Seagulls in the Attic Read online

  I’m immediately concerned. The woman is in her nineties after all. ‘Oh goodness, is there anything I can do? Do you want me to look in on her, check she’s all right?’

  He is indignant. ‘’Twould make her madder than a March Hare, maid. She likes her independence, that one.’

  I’m reluctant to leave when for all I know, Edna could have fallen down those long stairs in the house, or slipped on one of the rugs scattered indiscriminately on the old slate floors of the hall and kitchen. But Hector is the picture of ease, having closed his eyes again and lifted his face to the sun, politely but soundly dismissing me. Worried though I am about Edna, there’s nothing I can do but say goodbye and carry on.

  I pass through the tangled front garden and on through a gate into ‘my’ piece of land. I can get there from the road as well, but I decided, when I took on part of the field next to the house, that it would be good to check on the Humphreys when I go by. I’ve learned that they have no relatives in the area – their one son emigrated to New Zealand years ago. He visits when he can, but it’s not often. He’s nearly seventy and is in very poor health apparently. I assume from the way they live that Edna and Hector have to be careful about their money. They won’t take any cash for the allotment though and from the look of them, they can’t eat much so they won’t be taking many eggs or vegetables. I know I’ve got a very good deal and I’m so grateful that I’m hoping I can repay the couple by doing whatever odd jobs they might need done. At least with my hens here, I have to come everyday so I’ll be around to keep an eye on them.

  But now I’ve got my own job to do. I stand still for a few moments taking in the rich earth, dug and waiting to be planted. Birds are giddy with song on this first real spring morning – there are skylarks, robins and thrushes singing their little hearts out, with the blackbird joining in lustily and blue tits twitter away, a kind of background sound to the others. A song keeps coming into my head, the old nursery rhyme I used to croon to the children, ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockleshells . . .’ Well, I don’t know about bells and shells, but how about, ‘With spinach, beans and lettuces, and pretty leeks all in a row.’

  The earth smells lush and rich, as if it’s so full of secret growing things, you can almost feel it humming with life. Beyond my allotment is a field of ewes and new lambs, the grass they’re grazing on a dazzling contrast to the blue of the sky. There’s not a trace of March wind in the air, and in fact it’s so warm I take off my old patched jacket and sit down on a flat stone by the side of the gate to the field, for no other reason than to gaze at my garden-to-be. ‘Postie, postie, warm as toastie, how does your garden grow?’ I sing to myself. ‘With parsnips beet and more to eat, and runner beans all in a row’.

  I’m about to go into a third verse when I hear a voice. ‘Tessa m’dear, are you all right?’ I turn to see Edna peering at me through her huge, round, old-fashioned specs with the tortoiseshell frames. She’s standing on her side of the gate into the field which is my allotment.

  ‘Oh fine, thanks, just fine.’

  ‘That’s good, dear. I thought I heard you talking to yourself; it worried me slightly. You don’t want to start that at your young age.’

  I make some kind of gurgling noise in reply, indicating that I appreciate her little joke even though I’m not sure it is a joke. ‘But what about you? Hector said you weren’t feeling well this morning.’

  She looks cross at this. ‘Hector talks rubbish sometimes, I’m right as rain. Now, can I do anything to help you with that? You look a trifle flummoxed. Hot and bothered, my dear.’

  I assure her that everything is fine, that I’m just about to begin planting. I show her my basket with the onion sets, the dried pea seeds ready to go straight into the ground and the tiny leek plants I got from Daphne, who lives and farms with her husband, Joe, just outside the village.

  Edna looks at my prize specimens solemnly through her owl glasses that cover half her face. I’ve never seen such enormous ones. She is like a tiny bespectacled wren with her little legs encased in old sheepskin boots, her wisp of feathery hair, her small beak-like nose. She’s wearing something brown and non-descript but instead of a jacket or coat, she’s put on a waist-length, blue velvet cape with a silver clasp at the neck. It looks like something her great-grandmother might have worn to a ball.

  After she’s examined my seeds and plants, she says, ‘If you’re sure you don’t need help, I’ll leave you to it. But do call Hector or me if you get into any difficulty, dear.’

  She walks away, stately as an ancient queen and I’m left feeling rather bemused – isn’t it supposed to be me helping her? But I’ve got work to do, and it’s time I began. I start with the five leek plants, diligently making a hole for each one and tenderly putting it in. I’ve taken off my gardening gloves as I love the feel of the earth between my fingers. Bliss, I think, sheer bliss.

  Next the onion sets. I plant out each one separately and lovingly cover it with dirt. A robin perches on the ash tree next to the gate to watch and I stop what I’m doing to gaze back, admiring its rosy little breast and perky face. Finally, I plant the peas. I’ve bought a packet and put them right into the ground. I hope it’s not too early, but the weather forecast is good for the next week and by then March will be nearly over. At least I’ll have made a start.

  When I finish, I sit back down again to admire my work. Admittedly, all I can see is a cultivated field and five little leek plants, but hey, it’s my very first vegetable garden. I can’t count the window box I had in London where I tried to grow herbs. The basil died before its life even began, no doubt because of the cold, and the coriander was a nonstarter. Only the chives survived. We used them in everything.

  I leave by the road gate as I’ve seen Hector and Edna today, and know that they are both alive and well. On my way back I stop at the village to buy milk and run into Daphne. She and Joe are a couple in their late forties who have been farming here since they were first married and they’ve both become friends during the last year. Our children are all the same ages and go to school together.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Daphne asks.

  I tell her in great detail about planting out the leeks and sowing the peas. Oh dear, I’m becoming a gardening bore already. Daphne listens politely but her eyes are starting to glaze over. After all, she’s been growing food for years. We walk out of the shop together as we speak and now stand talking on the road. An old yellow Labrador walks by, out for his morning constitutional alone. The woman who owns him has terrible arthritis in her knees and can’t take him out much, so he’s decided to walk himself. He goes up and down the village twice, keeping to the side of the road to avoid the odd car, and never soils anyone’s garden.

  Daphne and I stop chatting to make a fuss of Old Yeller, as the Labrador’s been called since puppyhood. He’s sometimes joined by Annabel, an apricot poodle whom Annie mistook for a stray with embarrassing consequences on one of her visits here. She hadn’t learned village dog etiquette which maintained that if an animal is well behaved and road trained, it can wander freely around Treverny without interference.

  When Old Yeller leaves us, he goes over to a low garden wall covered with soft green moss where a grey cat sits sunning herself. The dog knows this cat and wants to start a dialogue. He nudges her softly but the cat won’t have it. She smacks Old Yeller soundly across his nose but he doesn’t yelp; she’s kept her claws in. Daphne and I watch with amusement as the dog makes a movement that almost seems a shrug, as if to say, oh well I’ll find someone else to play with.

  Daphne goes back to our conversation we were having before being interrupted by animal antics. ‘What you should do, Tessa, now that your vegetables are all planned, is raise your own animal for food. You’re living in the country after all.’

  ‘I’d love to – all that wonderful organic food. But we just don’t have the room. Can you imagine a cow in our small back garden?’

  Daphn
e rolls her eyes. ‘Knowing you, if you wanted a cow badly enough you’d probably keep it in the house if there was no room outside. Actually, I was wondering about a lamb. You can keep it on our farm; we’ve got plenty of room and we’re close enough that it won’t be a problem for you or one of the family to come out to feed and, look after it.’

  I’m dumbfounded. ‘What a kind offer, Daphne. Are you sure?’ I’m beginning to feel excited about this. ‘It would be amazing for the children, learning how to raise their own food supplies, having some responsibility for their own survival. Great lessons for the future.’ I look at her closely. ‘But are you sure?’ I repeat. ‘Why don’t you talk it over with Joe before we decide anything.’

  ‘Joe will be fine about it. The reason I thought of it is that there are a lot of sock lambs about this time of year; you know, the orphan lambs that the farmers have to bottle feed. They’re a nuisance, so sometimes you can pick one up cheap. We’ve done that before, raised a sock lamb for the meat.’

  ‘But it’s a lot of ask of you.’

  ‘Not at all. We keep sheep as you know and yours can live with ours. No problem. And it’ll be great for my kids, having Will and Amy over all the time, looking after their very own lamb.’

  I run all the way home to tell Ben who is there now, having worked an early shift at the café in St Geraint, the seaside town only a few miles from our village. ‘Ben, we’re going to grow our own lamb chops!’ I shout as I rush into the kitchen. He nearly drops the cup he is holding when I crash in on him.

  ‘Steady on, Tessa. Calm down and have a cup of tea, the kettle’s just boiled. Then tell me what on earth you’ve come up with now.’

  I explain Daphne’s idea and after some initial questions about the management of it all, he’s as excited as I am. I feel giddy with new ideas about feeding the family with our own produce. ‘Think of the money we’ll save, Ben. But even better, the healthy eating we’ll be doing. And the satisfaction! Oh, it’ll be heaven. Maybe we could even see if Daphne and Joe would let us keep a pig on their farm. Or a cow? For the milk?’

  But Ben quite rightly baulks at this and I know I’m getting carried away as usual. He says, ‘We’re both working, Tessa, and the children are at school. We can’t tie ourselves to milking a cow once a day. Besides, it’s extremely difficult apparently when you’ve not done it before.’

  ‘OK, but what about a pig? Maybe the Humphreys would let us keep at pig on their land, what do you think?’

  ‘Let’s just stick to a lamb for now. At least we’ve been around sheep and know a bit about them, thanks to Daphne and Joe and some of the other farmers around here. But we know nothing about pigs.’

  I agree he’s right. Still, first lamb chops, then who knows what next: pork roasts, bacon, fresh ham. The sky’s the limit.

  The next morning I’m up before dawn as usual, to get to the sorting office, pick up the post and get on with my round. Though it’s still quite chilly in the morning, I can feel that the day will warm up beautifully as it did yesterday. The days are lengthening quickly it seems and soon there will be that wonderful summer spell when I actually go to work in the early light. Creeping out quietly as I always do, my postie uniform having been laid out the night before, I’m tempted to drive the short distance to the Humphreys’ place to flash the torch across my garden, admire the newly planted leeks and the neat rows where the onions and peas have been sown. But even I know this is daft; I’ll take a look later.

  I jump into Minger, our old car, a white Peugeot that used to be a police car. It doesn’t want to start but then it never does on a chilly morning. I’ve learned to be patient, for in the end it never fails me. Turning off the engine for a moment to give it a rest, I look out at the sleeping village. A nearly full moon casts a luminous sheen on the grass as well as the trees which are budding up ready to burst into glorious spring leaf. All of the village is clearly visible in the moonlight; it looks as if it’s been sleeping for years and is waiting for a magic wand to wake it. I think about the couple from London who bought a second home here a year or so ago and tried to bully the local council to put streetlights on our one quiet main road. The man said it was awkward holding a torch when walking his dog at night. When all his arguments, threats and pleadings failed, and the streetlight idea was given a firm veto, he got into such a huff that he sold the house, much to everyone’s relief. I suppose he’s now in Devon or somewhere else in the West Country, making trouble for the locals there.

  Thinking thankfully about the absence of streetlights in Treverny, I start Minger’s ancient engine again and this time it grumbles into action. I drive along silent roads to St Geraint where I pick up the postal van which is parked behind the boatyard. Once again I linger, savouring the moonlight on the calm sea. My job, I think. The sea is my office. I still can’t believe it sometimes, that I and my family actually did it, moved from what had become for us a nightmare of commuting, juggling family and job, to this place where I am learning to live again, take deep breaths, stop and look at the stars as I am doing now.

  When I get to the sorting office in Truro, where today I’m picking up the post for St Geraint and Morranport, another, smaller seaside village, things are not so tranquil. It is never peaceful, with the huge sorting office teeming with postmen and women rushing to pick up their deliveries and load them into the waiting vans, but today there’s another crisis.

  Susie, the Cornishwoman who has been my lifeline as I learned this new job, finds me and says, ‘Eddie’s off sick, maid. Only just phoned in, so you and I got to split his round. No one else about who can do it today.’

  Eddie joined us as a relief postie about a year or so ago but now has his own round. He’s young, freckle-faced, cheeky and endearing, always up for a joke and a laugh. He’s not often off work so he must have the flu that’s been going around the villages.

  Luckily we all know each other’s rounds, so it’s not that bad but just makes a longer day. And it’s one of those days when everything seems to go wrong. For a start, the indicators on my van aren’t working so I have to use hand signals. This would be fine if I’d been right about assuming it would be a fine sunny day like yesterday. As the sun comes up the rain rolls in, the horizontal kind that blows right into my face every time I roll down the window to make a hand signal.

  As if I didn’t have enough trouble with the postal van, my old car also gives me grief when I finally finish, wet and soaking and hungry. I didn’t bring any lunch. I thought I’d be home in time to have a late one with Ben, but it’s too late now. Minger, after all my faith and patience, decides to be fickle and rewards me by absolutely refusing to start. I finally get out in the rain which is now a downpour and luckily find Mickey who sometimes works in the boatyard. He’s an ace mechanic and kindly does something magical to get me going again. As I thank him profusely he says in warning, ‘Maid, you need to be taking this old heap in. I’ve patched it up but it won’t last. It do be needing some serious work.’

  Serious work. More money. What we desperately need is a new car but we can’t afford it although this one is costing us a fortune. I drive home feeling rather less euphoric than I did this morning. But after a hot bath, dry clothes, and a great helping of a lasagne Ben has made, I’m feeling more optimistic. Maybe we can get a second-hand car with all the money we will save this year growing our food, producing our own meat. I’ve learned how to make bread and not with a bread-maker either, but with my bare hands. Apart from a few things like tea and milk, and maybe rice and pasta and a few dried beans now and again, we’ll hardly have to spend a penny on food.

  Or so I dream. But why not? I’ve already learned how to nose around junk stores and charity shops, picking up wonderful bargains for less than a pound or two. Luckily vintage clothes are very trendy now and I’ve been able to find some amazing clothes. The library is great for renting DVDs at cheap prices. I not only save money but I’m feeling good about it, recycling not just paper or bottles but clothing, books and other hous
ehold items. It gives me a kind of contentment that all my previous spending on designer shoes or meals out in trendy restaurants never did – a contentment that isn’t just a fleeting buzz but something deeper and more lasting.

  I’m also determined to forage for edible food in the wonderfully lush Cornish countryside. I went on a day’s outing last summer to learn about food foraging. A few of us spent a couple of hours on the cliffs above Morranport, one of my favourite seaside villages. An amazingly knowledgeable woman from Truro taught us all the tricks about foraging, how to find edible plants such as hawthorn, ‘fat hen’ or muckweed as it’s commonly called. I learned that the old English for fat hen is melde, and that the ‘fat’ in the other name comes from the greasiness of the seeds. Then there is the horseradish plant and of course nettles, sorrel, chickweed, dandelion and wild mustard – I’m getting excited all over again, thinking about all the food lying about the countryside just waiting to be eaten.

  What with the extra load at work, the rain, and Minger inconveniently being mended, the next few days are hectic, so there’s a great sense of relief when Eddie finally comes back to work, the rain stops, and I get my car back. The warm Cornish sun drying out the landscape even makes me forget the bill from the garage and the worry about how we’re going to pay it. I’ve got a walking round today and it’s idyllic, the local folk out and about, friendly and chatty, all of us happy as larks in the sunshine.

  By early afternoon I’m on my way back to my garden, once again chanting softly to myself, ‘Postie, postie, dry as toastie, how does your garden grow?’ Naturally I’m not that much of a townie that I expect any obvious growth, but it’s lovely just to be able to look and imagine all the vegetables that will be grown there. And I’ve got some lovely little cauliflower plants to put out, grown in a customer’s greenhouse. She assured me they were ‘sturdy as a baby oak, my handsome’, and that it was safe to plant them out now in the early south Cornish warmth.