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  ‘Oh, I’ll still be around, feeding the hens, popping in to see that you’re all right.’

  Whoops! The look on both their faces – distant, a sudden closing off – reminds me what I learned the hard way last year: that these two, old as they are, are fiercely independent. They want to be treated as normal neighbours, not as two fragile ancients. And in truth they do seem to be very good at looking after themselves, and very fit. Underneath their somewhat fragile appearance – both are quite thin, Edna short and Hector long, but each has bird-like bones – there is a surprising toughness.

  Despite ‘the look’ I plough on stubbornly. During this frozen weather I ask everyone how they are, old or young, so I’m not being condescending when I enquire about their provisions, how they’re managing with all the snow and ice clinging so long and so tenaciously to the ground. I know the supermarket van that usually delivers to them once a week has not been able to get around the back lanes which remain treacherously icy.

  They accept my query gracefully. Hector says, ‘We have more than enough food, thank you, Tessa. We stocked up in September and October. Dried pulses, a fifty-pound sack of potatoes, plenty of rice and pasta, dried milk powder, tinned goods. We’ve even got enough cat food in for the Venerable Bede, here.’

  The scruffy cat sitting on an old tartan blanket on the slate floor of the kitchen swishes his tail as we turn to look at him. Goodness knows how old the cat is, or where he got that name. Hector and Edna tried to explain it to me once – something to do with a long dead monk – but I ended up knowing as little about their cat as I, or any of the villagers, know about them. All anyone knows is that although they are both Cornish, they have travelled extensively, and lived for long periods of time in faraway places.

  I’m impressed by their foresight, and tell them so. ‘You’re streaks ahead of the rest of us. No one predicted such a hard winter.’

  Edna nods sagely, her huge specs bobbing up and down on her tiny nose, making her look uncannily like a wise owl. She, like her husband, is wearing a furry hat that appears to be a cross between a Cossack’s hat and an extinct animal. They’ve not taken their hats off, inside or outside, since the snows began, not that I’ve seen anyway. When I commented on their headgear, saying how warm and perfect for this weather they looked, Hector had replied, ‘In Russia, we needed to know how to survive the cold. Tibet, too. It was there we learned how to tell when a winter would be hard, learned to recognise the signs.’

  I keep quiet, hoping they’ll say more, for questions never work; they clam up. Silence isn’t working either, now, for Edna is asking if I’d like more tea. I resign myself to unfulfilled curiosity yet again. I just hope they’ve left diaries and journals somewhere, telling of their travels. I for one would love to know their history, but I’m afraid I never will.

  As I finally get up to go, Edna says, ‘There is something worrying us terribly, though. And this hard winter has made it worse …’ She trails off. Hector puts his arms around her. They look so stricken that my mind starts running all over the place, imagining all sorts of dreadful things. Is one of them seriously ill? A heart condition? One that can be aggravated by severe cold? I’ve heard of old people falling down dead while taking out their rubbish on a freezing morning.

  Perhaps it’s severe arthritis? They’re standing up as I start to leave and seem as upright as always, but they’re wearing so many layers of clothing it’s hard to tell – woollies and capes, and about three or four scarves wound around each neck, all a riot of different patterns and colours. Hector has on some kind of thick corduroy trousers, tucked into bright red, heavy knee socks sewn onto worn leather soles, and Edna has an ankle-length skirt made from fuzzy material that sends fluff balls scattering like confetti as she moves around the kitchen. Together the pair looks like a couple of whacky snow sculptures dressed by a party of mischievous children.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘What can I do to help?’

  Edna, reading my thoughts, says with a warm smile, ‘My dear, don’t look so concerned. We’re both in amazing health, considering it is winter and we are indoors more than out.’

  I don’t comment on this. All the villagers have been concerned about these two this winter. They still do their slow, up-and-down, meditative walk along the bumpy stone path in front of the house, nearly every day. I’ve seen them walking sedately as snow fell all around them, looking like yetis from some alien Arctic land. The ice that had formed on the naked branches of the trees and bushes in their haphazard front garden added to the bizarre impression as Edna and Hector, arm and arm, propping each other up, walked back and forth, back and forth. They’d told me once, when I suggested they went inside as the falling snow was very wet and they were getting soaked, that this walk was necessary not just for their physical health but for their ‘mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being’. That put me in my place – what could I say? I wanted to add that a fat lot of good mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being would be if they were gasping with pneumonia after their soaking, but they gave me the look again so I had to keep quiet.

  Hector suddenly makes a weird movement with his right leg and left arm. I’m sure he’s about to fall over onto the slate floor and rush to him, grabbing him around the waist. He wrests himself from my grasp and says, with dignity, ‘I was perfectly all right, dear girl. I was merely trying to show you one of the Qigong exercises Edna and I do inside in the winter, to keep mobile, and also to retain our balance.’

  Edna adds, ‘Would you like us to teach you the little sequence we’ve concocted? A mixture of Qigong and Tai Chi and Tibetan yoga, and one or two other movements we’ve picked up here and there.’ As she speaks she lifts one foot slowly off the floor and at the same time, lifts a hand gracefully, as if the hand is pulling the leg on an invisible string. She looks so old, so frail, so wobbly, that I am completely terrified, yet I don’t dare go to her. I stay close by, though, just in case. I do notice that she’s being very careful, performing her movements very slowly. These two might be totally eccentric and odd, but they’re not bonkers.

  Now Hector is joining her. They look like arthritic storks, all unnatural angles and skinny bones. Not that I can see their bones, with all the layers of clothes they’re wearing. But I’ve seen them in summer. I can’t take any more. I’m so worried that one of them is going to fall that I can’t watch another minute. I say, ‘It looks a marvellous exercise, and perhaps you can teach it to me another time, in summer when it’s warmer.’ I rub my hands together and put on the gloves I’d taken off to drink my tea. At least it is reasonably warm in here. They have the wood burner here in the large kitchen where they live in the winter months, and Doug takes care of their wood supply. There are plenty of fallen or rotting trees on their property. The kitchen is homey, too, with a faded brown sofa in front of the wood burner, piled with plenty of multi-coloured cushions. An old radio sits on a small table nearby, with Radio 4 on seemingly day and night. Once the villagers got together to buy them a digital television, as they’d once had a black and white set years ago that had packed up and never been replaced. But Edna and Hector politely refused. Instead, they suggested the set be raffled to raise funds for repairs to the church. This turned out to be a huge success, with everyone participating. The irony was, Hector’s ticket was pulled first, so the television went to them. They declined, of course, and the draw went ahead a second time.

  I remember now that something is troubling them. It’s so rare for either of them to admit problems that I ask again, though I’m relieved it’s not their health that is the worry.

  The serene look on their faces changes immediately to one of chagrin. ‘It’s the rooks,’ Hector says. ‘I fear all is not well with the rooks.’

  I must have looked blank, for Edna says patiently, ‘You know we’ve had rooks here for years. Generations.’

  Hector nods. ‘I remember the rookery being here when I was growing up. And my father said it was there when he was a boy, too.’

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sp; I nod. ‘I’ve heard that rooks like to stay in the same place for ages.’

  Hector looks grave. ‘Yes, and that’s why we’re worried. I think our rooks are getting restless.’

  ‘What? How can you tell?’

  He taps the end of his nose enigmatically. ‘We just can, maid. When you live with rooks long enough, you get to know what they’re thinking.’

  I can go along with this. My dog knows exactly when the idea of a walk crosses my mind, and I swear I can read his mind when he’s deciding whether or not to chase a squirrel at the top of our garden. But rooks? ‘So what are they thinking?’ I ask.

  A hint of scepticism must have sounded in my voice for he says, ‘It’s not exactly thinking, you mustn’t take me literally, Tessa. It’s more an instinct thing. When they get agitated, we can feel it somehow.’

  Edna looks at him with a little smile as if to say, don’t even try to explain our ways, Hector. Turning back to me she says, ‘Come on outside with us, dear, and we’ll show you.’

  There is a wooden coat stand in the wide, drafty hallway and they each take what look like ancient horse blankets from the stand and wrap themselves up. Hector opens the heavy oak door, worn and splintered in places, and a blast of icy wind nearly knocks him over. Neither he nor Edna take any notice but totter and teeter down the glazed white steps sprinkled liberally with salt, clinging to each other. I dare not insult them by helping, but I stick close enough by to grab them if they fall.

  Somehow they manage and we walk down the path to the far end of their front garden. Here, the couple stop in front of an immense evergreen tree. It’s a magnificent specimen, with broad leaves that appear more black against the grey sky than the dark green they usually are in winter. This isn’t a conifer, though, but a holm oak, a broadleaf tree. We’ve got some wonderful trees around here and I’m still amazed at the lushness and variety of them in our area. Most people think of the coastline, the sea, when they think of Cornwall, but there are magical places inland, too, where mysterious wooded valleys and stunning forests run alongside hidden creeks and streams.

  Edna and Hector have told me about the holm oak on other occasions. I’ve learned that it is a Mediterranean tree brought over to England in the 1500s. Looking up at this one at Poet’s Tenement (the house name, which also dates back centuries), I can almost believe it was one of the original imports. The bark is so old that it is cracked into small squares, and it too has blackened with the years. With the dark leaves turning almost inside out in the strong wind, stark against the smoky sky, the tree looks wild and formidable, yet solid and somehow comforting at the same time. I suppose it’s the feeling of permanence, of something that’s been there for hundreds of years and will probably still be there long after we’re all gone.

  But Edna shakes this illusion by saying, ‘The rooks are restless because they know the tree is ill. Perhaps very ill.’

  I tear my eyes from the tree to look at her. ‘No, really? How can you tell?’

  I can’t hear her entire answer as a loud gust drowns her voice. I catch words such as leaves dying, even some branches, but the rest is lost in the noise. The tree seems to be roaring, and on top of that, the entire tribe of rooks have finished their feeding in a nearby field and are flying home to roost for the night. It’s late afternoon now and in this weather, it will be dark soon.

  The sky is alive with dozens of the birds, their outstretched wings blackening the coming twilight. The noise is fantastic. The kaar-kaar sounds the birds make vie with the rushing wind. They seem to be amicably arguing as they settle down in the branches; they are such sociable birds.

  The rookery in this holm oak is not as visibly stark as those in leafless trees, but you can still see the immensity of it, at least a couple of feet high, all blackened twigs and sticks. As Edna and Hector said, the birds have been coming back for decades to nest in this tree, adding to the rookery each year, making the rough nest comfortable for the new eggs and chicks with more foliage. As we watch the birds settle with a flurry of wings, listening to the cacophony of sounds, I can feel how the rooks belong here, with their glistening black feathers mirroring the tree leaves. But is the tree really sickening? Could it be dying? After all these years? So much for the feeling of permanence it gave me, but of course things end, so others can begin.

  These are all questions to be asked another time. The rooks have settled in the tree, and their cries have stopped, with only the odd caw competing with the wind’s eerie howl. It’s freezing now; despite the cloud cover, the frost will continue tonight.

  I part from the Humphreys with gestures and nods, for it’s hard to talk in this wind. I tell them I’m off to shut in my hens, but I surreptitiously make sure that the couple are safely up their few steps and into the house before I go.

  Soon the hens are all inside, tucked up in their house, all snug against the wind. No eggs today; there haven’t been many for the last few weeks – it’s what I like to think of as the hens’ resting period, during these weeks when they are off their laying. After all, they worked hard for months, keeping our family, and many of our friends, supplied with fresh free-range eggs, so they deserve a rest. The cockerel, Pavarotti, greets me with an especially loud cock-a-doodle-do that makes me glad we live in an easy-going village. There was a piece in the local paper a year or so ago about a group of villagers making a fuss over the cries of a bunch of cockerels a woman kept in pens in her back garden. I don’t remember the story exactly but I think she was selling them for breeding. The trouble was, they crowed day and night, and there were quite a lot of them. ‘At least you’re only one single bird, even though you’re loud,’ I tell Pavarotti. ‘So you can keep singing.’

  Before I go, I also look in on the peafowl. The cock and the hen are new to Poet’s Tenement, having arrived just before Christmas. The Humphreys have revamped the shed behind the house into cosy quarters for them, to overwinter, so they haven’t been out and about yet. I open the door a tiny crack, to check on them, as Edna and Hector asked me to. Doug has shovelled a path and covered the short distance from the house to the shed with a thick layer of sand, so that the couple can come out and feed their new pets every day. But I always take a peek whenever I visit my hens.

  They’re asleep and barely open their eyes when I look round the door. It’s warm in the shed, there is plenty of food and water for them, so I don’t go inside to disturb them. I leave the peafowl to their winter’s rest, looking forward to seeing them shortly, when spring is finally here and the Humphreys decide it’s warm enough for the peafowl to live in their garden.

  The short walk home through the churchyard is magic. It is more sheltered here so the wind is not so fierce. The coating of snow on the grass, the tombstones, and the shrubs and bushes, gives a serene feel to the scene, a kind of blanket of peace. I’m filled with a sense of well-being broken only by thoughts of Edna and Hector. If the old holm oak is really sickening, even dying, then it could be dangerous. A gale like this one today could blow it right over, on top of their house, crushing it and the couple inside.

  They need an expert opinion on this and I know just who to ask. There’s a young man on my postal round who has recently qualified as a tree surgeon. With a bit of luck, Edna and Hector will agree to let him visit to look at the oak. Feeling better now that I’ve thought of this, I walk quickly towards home, the wind again fierce and blowing me into the house with a whoosh. Jake, who had to stay behind as he and the Humphrey’s cat do not get on, barks with glee, and from the sitting room and kitchen the various members of my family call out greetings. The warmth of the house wraps around me like a cashmere glove, feeling cosy and safe as the sound of the wind intensifies outside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Chivalry Lives On

  THE FROST STAYS for the next week. Another light snowfall fills the lanes. Work gets even busier as the winter starts taking its toll, with more people than usual on sick leave. By now many more customers are also housebound by the weather or season
al illness and we bring them supplies, news, and gossip.

  There are still many farms and houses I can’t reach by road because the lanes are blocked either by snow or a sheet of ice. I park the van as close as I can and walk the rest of the way. I don’t mind except when the only post is junk mail, the unsolicited mailings that most people loathe. I’ve had customers get quite cross with me and either give it straight back, or tear it up in front of me. I don’t blame them. I decided once to simply stop delivering it, as there wasn’t one of my customers who wanted it. But then Susie, another postie and a mate of mine at the Royal Mail, told me that what I was doing was a big no-no; that we were legally obliged to deliver the wretched stuff.

  Today it’s a small package from New Zealand that I’m delivering, and I know who it’s from. Going on to the next village, where the roads are clearer than most, I park the van in front of the small bungalow where Annie lives with her husband, Pete. ‘A letter from your mum, City Mouse,’ I holler as I poke my head in at the door.

  Annie is there at once, giving me a quick kiss, taking the letter, pulling me into her warm kitchen, and at the same time saying, ‘You can’t call me that any more, Country Mouse. I won’t allow it. I’m as rural and bovine as you are now.’

  ‘How can you say that? You’ve not been here a year yet!’ I plop myself down at the kitchen table, enjoying the smell of something baking, the sound of the kettle hissing, the warmth pumping out from the Aga. But especially I’m enjoying the special warmth of being here with my dearest and oldest friend. When we moved from London, leaving so many people behind was hard, but parting from Annie was particularly sad. I’m still pinching myself that she’s actually here, living in a village only a few miles away from Treverny.

  ‘How’re your parents, by the way?’ I ask, indicating the small package from New Zealand. ‘Do open it, I don’t mind.’