Up With the Larks Read online

  Disappointed, Ben and I decided to wander around the village as it was a hot summer's day and Treverny is an idyllic spot. In the middle of the tree-lined tiny main street there is an ancient church and adjacent to that, a shaded park, complete with babbling brook and a tranquil pond. Benches are scattered here and there under willow and beech trees along the stream.

  Ben wanted to see inside the church and I needed to get a cold drink from the shop so we split up and agreed to meet by the brook in half an hour. Will and Amy were staying with friends for the weekend, which meant I had time on my own to savour the village. It was just what we wanted, but the only house for sale, according to the estate agent, was the one we'd looked at.

  I walked down a tiny lane alongside the village green and saw a window cleaner hard at work at one of the houses. It was a hot sunny day full of flowers and birdsong, and it was summer, so he wasn't surprised that an 'emmett' (the Cornish word for tourist) from Up Country should begin waxing lyrical about the area. 'Wonderful day, isn't it?' I called. He was working on the ground floor windows so I didn't have to shout up to him.

  He turned to look at me. I was wearing red shorts and a sleeveless white shirt. My long blonde hair was curling madly around my head and face in the heat and humidity. I tossed it back, giving him my biggest smile.

  Maybe he thought I fancied him, for he nodded an affirmative and left his work to chat with me. He was young and good-looking, with those great dark Cornish eyes and hair. His voice was laconic and his words to the point. 'Tourist?' he was too polite to call me an emmett to my face.

  He perched on the garden wall in front of the house, indicating he was quite happy to sit with this stranger. I joined him, wondering if the owner – his employer – was watching through the net curtains.

  I turned on the charm, doing my best bubbly bit. 'Visiting for now, but not for long I hope. Still living Up Country but coming down every weekend to house hunt.' He nodded appreciatively. I didn't know if it was my skilful use of the Cornish 'Up Country' or my newly tanned and waxed legs that prompted his appreciation.

  He listened while I rambled on for a bit about the charms of the county, the seaside, the village and the weather. When I got to the weather he baulked. 'You don't go movin' here 'cause of the weather, y'know. T'is wet most of the time,' he squinted against the sun to peer at the windows still not cleaned, and shifted uneasily. I sensed the guilt at not using every moment of sunshine was starting to get to him, so I made my move quickly.

  'We've had so much trouble finding a house down here.' I lowered my eyes and added a note of tragedy to my voice. Ben eat your heart out, I thought. 'I wonder if you might know of something? You work and live here, you must know if anything might be coming up for sale soon.'

  He turned back from gazing at the windows to gazing at me again. 'Well matter of fact, I do. House for sale right here in the village. Just about to go to the estate agent's.'

  My excitement showed in my face. 'Fantastic.'

  'Good sturdy house. Decent garden, big an'all.'

  'Fantastic,' I was repeating myself but I didn't care. I'd already moved Ben, Will, Amy and Jake and was already planning colour schemes and garden plants.

  'Yep. Good house. Was me mum's for years. She died a couple weeks back, suddenly like.'

  'How many bedrooms?'

  He looked at me with horror and I realized what I'd said. I'd been away with the fairies, frolicking around our beautiful garden in this lovely Cornish village, with my sweet children and my gorgeous husband. I'd heard his words but hadn't taken them in, so wrapped up was I in my own dreams and schemes.

  I felt dreadful. Mortified, embarrassed and guilt-stricken. 'Oh God, I didn't mean – oh I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. About your mother. Poor her. Poor you. Oh what you must think of me, so inconsiderate, so unfeeling.' I went on in this fashion for a few more sentences, feeling terrible and desperately trying to make amends.

  Finally I dithered to an end. He was backing away from me but opening his mouth like a fish gasping for water, no doubt to utter some ancient Cornish curse on my soul.

  'Three,' he said.

  'Pardon?'

  'Three bedrooms. There was a fourth, but Ma used it for her best parlour.'

  We didn't buy that house, though we did look at it. It wasn't quite right for us, but very shortly afterwards, through word of mouth, we found another house in the same stunning village of Treverny.

  My first week with Royal Mail is a blur. Kindly folk in the post office show me the ropes, get me acquainted with the rules, regulations and various quirks of a vast government body. They're kind, but there's a wariness in their attitude towards me, a kind of aloofness. Like Susie, they don't think I'll be around long.

  Susie has shown me around: the main sorting office in Truro and the two small post offices where I'll be based, in St Geraint and Morranport, two harbour villages. I've also been shown the various routes that I will cover, a sixty-mile round by van and seven miles by foot. I'm doing relief work, covering for Susie and an older postman called Reg. I've had a go on my own but only with an experienced Royal Mail helper shadowing and backing me up.

  But now all that is over and today I am a proper postperson, completely on my own.

  I plunge gamely into the controlled chaos in the mail room, sort my letters and parcels, load them onto my trolley in proper order and even manage a light-hearted raunchy joke or two with the others as we gather our post.

  Feeling smug and well pleased with myself, I push open the two massive rubber doors with my trolley and trundle outside into the darkness and the rain. And that's when the panic hits. There is a huge car park chock-a-block with Royal Mail vans, all looking exactly alike to me. I realize I haven't a clue which one is mine. I was so excited to find a space that I had not even noticed where I'd parked.

  There are at least fifty red vans, parked in rows. Fifty, a hundred, thousands even, I think in despair, all the red postal vans in the world, sitting in the huge car park, all taunting me with their sameness.

  There is no one to help me out. I'm alone in this vast universe of identical red vans, lashed by what's beginning to feel like a cyclone, wondering if I'll have to try my keys in every single one before I find my own. If it weren't so cold and wet I'd sit down by my trolley and cry.

  Instead, I plunge into the midst of them and set about trying to discover which van is mine. My tent of a coat is blowing like the sails of a yacht in this endless Cornish wind and rain. I look like Jack wearing the giant's coat, the sleeves reaching way below my hands and the whole thing nearly encasing my legs. Though it's cold outside, I'm sweating inside because I have not yet learned what all the other posties know, that the nylon lining inside has got to be removed precisely for this reason. I can see that getting the temperature right inside this jacket is an art I haven't yet mastered. If you open it too wide to keep from perspiring you end up shivering as an icy breeze creeps inside, followed by the gales and rain. But it's only November and I have all winter to figure it out.

  Finally after walking up and down the parked vehicles for what seems like hours, trying my key in nearly every van, despairing of ever finding the right one, I'm saved! There ahead of me, perched in the front window of one of the vans, is a black and white cat, staring out at the rain as if each drop was a tiny mouse ripe for the catching. For a moment I think I'm hallucinating, then with a rush of relief I recognize the van. It's not mine, nor Postman Pat's, but Susie's who is covering for someone else today. And now I remember that I'd parked mine right next to hers when I arrived this morning. The cat, who comes with Susie now and again on her rounds – the only real cat I've ever met who likes to ride in a car – eyes me without much interest. I grin maniacally at it, tap the window lightly in friendly if slightly hysterical greeting, and at last leap into my own sweet red van.

  At home, Ben and the children will still be fast asleep. Truro is deserted as I drive down its windy streets, passing the old brewery and taking a short cut out of t
he town. On the hill leaving the city, I can see the cathedral, still lit up and shining like a vision through the misty rain. It is so awesome, so breathtaking, that I slow and then stop when I see no one is either behind or in front of me.

  I stay like this for a full five minutes, taking in the spires and the towers, the gauzy light shining through the pale rain, and for a moment my mind and heart are still. No head noise, no noise at all. Just me, still for once, not rushing, not frantic, not stressed.

  It is cold in the van, the rain starts to pick up outside and I have a long delivery route to complete, much of it in the dark, in a rural isolated area. My eyes are sticky with lack of sleep and I can feel water dripping from where it has collected in my rolled-up sleeves onto my trousers. Time to move on, I say to myself. I need this job and the money I'll be bringing in.

  So far, moving to Cornwall has not been the idyllic move we'd hoped it would be and even now, if I lose this job, we might still have to give up and move back to London. Today I am doing Susie's route, on my own for the first time. I've got a list of quirky requests and instructions a mile long. It's a van run today not a walking one, in some isolated rural hamlets and farmhouses. I drive to the sea's edge to drop off the bag of mail for the Morranport post office on the harbour. Another postman, Reg, is there already, preparing for his round. 'Wish me luck, Reg,' I say brightly. 'I'm on my own today.'

  He nods in his usual taciturn way, his equivalent to a good luck wish I suppose. Reg is getting on, as he keeps telling us. He's slow as well as laconic, slow physically that is. I feel like a hare on speed next to his tortoise-like crawl.

  He is quite a contrast to Nell, who runs the Morranport post office and shop. She's either about to be eighty, or just past it, depending on whom you talk to. She's got the energy of four twenty-year-olds and puts us all to shame.

  'You be fine, Tessa,' Nell calls out from behind the counter. 'Good luck, maid.'

  I stand to attention, click my Dr Martens heels and salute smartly. Nell laughs and even Reg manages what could possibly pass as a tiny smile. I jump into the van and am off and away. My nervousness is gone and I feel fearless. I am the Royal Mail, getting through come thick or thin.

  I manage the first few farmhouses despite the dark morning, the potholed dirt tracks that lead up to the houses and the many farm gates I have to open and close. Relieved that I have found them all without getting lost, I set off for another rural spot, the house of a woman named Eleanor Gibland. I feel I know her, though I've never met her. Susie has been delivering post to her for nearly eighteen years and they have become close. Although they rarely see each other much outside of Eleanor's house, they talk for ages on days when Susie is not in a tearing hurry. Sometimes they sit in the tiny front garden and chat; other, colder or wetter days, Susie accepts a cup of tea in Eleanor's pristine kitchen. They have become good friends in an odd sort of way.

  I'm feeling almost euphoric now. I've managed to get through the prep and the sorting with no more mishaps than losing the van temporarily. I've negotiated a few tricky isolated homesteads and now the rest should be easy. The rain has stopped and in the lightening sky with only patchy cloud, I can see the faint outline of a rainbow arching over the sea and the cliffs. Before I get to Eleanor's house, I pull the van to the side of the road to marvel.

  The sea is a heaving hulking mass of churning foam. The rainbow is coming right up out of the water and curving over harbour and beach. I turn my head and see it has made a perfect half circle, ending, it seems, at Eleanor's place. I wonder if I'm imagining it, this bit of pale colour in the early morning sky. Opening the window to see more clearly, a blast of icy wind hits me in the face like a wet glove. I shut the window quickly. I'll have enough walking my rounds in this kind of weather, no need to get carried away.

  Besides, there's a rainbow to follow. Isn't there supposed to be a pot of gold at the end of it? I haven't thought of pots of gold since childhood. Cornwall, with its legends and myths, charms and magic, has got to me already. If owls are bearers of bad news and hares can turn into witches if you're not careful, then why not a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? And look, the rainbow seems to be ending right at my next delivery point!

  The drive up to Eleanor's neat cottage is flanked by woodland, trees shorn of leaves, glistening with raindrops and draped with pockets of mist which are pierced with shafts of light from the rising sun. The colours of the rainbow are stronger now as it cuts through the woods and seems to end at the edge of a tiny creek which flows past the top of the small front garden.

  The house looks quiet and there are no lights on anywhere. I know Eleanor is an early riser as Susie has told me she is often dressed and ready for her elevenses at 8 a.m., and it's way past that now. She must be having a lie-in, I decide seeing no one about.

  I can't resist. I stop the van, jump out and rush over to the creek's edge. The earth here is damp and marshy. I love these little streams and rivers of South Cornwall, the tiny waterfalls and wetlands. They seem to be everywhere: running behind gardens, alongside tiny rural roads and appearing as if by magic in the least expected places. When the Cornish call something 'a moor-y spot', they mean something damp or swampy.

  This is definitely a moor-y piece of ground and my sturdy postie boots are squelching as I walk. If anyone sees me I'll feel a fool, mooching around someone's little stream in the middle of winter. I don't believe in fairies or pots of gold at the end of rainbows but Cornwall is such an enchanted place, so different from anywhere else I've been and so full of folklore. After being here a time you can't help feeling that there's something in these stories about elves and fairies, about ghosts and spirits. The sea, the mist, the rocky shoreline and the inlets, hills and foggy moorland, all contribute to the feeling of mystery, of things unsaid and unknown. Besides, the rainbow feels like an omen after the last few weeks when everything seemed to be falling apart. So, knowing I'm being ridiculous, I try to pinpoint the rainbow's end. This is where it looked like it was ending, this squidgy hummock of grassy marsh where I'm standing, with the creek gurgling over the tops of my boots. Luckily they are waterproof. I can see it, just eluding me every time I try to reach out and touch it. The early November light seems brighter, or is it a false dawn, or even the remnants of moonlight? The early winter sun through a low black cloud casts a sudden eerie light on a cluster of rocks half in, half out of the shallow creek, lending it a shiny, yellow glow. My pot of gold, I think, squatting down to take a closer look. I feel crazy with excitement. It's like finding a hundred four-leaf clovers, all at once.

  A booming voice scares the wits out of me. 'What in the name of God do you think you are doing down there? And who are you, anyway? Where's Susie?'

  I am too embarrassed to answer for a second or two. Before I can recover my wits she snaps, 'Whoever you are, will you please get out of my creek?'

  I scramble out of the water, where I'd fallen on my knees with the surprise of her voice. It must be Eleanor Gibland, dressed in the kind of housedress women wore in the fifties, slip-on gardening shoes and holding a pale blue umbrella over her head even though the rain has stopped.

  'I'm Tessa, the relief postwoman. We haven't met. The day I came here with Susie, you weren't in.'

  She stares at me disdainfully. She is a woman of indeterminate age, with permed grey hair surrounding a circle of a face and a short round body. Susie had told me that Eleanor is a Cornish woman but had been sent away to the Home Counties as a young girl to become a nanny, returning twenty years ago when her mother died to take over her house.

  'You have only answered one of my questions. Do you have a surname or were you born without one? If so, why?'

  I tell her my full name and she repeats, 'Where is Susie? And what were you doing paddling about in my creek?' She gives me a steely stare, as if I were a very naughty child.

  I lie. I have no choice. How can I tell this formidable woman the truth, that I was chasing a rainbow? 'I lost something. It blew out of the van and I had
to retrieve it.' I give her my best, friendliest smile. 'Susie's day off today.'

  'I hope it wasn't the Royal Mail property that you lost. That would be unforgivable.' She gives me another of her looks. 'And I hope you are telling me the truth. I would be very cross indeed if I thought you were fishing in my creek. It is private property as you must be well aware.'

  I hang my head in what I hope looks like a chastised manner. 'No, m'am,' I say humbly. 'I certainly wasn't fishing. I wouldn't dream of it.'

  This at least is true. I hand over her post from the van. She takes it without a word, looks at it suspiciously, then back at me again.

  This short squat woman is making me feel like a five-year-old. It's starting to rain again but I don't feel able to go without her permission. Perhaps she is going to rap me on the knuckles for fooling about in her creek. I wait to be dismissed. Glancing away from her while she makes up her mind what to do about me, I see a robin sitting on a nearby gate post. It's looking at me with great interest, as if it too is wondering what to do with a recalcitrant postwoman.

  After a long pause Eleanor says, with a long-suffering sigh, 'You'd better come in for a cup of tea. You'll catch a chill, else.'

  It is a command not an offer, as is the cup of tea she puts in front of me. She commands me, like a brusque nanny, to drink it while it's hot. I'm wet and cold enough to do so gratefully, looking around at her kitchen as I do so. It is as it should be: a place for everything, and everything in its place. Eleanor, whom I address as Miss Gibland of course, makes tea with loose English Breakfast leaves in a round brown teapot and doesn't ask if I take milk, just pours it into the cup first from a blue-and-white striped jug. As we drink our tea she asks me several pointed questions, such as my marital state, my background and my origins of birth. She wants to make quite sure that Susie's relief postie is of the right sort. I answer without going into too much detail. I am trying hard to be friendly and pleasant, though it's starting to be something of a struggle. Though she's drowning me in tea, she hasn't once smiled.