A Donkey in the Meadow

by Derek Tangye

  One hot afternoon we had a caller who was the salesman for our flowers in Covent Garden. Of all the businesspeople I have ever met, flower salesmen are the most genial, despite the early morning hours they have to keep, and the dark, cold conditions of the market in which they work; and for the 10 per cent they receive from sales, they also give the grower much enthusiasm and very helpful advice. This, at any rate, is what Jeannie and I have found over the years in sending all our flowers to the same firm in Covent Garden. Moreover, they took such a personal interest in the flowers they received, that once a year, during the daffodil season, the head of the firm paid Cornwall a visit; and later on, between seasons, his representative. And it was his representative who arrived on that hot afternoon when Jeannie and I were despondent.

  He was in a hurry. He had another appointment for which he was already late, and he said he knew we would understand. A brushoff possibly, almost inevitably, if spoken by another kind of person. He knew we would understand, he said, because never from the beginning of the season to the end were there ever any complaints about our flowers. They ask for them specially, he said, and it is always a pleasure to open your boxes and show them.

  ‘You give something to the flower trade, you two.’

  I believe when he said this that both of us felt so emotional that we wanted forcibly to restrain him from leaving us. He had given us the key. He had made no deliberate effort to do so but his antennae, without which a talented person will be ordinary, had sensed we needed a lift. And we were able excitedly and so happily to respond. Here was an instant of good luck without which no endeavour can succeed; and the only issue at stake was taking advantage of it. The hot afternoon, after he had left, had to be made to work.

  As soon as his car disappeared up the lane, we realised too where lay our friends; and although our connection with them might be by the tenous communication of newly turned soil, daffodil bulbs, flowers, picking and bunching them, rushing them to the station, and awaiting the post for the envelope containing the prices, the world they lived in was indeed a real world.

  We knew also that we must not betray all the struggle, sacrifice, and enthusiasm which led the way to us receiving such a compliment. We must attack. This collision between despondency and the praise we had received was a reflection of all the years we had been at Minack. The earth and the rain and the wind may have hurt us but they had never, I felt, dimmed the truth of our optimism. We struggled where we loved. Failure was in the hands of the gods, not in the hands of human beings. When we fought for our survival, we did not have to weary ourselves waiting upon the whims of other people. We were alone. We were together.

  ‘Jeannie,’ I said, such relief in my mind and the enthusiasm simmering again which had been curbed in the tight circle of wavering defeatism, ‘let’s give ourselves one more chance!’

  ‘Oh yes, I agree.’

  ‘I want to see Minack a show place of daffodils. I want to fight all those things which have been dulling our happiness.’

  Jeannie was smiling at me.

  ‘Don’t get too fierce!’

  ‘Oh, I know I sound melodramatic, but that’s how I feel. For better or for worse I want to slam them all!’

  ‘You will.’

  ‘And so I’m going to play a hunch. The only person I know who can help us to achieve what we want is Geoffrey. I saw his father the other day and it is just possible Geoffrey wants to return to Minack.’

  ‘He loved the cliffs.’

  ‘I’ll write to him. and ask him whether he will come and see us on Wednesday evening.’

  Wednesday was the day after the morrow. It was also Fred’s birthday.

  18

  I was up early in the morning, a glorious, hazy, warm May morning, and went down to the rocks for a bathe. Fishing boats, a half-mile offshore, were hurrying to Newlyn market and gulls swirled in their wake. Two cormorants on the other side of the little bay, black sentinels in the sunlight, were standing on a rock regally surveying the scene; and on my left, up in the woods of the cliff, wood pigeons cooed. The scent of the sea filled the air, crystals sparkled the water, and the sound of the lazy, lapping waves was like a chorus of ghosts telling the world to hush. No angry engines in the sky disturbed the peace of it. No roar of traffic dulled the senses. Here was the original freedom. Here was poised a fragment of time when the world was young.

  When I returned to the cottage, Fred and Penny were standing in the field looking down into the garden, and Jeannie was at the door.

  ‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ she said, laughing, ‘Fred’s been getting impatient.’

  He began to whimper, nostrils quivering, the prelude to a bellow. ‘Hold it, Fred, hold it,’ I called, ‘we’ve got a present for you!’ Then Jeannie went inside and brought back a huge bunch of carrots. ‘Happy birthday!’ we said, holding the bunch in front of him.

  Fred, and Penny for that matter, were clearly surprised at such an array of carrots so early in the morning. They were even more surprised when ten minutes later two children’s voices came singing round the corner; ‘Happy birthday to you!’ Susan and Janet from the farm at the top had arrived, like Cornish pixies, with their presents. More carrots! And it was not yet eight o’clock.

  Fred, in a way, had become a mascot to the children of St Buryan parish in which we lived. They had been told of the days when donkeys clip-clopped the lanes of the district; and how the fishermen of Sennen Cove had the finest collection of donkeys in Cornwall, racing each other through St Buryan village on the way to Newlyn with their catches; but these seemed like fairy stories to those who had never seen a donkey. An old doctor on his rounds, before the first world war, was the last to be remembered using a donkey cart in St Buryan parish; but no one could remember when a donkey was last born. Fred, therefore, was a character of the imagination which had become real. His birthday, his first birthday, was an occasion. And the children were going to celebrate it.

  Fred now had time to digest his early-morning presents. There was a pause in his festivities and he roamed around the field flicking his tail and nibbling the grass, then suddenly appeared again to look down into the garden.

  ‘Fred seems to be hinting at something,’ said Jeannie.

  I looked up at him. Fluffy brown coat, a brown pillow of a fringe between his two big ears and the white of his nose, a sturdy, slightly arched little back, the black cross easy to see, and a pair of intelligent eyes which were saying: ‘She’s right. I am!’

  ‘Nothing doing, Fred,’ I said, ‘you must wait for the party this afternoon.’

  At that moment I heard the postman singing his way down the lane on his bicycle. Part-time postman, cobbler, hairdresser, fish-and-chip merchant, he had a key part to play in the coming events. He also sold ice creams. And he also always arrived at Minack happily smiling, whatever the gales, the rain or the snow.

  ‘Lovely morning, Mr Gilbert,’ I said.

  ‘And a lovely morning for a donkey’s birthday,’ he replied. He began to search through his satchel. ‘I’ve got something here I’ve never carried before. A telegram for a donkey! And there’s a big envelope for Fred too. Birthday cards from the school. He paused, still searching. ‘Ah, here they are . . .’ Then he added when he had handed them to me: ‘I’ve seen the schoolmaster. Thirty-two will be coming from the school, and so what with the grown-ups I reckon forty comets will see it through.’

  ‘Leave it to you,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be down soon after half past three.’

  A telegram and, within the envelope, thirty-two birthday cards! We were under an obligation to play the game with respect. Much earnest thought and trouble had gone into the making of it. A ritual had to be observed. Whether Fred was personally interested or not, each greeting had to be read to him; and in any case Jeannie and I were exceedingly touched that the children should have remembered him.

  ‘Many happy returns to Freddie. Love Sally and Linda,’ said the telegram. How had they remembered the date?
Two schoolgirls from London who had come to Minack as strangers to see if they could meet the gull on the roof; and then had spent the afternoon playing with Penny and Fred. I held the telegram up to him and he pushed his nose into it. ‘Do you remember how Sally spent an hour grooming you and you loved it?’

  There were carrots galore on the birthday cards. Each card had been individually drawn in coloured crayon, imaginative, primitive drawings, the figure one prominent in all of them, some with poems attached, cut-outs of other donkeys painstakingly pasted on thick paper, messages of good wishes in carefully written script, joke drawings like donkeys fishing (‘I hope you catch your carrot.’), romantic drawings of a donkey ruminating in a pasture, another with ships as a background; all kindly and thoughtful and original. Something so much more important was there than the cards themselves, and we now awaited the arrival of those who had sent them. And so did Fred.

  When they came he could have been excused if he had been startled by their number. He had never seen so many children before, so many gay, shouting children who tumbled out of cars, running up the path to the field, calling: ‘Happy birthday, Freddie!’ This was a carnival of a party, a boy was dressed as the Mad Hatter, battered top hat and tails too big for him, another wore a huge mask of the March Hare, girls in party frocks with ribbons in their hair, boys chasing each other, all converging on Fred who stood his ground halfway up the slope of the field with ears pricked; and I would have forgiven him if he had turned and fled. Thirty-two children swarming towards him, screams of laughter, yells of glee, this cacophony of happiness made noise enough to scare him into leaping into the next field. He did not budge. He awaited the onslaught of arms being flung around him, ears pulled, mane ruffled, nose kissed and kissed again, pats on the back, tail tugged, as if it were an experience to which he had long been accustomed. All through the afternoon he allowed himself to be treated as a toy, and not once did he show impatience. Dear one-year-old Fred. This was indeed his hour of glory.

  There were rewards, of course. His guests, for instance, vied with each other in their generosity, eating part of their ice-cream cornets then pushing them towards a large, welcoming mouth. He had always loved ice cream. And there were the sticky lollipops, the shape and colour of carrots, which Jeannie had bought; and these too were dangled before him in such a way that when accepted, kudos was obtained.

  Penny, meanwhile, was having her own passage of fame. Fred being too young to carry anyone, Penny had to play the role of the patient beach donkey. Can I have a ride? Can I? Can I? Up and down the field she went, solemnly and safely. Sometimes two astride her back, sometimes even three. She plodded on in the manner of a donkey who knew how to earn its living. She waited quietly as someone was heaved upon her back, she moved on at the right moment, she halted as soon as a fair ride had been completed. Can I have a ride? Can I? Can I?

  There they were, two donkeys with ice cream smeared about their faces, sucking lollipops, Fred a toy donkey, Penny a working one, when the time came for The Cake. Jeannie had made it, a table on the field was ready for it, and there was a single candle.

  The air was still, and with ceremony the candle was lit. The table was at the bottom of the field above the wood and so its shelter helped the flame to burn steadily and with no fear of it flickering out. All around were Fred’s guests. There was chattering and laughter, and from somewhere in the background a small voice began the customary birthday song.

  ‘Too soon!’ someone else shouted.

  Fred, at that moment, had not arrived. He was a few yards away in a cluster of admirers, a girl with golden hair holding the halter, and all of them edging Fred towards the climax of his party. He did not want to be rushed. He was going to arrive in his own good time. And suddenly the shouts went up: ‘Here’s Freddie! Happy birthday, Freddie! Good old Freddie!’ Treble voices sailing into the sky. A moment in time that many years away, most would remember. Nothing complicated. The same pleasure that centuries have enjoyed.

  Fred reached the table. The candle on the cake, a strong, confident flame, awaited him. But I do not think anyone who was present believed he would so successfully fulfil their secret hopes.

  As the children sang his birthday song, Fred pushed his head forward enquiringly towards the candle, snorted; and blew it out.

  The children had gone, Minack was quiet again, and we now awaited Geoffrey; and we soon saw him coming down the lane. There was a sense of continuity about the sight of him, as if it were one of those days years ago, when he worked at Minack; and it would have been easy had I shut my eyes, to believe that Shelagh was riding down the lane behind him on her bicycle, and that Jane too had arrived across the fields from her cottage above the cliffs she loved. These three, in a period of struggle for survival, had given us their loyalty and enthusiasm; and now that I saw him again, his presence drove a sharp awareness into my private world of doubts and frustrated plans that once again we could set about building upon the base of Minack.

  In this impermanent world in which restlessness is a deception for contentment, in which the individual can only salvage what he can from the twilight pressures of the mass, in which to be sensitive is no longer a grace, in which haste without purpose, second-hand pleasures, package thinking and noise for the sake of it, are the gods of millions; in which truth is an expendable virtue in the pursuit of power, and in which youth is compelled from the beginning to worship materialism, Jeannie and I could touch the old stones of Minack, brace ourselves before the gales, listen to the sea talking and to the gulls crying, be at one with the animals, have time to search our inward selves and fight the shadow which is the enemy; and marvel at the magic which had led us to a life we loved so much.

  ‘Do you realise,’ said Jeannie, after Geoffrey, as enthusiastic as we had hoped him to be, had gone back up the lane and the date of his return had been agreed, ‘that we now can go away as we planned a year ago?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And neither of us now want to?’

  ‘Neither of us.’

  ‘It seems to prove something.’

  ‘What?’

  Jeannie paused for a moment, leaning against a rock and staring out into the wide sweep of Mount’s Bay.

  ‘I suppose I mean,’ she said, ‘that if individuals are to be truly happy they should have a purpose in life which does not trample on others.’

  ‘Only a few can have such an opportunity. The rest have to fight for a living in jobs they do not enjoy.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. We are one of the few . . . and we have realised it.’

  ‘We have solved what we set out to solve a year ago.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The dying sun was beginning to touch the fields across the valley. The shadows of boulders were sharp. The pilchard fleet of Newlyn was busily setting out towards the Wolf Rock. A happy day. A soft breeze off the sea, curlews flying high and calling, a woodpecker laughing.

  ‘Let’s go and see the donkeys,’ I said.

  We reached the field and saw no sign of them.

  ‘That’s funny. I hope I didn’t leave the gate open.’

  ‘Look, there they are!’ said Jeannie.

  At the far end of the field beneath the distant hedge I saw Penny standing dozily upright. On the grass beside her, lying outstretched, was Fred sound asleep. A donkey who had had a party, enjoyed every minute of it, and was now exhausted.

  We did not disturb them.

  Fred with Susan and Janet

  Fred’s birthday party

  His guests vie with each other

 

 

 
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