It's not just the rare January sun and the compliments that cheer me this month but the fact that all our London visitors are gone. Since we've moved to Cornwall, we've had a rash of guests. It is a well-known fact of life that whenever one moves to an idyllic place, both friends and acquaintances descend like magpies. This is fine in the case of good friends, like Annie and numerous others who have visited us, but we soon learn that people we thought we knew are quite different when actually living in our house. We'd had a couple of colleagues from The Body Shop visit in the autumn as well, and that was fine, but then there were the others.
Seth and I had worked together for my last few years with the company and we'd got on well. When he phoned to say he'd like to visit us and bring his girlfriend, I thought it would be a fun weekend.
They arrived by car at noon the day after Boxing Day. To our surprise, Seth, who is usually outgoing and gregarious, seemed distracted. Introducing us to Samantha, he hardly responded to our greetings, being too busy fussing over the slight but curvy woman wrapped in a white, fake fur coat, her long, shiny, blonde hair hanging over it artfully. 'Samantha's ill,' Seth whispered, his tone hushed as a priest announcing the Pope is dying. 'She needs quiet.'
I was solicitous – at first, until it soon became clear that Samantha was hungover in a major way. I wouldn't have minded if she'd got that way at our house, it wouldn't have been the first time that friends appeared slightly the worse for wear at the breakfast table, but the fact that she'd brought the hangover with her to inflict on us rather irritated me.
However, trying to be sympathetic, I showed Seth the guest room and together we got Samantha under the duvet. Throwing her arm weakly over her face, she mumbled something to Seth. 'What is it?' I asked.
He didn't even look at me. 'D'you have any Alka Seltzer?'
Luckily, we did. I brought her up a glass of the fizzy stuff. Seth, still sitting at the side of her bed, tried to coax her to drink it. I started to creep out of the room but Seth called me back. 'Er, Samantha feels cold.'
I brought blankets – not enough. And filled a hot water bottle.
'Oh, Tessa, d'you mind making it a bit hotter? Samantha's shivering, poor thing.'
After sending Ben out to the shop to get some sparkling water as Samantha didn't drink plain tap water, and me to make peppermint tea when the sparkling water left her feeling cold again, the invalid finally fell asleep and Seth came downstairs.
'Well, that's a pity,' I said. 'I suppose she doesn't want lunch?'
Not only did Samantha not want lunch, she didn't want dinner either, though she sent Seth downstairs around six for 'some brown toast with just the tiniest sliver of butter.' A few minutes later, he was back down with it untouched, asking if the bread could be slightly less toasted and with a bit more butter and perhaps some cheese?
Seth pulled himself away from Samantha's bedside long enough to scoff the special seafood risotto I'd made for them, then rushed off without offering to help with the washing up so that he could make sure Samantha was comfortable.
We never did meet her, for they left at noon the next day as planned and Samantha hadn't once come downstairs. Seth made a half-hearted apology, but he was far more concerned about her than he was with inconveniencing us. All evening, when he wasn't upstairs, he sat moping. Ben, the lucky one, was back at the pantomime, so I had the brunt of Seth's company. He drank copious amounts of wine and got tipsy and maudlin, telling me how wonderful his new 'beloved' was, but how fragile she was too, like a hothouse flower. Yes, he actually said that. Seth, my old workmate, my colleague, once full of fun, drooping over a hungover hothouse flower.
When they left she managed to flutter her fingers at us and say something that might have been thank you, or sorry, or more likely, just plain old goodbye. I couldn't hear as she was muffled up with scarves and a furry hat and didn't even turn around to look at us.
'She's feeling so much better,' Seth called out from the open car window as they drove off. 'Isn't that great?'
All our holiday visitors are now gone and it's an exceptional January day. I take my postbag and walk along the seafront at Morranport. I love delivering on this street, with the sea on my left and a row of Georgian fisherman's cottages on my right. At this time of year the wrought iron balconies are empty and the tidy neat gardens which are bright with buddleia and palms in summer look wintry and rather desolate. I try to imagine what they were like when the fishermen still lived in them. The last ones to fish here had to move uphill away from the sea to Poldowe where house prices were cheaper, years ago when the small harbour village was first discovered by holiday makers. Now they're all gone from there as well. People I've talked to in the houses up the hill are worried about this, wondering what it will mean to their children and for the future.
My bag is light as most of these cottages are empty, their owners back home after the holiday break. I walk briskly, revelling in the cold but windless fresh air, the tangy smell of sea and stone. It's strong today. There are mounds of dark brown and green seaweed swept up on the rocks and beach after the last high tide. Gulls squawk in the sky and on the ground, bickering with each other over snippets of food. The small boats in the tiny harbour cling to the sand like limpets. Some are quite scruffy and in need of a good coat of paint, worn out after a hard winter of being pounded by sea and storms. In between the boats a couple of young boys are prodding the rock pools with small nets attached to long sticks.
Winter's not over yet, though. Despite the deceptive sun and pockets of warmth in sheltered spots, there is a wintry feel still in the air. And over the horizon, black against the bright blue sky, there are clouds looming, biding their time but gathering strength.
I shiver despite the sun as a tiny breeze begins, as if to remind me that it's not spring yet. I walk even more briskly. I've lost half a stone since I started this job, and that's over the Christmas holidays too, when I didn't stint myself on food. It's hard to believe sometimes that I'm actually getting paid to exercise, when back in London I had to pay a personal trainer to get me into the shape I'm in now. I feel fitter and healthier. The lingering cold has gone, vanished without a trace by Twelfth Night. I've got more energy than I've had for years.
Ben does too. The pantomime is over but it was a great success, the seats sold out every night. He's enjoying acting again enormously and is now feeling that wonderful glow of having done a job you love well.
What he'll do now, we're not sure as my postie job is not enough for us to live on. There's the café to fall back on, and the aromatherapy, and I'm optimistic now, sure something else will turn up. We'll worry about it when the time comes. We're learning to live day by day and not get stressed about the future.
I walk on, feeling jaunty and spry. At the end of this row of houses, the village peters out into the coastal path. There's a small, whitewashed, stone cottage on a promontory jutting out over the sea; a salubrious romantic place for a cottage if there ever was one. It gives me great joy that the couple who live here are locals, even though they are not fisher folk. But they come from generations of fishermen. The owner, Archie Grenville's father was one and so were his grandfather and great-grandfather. This was the house he was born in.
Archie and his wife are retired teachers, having met and married in Truro where they both taught at the grammar school. Often on my rounds I see them together in their front room which overlooks the sea. If I climb the stile into the fields and the coastal path, and look back at the village, I can see into the side window of that room, see them sitting on the sofa either reading together, or animatedly chatting while they look out over the water.
I feel like a voyeur when I'm standing watching them but sometimes I can't help it, for a minute or two anyway. They look so calm, so contented, this couple in their seventies, still together after fifty years. And what do they have to say to each other with such enthusiasm on their faces, after all this time?
I watch, fascinated. Jennifer Grenville is standing at the
window and Archie comes up to her, puts his hand on her shoulder, points with the other hand to something out at sea. They stand motionless, watching whatever it is, as I watch them.
Suddenly, I'm punished for my nosiness, for intruding on someone's private moment. As I stare into the Grenvilles' house a sudden gust of wind takes me by surprise and the letter I was about to deliver to them flies over the stile, over the stone wall at the side of their house and into the sea.
I shriek and run after it. The noise brings the couple scurrying to the door. I'm shaking my head, gabbling something inane, telling them I'll be back in a minute with their post, while I scurry over the low wall onto the rocks below. Luckily the tide is out. I'd probably have jumped in anyway and killed myself in the process.
I'd like to say that my first thoughts are for the two old folk whose letter I'd lost. What if it's a longed-for missive from a friend, a son or daughter or an ancient relative? What if it's a notification of a huge Premium Bond win? I'd not looked at the letter at all as I was too busy ogling them. What if in my carelessness I've destroyed what for them would have been a life-changing letter?
I don't think any of those thoughts, I'm ashamed to say. Or not until later. Right now I'm thinking, Oh hell, there goes my job.
I'm balancing on a jagged rock trying to reach the letter which is bobbing about in the foamy waves. The tide is coming in fast and the water is quite deep in places. I'm aware of the Grenvilles hanging over the sea wall and calling out something to me. I can't hear a word they're saying. A wave brings the letter closer and I make a grab for it, nearly falling in. The shouts from the sea wall are becoming more hysterical.
I'm soaked from the turbulence but I don't care. I want that letter. Now I hear someone else, a younger voice shouting and I look up to see the young lads I'd passed earlier. 'Try this,' one of them yells as he throws down his net.
It lands near enough for me to grab the pole without falling into the water. I make repeated stabs at the letter but I miss it each time, causing a crescendo of a groan in my audience. It's still maddingly near and at least it hasn't been swept out to sea but I'm getting angry now and feel like drowning the damn thing instead of saving it. And then another wave crashes in and brings the letter with it, leaving it stranded high, but unfortunately not dry, on the rock behind me as the water recedes.
There's an almighty cheer from the sea wall, where at least a dozen people have gathered. I try a heroic leap from my rock to the other one and topple off, scratching my hands badly. There's a collective gasp from the crowd but I've grabbed the letter, pulled myself up before anyone can try to help. I stand on the rock, waving the soggy paper like a flag. Another cheer from the crowd and I bow modestly before stiffly, inelegantly, clamouring back over the jagged rocks to hand the dripping mess of paper to the Grenvilles.
Jennifer and Archie – we're on first name terms now – ply me with hot coffee, wash out the scratches on my hand and give me a pair of baggy but clean, track suit bottoms to put on while they dry my trousers. The letter which I'd so heroically saved is drying on a radiator. It is an advertisement for loft insulation.
'Never mind, dear,' Jennifer says when we discover this fact. 'It was a brave, if foolhardy, thing to do.'
Archie echoes the bravery bit. 'We'll write a personal letter to the post office, commending your integrity and sense of duty. They should be proud to have women like you working for the Royal Mail.'
Three days later, I kill a cat. Not intentionally, of course not. The cat runs out into the road and dives under the wheels of my van like the most maniacal of suicide bombers.
I stop and rush to the poor thing but it is dead even before I get there. A slight trickle of blood is running from its furry mouth and its spine is twisted oddly. It is ginger coloured with a white tip on its tail and a white face. I recognize this cat: it's Marmalade.
By now three or four people have gathered around me and the dead animal. There is a lot of tut-tutting and shaking of heads but no one is making a move to notify the cat's owners. I'm trembling all over, upset and near tears.
'Please,' I say to the woman nearest me. 'Can you tell the Johnson's – you know, Adam and Elizabeth, they're called, their house is across the road there – can you tell them what happened?'
No one moves.
'It's their cat,' I explain, wondering why I have to do so. In such a small hamlet, everyone knows what animal belongs to whom.
Still there is no volunteer.
I'm becoming agitated. 'Right, I'll do it myself.' I stand up, holding poor dead Marmalade.
'Take it easy, maid,' a white-haired man leaning on a cane hobbles up to me, pats me on the shoulder. 'Ain't no rush.'
'But there is. They've got kids, it's their cat, we've got to tell them before they come out and see the poor mangled thing. They'll be shattered.'
The man holds me back as I start for the house, 'They be gone.'
A woman with a scarf knotted under her chin continues, 'Gone Up Country, back to their own home. Don't live hereabouts, not except for holidays.'
'I know that but they were here over Christmas and into the New Year. They wouldn't have gone without their cat.'
The two begin talking at once. They tell me that Elizabeth, Adam and the twins left a few days ago but had to leave Marmalade as the cat had disappeared.
'Looked all over fer it. Kids howling an' bawling, Ma and Pa frantic-like. Finally had to go without the cat. Asked us to keep watch fer it.'
We stand there for a moment in silence, me still holding the stiffening creature. There is blood on my Royal Mail fleece. Finally I say, 'I'd better phone them, let them know. Does anyone have their number?'
The woman with the scarf does as she looks after the house while it's empty and cleans it before and after their visits. She comes back with the number and with an old towel. 'To wrap it in,' she says.
I assume by this that I am to take the cat away, as no one else offers to dispose of it. So I wrap poor Marmalade in the towel, an old thin beach towel with a faded palm tree on it, and place him with the post in the back of the van.
It isn't far from Morranport so I drive back to use Nell's phone. I have my mobile with me but there's no signal anywhere around here. Nell is sympathetic and insists on seeing the dead cat, no doubt checking that I've got it right, that the animal really is dead and not moribund. I tell her how awful I feel. I've never hit anything, not even a squirrel or a vole, before.
'Not your fault, maid.'
'I know, but I still feel awful. I suppose I'll have to be the one to bury it too. But I'd better ring the owners first.'
I gabble my apologies on the phone to Elizabeth Johnson as I break the news about Marmalade. She is upset but tells me I'm not to blame. Marmalade never was a cat for looking both ways before he crossed a road.
I say, 'Your children will be devastated.'
'Oh my God, the kids! Yes, they will, they will.'
'I'm so sorry,' I say for the hundredth time.
'Oh dear.' She sounds more distraught now than she did when I first told her the cat was dead. 'They'll never forgive us if they can't have a funeral.'
'What?'
'Oh, you know, a proper burial, funeral hymns, prayers, speeches, that sort of thing. The kids love it. They had a big one for the gerbil and one for the terrapin too.'
'Oh. Right.'
'Look . . . sorry, I didn't get your name?'
Just call me Mrs Postie, I nearly say but I don't think she'd get irony right now. 'Tessa Hainsworth.'
'Look, Tessa, I can't deprive the children of their funeral. Could you do us a big favour, and hold the cat until we get down to Cornwall again?'
I think fast. The next school holiday is not until the end of February and it's only the beginning of January. For a hysterical few seconds I imagine myself driving around with a dead, decomposing ginger cat in my van for six or seven weeks. Things like this never happen to Postman Pat, that's for sure.
Elizabeth goes on,
'If you can just put it in your freezer . . . ?'
I am so relieved by this idea that I agree. Somehow, goodness knows how, I find myself saying, 'Fine, we'll keep it for you. No problem.'
When I hang up Nell looks at me, a hard look. I stare back.
'Well, maid,' she says. 'Your freezer or mine?'
We both grin then start to giggle and soon we're laughing so hard we can hardly wrap hapless Marmalade in a plastic bag before placing him at the bottom of the big shop freezer in the back of the post office.
'Fish in the fridge, cat in the freezer – I'm starting to get the hang of this job, Nell,' I sing out as I leave the post office.
''Bout time,' she hollers back with a cheery wave.
I finally forget about the cat when I go back to my beat, for I'm now on my way to Trescatho, a place of cob, stone and slate, accessible only by a narrow lane with high hedgerows on either side.
The fine but cold January weather has held; the sky is blue glass and the sea is jade green. I park the van by a gate leading into a field where early Cornish lambs are skipping in the grass while their mothers, Dorset ewes, graze alongside them. I lean on the gate a few moments and gaze at the sea in the distance, the animals not far from me. They gaze back with momentary interest then return to their munching, oblivious to some starlings quarrelling amongst themselves in the nearby trees until they fly away and the quiet returns.
As usual, I'm overwhelmed by the stillness. Perhaps more than anything it is something I'm aware of in Cornwall, something I'm awed by. I guess it's those years of living in cities where you live with noise, all day and all night. Here, I seem to go from pocket to pocket of calm, quiet, broken only by the beautiful warble of a wren, or the singing of skylarks.
I remember the first time I heard the larks, as I was parked one morning at Creek, having a last look at the estuary before carrying on my round. I heard what I thought was ethereal music, lovely sounds I couldn't recognize, coming from somewhere in the sky. Looking up, I saw tiny bird-shapes and realized the songs were coming from them.
Up With the Larks Page 9