‘I’m joking. Forgive me,’ he said, leaning forwards now, his arms folded across his chest. ‘I realise your project is only in its infancy. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot.’
Relieved, she was able to breathe again. ‘I’ve barely begun, to be honest,’ she gabbled. ‘I know what I want to say, it’s just that I haven’t worked out how to say it yet.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do a very good job,’ he replied reassuringly. Then, ‘I’m sorry for my bad behaviour. Can I take you out for a drink tonight by way of apology?’
Chabela was so surprised that it took her a moment or two to respond. He had a smile on his lips and seemed to be teasing, but maybe he wasn’t.
‘Really, there’s no need—’
But he insisted. ‘I’ll meet you at the car park entrance at six thirty. I can drop you home afterwards and you can pick up your car in the morning.’
She stumbled from the room in a daze of excitement and confusion and then delivered such a bad lecture to her students that she had to apologise and pretend that she was feeling unwell.
She took a bite of prawn sandwich, which was delicious but quite messy. A blob of mayonnaise fell on her lap but luckily, she’d put a napkin there and had brought another one for her face.
Coincidentally, the first food that she and Alfonso ate together had been prawns, or cocteles de camarones, a classic Mexican dish with shrimp, lime juice, tomatoes, hot sauce, celery, onion, cucumber and avocado.
He had chosen a quiet bar in the Roma district and led her to a table at the back, with comfortable seats directly facing each other. To begin with, the conversation had been purely work-related, but after a couple of drinks, things got a bit more personal.
He told her that he and his wife had married in haste and were profoundly unhappy. She was only interested in parties, gossip and fashion and they were staying together purely for the children’s sakes.
That such a great man should be miserable and unappreciated seemed like a tragedy to Chabela, who took it as a great compliment that he had chosen to confide in her. It was clear that he needed her, or so she decided back then, and several more dates followed in out-of-the-way restaurants. Before long, they became lovers.
That was almost a decade ago and in all that time, Chabela had scarcely looked at anyone else. So deep was her love that she was willing to make do with the one or two nights a week when he could get away from his family to spend a few blissful hours with her.
Sometimes she’d cook for him, but more often they’d make love straight away, then lie back against the pillows on the king-sized bed in her apartment, entwined in each other’s arms.
The relationship wasn’t purely physical, though. After that, they’d talk quietly about all manner of subjects including their work, the politics of the day and the books they were reading. How she missed those discussions! They had been her lifeblood.
They seemed to share so many of the same views and when they didn’t see eye to eye, they would listen quietly to each other’s opinions, both valuing greatly the different perspectives that this brought.
During the summers, when Alfonso went abroad with his family, sometimes for two or three months at a time, Chabela would cope with the loneliness and longing by working even harder, writing books and academic papers that were translated and published around the world, as well as taking on extra tutoring.
Her bank balance grew along with her reputation, and although money was never her motivation, it felt good eventually to be able to buy a bigger apartment in a better area of the city and decorate it exactly as she wanted.
Occasionally she would talk wistfully to Alfonso of sneaking a weekend away together, or even a week, to make up for all the times that they were apart.
‘One day, Chabelita,’ he’d say, gently stroking her cheek. ‘I can’t risk my wife finding out and upsetting the kids. Not yet. Not until they’ve left home.’
And so the years had rolled on until something happened that made Chabela realise she must finally give him up, or risk annihilation. But how was she to do it, when they lived in the same city, worked in the same building and one word from him, one look, was enough to bring her running to his side?
She dithered and dallied until that morning when Simon’s letter had arrived out of the blue in her in-tray. In different circumstances she would probably have shoved it to the bottom of the pile and forgotten about it. But she was looking for a way out and this, she’d decided, could be it.
Feeling too hot all of a sudden, she opened the window halfway and a gust of wind almost blew what was left of her sandwich, and the napkin, on to the floor.
Quickly, she swallowed the remaining bite before shoving the rubbish into the glove compartment to dispose of later.
Around and around her mind went, chewing over everything that he’d ever said to her, all that they’d shared. But it was over. Finished. Did she really believe it, in her heart of hearts, or was she still clinging on to some vain hope that he’d come running after her?
The sight of Loveday, hobbling from the shack towards her in clunky platform trainers, flipped her back to the present. The girl must be wondering where she’d got to as she’d promised not to take long.
Winding down the window fully, Chabela stuck her head through the gap and called out, ‘I’m coming!’
Loveday, who wasn’t looking where she was going, tripped on an uneven paving stone and almost fell flat on her face.
‘Oh dear,’ Chabela muttered, opening the car door and hurrying out to help, and, ‘Oh God!’ when Loveday wobbled precariously again and threatened to topple over.
After flicking the switch to lock the vehicle, Chabela grabbed Loveday’s arm and led her back inside; she wasn’t safe on those heels, that was for sure. She could do with a pair of crutches.
‘Thanks,’ the girl muttered, plonking down on the nearest chair she could find once they were safely indoors. ‘I thought I was a goner!’
‘You’re welcome.’ Chabela checked the girl’s exposed knees, which were intact, which was just as well as she supposed that neither of them had much in the way of first aid skills. ‘But please don’t wear those shoes to work again,’ she added. ‘They should come with a safety warning!’
Chapter Eleven
From her bedroom window, Chabela watched the small, metallic-blue car making its way slowly up the drive towards Polgarry Manor.
Rick had said that he’d pick her up at two p.m. and it was exactly five to; he liked to be punctual, clearly.
Ever since she’d made the arrangement to visit the old tin museum with him, Chabela had felt slightly nervous. It was mainly Loveday’s fault, for suggesting that Rick might have wandering hand trouble down the gloomy mine.
Now that Wednesday had come, however, and he’d arrived on her doorstep, excitement took over and Chabela found herself looking forward to finding out more about the ‘Cousin Jacks’ – the Cornish migrants to America – to whom she now knew that she was related.
While Rick opened his car and started to climb out, she hurried down to meet him. She was wearing practical jeans, white trainers and a navy sweatshirt, but he had gone smart, in a Gatsby-style pale pink striped linen blazer, an open-necked shirt and tan trousers.
On his feet was a pair of two-tone, suede deck shoes that looked brand new. She found herself hoping that they wouldn’t get dirty.
‘Good morning!’ he said in a cheery voice, before opening the passenger door for her with a flourish. He made sure that she was comfortably settled, with her bag on her lap, before shutting her in and moving around to his side of the vehicle.
Once seated, he produced two small silver thermos flasks from a carrier at his feet and passed one to her.
‘I thought you might like some coffee for the journey. I made it with hot milk, I hope that’s all right?’
He was very gallant and seemed anxious that he might have done the wrong thing, but Chabela put his mind at rest.
‘Perfect,’ sh
e said, unscrewing the lid that doubled as a drinking cup and pouring herself a few mouthfuls. ‘How thoughtful! Thank you.’
To her relief, Rick was a careful driver, sticking to the speed limit and checking in his mirrors frequently, which meant that she could sit back, relax and enjoy the trip.
As they buzzed along country lanes, he was quiet while she did most of the talking, commenting on her new job, the people she’d met and her general impressions of the area so far.
Every now and again she’d drop in a personal question, and his answers were quite stilted, until she got onto the subject of his interest in local history, when he became positively animated.
‘You should have come to Florence’s talk on sanitation through the ages,’ he said. ‘It was fascinating.’
Chabela had forgotten to buy a ticket and when she remembered, it had been too late as the talk was already under way.
‘I’ll try to make the next one,’ she promised.
They came to a junction and he paused, checking this way and that before taking a sharp right. Soon, they were on a major road flanked by tall trees on either side, with little traffic in either direction.
While he kept his eyes firmly ahead, she found herself glancing at him surreptitiously, and she was struck once again by the bushiness of his long grey beard and sideburns, and the way in which his moustache curled at the ends, as if he’d used heated rollers.
His lips, protruding from all that fuzz, were quite full and surprisingly pink, almost indecently so, while his fingers, gripping the steering wheel, were like the plump pork sausages that she’d seen for sale in the Tremarnock village store.
She looked away quickly. He was kind and charming, for sure, but she couldn’t ever imagine him as anything other than a friend.
Alfonso, by contrast, was olive-skinned and smooth all over, with little in the way of body hair. How she’d loved to run her flattened hand across the contours of his chest!
Him again. Everything always led back there. She clenched her fists and forced herself to focus on the road ahead until her eyes started to sting and go blurry.
It took about forty minutes to arrive at their destination and they swung into a car park with a big sign in the corner saying, WELCOME TO WHEAL CHESTEN. COME AND LOOK INSIDE!
To their left, a tall, thin, granite chimney rose high into the sky. Once, it would have been fiery hot and belching out smoke but now, pale green ivy grew up the sides and it was flecked with orangey-yellow lichen.
Beside it were the remains of what must have been the square-shaped engine house. Towering behind that was the old pithead winding gear machine, for lifting and lowering men and materials into the shaft.
Still and silent now, Chabela thought that she could nevertheless still picture the great wheels turning and the men with their hats and candles huddling together as the metal cage went down, down into the bowels of the earth.
Rick led the way to the ticket booth and was adamant that he wanted to pay for them both.
‘My treat,’ he insisted, pushing away Chabela’s proffered twenty pound note. ‘You can buy me a drink later.’
Soon, they were making their way through the gate into the main enclosure. This was a large patch of grass dotted with picnic tables and surrounded by a number of purpose-built chalets housing assorted exhibits.
The entrance to the mine itself was on the far side of the lawn, where they could see a sign saying, NEXT TOUR IN TEN MINUTES.
There was already a small queue of people lining up to be fitted with hard, yellow miners’ hats, complete with a torch on top. It wasn’t long before a short, amiable-looking man in old-fashioned miners’ gear was handing one to Chabela.
‘I’m your guide for today,’ he said in a strong Cornish accent. He was wearing loose, grimy trousers, held up with a leather belt, an open shirt and a filthy cotton jacket down to the knees, ‘I hope you’re not frightened of the dark!’
Chabela had never been down a mine before, and her stomach rotated anticlockwise as they descended some steep steps into the tunnel. It went clockwise again when they arrived at the bottom and she found that she could stand up straight, see a few metres in front of her and, most importantly, breathe.
She was enthralled by the guide’s explanations of the extreme conditions that the men had to work in hundreds of feet below.
Temperatures, it seemed, could reach up to sixty degrees Celsius, and the air was so polluted by dust and fumes from detonated explosives that it could barely sustain the candles that the men brought with them, glued to their hats with molten wax.
In fact, some miners would choose to snub their candles out and work in complete darkness in order to conserve the air. Not surprisingly, there were many injuries and life expectancy was short. If you didn’t fall off a ladder or blow yourself up by mistake, the guide said, you were likely to die of TB, bronchitis or silicosis, caused by particles of mica dust puncturing the lungs.
Mindful of Loveday’s warning, Chabela tried to keep a little distance between her and Rick as they made their way along a network of more tunnels, sensing the dark closing in.
She needn’t have worried, however. He was the perfect gentleman, pointing out the places where the ceiling was low and she should stoop, and helping her to switch on her torch when it got so black that they couldn’t see so much as a metre ahead.
‘Watch out for the knockers,’ the guide said at one point, explaining that these were the mischievous folkloric spirits of caves and wells and denizens of the mines. Miners claimed to be able to hear the imps tapping as they worked alongside them, and would often leave a small portion of their beloved pasties as peace offerings.
Children were often employed at the mines, the man went on, initially working above ground with the women, or the bal maidens, as they were known, breaking up rock. Once past the age of twelve, however, the boys would join the men below the surface.
Chabela was moved to think of her own ancestor, James Penhallow, toiling away in the darkness, until he made his decision to join the Cousin Jacks and seek his fortune in Mexico.
He would most likely have been short, she speculated, because the height of boys was stunted and their bodies were often crippled from working in thin seams where they couldn’t stand up straight.
The fact that he survived at all, then made it safely by ship, train and on foot all the way to Hidalgo seemed, to her, to be a miracle. It was a cruel blow that he should have died at the hands of bandits after making such a success of himself and finding happiness with his beloved Jacinta.
When Chabela and Rick reached the surface again, they made their way to the nearest chalet, which contained an exhibition on migration. Cornish miners, it seemed, were considered to be the finest hard-rock miners in the world.
From the 1800s, thousands went abroad, taking their skills and technological advances with them, to places as far flung as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Cuba as well as Mexico.
‘Today,’ Chabela read, ‘numerous migrant-descended Cornish communities flourish around the world. Cornish-type engine houses, Methodist chapels, industrial housing, male voice choirs and pasty shops proliferate in many of the former mining communities.’
There were various enlarged black and white photographs of miners and their families in old-fashioned clothing. Some were at the train station at Redruth, waiting to join the weekly exodus to South Africa. Others were pictured after their return home.
Chabela was particularly taken by one image of a man named Arthur Jenkins from Chacewater, Cornwall. He was standing with his wife and their small daughter, who was perched on a chair between them.
The photograph had been taken soon after their return from Mexico, and despite the graininess of the image, you could tell that the man was quite tanned.
He had grown a Mexican-style moustache and was wearing a wide hat, white jacket and a guayabera, the typical white cotton or linen pleated shirt favoured by Mexican men for weddings and in very hot weath
er.
There was a certain swagger about his stance, one hand on hip, the other arm around the back of the chair where his daughter was standing, in a frilly white, sleeveless dress and straw bonnet. His wife, meanwhile, was in a long, pale dress with a high neck and voluminous sleeves, her hair piled on top in an elaborate plait.
The man looked pleased with himself and proud to show off his prosperous, attractive family. He even had a little lap dog at his feet with fluffy ears and white paws. Clearly Mexico had been kind to him.
Chabela would have dearly loved to find photos of her ancestor, James Penhallow, but that would have been an extraordinary coincidence. In her mind’s eye, however, she now had him down as similar in looks to this Arthur Jenkins, with the same moustache and easy, contented bearing.
The next chalet contained numerous artefacts, including historic items made from tin such as tin-plate, telephones and pipe organs, taken from Methodist chapels both in the area and abroad. There were also examples of early mining hand drills, dairy items, teapots and other paraphernalia.
These were of only minor interest to Chabela, who whizzed through the collection before heading for the ninety-five-year-old steam engine, originally from Falmouth Docks, which was housed in a large, adjoining building.
‘She’s a beauty,’ Rick commented, coming up behind. ‘They don’t make ’em like that any more.’
‘Someone loves her,’ she replied, pointing to the glossy green sides and shiny, copper-capped chimney. ‘She’s very beautiful.’
‘Like you.’
Chabela started. Had she misheard? She fervently hoped so, and pretended not to have caught the quietly spoken comment.
‘Shall we have some coffee?’ she asked brightly, making purposefully for the café that she’d spotted on her arrival. Rick walked alongside her and if he were disappointed that she’d ignored him, he didn’t show it. Perhaps her ears had deceived her.
Even so, she was careful not to catch his eye when he sat down opposite her and sipped his drink thoughtfully.
The Girl Who Came Home to Cornwall Page 14