When I finish my tea she says abruptly, 'Will Susie be back tomorrow?'
I assure her that she will. 'Oh thank goodness for that,' she exclaims, smiling for the first time. It's definitely not a smile for me, though. She's already standing up, snatching my empty cup away.
I leave with a mega sense of failure. The fact that she's known Susie for eighteen years does nothing to stem the tide of inadequacy drowning my modest ambition to be a really good postwoman. I'm just not cut out for this, I think sadly as I plod back into the rain. Eighteen years, Susie's been a postwoman. At this point I doubt if I'll stick eighteen days.
As I climb back into my van and set off, I start musing about where I was all those years ago. I didn't even know Ben then, I think as I drive on to the little hamlet down the road. It's hard to remember how it was before I met him. The way we met, though, is unforgettable. Not because it was romantic, but just too bizarre to forget.
I was in London, on a diploma aromatherapy course. Working for a cosmetics firm, having learned about the benefits of various plants and oils not just for cosmetic purposes but also for therapeutic ones, I wanted to learn how to use them for healing and massage.
I'd read the blurb about the course, stating that on the first day there would be background lectures, theory, history and so on. This was fine by me and I came dressed accordingly, wearing a new, casual white tracksuit.
When I got there I felt relieved that I'd worn something fairly flattering. The white of the outfit set off the tan I'd acquired on a recent work related week in Florida. I'd worn my hair down, as we wouldn't be doing practical work, and it tumbled around my shoulders, even blonder than usual because of the sun streaks. There were mostly women on the course, already waiting when I arrived, and a handful of men.
One man caught my eye immediately. Dishy but with an open, intelligent, good-humoured face that I instantly liked. As if he knew I was looking at him, he turned to me and smiled.
I by-passed the others and sat in the chair next to his. 'Hi, I'm Tessa.'
'Ben.'
We eyed each other appraisingly. This was going to be a good course, I thought.
All went well until the lunch break, when our tutor announced that we should choose a partner to do some practical work in the afternoon. Ben turned to me. 'Can we work together?'
I panicked. There was nothing I'd like more but there was a huge problem. I had nothing on under my track suit bottoms. Because they were white and fitted snugly, there was a visible panty line if I wore them, so I did without. How was I to know that we were required to shed our outer garments in the afternoon session, so that we could start working with the aromatherapy oils?
'What's the matter?' Ben looked confused. 'Would you rather work with someone else?'
'No. Uh, no, no, not at all.'
I couldn't explain, not then. He went on, 'Then should we grab a sandwich? We've got a half hour before the practical and there's a café on the corner.'
'No!' I realized I was shouting and toned down my voice. 'I mean, no thanks. I've got a few things to do during the break.' I was thinking fast.
I ran outside. The course was being held in one of those residential parts of London where there wasn't a shop for miles, not the kind that sold women's lingerie anyway, but an ex-boyfriend of mine, Tony, lived only a street away. While I got his number on my mobile, I crossed the fingers of my other hand and prayed that Tony was home. He was.
I explained the problem. Tony, knowing me well, somehow wasn't surprised. 'How can I help, though? You want to borrow a pair of my boxers? They'll be a bit big.' Tony is huge, broad and muscular.
'Not yours. I was thinking of Caro's.' She was his girlfriend and though they didn't live together, I knew she was at his place often.
At last Tony got back to me. 'I found a good stash. You're in luck.' I ran most of the way. Tony was waiting at the door, a pair of white bikini briefs edged with pale blue lace dangling from his little finger.
I got back just as the group was beginning the practice session. Half the class was lying on the special treatment beds, clad in panties and bra, and the other half were being given oils to work with and directions by the tutor.
Ben was waiting for me. I mumbled an apology for being late. 'Should you go first or should I?' he asked.
I didn't mind. I was now chastely covered where it mattered, and would not be disgraced in front of the whole class.
We smiled at each other. I knew that it wouldn't be long before we'd be getting to know each other much, much better, and that I'd be telling him the whole story of my ex-boyfriend's girlfriend's knickers.
Firmly back in the present, I stop at the hamlet down from Eleanor Gibland's cottage. It is a cluster of six granite and slate houses on a slope overlooking the sea and I park the van where Susie had parked when she was showing me the route, in a rough lay-by at the edge of the narrow track up to the houses. Then I grab my satchel ready to set out, but first I have to sort out the dog biscuits, as this is deep canine country. Susie had given me a list of each dog's requirements. The first two houses have either sheepdogs or mutts that will eat anything, the third one with a yellow door has a cat and no dog, but the last three are tricky. There is the border terrier that will only eat the green biscuits and an odd poodle/ bearded collie cross that likes only the bone-shaped yellow ones. As for that last house at the edge of the cluster, there is a black German shepherd dog that will eat anything you throw into the enclosed garden, including posties if you're not careful.
'But not to worry, m'bird,' Susie had said, nodding her sage head. 'He's locked in the garden and the postbox be outside so he can't get to you.'
It starts well enough. The first two houses are silent and closed, the owners either still in bed or not at home. The dogs inside bark but no one comes to look so I put the post inside the front porch of one as I'd been shown and drop the letters for the other into a plastic box with a lid and a rock on top, just outside the door. I put a dog biscuit inside each one, too, so as not to disappoint the dogs. The house with the yellow door and the cat looks empty but there is a proper letterbox in the door and I slot the post in there.
The owner of the border terrier is a sweet, simple sort of woman who wishes me the luck of the Irish in my new job. She doesn't sound at all Irish, and I'm sure I don't either, but I'll accept any luck thrust on me and thank her profusely. We grin happily at each other. Her dog Lily is happy too, sitting down without being told for her green biscuit. I am so impressed I give her two.
'Now that 'twas kind of you, maid, but we mustn't do that. Only one. Lily would get fat, now wouldn't you, me darling,' she chuckles over the dog who is eyeing me hopefully, knowing a sucker when she sees one.
The bearded collie/poodle cross is a bouncy dog that comes bounding out when its owners come to the door: a roly-poly man with his roly-poly wife peering over his shoulder. I'd met them before, with Susie, so we greet each other like old friends and I give their dog his yellow bone-shaped biscuit. Only one this time, though. I've learned my lesson.
The man says, 'Oh poor Blackie.'
His wife tuts behind him, 'Susie always gives him at least two.' Their initial friendliness is turning to disapproval.
'Oh, right. Of course. Here, Blackie, here's another one. Good dog – hey, gentle! OK, good boy.'
'Girl,' comes the chorus from Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
The last house is the one with the German shepherd. By now the fog and rain have cleared and the sky is black and blue with racing storm clouds over the sea. The light is exquisite, one minute a mustard yellow dawn colour, the next dark and shadowy as the clouds clump together. I am feeling jaunty and pleased with myself. Maybe I can do this job after all.
The dog must be inside the house as there is no sign of him in the garden. I don't hear him either and assume he is out with his owner whom I haven't met yet. I put the post in the letterbox outside the gate and am turning to go when there is an almighty racket, barking and howls like
a wild beastie, along with more human but petrified shouts and screams.
'Batman, stop! Come back, stop! Here boy, here!'
Batman? I think wildly as I stand frozen to the garden wall.
Then there is a roar and a growl as a huge monster of a dog jumps onto my chest and pins me back against the wall, his massive jaw at my throat. I nearly faint with terror.
'Batman, get off ! Leave, stop!' The woman, who is as tiny as her dog is huge, is pulling on the beast which refuses to budge. I can smell his rancid breath in my face. I am scared witless.
'Batman!' she screams one last time as he's about to devour me. 'Ham!!'
The dog wilts. Like a pussycat, he daintily disengages his huge paws from my shoulders and meekly sits down at his owner's feet. 'Sorry, be right back, don't go away,' she murmurs as I try to stop hyperventilating. 'I must be givin' 'im his ham now or he won't believe me next time.'
To my horror she scuttles away into the house, leaving me alone with the beast. But he doesn't even glance at me, he's too busy salivating in the direction the woman disappeared.
She comes back with a thick slice of ham as round as a dinner plate. I've collapsed on a large stone in her garden, trying to recover the movement and strength in my limbs that fear has drained away. We both eye the dog as he gulps down the food. When he finishes he lies at her feet and goes to sleep, meek as a lamb.
I'm still in a state so I say, testily, 'I could have had a heart attack there, the way he leapt up at me ready to tear my tongue out.'
'I don't understand,' she says. 'He's never done that before.'
It is the first time I have heard those words but I seem to intuit that it won't be the last. Not just from this woman and this particular dog, but from the owners of countless other yappy, tiny creatures and huge, hulking hounds who think baiting – or eating – the post man or woman is the greatest thrill life has to offer.
Now the woman begins to apologize as I take deep breaths with one eye still on the dog. Then I take a good look at her. She's not young and she's the tiniest woman I've ever seen. She looks as if a gentle sea breeze would knock her over. What is a woman like this doing with a dog like that? The dog opens an eye and growls, as if he knows what I'm thinking.
The woman knows too, for she says, 'He be my great-grandson's. Eee 'ad him since a pup. Batman stays down-along with me most times, when the lad's over t'Newquay surfing. A great one for the surf, that boy.'
Great-grandson? She might be frail, but she only looks late middle-aged. Maybe they breed young in this rural doggie hamlet, or else there's a fountain of youth tucked somewhere behind one of the creeks.
I give her the biscuit that I'd been clutching in my hand before the attack. 'Here, you can give it to – did you say his name is Batman?'
She looks up at me. Her smile is bigger than the rest of her put together. 'Our lad 'twas only a young sprog when he got the pup. He named it. Sounds a bit daft, I know.'
I'm not so sure. Isn't the original Batman a bit of a tear-away, leaping about giving criminals their due? Maybe this one can't distinguish between criminals and the Royal Mail. He knows his food, though. The biscuit is snapped up and she's lucky a finger didn't go with it.
We say goodbye amicably after she apologizes again for not having Batman locked up in the garden, for she knows he can be 'a bit of a handful'.
'Oh, that's fine, no problem,' I wave merrily as I run back to the van, listening to Batman's renewed barks and howls as he wakes from his slumber and realizes I've dashed away before he can dismember me.
The day continues to be traumatic. As well as the dog, there's a feral cat hiding behind a monstrous spider plant in the front porch of one of the houses I deliver to. 'Just stick any letters under one of the plants; the porch door is never locked,' Susie had told me. She must have forgotten about the cat, or maybe the creature only likes Susie – like Eleanor Gibland, I think ruefully. Maybe cats, dogs and humans all know instinctively I'm just not a proper post person, I muse as I scrabble for a tissue to wipe the blood from my hand. The overfed tabby leapt on me as I lay the post under the plant, scratching my hand badly.
After the cat, I start to relax. I've been attacked by both domestic animals and the chances are low that lightning will strike twice. Besides, I hear no barking as I park the van at the next farmhouse and walk up a gravelly path to the front door. Some sparrows are hopping about at the edge of a puddle but there's no other sign of life.
And then I hear it. It's the weirdest noise, like the gargling of a strange beast. Gurgle, gurgle . . . gobble, gobble . . .
'Help!' I yelp as a mass of feathers, flapping wings and strange gurgling noises flies towards me.
There are more shouts, human ones this time, and the feathered thing gets driven back. I've been driven back too, against my van where I'm panting heavily, trying to get my heart beating normally again.
'Yo, m'lover, you be alright, maid? 'Tis only Reginald. Ee be gettin' a bit frisky now and agin, gettin' out'a his pen and all.'
It turns out Reginald is a turkey, being fattened up for the family for Christmas. 'You're . . . you're going to eat Reginald?' I ask, a bit nonplussed that they're going to eat a creature they've named.
'Aye, maid. That un's Reginald the Seventh. Been keepin' our own turkeys fer seven years now. Tastier than any old joblot bought at the butchers.'
There is only one more trauma, a minor one compared to the others, when the van stalls as I'm driving up a steep incline on a concrete road to a farmhouse and starts to roll backwards. I manage to get it going again and chug slowly up the hill, getting halfway before it stalls again and back down I go.
I try a third time, revving the accelerator and trying to ignore the smell of burnt clutch. Finally at the top, the sight of a tall, skinny man standing at the farm gate staring at me like some raggedy scarecrow causes me to forget to put the handbrake on and as soon as I jump out to give him his post, the van starts to roll backwards again.
'Goin' agin,' he observes.
'I can see that,' I say tightly as I jump back in to put on the brake.
I hand him what look like a couple of bills and a sheaf of adverts. He takes them and grunts. I wave goodbye, striving for a cheery expression. After all, Christmas is next month.
His farewell words follow me down the hill, 'You best get a vehicle that goes forward d'reckly and not back where it came from.' I hear him guffawing at his little joke all the way down to the main road.
The van coughs and splutters on a few more hills but manages to get back to the post office in St Geraint where I leave it at the Royal Mail parking space behind the boat yard. Then I take my bag and anything I couldn't deliver such as registered post where no one was in to sign for it or parcels that didn't fit through a letterbox and there was no dry place to put them, back to the post office.
St Geraint is quite a bit larger than Morranport with its one post office, two pubs and one shop. This is a large village, with several pubs, a couple of hotels and a decent size grocery store. It has at least a half dozen boutique speciality shops selling anything from local crafts to designer clothes, as well as a bank, a chemist and an excellent butcher. There's a Spar shop like none I've ever seen before, selling a vast selection of speciality teas, pasta, different kinds of imported rice as well as a deli section with no less than eight types of olives. All the stores face the seafront and in the centre is an exquisitely beautiful harbour with more million pound yachts per square inch than anywhere else in England.
The post office, though, has nothing luxurious about it. It's tiny and cramped. There are four people in it now and it feels crowded. The shop sells cold drinks, sweets, newspapers, a bit of stationery, and not much else. At the back is the post office counter, where I squeeze in behind the woman already there.
'So, how was your first day?' asks Margaret after she finishes selling stamps to a customer and listening to tales of his lumbago. She's being friendly but I can still hear the smirk in her voice. Is it obvious
to everyone what a townie and how unsuitable I am for this job?
I'm a bit wary of Margaret as she seems so frighteningly competent in a pleasant but no-nonsense way.
'Not too bad a day,' I say, fingers crossed behind my back. 'A few cat scratches and Batman, of course.'
She nods, 'Susie warn you about him?'
'Yes, but never mentioned his name. Or the fact that he sometimes escapes from the garden and lies in wait, eager to maim and destroy any postwoman who happens by.'
Margaret shrugs, not even bothering to look up. 'You never know,' she says cryptically. 'You just never ever know.'
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.'
Up With the Larks Page 4