with in London.