Up With the Larks Read online

  Margaret allows herself a grin. It's amazingly like a smirk, 'So remember that, Posh Postie.'

  She is still chuckling as I leave the shop. I know without a doubt that the nickname will be in all the sorting offices of the South Cornwall Royal Mail by next morning.

  December

  It is approaching Christmas with only two weeks to go and I am staggering under the weight of cards, parcels and masses of advertisements. I still hardly know my customers. As a relief postwoman I'm on a different round every day and it's confusing. I can't seem to get the hang of remembering all the hidden lanes, quirky houses and weird letterboxes. I've left post in plastic envelopes under stones, under tyres in garages, under logs in a woodpile, on top of cars and under cars, in makeshift boxes, bags and even a tree house. These are all at the customers' requests – at their insistence, in fact. I can't believe how few houses there are on my rounds that have proper letter slots in their doors or mailboxes outside.

  To add to the difficulties, Cornwall has been hit by massive storms and winds, whipping up the sea and toppling trees not prepared to go with the flow and bend. With some folk there's an entirely different set of rules for delivering post when it's wet. The post under the woodpile is to be transferred to a shelf in the shed; the plastic envelope under the stone is, when raining, to be covered with the blue plastic bucket found in the nearest barn. None of this is written down but passed on from old postie to new, like ancient folklore and Cornish myths.

  The weather is not exactly conducive to standing outside the front door and chatting to your local post person. Not that anyone seems inclined to chat with me even on the rare days when the weather is decent. Even Eleanor Gibland hasn't asked me in again, nodding only a gruff greeting if she's around when I arrive and saying, sniffingly, 'And where is Susie today? Another day off ?'

  I'm known now to all and sundry as the Posh Postie, thanks to Mrs Grey with the cat and the newspaper. I'm not sure how to take this, whether it's complimentary or derogatory, and I'm afraid to ask Susie directly. I tried hinting about it, once, and Susie just said, 'You be different, me bird, can't help that. Not a local like me or the other folk in the post office. You can't help looking and talking oddly.'

  She gazed at me sorrowfully, not without sympathy, thinking of my disadvantaged life being born and bred Up Country. I could tell she was sure the odds were against my staying on, not just in the new job but also in my new life.

  Ben and I have spent months wondering the same thing, as every day brings us new problems. Cornwall is not turning out to be the dream move we'd expected. We have been in our new house in the idyllic village of Treverny now since the beginning of September. Though the asking price was vastly higher than we'd anticipated spending, and the house more dilapidated than any other we'd looked at, we took the plunge and bought it, moving into South Cornwall for good on a glorious day at the beginning of September.

  Well, it was glorious when we left London, but by the time we arrived, quite late at night, there was a cold, dreary drizzle which did nothing to dampen our spirits. The movers had come a few days before, Ben shooting down to Treverny to let them in and to put the right beds in the right bedrooms and generally organize the move. When he finished the house was ready for our arrival. That is, as ready as we could make it.

  Will and Amy were first through the door. They'd seen the house of course, but weeks before, and didn't remember much except that they'd be living by the sea. For a moment they stopped and stared, looking around at bare walls badly in need of both plaster and paint, at rough uncarpeted floors, and the few pieces of furniture we'd brought, looking forlorn and out of place in this new setting. Being kids and naturally optimistic, they recovered from the minor shock and ran off shouting to find their bedrooms.

  Ben and I stood in the living room with our arms around each other, not speaking. 'Well,' I said finally. 'We've done it. Our new home.'

  'Hmm.'

  Even I, usually the cheery one, couldn't summon up the exuberance I'd felt after we'd finally found our new home. Not then, not at that late hour, with the drizzle turning into rain which was leaking down the side wall of the living room. Yes, we'd loved the house – but it was the house of our imagination, not the one we were standing in. This house was still the battered place used for years as a holiday cottage and a not very salubrious one at that. Not only had it not been modernized for years, but it also felt as if basic loving care had been withheld for the same length of time.

  The work would be massive. And we were running out of money which was haemorrhaging away with all the many costs buying and selling entails. So we had decided to move in at once instead of waiting until some fundamental work could be done. The plan was to set up the pottery-painting business and work on the house at the same time, little by little, even if it meant we would be cooking on camp stoves in the courtyard. We were keen and enthusiastic, sure it would all work out.

  Now, tired and a bit deflated, I looked around and wondered if Ben had been right all along when he'd voiced all those objections at the beginning. The enormity of what we'd done hit me like that blast of Cornish rain and wind nearly taking off the car door as we parked outside our new home.

  We were all too hyper to sleep so I made tea and got out some nibbles. Will and Amy, having found their bedrooms, were now too excited to go into them. 'When can we go to the beach, Mum?' they shouted and 'Dad, are you going to take us snorkeling tomorrow?'

  We hedged, citing the bad weather, but Amy said, 'The rain's stopped!' Flinging open the front door, she called us to look.

  Sure enough, as if by magic, the rain had not only stopped but the sky was clear, dotted only with stars and a miraculous full moon which turned the wet grass into thousands of sparkling diamonds. Jake, who'd been patiently sitting waiting for nibbles of his own, took advantage of the open door and leapt outside, barking his head off at the moon and no doubt waking all our new neighbours. Ben shushed him and got him in, as Amy said, 'Poor dog, sitting in the car all that long way.'

  Without thinking I said, 'We'll go walk him on the beach. Right now!'

  Ben looked at me and rolled his eyes. 'It's late. The kids are overtired as it is. It's been raining.'

  'But it's not now, it's a beautiful night. So quiet and still.'

  'Except for Jake,' Will shrieked as he and Amy fell about laughing.

  'See?' I said. 'They're hysterical. A quick walk on the beach will calm them and Jake too.'

  And us, I thought as we drove the short mile to Penwarren, the nearest beach – our beach now, a secluded sandy cove edged within a framework of rock pools and sheltered by cliffs. We drove the car down the narrow, windy road that leads straight onto the hard sand where we all tumbled out and began running up and down, shrieking with the relief of letting out all the delays, frustrations and stress of the past few months.

  As Jake jumped in the water and the kids played games trying to avoid the small waves that splashed on the shore, Ben and I watched, our arms around each other. 'You see?' I said smugly. 'You see how right this move is? Even the Cornish moon is shining on us. It's an omen.'

  Before I'd even finished speaking a sudden cold gust of wind came up like a demon from the sea, driving a fierce black cloud clear across that fickle moon and sending a shower of icy rain over all of us.

  Running back to the car and already soaking wet, Ben muttered, 'Yeah, an omen. Great.'

  Of all the things I'd imagined I might do when we moved to Cornwall, being a postwoman was certainly not one of them. I'm finding it all a bit of a struggle. Maybe pre-Christmas, the very busiest time for post office workers, wasn't the most brilliant time to start this job. But I had no choice. If this doesn't work out, I don't know what we'll do, we've tried everything else. Ben, for the first time ever, voiced what I'd been secretly thinking and dreading: the possibility that we might be forced to move back to London. He's as upset as I am about it. Despite his early reservations, he too is committed to finding a new happier life
here. Forget all that now, I tell myself sternly. You've got a job now at last, so quit brooding and get on with it.

  I concentrate on filling my huge Royal Mail bag with as much as I can carry. The post office in St Geraint is on the main street and I usually do one side of the village then come back to fill up for the other. However, there is tons of mail today. In December all the holiday brochures come out, as well as the gardening magazines so folk can start thinking about ordering bulbs. And of course not only are there Christmas cards but an inordinate amount of parcels all sizes and shapes, mostly from abroad: Australia, Canada and New Zealand, from Poland and Ukraine, Italy, France and even a huge one from China. All those folk not able to be with their loved ones this Christmas, I think sadly, but wanting there to be something for them to open on Christmas Day.

  I ask Margaret if there is some kind of trolley to carry it all. She shakes her head, shrugs, and says something to the effect that there was but she thinks the wheel has come off and it's been stowed away somewhere. I don't pursue it as the post office has just opened and there is a queue of people waiting to buy stamps as this is the last posting day for overseas. Margaret, like everyone else, is working flat out.

  I wonder what to do. It's already nine o'clock. Ordinarily I'd have finished this part much earlier but nothing is ordinary in the Royal Mail in these chaotic weeks before Christmas. I'll just have to fill my bag with as much as I can carry, then double back to get the rest. A nuisance, and tiring, and time-consuming, but it'll have to do.

  Outside, it's finally a perfect winter's day. Cold, but windless and cloudless. St Geraint faces an estuary with a border of sea on one side and river on the other. The sky is brimming with tiny, fluffy clouds that obscure the sun for just a moment or two and the sea is that deep winter's blue that occurs when the sun hangs low in the sky all day.

  The light in this place is amazing. The few clouds that breeze over the sun now and again make extraordinary shadows that ripple darkly across the aquamarine water then disappear, leaving the sea dazzling once again. Even on grey days, the vast expanse of sea and sky give a pale luminous light to everything that makes me catch my breath whenever I stop and look.

  I'm doing that now, drinking it all in on this incredible winter's day: the fresh clean smell of salt and marsh, the sharp clear sky, the flecks of sunlight on water. As I walk along the main street of the town, which rolls along the seafront like a lazy sleeping snake, I smile a greeting at the shopkeepers as they open up. I pass the tiny chemist's, an old-fashioned clothing shop next to a smart boutique (both popular, which shows the diversity of the place), and several coffee shops. There's a very expensive art gallery as well as odd little places that sell local crafts.

  I do a little skip as I walk – surreptitiously of course – for no other reason than it's not raining. The skip is a mistake. I trip over an uneven pavement, the heavy weight of my bag causing me to lose my balance so that I end up sitting ignominiously on the curb.

  Lulu, the gorgeous young girl who works in the Spar, calls out, 'You OK, Mrs Posh Post Lady?'

  'You can call me Tessa,' I say to her, not for the first time, but she seems to like giving me the full title. Where she heard my nickname, I have no idea. It seems to be spreading everywhere. Susie said, when I asked her, 'Word travels, bird. Glamorous new blonde, straight from Up Country.'

  'Oh Susie, give us a break. Look at me. Glamorous? In this get-up?' I looked down at my shapeless uniform and Doc Martens boots.

  She'd shrugged enigmatically. 'Well, whatever, but may as well get used to it, bird, word travels quicker than an eel round here. Folk heard all about you before they even set eyes on you.'

  Posh is the last thing I'm feeling now as I struggle to maintain some shred of dignity and straighten my post bag. Lulu says, 'Mrs Posh Post Lady, let me help with bag. Ohhh, it is greatly heavy. It is magnificently heavy.'

  'Sorry?'

  'Maag-nee-feee-sont-lee,' she repeats, taking my bag, beaming at her use of a new word. 'Lulu like big new English words. Maaag-nee-feee-sont-ly. Wonderful.'

  'Lulu's not really your name, is it?' I've been dying to ask her this for ages.

  'Oh, no. It name I am loving. Lulu,' she sighs in delight. 'My birthday name too hard for English person to speak it without falling on top of his tongue.'

  Lulu has not been here long and is staying with married cousins from her own country. She didn't know a word of English when she came over but she's picked it up fast.

  I take the post bag from her. Lulu says, 'Oh, this be heavy. You be needing one of they I think.'

  Oh Lord, she's learning English in a Cornish dialect. 'Needing one of what, Lulu?'

  She grabs one of the small supermarket trolleys from the door of the Spar. 'Take! For borrowing. You bring back later, OK?'

  It's a brilliant idea. I grab the trolley, throw my bag in, and I'm away. Pushing my supermarket trolley laden with post, I find I am smiling at people and they at me. The sun is actually shining today and it's amazing what a bit of dry weather does for this job. I'm feeling positively jaunty as I saunter up the road pushing my Christmas load. Leaving the trolley at the bottom of the steps up to one of the biggest houses in the village, I grab my post bag and lug it up to the front door. This road leading out of St Geraint has been nicknamed Millionaire's Row by the locals. The houses are huge and opulent, all facing the sea but with massive lawns and gardens on the slopes in front so that they cannot be seen by the likes of us commoners. The locals have nothing against millionaires, it's just that many of these houses are empty, holiday homes for the extremely wealthy, sometimes used no more than one or two weekends a year. Not long ago a helicopter circled one of them at the very edge of the sea, set in a secluded, private woodland. The place had just come onto the market. There was one passenger in the private helicopter. He took a quick aerial view and bought the property. There were rumours that he was a pop star or even royalty, for we have that here too, but it turned out he was yet another businessman looking for a second home to buy with his Christmas bonus.

  It saddens me as much as it does the locals, for it's not just happening on Millionaire's Row. So many villages, especially near the sea, are filled with cottages of every size, modest as well as massive, that are empty all winter and only come alive in the summer months. I talk about this with Susie who is quite bitter, as are many other Cornish people. Susie's own two nieces, one a teacher and the other a dental assistant, can't afford to buy even a modest home in the county where they grew up. They're looking elsewhere for jobs, Susie tells me. Two more bright and talented young people leaving Cornwall. I don't say much when people discuss this, for I'm fully aware that I'm not local either.

  'But you live here,' Susie said once, when she saw I had withdrawn from a conversation the other posties were having about the second-home owners. 'That's different, Tessa. You've moved here permanently.' Her words give me comfort. Maybe one day I'll be accepted by the Cornish, that they'll realize our real life is here now, not Up Country. We're not pretending to be part of this community – we really are, really want to be.

  As I trudge up the steep steps of the houses on Millionaire's Row lugging my heavy bag, I think, I'm too unfit for this. At the farthest house on top of a particularly high slope, I'm exhausted by the time I climb to the top of the elegant, stone steps. It's a magnificent house on the hill with a stunning view, but the steps go on and on; they're a killer and too awkward to attempt with a trolley. The house has a letterbox on the road, a very large, smart one, and my first few days on this round were made so much easier by that postbox. But yesterday Margaret got a phone call from the owner, who is in Cornwall till after Christmas this year, saying that while she is in residence she wants her post delivered to the house.

  So here I am at the top of the steps, panting and red faced after the exertion of the uphill slog carrying a heavy bag. The house looks unlived in and there is no letter slot in the door, nowhere to put the post. Though it is a dry day, there is a str
ong breeze and the weather changes from minute to minute around here. I can't risk leaving it somewhere to get wet or blown away. There is nothing for it but to ring the bell.

  It's a good five minutes before someone comes to the door. I have rung a second time and am now about to leave the post under a terracotta pot with a miniature palm tree in it. If it rains, it can't be helped. There is a perfectly good letterbox at the bottom of all those steps.

  The door swings open. A woman who can't be more than forty, dressed in designer clothes most of us can only dream about, is standing there looking irritated. 'Yes?'

  I am a little taken aback. I'd expected someone elderly or infirm, someone unable to go down and up those endless steps for their mail every day, but this woman looks fitter than I do.

  'Your post,' I say in my friendliest voice. After all, it's nearly Christmas and this is Millionaire's Row.

  She takes it from me, gives it a cursory glance and says, 'Not worth the paper it's written on.'

  Then she shuts the door in my face and that's that. At least she didn't slam it, I think as I practically fly down those hellish steps in a fury. What's wrong with a quick thank you? I'm shouting in my head And what's wrong with your letterbox? Do you think that we posties are your servants? And shame on you if that's how you treat your servants anyway.

  At the bottom of the steps, reunited with my trolley, I take deep breaths and pause, standing in front of the low, wooden fence that separates the road from the beach. The water is striped with bands of indigo blue, turquoise, grey and black. The sun is dancing in and out of the clouds, creating a rainbow of colour on the water. Jutting out around the estuary on the left is woodland and I notice the trees, stripped of their leaves, are a rich, silvery brown. I can see fields too, rolling ones, still green and lush. There's a cove in front of the woodland with small boats moored and further out I can see the shapes of tankers, cruise ships and the ferry that crosses the river several times a day, taking passengers to other towns. On my right is the harbour, small, nestling and peaceful and in front, the sandy beach. A heron is standing at the water's edge between shore and woodland. As I watch, a cormorant skims over the sea.