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  Except today. Despite the warmer weather, Sydney is wearing a pair of fingerless gloves, a rich chestnut colour with a bright fuchsia stripe across the knuckle and around the thumb. It’s those gloves again, the same ones that Melanie and Tufty wear in the shop, knitted by Tufty’s mother. I’ve never seen Sydney wear anything like them before; in winter he wears plain old-fashioned brown leather gloves with all the fingers intact.

  I’ve got to ask him about them. ‘Oh, Holly got the gloves for me. She saw the shopkeepers in Poldowe wearing them. Holly told them about my arthritic thumbs so that nice Melanie woman gave her a pair for me.’ He goes on to tell me that even in summer his thumb joints ache, and the gloves have been a godsend. I smile quietly to myself thinking how they are spreading amongst my customers.

  We chat about Woody and Holly, their market garden venture, and the fact that there’s not much work for Woody with trees. ‘He got all qualified, thought he’d be made, but there don’t be much call for a tree surgeon round here.’ Sydney looks quite low, thinking about this.

  ‘It takes a while,’ I reassure him. ‘Word has to get around. He’ll start finding tree jobs as people get to know about him.

  He cheers up, and asks me in for a cuppa. I decline but would love a drink of water. We go into the kitchen which is bare, clean and functional, but rather depressing. There is an old-fashioned white and blue dresser, the kind that was fashionable in the 1950s, with smoky windows on the cupboards that house a few plates, some cups and bowls. That, and a plain pine table, with three chairs, are all there is in the room other than an ancient cooker and fridge, and a sink with a couple of taps. There are no kitchen implements in sight, no saucepans, cookbooks, pictures – only bare walls painted a dull green. Everything seems lifeless. There’s nothing living here but Sydney, who seems to be only half alive himself, functioning on a very basic level. There’s not even a houseplant anywhere. Having a sudden brainwave, I blurt out, ‘Sydney, would you like a cat?’

  He looks at me as if I’m mad, making a suggestion like that out of the blue. I hadn’t thought it through before I spoke, but suddenly a plan forms in my devious mind. Sydney needs something warm and alive in his house, to warm and energise him. And Clara needs to find a home for some of her cats. What could be simpler than that?

  A few days later, when I drive up to Sydney’s cottage he’s not out front waiting for me. I’m instantly concerned. Is he ill? Has he fallen? Woody and Holly aren’t in their caravan or out in the field – perhaps Sydney is in hospital? I go up to the house and am relieved when the door opens and Holly grabs me, pulling me inside. ‘Quick, c’mon in, can’t leave the door open or the cats will escape. Clara says they need to stay inside for a few days until they get used to their new home.’

  Cats? More than one? My plan has been even more successful than I’d hoped, for indeed there are two half-grown felines, one black and grey, the other a multi-coloured tabby, swishing their tails at me from under the kitchen table. Sydney is actually crouched on the floor, calling out to them, making soft mewing noises to entice them from their shelter. Holly, who is pert and tiny, with red and green streaks in her mass of hair, shakes her head in delight as she nods towards the elderly man. The half dozen silver and bronze earrings in each ear shimmer and sparkle in the hazy sunlight coming in through the kitchen window. The sad house of a few days ago is bursting with light and life.

  ‘Look at Sydney,’ Holly whispers. ‘Totally changed since that cat lady, Clara, came out with the bloke who drives the van. They brought the cats and Woody’s granddad has been over the moon.’

  Woody, who has been helping Sydney try to coax the cats out, says, ‘They’re really quite tame, just nervous every time a new person comes into the house.’

  Sydney is standing by now and greets me with the happiest smile I’ve seen yet on his face. ‘I got to thank you,’ he says to me. ‘Clara phoned right after you gave her my number. I didn’t expect her to do it so soon, y’know, after I told you I’d be willing to help out, give one of the strays a home. I didn’t know there are so many. After we talked, I said I’d have two. They’re from the same litter, y’see, so I sort of thought they shouldn’t be split up.’

  ‘Quite right, too. I know Clara and Guy will be pleased they’ve come to such a good home.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so. Clara said they’ll come out later, to see that we’re all getting on just fine.’ He looks fondly at Holly as he goes on, ‘This maid here went and made some scones for me, so’s I can offer it to the cat people when they come out.’

  Holly looks at me and winks. Not only cats for company, but Clara and Guy, too. They’re sensitive souls and could obviously tell Sydney was lonely.

  When Holly walks me out to my van, I notice her fingerless gloves. Bright pink with a deep silvery stripe in the usual two places. She sees me looking, takes them off sheepishly. ‘Yeah, far too warm this time of year, I know, but I got them from the shop in Poldowe for Sydney and couldn’t resist this pair for me. Aren’t they cool? Will be great in autumn. I only grabbed them now as a protection against cat scratches. Tessa, that was an ace idea. I thought of a dog, but Sydney lost his favourite dog five years ago and vowed he’d never have another. I never thought of cats.’

  ‘Well, I deliver post to Clara, so I know she’s always needing homes for them.’

  ‘Brilliant plan, absolutely brill.’ Her animated face suddenly turns pensive. ‘It’ll give him something to worry about, other than me and Woody. He frets about us constantly, especially me. He likes me about, but is scared I’ll leave cause I can’t get work.’

  ‘Would you? Leave?’

  ‘No way, I love Woody, love living with him,’ she sighs. ‘But it’s tough. I do need a job.’ Her pixie-like face, a perfect oval with huge blue eyes, the red and green streaked fringe of hair covering her eyebrows, brightens again. ‘Still, we’ve got the allotment. Mebbe I’ll be a whiz at growing veg!’

  ‘I hope you’re better than I was,’ I laugh. As I get into the van, I see that Woody has come out. He has one arm around Holly’s shoulders and he waves goodbye with the other. Sydney comes out, too, making sure the kitchen door is tightly shut, and stands next to the young couple. They seem happy and together, and I hope it lasts a long time.

  March continues to make up for the hard winter by being even more mild than usual, and every week feels warmer. In this part of Cornwall, spring always comes earlier than anywhere else in England, so it is magical now. Going to work is almost blissful, the dawns are stunning over the sea and surrounding countryside. Birdsong fills the morning sky: larks, blackbirds, and robins join the chorus, and before that there are owls crying and calling in the starlit nights. This morning, as I deliver my post, I see six buzzards flying over a wooded copse, making their distinctive high calls. They look so graceful, gliding as if free-falling on those massive wings. I’ve noticed so many more around this year, noticed, too, how the rabbits, on which buzzards feed, have increased in numbers as well. Familiarity with the countryside we’ve made home has grown with each year. At first it was all new and wondrous, and although the wonder is still there, in place of the novelty of everything has come a deep sympathy with the land and the creatures that inhabit it. The connection between all things in nature – human beings included – has become so much a part of me since settling here. Nothing lives and dies in isolation: foxes are killed so rabbits increase, rabbits mean more food available so the buzzards increase. And so the cycle goes on.

  This fresh spring morning is full of things I never knew before we moved here. I couldn’t even have identified the buzzard I see nearly every day sitting on the same telegraph pole. I pass a meadow of fine-looking sheep and stop to admire them. Many of the ewes are pregnant, and now I can tell which are carrying young and which are merely carrying too much fat. I also know what that blue mark is on a ewe’s back, something I used to wonder about when we lived in London and only holidayed in Cornwall. It lets the farmer know which ewes the ram has serviced
when he’s put in the field with them. The ram’s chest is marked with the special blue paint and when he mounts a ewe, he leaves his mark on her fleece.

  I’ve grown more familiar with the sea, too. As I deliver the post in Morranport on this fine day, I watch the way the waves are moving and somehow I know, without knowing how I know, that the light wind freshening the air is coming from the west. The tide is high, too; it’s a spring tide, lapping right up to the sea wall. The scent of it is heady with seaweed and salt. I know it’s a spring tide rather than a neap tide because the moon was full last night. I’d never heard of a neap tide before, and now I know that it’s a kind of a low high tide, which, like all tides, is governed by the moon. A neap tide only occurs when the moon is a quarter or three-quarters full, so that’s how I know this must be a spring tide. I haven’t looked up such facts in a book or googled them – this seems to be knowledge I’ve acquired by listening to those who live by the sea, fishermen, their wives and children, and others who were born and grew up on the Cornish coast. I’ve also learned that during the low spring tide is the best time to find unusual shells and strange, tiny sea creatures that are revealed when the sea peels right back from the beach.

  The post office and shop in Morranport is run by a feisty eighty-something-year-old who makes me realise, encouragingly, that eighty is the new fifty. Nell is a fun, flirty, buxom Cornishwoman who has been running the post office for years but has been threatening retirement off and on for a decade or so, according to the villagers here. The year I arrived, I took her seriously, and was happily surprised when she was still there months later. Nell is wearing a bright yellow fluffy jumper that matches a paper daffodil she’s tucked into her short, unruly white hair. This is something new, and I wonder what’s up. Perhaps, like me, she’s celebrating the joys of spring. I’m about to ask when I see she’s talking to a man of about the same age, though I can’t quite recognise him as he’s half hidden by a shelf of postcards.

  ‘Sydney, you best be off now,’ she’s saying to him, though her body language is saying otherwise. She’s smiling flirtatiously at him.

  I recognise Woody’s granddad now. He’s saying shyly, ‘There’s not any customers here, Nell.’

  Nell pushes him away in a gesture of mock annoyance. ‘Are you saying that I don’t work when the customers be gone? Why, if you could see the paperwork, and the stocktaking, and organising, and managing, you’d be wondering I had the time to wish you a good morning. Shame on you, Sydney.’

  Her words, combined with her body language – Nell hasn’t made a move away from Sydney – are confusing him, though he’s obviously enjoying her banter for he’s not moving either but smiling sheepishly at her. Finally, Nell notices me looking at them. ‘And what you be grinning at, my maid? Are you thinking I be wasting the post office time instead of working?’ She glares at me, but I know her well, now. She’s a sweetheart underneath her stern looks and gruff words, and we get on just fine.

  ‘If everyone worked as hard as you did, Nell, the Royal Mail would be rolling in money. This must be the busiest post office and shop in Cornwall.’

  As if to prove my words, the place fills up and there are now a couple of people waiting at the little post office window. Nell goes off at once to serve them and have a pleasant exchange of gossip, while I say hello to Sydney who is looking quite sprightly, clean shaven, and with a fresh haircut. ‘How’re the cats?’ I ask after we’ve talked about the glorious weather. ‘I didn’t see them about when I last delivered your post.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll have been sunning themselves out and about somewhere. Dear’ums, both of them. Such friendly creatures. They don’t half eat, though. Seems I been popping out every day to the shop here to pick up another tin of cat food. Nell has been such a help. She’s had cats for years, knows the kind of grub they’re partial to.’

  Aha, I’m thinking, so that’s how this flirtation has started, for that’s definitely what it looked like, that little exchange with Nell. Morranport is Sydney’s closest village, and about as far as he goes these days in his ancient Mini, so of course he’ll get his provisions here. I chuckle to myself, thinking that the cats have certainly cheered him up, got him out of the house more often. From the look of it, he’s been a frequent visitor here lately.

  By now the shop is even more crammed with people buying provisions for a picnic, a bucket and spade for the little ones, cold drinks, and various other odds and ends. Sydney says, ‘Nell’s right, you know. The shop seems to be getting busier and busier, and it’s not even the Easter holidays yet.’

  ‘It will be in another week.’

  ‘She’ll be run off her feet, poor woman.’ He looks truly upset at this.

  ‘Oh, Nell can handle it,’ I say to reassure him.

  He looks even more distressed. ‘But she shouldn’t have to. That’s why I suggested Holly.’

  ‘What?’

  He takes my elbow gently, leads me to the tinned tomatoes and baked beans in the corner of the shop to keep out of the way of customers who keep bumping into us as they browse around the tiny space. ‘You know – Holly, Woody’s girlfriend. Such a sweet little maid.

  ‘Yes, I know who you mean, Sydney, I was asking what it was you were suggesting to Nell about her.’

  He takes my elbow again and leans his face down towards mine. I get a whiff of aftershave. It smells like something he’s had in his bathroom cupboard for decades, but at least it’s not too overpowering. He has to stoop down to make sure I hear, for his voice has dropped to a whisper. ‘Holly needs a job, and Nell needs help in the shop. You see what I’m getting at?’ He straightens up triumphantly, looking as if he’s solved several world problems in one go.

  I say, ‘Have you mentioned this to Nell?’

  He nods. ‘The other day.’ His look of triumph falters. ‘She acted like she didn’t hear a word I said. She’s a wonderful girl, our Nell, but she can be a mite stubborn at times, y’know.’

  Nell, stubborn? The understatement of the year, I nearly said. And I’ve never heard her described as a girl before. Sydney is going on, ‘Any chance of helping me in this, Tessa? Nell likes you, she’ll listen to you.’

  I tell him I’ll try, because I think it’s a good idea. Morranport, as well as St Geraint and all the coastal areas of Cornwall, doubles or even triples in size during the school holidays and summer months, and Nell certainly is run off her feet. She still has the locals who come into the post office with packages to mail, stamps to buy, cars to tax, and all the sundry services post offices continue to provide, despite the Internet taking over many of these things. The villagers like the face to face contact, the chats, the walk to this tiny post office perched practically on the sea. For some, it’s their only contact with other people except for their post deliverer. So Nell has these to deal with, along with the extra visitors buying shovels, spades, and fishing nets, and day-trippers buying ice creams, cold Cokes, and the Cornish pasties Nell gets in from the bakery.

  I get a chance to talk to Nell alone before I leave. For a few moments the shop is clear and I jump at the opportunity. Nell hardly hears me out before interrupting, ‘You be saying I’m too old for this job? That it’s time I be put to pasture? Retired? Or just shot and dumped into the pond, like they used to be doing with lame horses in the old days?’

  ‘Oh, Nell, of course not. Listen, not even I could handle all the people who come in here in summer, and I’m about thirty years younger than you are.’

  ‘You got some cheek, maid, thinking you be knowing how old I be,’ she glares at me, but her eyes are dancing with fun.

  She’s in a mellow mood now so I push my advantage, talk to her about help, at least from now until summer’s end to start with. She knows Holly, and likes her, so that’s no hurdle, but she still stubbornly insists that she absolutely does not need any help at all in the post office or shop.

  I’m about to give up the campaign when I have a brainwave. I say enticingly, ‘Sydney’s so fond of Holly; she’s li
ke a daughter to him. He would be so happy if she found work, especially here with you, Nell. He thinks the world of you.’

  She looks pleased even though she’s doing her best to look stern. ‘Hmmph,’ she says. She’s not usually a woman of few words so that’s encouraging.

  I go on, ‘One thing does worry me. With Holly here as well as you, you’ll never be able to get rid of Sydney. He’ll be hanging around the shop even more than he seems to be doing since he got those cats, always in your way. Nice as he is, I know you wouldn’t want that.’

  Nell clears her throat, ‘D’you know, I be thinking while you be nattering away, that I have forgotten how crazy it be in summertime. Why sometimes so many folk are crammed into this little place that drawing a breath be near impossible.’ She waves me an offhand goodbye and I leave with my bag of post for the residents of Morranport.

  I see her again a couple of hours later, back at the post office. ‘Oh hello, maid,’ she greets me with a smile. ‘I phoned that nice Holly to help out in the shop when we be getting rushed. Thought I’d be telling you before someone else blabs it to you, seeing as since you’re the postie here.’

  I smile to myself as I walk out the door. Diplomacy and general animal cunning are as necessary here in rural Cornwall as they are in London, sometimes.

  Before I leave the post van in St Geraint I stop at the tiny cottage belonging to Tufty’s mother, Angela, the knitter of those colourful fingerless gloves. She wasn’t home when I tried to deliver a package to her earlier, and she’d forgotten to leave the porch door open as she usually does when she’s out. There’s a letterbox for the thinner mail, but this is a bulky package that I didn’t want to leave outside. It’s no problem calling again, as I pass close to her cottage on the way to the boat yard car park.