Up With the Larks Read online

  I'm thinking of this and of something I read in a book about Cornwall by Daphne du Maurier where she quotes a writer in the early 1600s speaking of the climate here, 'The air being cleaned with frequent Winds and the Tides, is pure and healthful, so that the Inhabitants are rarely troubled with infectious Diseases.'

  So far so good, but the writer goes on, '. . . yet the wind being sharp and piercing, such as have been sick, especially Strangers, recover but slowly.'

  Exactly. How long have I had this wretched cold? I sneeze again and I blow my nose, feeling my icy fingers touch my burning cheeks and feverish face. I feel the gale hammering against and through my Royal Mail waterproof jacket, chiselling through my flesh to get to my very bones. Such as have been sick, especially Strangers, recover but slowly. Terrific. No wonder whatever I've got refuses to go away. I'll be lucky if I'm better by spring, especially if this weather keeps up.

  There's a letter slot in the door at Trelak Farm, or Trelak Farmhouse Bed & Breakfast as it now is. I stuff the one last lone Christmas card into the slot and turn to go but the door suddenly opens in my face. 'You're early,' the voice is gruff, accusing and loud.

  'Sorry?' I step back. Martin Rowland, tall and lanky just like John Cleese, is breathing fire like a dragon over my head.

  Or so it seems – it's probably just the sudden blast of heat coming from the open door. It makes me long for home, for our own warm house, for Ben and Will and Amy.

  We stare at each other until he takes in who I am. 'Emma, 'tisn't them, tis only the postman,' he bellows over his shoulder.

  'Postwoman,' I say but he's not listening.

  Emma, tall and lanky like her husband, joins him at the door. She's wearing a quilted raincoat, boots and hat. Martin too has a jacket on. 'We're just off to get a few last-minute things in Truro before the shops close for the holidays,' she says. 'Martin thought you were the guests, arriving early.'

  'You're open on Christmas Eve?'

  She nods, looking stressed. Martin says, 'Can't believe she's letting a room out on Christmas Eve.' He looks belligerent.

  'They were desperate, Martin, I told you. Everywhere else is shut, and they're having some kind of family reunion in Morranport. Some long lost cousin or other, only there's no room in the house for any more relatives.'

  'No room at the inn,' Martin mutters.

  She puts her hand on his arm. 'Exactly,' she says softly. 'How could I turn them away?'

  He nods. There's no answer to that one, not today.

  I like this couple, whom I've only met twice before while doing Reg's round. He's blustering and loud, but I think that hides the pussycat inside. From what I've heard, Emma knows how to handle him. She seems down-to-earth, kind but practical. She's not Cornish but she's lived here twenty-five years, since she came as a young teacher at the local primary school then met and married Martin almost immediately.

  I know they're in a hurry to get out so I say goodbye, wish them a Merry Christmas and get back into the van. As I open the door it nearly blows off its hinges, the wind is so strong. When I try to shut it, it doesn't seem to close properly. I must remember to report it when the holiday is over.

  My last stop is down a potholed dirt road to the smallest house on my beat, a tiny stone cottage that looks as though it belongs in a storybook for children, one about wicked witches living in a deep, dark, spooky forest. I stop in front of a broken wooden gate, get out of my van and walk the short distance to the front door. The garden is brambly and neglected. An old apple tree, some unpruned shrubs and a couple of ancient scrub oaks grow wild and unruly in the tiny space.

  I knock on the wooden door as there is no letterbox or slot anywhere. The door was once painted a cheery blue but it has long faded and begun to peel, as have the window frames. I stand in the wind which is making a weird sucking sound in the tall pine trees behind the house, the kind of sound that can drive a person mad.

  It seems I'm waiting at the door forever. Hooray for the Royal Mail waterproof, windproof tent coat that I was so disparaging about at first. It flaps around me like the sails of a boat in a storm but at least it's kept me dry from the earlier sludgy sleet. And now it's raining, great fat heavy drops that are not quite snow but not far from it.

  Finally the door creaks open and Mr Hawker, whom I've never met, is greeting me with his wobbly smile. It's a strange, sad smile, sincere but tenuous, trembling too. It's as if he's not sure if he really has the right to smile.

  I can't blame him, not in his circumstances. I know a lot about Mr Hawker, from Susie, Reg, Nell and the others. He lives alone, has never married and has no family as far as anyone knows. He came here from Penzance years back as a ten-year-old lad, looking for work. He got a job on Trelak Farm, working for Martin Rowland's grandfather, sleeping in a room no bigger than a closet and then, when he was grown and had some importance on the farm, he was given the farm cottage he lives in now.

  'Managed to buy it eventually, years and years back,' Reg said when telling me about Mr Hawker. 'Guess he had nothing else to spend his money on. Good thing too for 'im, cause when Martin and Emma had to sell up the land, the cottage would've had to go too and no way he could of afforded it then.'

  Mr Hawker opens the door wider. 'Come in, come in. You be saturated standin' there. I heared tell that there be a new post maid, with Reg ill and all.'

  I step inside the door onto old linoleum flooring. The smell of decay and urine is overwhelming. I try not to flinch and force myself to smile. 'Not much post today, Mr Hawker.' I don't call him by his first name; no one does, though no one seems to know why.

  'No.' He looks at the flyer, some advertising for an insurance company, with longing on his face. Reg says he's never delivered any personal letters here.

  But Mr Hawker is ninety-one. I supposed any friends he might have had once are gone. Anyway, he's always been a loner, Susie said, painfully shy when away from the farm and his own territory.

  He has let me in because both Reg and Susie have told him about me. I guess being a postman or a woman isn't a threat. Chatting to us is a way of making contact without having to have social know-how.

  Apparently Mr Hawker never goes out, not even to shop. Emma and Martin up at Trelak pick up his pension and buy his few provisions. He won't let them do anything else, though. He says he's healthy and fit enough to look after himself. It's just that he's a tad bit nervous out of the house, he's told people. Can't get used to the modern world, he says, so he may as well stop at home.

  I am standing there dripping over his linoleum but he doesn't seem to mind. This is his main room, for there is no front porch or hallway in this tiny cottage. There are no rugs, only this dull brown floor covering which makes the dark room with its tiny windows even dingier. There are no lamps either, only one dull overhead light. Two lumpy armchairs of indeterminate colour and a plain wooden table and chair are the only furniture. A box of corn flakes and a half pint of milk sit forgotten on the table.

  I see a massive spider's web in the corner over the ancient wood-burning cooker.

  We talk for a few minutes about the weather and then there is a silence as we stand awkwardly facing each other. I'm not sure how to leave. How can I wish this lonely man a Merry Christmas? He'll be here at home, as usual, eating something out of a tin. In the past a few of the kindly folk in the nearby village have invited him to Christmas dinner but he's always refused, with such a mixture of longing and terror in his eyes that people stopped asking. 'Much to his relief,' both Susie and Reg have told me. Emma and Martin too have tried to do more for him, have tried to invite him over to the farmhouse, but it's no use. He won't accept either help or hospitality, fearful of losing his fragile independence.

  The stench in the room is so stifling I'm having trouble breathing. The air in the place is odd, at once that horrid damp cold that goes straight to the bones, yet stuffy, with the wood stove pumping out heat and an acrid smoke that is making my eyes water.

  'Goodbye, Mr Hawker, must be back
on my rounds.'

  Before I can go he shoves his hand in his trouser pocket and takes out a piece of lined paper wrapped around a small hard object. He shoves it awkwardly into my hand and says, 'For the post. Christmas and all. I be thanking 'ee.'

  It feels like a coin. I don't want to accept – I know how small his pension is but I can't refuse. I feel tears welling up and blink to stop them. This is my first and only tip this Christmas.

  Mr Hawker's fifty pence piece wrapped in a piece of lined writing paper is one of the loveliest Christmas gifts I could ask for. I thank him profusely and say goodbye.

  Poor man. As I get into the van I see he's still standing at the door, waving at me as I start up. I nearly weep, he looks so forlorn. He's wearing a long grey cardigan over several pullovers; I can see the sleeves of different colours poking out of holes in the dingy cardigan. The hand he raises to wave me off is swollen and knotted with arthritis.

  I wave back. 'Merry Christmas,' I whisper. I watch him through the rear view mirror as he stands waving until I am out of sight.

  And now I'm finished, for today at any rate. And then there is the holiday. I'm wet and cold and ill and starting to feel feverish. But I've got this far. I've lasted till Christmas. As I drive I take one hand off the wheel to pick up the crumpled paper and coin that Mr Hawker gave me and squeeze it like a talisman before putting it down again on the seat next to me.

  Back at St Geraint I park the van behind the boat yard in its usual place but I don't get out, not yet. The van is facing the sea and I sit and watch the foamy waves, the squally spray, the grey and purple sky ripe with storms. There are massive rocks on the edge of the shore, half covered by the surging water. There's a legend here that a holy man, a saint, sat daily on one of those rocks round about AD 550, giving lessons to the fishermen after their day's toil. The story goes that a seal used to clamber on a rock nearby, not to imbibe Christianity but to bark at students and teacher. Perhaps the seal was a dissenter, well ahead of Wesley and the other Methodists who would one day inhabit Cornwall, or perhaps he was doing no more than barking his approval of the saintly man and his lectures. Whatever it was, the preacher could no more tolerate this seal than he could a recalcitrant student. He smacked the seal's nose as he would have smacked the hand of a disruptive child and the seal slunk back chastised into the sea.

  I look for seals now as they are not uncommon in this estuary, sunning themselves on the rocks when the weather's warm. But it's crazy to think I'll spot one now as they'll all be hiding from another storm that's fast approaching from the sea. There's a lull now after the wind, sleet and rain, but out over the sea the midday sky is bruised and blackened, with ominous clouds. It's time to go home. Ben will be waiting, and so will the children.

  On the drive back to my family, the light changes as the storm nears, becoming a strange feverish yellow which is growing darker by the minute. I don't know if it's the eerie light or the fact that I'm light headed with illness and exhaustion, but I take a wrong turning and find myself on a strange road. It's narrow like most of the roads around here but it seems to be running down into a wooded valley. There are no villages or farmhouses, no sign of any kind of habitation as the road winds and curves in the valley. There is thick woodland on either side: ash, beech and oak with a few conifers. The bare branches of the trees are coated by the sulphurous light looking beautiful and ominous at the same time.

  There are no turn-offs, no buildings, nothing but this winding road through the wooded valley. I've lost all sense of direction and don't know where I am, or where this road is heading.

  And then the woodland disappears and I'm on a marshy plain, the road crossing a little stone bridge over a rushing river where a single swan is floating slowly and elegantly, framed by the sudden expanse of purple and yellow sky.

  I have to stop. It's so breathtaking, this scene. I get out of the van and stand below the old bridge, looking at the wet expanse of grass and moss on either side of the river. It's like a vast marshy meadow right out of a fairytale, with what looks like an egret in the distance standing pale against the dark lavender-grey of the sky.

  Is it really an egret? I've seen them before, but only in Florida. I've heard they're appearing in Cornwall but no one I know has seen one. It's smaller than a heron and pure white, startling against the green moss of the meadow. The swan, unafraid and unthreatening, swims up to the edge of the water just in front of me as if trying to grab my attention away from the egret. I feel I must give it something, in honour of the season. I've just received a special gift, a fifty pence piece from an old pensioner, and I want to give something in return.

  I search my jacket and trouser pockets for a biscuit or another titbit but nothing is there. 'Wait a minute,' I whisper and run back to the van.

  The swan waits as if understanding every word. The storm seems to be waiting too, for it has not yet broken despite the blackening sky.

  I find the remains of a cheese sandwich I had for lunch and throw it to the swan. It seems to nod its head in acknowledgement before consuming the bread and looking at me expectantly. 'That's all,' I murmur.

  The swan appears to accept this and begins to swim silently away. I stand for several minutes, savouring the moment. The egret is still there too, poised like the statue of some ancient nameless god. It is so silent. I can't remember ever feeling a silence so intense, so moving. It is, after all, Christmas Eve. Silent Night, Holy Night.

  Finally I go back to the van, decide to carry on further along this strange road before giving up and turning around to go back the way I came. To my surprise, I find I've driven a different way to the neglected church outside the village which was my first stop this morning. I know where I am now.

  I pass the overgrown churchyard, the broken side door, the cracked windows. But this time there are lights inside, shining through the stained-glass windows. Out front several men and women are hanging coloured lights on a tall Christmas tree which wasn't there earlier. The wind is blowing them about like paper cut-outs and it seems to me to be a crazy thing to do, with such a ferocious storm brewing, but they are laughing and determined, shouting instructions and encouragement at each other as they struggle to keep the string of lights from blowing away in the wind.

  I love their spirit, their optimism in the face of all odds. I slow down to watch them and as I pass that ancient dereliction of a church, a trick of the lights in the windows and shining through the cracks in the battered door, makes it seem like the old church is smiling, grinning like the carved face of a jack-o-lantern. I smile back and make my way home.

  January

  There are primroses out in the lane behind our house. It's a sun trap there. On the coast and hills the weather is still Arctic with freezing winds, but along our lane, and in little pockets all over Cornwall, it's summer.

  The daffodils have been out for ages, appearing not long after the New Year and of course there are snowdrops everywhere. The rain of November and December has stopped, at least for now, and we've had days of blue sky interspersed with gentle, floating clouds.

  The older farmers on my round, when I comment on the rare fine weather, suck in their cheeks, purse their lips and take a sharp intake of breath. 'We be paying for it later, me handsome,' they say ominously.

  At the post office in St Geraint, Margaret has more time to be chatty, as we all do. I haven't had a chance to talk properly to Margaret since the Christmas rush began. Now, there's a lovely, relaxed feeling amongst all of us, with our busiest season over. We're taking more time to gossip and dawdle. The great weather makes it easier too.

  I'm glad I haven't quit the job – well, today I'm glad. I'm not naïve enough to believe either the good weather or these gentle post-Christmas weeks won't end, but I've stuck through those awful early weeks and I'm starting to feel at ease with my colleagues and with the job. Not entirely, after all I've not been at it long, but I'm getting there.

  I'm collecting my post as Margaret and I talk, about nothing in
particular. I have to leave our conversation for a minute as another customer comes in to buy stamps. I carry a load of parcels and letters to my van parked outside and go back into the shop as the customer leaves. 'Such a relief, Christmas being over,' I say idly.

  She looks up at me. 'Must be for you especially. Tough time to start this job. You done well enough, though.'

  This compliment sets me up brilliantly. I smile radiantly at her but she's already dealing with another customer.

  Later I'm in the post office at Morranport, talking to Nell. 'It's going to be odd, you not here,' I say to her.

  'Me? Not here?' Nell stands up straight, her bosom facing me with indignation.

  'Yes, well, you leaving and all.'

  'Who's saying I'm leaving here?'

  I'm confused. 'Actually, Nell, it was you who said it. Before Christmas. You said you're retiring.'

  'Oh that,' she waves her wrinkled hand at me, brushing off such a ludicrous suggestion. 'Changed me mind, I did. Now why would I do that, you be saying to yourself. Well, a woman's got a right, true? And I be thinking, now what in the good Lord's name would I be doing, at home?'

  Standing there with her formidable eighty-odd year-old bosom, clad in a scarlet pullover today, with her short scruffy white hair all over the place, Nell looks indomitable. 'You're right, Nell. What indeed would you be doing at home? I'm delighted you're not retiring. Royal Mail needs you, that's for sure.'

  She looks keenly at me to make sure I'm not mocking her. She's no one's fool. Finally, satisfied that I meant what I said, her look softens. 'Well, maid, I could of said they be needin' you too. You done well in the mad rush up to Christmas.'

  Two compliments about my work in one day: I'm overjoyed. I've passed the test, I've arrived, my colleagues are happy with me. I'm a true proper efficient postwoman at last. It's ridiculous how much satisfaction this gives me.