by Rachel Malik
Rene watched her.
Elsie craned her neck sharply to the right.
‘Oh yes, I can see it now. It’s so tall. I wonder when the mine closed, it must have been a long time ago, there’s no sign of anything recent. Did you see how the ground was red from the mine?’ She was babbling.
‘So you like it then?’ Rene said, smiling.
‘The chimney? Oh, you mean the cottage? Oh yes.’
Elsie withdrew from the window and turned to Rene. ‘What about you, Bert? Do you like it? Should we take it?’
She was excited and it fell to Rene to sound a note of caution.
‘Did you see the state of those walls? And the kitchen?’
Elsie nodded but she didn’t look downcast. ‘It’s a lot of work,’ she said. ‘I know it’s a lot of work and we’d have to make do with the furniture.’
‘Which is dreadful.’
‘Which is dreadful.’
‘And probably rotten.’
‘Yes.’
But Elsie had set her heart on the place, that was clear.
‘I’m sure we can set it to rights,’ Rene said. There was something here that reminded her of Starlight – the sky, neat fields that gave way to wilder ground. When the new villas were being built on Sheepdrove, all those years ago, the chalk had fought back and the dust had turned everything white. Elsie had told her how her hair went white, how the cows had coughed and faded. Old Alfred, he had been alive then, had wheezed, everything frosted with dust, the edges of the house faded like an old picture. She could see Elsie standing at the gate, young with her white hair.
let us go forward together.
When they came down to tell the agent, he seemed surprised that they’d reached a decision so quickly; he had two other places to show them, one was in Helston and …
But this was the place they wanted.
‘The second bedroom’s just a box room,’ he said.
They hadn’t even noticed the other bedroom.
‘You’ll have your work cut out.’
Elsie walked past him into the sitting room. Rene still did most of this type of talking.
‘We’ll soon bring it right,’ Rene said.
‘It’s a bit isolated. You’re a good couple of miles from the village here.’
But they knew that, he had told them already. Perhaps he was put out by their resolve.
‘Oh, we’re used to that.’
‘Yes, we’re used to that,’ chimed Elsie from the window.
They made him nervous, his clammy hand when he said goodbye confirmed it. Hardly more than a boy, but it didn’t stop him being curious: his eyes travelled between them, uncertain of their relation and uneasy.
The owner agreed to replace the windows and supply a stove; the rest was up to them. They went to work quickly, cleaning and painting and mending and fixing as they tried to secure another outpost. They salvaged most of the furniture, scrubbing and scrubbing and sanding it on the flattish ground beside the house – it was a good thing the summer was so warm and dry. They had to take the bed apart, and Rene wondered – as they wrestled the frame down the stairs – if they’d be able to set it back together. But they did. They always managed – well, nearly always. They turned a rickety cupboard into some slightly less rickety shelves. They took the little sofa completely to pieces: there was nothing to do about the springs, but they replaced part of the wooden frame, and Elsie made new cushions which they stuffed with horsehair. It would never be comfortable, said Rene, but at least it looked nice, and they could sit down together in the evenings. Most of what was in the kitchen was unusable though, and scant savings had to be spent replacing pots and pans and crockery.
Vinegar, then bleach for the mould, and then they rubbed at the walls with the bristle brush till their backs and shoulders ached. ADD BRIGHTNESS TO CLEANNESS. They tried the same medicine on the floor and the walls of the kitchen, with less success. ‘At least we can paint the walls,’ Elsie said, but the kitchen resisted most of their efforts. It was clean but it still looked filthy. The whole place smelt of vinegar and bleach. The vinegar prickled at throats and eyes, the bleach went lung-deep. CLEAN AND CLEAR. Nib, Elsie’s little black cat, sniffed her disapproval. She spent the sunny days basking in an old trough by the gatepost. But in time the smell of chlorine faded and Nib came inside and spent her afternoons on the sofa. The days were getting shorter, but it was still sunny and the rain stayed off. The cottage came to smell of paint (with an undertone of damp). The paint made Elsie heady; it reminded her of Starlight all those years ago, before the field recorder came. Then, the smell of paint had crept into the house and she had disliked it; now, it wafted out through the windows, vital and pungent – a sign of new life.
And Elsie was making good progress. She was on her own now in the days as Rene was working away at a big dairy farm the other side of Helston. But though she missed Rene, there was such pleasure in showing her what she’d done in the evenings: a new board on the stairs, another set of ingenious curtains made of old shirts and sheeting, the shine she eventually got on the tin bath, inside and out. And Rene, exhausted as she was, from the early rise and the long cycle ride, never failed to enjoy it all, even if she sometimes had trouble keeping her eyes open.
She had borrowed the bike from Mrs Cuff, who owned the post-office shop in Rosenys. And it was through Mrs Cuff that she and Elsie had got the big sack of horsehair for the sofa. Rene had met her when she first walked into the village. She went in search of carbolic and white spirit. She came back with her bag bulging with more indulgent provisions, a good number of them donated by Mrs Cuff, free or cheap because she had ordered too many or because people hadn’t taken to this, that or the other in the way she’d hoped. She was a good-natured woman, and she and Rene hit it off from the first. Rene soon started helping Mrs Cuff – Margaret – with deliveries at the shop, and occasionally delivered parcels in and around the village. It made things easy if there was a letter for her or Elsie – she could just pop it in her pocket.
It remained mild well into November, but by the middle of the month Rene and Elsie declared a temporary halt to all their improvements. They had been working all out since May. What was undone would have to wait till the spring. They spent their evenings quietly now, playing Patience – separate, together – and dominoes – Mrs Cuff had found an old box in her attic. On Sundays, they got up later and took long walks in the morning, armed with a flask of tea. They found a lovely old wood, all fern and oak, and this soon became one of their favourite places.
On the first Sunday of December, they woke to a world all muted and white. From the bedroom window and the kitchen too, the usual landmarks were obscured; only the chimney stood out, though it looked further away than usual. They were up and out quickly: Elsie wanted to see the wood. Heavy-footed, they made their way along the track and the road. There was no one else about and just the sound of a bird here and there, that and the sound of their boots in the snow, so crisp they could almost hear them squeaking. They drank their tea as soon as they reached the wood, tired and hungry, but it was worth the effort. The ferns looked like they’d been iced for a cake, and everywhere there were the little prints and marks of the creatures that had been there before them. Soon they were completely enclosed in the white, branching quiet and Rene remembered the poem:
‘Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.’
In the silence she thought that she heard Jessie, her feet beating out the rhythm.
‘What’s that rhyme?’
‘I don’t know what it’s called. I just remembered it.’
‘I like it,’ Elsie said.
‘It came back to me just now. I don’t know if I can remember the rest.’
‘Is there more? Will you try, Bert? Please do.’
She looked so eager, standing there with the flask in her gloved h
and, ready to wait or to carry on walking. Rene found to her surprise that she remembered the whole thing:
‘My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
‘He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.’
‘Oh, but that’s lovely. Will you write that down for me, Bert? Will you?’
Still so eager. Her eyes were pricking.
‘If you like. Yes, of course I will.’
They found some wonderful holly with great bunches of bright, hard berries, snow-iced. Elsie cut and gathered up as much as she could in her arms. There was mistletoe too, with chill, waxy berries. Rene filled her arms, distracted by the poem and the cold. She paused to stamp her feet and saw that a little way in the distance there were three figures. They were standing still, a woman flanked by two men; she could tell from the way they stood that they were young. They were all dressed warmly for the weather. She couldn’t be sure if they were watching her, it felt as if they were, and then the young woman leant over and said something to one of the men, and the three of them turned and walked quietly away.
Rene and Elsie walked on too – it was time to start for home.
‘What a lovely morning, what a lovely wood,’ Elsie said. ‘“Lovely, dark and deep. And I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep …”’
But I have promises to keep, Rene thought, that’s how she remembered it, such a long time ago, but she said nothing. It sounded better Elsie’s way. Happier.
That same afternoon, Elsie began her Christmas baking. On Rene’s suggestion, she made a cake for Mrs Cuff with a fat coat of yellow marzipan, and Rene made a card for her and her daughter Belinda, her looping script as bold as ever. As Christmas approached, a few cards arrived for them. The first to arrive was from Bertha (and Ernest), duty dispatched (Ernest never wrote his own name, Elsie noticed). As ‘Miss Boston’, Elsie received a card from Major Veesey. It was a postcard of the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, all water and arches; not very Christmassy but a kind thought all the same. As ‘Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves’, they received a card from Muriel Parks, as they did every year. They put the cards on the little cupboard in the sitting room around the wireless. It was a bit of a huddle, but they looked nice enough and Elsie put up sprigs of holly and mistletoe anywhere she could.
There was also a letter, addressed to Rene, which arrived about the same time every year. When she received it from Mrs Cuff, she glimpsed the writing and thrust it in the pocket of her coat, out of sight.
It was a letter from Bertha about the children. Never a long letter and punctuated with other bits of Bertha news. Steve, as she must remember to call him now, had a job in Glasgow working for the telephone service, good money; Mikey (still Mikey) was on National Service in Germany, now he was gone she rather missed having him about; Jessie had gone to work in London. Bertha was a meagre correspondent, but Rene pored over these letters, spinning all manner of stories: some mild and modest, others full of triumph and disaster. If Bertha knew more, Rene would never ask; she must accept what she was given.
Once she had read the letter, it was folded back carefully into its envelope. There was quite a collection of them in the top drawer of the tallboy – kept in a tin box now along with the older relics, Vicky’s letter, the two faded cards, none of them shown to Elsie – the book and the brown velvet ribbon were long gone.
That first Christmas they bought candles, tall and tapering. Rene got them at cost from Mrs Cuff, but Elsie still thought they were an extravagance. They ordered quite a few things from her post-office shop: tinned grapefruit to eat with sugar and ginger; a large round of Cheddar; dates in a narrow box saying Eat Me; and a bottle of port. They also bought a ham and some sausage meat from Mr Marrack at Yew Farm. Rene tended to the mildly reckless; Elsie would always try and temper. Unusually, they chimed with the times, the new plenty still offset by a reassuring austerity (Mrs Cuff’s shop was filling up with new comics and cleaners and all manner of packets and tinned things, but there were no sightings yet of fresh bananas and pineapples). Elsie was sure the Spar at Helston would have been cheaper, but said nothing on this occasion.
They took their ease on Christmas Day. After lunch, they settled on the sofa by the fire and listened to The Moonstone on the wireless, they roasted chestnuts, and shivered at the Shivering Sand. They forgot tea and had another glass of port and Elsie started to talk about Starlight, softly, quietly, something in her tone sounding almost like the wireless; Rene liked the idea of Starlight on the wireless. It was a story that had stuck in Rene’s mind as it had in Elsie’s, the first time they went to Newbury market. Rene could see them arriving in their new cart with Prince. They’d all gone to the market that first time except Moira, who had twisted an ankle. She found it hard to picture Elsie in the jostle and fray of brothers and sisters, thick hair combed and pulled, things borrowed and broken, but Elsie always seemed to hold her own.
‘We had pasties and treacle cake in a big, steamy, smelly tent and Mum bought us all ribbons.’
The boys begged and shared a jug of ale which left eleven-year-old Tom with glassy eyes and hiccoughs that wouldn’t go away. They had all laughed at that, and then Alfred took Elsie off to help him choose the cows. Five toffee-and-white Ayrshires – Rene could imagine Elsie as a little girl, looking at the cows gravely. Each of the girls got to name one. So: Betsy (Cally), Agatha (Ruby), Caramel (Moira), Bell or Bluebell (Elsie), and Mum called the smallest one Snowball. A rather grand name, Agatha, but the cows were going to live like queens. In winter, soft beds of litter and bracken would keep them warm; in summer, they would munch cake and crushed oats along with their grass. Pea princesses, Bert once called them, though they always ate their peas.
Just before they left, Elsie, Bert and Ruby made a last visit to the tent to buy more treacle cake for the journey home. A dark-skinned man came over and started talking to Bert. Elsie thought he must be a fortune-teller with his black eyes and earring, but he had no futures to sell, only puppies in a carpet bag. Part fox terrier, part something long-legged and lanky – ‘They’ll make good ratters,’ he said. Bert went off to ask Alfred and they bought two. ‘Bloody gypsy,’ Bert said, but he petted the puppies readily enough.
A long, slow journey home that first time with the Ayrshires. ‘I’m sure I was the only one who was awake the whole time.’ Cautious of his new stock, Alfred insisted each cow was haltered and led. Ruby, George, Thomas and Cally did the leading. It was quiet once they left the market revellers behind, just the odd drunk rolling homeward. Much later, they passed a man, followed twenty or so yards later by a woman and child, a girl of about Elsie’s age. The man stared ahead though he didn’t seem to see the horizon, and the woman looked steadfastly down at her boots; only the girl looked up and at them as they passed. She smiled, straight and sad, into Elsie’s eyes. ‘They were together, the three of them, though you’d never have known it. I remember them so clearly, Rene. So clear, so many stars, and still a late-summer warmth in the air, and the smell of hay.’ Rene remembered how the high hedgerows along Sheepdrove twitched and crackled. She could feel the start of the steep climb out of the valley, the sky was thick with stars, on and up the hill they went, and then Elsie picked out one more light winking and wavering in the thick dark at the top of the hill: they were home.
‘Bramble and Flossie were such lovely dogs, Rene,’ Elsie said, sipping at the last of her port, ‘but both of them were terrified of rats.’
It grew dark, and they drowsy, and then Rene lit the long, tapering candles and put out the lamps, while Elsie fe
d the animals and the fire. For supper they had chicken sandwiches, too much pepper, even Nib woke from her cushion and sneezed. Then they watched the fire and listened to a concert from Manchester, the Hallé orchestra, and found themselves falling asleep.
* * *
More than a year later, and observed from outside, from the lane perhaps, the success of the Wheal Rock venture still appeared doubtful. Rene and Elsie had built a couple of skittery extensions, one on each side of the cottage, and painted them white. (There was a plan to whitewash the whole cottage but they hadn’t got round to that.) Behind the cottage was a makeshift yard with hutches and runs for chickens and rabbits. They had fenced off the flat ground at the front and found a new gate for the gatepost. But the ‘garden’ was improvised at best. Elsie had never done without a garden, and in the past she had coaxed the most refractory ground to yield and behave. But at Wheal Rock, the ground nearly defeated her. The old mine had soured it, poisoned it in places, and when it was wet, the earth bled orange from the copper. Nevertheless, she had, with immense effort and a great quantity of compost, secured a small vegetable patch to one side of the cottage which was beginning to flourish. In the rest of the ‘garden’, she found a flimsy trail of honeysuckle nearly choked by ivy and other wispy shades of forgotten plantings. She did her best to nurture these, bringing home cuttings from her walks to make more friendly company. But for all Elsie’s efforts, the front continued to look bedraggled, temporary.
At dusk though, the exterior began to change: the chimney smoke wreathed and twisted against the darkening sky, the rickety extensions turned opaque and the dishevelled garden grew blurry and indistinct. By the time it was dark and the lamps glowed orange in the windows, the cottage seemed invulnerable. Rene loved returning when it was dark, her first sight of the lights through the trees as she cycled up the lane. Coming home: Elsie in the kitchen window, standing at the sink, washing, waiting. Sometimes it felt to Rene as if they would always live at Wheal Rock; it was foolish, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself.